In this dynamic world of literature, there are many outstanding authors, who are self-made and famous. Those days are gone when self-publishing was a qualm. Many authors write a book but find it difficult when it comes to print their book or find publishers, so they are heading towards self-publishing. LitGleam would like to enlighten you all with some famous authors who chose self-publishing, let’s have a look;
1.Amish Tripathi:
Amish Tripathi is one of the successful Indian Authors, he wasn’t from a wealthy background, what he did, he did on his own. Amish Tripathi gave up his fourteen years old career to focus on writing. In 2010, Amish Tripathi launched his first book ‘THE IMMORTALS OF MELUHA’. He never chose to give up after getting rejected over 20 times by publishing companies, then he chose to self-publish his book, ‘THE IMMORTALS OF MELUHA’. Amish Tripathi invested in marketing and asked his agent to invest in printing. When Bluerose went through one of his interviews, Amish Tripathi said ‘During his book launch, he was not sure about his book success or he never thought of getting his money back ‘. Shiva’s trilogy of ‘THE IMMORTALS OF MELUHA’ is considered one of the best series in India and created a record of the bestselling author within the week of launch. The first series name of Shiva’s trilogy is, ‘THE IMMORTALS OF MELUHA’, followed by ‘THE SECRETS OF NAGAS’ and ‘THE OATH OF VAYAPUTRAS’.
According to Forbes, Amish Tripathi’s books earn more than 16 crores. Bluerose would like to mention that DHARMA PRODUCTIONS bought the movie rights of his first book. Amish Tripathi kept the first chapter of the book free of cost whereas more than 40,000 copies of his first book were sold and Westland bought the rights of his book. The book was translated into various languages like HINDI, MARATHI, TELUGU, KANNADA, BENGALI, ASSAMESE, TAMIL, MALAYALAM, SPANISH, PORTUGUESE, BAHASA INDONESIAN, and ESTONIAN. To remain in demand, the book was reprinted numerous times and was highly successful.
2.E.L James
E.L James is known for her ‘FIFTY SHADES OF GREY’ trilogy and is one of the most successful authors in the world. E.L James started the Fifty shades of grey trilogy as a fanfiction of a Twilight Series. After writing her sensual trilogy, she self-published her first book as an e-book, and then on-demand she printed it. Her book was loved by many people and became popular. Later on, her erotic trilogy was adapted into a movie and that movie was hit. The 2nd series of her trilogy FIFTY SHADES DARKER was published in 2012 and the 3rd series FIFTY SHADES FREED was published in 2015. Later on, after FIFTY SHADES OF GREY, both the sequence was adapted into a movie as well.
The first series of the trilogy revolves around a college girl named Anastasia Steele, who was doing a major in Literature at Washington State University, and Wealthy Seattle Entrepreneur Christian Grey. It was memorable for its most erotic scenes accentuating elements of sexual practices like BDSM (bondage/discipline, dominance/submission, and sadism/masochism). The trilogy of Fifty Shades of Grey was recorded as a bestselling book worldwide, selling over 125 million copies by June 2015 and set a record for the fastest-selling paperback in the United Kingdom of all time.
3. Charles Dickens
A successful British author Charles Dickens wrote ‘A CHRISTMAS CAROLS’ in just six weeks being under financial pressure. Charles Dickens was so frustrated with his publishers over the poor earnings on his previous novel. When Charles Dickens failed to popularize his book The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, he decided to self publish, A Christmas Carol, which later became a huge success Charles Dickens rejected an amount for the Tale. He chose a percentage of the profits in hopes of making more money and self-published his book. He only earned £250 though he expected to make £1000 and he was deeply disappointed.
The London literary magazine, Athenaeum said, “A tale to make the reader laugh and cry to open his hands, and open his heart to charity even toward the uncharitable … a dainty dish to set before a King.”However, the novel remained popular and has been adapted in many films, stage, and operas.
4. Rupi Kaur:
At such a young age of 21 years old, Rupi Kaur wrote her first poetry collection of MILK AND HONEY, even though she was a university student. Later on Rupi Kaur’s book, Milk and Honey was picked up by a traditional publishing company. Rupi Kaur used her talent and strategy to sell over 8 million copies of her first 2 poetry of collection’s copies. All books of hers published to date have been headlined on the NYT Bestsellers list schweiz-libido.com. When LitGleam went through her interview with THE TIMES OF INDIA, for Rupi Kaur self-publishing meant taking control of her book, without depending on anyone else’s approval. She explained that self-publishing gave her the power to overcome all kinds of barriers she has faced “The literary world didn’t even see me. I was a 20-year-old, brown, Punjabi Sikh woman from a working-class immigrant family”.
