Author cannot get published by traditional publishers for one or more reasons

• Author is unknown

• Topic is obscure

• Topic is controversial

• Topic is only of interest to a small geographic area or a small group of people

• Writing, style, or genre was rejected

• Author desires complete artistic freedom

• Author does not agree with editorial changes a publisher would make

• Author wants complete control over the books outcome, database, sales and customers

• Overall low publishing cost

• Author would prefer to publish content independently

Authors may choose to self-publish because they want control, because they want access to their customer list, or because they love the business of publishing. When working with a publisher, an author gives up a degree of editorial control, and sometimes has little input into the design of the book, its distribution, and its marketing. This has been a substantial motivator in the rise of comic book self-publishing.

In the late 1970s, creators such as Dave Sim and Wendy and Richard Pini chose — in spite of offers from publishers — to self-publish because they wanted to retain full ownership and control, and they believed they could do the job more effectively than a publisher. This was facilitated by the development of comic book specialty shops, and the distribution network that serves them, which is more open to small-publisher and self-published material than traditional bookstores have been. Numerous cartoonists have followed their example, and by the late 1990s the majority of comics in terms of titles were self-published.

They remain a small percentage of overall sales, however, with sales of a given book often falling short of 1000 copies. A similar movement took place in the music industry during the same period, coming largely out of the punk rock phenomenon.

Authors in a specialist area may be confident of a certain number of sales but also realise that the maximum number of sales is limited, and wish to maximize their earnings. In this situation, authors may risk a significant amount of their own capital to self-publish. This avoids a publisher taking any part of the proceeds and, if also self-distributed, avoids distribution fees as well. The payoff is a much larger percentage of the sale price being returned as profit.