It's not the same industry but the relationship between book publishers and authors echoes some of the antagonism between record labels and musicians. And so the tips offered by those who've been through the process also sound familiar: "Walk away if the contract sucks," "build your fan base BEFORE release," etc.

Seth Godin is a successful non-fiction writer (if you like that kind of utopian Internet bizwiz thing). Here's his tips for selling non-fiction to publishers, and a similar article from another writer, secrets of book publishing I wish I'd known beforehand. There's also, for those not terrified of the word 'math', a predictable but still terrible story of how the editor of a maths encyclopedia got roughed up by his publisher. (These three articles are listed in order of readability - as noted, Seth Godin knows what he's doing...)