Self-publishing isn't necessarily about making money and hitting the charts

It can also be a way for writers with a day job to avoid agents, publishers and other moneymen. Sameer Rahim:

You can distribute poems and stories on social media – the equivalent of the Renaissance poet handing sheaves of poems to friends – or self-publish them on a website or as an e-book, charging a nominal amount or nothing. So far online self-publishing has been the preserve of fan fiction and erotica but it can’t be long before high-quality fiction starts to emerge. Right now there is a distressed writer sitting in front of her computer somewhere, worrying not about whether she’ll make enough money to give up the day job or how many copies she will sell, but obsessing over form and language, meaning and truth. Exactly what, in the long term, readers will always be hungry for.