Does self-publishing ever work in the author's favour?

[Beautiful Nightmare]

I know self-publishing can often send your book into obscurity because there are very few ways for the potential readers to know about it, but does it ever work?

[A. Thorne]

Like any other product, performance is based on how it addresses demand. If it is a compelling story word of mouth will eventually turn it into a bestseller (50 Shades of Grey started as a Kindle book). With self publishing you just have to work harder to get that word of mouth as all the marketing is on you, but very doable given social media.

[michele]

As close to "never" as you can imagine.

~Dr. B.~

[Steven J Pemberton]

Have you heard of Amanda Hocking? J A Konrath? Barry Eisler? Darcie Chan? About a quarter of the books in the top 100 on the Kindle are self-published (through Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing programme), so yes, nowadays it can certainly work in the author's favour.