Is this true? "Origins of self-publishing" rumor.

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jamiehall

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I have heard (but have never been able to confirm) that many of the ordinary publishing companies that are big and well-known today and have been around for many decades originally started with someone who wanted to publish their own book, or their own book and a few books of their friends.

In other words, the rumor says that many big, famous traditional publishers started out, way back in the mists of time, as conventional self-publishers, and quickly switched to being ordinary publishers.

Is this true? I've found it hard to research this, partly because the larger, older publishing houses were started so very long ago that I can't find much detail about their very early years, or find out which book was their very first published book.

I kind of suspect that it is just one of the myths that circulate about self-publishing, but I could be wrong.

On a similar topic, do any of the conventional self-publishers here aspire to someday becoming small-press conventional publishers?
 

Lauri B

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Hi Jamie,
I can't say whether the Big Five started out as self-publishing houses, but lots of smaller houses start out that way. We started out as a book packager.
 

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jamiehall said:
In other words, the rumor says that many big, famous traditional publishers started out, way back in the mists of time, as conventional self-publishers, and quickly switched to being ordinary publishers.

That's kind of a trick question. If you look at the very early history of book publishing in English, yes, that's true, but I'm talking the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

If you take a big name publisher, like Random House, or Macmillan, or Routledge (some of these old houses, well, most of these, have been swallowed by progressively larger fish), then no, it's not true.
 

GHF65

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Anyone know how those big houses did get started?

Nomad, I'm going to reveal my idiocy here, but I have to ask . . . what's a "book packager"?
 

Mac H.

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jamiehall said:
In other words, the rumor says that many big, famous traditional publishers started out, way back in the mists of time, as conventional self-publishers, and quickly switched to being ordinary publishers.
Ah yes, the hallmark of a rumour. Which companies? "Many big, famous" ones.

Random House certainly didn't. They were originally 'Modern Library' - which was started by Horace Liveright. He certainly wasn't a self-publisher.

If you go back a lot earlier, then it is a bit meaningless because it was a totally different system - with 'patrons' who financed things. Since the 'patron' provided funding for the artisan, then clearly it wasn't self-publishing, where the author provides the funding.

Why don't you give a list of, say, the big 'famous' publishers who are claimed to have started out that way?

Mac
 

jamiehall

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Mac H. said:
Ah yes, the hallmark of a rumour. Which companies? "Many big, famous" ones.

Why don't you give a list of, say, the big 'famous' publishers who are claimed to have started out that way?

Mac

Because the rumor doesn't come with a list (or, at least, the version I've heard doesn't come with a list, though it wouldn't surprise me if some version of it out there comes with a list).
 

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Most of the very old publishers started out as either printers who went into publishing to provide more work for their presses, or bookstore owners who went into publishing to provide more books for their shops.

More recently you'll find publishing houses started by salesmen and distributors. Offhand I can't think of any major presses that were founded by self-published authors who branched out.

If you want to allow some loose definitions, Hugh Hefner self-published the first issue of Playboy. Later on, he founded Playboy Press, which was fairly major for a while.

You'll also find that places like Beckham Publications Group and Teri Woods Publishing, started as self-publishers. They're still small, niche presses.
 

jamiehall

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James D. Macdonald said:
Most of the very old publishers started out as either printers who went into publishing to provide more work for their presses, or bookstore owners who went into publishing to provide more books for their shops.

Thanks! I was pretty sure someone would have the specific information to either confirm or deny this rumor. And I kind of suspected it would be "deny" since it just has the feel of those overly-vague, overly-optimistic rumors that fly around in the POD self-publishing world.
 

