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Self publishing was in the past considered
the worst way to publish a book, but the sheer number of
authors who have created best-selling books in the past
few years have allowed everyone self-publish with respect.
Even venerable rags in the publishing world such as Publishers
Weekly now review self published books, something they
would never have done in the past. A recent quote about
those who choose to self publish said “Gone are the days
when self publishing was virtually synonymous with self-defeating.”
(by Publishers Weekly rights columnist Paul Nathan.)
The continuing evolution of print-on-demand publishing
makes it possible to self publish a book very quickly and
at very little expense. Self publishing is an excellent
way to test your potential market for your book. Print on
demand allows you to establish a market, and even build
a market, to such an extent that you can potentially sell
your reprint rights to a much larger publisher for a significant
advance. Here is what a number of media sources and publishers
are saying about self publishing:
"We're always watching what's going on with self publishers.
We always ask our reps to keep their eyes open."
Random House
"...publishing your own book can yield a tidy profit."
Investors Business Daily
"...every single publisher is on the lookout for self
publishers."
Simon & Schuster
"Now its very frequent for mainstream houses to go
prospecting among the self published books to make them
their own."
The New York Times
"The film rights to self published books are getting
acquired even before the big houses can get them onto bookstore
shelves with their own imprints on them."
Variety
"...self publishing has become a legitimate method
of getting into print as libraries and even bookstore superchains
are opening their shelves to the growing number of entrepreneurial
writers."
Newsday
You could stock a superb college library or an incredible
bookstore just from the books written by the some of the
authors who have chosen to self-publish: Margaret Atwood,
L. Frank Baum, William Blake, Ken Blanchard, Robert Bly,
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Lord Byron, Willa Cather, Pat
Conroy, Stephen Crane, e.e. cummings, W.E.B. DuBois, Alexander
Dumas, T.S. Eliot, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Benjamin Franklin,
Zane Grey, Thomas Hardy, E. Lynn Harris, Nathaniel Hawthorne,
Ernest Hemingway, Robinson Jeffers, Spencer Johnson, Stephen
King, Rudyard Kipling, Louis L'Amour, D.H. Lawrence, Rod
McKuen, Marlo Morgan, John Muir, Anais Nin, Thomas Paine,
Tom Peters, Edgar Allen Poe, Alexander Pope, Beatrix Potter,
Ezra Pound, Marcel Proust, Irma Rombauer, Carl Sandburg,
Robert Service, George Bernard Shaw, Percy Bysshe Shelley,
Upton Sinclair, Gertrude Stein, William Strunk, Alfred Lord
Tennyson, Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoi, Mark Twain,
Walt Whitman, and Virginia Woolf.
Below is a list of many other amazing authors who have
chosen to self-publish at some time in their careers. You
would do well to be among this honored group.
Scott Adams, creator
of the Dilbert comic strip and book series, self
published an original ebook, God's
Debris, early in 2001 as a way of testing the
market for a new book. As a result, he was able to get an
“unusually good deal” from his regular publisher, Andrews
McMeel, when he sold them the book rights.
In 1998, Arthur Agatston,
author of The South Beach Diet,
began by self publishing several hundred pamphlets outlining
his diet ideas for patients. Several years later, with the
help of an agent, he sold rights to Rodale. Within a year,
the book had sold almost seven million copies.
Julie Aigner-Clark
founded the Baby Einstein company to produce early-learning
videos, DVDs, and audio CDs for babies and toddlers. Many
of the products feature poems written by her. The company
has won many awards for its products and has sold more than
8 million copies of its videos and other products. In November
2001, she and her husband sold the company to Disney for
$25 million.
Nigerian writer Christopher Albani
was jailed in his home country for self publishing some
of his books. A number of his books were banned in Nigeria
before he sold right to his first U.S. novel, GraceLand,
to Farrar Straus Giroux with the aide of agent Sandy Dijkstra.
Craig Alesse
began Amherst Media by self publishing his own how-to photography
books. His company is now one of the premiere how-to photography
publishing companies in the world, distributing to photography
stores across the country.
Debbie Allen sold 40,000
copies of her Confessions of Shameless
Self Promoters and then sold reprint rights to
McGraw-Hill. In addition, she sold rights to a new book,
Positively Fearless Selling, to Dearborn Trade. An
international speaker and consultant, she helps businesses
to out-market, out-sell, and out-profit their competition.
Marc Allen, publisher
of New World Library, chose to publish his own book, Visionary
Business, after publishing many other bestselling
titles, including Creative Visualization by Shakti
Gawain, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak
Chopra, and The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.
In 1962, trumpeter Herb Alpert
and his partner Jerry Moss formed A&M records with $100
apiece. One of the first albums they produced was the gold-selling
Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass's Whipped
Cream & Other Delights, a classic record
of the mid-60s. They built A&M into the nation's largest
record company not owned by a conglomerate before finally
selling out to Polygram in 1989 for $500 million.
Judith Appelbaum originally
self published How to Get Happily
Published, then sold the rights to Harper Collins.
The book has now been through many editions and has sold
more than 500,000 copies.
Mary Appelhof self
published Worms Eat My Garbage.
Her first edition sold more than 100,000 copies. In 1997,
she published her second edition.
Mawi Asgedom self published
his memoir, Of Beetles and Angels,
which told the story of his journey from war-torn Ethiopia
at age three to a refugee camp in Sudan, a childhood on
welfare in an American suburb, and eventual triumph as a
Harvard graduate, where he gave the commencement address
in 1999. In 2001, he sold rights to that book and another
nonfiction book (featuring advice for teenagers drawn from
his motivational speeches), to Little, Brown for six figures.
Stephanie Dircks Ashcraft
never expected to sell thousands of copies of the book of
recipes that she and her husband once assembled by hand
in their small living room in Utah. She created the first
copy of 101 Things to Do with a
Cake Mix as a college class project, then a few
months later began teaching a cooking class based on the
book at a local supermarket. Her students pleaded with her
to put all the recipes together in a book, which led to
her first print run and several subsequent reprintings.
Over 7000 copies of Stephanie’s self published version sold
locally in Utah, the Intermountain West, and on the web.
In August 2002, Gibbs-Smith published a new edition of the
book and gave it national distribution. By mid-October 2002,
the book had hit #9 on the New York Times paperback
advice bestseller list.
Tami Oldham Ashcraft
former her own publishing company, Bright Works Publishing,
to self-publish her story of surviving Hurricane Raymond
out in the Pacific Ocean (Red Sky
in Mourning). After selling more than 8,000 copies
of her edition, a literary agent discovered the book while
biking on the San Juan Islands. Several months later, the
agent sold the reprint rights to Hyperion for half a million
dollars.
Bestselling Canadian author Margaret
Atwood self published her first volume of poetry
Double Persephone in
1961, the year she graduated from college. The print run
was only 200 copies. Atwood has gone on to become a bestselling
novelist and short story writer.
In the fall of 2004, Joe Babcock,
winner of the Writer's Digest International self published
book award, sold rights to his novel The
Tragedy of Miss Geneva Flowers to Carroll &
Graf with the help of agent Michael Mancilla of Greystone
Literary Agency.
After promoting his self published book, The
Truth about Relationships, on more than 800 radio
shows, Dr. Greg Baer
and his agent Wendy Sherman sold rights to Gotham for its
debut list where the book was published as Real
Love.
After selling 7,000 copies of her self published first
novel A Little Piece of Sky,
Nicole Bailey-Williams
sold reprint rights to Harlem Moon, the African-American
imprint of Bantam Doubleday Dell.
