I guess that's progress...

This article (link picked up from @selfpubreview via a retweet by R.J. Keller) seems to say the self-published are no longer deluded eccentrics... or at least not as much. Although we're still presumed to be of no real consequence unless we're picked up by a big publisher, apparently:

In mainstream literary circles, self-publishing is generally considered the exclusive realm of egomaniacs, eccentrics and failures — those who've been rejected by mainstream outlets but are too deluded to realize the worthlessness of their work. There are, certainly, those rare tales of self-publishing success. But in the past few years — as sites such as Amazon and Lulu have made it easier and cheaper — self-publishing has taken off like wildfire. Last year alone saw the self-publication of more than half a million books. Some, like Hamann's, are finding homes with traditional houses. "Publishers are taking self-published books more seriously," said Sara Nelson, books editor for O, the Oprah Magazine and former editor of Publishers Weekly. "Ten years ago it was a very rare thing that a publisher picked up a self-published book. Now it's happening more frequently." Though not all that often. Most self-published titles sell only a few handfuls of copies.

I do like this quote from Michael Cader of Publisher's Lunch: "Sometimes the publishers are [wrong], and there is a substantially larger market that the author was able to find on their own. And sometimes they're not wrong, and there was a reason the book was self-published in the first place."