5. Adhitya Iyer-
Adhitya Iyer raised crowd findings around 14,000 AUD from more than 300 individuals across the globe to fund his book. It was one of the biggest crowd projects. Adhitya Iyer’s book became the highest crowdfunded book in India and 6th in Asia. After the crowdfunding, the author went on a trip to understand the emotions and stories of engineers and how Indians are obsessed with this profession. Adhitya Iyer’s book also featured places like Kakadeo in Kanpur UP which is also known as Mandi.Adhitya Iyer was pursuing engineering but later on, he realized that he is not meant for him. After his college, he founded Annanymous, a T-shirt brand that was based on an engineering theme. Before writing his book, he spent 2 years selling Chai in Bangalore. According to Adhitya Iyer, society should reconsider doing something and spending half of their lives which they hardly enjoy.
6. Ashwin Sanghi
In 2007, Ashwin Sanghi self-published his first book THE ROZABAL LINE. Ashwin Sanghi sent over 100 requests to publishers and literary agents to publish his first book, but all of them rejected him. Not only THE ROZABAL LINE but he is the author behind the bestselling novels such as CHANAKYA’s CHANT and PRIVATE INDIA: City on fire. After getting rejected by several publishers, he chose not to give up and self-published his book. When LitGleam gone through one of his interviews, Ashwin Sanghi said that he went to a book store and saw his books kept in a corner with dust on it. He cleaned the dust and put it in the bestselling stack. However, a few weeks later, his book was in the bestselling rack. When the book went to the initial success, the revised version was published in 2008. The Hindu, one of India’s National dailies said, The book deals in greater depth with the issue of Christ’s union with Mary Magdalene touched upon by The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown as well as incorporating postulates of several other books, including Jesus Lived in India: Life Before and After the Crucifixion by Holger Kersten and Jesus Died In Kashmir: Jesus, Moses and The Ten Lost Tribes Of Israel by Andreas Kaiser.”
7. Savi Sharma
Savi Sharma is one of the youngest authors who gave up her CA studies to become an author. When she wrote her book, she knew that her story was good and people should read and from there she opted for the self-publishing route. In one of her interviews, she mentioned that if she had gone the traditional way then she would have had to wait for months because she knew she had a good story to show the world. She sold over 100,000 copies of her first book. When Savi Sharma self-published her book, she picked content from her book and posted it creatively on social media sites, and that went viral. She ran some Facebook ads to reach more people online and it worked. And that’s how her book stood #1 on Amazon and other sites.
8. Andy Weir
Andy Weir believed that traditional publishing houses will not accept his manuscript, so instead of facing defeat, Andy Weir picked some portion of his fiction and posted it as a blog where he received positive responses from the audience. Andy Weir then decided to self-publish his first book THE MARTIAN as an e-book and became the #1 Amazon bestseller. His book sold 3 million copies and the film grossed over $630,000,000 worldwide. Later, the movie THE MARTIAN was nominated for Oscar starring famous actor Matt Damon.
9. Christopher Paolini
When Christopher Paolini was a 15 hears old kid he started writing ERAGON, and at the age of 19 with the help of his parents, he self-published his epic fantasy children’s novel. One year later, he was approached by RANDOM HOUSE and offered him a deal to publish his book Eragon and the rest of the INHERITANCE CYCLE. This happened because Christopher Paolini began to promote his book and ventured the USA book tour where he showed up in schools, fests, libraries, bookshops, etc. His book was sold over 35 million copies and in 2011 received a Guinness Record for being the ” Youngest Author of Bestselling Book”.
10. WILLIAM P. YOUNG
William P.Young’s first book The Shack was aimed at his six kids and for some friends. In the beginning, he only printed 15 copies of his manuscript. William P.Young’s two friends motivated him to get his manuscript published, and also helped him with editing and rewriting for publication. However, 26 publishing houses rejected him, and in 2007 Young and his friends decided to self-publish the book under the name of their self-made company Windblown Media. To date, the book sold over 10,000,000 copies and was adapted into a Hollywood movie as well.
