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I think that everyone has read an indie book at one time or another. I mean if you expand the term indie to mean a book by an unknown author (which is what all authors are when they start out) then every author whether or not they self-publish via their own website or not has at one time been an indie author. Charles Dickens book "The Pickwick Papers" is an example. He was hired to write text to go along with another person's illustrations, but before long things had been flipped 180 degrees and the illustrator was supplying illustrations to go with Dickens' text rather than the other way round. And his books started out as serials in the newspapers so in effect he was taking a chance not unlike an indie author of today who self-publishes their work. The majority of writing is probably still average just as it was in his time. The challenge is finding the gold among the dross. If enough people think a given book is good then it stays in print when others go out of print and are forgotten. That's how the classics got to be classics.
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