but unless you are a fabulously successful author, you essentially enslave yourself to a publisher, and give up the copyright to your own creative works. No yo

but unless you are a fabulously successful author, you essentially enslave yourself to a publisher, and give up the copyright to your own creative works. No you don't. In fact, if your publisher asks you to assign your copyright to them, what you should do is walk away, very fast, and let the appropriate folks know that there's a scam artist on the loose. (Unless you're in a work-for-hire agreement, which is a whole different kettle of fish -- but not something you should stumble into by accident.) As for self-publishing becoming the norm for new writers ... you may be right: but that doesn't mean self-publishing will become a successful career path for those who take it. There are some fundamental differences between the music biz and writing which weigh the dice heavily against authors going it alone. (For example: bands can make money off live gigs and merchandise while using CDs and MP3s for promotion -- but when was the last time you went to hear some middle-aged guy read from his latest novel? And paid for the privilege?) The real rent-seeking middle-men in the publishing business aren't the publishers, but the distribution chains and customer-facing retail outlets -- of whom Amazon and Lulu are two. They chow down around 60-70% of the revenue in the retail book trade. My reading of the "why not publish it yourself?" propaganda is that it's promoted by POD imprints and folks like Amazon, who anticipate getting much more favourable terms from sole traders and clueless wannabes than they can currently obtain from the major publishers. Sure you can self-publish -- but you're still going to have to deal with the retail distribution supply chain. And there be dragons ...