Exactly what I was thinking the whole way through. If she can move 10 or 20,000 books, she can build a list by regularly publishing a blog. Then she can marke

Exactly what I was thinking the whole way through. If she can move 10 or 20,000 books, she can build a list by regularly publishing a blog. Then she can market directly to that list and self-publish, and keep most of the bones for herself. 70% margin to 1,000 readers is the same as 7% margin to 10,000 readers. As she says, when a book bombs, she's the only one who loses a job. I suspect much of the problem, though, is counting on advances to write the book instead of just writing the thing in your spare time after something like a part-time job. Kind of like a startup wannabe who won't lift a finger until they've got funding. It reminds me of a boyfriend of an old roommate of mine. He would introduce himself as an author, or aspiring author, something like that. Mostly he just sat around reading and smoking. I always thought 'if you're an author, just friggen write something - anything'.