William Blake (1757-1827) produced books in a total act of self-publishing. He wrote the text, made relief etchings of the text (as mirror image) and the illustrations, printed and hand colored the pages.
Look at an egyptian papyrus with text and image done by hand
Look at a 20th century Russian self-publication
Look at cave paintings (20,000 year old self-publishing)
Look at a contemporary American self-published artist book
Copyight 1996 Text by Richard Minsky, Blake images thanks to Steven Marx of The Blake Multimedia Project