page_title: Self-publishing
section_title: Early examples
hierarchical_section_title: Self-publishing / History / Early examples
caption_attribution_description: From George Cruikshank's illustrations to Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy. Plate VIII: The Smoking Batteries. Uncle Toby is in the sentry box, the corporal on the right. Basically, the corporal has invented a way to make multiple cannons be fired at once, by using the principles of a hookah - when a puff is taken, the cannons fire. Unfortunately, the two find the puffing a little too enjoyable...
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: Self-publishing is not a new phenomenon. While most novels were distributed by established publishers, there have been authors who chose to self-publish, or even start their own presses, such as John Locke, Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Martin Luther, Marcel Proust, Derek Walcott, and Walt Whitman.  In 1759, British satirist Laurence Sterne's self-published the first two volumes of Tristram Shandy.   In 1908, Ezra Pound sold A Lume Spento for six pence each. Franklin Hiram King's book Farmers of Forty Centuries was self-published in 1911, and was subsequently published commercially. In 1931 the author of The Joy of Cooking paid a local printing company to print 3000 copies; the Bobbs-Merrill Company acquired the rights, and since then the book has sold over 18 million copies. In 1941, writer Virginia Woolf chose to self-publish her final novel Between the Acts on her Hogarth Press, in effect starting her own press.
caption: The original Tristram Shandy was self-published by British author Laurence Sterne. Photo: an illustration from the original work by artist George Cruikshank.
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