Self-published Books Research Articles

Self-Published Books: Should Libraries Buy or Not?

Self-Published Books: Should Libraries Buy or Not?

Abandoned by the Vatican: My Clandestine Journey to Support Secret Priests Behind the Iron Curtain by Jack Doherty

Reviewed by: Abandoned by the Vatican: My Clandestine Journey to Support Secret Priests Behind the Iron Curtain by Jack Doherty Edward Jeremy Miller Abandoned by the Vatican: My Clandestine Journey to Support Secret Priests Behind the Iron Curtain. By Jack Doherty. North Charleston, SC: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016. 442pp. $18.99. There are some curiosities to note about this book from the outset. It is not a normal 442-page book. The type is large and double spaced, having about 250 words per page, and so it reads quickly. It is a self-published book, and this is a second curiosity. Such authors take upon themselves producing the text digitally, proofreading it themselves, and then marketing it online. (CreateSpace, an Amazon Company, helps in this endeavor.) There are surely expenses an author assumes in self-marketing a paperback before royalties might roll in but I could not discover them. Third, the title betrays a harshness, often severe, toward institutional Roman Catholicism that only becomes evident in the second portion of the book. [End Page 103] The book’s first portion reads like a personal memoir. Doherty is an American Redemptorist priest pursuing a doctorate in theology in the late 1960s, first in Tübingen, then transferring to Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. Beginning in March, 1969, he becomes ever more deeply involved in smuggling religious texts into Czechoslovakia, in the beginning making border crossings himself in a book-loaded car and later, when he was restricted from entering Czechoslovakia himself, by using mail. The Prague Spring of 1968 had eased postal restrictions vis-à-vis the West. I found his memoir rather heroic at this point. He had been assisting with liturgies at Patch Barracks near Stuttgart, a very large American military command facility. With the help of the service wives of the Catholic parish, he engineered an “Iron Curtain Book Project.” The parish would box for mailing thousands of religious texts, using unsuspicious Czech addresses supplied to him by the underground Czech Catholic Church. He had made a deal with the Herder Book Company for all of its “extra” books, and truck loads of Herder books morphed into 2–3 pound boxes of them shipped from the “off-base” addresses of parishioners. Thousands of books served an oppressed and persecuted Catholic Church, many of whose members never heard of the Second Vatican Council. When he was making border crossings in 1968 bearing books, Doherty’s other aim was to make contact with the Czech and Slovak Redemptorists. This he did, especially with Father Jan Jaros, their superior in secret. These men, ministering under the Communist radar, had menial civilian jobs. Many had been imprisoned, some tortured. But all of them wanted their stories to be known and valued. The book’s second portion is no longer first-person memoir in two senses: By September, 1971, Jack Doherty was no longer allowed into the Eastern Block, persona non grata in his words. Secondly, his tone becomes adversarial at the very outset of Part Two: “When the churches were no longer oppressed [by Communists] and the underground church became publically [sic] known, the Vatican treated with suspicion and distrust the secret bishops and priests who suffered and [End Page 104] were tortured and jailed under atheistic Marxist governments to preserve the faith. They were not offered church positions and were accused of not being ordained” properly (197). Part One had situated three groups of Catholic priests: those few legitimately ordained and/or consecrated, acting somewhat openly, and known by the Vatican and the Communists to be Catholic clergy, such as Bishop, later Cardinal, Tomasek who participated at Vatican II; priests collaborators, either already spies when ordained or having been ordained and then making allegiance with Communism, called the “pacem in terris” clergy; and the secret bishops and priests (Doherty’s heroes) who moved so much in the shadows that not even Rome or legitimate local bishops knew most of them, and written records of their ordinations would have been too dangerous to maintain. Some of these clergy-in-secret were exposed, imprisoned, and tortured. Some married men were ordained because their family identities and secular jobs kept them undercover. Doherty relates a...

People Behaving Badly, or Can We Get an Adult in the Room?

Shut Up! (self-published 2016; ISBN 978-1-5333-8233-7) is a self-published book about a war between authors Megan Fox and Kevin DuJan and the Orland Park Public Library (OPPL)—except mostly, it isn’t. That modest story really doesn’t require 651 pages. On this topic, in the words attributed to Ambrose Bierce, “The covers of this book are too far apart.”What does fill the pages, then? There are many words of praise for people hailed as “great conservatives, writers, and pundits” such as Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and Andrew Breitbart (to whom the book is dedicated). On the other hand, the authors believe that even the people they describe as good, honest, unfailingly truth-seeking conservative talk radio hosts are just too timid to withstand the oppressive, unscrupulous importunities of the liberal left. Welcome, again, to the culture wars.

