Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski is selling copies of his show's scripts online. That in itself is not the biggest deal in the world, but the way he's doing it is: via CafePress' print on demand service.

I knew Joe Straczynski back when I was doing Star Trek, and our paths crossed often in the little Sci-Fi world where we both lived. He always struck me as a passionate, driven, intensely independent man. I always got the feeling that if he'd been able to do Babylon 5 entirely on his own, from creation to distribution, he would have. It's not surprising to me, at all, that he's taking complete control and selling his scripts this way. And I hate to disagree with him, but he isn't the first person to take control and release his material this way. I did this with Dancing Barefoot three years ago, and after signing with a traditional publisher for my second book, Just A Geek, and enjoying all the frustrations and reduced earnings that resulted, I'll be following Joe and self-publishing my next book, as well.

Of course, everyone who self-publishes (including me) isn't going to earn the 1.5 million that Straczynski is expected to pull in with his work; most people will be lucky to tell a few hundred units. But that's not really the point. The point here is that anyone with a creative drive and a computer can share their work with an audience, with very little financial risk or upfront costs. An entire generation of geeks, raised on Watchmen, Twilight Zone, FPS games, and broadband Internet is now poised to release the next Rod Serling, Gene Roddenberry, or J. Michael Straczynski, and he (or she) will arrive, on the Internet, via self-publishing, blogging, or a combination of both.