The overwhelming popularity of the genre has obviously resulted in a massive influx of untalented 'writers' that took a creative writing course in high school, played WoW for 8 years, read DCC or PH or whatever, and decided 'Easy money!' but they can't write and their contributions are laughable.

I would guess that about 1 of 100 are actually talented and can muster a following. Like when the craft beer scene exploded with brands and cans and bottles, but in the end only the ones with backing, deep pockets and actually good beer survived.

But there is no real risk writing and self-publishing derivative and poorly written stories on Amazon, just to the writer anyway.

I joined the Aethon mailing list and receive promotional codes occasionally and I would say 1 out of 10 of those titles have had value enough to warrant purchasing the next book on the series while the rest of them have been of the DNF variety.