Aleister Crowley's Graphomania and the Transformations of Magical Inscriptivity

ABSTRACT This article attempts a preliminary genealogy of the bibliophile activities of Aleister Crowley, who compulsively self-published books as well as periodicals. The article identifies a series of decisive transformations and shifts (from “codification” to “currency”) in the history of magical inscription and dissemination, each of which contributed to the book-thinking of occultism at the fin de siècle and beyond. More broadly, the article historicizes the development of occultism's “bibliographic imagination” and its complex attachment to the inscribed or printed page.

Reflections on the Freedom Charter by Mandla Seleoane and Ben Mokoena

Reviewed by: Reflections on the Freedom Charter by Mandla Seleoane and Ben Mokoena Steven Friedman (bio) Mandla Seleoane and Ben Mokoena (2015) Reflections on the Freedom Charter. Pretoria: Ears The conventions which determine whether work passes academic muster are occasionally challenged – but the critique is not sustained enough to prevent the drawing of arbitrary boundaries which may cut scholars off from useful work. A case in point may well be Mandla Seleoane and Ben Mokoena’s Reflections on the Freedom Charter, which appeared last year, the 60th anniversary of the Charter’s adoption at the Congress of the People in Kliptown, Johannesburg. The book faces some formidable obstacles which have relegated it to the outer margins of public consciousness. It was not published by an academic or even a mainstream non-academic publisher but by a small company established by Seleoane himself. It does not appear in bookstores because, according to Seleoane, they refuse to stock it (whether because they don’t carry self-published books or because they don’t think it will sell is unclear). Its content is also outside the current consensus since it offers not a defence but a trenchant critique of the charter which, of course, has achieved near iconic status among both ANC supporters and those critics who operate within the currently reigning paradigm. And so, while two other publications on the Charter which appeared last year, Gauteng Transport MEC Ismail Vadi’s The Congress of the People and Freedom Charter: a people’s history and activist and writer Dale McKinley’s 60 Years of the Freedom Charter – no cause to celebrate for the working class, also did not make it into the publishing mainstream, both were written for mainstream constituencies: Vadi’s for current and former ANC supporters, McKinley’s [End Page 169] for the left of the labour movement and social movements. Seleoane and Mokoena’s likely audience is the Black Consciousness (BC) movement which is, of course, politically marginal (although a revival, albeit in new organisational guise, is certainly a possibility). The book’s authors are not exactly household names in the academy. Seleoane, although based at the Tshwane University of Technology, is better known as a former trade unionist and BC activist. Mokoena was the first post-1994 mayor of Middelburg in Mpumalanga, where he became known for his commitment to working with grassroots citizens: while he then represented the ANC, he has become an articulate critic of his former political home. Its ability to attract academic audiences is also limited by the book’s style which does not conform fully to current academic convention. All of these circumstances seem likely to consign it to permanent oblivion, which may well be its likeliest fate. This review is a small attempt to prevent this by arguing that Reflections on the Freedom Charter deserves serious academic consideration because its current marginal status is a consequence of convention and the political balance of power, not a consequence of the merits of the work. By implication, this invites reflection on the degree to which current understandings of what constitutes a valid academic work cuts us off from ideas and insights which add to our understanding of society and politics. An obvious reason for taking the book seriously is precisely that it offers a perspective which is rarely heard. A halo currently surrounds the Charter, but it was not always thus – the document was rejected by the Africanist wing of the ANC and by the BC movement, primarily because it was seen as a rationale for ‘multi-racialism’ rather than ‘non-racialism’ and was thus branded a legitimator of white privilege. The divide was significant enough to define the two competing constituencies within ‘liberation politics’, particularly in the 1980s: battles were fought between Charterists and their Africanist or black consciousness opponents. For the latter the Charter was less a vehicle of freedom than a weapon of war which was used to impose conformity: Seleoane observes that: ‘Although the ANC does not seem to conduct its affairs strictly in accordance with the document, it does every now and then beat people on the head with it’ (Seleoane and Mokoena 2015:18). Not surprisingly, his critique...

