Selling yourself: trad publishing takes bite out of indie charts

Feb 19, 2026by Alex Call

LJ Ross is boss in self-publishing, despite her hefty rights deal with PRH last year

Things have changed a lot in the independent author print sector in the past year – not least because when we last looked at these sales at this point in 2025, the Coco Wyo colouring books were self-published, but the brand’s new releases have subsequently been snapped up by Penguin Random House (PRH) Children’s.

One thing that has not changed, though, is the trickiness in identifying the self-published authors in NielsenIQ BookData’s Total Consumer Market (TCM). For this analysis, we have identified the biggest authors from the “Other Publisher Groups” in both 2025 and 2026 who are self-published, then combined these with any title that has an imprint that identifies itself as independently published, in addition to those from Ingram Spark and CreateSpace.

This process revealed 2,452 titles in the TCM across the first six weeks of 2025, which delivered sales worth £3m, though it is worth pointing out that Coco Wyo was responsible for £815,074 of that. For 2026, the number of titles rises to 2,541, turning in a total of just under £2m. Some of this does still belong to Coco Wyo as their old editions continue to sell, but in 2026 it has been worth just £65,347.

Stripping out the Vietnamese colouring collective, the value is down 14.5%, but they are not the only independent authors to have moved over to the traditional publishing space in the past year. The third-biggest author in 2025 was Vivi Tinta – responsible for another range of colouring books and £157,120 in the first few weeks of the year. Like Coco Wyo, it has since been acquired by PRH and sales of its self-published offerings have plummeted to just under £2,000.

The absence of colouring books in the data means that Northumberland-based thriller writer LJ Ross not only tops the Self-Published Top 50 with 2025’s Belsay – the latest in the DCI Ryan series – but she is also the biggest author on the list, having shifted £104,515 worth of her books in the first six weeks of 2026.

Still, even Ross is not immune to PRH’s charms. In the middle of 2025, the trade group’s Century division acquired the rights to 37 of Ross’ backlist titles, as well as 12 frontlist titles yet to be published. It means that just looking at Ross’ own Dark Skies hybrid imprint, the thriller writer’s TCM takings are down 36.4%. The deal was undoubtedly a canny move, however, as overall sales for Ross – helped by a mass rejacketing of her books – have totalled £197,851, up 20.3%.

What this all adds up to is that the decline across self-published titles can be covered by 2025’s best three authors; excluding them, sales across the remaining titles are up 4.8%. Perhaps this means that the next bestselling authors on the list ought to look out for offers from a big publishing house in 2026. It may be just the break that 2026’s third-biggest self-published author – just behind LJ Ross and Coco Wyo – Freida McFadden needs.

The Housemaid’s Wedding – a short story that bridges the gap between the second and third book in the Housemaid series – helped take McFadden’s self-published sales up to £62,320, an increase of 55.7% compared with the same period in 2025. Or rather, her sales have grown in spite of it – though it is her biggest title on this list, The Housemaid’s Wedding’s sales are down 19.7%.

It is other titles such as The Widow’s Husband’s Secret Lie and The Wife Upstairs that have experienced big increases, leading to McFadden dominating the self-published chart so far in 2026 – much as she dominates all the other charts – with eight titles, three more than Ross.

So far we have learned that in order to top the TCM self-published chart in 2026, it helps to be traditionally published too – or have a movie released. It is Robin Bennett-Freebairn who bucks that trend: three of his What a Year to Be Born books (1946, 1956 and 1966) appear in this Top 50 and have notched up sales of £33,021 so far in 2026.

 Self-Published Titles
  
	
   Belsay 	 LJ Ross 	Dark Skies, 9781912310234 
  4,809
 
  	
   The Housemaid’s Wedding 	  	Freida McFadden 	Independently Published, 9798344920047 
  3,658
 
 
   Stop Overthinking 	 Nick Trenton 	Independently Published, 9798715048394 
  3,012 
 
 	
   Girl Moments 	 Coco Wyo 	Independently Published, 9798344507460 
  2,375 
 
 	
   100 Color by Number Mysteries 	 - 	Independently Published, 9798307431726 
  2,076 
 
 	
   Stress relief  Coco Wyo 	Independently Published, 9798324810801 
 	 2,047 
 
 
   Simple & Big Coloring Book for Toddlers  Colouring Book Kim 	Independently Published, 9798727171080 
 	 1,937 
 
 
   Little Corner  Coco Wyo 	Independently Published, 9798326983169 
 	 1,877 
 
 
   Create Your Own Comic Book  Papeterie Bleu 	Gray & Gold, 9781700809766 
 	 1,683 
 
 
   The Zen Monkey and the Lotus Flower - 	Independently Published, 9798858511021 
 	 1,642 
 
