Age of self-publishing

Not at all. In America's early days, the person who owned the press was usually the author, publisher and printer.

Many authors got their start by self-publishing: Mark Twain, Zane Grey, Upton Sinclair, Carl Sandburg, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Ezra Pound, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Stephen Crane, Mary Baker Eddy, George Bernard Shaw, Edgar Allen Poe, Rudyard Kipling, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, and many, many more.

In the modern era, Ken Blanchard's multi-million copy best seller - the One Minute Manager - started out as a self-published book. Many other excellent contemporary authors have sold thousands of their self-published books.

Self-publishing is becoming more popular today for two closely intertwined reasons. First, technology has opened up the opportunity for the average person with something to say to publish their book. Second, they can do so without going through the often disfunctional traditional publishing industry.