Why Independent?

Why independent publish?  I keep asking myself that.  And to be sure, I'm not certain I have the right answer, or if there is a right answer.  But here's the two things I keep circling back to in my mind:

The workload after publishing seems the same. 
The entire point of publishers is to take a book, prepare it for the mass market, and then publicize and distribute it.  Only, more and more that model doesn't quite seem to be what they do.  They certainly get it ready for the mass market (which entails a certain amount of homogenization: if sparkly vampire sells, they want sparkly vampires), including editing and getting a cover and printing and whatnot. 

But then I keep seeing that more and more publishers want authors who are "able to self-promote" and who "understand the value of social media."  So basically, they want the author to do the heavy lifting of pushing the book out there and generating sales.  I understand why the author would want this, too: after all, they have the most vested interest in selling the book.

Sounds like as an author, the only thing you really gain from the publisher is the printing press, less decision-making authority in your story and your cover, and some platform and cachet from being attached to a publisher.  I'm not knocking those things; I'm just saying that the deal so far doesn't seem like it's strongly tilted in the publisher's favor (since your workload is largely the same before and after publication; it's only in the middle that it's any different).

Which brings us to the:

Numbers
I like numbers.  I'm a numbers guy. And the numbers certainly don't scream "good deal!" to go with a traditional publisher.  Here's what I mean:

Publisher:  Let's say that you get a 15% royalty (which is really good) on every copy sold.  But publishers almost always make you have an agent, and we'll say that person costs you 15% commission.  We're going to ignore any other fees you might incur (like a lawyer to make sure the publisher didn't screw you out of every other right to the work or whatnot), and focus on those two, who seem to come in tandem.  So for every copy you sell, you will get 12.75% of the sales price.  Let's say that the publisher prices your book at 6.99; you'll get a hefty $0.89 for every sale.

Independent:  You get between 75% and 85% of the price of the book for every sale that you make, depending on where you publish the book.  But you'll have to pay for a lot of things yourself; let's just use a round $2000 for the amount you spent getting editors, covers, blog tours, etc; that's maybe high (you could do it cheaper) but it's not unreasonable.  You can also set the price yourself. Let's say you target 3.99, because you think that's the perfect price for the book.  If you average 80% royalty on that work, you pocket $3.19 per copy.  But, until you sell 627 copies, your book has cost you money.

The money looks like this:
500 copies sold:  Published gets $405, Indy lost $405
1000 copies:  Published gets $890, Indy gets $1,190
5000 copies:  Published gets $4,450, Indy gets $13,950
10,000 copies:  Published gets $8,900, Indy gets $29,900

Okay, okay, 10,000 copies is a pipe dream, right?  Well, as an independent, you need to sell those first 627 copies to break even, and then after that for every copy you sell, you earn the same as 3.5 copies of the traditionally published author.  Note that the traditionally published author still hasn't banked as much as the indy guy with half as many sales.

For, essentially, the same amount of work (remember, publishers want authors who know the value of social media: i.e. are willing to work as their own publicist). 

I'm not bad-mouthing the publisher: he's got to cover his own costs.  And you probably will get much more sales out of the gate as a traditionally published author - being in a gajillion bookstores has its benefits, after all.  But to blithely assume that it will for sure be 3.5:1, when you the author have to do the same amount of work brand-building and hustling on social networks - I'm not so sure that's a given.

So I keep coming back to this: if I have to do the same amount of work writing a great story and getting it in front of people, why not hire the intermediate guys myself and reap the whole reward myself?  Why not at least try?