African-American author Michael
Baisden has been self publishing his own hardcover
novels and then selling paperback reprint rights to Simon
& Schuster's Touchstone imprint. The trade paperback
edition of his novel The Maintenance
Man hit the USA Today bestseller list.
In 1983, Phyllis Balch
self published her first book Nutritional Outline for
the Professional and the Wise Man with her then-husband
James F. Balch. That book was later titled Prescription
for Nutritional Healing when it was picked up
by Avery in 1990.
Cheryl and Peter Barnes
started up Vacation Spot Books by self publishing Peter's
children's book, Nat, Nat, the
Nantucket Cat, in 1992. They sold the first edition
of 5,000 copies within a year and continue to sell about
5,000 copies every year since that time. In 2001, Cheryl
met Mattie J.T. Stepanek, a child poet suffering from a
rare form of muscular dystrophy, while working as a volunteer
at Washington, D.C.'s Children's Hospital. Inspired by his
spirit and poems, she went on to publish several collections
of his poems. Heartsongs
and Journey Through Heartsongs
both made it to the New York Times bestseller list
after Mattie appeared on Oprah.
John Bartlett financed
and published the first three editions of Familiar
Quotations, the bestselling quote book on the
market.
L. Frank Baum self
published at least some of the books in the Wizard
of Oz series.
John Bear self published
Bears' Guide to Earning Degrees
by Distance Learning in 1972 and sold more than
200,000 copies by direct mail before he sold rights to Ten
Speed Press in 1983.
In the spring of 2004, attorney Philip
Beard was about to write a check for the printer
to self-publish his novel Dear
Zoe when Clare Ferraro, president of Viking Press,
called to make an offer on his book. Beard's bookseller
friend, John Towle of Aspinwall Bookstore, loved his book
and had recommended it to a visiting sales rep, John Gobble
of Penguin. Taking a chance on a self published title, Gobble
read the book and loved it. He, in turn, recommended the
novel to Ferraro, who promptly bought the book.
In 1993, Barry Beckham
wrote and published the first Black
Student's Guide to Colleges. In addition, he
developed the Black Student's Guide
to Scholarships. These books and others helped
him to create the Beckham Publications Group.
Impressionist artist Guy Begin,
the Painter of Perfumes, created his own first break by
self publishing his artwork as lithographs, serigraphs,
and note cards. He now licenses his artwork to six companies.
In 1985, Paula Begoun
self published her first book, Blue
Eye Shadow Should Be Illegal (now called The
Beauty Bible), a how-to book on using the right
cosmetics. She followed the success of her first book by
writing and publishing a second book called Don't Go
to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me. A few years later,
she also published another follow-up called Don't Go
Shopping for Hair Care Products Without Me. All told,
these three beauty books have sold more than two million
copies in the past thirteen years.
In 1928, Peter Beilenson
began publishing books from the Peter Pauper Press using
a foot-treadle press in his father's basement to publish
books “at prices even a pauper could afford.” For more than
75 years, the press has continued as a family business.
Pierre Bennu sold rights
to his self published book Bullsh**t
or Fertilizer to Andrews McMeel. Rights have
also been sold to digicube and Japan.
Todd Bermont is author
and self-publisher of 10 Insider
Secrets to Job Hunting Success and 10
Insider Secrets Career Transition Workshop.
Ken Blanchard and
Spencer Johnson originally
self published The One-Minute Manager
so they could sell the book for $15.00 at a time when all
the experts were telling them that they'd never sell the
book for such a high price. In a three month time, they
sold over 20,000 copies in the San Diego area alone — and
then sold the reprint rights to William Morrow. The
One-Minute Manager has sold more than 12 million
copies since 1982 and been published in 25+ languages.
31-year-old British author Marc
Blaney self published Two
Kinds of Silence to the sound of silence. So
he decided to submit his book for the Somerset Maugham award
(for young authors) so he could tell booksellers that his
book had been entered for the award. Well, he won. He was
flabbergasted: “I didn't expect in a million years to win.”
In 2000, after getting 70 rejections for his comic novel,
screenwriter John Blumenthal
self published a trade paperback of What's
Wrong with Dorfman?, which was selected by January
magazine as one of the 50 best books of 2000. He went on
to get more major reviews and finally sold the book to St.
Martin's Press for a nice sum of money.
In the 1970's, American poet Robert
Bly self published many of his poetry books and
translations through his own publishing company.
Richard N. Bolles originally
self published What Color Is Your
Parachute as a small typed guide for Episcopal
priests who needed to readjust after leaving the priesthood.
Later he sold the rights to Ten Speed Press. The book has
now spent 288 weeks on the New York Times bestseller
list and returns to other bestseller lists (such as Business
Week's) each year when a new edition comes out.
Since 1973, Australian dietician Allan
Borushek has sold more than 11 million copies
of his self published calorie counter books and other products
in the U.S. and Australia. About 8 million copies were sold
in Australia, which is an amazing feat considering that
Australia has a population equivalent to Texas.
Former Major League baseball pitcher and bestselling author
Jim Bouton decided to
self-publish Foul Ball
through his Bulldog Press in 2003. The book, an account
of his efforts to preserve the oldest minor-league ballpark
in the U.S. (at Pittsfield, Massachusetts), was originally
sold to Public Affairs but after an editorial dispute, Bouton
decided to self-publish.
Ruby Ann Boxcar, Trailer
Park newspaper columnist and web site host, self published
her first book, Ruby Ann's Down
Home Trailer Park Cookbook, via POD. The rights
were quickly snapped up Kensington/Citadel Press which has
since gone on to publish Ruby Ann's holiday cookbook. Ruby
Ann is known as the Dame Edna of the double-wide world.
She is a crowd pleaser. At regional bookshows, she autographs
and kisses every book before handing them over to booksellers.
Stewart Brand self
published the first editions of The
Whole Earth Catalog before selling the rights
to a larger publisher. The Catalog, famous for widely
disseminating the first photograph of the earth from space,
was the bible of the back to the land movement. More than
one edition of the Catalog hit the New York Times
bestseller list.
Hilery Bradt self published
her first award-winning guidebook and now publishes a growing
list of travel guides by other writers under her imprint,
Bradt Travel Guides.
Engineer Marshall Brain
began by publishing his work as a hobby on his web site
http://www.HowStuffWorks.com.
This site features colorful easily understood illustrations
and simple explanations to describe how things work, from
how a black hole works to an expresso machine to plasma
TV to Christmas lights. The site has grown to a business
with more than 20 staff, numerous spin-offs, and $20 million
in annual revenue. Two volumes of How
Stuff Works have been published by John Wiley.
Jeff Brauer started
On Your Own Books in the basement of his parent's house.
He had begun working on his first book, Sexy
New York (a Zagat-like guide to the kinky places
in New York) while still in law school. In 2002, while still
running his Brooklyn-based publishing company, Brauer also
ran for Congress from a district on the east side of Manhattan.
David Brody self published
his book Unlawful Deeds
via print-on-demand. He sold almost 3,000 copies in his
home area of Boston, Massachusetts while doing 26 bookstore
appearances. At one point, his book hit #8 on the Boston
Globe bestseller list. His book is probably the first
print-on-demand book to hit a bestseller list.
Amanda Brown used First
Books to publish her first novel Legally
Blonde as a print-on-demand book. Her self published
book was made into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon. A
year and a half after the movie was made, Plume published
her book, with an additional chapter on what's next for
Elle Woods.
