I would imagine (just from discussions among various published authors and publishing personnel) that most hybrid authors are trade published who have self-published their backlists. As you note, it really is more complicated than these graphs show as far as the hybrid authors. It would be interesting to see a more detailed breakdown of that category itself.

Agreed, I wish we could see a breakdown of income/manuscript independent and traditional. I'd also be interested to know what the graph of # of manuscripts by author income would look like.

That is a very interesting read, and something that everyone should try to learn from.

The numbers are misleading. Income probably has more to do with book quality than publication method. Traditionally published books represent a certain standard of quality. ("quality" does not necessarily mean "artistic merit", but rather "enjoyable to read".) For every hundred or thousand manuscripts sent to a publisher, they select the few that entice the reader the most. The numbers indicate little more than the obvious fact that a book that entices the reader will sell more copies than a book that does not.

I'm just shocked that aspiring authors only make $0.

Wait...

On the contrary, 10% of aspiring authors make up to $5k.

I'm surprised that they actually make anything. Once they make something, it must, logically, be because they've been published; the only question is whether traditionally or self-pub.

Right, and in which case they are no longer merely aspiring authors.

I found this last week and thought it very interesting. I saved it as a bookmark. Glad you have posted it here (I was not sure how to do it!) It has loads of information covered from many angles.

Ok. You always check the dates of the threads moose. I really need to start doing that!