Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken.Hagdal
The more money authors make, the more time they have to work on their writing, and be creative without stressing about whether they'll be able to pay next month's bills, as opposed to having to juggle with at least part-time jobs (a lot of traditionally published authors can't make a living from their writing due to the paltry royalty they get btw).
It also allows us to put money aside to hire editors, audiobook narrators, cover designers, send our books to reviewers who will winnow the grain from the chaff for our potential readers.
While it's true there's a significant proportion of refuse in self-publishing, most of them don't sell more than a handfull of copies. On the other hand, anything that empowers serious authors will only have benefits for readers in terms of cultural diversity in the long run.
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Sure, lots of commercially published authors don't make enough to live on, especially genre authors. In that way they're no different than indie authors.
As for hiring editors, narrators, and cover designers, the whole point of going with a commercial publisher is that the author doesn't have to do that. The publisher pays for those things. Yes, the author's royalty is lower, but so are their costs, and the biggest advantage they have is that they get paid whether the book sells or not.
If a self-published author only sells 100 copies of their book, the cost of their editor and cover artist may well put them in the hole. If a commercially published author sells only 100 copies of their book, they still get to keep their entire advance and aren't liable for any of those costs.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both.
But Catlady is right, none of this matters to readers. What matters to readers is that the book is worth the time and money invested in reading it, nothing else.