“Writer Colleen Dunn Bates … thought she had a good idea: to put together an upscale guidebook about her city — a kind of travel book for people who live there. And given the intensely local focus of the project, rather than dealing with a big New York publisher, she decided to publish it herself…. Almost a year later, ‘Hometown Pasadena’ has not only sold 10,000 copies, it has also turned into a small empire….”