The problem is that there are an awful lot of people who are using this study as the basis for conclusions the data just doesn't support.
Howey himself is guilty of this:
Quote:
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“Our data suggests that even stellar manuscripts are better off self-published.”
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The data suggests nothing of the sort. It makes no suggestions either way as to whether it's better for an author to self-publish a stellar manuscript or have it commercially published. The information to make that decision isn't there.
All it suggests is that a genre novel can reach roughly equivalent sales ranks on Amazon whether it is self-published or commercially published. Self-published authors can achieve the same level of Amazon success on a given day as commercially published ones, at least when it comes to eBooks.
It doesn't factor in advances, nor print sales, so you can't make an accurate comparison between the two based on the data in this report.