Few people know this, but Author Solutions located in Bloomington, Indiana publishes more titles per year than ANY other major publisher, and by a long shot.

How do they do it? For starters, they don’t discriminate when it comes to authors.

Author Solutions is in the business of helping authors self-publish their books. They can help with almost everything whether its editing, creating a cover, printing, commissioning illustrations, setting up a website, getting distribution, email marketing - you name it and Author Solutions probably offers a service to help your book succeed.

This is a big deal, especially when the publishing industry’s world has been flipped upside down by BOOMING ebook technologies like the Amazon Kindle and the Barnes & Noble nook.

What’s more, in this internet age of the “user is in control,” self-publishing is the ultimate example of independence. Traditional publishing companies are just “the man” who is keeping you from sharing your thoughts with the world, and with the low cost of internet marketing and print-on-demand technologies, who needs them?

Followers in the publishing industry are very aware of Author Solutions influence. When someone publishes that many titles how can you ignore them? And while its true that a huge majority of their titles never see any commercial success, more traditional publishers are starting to look at self-published successes to find their next hit.

Take for instance Author Solutions’ recent partnership with Harlequin. Harlequin is essentially using AS to help find shining stars that would otherwise go overlooked.

(See More + Video After the Fold)

Having met with Author Solutions leadership on a couple ebook businesses I’ve worked on, I can also tell you they will be a force in that technology as well. They already help many authors get their books on the Kindle and have a partnership with Sony to distribute on their ereader. Again, with that many titles, and the phenomenon of the long tail on the internet, how can they not be a force.

Watch this quick video below of Author Solutions CEO Kevin Weiss. He’ll tell you more in 3 minutes about this exciting trend in publishing than I did in all of these words.

If you’re in Indiana and trying to think of business ideas, this is a great reason to start looking at opportunities around books and publishing.