I'm confused... just the top 0.0001% (268 x 100k) is 26.8M, yet they claim only 2.6M books were sold total for the full year. Am I missing something obvious?
That being said it points to not that writing books is not economical viable but that have someone else publish it is not economically viable!
My bias, I am self publishing my first book at the end of this year in flutter app dev with using paid article writing using Medium.com to pay the costs of setting up the LLC, and other costs such as purchasing a brand new mac laptop.
Note, since most people in tech do not buy 2nd screens just to read and use a book it's some skewed towards the 45k number in those niches, my own opinion. Most publisher advertising gets one to the 15k number which is why I am using a social-media and Medium article combined route to advertising the book.
I mean, if everyone read "exactly what was needed" then that would significantly change the distribution since the current is based on "what marketers make me think I need."
Therefore, this article could be viewed as positive improvement of efficiency in the book buying market. Ie more people buying "the book they need" vs "want because of flashy marketing" based on increased access to search and reviews.