According to John Kremer, book promotion guru, the works of self-published authors could be used to stock an incredible book store or superb college library. Kremer proceeded to name 52 writers who decided to self-publish their books. Among the names mentioned by Kremer are: Mark Twain, Stephen King, L. Frank Baum, William Strunk Jr. and Edgar Allan Poe. There are many authors who made it big by self-publishing and, according to Kremer, traditionally published authors would be honored to be mentioned alongside some of them.
Many writers trying to publish their own books constantly throw around the names of big writers who self-published to minimize the effects the stigma of self-publishing might have on their own efforts. One of the places where respected authors’ names who self-published are constantly mentioned is vanity presses. They do this to attract inexperienced and unsuspecting authors who could have done better following the traditional path.
The truth about self-publishing is bleak and few authors with the dream of becoming self-published hall-of-famers are prepared to admit it. For the most part, authors who self-published their first books did not do so well. Let us look at Kremer’s list, for example.
In 1962, Stephen King jointly published a collection of stories with Chris Chesley, his friend. In 1963, they published The Star Invaders, a two-part book which was published by Triad and Gaslight Books, their amateur press. Interestingly, King was a 15-year-old student in 1962. His first novel to be published by a big publishing house was his first real success and this was in 1974. The novel, Carrie, was published by Doubleday.
L. Frank Baum did self-publish three of his books at the tender age of 17, but only the most hardcore Baum followers know the books exist. The novels that most people have read, including the OZ novels, were not self-published. A good number of his less popular books were not self-published.
In 1827, Edgar Allan Poe made a 40-page collection of poems and hired a printer to publish the work. He only printed 50 copies of the pamphlet-sized collection and it didn’t even have his name as the author. The book was included in several lists of new books and got no further publicity after that. Poe never printed additional copies of the book titled Tamerlane and Other Poems and it is said to be the rarest book in American literature. A copy of the book was sold in a 2009 auction for $662,500. This is an insane amount of money for a book in modern times, but what we must not forget is that the book never earned Poe much money when he first published it.
Mark Twain is probably the only author who earned a reasonable amount of income from self-publishing. In 1885, he started a publishing company and appointed his nephew to manage it. He was already a popular writer and used the publishing company to publish two of his books that became very successful. He also hoped to use the publishing company to publish other authors. The company went under just nine years later.
