The publishing industry, much like any industry, has had guidelines, checks and balances in place for its entire lifespan. Even before literature started being published for the sake of entertainment rather than solely education or the spread of religion, there were strict rules in place as to who was permitted to reproduce books and what methods were permissible (as an example: prior to the advent of the printing press in the west by goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg, the only people who were permitted to reproduce the Bible were monks, scribes, and other church officials primarily using the exceedingly expensive material vellum in place of paper). This has led to certain genres and topics being considered either ‘low brow’ or undesirable, also in part due to how capital has become a larger and larger focus of publishers over the years, which in turn was one of the things which helped popularize the act of indie publishing over the past few hundred years.
The emergence of indie publishing was helped in no small part by the Arts and Crafts Movement. The roots of the movement began with various retaliatory groups and figures which began to gain popularity during the industrial revolution of Britain between the 18th and 19th centuries. One such figure, and the primary inspiration behind the Arts and Crafts movement, was a man by the name of William Morris who was a textile designer, poet, translator, and notable socialist activist. Morris, as an artisan by trade, was one of the many who felt as though the Industrial Revolution was a threat to the handcrafted arts of the United Kingdom, as the push to favour standardized machine-made goods (which were cheaper and faster to produce than handcrafted goods) gradually saw trade artisans lose valuable customers and, thus, their livelihoods. He would eventually found Kelmscott Press after a long career in various political and social causes, such as campaigning against architectural restoration and being a dedicated member of the Social Democratic Federation after embracing Marxism in the 1880s (although he was also influenced by ideas of Anarchism). Kelmscott Press was a small independent publishing house which focused on publishing limited-edition hand-illustrated books, and the impact of such a house ran by a notable social figure was even felt in the United States.
While the Arts and Crafts Movement began in England, the States were quick to adopt its core ideas of rejecting standardized modernity and taking matters into their own hands for the sake of obtaining more freedom with the art they produced, although the socialist overtones of its British counterpart were largely lost in America. Despite this difference, Morris was also touted as a seminal figure of the Movement in North American countries, something which can be seen even today in the existence of multiple branches of the William Morris Society which can be found in Washington DC in the U.S, Toronto in Canada, and Hammersmith in England. It was, in part, Morris’ ideas and actions which helped the indie publishing scene eventually flourish in these countries, although it was not until the early 1940s that the term ‘vanity publishing’ was first popularized to refer to independent publishing houses. It was also during this time period that pulp magazines, publications focusing on more ‘gritty’ stories that involved anything from sex to homosexuality to gore as a focal point, had reached their peak in popularity – these magazines having been almost entirely indie publications from their very inception in the late 1800s as major publishing houses deemed the stories unfit for publication based on things such as length, subject, and especially genre as stories revolving around ‘unseemly’ topics (queerness and violence especially) were deemed too ‘improper’ and ‘low-brow’ for publication, or the publishing house was afraid that it would not see a return on investment should the story (or stories) be published. These attitudes are a primary reason for the taboo following the horror genre as a whole to this day.
Another reason indie and self-publishing has continued to grow in popularity is money. Currently, the cost to an aspiring author looking to publish their first book using traditional methods (that being signing a contract with a publishing house, such as Penguin Random House or HarperCollins) is nothing. Publishing houses cover the cost of editing, cover design, marketing, and any other expense associated with the release of a novel – this is in stark contrast to self-publishing, where an aspiring author could pay anywhere from 500 to 2000 GBP. Major publishing houses also offer ‘advances’ to their authors, these being a non-refundable payment that an author receives upon signing a contract. Despite this initial difference, publishing with a major house would mean that an author would, on average, see a very small percentage of royalties from the sales of their book(s) – that being anywhere between 15 and 20%, on top of the fact that the author is only paid royalties after the publishing house has made back all the money that went into services (editing, cover design, etc.) surrounding the publication of that book, something which can weigh heavily on authors who cannot live without their royalties. Indie publishing, on the other hand, typically grants an author 30-70% of their royalties, making it more financially viable in the long term for most of today’s aspiring authors.
Independent publishing has a long and storied history that continues to this day. The act of taking art into one’s own hands has inherent ties to political movements (anarchism, socialism, and Marxism) as a result of people like William Morris who spearheaded the Arts and Crafts Movement, emphasizing that, at the end of the day, art is for the people and by the people, rejecting standardization and genre-based scorn. Without indie publishing, many stories that don’t ‘fit’ into society’s idea of propriety would have never been published (notable examples of such stories include Legends & Lattes and Angels Before Man), especially as indie authors typically see a significantly larger amount of money in royalty percentage compared to traditionally published authors.
Bibliography
Beyer, Greg. “What is Pulp Fiction? (More than Just a Movie)” TheCollector.com, March 12, 2023, https://www.thecollector.com/what-is-pulp-fiction/. Accessed 6 June 2025
Hagye, Sara. Industrialization: Architecture’s Resistance and Adaptation, www.eiu.edu/historia/Hagye.pdf. Accessed 4 June 2025.
Herklots, H.G.G. “The Look and Feel of the First Bibles | Christian History Magazine.” Christianhistoryinstitute.Org, Christian History Institute, christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/look-and-feel-of-the-first-bibles. Accessed 6 June 2025.
Obniski, Monica. “The Arts and Crafts Movement in America.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1 June 2008, www.metmuseum.org/essays/the-arts-and-crafts-movement-in-america. Accessed 4 June 2025
Renauld, Marie-Madeleine. “The Effects Of The Industrial Revolution vs. Arts & Crafts Movement” TheCollector.com, July 24, 2020, https://www.thecollector.com/industrial-revolution-arts-and-crafts/. Accessed 5 June 2025
The William Morris Society, 1 Apr. 2025, williammorrissociety.org/. Accessed 4 June 2025