PUBLISHING
BOOK TO THE FUTURE
Thinking of going it alone? You’re in good company as DJ Bowman-Smith offers a brief history of independent publishing
The notion of independent publishing is not new. It just seems that way with the advent of modern technology and the recent growth of the indie author movement. Indie authors are not the rare creatures they once were. These days if you throw a twig at a bookcase (especially if that bookcase is digital) you have a good chance of hitting one. Hell, I’ll stick my neck out and say, the likelihood of hitting a few indies is high.
Early adopters
Authors have self-published throughout history (see box). Whilst the mechanics have changed, the reasons that writers decide to take control have not. Two key factors persist to this day. One is money and the other autonomy.
The big difference between then and now is the relative ease of contemporary self-publishing. Picture Virginia Woolf, with a limited amount of letters manually setting just two pages of type at a time on the hand press she and her husband used. Times past, if an author could not acquire an actual machine, they could go about the business of production by hiring various experts – much in the same way many indies do now. One of their problems was the lack of ready-to-hire professional help. Today freelance specialists are just a search engine away.