PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY: Hugh Howey And The Indie Author Revolt. “The critics of Howey’s data and methodology are missing the point. The thrust of Howey’s conclusions is that indie authors are taking e-book market share from traditional publishers. Whether the indie percentage today is 10% or 50% of the overall e-book market or a particular genre doesn’t matter. It’s not worth arguing. What matters is the directional trend, and the strong social, cultural and economic forces that will propel the trend forward in a direction unfavorable to publishers. The indie author insurrection has become a revolution that will strip publishers of power they once took for granted.”

This seems to me to be part of a larger phenomenon that would be worthy of further study.