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If you're interested in individual companies you can look them up. Max Schuster and Dick Simon were salesmen and marketers. (Simon & Schuster invented the returnable book; you want to talk about a revolution in publishing?) Ian Ballantine was a distributor (for Penguin) before he branched out on his own. Random House started when Bennett Cerf bought The Modern Library (which did reprints of classic works) and added original works. (Cerf eventually started writing his own joke books, but those were "self-published" only under the very loosest definition.) Alfred A. Knopf started by publishing Russian literature in translation. Henry Holt was himself an author, but he became a publisher when he took over another publishing house; Holt became one of the first publishers to only do publishing -- they contracted out the printing to independent printers and had third-party bookstores sell the books rather than selling them at retail themselves. Frank Doubleday started as a printer, then worked as an editor for Charles Scribner & Sons (the original Charles Scribner had started by printing religious tracts and collections of sermons back in the 1840s), before striking out on his own as a publisher. Harper Brothers started out doing cheap reprints of foreign books.

And so on.
 

Lauri B

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Hi Schoolmarm,
A book packager is a company who either comes up with a book idea, writes it and designs it, then sells the finished product to a publisher, who publishes it, or is contracted by a book publisher to do the same thing (but it's the publisher's original idea).
 

GHF65

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Thanks, Nomad. I feel slightly less dumb now. If you'd be so kind as to tell me how a book packager differs from an author (other than in corporate status), you'd help tremendously in my progress from retarded to mildly learning disabled. There is more to learn in this business than I ever anticipated!
 

Lauri B

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a book packager will often do everything, from writing to layout (a finished "package.") In the past, we packaged books from start to finish, but we also just wrote them and turned them over to another publisher to layout and print. It depends on the contract. Authors just write and revise--they almost never have much to do with the layout.
 

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What's a packager?

You know those annoying people who come up to you at conventions and say, "You're an author? I have a great idea for a book! You write it and we'll split the money!"

Packagers are like that, except they really do have an idea (and have a publisher already lined up), and they're talking money up front.
 

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Gray's Publishing, a small (and now defunct) publisher in Victoria BC, began because Mr. Gray wanted to see the memoir of a friend of his get into print. So he started a publishing house, and eventually became a respected regional publisher. Non-fiction and memoirs, mostly of local interest. Some titles became international sellers - The Curve of Time, by M. Wylie Blanchet, for instance.
I did some of the preliminary work on their archives when they were donated to UVic. Got to sort through galleys and original manuscripts (some handwritten in school notebooks!), clippings of reviews, correspondance and so on. Fascinating stuff.
-Barbara
 

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Think Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. Series developed by a company, written by a variety of writers, usually for a flat fee instead of royalty. Nowandays most packaged books have the real writers name on them, but Carolyn Keene was a name invented by the company.

The AAR doesn't allow its members to do book package deals; I know an agent or two who are good, legitimate agents who aren't members of the AAR because they do book package deals.

Make sense?
 

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Oh, Lord. Not John Kremer's Self Publishing Hall of Fame again.

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.

Did anyone look at the publication date of the book versus the shooting dates of the movie? Yep, the movie came first.

Lots more problems on that list.

Edgar Rice Burroughs, author of the Tarzan books, self-published some of his books.

After Edgar Rice Burroughs got very rich and famous as an author, he founded a publishing house. I suppose you could call it self-publishing.

L. Frank Baum self-published at least some of the books in the Wizard of Oz series.

This just flat isn't true. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was published by the George M. Hill Company. When the George M. Hill Company went out of business in 1902, two of its employees, Reilly and Britton, formed a new publishing company. They published the next eleven Oz books. The other two Oz books by Baum were published by Reilly & Lee.

What Baum actually self-published were pamphlets on chicken farming.

In 1918, William Strunk self-published The Elements of Style for his college classes at Cornell University. The book was later revised by his student E.B. White and continues to sell many thousands of copies every year as a standard reference source for writers.

That was because the Xerox machine had not yet been invented. Strunk printed out the class notes for his students. Strunk & White, the book we've all heard of, was written years after Strunk's death, and was entirely conventionally published.

I'm amazed that The Scarsdale Diet by Dr. Herbert Tarnower isn't on the list -- it started out as a single-page mimeographed sheet of diet instructions that Tarnower handed to his patients. One of those patients was a publisher who bought the rights and hired a professional writer to expand that one page to book length. But still! It was originally self-published!

