There were genre
writers on both sides of the dispute, but on the publishing side were huddled the biographers, urban historians, midlist novelists — that is, all the people who were able to eke out a living because publishers still paid advances, acting as a kind of local literary bank, in anticipation of future sales.
Anyone who has followed the coverage
of the ongoing Amazon - Hachette
dispute knows that some
of the most impassioned voices
on the pro-Amazon
side of the argument come from self - published
writers.