For example, the comfortable English squire, Edward Fitzgerald, who paid to publish his masterpiece The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. He placed 100 copies in the window of a local bookstore. There it attracted the attention of the noted painter, poet and leader of the pre-Raphaelites, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who was so impressed with The Rubaiyat he bought all of the dealer's copies to send to his friends. Thus started the groundswell of acclaim for this international best-seller which has sold in the millions and is still going strong!

Edgar Allan Poe was unknown in the United States in 1827 when he published, at his own expense, Tamerlane and Other Poems, "By A Bostonian." Very few copies were sold, and few copies now exist. Yet a first edition of Poe's book is now worth thousands of dollars!