H. Jackson Brown originally
self published his Life's Little
Instruction Book. Soon thereafter, the book was
bought by Rutledge Hill, a local publisher, who went on
to sell more than 5 million copies. The book made the bestseller
lists in both hardcover and softcover and continues to be
a great seller around graduation time every year.
English poet Elizabeth Barrett
Browning, author of Sonnets from the Portuguese,
paid for the publication of her first book.
After being dissatisfied with the results of regular publishers,
Dorothy Bryant and her
husband Bob established Ata Books to self-publish her next
four novels, all of which didn't fit the acceptable mold
of current publishers. Here's what Pat Holt of Holt Uncensored
has said about Bryant: “With Ella
Price's Journal, for example, Bryant anticipated
the movement of middle-aged women returning to college in
droves; The Kin of Ata
was the first of many spiritual-mentor novels by such writers
as Carlos Castaneda, Lynn Andrews, Dan Millman and others;
with Prisoners, Bryant
foresaw the trend by liberals such as Norman Mailer of sponsoring
the release of convicts they knew nothing about, and didn't
want to; her novel, The Test,
was among the first books to recognize the dilemma of middle-aged
baby boomers caring for both their own kids and their own
aging parents; A Day in San Francisco
was her portentous 1983 novel about a mother's concern over
her gay son and what Dorothy calls ‘a liberation movement
gone astray’ (only a year before gay bowel syndrome was
recognized as a disease called AIDS).”
Nick Bunick, an Oregon
businessman, self published The
Messengers by Julia Ingram and G.W. Hardin. This
nonfiction book tells the true story of Bunick and his experiences
with angels and reincarnation. self publishing the book
at the end of 1996, Bunick spent $160,000 promoting it.
Through his marketing efforts, more than 20,000 copies were
sold in a few short months in the Portland and Seattle areas
alone. A few months later, he sold the rights to that book
and a sequel for $1,000,000 to Pocket Books. Did his efforts
pay off? You do the math.
Edgar Rice Burroughs,
author of the Tarzan
books, self published some of his books.
William Byham self
published the bestselling business book, Zapp:
The Lightning of Empowerment. The book has sold
more than 2.5 million copies in self published and Crown
Publishing editions.
In 1975, Ernest Callenbach
self published his counterculture classic Ecotopia.
The book was reprinted by Bantam in 1977.
Before selling rights to Putnam, Julia
Cameron self-publisherd her bestselling The
Artist's Way. The book has sold more than a million
copies now.
Professional gambler Avery Cardoza
built a publishing empire writing and publishing gambling
advice books. In 2003, he took it a step further by publishing
a new magazine, Avery Cardoza's
Player, for the amateur gambler.
Richard Carlson, author
of the bestselling Don't Sweat the Small Stuff series,
began his book career by self publishing The
Business of Bodywork.
Ricki Carroll and her
then-husband Robert self published Cheesemaking
Made Easy in 1982, four years after starting
the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company. Later they
sold the rights to Storey Publications. That first book
sold more than 100,000 copies. In 2002, Ricki brought out
a new edition with Storey Publications called Home Cheese
Making.
Cindy Cashman, with
her then partner Alan Garner,
self published Everything Men Know
about Women (using the pseudonym of Dr. Alan
Francis) and sold more than half a million copies of the
blank book before selling rights to Andrews-McMeel. The
book has now sold more than 1.5 million copies.
In 1977, student teacher John
Cassidy joined with two college pals to self-publish
Juggling for the Complete Klutz
as a stapled little book, which had come out of a mimeographed
high school lesson plan. The book went on to sell more than
2.5 million copies and led to the establishment of Klutz
Press, which has published fifty books.
Novelist Willa Cather
paid for the publication of her first book. Her novel, One
of Ours, won the Pulitzer Prize.
When Dave Chilton self
published The Wealthy Barber
in 1989, he took a long-term view to building the book.
He dedicated himself to doing hundreds of interviews during
that first year. By 1990, his book was selling ten to fifteen
thousand copies a month. By 1991, his book had made the
Canadian bestseller list. By 1996, it was still on the Canadian
bestseller lists. With more than a million copies sold (in
a country of 29 million!), his book is the bestselling book
in Canadian history, excluding the Bible.
Deepak Chopra vanity
published his first book and then sold the rights to Crown
Publishing. The book went on to become the first of many
New York Times bestsellers for this author.
British journalist Stephen Clarke
originally self published in France his travel adventures,
A Year in the Merde.
Since publishing the book, he and his agent Susanna Lea
of Susanna Lea Associates have sold U.S. rights to Bloomsbury,
for publication in spring 2005, as well as French rights
to Laffont, Australian rights to Random House, and UK rights
to Transworld.
Well-known author Douglas Clegg
has also experimented with self publishing.
With the help of his agent Jimmy Vines, Dr. Will
Clower sold his self published book The
Fat Fallacy to Crown.
After selling over 20,000 copies of his self published
novel Before I Let Go
in less than four months (primarily via independent bookstores
on the East Coast), Darren Coleman
with the help of agent Jimmy Vines sold rights to that novel
as well as another to Amistad/Harper.
After self publishing three chick lit crime novels, Jennifer
Colt sold rights to all three novels (The
Butcher of Beverly Hills, The
Mangler of Malibu Canyon, and The
Vampire of Venice Beach) to Broadway Books with
the help of agent Jenny Bent of Trident Media Group.
Bestselling novelist Pat Conroy
self published his first book, The
Boo. He spent thousands on printing and promoting
the book. Now, of course, his advances run much, much higher.
His bestselling books include The Prince of Tides,
The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline, Beach
Music, My Losing Season, and The Water Is
Wide.
Wade Cook, through
his various companies, has self published many of his bestselling
books, including Stock Market Miracles
and Wall Street Money Machine
(500,000 copies).
Nick Corcodilos self
published Ask the Headhunter.
For the first two years he made a profit in the mid-six
figures. In the third year a major publisher offered him
a high five-figures advance and he sold the rights.
Laura Corn self published
101 Nights of Grrreat Sex
and several other books. She sold 100,000 copies of 237
Intimate Questions Every Woman Should Ask a Man
from the trunk of her car. Total sales for 101
Nights was 525,000 copies as of March 1999.
Steve Crist, owner
of The Daily Racing Form, self published under DRF
Books his memoir, Myself: Adventures
of a Horse-player and Publisher.
American poet e.e. cummings
self published No Thanks,
a volume of poetry financed by his mother. On the half-title
page, he listed the thirteen publishers who had rejected
the book, which became one of his classics.
Norman F. Dacey self
published the bestseller, How to
Avoid Probate.
In 2001, Lisa Daily
self published Stop Getting Dumped.
With the help of publicist Sherri Rosen, she got so much
publicity for the book that she was able to sell the rights
to Penguin for a very nice sum.
Diana Dalsass, author
of five cookbooks published by NAL, Norton and Contemporary,
self published The Butterscotch
Lover's Cookbook, under her Buttercup Press imprint
so she'd have more control over its design.
In 1973, Bill Dalton
self published A Traveler's Notes:
Indonesia. By the time he sold the company he
had founded, Moon Publications, it had published almost
100 titles and was the largest American publisher of guidebooks
for independent travelers.
Half African-American, half-Blackfoot Jamise
L. Dames sold more than 30,000 copies of her
first novel Mamma's Baby, Daddy's
Maybe. The novel even made the Essence
bestseller list.
Dennis Damp founded
Brookhaven Press to self-publish The
Book of Government Jobs, which has now been through
8 editions.
After Craig Danner
made a big impression at regional trade shows in the Pacific
Northwest and northern California, booksellers began ordering
his self published novel Himalayan
Dhaba. The book was then named as a Book Sense
76 pick. In a heated auction, Dutton won the right to republish
the book as a hardcover for a high-altitude six-figures.
