Comment by TheOtherHobbes

Social media is full of trad-pubbed authors (some with NYT best-sellers) complaining they have to keep their day jobs.

Self-pubbed author groups have far more authors earning far more money. There's a good number of six figure authors and not a few seven figure authors. They're almost all writing to market - tight-niche, mid-quality writing that gives readers a predictable genre experience they want to repeat.

Successful self-pub is equivalent to a bootstrapped micro start-up, and many of the same ideas apply. It's not trivially easy, especially the marketing. But it's certainly easier than trying to pitch from a cold start to the agent/publisher circus.