Hugh Howey, author of the Wool series and darling of the indie publishing world, has fired another salvo at traditional publishing. In fact, he appears to have launched a fully armed and operational battle station – AuthorEarnings.com.

The primary aim of the site is to “gather and share information so that writers can make informed decisions” and the first report is already up.

It’s well worth a read, Howey makes a lot of interesting points. The main conclusion he comes to is that all authors, even those with stellar deals, are better off self-publishing and at first glance it looks like he’s right. There are some inevitable weaknesses in the data – it’s gathered from Amazon rankings and the number of sales required to achieve a particular rank is only partly understood – but still, the argument is compelling and the data used to create the report can be downloaded and dissected by skeptics and supporters alike. The only part I’m wary of is the jump from daily revenue to annual income. You have to make a whole bunch of assumptions to make that particular leap.

So far the response seems to have been favourable but no doubt the critics will be along shortly to explain why Howey’s wrong. Either way, the site brings a welcome level of transparency and another data point to the traditional vs indie debate.

Me? I’ll be quietly sitting on the sidelines, watching the show.

[AuthorEarnings.com by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 12th February 2014]