In 1933, Charles Darrow
invented the game of Monopoly.
Parker Brothers had originally rejected the game because
of “52 design flaws,” so Darrow produced the game himself
and quickly sold 5,000 games to a Philadelphia department
store. The rest is history. Parker Brothers changed their
minds and took on the production and marketing of the game.
More than 200 million copies of Monopoly have been
sold thus far.
Mary Janice Davidson
began by publishing her romance novels as e-books at www.ellorascave.com,
a web site featuring saucy romantic fantasies. A friend
of hers brought her novels to the attention of Cindy Hwang,
an editor at Berkley, who liked one of them enough (Undead
and Unwed) to offer a three-book deal.
Max Davis originally
self published his book, Never
Stick Your Tongue Out at Momma, then sold the
rights to Bantam Doubleday Dell. As a self-promoter, he
sold more copies of the BDD edition than the publisher did.
He sold the rights to his next book to Penguin Putnam.
In 1998, Verna Burger Davis
self published her memoirs, My
Chosen Trails, at the age of 96. Her granddaughter,
Amy Martin, and son, Jim Davis, with financing by Verna,
set up the publishing company, Deep Creek Press. Verna did
all of the writing about her life through the 20th century.
The first printing sold over 2,000 copies and, in 2003,
she was preparing to go to a second printing with an additional
chapter, detailing the ensuing five years and the changes
that being an author brought in her life.
Afrikadzata Deku has
self published 40 books, including Sacred
Verses for My Afrikan Queens, The
Power of Afrikan-Centricity, and The
Afrikan Truth.
When Kathleen Dexter
self published her fairy tale love story, Fifth
Life of the Catwoman, it was chosen as a BookSense
76 pick. The book was then sold to Berkley where it once
more became a BookSense 76 pick.
Don Dible originally
self published the New York Times bestselling book,
Up Your Own Organization.
In 1978, train buff Chuck Ditlefsen
self published his first calendar, Those
Magnificent Trains. Since then, he has built
his company, Cedco Publishing, into one of the fastest-growing
companies in America (it made the Inc. 500 list in 1998).
Ben Dominitz self published
several books, one on free travel (Travel
Free) and another on romance, before completely
establishing Prima Publishing, one of the largest of the
independent small publishers. In less than fifteen years,
he built a company that had published well over 1,500 titles,
had more than 140 employees, and competed with New York
publishers on an equal standing. Prima was sold to Random
House in 2001.
Laura Doyle originally
self published The Surrendered
Wife. Once it became the bestselling book in
Washington state, she sold reprint rights to Simon &
Schuster. The book went on to become a New York Times
bestseller.
After Canadian writer Oriah Mountain
Dreamer's prose poem The
Invitation appeared on dozens of web sites, agent
Joe Durepos helped her to sell the rights to the poem in
book form to Harper SanFrancisco in 1999, where it became
a bestseller and has been translated into more than 15 languages
around the world. Prior to that poem, she had also self
published a small chapbook of poetry, Dreams of Desire,
in 1995.
American civil rights leader William
E.B. Du Bois, co-founder of the NAACP, self published
The Moon in 1906. He
went on to edit the Crisis journal from 1910 to 1932
as well as write other books, including Color and Democracy,
that promoted the concerns of African-Americans.
In a little over two years, author Laura
Duksta and illustrator Karen
Keesler sold 130,000 copies of their first book,
I Love You More. Available
now in 46 states, the book sells best through eclectic gift
shops, art galleries, children's boutiques, and great independent
bookstores.
French novelist Alexandre Dumas,
author of such swashbuckling romances as The
Three Musketeers and The
Count of Monte Cristo, self published some of
his first books.
Paul Laurence Dunbar,
the first African-American poet to achieve national prominence,
published his first poetry collection at the age of 21 after
being invited to read his poetry at the 1893 World's Fair.
Before that he had published an African-American newsletter,
the Dayton Tattler, with the help of his classmates
Wilbur and Orville Wright. He went on to publish many more
collections of poetry, several novels, librettos, and scripts.
He is known as the poet laureate of African Americans.
In 1989, Cyndi Duncan
and Georgie Patrick
began C & G Publishing by self publishing Colorado
Cookie Collection, a collection of favorite recipes
collected over ten years from cookie exchanges held in their
homes. During their years of publishing, they have won eight
Evvy Awards (from the Colorado Independent Publishers Association)
and a Benjamin Franklin award for Nothin'
But Muffins.
Hale Dwoskin and Lester
Levenson sold more than 20,000 copies of their
self published book, Happiness
Is Free: And It's Easier Than You Think, via
their web site and various online bookstores. To promote
the book, Dwoskin began by emailing thousands of his former
students at Sedona Training Associates. Their response was
to propel the book to the top of the list at Amazon.com.
With the help of six friends, Betty
J. Eadie self published Embraced
by the Light, which went on to become a New
York Times bestseller (on the list for two years as
a hardcover and paperback).
Mary Baker Eddy, founder
of The First Church of Christ, Scientists, originally self
published her book, Science and
Health with Key to the Scriptures, in 1875. That
book is now published in 17 languages and has sold more
than ten million copies worldwide. Eddy also founded her
own publishing company which today publishes weekly and
monthly magazines as well as the Pulitzer Prize award-winning
daily newspaper, The Christian Science Monitor (founded
in 1908).
Bob Easter wrote and
published two books on buying and selling homes. He has
sold thousands of copies via his web site at http://www.easterhome.com.
With the help of agent Anna Ghosh, India
Edghill sold the rights to her self published
novel Queenmaker to
St. Martin's which offered her a big advance and full-page
ads in the New York Times Book Review.
In 2002, best-selling author Dave
Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering
Genius) published his first novel through his own publishing
company, McSweeney's.
Arlene Eisenberg self
published What to Do When You’re
Expecting before Workman went on to republish
it and sell 8 million copies (and counting) plus millions
more copies of other titles in the series.
Nobel Prize-winning poet T.S.
Eliot, author of The Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock and The Waste Land, paid for the publication
of his first book.
In 2002, bestselling author Dave
Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering
Genius) published his first novel through his own publishing
company, McSweeney's. He sold 10,000 copies as a limited
edition through his web site mcsweeneys.net.
Books published by McSweeney's are printed in Iceland.
Paulette Ensign's success
in selling 500,000 booklets (110
Ideas for Organizing Your Business Life without Advertising)
shows you can have success in self publishing without needing
to write a full length book. Her website is www.tipsbooklets.com.
John Erickson founded
Maverick Books to self-publish the first book in his Hank
the Cowdog series in 1982. To make sales, he
loaded his pickup with copies and sold them at cattle auctions,
rodeos, schools, Rotary meetings, and anywhere else he could
find a crowd. He later sold the series to Texas Monthly
Press, which was later bought by Gulf Publishing.
Steve Eunpu has sold
more than 650,000 copies of The
20 Gram Diet book.
Due to demand from many friends, Richard
Paul Evans self published 8,000 copies of his
little holiday story, The Christmas
Box, in August 1993. That fall he sold many thousands
of copies in the Salt Lake City area alone. When the major
publishers became interested in the book, dozens of them
participated in a two-day auction. Simon & Schuster
came out the winner. They only had to pay Evans a $4.2 million
advance (which included the rights to a prequel as well).
He retained the rights to his softcover edition. The next
year, both editions ended up on the bestseller lists. The
book has sold more than 7 million copies in 17 different
languages.
