Dan was a world-renowned author and speaker whose motto was “No one should die with a book inside them.” So many of us are published authors thanks to his 1979 book The Self-Publishing Manual — a guide that encouraged and taught writers how to navigate the process long before self-publishing became the far more accessible phenomenon it is today.
Dan, who died on November 1, 2015, at age 77 from complications of cancer and a fall, was a beloved figure in the book industry. Publishers Weekly called him a “self-publishing pioneer.”
An aviation professional who began his career with the management of a parachute company in California and went on to design parachutes, Dan’s first self-publishing adventure was one that followed his passion: He had written a technical treatise on parachutes that he was pretty sure no publisher would want. And just like that, Dan was a publisher.
