Bookshelf

Mass Authorship and the Rise of Self-Publishing

In Tim Laquintano’s book, for which he won the 2016 Computers and Composition Distinguished Book Award, follows four groups of writers who self-published: recreational fiction writers, writers who self-published and hit a best-seller list, memoir writers, and accomplished poker players who wrote technical manuals about the game.

Laquintano, an associate professor of English, was studying online communication when he met professional internet poker players who were publishing their own books.

“Conventional wisdom was that quality books would need a publisher to vet the work, but these players were going through the whole process without them,” he says. “So I started researching the question of where the work of publishing went when there were no publishers.”

One of the points he makes in Mass Authorship is that self-published writers don’t need to land a contract with a major publishing house to feel successful.

The book was published by University of Iowa Press. “Self-publishing doesn’t happen all that often in academic writing, especially for new academics who need publishers and peer reviewers to vet their ideas,” he says. “So ironically I never considered self-publishing my book about self-publishing.”