When Jim Everroad lost
his job as a high school athletic coach, he decided to become
a sportswriter. The first job he tackled was to write an
article describing the exercises he had developed to tighten
his pot belly. After selling the article to a newspaper,
he expanded it into a full book called How
to Flatten Your Stomach and printed a first edition
of 3,000 copies. Later the book was discovered by Price/Stern/Sloan
who published a national edition of the book, which became
a bestseller. The book has since sold over 2 million copies.
Twenty-five years ago, Helen Exley
self published the first of her many illustrated quote gift
books. Since 1976, Exley Publications has sold more than
41 million copies of her gift books.
New Harbinger's president, Patrick
Fanning, conceived of founding the company over
a box lunch with publisher Matthew
McKay. The first book they published, The
Relaxation & Stress Reduction Workbook, was
one they co-authored. It has now sold over 450,000 copies.
New Harbinger grew slowly, with McKay and Fanning writing
many titles themselves.
In 1951, Howard Fast
couldn't find a publisher for his novel Spartacus
because he was a member of the Communist Party and therefore
blacklisted at that time. So he published the book himself.
It became a bestseller and went on to be made into an incredible
movie. In 1956, Fast broke with the Communist Party after
revelations of Stalin-era atrocities.
Father and son team Jim and Charles
Fay, along with Foster
Cline, formed the Love and Logic Institute to
self-publish an entire line of self-help parenting books,
including Love and Logic Magic
for Early Childhood, Grandparenting with Love and Logic,
Oh Great! What Do I Do Now?, Toddlers and Pre-Schoolers:
Love and Logic Parenting for Early Childhood, Hormones &
Wheels, Developing Character in Teens, Parenting Teens with
Love and Logic, Trouble-Free Teens, and more.
In 1953, Lawrence Ferlinghetti
founded City Lights Bookstore. Soon thereafter, he self
published Pictures of the Gone
World, his classic book of poems, as the first
of many books published by City Lights Books, including
such books as Allan Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems.
About 30 years later, he became the first living writer
to have a San Francisco street named after him.
Nature and environmental photographer John
Fielder founded Westcliffe Publishers, which
has published 31 of his exhibit format books and guide books,
including John Fielder's Best of
Colorado and Colorado
1870 - 2000 (Colorado's bestselling book ever).
Canadian lawyers Barry Fish
and Les Kotzer sold
more than 15,000 copies of their self published book on
wills and estates, The Family Fight:
Planning to Avoid It, within the first nine months
of publication. Most of those orders were generated via
mail order from publicity in publications like the Wall
Street Journal and New York Times.
Books by writing groups do sell. For example, Wednesday
Writers: Ten Years of Writing Women's Lives,
edited by Elizabeth Fishel
and Terri Hinte, hit
#7 on the San Francisco Chronicle's bestseller list,
right behind Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit.
Bill Fisher began his
publishing career by self publishing performance car manuals
in 1947. Later, in 1963, he and his wife Helen founded HP
(horse power) Books, which they sold to Knight-Ridder in
1979. Eight years later, they founded another company, Fisher
Books.
British poet and translator Edward
Fitzgerald paid to have the first copies of his
translation of The Rubaiyat of
Omar Khayyam published in 1859. The book has
sold millions of copies since its first publication.
E. Randall Floyd founded
Harbor House in 1998 to self-publish his Civil War novel
Deep in the Heart, which
has since sold 100,000 copies. The company now publishes
five to ten titles per year. In 2003, Harbor House was named
one of the 15 small publisher standouts by Publishers
Weekly.
In hopes of getting another bestseller like those from
the Delaney sisters, Warner Books paid 98-year-old Jessie
Lee Brown Foveaux more than $1 million for the
rights to her self published reminiscences, Any
Given Day. The book had been only a modest self
published success.
Les and Sue Fox self
published The Beanie Baby Handbook
in 1997. By July of 1998, they had gone back to press eight
more times for an in-print total of 3 million copies while
the book established itself in the #2 spot on the New
York Times bestseller list (under advice, how-to, and
miscellaneous). Later in 1998, they published the Beanie
Baby Cookbook.
At the age of 26, Ben Franklin,
using the pen name of Richard Saunders, self published his
Poor Richard's Almanack
in 1732 and continued to produce the almanac for another
26 years. Many of his famous sayings came from the Almanack.
Because of the success of his printing and publishing business,
Franklin was able to retire at the age of 42. He became
one of the world's greatest scientists and inventors (inventing
bifocals, the Franklin stove, and the lightning rod). He
ended his life as a statesman and one of the key founders
of the United States of America as a signer of the Declaration
of Independence.
Criswell Freemen has
compiled and self published more than 70 books of quotations,
including such titles as The Book
of Stock Car Wisdom, The Fisherman's Book of Wisdom, The
Wisdom of Women's Golf as well as Friends
Are Forever, Fathers Are Forever, Mothers Are Forever,
etc. He published his first three quote books in 1994: The
Book of Country Music Wisdom, Wisdom
Made in America, and The
Book of Southern Wisdom. Since then, he has sold
more than 6 million copies of these gift books.
In 2002, former journalist Mister
Mann Frisby sold over 10,000 copies of his self
published urban thriller Blinking
Red Light in Philadelphia alone. Then with the
help of Los Bravos Management in the fall of 2003, he sold
reprint rights to Riverhead for that book as well as a second
novel.
In 1985, Ron Fry began
Career Press by publishing several career directories
that he edited. He went on to publish his classic 101
Great Answers to the Toughest Interview Questions
and his How to Study
program (a series of six books that have sold more than
2 million copies).
Sonia Pressman Fuentes
was born in Berlin, Germany, of Polish parents, with whom
she came to the U.S. in 1934 to escape the Holocaust. In
March 2000, she was inducted into the Maryland Women's Hall
of Fame because of her work for women's rights. She was
a founder of NOW and other nationwide women's rights organizations
as well as the first woman attorney in the Office of the
General Counsel at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
After she retired as an attorney with the federal government,
she wrote a memoir, written with a light touch, called Eat
First—You Don't Know What They'll Give You: The Adventures
of an Immigrant Family and Their Feminist Daughter.
The book became an Xlibris bestseller, received rave reviews,
and has been used as a textbook at Cornell University and
American University.
Judith Galbraith started
up Free Spirit Publishing by self publishing her first book.
Since then she has built up a company that has published
75 titles and also publishes a catalog that features books
from other publishers (Free Spirit had 174,000 direct customers
last year!). Free Spirit is one of the Top
101 Independent Publishers.
Because Italian scientist Galileo
Galilei published his astronomical findings in
his first book The Starry Messenger
just ten days after his final observations, he got the major
credit for studying the moon and planets with a telescope,
even though English scientist Thomas Harriot had first used
a telescope to look at the moon four months before Galieo.
Twenty years ago, Margie Garrison
self published an initial print run of 1,000 copies of I
Cured My Arthritis & You Can Too!. Since
then, she's sold more than 240,000 copies through speaking
engagements, media attention, and specialty stores.
In 1977, Marc Allen and Shakti
Gawain started New World Library in their Oakland,
California kitchen by publishing a mimeographed edition
of Gawain's Creative Visualization.
The first $800 in sales from that edition helped to keep
the company going. When they approached Bookpeople about
selling the book, the wholesaler said “Get a spine and typeset
the thing, and we'll sell it.” In 2002, New World released
a 25th anniversary edition of that book.
In 2001, Mike Gerber
self published Barry Trotter,
a parody of the Harry Potter series. With the help
of Michael Cader of Cader Books, he soon sold rights to
Orion/Gollancz in England and Hodder Headline in Australia
for several hundred thousand dollars.
