I suspect it's part of the notion that publishers are evil and that they steal your money and will leave you a poor starving artist while they roll naked in the money that you earned. While if you SP then YOU shall be teh one rolling naked in money!
I think this particular case is a lot of fluff, but one thing I do think is that paper books will mostly be gone in twenty years. So I think the authors that make names for themselves by self publishing eBooks now will reap the most rewards later.
I doubt paper books will ever be completely gone, but will become rare as time goes on.
But what would the motivation be to lie here?
Note: I'm not saying he isn't or is telling the truth. Maybe later he's going to be all shy and "oh I'll just write a book about it" but so far, I don't see that he's doing that.
I'm a Tampa Buccaneers fan. I go to JoeBucsFan.com all the time and there's a guy there...he claims he's an attorney and former prosecutor. His real identity was discovered and he is none of that. So why lie? He had nothing to gain.
Except the feeling that people think he was important or his opinion counted.
Me? I'll tell people the truth. No pen name. What people see they get. Right or wrong. But there are people driven by the need for attention.
I'm an internet marketer. I've been doing websites and blogs for about three years now. When I started out, I had one website. It made about $5 a month. I wasn't number one in google for any of my terms. It was all a bunch of different longtail keywords that brought in traffic.
By month two I had three websites. I didn't just double my income (which was about $11 btw) back then. I quadrupled it. It's not a lot of money. Just a little.
Guess what? Now I have sixty-five websites. That's how I make my living monthly. I still am not number one for any of my main terms. All my traffic comes from longtail terms (except on one website where, oddly it gets loads of traffic - ironically (or coincidentally), it's my worst money maker ). Many of my websites aren't inter connected. Many of my sites are not the same .
My point? Volume. Volume is what made my sales. Every website increased my volume and my income and my traffic.
That's what this guy is saying. Every book increases his sales exponentially. Internet marketers worldwide could tell you that's how we've been earning for years.
In fact, that's what every successful self-publisher has said. Konrath, Hocking, Locke - volume volume volume.
I spent over ten years as an owner of a Print, Internet and Multimedia Desgn Agency. In that time, I built up somewhere close to 50 on-going clients and some odd clients that ordered stuff once a year or every other year.
I also owned the first Internet Comic Company before anyone else thought to do animate comics on the web (actually I was co-owner with 2 others...I wrote the content and developed the ideas).
The comic website got over 30,000 hits per month at a time when that was a lot. (over ten years ago).
My design website was...and at times still is listed on the first page of google if you search for Bradenton Print Design. And it was for years...I only had one website for most of that time (the design one; sold the comic site and they have since gone under). Most of the time, the design site was listed as #1 in google.
How did I do it? Easy...I gave every client $50 off a project if they let me put a banner ad on the bottom of their homepage. Never got a single client from it, but it put my name in many locations.
I dispersed the company in May 2011...not because didn't have business...but I turned 45 at the time and I wanted to be a successful writer before 50. So I write full time now.
If you do a search for Pete Dutcher, you will see me all over the internet...from amazon to smashwords (I only just created the smashwords page this week), former client websites, profile pages, review sites that recommended my services, Sports websites, and tons of other places.
I had someone call me the other day to hire me for desgn work...and my website ONLY sells domains and hosting now. Turned him down.
6 months ago, I had a wrestling company call me asking me to work for them as lead designer...I was very tempted on that. $2500 per week is hard to turn down. I told them I needed payment in advance each week and they still wanted me. I still had to turn them down though.
Now, I say this not because I want attention, but because of your own comments. You do not have to have 60 websites of your own...you just need to have your name and website on other peoples websites.
And as far as making money? My comic website sold animated advertising at $4,000 for a 6 month run in an animated comic at the time.
My design site and my services offered landed me clients throughout the US, from IT companies to Diving Gear manufactures. Zeagle Diving systems had a budget of $40,000 per year with me...and I was the ONLY employee.
You don't have to buy tens of websites. You just need to offer something of value...
...and show people it has value.