> some authors have had good luck with self-publishing
Indeed. What are the relative statistics on authors who have managed to bootstrap themselves vs. authors who make a comfortable living through the Big Five?
"The median income of full-time self-published authors in 2022 was $12,800 from books and $15,000 total from all author-related activities. Full-time self-published authors who had been publishing since at least 2018 reported a median income of $24,000 compared to $13,700 in 2018, a 76 percent increase."
Traditionally published commercial authors made about $10,000 more.
It’s not common, but it does happen. Andy Weir, author of “The Martian” and “Project Hail Mary”, originally gave his work away for free online on his website. He only self-published to Kindle (for the lowest possible price setting, 99 cents) because some of his fans didn’t know how or didn’t want to manually install his home-rolled ePubs on their devices, and begged him for the Amazon/Kindle distribution.
Indeed. What are the relative statistics on authors who have managed to bootstrap themselves vs. authors who make a comfortable living through the Big Five?