1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization

Companion to the record-breaking London exhibit, this book is rich with vibrant images and little known facts that highlight revolutionising discoveries made throughout Muslim history that effected world change and continue to shape our world today. The beautifully illustrated volume mirrors the original self-published book in stunning illustrations, information, and scope, but has a more accessible presentation and price to appeal to both trade consumers and exhibit visitors. The book explores scientific and technological history in Islamic culture from health care to astronomy to reveal the innovations of Muslim society that have shaped our modern world. Complete with a foldout timeline and map illustrating the worldly contributions of Muslims, remarkable photographs and colourful illustrations, artefacts, historic documents and drawings, this book not only reveals 1001 Muslim inventions, but provides insight into the everyday life of the historic Muslim society and related Western growth.

Truth and (self) censorship in military memoirs

It can be difficult for researchers from outside the military to gain access to the field. However, there is a rich source on the military that is readily available for every researcher: military memoirs. This source does provide some methodological challenges with regard to truth and (self) censorship, nevertheless. This study questions how truth and (self) censorship issues influence the content of these military autobiographies. It shows that these issues are not only a concern for researchers, but also for military writers themselves. The study provides concrete quantitative data based on military Afghanistan memoirs published between 2001 and 2010 from five different countries: the UK, the US, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands. The majority of soldier-authors make some kind of truth claim in their books that they also substantiate. Military books published by traditional publishers do so significantly more often than self-published books. In books published in Anglo-Saxon countries soldier-authors make truth claims five times more often than do military authors from the Netherlands and Germany. At the same time, military authors also frequently admit to some form of self-censuring, so truth claims and self-censorship go hand in hand. From each of the countries studied, at least one author mentions being actively censored by the military, but most do not even mention it, making censorship a common, almost normal military feature. Making truth claims, mentioning being censored, or self-censoring do not influence the kind of plots these authors write either in a negative, or positive way.

Stories of a Storm: A Content Analysis of Mainstream, Small-Press, and Self-Published Picture Books about Hurricane Katrina

The researchers examined mainstream, small-press, and self-published picture books about Hurricane Katrina, analyzing rhetorical purpose, representations of race, and responses to the storm, including decisions regarding evacuation, accepting institutional assistance, and relocating or returning. A comparison revealed that, taken together, the small-press and self-published titles more accurately depict the wide array of survivor experiences than do the mainstream titles, which tend to reinforce a few major patterns and storylines, perhaps for the benefit of an audience outside of the affected areas. Implications for library collection development are discussed.

Storming the gatekeepers: Digital disintermediation in the market for books

Digitization is transforming the market for books. Lower marginal costs have reduced prices by 10–15% in the past four years, and digitization has given creators the ability to circumvent traditional gatekeepers and publish their work directly. The number of self-published works has grown by almost 300% since 2006 and now exceeds the number of traditionally published works. While e-book data are not systematically available, we are able to document that falling prices have increased consumer surplus by $2–3 billion per year. Given the inherent difficulty in predicting the ex post appeal of creative products at the time of investment, a growth in available new products can substantially expand the appeal of available products. Using bestseller lists in conjunction with title-level data on physical sales and our best estimates of e-book sales, we document that many self-published books have substantial ex post appeal to consumers. Works that began their commercial lives through self-publishing began to appear on bestseller lists in 2011 and by 2013 such works accounted for a tenth of both bestseller listings and estimated unit sales. In romantic fiction, self-published works account for almost a third. These changes challenge the role of gatekeepers while benefiting consumers.

Commentary on "Questioning the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis: 30 Years of Dissent".

Commentary on "Questioning the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis: 30 Years of Dissent".

