This isn’t a great article–it doesn’t give much new information–but I thought I’d share it to show how the changing publishing marketplace is making headlines even outside of writers’ circles.
Five years ago, printing your own book was stigmatized and was seen as a mark of failure.
“But now,” says Dana Beth Weinberg, a sociologist at Queens College who is studying the industry, “the self-published authors walk into the room, and they say, oh, well, ‘I made a quarter million dollars last year, or $100,000, or made $10,000.’ And it is still more than what some of these authors are making with their very prestigious contracts.”
Weinberg says there is still a strong financial case to be made for publishing books the old-fashioned way, but there are now many well-known independent authors who have made a fortune self-publishing online.
I’m not sure what to believe, and it looks like there isn’t really clear data either way. (Here’s what I know about writers’ rates by type of publication, though.) It’s still such a smoke-and-mirrors, get-lucky business. What do y’all think?
M.E. Kinkade 