 
   The Widow’s Husband’s Secret Lie  Freida McFadden 	Independently Published, 9798333343567 
 	 1,566 
 
 
   Cozy Friends  Coco Wyo 	Independently Published, 9798326332127 
 	 1,521 
 
 
   Would You Rather: Game Book -  	Independently Published, 9781687795342 
 	 1,366 
 
 
   Haunting Adeline  HD Carlton 	Independently Published, 9798454848842 
 	 1,259 
 
 
   The Wife Upstairs  Freida McFadden 	Independently Published, 9798645358082 
 	 1,168 
 
 
   The Stopover  TL Swan 	Arndell, 9781923232174 
 	 1,099 
 
 
   Learn to Draw Cool Stuff for Young Artists  Elizabeth H Taylor 	Independently Published, 9798541305173 
 	 1,037  
  
 
   How to Draw Patterns - 	Independently Published, 9798314423691 
 	 968 
 
 
   Amazing Animals  Colouring Book Kim 	Independently Published, 9798674791720 
 	 947 
 
 
   Toe by Toe  Keda and Harry Cowling 	K&H Cowling, 9780952256403 
 	 911 
 
 
   The Ultimate Flower Drawing Guide Book  Aska Hall 	Independently Published, 9798322468370 
 	 881  
  
 
   Dead Med  Freida McFadden 	Independently Published, 9798329347371 
 	 877 
 
 
   1946: What a Year to Be Born   Robin Bennett-Freebairn 	Emersive, 9781738562961 
 	 861  
  
 
   Brain Damage  Freida McFadden 	Createspace, 9781532902949 
 	 832 
 
 
   Poison Garden  LJ Ross 	Dark Skies, 9781912310227 
 	 825 
 
 
   Girl moments Volume 2  Coco Wyo 	Independently Published, 9798287282639 
 	 794 
 
 
   Don’t Believe Everything You Think -  	Independently Published, 9798427063852 
 	 760 
 
 
   The Gift  Freida McFadden 	Independently Published, 9798367070675 
 	 758 
 
 
   Spooky Cutie  Coco Wyo 	Independently Published, 9798332625268 
 	 730 
 
 
   1956: What a Year to Be Born  Robin Bennett-Freebairn 	Emersive, 9781738562978 
 	 727 
 
 
   The Great Race  Emily Hiles 	Kindle Direct, 9781983565182 
 	 727 
 
 
   100 Soup Maker Recipes  Liana Green 	Createspace, 9781539710882 
 	 722 
 
 
   Things I Want to Say at Work But Can’t -  	Independently Published, 9798561895975 
 	 707 
 
 
   Holy Island  LJ Ross 	Dark Skies, 9781912310012 
 	 704 
 
 
   1966: What a Year to Be Born  Robin Bennett-Freebairn 	Emersive, 9781738562992 
 	 693  
  
 
   Glow Cosmetics  Coco Wyo 	Independently Published, 9798327916654 
 	 644 
 
 
   The Ultimate Guide to Modern Calligraphy & Hand Lettering for Beginners - 	June & Lucy, 9781646081493 
 	 635  
  
 
   The Ascended  Parker Lennox, Bree Grenwich 	Independently Published, 9798292536741 
 	 629 
 
 
   The Sword of Kaigen  ML Wang 	Independently Published, 9781720193869 
 	 625 
 
 
   The Human Being Diet  Petronella Ravenshear 	Healthy Human, 9798988806691 
 	 622 
 
 
   Sycamore Gap  LJ Ross 	Dark Skies, 9781912310029 
 	 621 
 
 
   Everything Teen Boys Should Know -  	Independently Published, 9798863341729 
 	 618 
 
 
   Savage Wisdom  Adam Cam 	Adam Cam, 9781399902397 
 	 617 
 
 
   Nutribullet Recipe Book  Stephanie Shaw 	Createspace, 9781502579997 
 	 604 
 
 
   Heavenfield  LJ Ross 	Dark Skies, 9781912310036 
 	 599 
 
 
   Thank You for Your Attention to This Matter  Nick Abbot 	Independently Published, 9798243266215 
 	 589  
  
 
   Little Stranger  Leigh Rivers 	Leigh Rivers, 9781739433062 
 	 580 
 
 
   Do You Remember?  Freida McFadden 	Independently Published, 9798799032494 
 	 580 
 
 
   I Am Stronger Than Anger -  	Independently Published, 9798675455508 
 	 578 
 
 
   The Ex  Freida McFadden 	Independently Published, 9798637890118 
 	 572 
 
 
	
	
		
		
		
	
 Source: NielsenIQ BookData, Weeks 1-6 2026