Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemurion
I think you're missing my point, I'm not saying that self-publishing is bad, I'm saying that this study is flawed and that those flaws make it impossible to use it to draw meaningful conclusions. It's cheerleading presented as analysis. [...]
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I don't think fjtorres is missing your point, it's just that you're looking for different things. The Report makes it quite clear that it's looking at the most successful books, and in that context its numbers reveal some quite useful information: that independent publishing successes are now well beyond a few outliers; the numbers compare at least competitively (in terms of volume) to traditional publishing; and the compare better in terms of author income. There is nothing in the report to indicate you are more likely to have a successful book by taking one route or another - because that data simply isn't available.
If you were to try and take the complete picture of sales, not just the top, and attempted to make similar comparisons you would no longer be comparing apples with apples. You would be comparing (excuse me mixing my metaphors here) only the cream of traditional publishing (what made it past the agents auto-rejection, and what made it up out of the publisher slush piles), with the entire vat full of milk from independent publishing.
By taking a look at only the top of the pyramid the report lets us see what success looks like in either form. It tells us nothing about how that success was achieved, or how likely it is. It does tell us, in clearer terms than I've seen before, that independent publishing forms a big part of the top of the pyramid. It doesn't mean that it's easier to get there than it was, which ever path you take, but it does show that choosing independent publishing will not exclude you from the top, and offers strong suggestion that it may mean a better result, financially, if you ever do make it that far.
The other thing that I like about the report is that it seems to show that the public slush pile system is working - after a fashion. Which is not to say there aren't still good books buried down in the slush somewhere, but that is as true of the public slush pile as it is of the hidden traditional publisher slush piles. The difference being that ones in the public pile have a chance, however slim, of eventually being recognised.