The author of this book is a friend of a friend. I don't know him, never met him.
http://www.amazon.com/Monster-Hunter...mm_mmp_title_0
The story is that he wrote it, and no publishing company was interested. So he self-published. Promoted it the best he could, and the books moved and sold. He returned to one of the publishing houses that had rejected the book, and showed them his sales figures, and they decided to pick it up.
Currently ranked about #50,000 on Amazon, which is not too shabby for some random dude who was just recently self-publishing.
Baen has bought the option for a 2nd and 3rd book in the series.
Of course, some people are too proud to self-publish. They think they have written the great American novel, and turn up their nose to anything published by a place like Baen.
But hell, the guy wrote something, and people are reading it, and it is promoted and sold. Is that so terrible?