"[Barry Eisler], who has been a NY Times Best Selling author of a variety of thrillers, has turned down a $500,000 publishing deal from a mainstream publisher, in order to self-publish his next book." (techdirt)
Warren Adler (War of the Roses and others) - has done the same. As the publishing contracts run out he is entirely self publishing his work.
I think you will find quite a few bestselling, and mid-list writers doing the same. There are bigger dollars to be made by cutting the publishers out of the stream. If you already have a following, then why not? It's a win, win situation for the author.
Reminds me of how the big music artists used to start their own record companies to cut out the middle man. Today, it's much easier and cheaper to publish music and even the small artists do it themselves on the Internet.
Wow, that's cool. Graphic novelist, Howard Tayler, has done the same and published on his own. He's doing quite well.
Sounds like a pretty risky venture if you're just starting out though. I certainly support the idea of making your own name. It's a long and hard road to follow and a lot of the time, I suspect that aspiring writers only know about the people who succeeded in doing this. In this economy, if someone offered me half a million for anything I've written, I'd be hard pressed to refuse it. Ever see Wayne's World, when Rob Lowe shows Mike Meyers the contract and the checks for five thousand dollars? That'd be me, more or less.
As Kevin mentioned there is much less risk for writers who already have a solid fan base, and few reasons not to self-publish. The self-publishing part is easy, and cheap. The tough part is making sure the product is good -- well written and meticulously edited -- and finding readers. The single largest advantage a publishing house has is its marketing and distribution chain. A self-publish author witrhout a "name" has to beat the streets to get a book noticed locally, let alone on a national scale.
He self-publishes that web comic in collections, and makes a living off it. It's awful hard to make a living off of ad revenue.
