According to Hugh Howey, an author at Salon Media group, self-publication is the next big thing in the publishing industry. He has personally experienced the success that an author can enjoy by taking a leap of faith and self-publishing his own books. In his own words, Howey used to be a ‘near-minimum-wage bookseller,’ but his life unexpectedly took a turn for the better when he decided to self-publish his work. He became a New York Times best-seller in the blink of an eye. It made him curious to know whether he was one of the lucky few that make it in the self-publishing business.

Howey set out to discover whether there were other authors who had stories as unbelievable as his, so he turned to the Internet to find out. He asked for anecdotes from members of a certain forum and the responses he got were overwhelming. There are many authors who have become wildly successful by publishing their own works. Most of the authors that responded earn more than what traditionally published authors earn.

Howey is quick to clarify that it is difficult to compare traditionally published authors and self-published authors. Among the reasons for this is that many authors who self-publish do not do it with the intention of making money from it. For instance: some people publish to share memoirs with family members; others do it to check off an item in their bucket list; others have only one book in them; and others simply gave up after the first book. What he means is that self-published authors are usually not interested in turning their writing into a profitable activity.

Serious authors who take writing as a major hobby or even a career find real success. These authors publish more than one novel per year and they do this consistently. Some of them earn hundreds or thousands of dollars per month. Many of Howey’s friends have risen from publishing single books to the New York Times best-seller list. Let us take a look at some few examples from Howey’s list.

Meet Jan Strnad, a 62-year-old teacher who plans to retire in four years. He needs an additional source of income beside his pension. He had a book deal with a big publisher, but has since decided to self-publish. Now he makes more than double what he used to make from the publisher. He now has a second book and makes about $2,000 a month.

Another success story is that of Rachel Schurig. In 2012, she sold 100,000 eBooks and made six figures. She has never regretted the decision to self-publish her work. Rick Gualtieri is another self-published author who made over $25,000 in 2012.

The number of people making a lot of money on self-publishing is simply too high to be a coincidence. Many authors are also deciding to become self-published which indicates that there are good returns on self-published works.