DIY: Self-Publishing in America I

DIY:Self-Publishing in America I Jeffrey R. Di Leo, Editor and Publisher (bio) Self-publishing has always been the underworld of book culture: a haven for esoterica, wild ideas, and half-baked prose. It exists just below the imaginary border between books whose publication is paid by others—and those whose publication is paid by the author. For many, this border delimits the break between legitimate publishing and its opposite. Just as journals that charge publication fees for articles are often met with suspicion (especially when other journals in the same field do not), so too are books whose publication is fully underwritten by the author, particularly when there are plenty of publishers in the same area that publish books without being paid by their authors—and many of whom even offer them generous advances against their royalties. More on a par with vanity publishing, self-publishing has long existed as the last stop for authors bent on sharing with the world writing that has been spurned by traditional publishers. For most authors, the decision to self-publish does not involve a choice. Rather, it is a decision of last resort and their only way into the world of published writers. Until fairly recently, self-publishing was more the exception than the norm in the publishing world. Not everyone has the financial means or the moral will to pay to have their writing published. And historically, even if one had the desire to self-publish, it has always been prohibitively expensive. But the cost of self-publishing has dropped dramatically. Today, is almost possible to self-publish a book at no cost (provided access to a computer and the appropriate software). Final fulfillment of one of the more egalitarian promises of the digital revolution. For a little more, one can improve the quality of a self-published book by purchasing various degrees of support. For a slightly higher price, consider a deluxe self-publishing package complete with marketing plans and publicity materials. Exactly how much does all of this cost? Not all that much. While self-publishing packages can run in excess of $10,000, many are significantly less. For example, for basic ebook formatting and distribution, BookLocker charges authors $675—and only $475 if the author supplies the book’s cover. Ebook formatting, conversion, and distribution in this basic package includes the mobi (for Amazon’s Kindle) and epub (for Apple’s iPad, iPod, and iPhone; Barnes and Noble’s Nook; and Kobo) platforms. Also, this basic self-publishing package demands no extra charge to include graphics, tables, or footnotes in printed books—and returning authors are only charged $199 for print setup on their subsequent books (without cover design). While BookLocker seems to be the lowest priced of the self-publishing companies, many others offer prices that are not far behind. For similar services, Infinity Publishing charges $1,047, Lulu: $1,089, CreateSpace: $1,151, Llumina Publishing: $1,338, Trafford: $1,424, iUniverse: $1,449, Outskirts Press: $1,595, Xlibris: $1,673, AuthorHouse: $1,799, Dog Ear Publishing: $1,998, and Xulon Press: $2,396. These baseline self-publishing packages include a 200 page book with black-and-white interior print formatting, up to 25 interior photos, original color cover design, print proof, an ISBN for all editions, barcode, a listing on the publisher’s website, distribution by Ingram, basic ebook formatting and distribution, and if you submit your own cover, they will provide you feedback on it. Some also set up an Espresso edition of your book and even give you a couple free print copies. Need them in a hurry? Production time is within six short weeks. But if you are in an extra-hurry for $999 BookLocker will get your book out in two weeks, which hopefully is longer than it took you to write it. So, on the low end of the cost spectrum, self-published authors should look to spend in the neighborhood of $600 to $1,200 on a basic print package; up to another $100 for an ebook package; up to $150 for a basic cover design and anywhere from $200 to $1,800 for an advanced cover design. But...

A Zambian Author's Contestation of Common Perspectives on Self-Publishing

In the literature and in Zambia's public life, there exists a dichotomy of perceptions about published works. The works published by mainstream publishers are viewed as prestigious: in cultural circles, in firm opposition to self-published books, they are ‘the right thing to do’. This article seeks to problematise such perceptions. I discuss the Zambian publishing environment and my own experiences of self-publishing. I also explore ideological perspectives on the commonly assumed axioms that anchor the dichotomy of perceptions about published works. I maintain that literary products that enter the market should be judged according to their inherent appeal, quality, marketability and profitability, rather than their mode of publication.

There Was a Fire: Jews, Music, and the American Dream by Ben Sidran (review)

