A story appeared in this week’s “School Library Journal” with the headline “Lerner Publishing Celebrates 50 Years in the Kids Book Biz.” Today Lerner Publishing Group publishes 300 titles each year for children and young adult, but it all started when the founder, Harry Lerner wrote and self-published a guidebook five decades ago.

According to the article, in 1956 Lerner launched his publishing career by writing and publishing a guidebook on automobiles while he was a soldier stationed in Germany. After he returned to the States, Lerner switched his focus to publishing children’s books. The first year, 1959, he published four children’s books written by his sister-in-law. His efforts have evolved from an idea to a few books written by him and then relatives to an international presence in the world of publishing.

There have, of course, been many such self-publishing success stories throughout the centuries. At Dorrance Publishing, we are reminded of Doris Paul, our author of “Navajo Code Talkers” which has been honored by the Smithsonian, featured on CBS, and was the basis for the major motion picture “Codetalkers.” And then there’s Dorrance author A.R. Ammons who published his first book of verse with Dorrance and went on to win both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Ken Bruen, also an award winning author and very popular contemporary mystery writer, published his first book with Dorrance almost twenty years ago. His career is still going strong.With all the current press about how technology has made self-publishing such a good option for many authors, it is good to remember the long history of authors who self-published before the age of the Internet and print on demand and who achieved success on their own terms.