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From the point of view of the book chain, self-publishing is becoming increasingly common and it is doing so faster in the commercial world than in science. This study aims to analyse the phenomenon of self-publishing from the point of view of the research being done on it. Thus, in addition to studying the subject, it is going to be possible to analyse the viability of this methodology as an analysis technique.

The methodology is based on a combination of traditional bibliometric studies and analysis of social networks applied.

Self-publishing is a phenomenon that is being studied by the scientific community. But the research on this topic has a low rate of co-authorship and a low relationship between the most prolific authors and their relevance. The combination of techniques used has proven to be a very good choice for analyzing the data.

There are not enough works analyzing the research in self-publishing. Because of the peculiarities of the topic, a combination of various techniques will provide a better approach to its study, so, this paper contains some results using bibliometrics and others using social network analysis applied.

The aims of the present paper is electronic publishing has transformed the business model of publishing houses in Spain in such a way that two models currently coexist. The specificities of each of these models were studied and the consequences of each model for the future of electronic publishing in Spain were analysed.

The first stage of this study consisted in locating studies that would allow the authors to obtain useful indicators and statistic data regarding publication in Spain. The second stage of this study consisted of extracting from the sources cited above all data relevant to the study. To wit, these were the number of electronic books published, the major publishing houses offering electronic publications, the major platforms currently selling electronic books, presently available electronic reading devices, the rates of reading on all devices, reading rates itemized by age and educational background and general tendencies in digital publishing and e-reading.

There are traditional publishers of mostly paper-based volumes, whose business models are based on having large catalogues of titles and large print-runs, though print-runs are increasingly smaller and bookseller returns increasingly larger. Intermediary agents operating under this model, for instance booksellers, are subject to ever-greater economic pressures, especially in the current crisis

In the study that follows, the authors attempt to analyse the characteristics behind these changes and learn to what extent these changes will affect the future models of publication and reading in Spain.