The real game changer to self-publishing was Amazon when it introduced Kindle Direct Publishing in 2007. In the past 10 years, the phenomenon of self-publishing grew massively with the help of Amazon, Wattpad and other online publishing tools. Yes, Jane Austen’s ‘Sense and Sensibility’ actually has something in common with ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’: self-publishing. Although self-publishing might appear as the new buzzword, it is not a novel phenomenon in the publishing industry.Įven though self-publishing was a practice some authors adopted in the 18th and 19th centuries, the distribution methods and number of copies were often limited. For instance, Jane Austen privately published Sense and Sensibility in 1811, and Mark Twain self-published The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in 1885. However, there is a much richer history of self-publishing that goes further back than its digital counterpart.Ī number of prominent authors started off by privately printing their work. The phenomenon of self-publishing is often linked to online book production methods, which allow authors to produce an ebook with a few strokes of the keyboard, making their work available to a global audience. However, these assumptions are based on a limited knowledge of contemporary self-publishing practices. A few consider it a get-rich-quick-scheme. Others condemn it because of the lack of gatekeepers to assess the content being produced. Some people commend self-publishing as a great way to ensure that audiences can access a diversity of genres and voices that have traditionally been marginalized by mainstream publishers. Today, it is much easier to appeal to a niche audience than it was 10 years ago. This is an interesting time in publishing and other areas of the cultural industries, because the roles of gatekeepers are changing. Violence dressed up as erotica: Fifty Shades of Grey and abuse Others discussed how it harmed women’s already fragile role in a patriarchal world, or commended it for starting dialogue around BDSM - and enticing more authors to experiment with niche topics and self-publishing. Some people critiqued the book for linking sex and violence without delving into the level of communication required to make BSDM safe and truly consentual.
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