Don't be paranoid. How can 'big publishers' possibly use their 'financial muscle' to stymie you? It's amazingly easy for you to self-publish ebooks, at least, directly into Amazon and there's nothing anyone can do to stop you. There are plenty of self-pub ebook success stories out there.

Self-publishing paperbacks is harder because publishers have the very significant advantage of having sales and distribution set up in a way that you don't. It's never been easy to self-pub in print and make any money. But that's not because of repression, it's just because of the way print publishing works.

Should your venture not work out for whatever reason, it will be tempting to blame some sort of sinister conspiracy; but that will be a) quite wrong and b) a convenient excuse to ignore flaws in your books/planning.

Indeed, the main publishers have no interest in trying to stymie small self publish paperbacks. The truth is - and has been for as long as I have been in the trade (over 40 years) - 99% of retail outlets were never interested in taking self published books. The structure, distribution, promotion and discount was invariably poor or non-existant.
However, with the way that the trade is going - if Mr Johnson is correct - there will be few if any outlets for the printed word. In which case the self-published author will have to rely on what every other author will come to see as THE outlet - ebooks.

The future COULD be very exciting for new authors - and possibly more profitable.

But there's going to be one hell of a shake out....

totally agree jc. I get more and more annoyed by people comoing in at the top of companies (not just book retailing) and not understanding the roots of the business. Alan Leighton ex head of the post office has it right when he sends non exec directors off to the shop floor for four weeks to see how things work in reality.
Have just had a meeting with an author with whom I wish to do big things,
but in the summer of 2012. To launch someone you need time and meticulous care. Sorry, but ss in most things in life there are no short cuts

Actually publishers need to continue doing what they are supposed to be doing now - publishing 'books', in whichever format, which are well written, well edited and which the public will want to buy. The format of the books IS an issue but it is more of an issue for book sellers than book publishers and, in any case, is something which has hardly escaped the notice of the book trade in general.

As for the "inevitable disappearance of the vast majority of bookshops" - assuming there are still some people around who understand the bookselling trade and the psychology of the bookbuying public - methinks not.

@Michael-

You might want to check out Dean Wesley Smith's blog, and his wife Kristine Kathryn Rusch's blug. Both offer a boatload of knowledge on indies/self pubbers.

Dean's blog has several good, informative series, including Think Like a Publisher, where he shows you how you can get your POD books into independent bookstores - and he just came out with a post to use gift cards for your ebooks in his Killing the Sacred Myths of Publishing series.

I don't know how useful these might be for you re independent bookstores, as I assume you're in the UK (don't know the scoop on the indie bookstores there), but I still think both sites are worth a look. Both of them have over 20 years' worth of publishing knowledge.

Good luck to you. And stop calling yourself a bottom feeder!