"The rotten side of self-publishing" (Guardian article)

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2. I know several good self-published authors

For a while, before the scammers moved in, they were making excellent money selling e-books on Amazon. They had been previously published by traditional publishers, so they already had writing chops and had readers who continued to buy their books when they went indie.

But then the scammers and bad writers arrived, flooding the market, and those who'd originally done so well were lost in the sea of bad books. I think many if not most have seen their incomes dwindle. Some are shifting back into a more traditional publishing model, or find that doing a combination of both traditional and indie publishing brings in the most money.

It makes me glad I never opted to be indie published.