page_title: Self-publishing
section_title: Negative stigma
hierarchical_section_title: Self-publishing / History / Negative stigma
caption_attribution_description: English: Commercial Digital Printing Press, this press can handle media 98 inches wide. It can print on pre-cut rigid sheets or rolled media. This press can print 1,000 DPI images on numerous substrates.This large format press is manufactured by Durst Image Technology and is located at Coyle Reproductions.
context_page_description: Self-publishing is the publication of media by its author without the involvement of an established publisher. The term usually refers to written media, such as books and magazines, either as an ebook or as a physical copy using POD technology. It may also apply to albums, pamphlets, brochures, video content, and zines.
  In the traditional publishing model, the publisher bears all the costs and risks of publication, but retains most of the profit if the book is successful. In self-publishing, the author bears all the costs and risks, but earns a higher share of the profit per sale.
  The $1 billion market of self-publishing has transformed in the past two decades with new technologies providing increasing alternatives to traditional publishing. Self-publishing is increasingly becoming the first choice for writers. Most self-published books sell very few copies. Those which sell large numbers are newsworthy because they are so rare. The quality of self-published works varies considerably, because there are no barriers to publication and no quality control.
context_section_description: Five years ago, self-publishing was a scar. Now it's a tattoo.
  — Greg White, in Bloomberg News, 2016
  Until the advent of ebooks and POD technology, most self-published books were published through a vanity press, so called because such authors were assumed to be egotistical writers, unable to accept their work was not good enough to be accepted by traditional publishers.    James D. Macdonald claimed that vanity publishing violated Yog's Law which states that "Money should flow toward the author." Vanity publishing usually required a one-time payment of $5,000 to $10,000 to do a print run of 1000 books; these books usually ended up in boxes in a garage.
  Photographer-turned-publisher Max Bondi said that "investing in a project shows that you believe in it". Nevertheless, part of the reason for the negative stigma is that many self-published books are of dubious quality, because they are written by authors who are still learning their craft, and have never been edited or even proof-read. For example, in 1995, a retired TV repairman self-published his autobiography in which he described how he had been stepped on by a horse when he was a boy, how he had been almost murdered by his stepfather when he was a young man in Mexico, and how his ex-wife had clawed his face with her fingernails. The repairman spent $10,000 to have his 150-page masterpiece printed up, and, for promotion purposes, he sent copies to a local library, to the White House, and to everybody with the repairman's same last name. These efforts did not lead anywhere; today, the book is largely forgotten.
  Self-publishing is still seen as a "mark of failure" by many.  The image of self-publishing has been improving and some feel the stigma is gone entirely, while others feel it still has a way to go to cultivate respectability. Book critic Ron Charles in the Washington Post complained that "No, I don't want to read your self-published book", citing concerns that self-published books lacked quality and were published by authors with little understanding of the audience or the market. However rare breakaway bestsellers such as Fifty Shades of Grey and  The Martian were first self-published, helping to lend respectability to self-publishing in general. Further, with new avenues of self-publishing, there are more opportunities for authors to break through directly to audiences.
  For decades, the literary world dismissed self-published authors as amateurs and hacks who lacked the talent to land a book deal. But that attitude gradually began to change with the rise of e-books and the arrival of Kindle from Amazon, which gave authors direct access to millions of readers.
  — Alexandra Alter in the New York Times, 2016
caption: This modern printing press takes digital files and prints books.
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