and the small indi artists win since they are happy to get noticed as much as possible (since small indie artists doesnt make much money of there music anway).
i think you are allways able to make money out of your art as long as you are able to create a fanbase/intrest and are able to sell it in such a way that people are willing to pay for the phisical form.
for books at the moment i only see the possibility of having a nice artwork and cover since there isnt much extra value or revenue possibility for writers to earn money out of there work (public readings and autograph sessions wont make much money i think
)
but as stephen king said many times : he would still write even if no body would read his storys, since he loves writing. most real artist love what they do, make a living from it is very rarely the case for most of them anyway.
If you look at all the fanfiction stories in the web, something like this is the future i think.