I'm with GA Russell. Viva Lulu (
here and
here). Smashwords is another one for ebooks, which I will explore either when I have something without formatting problems or when I become an expert in epub creation. In the meantime, I will be glad to switch to a traditional publisher if one discovers me. I do not have the energy or desire to spend a year or so "marketing" my books to publishers.
On the big picture, I don't think paper books will disappear but they will be drastically reduced -- namely to books you are likely to return to repeatedly (e.g., reference books). For one-time reads, ebooks are definitely the future, and it's going to be hard for the "industry" to make money out of this. I for one will not care a hoot, since I am one of the overwhelming majority of authors who have little or no financial gain at all from their writing. What's so terrible about that? Rather: if it's terrible, that's what's wrong.
Still, there is an argument for DRM or similarly protected publishing and whatever role publishers might play in that process. But the future (I hope) is with PUBLIC LIBRARIES! My god, here we have the technology in our hands to obtain any book anywhere in the world in an instant and at no more real cost than an email, and people are falling all over themselves trying to figure out how to choke it so third parties (i.e., not primarily the producers of the product, the authors) can profit! No! Sell the books in paper and eform to libraries and let that be the income for both "publishers" (whatever is left of them) and authors. Or just open it all up and put it in the Gutenberg Project. What the heck. If you're a hack you'll disappear anyway, and if you've got anything to contribute you'll float up to the top anyway by some as yet undiscovered means. At least the current corrupted and dumbed-down means of "discovery" as determined by the publishing industry will no longer control our lives.