Self-publishing is not a new phenomenon. Indeed, it was commonly practiced in the 19th and 20th centuries; the fact that Dostoyevski (incidentally, one of the pioneers of crowdfunding) asked his friends for money to finance his books, that Nietzsche paid for the self-publishing of 50 copies of “Thus spoke Zarathustra” out of his own pocket and that Lewis Carroll did the same thing with “Alice in Wonderland”, as did Marcel Proust, Alexandre Dumas, Rudyard Kipling, Mark Twain, Edgar Alan Poe, George Bernard Shaw and Ernest Hemingway, is not something to be overlooked. All of these writers started off as independent authors in the days when paying for the publication of books out of one's own pocket was not looked down on and those who wished to make their work known could use their own means, without shame, to reach a limited audience without being treated with contempt. First and foremost, because it was considered that the author in question believed in his work to the extent that he was willing to invest in it.
Self-publishing platforms cannot be overlooked. They are technological companies that publish, distribute and promote on demand. They are fast and have a large portfolio of authors. One of the key elements of this decade (2010–2020) will be the consolidation of self-publishing in the book world. In this context of change, the objective of the study “Indie Authors: The Self-publishing Revolution” is to provide professionals in the book world — be they publishers, agents, authors, booksellers or librarians — with a broad analysis of the impact of self-publishing in the publishing sector so that each one may establish the business opportunities and advantages of self-publishing.
