Taylor Swift shook off publishers for her new book. That could spell trouble for the rest of the industry.

There are benefits to the self-publishing model — the most important being that you can keep more of the money your book makes.

Authors who work with traditional publishers earn money through advances and royalties on book sales, which, according to PublishDrive, usually fall between 10% and 15%.

Self-published authors can get a much larger percentage of sales and maintain creative control over their projects. They can also be more nimble, getting books published sooner than the two years it often takes to publish traditionally.

There are still advantages to using the traditional publishing model, most notably access to printing presses, distributors, the media, and staff who can promote the book for an author.

But Swift, arguably the most famous person to ever buck the traditional publishing path, doesn’t require the resources that a typical self-published author, best associated today with an unknown name releasing an e-book on a shoestring budget, needs.

As a self-published author, she can reap the rewards of the model without much risk because the money it takes to takes to write and market a book — which can go up to $30,000 — will barely make a dent in her bottom line.

Plus, in Target, she has a built-in distributor for her book that she trusts.

Swift has a long-standing relationship with the retailer, often releasing Target-exclusive versions of her albums that feature songs her fans can’t listen to anywhere else. The store warned fans that the book was likely to sell out quickly.

Most important, she has the Swifties.

Swift’s loyal audience is her greatest asset

As Swift’s album and concert sales have shown, her social-media followers are prepared to buy whatever she’s selling — and that’s likely to remain true for her book.

“Taylor Swift is truly, I think, the one celebrity whose actual follower count correlates to sales,” said Courtney Maum, an author and publishing expert who has worked in the industry for 20 years.

Jessica Maddox, an associate professor of digital media at the University of Alabama who is a self-described Swiftie, told BI that Swift’s online power was evident in the fact that social media sites have actually changed to accommodate the singer — what she calls “the platformization of Taylor Swift.”

Swift wasn’t the first artist in history to rerecord music — albums have rerecording clauses that allow artists to do just that after a certain period — but she is the first to find such success.

She used a winning PR narrative — a female artist taking back power from a label — and her strong relationship with fans to make those rerecordings just as, if not more, popular than the original versions.

“Once you eclipse a certain amount of superstardom, it’s being savvy enough to understand how these clauses work and how they’re flexible,” Durant said.

The industry has been forced to adapt. Rerecording clauses, which were “very much passive deal points” in recording contracts, are now some of the “most toughly negotiated deal points,” Durant added.

Swift has extended this business savvy to all aspects of her career.

Take something straightforward, like vinyl sales. Rather than just releasing one vinyl for each album, Swift has turned her records into collectibles by releasing multiple versions with different cover art. Last year, nearly one out of every 15 vinyls sold was a Taylor Swift album, according to the entertainment data firm Luminate.

In what most closely resembles her book deal, Swift self-produced last year’s “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” film. She had to swallow the production costs but reaped financial rewards.

Those profits were high, considering she also brokered her distribution deal with AMC, cutting out the intermediaries. The film grossed $260 million worldwide, per Box Office Mojo. She pocketed eight figures from the theatrical run, plus whatever Disney+ paid for streaming rights.

Beyoncé followed suit with a similarly structured deal for the film of her Rennaissance tour. It’s been widely speculated that she was inspired by Swift.

“Not every music star can pull this off,” Paul Dergarabedian, Comscore’s senior media analyst, told BI at the time. “Taylor Swift ignited the spark.”

Swift’s coming book deal, done in a way that leaves her in control of the product and the profits, might inspire other authors to follow her example.

“Obviously, Taylor Swift is sort of a case under herself for this stuff in terms of just her reach,” Hane said. “But there are a lot of people who aren’t as famous as her but are still doing pretty well who this kind of thing might make sense for as well.”

And Swift’s latest venture will likely just keep her fans coming back for more.

“There is no artist,” Durant said, “creating more intrinsic value to the superfan than Taylor Swift.”