Publishing Solo: Self-Publishing Success Stories

by Beth Steidle

Publishing Solo is a new monthly blog series focused on topics relating to self-publishing. Its purpose is to provide information and engage conversation amongst both up-and-coming and established writers as we search for new ways to get our work out of that sad desk drawer and into the changing literary world.


We tend to think of self-publishing as a new development, a practice that has cropped up in the past couple of decades. We envision perfect-bound paperback books multiplying in the shadow of publishing conglomerates. But in reality, self-publishing has a long and fairly storied history, whose stars (listed chronologically in order of self-published dates) include: Benjamin Franklin (early to mid-1700’s); Thomas Paine (late 1700’s); Edgar Allan Poe (1827); Henry David Thoreau (mid-1800’s); Walt Whitman (1855); Oscar Wilde (1881); Mark Twain (1885); Zane Grey (1903); Ezra Pound (1908); Carl Sandburg (early 1900’s); Upton Sinclair (early to mid-1900’s); Virginia Woolf (early 1900’s); Gertrude Stein (1914); and D.H. Lawrence (1928); e.e. cummings (1930’s). This is by no means a complete list.

Many of these now literary giants self-published for the same reasons we are doing so today: to combat censorship, to maintain control, and, most commonly, to conquer manuscript rejection.

In the early 1900’s, James Joyce’s seminal work, Ulysses, was faced with rejection from publishers due to page length and obscenity laws. His solution? Collect money from friends, patrons, and fellow writers for pre-orders.

D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterly’s Lover was “privately published” (sounds much more sultry when you put it that way, doesn’t it?) in 1928, thirty-two years before its official publication in Britain.  The reason? Too sexy and too many dirty words.

Mark Twain tired of finicky publishers and paid for the publication of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn himself.

Zane Grey supposedly borrowed money from his wife to launch his book career as the father of the modern western novel (proving, once again, that so many problems can be solved by marrying up).

In 1644, John Milton self-published Areopagitica, a polemical tract arguing in favor of unlicensed printing, saying, “he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself.” Of course, while the freedom to print one’s own work has long been argued for, neither the publishing world nor practices of literary consumption are the same today as they were in the 1600s, 1700s, 1800s, or much of the 1900s.  And yet, while formats and reading practices have changed, the possibility for self-publishing success has not. Here is a look at a few of our more contemporary self-published phenomenon:

The Joy of Cooking, Irma S. Rombauer (1931): Rombauer, a St. Louis, Missouri housewife, wrote this book amidst the emotional and financial devastation following the suicide of her husband in the previous year. Initially she had 3,000 copies printed by A.C. Clayton, a commercial printer of labels for shoes and Listerine. In 1936, The Joy of Cooking was picked up by a standard publisher. Since that time, the book has been in continuous publication, is considered a staple of the modern kitchen, and has having sold over 18 million copies.

What Color is Your Parachute?, Richard Nelson Bolles (1970): One of the most popular texts for job seekers, Bolles originally self-published this book in 1970 before it was picked up commercially by Ten Speed Press in 1972. The book has been revised every year since its original publication and has sold over 10 million copies worldwide.

Real Peace, Richard Nixon (1983): Nixon chose to self-publish this work on geopolitical strategy and the establishment of long-lasting peace. He felt the issues addressed in the work were too timely to wait 18 months for a publishing house to go through its many motions to prepare the book. Little Brown & Co. went on to create the first trade edition in 1984.

The Plant, Stephen King (2000): In March 2000, at King’s request, Simon & Schuster digitally published his novella, Riding the Bullet. According to the NY Times, over 400,000 fans downloaded the text upon its debut, making it the universe’s first mass-market e-book. In July of that same year, King began to digitally self-publish The Plant, a serialized epistolary novel featuring a ferocious vine terrorizing a publishing house. In principle, readers would pay one-dollar per installment, a fee that was monitored by the honor system. However, King did threaten to cease posting installments if the percentage of paying readers fell below the 75% mark. Over the next few months, King fiddled with the pricing and readership faltered. The last installment was published in December, but the book remains unfinished. While King’s attempt to jump-start “Big Publishing’s worst nightmare” has floundered, you’ve got to appreciate his efforts. Of course, the problem could have been the silly content (which, unlike the similarly themed film The Happening, did not feature Mark Wahlberg talking to a plastic plant).

Eragon, Christopher Paolini (2002): Paolini, the wunderkind who began writing his now-famous young-adult fantasy novel at the age of 15, was assisted by his parents in the novel’s self-publication. Subsequently, he and his family spent a year on a promotional tour throughout the United States. While on the tour, Carl Hiassen’s stepson happened to pick up a copy, which he reportedly fell in love with, prompting Hiassen to show the book to an editor at Knopf.  Published by Knopf in 2003, the book became an instant hit, landing Eragon on the NY Times Bestseller List for 26 consecutive weeks. In 2006, Eragon was adapted into a film which garnered $249 million worldwide.

(various), Amanda Hocking (2010-present): Another Paolinian wunderkind, former assisted-living assistant Amanda Hocking wrote 17 novels in her spare time. In 2010, frustrated by the lack of a publishing deal, Hocking began to self-publish her young-adult paranormal romances, which have since been described by the NY Times as “literature as candy, a mash-up of creativity and commerce.” Hocking, a self-proclaimed “unicorn enthusiast” and college dropout, self-published nine novels whose sales exceeded 1 million copies. Despite a low per-copy cost ($.99 to $2.99), Hocking’s books garnered an unprecedented sum—close to $2 million in the first year. Put it another way: in 2011, Hocking was selling 9,000 books per day. That same year, she signed her first conventional contract with St. Martin’s Press for another whopping $2 million dollars.  The decision put self-publishing panelists in a tizzy at last year’s BookExpo America; according to their unofficial (yet sensical) figures, Hocking was on track to make more money by continuing to self-publish.  So why did she do it? In response to her shocked fans, Hocking said: “I’ve done as much with self-publishing as any person can do…I want to be a writer. I do not want to spend 40 hours a week handling e-mails, formatting covers, finding editors, etc. Right now, being me is a full-time corporation.”

Now—don’t get too excited. Success stories like Hocking and Paolini are few and far between. In the same way that traditional publishing rarely turns a profit or creates a superstar, self-published authors rarely become household names. But what do all successful self-published works have in common? The author’s belief in the validity of their work; a willingness to fund, promote and produce one’s own work; and the drive to get the book out into the wide, wide world.

The moral? If you’re willing to work hard—to be your own corporation—you have a much better chance of success. If you’re willing to work hard and you have talent, your chances are that much better. With so many options for self-publishing, there really is very little excuse to not take the leap. After all, if you can sell a couple thousand copies on your own, you’ll become much more attractive to gun-shy publishers. And if you can sell 900,000 copies on your own, then, well, you’ve most likely written a paranormal-zombie-vampire-werewolf-romance-literary-snickers-bar. Who am I to judge?


Miss part one of our series? We’ll be taking a blogging break in December to focus on our new issue, but check back in January for the next installment of Publishing Solo.


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