Indie or Traditional – How does an author pick the right direction?

Don Massenzio gives us his advice on picking the right direction – Indie or Traditional. Thank you very much for helping us all, Don!

Crossroad Jumping into the indie author scene, for me, was a calculated risk. Like I do with a lot of decisions, I looked at the pros and cons.

Pros:

You can easily publish your work on a number of platforms at little or no cost (Amazon, Nook, Smashwords, etc.).
The royalties for sales are good. If you price a book on Amazon over $2.99, for instance, you will get 70% of the selling price as royalties.
You can write at your own pace in whatever style you want.
You can directly interact with your readers on many platforms (blogs, mailing, lists, social media, author signing events).
There is an organized community of independent authors and you can learn from others and help others that are just getting started.
My writing would be judged directly by the readers and not some low-on-the-totem-pole publishing house employee looking for the flavor of the month.
Trend-setters like Hugh Howey