I've worked for various small businesses, and one of the things
I've learned to be conscious of is how many decent (mortgage and
college-tuition paying) salaries will the company support. Lots of
times, if there are two partners running the place there is no room
to grow within the company, because there is no "extra" money to
pay for salaries. A single owner company will often have two or
three decent jobs along with the drones.
What does this say about self-publishing and scams? Namely that
there are not two salaries (of any size) in a small book. And
because the publisher is smart enough to realize this, they make
sure to get all the money.
The only people I know who have successfully (broadly defined) done
self-publishing (and even more ghastly cousin, independent
film-making) are people who previously were successful
business-people and then wrote a novel or a script. They knew that
selling it was just as much work as writing it. And they generally
view the money as an investment, or compare it to someone else's
sportscar.
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