Years after self publishing his fable The
First Forest, John Gile
discovered that the National Wildlife Federation had excerpted
without his permission 96% of his story along with illustrations
in the December 2002 issue of their children's magazine,
Your Big Backyard. With the fable generating a largest
portion of income for his small publishing company, he had
to sue the federation.
Michael and Marilyn Gilhuly
always had a dream to be authors. They thought they had
the excellent story, a historical fiction novel based on
stories Marilyn had been told by her grandmother. Unable
to get the book published, they self published their manuscript,
Call to Glory: The Life and Times
of a Texas Ranger. Traveling across Texas, they
sold over 4000 copies. One of the copies made it into the
hands of the publisher of Longstreet Press, who made them
an offer.
John Gindick has sold
more than 2 million copies of his self published music instruction
books on blues and country harmonica.
After poet Nikki Giovanni
sold 10,000 copies of her first self published book, Black
Feeling Black Talk, Morrow offered her a contract
for future books. Since then, they've sold more than 500,000
copies of eight volumes of poetry and five books of essays.
Collier published a paperback edition of Joshua,
a parable originally self published by Fr.
Joseph Girzone, a retired priest. The book, which
sold 45,000 hardcover copies in its self published edition
and 100,000 more copies in Collier's trade paperback edition,
spawned an entire series of popular novels.
Greg Godek sold more
than 750,000 copies of his 1001
Ways to Be Romantic before selling the rights
to Sourcebooks Trade. His book has sold more than 1.9 million
copies thus far and has spawned a series of related titles.
Author of a previous bestseller (Permission Marketing),
Seth Godin self published
his book Unleashing the Ideavirus.
First, though, he gave away the book on the Internet, including
a tell-a-friend link. More than 200,000 people downloaded
the book from his web site alone; another 300,000 were exposed
to his book from other web sites. He then self published
a $40 hardcover. Within a week, his book was #5 on the Amazon.com
bestseller list.
Dan Goggin, a little-known
actor and composer, wrote the first Nunsense
play after some related greeting cards sold well. To date,
Nunsense and four sequels have grossed $300 million
in ticket sales and earned Goggin $7 million.
Thaddeus Golas originally
self published his classic The
Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment in 1972. He
has since sold the rights to Gibbs-Smith.
In 2000, Good Books, a family-owned publisher of books
on Amish and Mennonite cooking, published the Fix-It
and Forget-It Cookbook by Phyllis
Pellman Good and Dawn Ranck. Good is the wife
of Merle Good, publisher of Good Books. The slo-cooker cookbook
sold more than 300,000 copies in its first year and hit
the New York Times bestseller list.
English poet George Gordon, Lord
Byron, sixth Baron Byron of Rochdale and author
of such classics as Childe Harold, The Prisoner of Chillon,
and Don Juan, paid for the publication of his first
book. He died at the age of 36 while fighting for Greek
independence from the Turks.
Bill Goss, sef-publisher
of Luckiest Unlucky Man Alive,
wrote the just released There's
a Flying Squirrel in My Coffee: Overcoming Cancer with the
Help of My Pet from Simon & Schuster. Goss
now hosts a regular 30-minute show on the Discovery Channel's
Animal Planet called “Bill Goss & Rocky the Flying Squirrel”
that airs in 120 million homes around the world twice a
month every month. The show always promotes both of Bill's
books.
Since 1992, Kim Gosselin
has sold more than 1.5 million copies of her self published
books, largely via premium sales. Having no money to publish
her first book, Taking Diabetes
to School, she sought out pharmaceutical companies
that might want to use her book as a premium. Her first
sale of 15,000 copies allowed her to cover all her costs
of publishing as well as set up her publishing company,
JayJo Books. As of the end of 2000, she had 16 titles in
print.
Lynn Grabhorn sold
18,000 copies in six months of her book, Excuse
Me, Your Life Is Waiting, out of her garage —
with no returns. Rather than go out and speak on the road,
she sent letters to 400 metaphysical bookstores offering
each 20 free copies of her book. Most took her up on her
offer. Then, when they sold out, they had to reorder. After
selling 18,000 coipies, Lynn sold the rights to Hampton
Roads, who gave the book a national launch.
John Graden, publisher
of Martial Arts Professional magazine and author/publisher
of Black Belt Management: How to
Open and Operate a Successful Martial Arts School
and The Martial Arts Q & A
Book, grew his business into $4 million annual
sales in less than five years.
In 1995, Michael Graham
self published his first book, Banned
from Public Radio. Since then, he's self published
another book, Clinton & Me: How Eight years of a
Pants-Free Presidency Changed My Nation, My Family and My
Life, which Warner Books picked up as an ebook.
Thomas Greanias originally
published his adventure novel Raising
Atlantis as a popular web series and then as
a bestselling ebook on Amazon.com. In 2004, with the help
of agent Simon Lipskar at Writers House, he sold the rights
to that novel and one other for six figures to a major publisher.
Greenleaf Book Group grew out of the success of Clinton
Greenleaf III's self published book, Attention
to Detail: A Gentleman's Guide to Appearance and Conduct,
which sold out two printings before being purchased by Adams
Media. Since then, Clint has written several more books
in the series for Adams, including A Gentleman's Guide
to Etiquette. After other self-publishers approached
him for advice, he founded Greenleaf Book Group in 1997.
This distribution and marketing company now represents more
than 150 presses.
Zane Grey, the father
of the adult western novel, originally self published. His
first successful novel, The Heritage of the Desert,
earned enough money that he was able to move his family
to California from Ohio. Grey wrote more than 60 westerns,
nine fishing stories, three chronicles of his ancestors,
and a biography of young George Washington as well as juvenile
fiction and baseball stories.
Susan Griffith self
published the leading book on work abroad, Work
Your Way Around the World, before going on to
publish a line of books about working, studying, and volunteering
abroad under the imprint of Vacation Work Publications:
http://www.vactionwork.co.uk.
According to one source, John
Grisham self published his first novel, A
Time to Kill. My understanding, though, was that
the novel was published by a smaller publisher. Nonetheless,
Grisham was actively involved in promoting his first novel,
selling many copies out of the trunk of his car as he traveled
around the South.
After selling 5,000 copies of her self published first
novel Like Boogie On Tuesday
in a single month, Linda Dominique
Grosvenor sold reprint rights to Black Entertainment
Television's African-American women's fiction imprint Sepia.
Maia Hagg self published
her first children's book, My Very
Own Name, created a business plan to sell it,
and sold $338,000 worth of books in the first year.
Gary Halbert, famous
for his copywriting skills, self published a number of books
and was one of the first authors to encourage buyers of
his books to sell his books to others (and give them a great
deal in the bargain).
In the 1920's, E. Haldeman-Julius,
publisher of the Little Blue Books, sold more than 100 million
copes of these little books primarily through newspaper
and magazine display ads. Each book sold for 5 cents, but
you had to buy at least 20 with any order. After selling
the 100 million copies, Haldeman-Julius wrote and published
The First Hundred Million
to tell what he learned from the publishing venture.
In 1995, Canadians Rosemary and
Graham Haley self published Haley's
Hints with a printing of 5,000 copies. That edition
went on to sell 191,000 copies. Its revised edition, published
in 1999, has sold more than 685,000 copies and hit the bestseller
lists in late March 2003.