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.

Well, heck. I self-published a songbook in 1976, in an edition of 150 copies (just me, a xerox machine, and a saddle-stapler). I too have gone on to become a bestselling novelist and short story writer. I tell you for true: the latter did not depend in any way on the former.


And so on, so endlessly on. Whether Elizabeth Barrett Browning paid to publish the first volume of her poetry (actually, it was her father who paid to publish an edition of 50 copies -- Elizabeth was 14 years old at the time) ... the experience a poet in 1820 says little about publishing, or self-publishing, today.

The list, overall, is poorly researched and misleading.
 
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jamiehall

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Recently brought to my attention: http://www.bookmarket.com/selfpublish.html

Highly recommended. Highly.

--Ken

From the link: "In 1998, Arthur Agatston, author of The South Beach Diet, began by self-publishing several hundred pamphlets outlining his diet ideas for patients."

Why would that count? Pamphlets are almost always self-published, by definition. What's next? Are they going to count flyers that an author printed and distributed for 4-H as a kid? Are they going to start counting every single author who has a website because websites are, pretty much by definition, self-published electronic text?

Also, I keep seeing lists like this that include musicians who "self-published" CDs (this is the norm for beginners in the music business, and happens under conditions that simply don't apply to the book industry). I wish these lists about success in self-publishing would limit themselves to books or reasonably book-like entities that actually count, instead of branching out into things that are normally self-published.
 

Anthony Ravenscroft

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Are they going to count flyers that an author printed and distributed for 4-H as a kid?
You're catching on to the Cunning Plan, I see.

I think that subsidy publishing -- &, yes, even outright vanity -- could in theory serve a vital purpose in self-publishing.

But the thing is that there's all these... these... what's a cross between a hyena & a weasel? Anyway, these bottom-feeders have a vested interest in encouraging the "anyone can do it!!" & "write us a check, then sit back & watch the cash roll in!!" mythos. Not content to let the hype stand for itself, the scavengers pull in all sorts of "Mark Twain & Emily Dickinson self-published!!" or "publish your e-book & make millions just like Stephen King!!" hype that inflates one little bit of truth like sticking an air hose in a dead toad so you can make a football.
 

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Why does it enrage you folks so much that business people can and do succeed as independent publishers? Why is it so essential to divert attention (by nitpicking or by outright kneejerk across-the-board rejection) from the countless real examples?

Even in my little corner of the world I know people who run successful, profitable publishing businesses, some with national and even international scope. Why should it be so difficult simply to accept that there is nothing mystical or magical about independent publishing? It is a business, making and marketing products. Period. The methods are well known, laid out in detail in books that have been in print for decades, and followed by numerous entrepreneurs whose line of business is writing and publishing.

Is it so essential to believe that writing books is a sort of higher calling that must be annointed by commercial publishers for validation? Even writers whose manuscripts are published by commercial publishers are in the business of writing, having to track income and expenses, allocate time to the required tasks (writing, revising, querying, and the rest), and having to (pardon the expression) interface with other elements of the publishing business (agents and editors, but for some also publicists, website designers, researchers, and plain old gofers). But in their case, they focus on the writing itself (and essential ancillary tasks) and not on the other elements that go into running a publishing business.

I just don't get the anger and denial about the fact that individuals can and do succeed in independent publishing as a business, including many who choose to publish books they have written themselves.

Is it so necessary to believe that writing is something holy and above the commercial fray? Ridiculous. Books are a business. Some people make a business of books. Anyone who invests the time and effort can learn exactly how it is done. Yet some folks have to engage in hysterical denials. Weird.

Sure, not everyone who tries succeeds or does it well. You can say that of people in EVERY line of business or profession. That most new businesses fail (lack of capital, poor planning, inadequate execution, lack of advertising and promotion, poor cost structure, too much competition, untimely or mediocre product, poor location--the bane of many restaurants, for example--and so on) does not invalidate business as a whole.

Would your world crumble if you had to accept that writing is just another business or profession?

