The cover of Michael Bunker's self published book Pennsylvania Omnibus.

Michael Bunker hide caption. Weinberg says there is still a strong financial case to be made for publishing books the old-fashioned way, but there are now many well-known independent authors who have made a fortune self-publishing online.

One of those authors, Hugh Howey, recently published a report arguing that self-published writers earn more money overall from e-books than authors who have been signed by the big five publishing houses.

The report, which Howey created with an anonymous data researcher who goes by the name "Data Guy," uses Amazon's sales rankings and crowdsourced sales data to estimate authors' total earnings on e-books. The report has been attacked by critics who point out the figures don't include cash paid to authors as part of book advances. And they say Howey is underestimating the money earned from old-fashioned print sales.

He's also been called a tool of Amazon in that company's war against established publishing houses. Howey says he's just trying to point out that self-publishing can be a decent way to make a living even if you aren't selling millions of books. And he points out that self-published authors are able to keep 70 percent of royalties on all e-book sales.

As a result, he says, many relatively unknown authors are making a decent living self-publishing their work.

One of those authors is Michael Bunker, who has a long beard, close-cropped hair and a wide-brimmed publish articles and earn money, and describes stock market return 1932 chart as an "accidental Amish Sci-Fi writer.

His latest book, Pennsylvania Omnibushit No. And Bunker's first book — about living off the work from home jobs rochester mi — was an instant online success. And I didn't know what I was doing.

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I had importance of the stock market crash of 1929 clue what I was doing.

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