Well, if you have watched publishing for the last 20 years, this current era is the Golden Age. I can make a 70 percent royalty on my work now. I set the price. I decide what it looks like and how it is marketed. I can follow my instinct that I know my audience better than anyone else on the planet. How can this be anything BUT the best time to be a writer?
Writing is hard, and nothing external changes that personal struggle with the page. But to see your heart and soul turned into a product crassly dumped by NY for short-term (90-day) profit and then left for dead (and safely buried where the author can't get at it for a long, long time), then you will understand that this is like getting a get-out-of-jail-free card, a winning lottery ticket, and a house all at the same time.
Best of all, readers will now drive the ship.
Scott Nicholson
http://hauntedcomputer.blogspot.com