Reviewed by: There Was a Fire: Jews, Music, and the American Dream by Ben Sidran Judah M. Cohen There Was a Fire: Jews, Music, and the American Dream Ben Sidran. New York: Nardis Books, 2012. 372pp. Ben Sidran’s self-published book There Was a Fire (his publisher, Nardis, is Sidran backwards) presents the dilemma of subjecting an artist-cum-scholar to academic review. Sidran has extensive experience in the American popular music business, having produced and recorded numerous albums, worked in several musical genres, obtained a PhD in 1970, and released the “Jewish jazz” album Life’s a Lesson in 1993. Such background could have produced an interesting contribution to the emerging literature on Jews in the recording industry. Sidran’s choice to overextend his ambitions into a broad history of Jews in American music, however, offers little of scholarly value. Short on primary research and long on secondhand anecdotes, this [End Page 131] sermonic book and accompanying lecture CD (recorded at Los Angeles’s Skirball Cultural Center in January 2006) rehashes rather than enlightens. In telling his story, Sidran largely repackages the secondary literature he knows—biographies, journalistic accounts, and some historical scholarship—to emphasize Jews’ presence in and contributions to the American music industry. The resulting look-at-all-the-Jews safari presents American popular music as if it emerged from a largely homogenous Jewish communal experience in America. Jews, to Sidran, dominated everything from Tin Pan Alley to the Brill Building to Payola through the common trope of seeking acceptance—a perspective he emphasizes further on the CD. He consequently covers most of the major figures expected of Jews in popular music surveys, including Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, Steely Dan, and the Beastie Boys, with a number of lesser known songwriters and music executives added to the mix. Sidran follows a common technique in popular music writing by providing a torrent of details on his topic, reflecting an intimacy with the subject and insider knowledge of the music scene. But in this case those details ultimately serve a moral argument: Sidran calls on today’s Jews to reconnect with their communal roots in what he sees as a time of existential crisis. And perhaps predictably for someone of his generation, rap, hip-hop, and new technology take the fall for weakening a previously strong social and moral fabric. (As with most other topics in this book, his claim ignores decades of nuanced scholarly discussion, from Tricia Rose’s fundamental 1994 study Black Noise onward.) This technique can give the reader a feeling of immediacy; yet rather than scrutinizing his material, Sidran largely takes it at face value, carefully assembling facts from other books into a self-affirming claim for the place of Jewish identity in modern America, complete with proper apologetics (Jews may have exploited African Americans in the 1940s, for example, but everyone was exploiting everyone at the time [142–43]). Determined to show Jews’ “influence” in the pop music industry, he peppers the text with unsupported generalizations, such as “all the stories in the Bible were once magical songs” (6), “to have the story support the music [in musical theater] was a very Jewish concept” (51), “the Jews didn’t put the danger into the music [of the 1950s]; they gave that danger a context and a story” (166), “[the] resolution of apparent opposites . . . is directly connected to the classic Jewish experience” (198), and several unexplained references to artists’ “Talmudic” actions. These details lead to flights of fantasy, reproduced truism, and occasionally outright error. At the start of both his book and lecture, for example, [End Page 132] Sidran claims that Jews, at about 2% of the American population, are responsible for about 80% of America’s popular music—and then readily admits that he made up the figure (11). He calls cantillation symbols “talmim” rather than “te’amim” (9) and oddly attributes the Ramones’ use of Nazi imagery to Stockholm Syndrome (230). Several names of figures he doesn’t know personally are misspelled (Fiddler on the Roof creators Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick become “Bach” and “Harneck” [218], for example). His citations can be careless and incomplete...

Lifting the Impenetrable Veil: From Yellow Fever to Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever and SARS

Charlie Calisher is a great storyteller, and he probably has more stories to tell than anyone who has worked in the field of arbovirology. Throughout his 30-year distinguished virology career beginning at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to his current role as professor emeritus at the Colorado State University, Calisher has been a prolific researcher, writer, teacher, and mentor. The title phrase “lifting the impenetrable veil” originally appeared in a letter written in 1900 by Dr. Walter Reed to his wife, when he realized that he and his colleagues had shown that yellow fever was caused by a virus that was transmitted by mosquitoes. In his book, Calisher has recounted his version of arbovirus history and discovery in his unique blend of academic rigor and humorous personal interpretation. Established as a field in the late 1950s, arbovirology is the study of arboviruses (arthropod-borne viruses). Lifting the Impenetrable Veil is organized into an introduction, 16 chapters, and an appendix that provides 25 biographic profiles of arbovirology researchers. Throughout the book the reader catches glimpses of the many colorful characters who defined arbovirology, some in shaded insets that Calisher uses to provide humorous anecdotes, usually involving himself. I enjoyed the stories behind the many viral discoveries, especially the many lessons learned from the expansion of Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus into the Americas, the importation of West Nile Virus in the United States, and dengue reemergence worldwide. I appreciated learning about the pivotal role of the Rockefeller Foundation, founded in 1912, in professionalizing international health. I valued the clear explanations about the development of various laboratory procedures and the role they played in discovering and characterizing new viruses identified from the early 1900s to 2012. I even valued reading about the early development and current state of viral taxonomy. Most of all, I appreciated learning about fundamental epidemiologic and ecologic observations that helped elucidate aspects of arbovirus disease transmission, such as virus overwintering, transovarial transmission, and virus transmission by migrating birds. The later chapters read somewhat like a parade of researchers; however, it was still intriguing to read about these public health professionals and their pursuit of viral hemorrhagic fevers, bat-borne viruses, and Schmallenberg virus. I once had the good fortune of meeting Dr. Calisher and feel that reading his book is not unlike listening to him in person; i.e., you can’t help but smile and learn from his informative, opinionated, yet always down-to-earth storytelling. The experience is eclectic and memorable. Be warned: this book has minor shortcomings that are typical of self-published books, such as uneven editing. However, I strongly recommend this book for anyone interested in the history of virology, particularly researchers in the field of arbovirology.

