Erotica is VERY different. It may look saturated, but well written short stories with attractive covers and good blurbs can still sell incredibly well.
And, with the advent of Kindle Unlimited (if Amazon's payments hold at the current level per borrow) sales plus borrows is proving to be even more lucrative than sales alone.
You have just described the poster boy for self publishing.
As long as he prices his books over $2.99, Amazon will give him 70% of the price, so if he sells 30,000 books at $4.99 (approximately what novel length fiction sells for if it's not from a major publisher) he would make about 100k.
Let me just say, I think there are very few authors who can expect sales anywhere near those numbers. NYTimes bestsellers do a fraction of that.
Still, a busy author can easily write 2 to 3 books a year, more if the are organized, determined, and disciplined. Some authors that I know of are putting out a novel a month.
So, he can make a living. And he is MUCH better off without an old fashioned publisher.
As far as services needed, there is a burgeoning industry of freelance editors, cover designers, book designers, etc., that will provide everything a traditional publisher used to provide. OK, yes, except for a marketing budget, but talk to mid-list authors and see what publishers provided to them for marketing. HINT: nada.
How do I know? Without giving away all my secrets, I'm making way more money than I ever thought possible publishing fiction on Amazon KDP. I'm about to jump into non-fiction, which I'm guessing could be even bigger...
You have just described the poster boy for self publishing.
That's not a coincidence. This is a contrived example after all. What I'm trying to get at is that assuming the perfect scenario, is the ecosystem of services there to cater to these guys. Is it feasible that such an author would be able to handle online marketing (getting them into online stores, not getting interviews on morning radio) of physical and ebooks. Would he be able to handle the production of actual printed books?
Also, on the "art" side. Are editor-for-hire types doing the same thing as editors working for publishing houses? Is the relationship the same?I love books. I had a lot of hopes for ebooks in terms of what they'll do for authors. Apart from a pleasant enough reader experience, I haven't felt any earth shattering changes from ebooks.
The ecosystem is there, and getting better all the time.
Reasonable recommendations for ancillary publishing services can be found on any of the popular writer's forums like absolute write or the author's cafe on kboards. Several relevant subreddits also exist.
Like everything, there are scammers and people looking to make a quick buck for shoddy work, but there are also a LOT of frustrated former English and Art majors who have hung out a shingle.
As far as editing goes, you can pay for pretty much anything the publishing houses provided, from a proofreading to copyediting, even a developmental edit (recommendations on story structure, what works, what doesn't work, etc.).
In my experience, book design and editing are easily handled by most authors with even an iota of motivation. It's the marketing that baffles most people. Congratulations, you wrote a book, now what? etc.
Yup, there is no UI to do it manually, but you can email the people at KDP and they will link the book for you. I've waited for it to happened automatically in the past, and it hasn't worked out for me.
Once linked, you can also do cool things like offer the ebook at a discount (or for free) if they buy the print version.
Having both versions on the same page really makes the whole thing look more 'professional'.
...and this is done now. The books are linked up. Once Amazon finishes processing the change, you'll be able to buy the Kindle version for $3 after you buy the print edition.
There is a new experimental build of inkscape for osx which is slightly less awkward. Search for 'inkscape osx menu', it has been stable for me and you don't need to install an x server.
And, with the advent of Kindle Unlimited (if Amazon's payments hold at the current level per borrow) sales plus borrows is proving to be even more lucrative than sales alone.