Kind of adds to the shovelware out there for readers though. The main reason I gave up reading self-pubbed work and why I then pivoted to looking for a trade deal was because the selfpublishing world was a massive slush pile and it was exhausting to start even books I'd paid for and even with awesome cover art, then find out that they slowly got worse once the sample had dragged you in.

The other thing is that when you have something good, you end up not being satisfied with lesser things. I signed up for a month of YouTube premium free while I was in hospital with my ankle, on the premise I could always cancel later but the ads were driving me wild and I could have a month where I had to be flat on my back without them. Then at the end of the month I was so used to YouTube without ads I couldn't unsubscribe so ditched my Audible subscription instead to make up for it. Also, when you get a £90 paypacket for your first few days of temping after a year of jobhunting, it feels good. But later, that £90 is not enough. I would get out of bed for it as a per diem, but my weekly wages would have to be much better. We're easily satisfied initially, but then the initial flush of excitement wears off and we find we can't go back to what it was like before or things aren't as good as we thought they would be and we want more.

So it is with publishing. After the initial flush of 'hey I'm a published author', that kinda wears off. The publication bit is short-lived. You get used to it. Then you get a bit disappointed. Then you realise that no-one's buying, and hey, you didn't expect it, but it would be kinda nice that other people recognise you did a thing. And then you see a call for submissions because a big book comes out just like yours, and you get a bit dissatisfied because you put your work out there just to get it out, but now the subject matter is hotter than lava, more marginal books or books that need a bit of work are being picked up due to reader demand, but OP can't sell theirs because it's hidden under a pile of crap and it's not doing well enough to get publishers approach them. I made this mistake myself with a 15k word novella I could have submitted to Writers of the Future but for publishing it too hastily. More haste, less speed. Instant gratification now, realising a mistake later. What was originally satisfying is now absolute peanuts. And so on.

The problem is that too many people want books out in the wild and that just engulfs the stuff that is worth reading for self-published readers. It penalises those independent authors who make the effort to write a good book, get it edited and put it out off their own backs. This is why I tend to challenge the 'just wanna get it out there' idea -- it's not good for the readership and not good for other self-published authors. It also means the story won't be taken seriously by publishers when the initial rush of excitement of having a book out there.