I’d rather have an investor than a publishing contract

here is a very big market for art, but a very limited market for each individual artist.

This is natural. We generally prefer some music and books more than others and they will outperform the rest. But the music labels and publishing houses don’t need any individual artist to perform well—as long as they get a cut of every sale, they win.

It doesn’t matter, for example, if every book on Amazon sells only 100 copies. If 2.7 million authors sell 100 books each year, Amazon takes 30 percent of every sale and the aggregate makes their whole payday. The same goes for publishing houses. And record labels. And Spotify. And Netflix.

The house wins every time.

The problem is that the house is taking more than its fair share.

I’d rather have an investor than a publishing contract

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