Here is an interesting article from the NyTimes about how the technology to enable self published books continues to evolve and may even out strip the traditional publishing world. These numbers really surprised me:
Self publishing ... “It used to be an elite few,” said Eileen Gittins, chief executive of Blurb, a print-on-demand company whose revenue has grown to $30 million, from $1 million, in just two years and which published more than 300,000 titles last year. Many of those were personal books bought only by the author. “Now anyone can make a book, and it looks just like a book that you buy at the bookstore.”