[bitsm]

The reason self-publishing works for Doctorow is not because his audience wants it to. It works because he works extremely hard, is prolific, and smartly leverages technology as well as his massive audience at BoingBoing. He is not an overnight sensation. There's no trick here.

Yes, he's taken some risks with technology, but he's also worked hard promoting himself to mitigate that risk.

I am not a fan of his writing, but I admire his dogged determination to get up every day and be a writer, in an age when anyone else you asked would tell you to give up and get a job with a future.