--Ken
 

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ResearchGuy said:
Why does it enrage you folks so much that business people can and do succeed as independent publishers?

It doesn't enrage us, Ken. We're comparing apples and cats here. To say that a person can become successful as an AUTHOR by getting their start by self-publishing isn't AT ALL the same as saying that a person can become successful as a PUBLISHER by getting their start by self-publishing. I don't think anybody disputes that there are many, MANY independent publishers that started by self-publishing and have gone on to bigger and better things after taking on the task of publishing the books of other authors.

The fallacy that keeps getting spouted is that it's LIKELY that an author can become a famous author through that means. Yes, it happens. There are a few authors who are competent enough editors to produce an award-winning, best selling book from scratch. But it doesn't happen often.

When these example names get brought up over and over, it gives the impression that it happens all the time. But when you have to dredge through the millions of authors who have produced work over the past TWO HUNDRED years, just to make up a list that contains fifty or sixty, then it's the equivalent of saying that a person can strike oil in their back yard while digging a swimming pool. It's probably happened. But it doesn't happen often, and it's unfair to lead people to believe that they're the NEXT SURE-FIRE MULTI-MILLIONAIRE AUTHOR of the publishing game because a few people over a few centuries have accomplished it.

But that's not hating on indie publishers in any way, shape or form. I think indie publishers are terrific. I think self-published authors are terrific. But they're apples and cats.
 

James D. Macdonald

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Yeah, nitpick. From that poorly-researched and misleading Self-Publishing Hall of Fame:

In 1851, Herman Melville wrote a letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne bemoaning his monetary problems. Nonethe-less, he still self-published his classic novel Moby Dick, the book many consider the greatest novel ever written by an American.

This is, to put it simply, not true. Melville was paid an advance against royalties for Moby-Dick in 1850, before it was even written. His advance was £150 from publisher Richard Bentley of London, who produced the first edition, published under the title The Whale (in three volumes) in 1851. The first American edition was published by Harper & Brothers, also in 1851. Neither was self-published.

The list is rife with such errors.

The entire list is an example of the fallacy "special pleading." It incorporates numerous examples of the "post hoc" fallacy. (E.g. Louis L'Amour self-published a book of poetry. Later he became world-famous for his Western novels. These two facts are not related, but Kremer wants us to believe that the first caused the second.)

Writing is a skill. Publishing is a skill. Some people have both skills. Good for them! While it's easy to be a part-time writer, it's hard to be a part-time publisher. Folks who want to self-publish should be informed that they're taking on a full-time job, and that the odds of success (however you want to define it) are slim indeed.

I've said over and over that there's a place for self-publishing, that it's a legitimate part of the publishing world. But nonsense like Kremer's isn't helping.

(Note: £150 in 1850 is the equivalent of £11,483.02 in 2005 pounds using the retail price index. That's $22,035.90 in 2005 dollars.)
 
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Prosperity, did you read the comments after that post? Uncle Jim has pointed out how many on that list do not actually belong there. Check out the rest of this thread.
 

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Prosperity, did you read the comments after that post? Uncle Jim has pointed out how many on that list do not actually belong there. Check out the rest of this thread.
Yes, Jim pointed out the handful that he believes invalidate the hundreds of others . . .

BTW, I have corresponded with the proprietor of that list, John Kremer. Last I heard from him, he was going to delete the urban legends and other dubious entries that allow relentless nitpickers to raise questions about the whole vast list.

I recommended to Kremer that he focus his exceedingly interesting and informative site on examples from the last few decades, as those from a few generations ago are not relevant now.

I also mentioned a few successful independent publishers he did not have on the list, people I know personally and who run full time publishing businesses (one with 17 nonfiction titles, of which one has sold upwards of 75,000 copies, and one with novels that have sold as many as 30,000 copies so far, with margins far in excess of what any commercial publisher's royalties would be).

So help me, I do not understand the seething rage over those who make a business of independent publishing, or over those who are supportive of that kind of business. Weird.

--Ken
 
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