Self-publishing has been high profile recently but it was in a video promoting Howard Fast's books that I learned that his novel Spartacus was self-published because he had been blacklisted for refusing to answer Joe McCarthy's questions during the hunt for Communists. After that, publishers refused to handle his books.
He was sentenced to three months in prison for contempt of Congress. While in jail he researched and wrote Spartacus. Fast published and marketed the book himself, taking out display ads in newspapers, and it became a hit.
He started his own publishing venture, Blue Heron Publishing and released several more books under its banner.
Starting in 1960 he published mysteries under the pen name E. V. Cunningham--nineteen in all. Also in 1960, Spartacus was turned into a major Hollywood move, breaking the blacklist. (By the way, he was a Communist, but left the Party when the truth came out in 1956 about Stalin's brutal purges and show trials.)
He was an incredibly prolific writer. His work included fiction, non-fiction, screenplays, poetry--more than 80 in all. He died in 2003. Open Road is releasing many of his books in ebook form. One of them, April Morning, includes an illustrated biography of Fast.
Here's a 3.5 minute video about him, featuring his wife, son and daughter-in-law (Erica Jong).
(If you want to write, join my online Writing Breakthrough Strategy Program. It starts on Jan. 16, 2012 and goes for 8 weeks, with weekly lessons, bi-weeklly phone calls, videos, audios, all designed to help ou write what only you can write. See http://WritingBreakthroughStrategy.com)