Dawn Hall sold 650,000
copies of her self published cookbooks Down
Home Cooking Without the Down Home Fat, Busy People's Low-Fat
Cookbook, and 2nd Serving
of Busy People's Low-Fat Cookbook. With the help
of agent Coleen O'Shea, she sold the rights to all her titles
plus a new book on crockery cooking to Rudledge Hill Press.
British novelist Thomas Hardy,
author of such classics as Far from the Madding Crowd,
The Mayor of Casterbridge, and Tess of the d'Urbervilles,
paid for the publication of his first book.
John F. Harnish, using
the pen name of John Franklin to honor his ancestor, Benjamin
Franklin, self published his illuminated essay, The
Immortalization of F * * k, in 1972. This is
the first time the “F” word was used in the title of a copyrighted
work. The infamous one-page essay was printed as a colorful
manuscript on parchment stock suitable for framing. Over
a million copies were sold and millions more plagiarized
using copy machines around the world that helped to spread
the word that f * * k is just a useful word. The story about
how this infamous essay came to be written and published
is told as one of the stories in his first print-on-demand
book, Enjoy Often!!!,
published by Infinity Publishing in March of 1999. Harnish's
third POD book, Everything You
Always Wanted to Know about POD But Didn't Know Who to Ask,
was published in April 2002 by Infinity Publishing. His
popular 606-page epistle provides an insider's view into
the publishing industry through the eyes of an author.
Ken Harper sold nearly
9,000 copies of his self published book, Give
Me My Father's Body: The Story of Minik, the New York Eskimo,
primarily through his general store on Baffin Island. In
spring 2000, Steerforth Press brought out a new edition
of the book for the U.S. market. Paperback rights were sold
to Pocket books for six figures.
John Harricharan originally
self published When You Can Walk
on Water,Take the Boat in 1986. Sales spread
by word-of-mouth and the first three printings sold out.
The book was then picked up by Berkeley Books and HarperCollins
(UK).
Barbara Harris has
sold more than 750,000 copies of her self published cookbook,
Let's Cook Microwave.
Every time she goes back to press on the book, she has to
order another 50,000 copies.
In 1992, E. Lynn Harris
self published his novel, Invisible
Life, and sold more than 10,000 copies through
beauty salons and black-owned bookstores. He later sold
rights to that novel as well as two others to Doubleday/Anchor.
His novels have sold millions of copies thus far, made the
New York Times bestseller list six times (and counting).
In 1983, Paul Hartunian
became the first person in history to sell the world-famous
historic landmark, the Brooklyn Bridge (and do it legally).
Since then, he has self published nine successful books,
become the guru of reprint rights, and makes five figures
for a 90-minute talk.
After self publishing her novel Illegal
Affairs, Shelia Dansby
Harvey sold rights to that novel plus another
to Kensington Books with help from agent Elaine Koster.
Unable to find a publisher for Good
Soldier Svejk in his native Czechoslovakia, Jaroslav
Hasek published it himself and sold it primarily
in the pubs he frequented. Eventually an international bestseller,
it is consdiered by many a classic of 20th century literature.
C.F. Hawthorne self
published her first novel, For
Every Black Eye — Revenge: When Nothing Else Works.
She's sold 6,000 copies of a self published novel by lots
of hands-on personal marketing.
Novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne,
author of The House of the Seven Gables, The Scarlet
Letter, and other American classics, paid for the publication
of his first book.
Naura Hayden self published
How to Satisfy a Woman Every Time
and Have Her Beg for More and made it a New
York Times bestseller (63 weeks on the list!). She has
sold more than 2.6 million copies.
Australian Susan Hayward
founded Hayward Books in 1983 to publisher her bestselling
series of gift books, A Guide for
the Advanced Soul, Begin It Now, and Bag
of Jewels.
Louise Hay originally
self published You Can Heal Your
Life, then sold rights to another company, and
finally went on to found her own publishing company, Hay
House, which is now one of the Top
101 Independent Publishers.
Hugh Hefner self published
the first issue of Playboy
magazine on December 1, 1953. Since then, his Playboy empire
has grown to include TV shows, a mansion, many Playmates,
calendars, videos, and more.
In 2003, two Hollywood screenwriters, brothers Justin
and Jason Heimberg,
self published The Official Movie
Plot Generator, which contains 30 pages of 3
flaps that allow anyone to generate 27,000 different movie
plots. Some potential plots include: A cop who doesn't play
by the rules becomes a nanny for an aristocratic family
in the feel-good comedy of the year. Or: Bigfoot fights
crime shown in spectacular 3-D images. Or: The ultimate
crime-fighting indestructible cyborg raises a baby and,
in the process, learns the true meaning of Christmas. It
allows you quickly to pitch your own bad movie.
Nobel Prize-winning novelist Ernest
Hemingway, author of such classics as The
Sun Also Rises, The Old Man and the Sea, and For
Whom the Bell Tolls, paid for the publication of his
first book.
Keith Herrell, one
of the nation's top motivational speakers, self published
his first book, Attitude Is Everything,
to excellent sales. He went on to sell his second title
to HarperCollins for an upper-six-figure price.
The British novelist Susan Hill
has for many years been successfully publishing her own
books out of a Cotswold barn.
In 1958, Clifton Hillegass
borrowed $4,000 to self-publish a guide for Shakespeare's
Hamlet. He sold 58,000
copies of the first Cliff Notes
in that year. He went on to publish hundreds of Cliff
Notes booklets that high school and college students
came to rely on for helping them to study and write reports.
He eventually sold his company to John Wiley for millions
of dollars.
Michael Hoeye self
published his first children's book, Time
Stops for No Mouse, and sold so many copies that
he ended up selling rights to that book and two others for
$1.8 million to Putnam/Puffin in a heated auction involving
three other major publishers.
In 1990, after selling his Bookstop bookstore chain to
Barnes & Noble for $45 million, Gary
Hoover founded Reference Press (latter renamed
Hoover's Inc.) as a reference book publisher, beginning
with a book called Hoover's.
In 1995, the company moved into the online world with the
launch of Hoover's Online. In December 2002, he sold Hoover's
Inc. to Dun & Bradstreet for $117 million.
In 1968, after taking eight years to write his novel about
the Korean War and after getting more than a dozen rejection
letters, Capt. Richard Hornberger
chose to self-publish M*A*S*H
under his pen name of Richard Hooker. In 1970, his novel
was made into a movie, with a screenplay by Ring Lardner
Jr. and directed by Robert Altman. The movie was the third
highest-grossing film of 1970.
Mr. and Mrs. Hockey, Colleen and
Gordie Howe, self published their sports autobiography
and... Howe! in 1995
and have sold almost 135,000 hardcover copies since then,
thus raising almost $1 million for charitable causes. Although
their book is self published, it is probably the bestselling
hardcover hockey autobiography ever published. Check out
their web site at http://www.mrandmrshockey.com.
Chris Howell, a retired
British schoolmaster from Somerset, produced No
Thankful Village, a fascinating study of the
Great War's impact on the home front that attracted newspaper
attention and sold well.
After his work first appeared in a science fiction magazine
in June 1950, L. Ron Hubbard
self published his book, Dianetics,
which founded a new church (Scientology) and sold more than
20 million copies in the past 45 years.
In 1988, Cheryl Willis Hudson
and her husband Wade Hudson
began Just Us Books (http://www.justusbooks.com)
to publish books in their Afro-Bets
series. Since then, they've built one of the best publishers
of children's books for African Americans.
John Hughes privately
published his book on Family Wealth
about keeping human, intellectual, and financial capital
in the family for a hundred years or more. After the book
became a word-of-mouth phenomenon among high net worth individuals
and investment planners, he sold the rights to an revised
expanded edition to Bloomberg Press for a nice sum of money.
