This question was recently asked, and some mighty strange answers were provided:
“…Is self publishing here to stay? Hogwash. Self publishing will be here to stay when self published authors start showing up on Good Morning America or The View or the front page of the Huffington Post or Salon or the New York Times Book Review, and I don’t mean well known marketable authors who’ve jettisoned the mainstream publishers without which they’d still be a bunch of nobodies tweeting their asses off about their latest novel. Sure, once in a blue moon an “indie” author will break through into one of those venues, but the major publishers are still dictating what America reads. Go ahead, shoot the messenger…”
And:
“…Excuse me, I forgot this is an ebook group, so let’s add the ebook phenomenon to the print on demand phenomenon! You can publish an ebook for nothing too. Of course, with both ebooks and POD, you could pay a couple of hundred dollars for a professionally designed cover, and a few hundred dollars on up to an editor, and then you could pay I don’t know how much to a blog tour broker, and you could pay to have your book displayed on a web site promoting great reads to people looking for something to read…”
And:

For almost two weeks the Rim Fire has continued to burn and expand in northern California. By the time it is contained and put out it will, undoubtedly, be one of the larger – if not the largest – fire in California’s history. There are many reasons for the fire, and the finger-pointing will begin before the ashes are cool, but in the meantime there are amy photographers on the scene recording incredible, heroic, frightening, and even horrific images.
“You can’t be a success if you don’t love people.”
Geocaching is the real-world treasure hunt that’s happening right now, all around you. There are 2,189,060 active geocaches and over 6 million geocachers worldwide.