Whether you self-publish, subsidy publish, or let someone else do it for you, I don't think it is wise to give up your day job until you already have an established income from your writing.

Before I started my own publishing company, it seemed a much better way to deal with my creative works. After all, traditional publishers take your works, and you get 7-15% (if you're lucky). With your own company, the initial outlay might be more (and it is!) but eventually, you expect to be making a much greater profit.

Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't trade the learning experience for anything, and I did enjoy learning how to record, master, and edit audio for the recorded version of my manuscript. Plus I love knowing that I have the knowledge to get my work into published form.

HOWEVER (caps for emphasis) sometimes I am pretty sure that if I could stand the stress of finding a qualified agent who didn't just care about the bottom line..... [Note: About 8 years ago I had an agent tell me that if I wasn't already a successful writer, she wasn't interested in talking to me! Creates a conundrum, doesn't it?]....I would let someone else worry about dealing with manufacturers and getting exposure for the product.

The 7% royalty sounds a lot better to me all the time. Marketing is not my favorite thing to do in this world. It is expensive and quite often feels like it is falling into a black hole somewhere. Whatever loss I might take financially by going through an agent might be worth it in terms of stress.

If I was having to worry about paying my bills with my writing like your friend, I think the stressometer might explode. Plus my writing would probably suffer. The only writing I do well under stress is poetry - angst and all that.