Mark Twain

The mainstream publishing industry has popularized the stereotype that “self-published” books are inferior to “traditional” ones because the author does not receive an advance and the services provided are less professional. The reality is that the Big Four publishers attained their enormous market share by, at least initially, relying on author subsidies. When advances were paid, they were typically loans that had to be repaid if a book failed to sell a volume of books that would cover the advance.