Reply #143: No, they got lucky. Look at Amanda Hocking.

[joshcryer]

Your writing is not better than Amanda Hocking's, nor is mine. She is merely prolific as fuck and sticks to it and has filled an incredible niche. She's rich. Richer than you'll ever be, because she got lucky. And she did it all without these bizarre publishing mantras that are thrown around.

Of course, now Hocking has a real true blue publishing deal, because the publishers want to make fucking money, and they know that by contracting with her they get to make money by taking from the writer. She considers it a fair deal because it takes much of the weight off of her (no need to edit, no need to make covers, by-lines, formatting, etc, etc). And you would probably consider it a fair deal because you might be entrenched in the business side of things.

I myself prefer to go it alone and say fuck all to these third parties who want to take profits from me, because in the end my works are going to be pirated, so it'd be foolish to not only be pirated but also be stolen from by companies who pretend that they have something to offer me that isn't worth what they're charging.