Wettbewerb belebt das Geschäft und senkt mitunter auch die Preise. Dieser Punkt wird in den Ergebnissen einer Untersuchung des Self-Publishing-Marktes seitens der University of Arizona herausgehoben:

“The major disruption, however, was that they allowed the authors to set the price,” Bradley said, noting that the most popular prices were between 99 cents and $2.99. Companies also offered authors royalties ranging between 35 and 70 percent, depending on a range of factors. RG-NTPP research also shows that the reading public is, indeed, embracing self-published titles at the low price points. About one-third of the top 100 paid titles on Kindle are by self-publishing authors.

Es werde auch ein echter Nutzen geschaffen:

Also, self-publishing titles tend to include books that are locally focused, narrate family histories, are niche and at times more risque – around religion, politics, sex and sexuality – than what a traditional publisher might wish to handle, Fulton and Bradley said. “There is a real value in self-publishing. There are stories self-publishing offers that simply wouldn’t be told any other way,” Fulton said. “So what we’re seeing is something we didn’t have a mechanism for before.” 

Die Untersuchung unterscheidet dabei zwei Formen des Self-Publishing:

The team noted that the contemporary world of self-publishing can be understood as consisting of two major and different segments. The first, print-on-demand self-publishing, produces books in print and came of age around 2007. The second segment, digital self-publishing, is the faster growing of the two, and often indistinguishable from digital mainstream publishing.

Nett finde ich auch die Umschreibung des klassischen Verlagsmodells:

The traditional publishing mode by which publishers front authors a cut of money then handle publishing and marketing, all the while hoping for the best on the buyer’s market, is in transition.