Barry Eisler Explains Self-Publishing Decision:

Some people have mistakenly argued that, for my move to make financial sense, I’ll have to earn $142,000 a year for three years. But this is one time when you don’t want to be comparing apples to apples. Because the question isn’t whether I can make $425,000 in three years in self-publishing; the question is what happens regardless of when I hit that number. What happens whenever I hit that point is that I’ll have “beaten” the contract, and then I’ll go on beating it for the rest of my life. If I don’t earn out the legacy contract, the only money I’ll ever see from it is $142,000 per year for three years.

It’s an interesting corollary to Hocking’s traditional publishing decision. Hocking ‘doesn’t want to be a publisher’ and is willing to sacrifice some money to have that; Eisler is walking from a half-million publishing deal because he thinks he can make more on his own.