For every Hugh Howey and Amanda Hocking, there thousands of other aspiring science fiction authors hoping to strike it rich with self-published novels.
Some of those books are great, but most are unreadable. When The Guardian asked its readers to recommend good independent science fiction novels, they received more than 800 suggestions. After wading through them, the newspaper would only recommend five of them. Ouch.
Here’s a great overview of the indie sci-fi scene at http://ow.ly/smaM0, but the addition of recommendations from Howey are worth the price of admission.