[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by John Carroll

Excellent question. To go the traditional route, I would have had to find an agent who would have to find a publisher. I figured the time frame on that would be about 4 years realistically and there was about a 10% chance of even succeeding. I decided to invest that effort into self publishing. I think ebooks are the way of the future and decided to take a chance on it after a great deal of debate.

Fair enough. I think you may be on the mark about the time frame and success rate. An enormous amount of luck is required, as well as simple skill.

It is a fairly slow growing renewable resource and there is not enough of that resource to supply 6 billion people for very long.

There has been so far, and I've seen no reason to think it won't continue to be the case. Trees are farmed to insure supply.

And remember, paper is only one end product made from trees. Look around you, and count how many things are made of wood. Tell me what you would use instead? (For that matter, if paper becomes illegal, what will you wipe with? )

I believe you are right.

About ebooks cannibalizing MMPBs? I'm not the only one who thinks so, and I see it as a natural progression.

Indie writers are new within the last 5 years I believe. New in terms of human history.

Indie writers self publishing on the Internet are new. Indie writers as a class are not. Before the Internet and ebooks, we had vanity presses. Want to get published? No problem. Lots of folks willing to publish you for a fee. (Actually selling the books was your problem, but you could get published.)

We still have vanity presses. I've been exchanging messages with a chap elsewhere who published two books through CreateSpace. (It cost him about $1800.) He financed it through gambling winnings in Las Vegas.

Reviews in and of themselves are not sufficient. They are an important aspect of the process though.

Agreed.

This is what I said: "Writers will succeed by paying attention to the market and writing books."
What I meant to say is "Writers will succeed by paying attention to the marketing and writing books. I agree with you about the marketing! Still, it doesn't matter how good the marketing is if the writer doesn't write.

Agreed as well. But expect to spend far more time marketing than writing.
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Dennis