The fact is, the only people who can afford to publish full time are those that publish how-to and resources for other publishers. We have a history of writers including Virginia Woolf, Mark Twain, and Walt Whitman who published their own work. And the desktop publishing revolution opened small press up to anyone. Small press has grown because publishers go out of their way to educate themselves in all areas from design to distribution. Small press is not a full time job, it's a part time career.
Small press is a community of dissimilar people with one interest in common.
They gather at book fairs, through organizations, always eager to share information. Small publishers are resourceful. They learn to take what they've got and find creative ways to compensate for whatever they lack. Small publishers are natural entrepreneurs. If the time ever came that the press made enough money to live on and they could hire people to operate it, they'd get bored and do something else on the side.