Heard the one about the two English actors who collected he scribblings of their dearly departed mate, published them, and made a fortune? Take a bow, John Hemming and Henry Condell, who saved for posterity the works of William Shakespeare.
Some 400 years later, a growing band of entrepreneurs is following them into self-publishing. Cheap digital printing, smart design software, the internet and developments in the book trade have sparked a boom. Whether it's your mother's favourite recipes, a manual on how to catch moles or The 237 Best B Films That You Probably Never Saw on Video, pretty much all you have to do as a self-publisher is decide on the print run and cover design.
There are now at least 12 companies in Britain, alone, offering self-publishing - a trend that's caught the attention of the big publishers. After selling well over the internet or by mail order, about 40 self-published novels were picked up by major British publishers in the past 18 months - most having been originally rejected.
Successful, smaller, niche-focused publishers such as Chameleon Press in Hong Kong and Indonesia's Equinox also create opportunities for writers away from the western market. And translations are tipped for big growth, after acclaimed books by European authors championed by independent publisher Harvill Press and three well-received novels by Chinese writers (Ma Jian's The Noodle Maker, Xialuo Guo's The Village of Stone and Su Tong's My Life as Emperor).
The stigma of self-publishing has been softened by six-figure advances for the likes of Graham Taylor. An Anglican priest, former policeman, druid and punk rocker, he sold his motorbike to help raise the #3,500 he needed to publish his first book, Shadowmancer, a children's fantasy. Word of mouth led Faber & Faber to buy the rights, pushing it into the best-seller charts. A US publisher last year paid #300,000 (HK$4.3 million) for the rights.
Lynne Truss' Eats, Shoots and Leaves, a treatise against bad punctuation, was snapped up by independent publisher Profile Books. It has sold nearly a million copies.