After self publishing his novel, The
Hearts of Men, Travis
Hunter sold reprint rights to the Strivers Row
imprint of Random House. His book, which made the Essence
bestseller list, originated as material for discussion at
a book group he ran for underprivileged children in Atlanta.
In 1983, Dan Hurley
began his career as The 60-Second Novelist when he
carried his 1953 typewriter and a director's chair to a
spot on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois and began writing
60-second novels “while you wait.” As of 2000, he had written
more than 25,000 such novels!
Gary Hustwit started
Incommunicado Press in the early 1990s by self publishing
his book How to Release an Independent
Record. Since then he's published many more books,
created a store in New York City, and co-founded MP3Lit.com,
a multimedia Internet company which distributes downloadable
digitized spoken word audio.
Jennifer James, a Seattle
talk radio personality and local columnist, sold 50,000
copies of her self published book, Success
Is the Quality of Your Journey, in the Pacific
Northwest alone. Later, Newmarket Press brought out the
book in an expanded paperback edition for national distribution.
John Javna self published
50 Simple Things You Can Do to
Save the Earth via Earthworks Books just in time
to catch the environmental awareness wave of the 1980's
— and months before the major publishers came out with other
ecology titles. His book got all the press, hit the bestsellers
lists for months, and sold over 4.5 million copies, two-thirds
of those as premiums. John went on to write and publish
the Uncle John's Bathroom Reader
series of books which sold more than three million copies
by 2002.
American poet Robinson Jeffers
self published his first book but for the longest time most
of the copies sat in a box at his home. Over time, he did
send out a few copies to friends. Someone who recognized
the value of his poems finally discovered a copy of his
book. That's all it took. Soon he was a a nationally recognized
poet. He best-known collection is Tamar and Other Poems.
Paul Joannides self
published The Guide to Getting
It On! via his Goofy Foot Press. Within the first
year, he sold 40,000 copies, won a Firecracker Award, sold
translation rights to Germany, and received six-figure offers
from major publishers (which he rejected).
John H. Johnson self
published Negro Digest
(now Ebony magazine)
in 1942. From this meager beginning, he has built up a billion-dollar
publishing empire.
Danish researchers Ernst Mikael
Jorgensen, Johnny Mikkelsen,
and Erik Rasmussen dug
deep to find out everything they could about rock singer
Elvis Presley's early recordings. As they collected information,
they began self publishing pamphlets, which later formed
the basis for Jorgensen's exhaustive reference guide, Elvis
Presley: A Life in Music—The Complete Recording Sessions.
Irish author James Joyce,
author of Ulysses, Finnegans Wake, and many
other novels, paid for the printing of Ulysses
in 1922 with the help of some of his friends (this is called
patronage publishing).
Lloyd Kahn and friends
started Shelter Publications in 1973 with the publication
of their namesake book, Shelter.
That book has sold more than 250,000 copies since that time.
Their bestselling book, Stretching, has sold 3.5
million copies since 1980.
Bernard Kamoroff built
his one-person publishing company, Bell Springs Publishing,
by selling well over half a million copies of one title,
Small Time Operator.
Benjamin Kaplan, author
of How to Go to College Almost
for Free, turned down several six-figure offers
from major publishers before he went on to self-publish
his book. By the time he sold 25,000 copies, he was featured
in a major story in the Sunday New York Times business
section. At the ripe old age of 23, he sold reprint rights
for that book and The Scholarship
Scouting Report to HarperCollins for seven figures.
Joe Karbo self published
The Lazy Man's Way to Riches,
which he sold primarily via mail order and full-page ads
in newspapers and magazines. He sold millions of copies
of this short book before he died.
In 1981, John Katzman
founded the Princeton Review
by preparing 15 high school students for the SAT exam with
an intensive six-week course offering a systematic approach
to achieving higher test scores. The Princeton Review now
helps millions of students every year to score better on
standardized tests and navigate the college and graduate
school admissions process through its courses, books, software,
and web sites.
As a 19-year-old Harvard student in 1968, Kent
Keith self published a book of aphorisms as a
motivational booklet for high school student governments.
Under the title of Anyway,
his words were often attributed to others, including Mother
Teresa, Bishop Abel Muzorewa of Zimbabwe, psychiatrist Karl
Menninger, Milwaukee clergyman Guy Gurath, and Cleveland
high school wrestling coach Howard Ferguson. Several years
ago while attending a Rotary luncheon, Kent heard another
speaker quote his words, only to discover that his words
had made it around the world and back again. He then wrote
a longer book and sold the rights to Inner Ocean Publishing,
which in turn collected $250,000 in foreign rights sales
to 12 countries and $300,000 in reprint rights to Penguin.
His Anyway: The Paradoxical Commandments
was published with a national publicity and distribution
push by Penguin.
In 1918, to make it easier for him to buy used cars for
his Kelley Kar Company in Los Angeles, California, Les
Kelley began to circulate a list of automobiles
he wished to buy and the prices he was willing to pay for
them. The other dealers and banks which received his list
began to trust his judgement as an accurate reflection of
the current real values for the cars that they began asking
for updated copies. In 1926, Kelley published the first
Blue Book of Motor Car Values.
The Kelley Blue Book
is now the standard authoritative source for used car values.
After winning the 1999 Writer's Digest National self published
Book Award for his book, Dad Was
a Carpenter, Kenny Kemp
got an agent and sold the reprint rights to the book to
Harper San Francisco for a six-figure sale.
Ken Keyes, Jr. self
published The Handbook of Higher
Consciousness and many other titles, all of which
sold hundreds of thousands of copies.
Sisters Ursula Inga Kindred
and Mirranda Guerin-William
self published their book Sister
Gumbo, which employed first-person interviews
to take a frank look at life and sexuality from the female
perspective. After the book became an Essence bestseller,
they sold rights to that book and a follow-up book, Mister
Gumbo to St. Martin's.
Stephen King became
the first big name writer to self-publish a novel via serialized
format on the Internet. He published the first installment
of his novel The Plant
on July 24, 2000 via his web site at http://www.stephenking.com.
He posted the second installment four weeks later on August
21st. More than a half a million people viewed the novel.
Robert Kiyosaki sold
more than a million copies of his self published Rich
Dad, Poor Dad in less than three years. He went
on to have many other major bestsellers in the series.
After graduating from college, Natasha
Kogan published a 10-page booklet about her secrets
of writing a great college thesis. Several years later,
she revised and published her guide, Conquering
Your Undergraduate Thesis. Nataly and her husband,
Avi Spivak, have gone on to publish other college guides
under the Students Helping Students series.
Allan Kornblum, publisher
of the nonprofit Coffee House Press, began by publishing
his own books. He now publishes books by other poets and
literary novelists.
John Kremer, author
and publisher of 1001 Ways to Market
Your Books and developer of this hall of fame,
is not above promoting himself, even in this hall of fame.
He has helped thousands of authors and publishes to get
their books on or near the bestseller lists. Indirectly,
at the very least, he has inspired the sales of more than
a billion books.
31-year-old Cambodian refugee Vuthy
Kuon self published his first book, Humpty
Dumpty After the Fall, a sequel to the old nursery
rhyme, as the first step to launching Providence Publishing,
which has published seventeen books.
In 1939, Louis L'Amour
privately published his first book, a collection of poems
known as Smoke from This Altar.
More than ten years after his book of poetry was published,
his first novel was published. His 100 westerns have sold
more than 200 million copies worldwide.
Through his SeaScape Press, Len
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