Self-publication or “at last my book will see the light”.
Self-publication was the primitive form of publishing, since books in their most primitive phase were engraved on clay tablets with punches that were molds of cuneiform writing.
Centuries later with the advent of more abstract writing models and in more agile media such as papyrus; the transmission and preservation of thought, stories, poems, legends, and other literary manifestations, was much simpler.
In those times, the original version of a writing was the only one available. To solve this situation, the profession of copyist was born, which was a person who could write and therefore copy a manuscript. But these copyists were almost always linked to the ecclesiastical hierarchy who decided which books were reproduced, thus the first version of the editorial work was born.
With the discovery and adoption of the movable type printing press, made by Gutenberg in the middle of the thirteenth century, the reproduction of books became an industry, since copyists who worked from sunrise to sunset for several days or months to reproduce a single book were no longer necessary. With the printing press, many reproductions could be made in a few months or even a few days, from a few thousand books copied by hand between 1,400 and 1,450 to more than ten million in the remaining fifty years of the century.
As everything in life revolves around money, the publishing business was also born and with it all the vices that have accompanied us until today, in this way the publication of a book became a thankless ordeal for the writer, who was subjected to the contempt of the publishers until he desists or in some cases manages to see the light.
Early victims of editorial rejection were “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel García Márquez, “Animal Farm” by George Orwell, “Gone with the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell, “In Search of Lost Time” by Marcel Proust, even the recent mega bestseller, “Harry Potter” by J. K. Rowling received many rejections. K.Rowling received many refusals before a positive response and like the previous examples many other authors have passed through this street and if it were not for their resilience and tenacity, these works, considered today, examples of literature, would not have seen the light of day.
Literature went from being an art to a business that moves millions of dollars and publishers became all-powerful creators of stars and generators of “best sellers” that make them earn millions of dollars but leave in limbo thousands of writers who could never publish a single book, because they could not pass the filter of publishers that sometimes is extremely rigorous or sometimes quite corrupt.
Literary contests used to be the only opportunity for a work to be published, but here too comes the commercial interest and also condemns many unpublished authors to oblivion.
There remains the traditional self-publishing, which is only possible if the author has enough money to finance the whole process of editing and publishing, from the revision, editing, proofreading, layout, assembly, and printing with a traditional printer, printing a hundred or two hundred copies.
Money and time are invested until the physical book is in your hands, but that does not guarantee sales and some of these authors end up giving their novels to family and friends or if they are lucky these family and friends are the only sales they make.
Writers who do not have the economic means to publish in this way, had it really complicated, until the digital self-publishing business model appeared, which was complemented, later on, with “on demand” print publishing thanks to machines like the famous “Expresso Book Machine” that completely breaks the scheme of printing runs of a specific quantity to a model based on order.
This works like this, someone buys a book and simply takes the digital file already formatted for the desired book size and the machine is able to print, bind and deliver a single book, as if it were a canned drink in a dispenser, the book already printed and bound, is delivered to the buyer, saving the costs of a print run of one hundred, one thousand or ten thousand books, which is not known if they will sell.
In all this business many stores are emerging, among which Amazon stands out as a pioneer of this new market, creating and consolidating a new paradigm in the publishing industry by combining digital publishing with print on demand, thus creating a new business model with self-publishing, which allows those who have the basic knowledge of editing and manipulation of images with a computer, the publication of a book, thanks to tools that from a word file, for example, make the layout according to the requested size.
Some of these platforms even provide simple tools for the creation of covers that allow to facilitate and even save money in the work of designing a cover, so that an author with limited resources can even publish free of the problems he usually faces when for this reason he becomes not only an author but also an amateur editor.
But for those whose only skill is writing, they can always outsource the other tasks, proofreading, editing, design and creation of the cover, which has become an opportunity for many professionals in these areas, who have found a business niche, lowering their usual rates a little to cover demands that are a little simpler and that allow them to have a steady flow of income either by reviewing and editing texts, creating covers or doing other tasks, including marketing.
This makes the competition fierce, for those who have aspirations of making a literary career under this modality, but for those who do it for fun, it is a real pleasure to see our work published, printed, and even know that it has sold, not nearly as much as a Coelho or King book, but it is very gratifying to know that someone has bought it, and not only relatives or friends, but a reader whom we do not have the pleasure of knowing personally, but who has given us the vote of confidence and even the little stars that show that she has liked it.
