A Brief History of Self-Publishing
Self-publishing has been around for thousands of years. Many
of today’s classic and popular novels were self-published. The works of Ben
Franklin, William Blake, Virginia Woolf, and Walt Whitman were all self-published.
While self-publishing has been around for thousands of
years, it has become increasingly popular in recent years, largely thanks to companies
like CreateSpace by Amazon.com, and successful self-published books like Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James.
Originally, Fifty Shades was
self-published by James via ebook and print on demand (where unless books are
bought books are not printed) in 2011. However, due to an overwhelming Internet
presence and readership in April of 2012, Fifty
Shades of Grey was picked up by Vintage Books, an imprint of Random House,
and rereleased to the public.
Companies like CreateSpace by Amazon.com have only made
self-publishing more accessible, creating a self-publishing boom so to speak.
In 2008 there was an overall decline of 3.2 percent of traditional published
books while self-published and print on demand books jumped to over 285,000
(10,000 more books than those published by traditional publishing houses). From
2007 to 2008 there was a 132 percent increase in print on demand books.
Self-publishing allows aspiring authors to bypass the
typical route of publishing using literary agents and a publishing house. So
the appeal is there, especially for those who never thought they’d be authors.
Self-published books have been winning awards at book
festivals, selling well, and authors essentially have full control over design
and other decisions a major publishing house would normally control. Now,
literary agents are looking for self-published books that could possibly be as
successful as Fifty Shades of Grey.
Even major, traditional publishing houses have begun to create their own
self-publishing departments.
By Ashley Tahir
