I have an acquaintance - an ex-detective called John Hanson - who has for a number of years been self-publishing an incredible record of every UFO sighting that he has been able to discover. He also maintains a public archive of data about the UAP / UFO phenomenon: witness reports, photographs, video clips, newspaper cuttings and so on. All this has cost John a considerable amount: he tells me that he has yet to make his first penny of profit!
I'm sure he didn't anticipate becoming rich from his writing - his motivation has always been to record the data for posterity and push for disclosure in the UK - but I'm equally certain that John thought he would at least break even.
When I was chatting with him at a UFO conference at Woodbridge that we jointly organised, I sympathised with him, but voiced the opinion that the majority of people in this country just don't read books these days. If you stroll around any car boot on a Sunday morning, you'll see just a few 'pulp fiction' titles on most stalls - generally Dan Brown or Lee Child (Nothing wrong with a bit of Jack Reacher!) This is reflected when you visit modern homes: no bookcases and no piles of books on side tables. I imagine Wikipedia and social media has a lot to do with this....
Personally speaking, I love books: I read and re-read my favourites and dip into reference titles on a daily basis.
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