In May, the University of Chicago Press will publish A Naked Singularity, a 700-page debut novel that Sergio De La Pava self-published in 2008 through Xlibris.
The story behind the book deal may inspire more literary authors to self-publish. In an email, Chicago Press promotions director Levi Stahl recounted how he discovered the self-published book:
late in 2010 I read a review by Scott Bryan Wilson in the Quarterly Conversation that said the novel was the best he’d read all year, maybe the best of the decade. And that praise, I discovered, had led to other critics picking it up—and they all agreed: it was brilliant, and it was a shame that no publisher had signed it. I got a copy, was blown away, and started rattling cages here at Chicago to convince people we should publish the book and give it a shot at reaching a wide audience. And in the midst of all the usual gloom and doom stories about the changing world of publishing, this one looks to be a story of success:, of a great book finding an audience—and then finding a publisher—through the conversations and opportunities that the Web has made possible. Without cheap digital publishing technology, the book would never have existed; without the Web, I would never have heard about it.
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