How The Beatles Inspire DIY Behavior

This New York Times article is about some Beatlemaniacs and how they focused their passion to self-publish a book. There are lessons here for indie musicians. I've often said there are many similarities between the book publishing world and the music business.


These quotes from the article demonstrate why:

Like indie rock bands rebuffed by major record labels, some of the self-published authors tried getting publishing deals before deciding to go it alone. But a growing number are saying: Why bother? Self-publishing, on top of giving the authors all the profits, gives them editorial and design control too, which they feel outweighs the drawback of having to research on their own dime rather than on a publisher’s advance.

Here's a quote from Recording the Beatles co-author Kevin Ryan:

"Brian [Kehew] and I have both dealt personally with record company contracts in the past, and we could see a correlation between the world of publishing and the music world. In both cases, unless you're going to sell a million copies of your product, you will never make a significant chunk of money. The publisher or record company takes the lion's share and you get scraps."

Question: Why settle for scraps?

-Bob