Publishers are a bit like VCs. They invest in a number of different books hoping that one will become a bestseller. All the other ones are either complete failu

Publishers are a bit like VCs. They invest in a number of different books hoping that one will become a bestseller. All the other ones are either complete failures or midlisters (books which are not bestsellers but are strong enough to economically justify their publication). If you have a bestseller under your belt I guess a publisher makes sense because you would presumably have earned enough money to let other do the boring jobs for you. On the other hand, if you don't break out of the midlist, it may make sense to remove the middle man and go for it alone if you want to write for a living. All the services provided by publishers can be contracted out, specially if you go the ebook way. Finally, I am not a writer but I helped publish several books. Here is a link to someone with a lot of experience and numbers to back it up: http://jakonrath.blogspot.co.uk/ http://jakonrath.blogspot.co.uk/