Książki Janusza Korczaka na polskim rynku wydawniczym

The paper describes the development of the publishing market associated with the literary legacy of Janusz Korczak, since his first self-published book of 1901 to the present time (2011). The analysis includes all self-published printed works released in Poland during this period (also translations into Yiddish published before World War II) and books published abroad in Polish. The article focuses on several aspects related to the published legacy, such as publication of first editions, geographic and institutional reach, periodization and some library science features, for example being a part of a series, the artwork, author’s comments and editions. The varied number of editions of individual titles in the period indicates the changing popularity of certain content, which was due to specific editorial policy at the times of socialism in Poland as well as ideological and social changes affecting the reception of J. Korczak’s works after 1989.

Tarnished Gold by Steve Hickey and Hilary Roberts: EBM as An Avatar of Modern Medicine

Despite many passing references to contemporary frontiers of thought such as cybernetics and complexity theory, Tarnished Gold, a self-published book, leads the reader towards critical visions of clinical research enterprise that are more linked to the past than to the present or the future. Along the way, Evidence Based Medicine is taken as the enemy, but is consistently misrepresented. The authors are seriously under-informed regarding contemporary issues and controversies related to the design of clinical research as well as the cognitive aspects of clinical practice. They ignore the relevance of narrative and relationship-centered medicine to those issues and controversies. The actual challenges of healthcare in our time and its relationship to clinical research are largely avoided. As a result, “Tarnished Gold” fails to illuminate or inform lessons already learned from the controversies that have occurred since the appearance of EBM. More importantly, the authors fail to observe that the terms of the debate between EBM and its critics have changed in the direction of an integrative approach, based on considerations of not only the logic of scientific inference, but of contemporary understanding of clinical reasoning and of the forms of knowledge that underlie it. Some of those terms are addressed by this review.

Small Press and Self-Published Books: A Collection Development Dilemma

Small Press and Self-Published Books: A Collection Development Dilemma

The Power of Stories to Build Partnerships and Shape Change

This essay reflects on the power of storytelling and narrative in a collaborative partnership that engaged undergraduate pre-service English as Second Language (ESL) candidates and their professor with local ESL high school teachers, immigrant and refugee students, and their families. It describes how undergraduate students worked with teachers and students to collect stories and publish a multilingual book about their journeys, memories of home, and transitions into their new life in the United States. This project and the resulting self-published book, which was shared at several community and public events, exemplify the fundamentals of reciprocal and transformative partnerships. The nature and importance of such partnerships are examined, including recommendations for similar undertakings, and a discussion about how the book students and families were empowered by sharing their voices. It closes by examining how the book became a tangible means to transcend the initial partnership and to promoting new understandings and relationships through sustained community engagement.

Trading the Happy Object: Coffee, Colonialism, and Friendly Feeling

Trading the Happy Object: Coffee, Colonialism, and Friendly Feeling

Self-Published Books: An Empirical “Snapshot”

The number of books published by authors using fee-based publication services, such as Lulu and AuthorHouse, is overtaking the number of books published by mainstream publishers, according to Bowker’s 2009 annual data. Little empirical research exists on self-published books. This article presents the results of an investigation of a random sample of 348 books from a total population of 385,173 titles available from ninety-three fee-based publication services in 2008. Major findings include publication patterns within the nontraditional publishing industry, availability of self-published titles online and in libraries, state of bibliographic and cataloging control, and subject content of self-published books. The findings provide a baseline “snapshot” of books available from publication services in 2008, a time when the self-publishing industry was established but was still small enough to study overall. The article concludes with implications for librarians from this study of self-published books.