I doubt that "thousands of new authors" are "making a living" off their self-published books at Amazon.

They are getting the opportunity to publish their work and maybe sell a few copies, but only a few are actually making a living.

that whatever success they are enjoying from e-publishing their books, it's a greater success than they would have had had they gone the traditional legacy publishing.

what he's **saying.**

And it's a very important distinction.

There have been some notable successes through digital self-publishing, no doubt about that. But to suggest that "thousands" are making a living is still a distortion. And it tends to foster unrealistic expectations in those who think they're going to make it rich selling their stories.

when you bear this in mind:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_0_15?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=james%20patterson&sprefix=james+patterson%2Caps%2C202

to break the Amazon habit. And now that there are so few brick and mortar bookstores it becomes even more likely that I'll buy my books from Amazon, further perpetuating that decline of local bookstores.

As for making self-publishing possible, same thing. Conflicted. I'd guess that the majority of the self-published "books" are crap. And you have to wade through them to find the good stuff. And reviews, if there are any, are not reliable.

I don't know if a majority are, since I've read so few, but I did purchase one recently that was not a book but a short story, and it was 99 cents, and it wasn't really all that good, but it was only 99 cents, and it WAS short, so I didn't waste much money or time.

It was highly rated, so I agree that on some items, ratings are unreliable.

At the same time, I have SO many books purchased at full price from 'legacy' publishers which were SUCH a waste of both money and time. So on balance, I guess it's all just a crap shoot?

Here's one you may not have known about (and I didn't until just recently):

They apparently have a new policy that if you bought the 'legacy' edition of a book directly from Amazon, then they will sell you the Kindle version for a steep discount - like 75% off? I'll see if I can find the press release.

and it's not on every purchase, but on 'thousands' - you have to check their inventory.

money or my time. But that's because I'm very careful about the books I buy. Usually they're non-fiction books on subject of great interest to me. I get most of my fiction from the library. If I really love a book, I'll buy it. I belong to Audible.com, and so regularly purchase audiobooks. Occasionally I'll make a poor choice. They recently initiated a "return" policy (I guess it's actually an exchange policy), but all of the books I would have returned were purchased before the cutoff. I'm half tempted to exchange one of the more recent ones I liked, but though my conscience probably wouldn't prevent me doing that in regards the company (Amazon owns audible), I can't call a good book bad just to get another one for free.

My guess that the majority of self-published writings are crap is based on my suspicion that a lot more people think they are good writers than actually are. There is so much poor writing online anyway that I sure don't want to pay for more of it!

I have no illusions about Amazon being kindly and warm hearted, but I'm also under no illusions about the big publishing houses. The latter are thugs.

They weren't when they were small, or at least they didn't have as much opportunity to exercise their thuggishness. But now that they're giants, they want control, and they're outraged that another giant is undermining their control. Their pose as champions of literature and literary freedom is laughable.

(Full disclosure: I was published by some major NYC houses in the past, and now I self-publish through Amazon and Smashwords.)