Saturday, December 22, 2007

Famous self-published authors... or not--veinglory

I am going to piggy back off a great blog post by Jim C Hines

Which of the following authors self-published?
1. John Grisham
2. Christopher Paolini
3. Mark Twain
4. James Redfield
5. William Strunk, Jr.
6. Louis L'Amour
7. L. Frank Baum

Answers here.

I do get tired of the range of centuries old, misleading or just plain wrong examples are given of self-publishing leading to mainstream success. Real examples do exist but often not involving names every person would know. It does happen, but not often. Realism is called for.

1 comment:

PubGuy said...

Hey All:
I thought it might be interesting to compile a list of authors that have been launched from POD to traditional publishing. Having worked at iUniverse, I know of a few from there. They include Laurie Notaro, Jennifer Colt, Brian Wiprud and Lynn Harris.

Another author, Elle Newmark, recently had her book, Bones of the Dead picked up. It's scheduled for release in the fall. Six-figure deal.

Vince Flynn is another that started with what I call old-school self-publishing and went on to traditional publishing success.

I seem to recall a former Xlibris author named Ted Somethingorother that has done well also. Anybody know who I'm talking about there?

Others we can add to the list?