I like this post about the long tail and niche artists - and the same principle applies to any niche product. Swap in a niche product for music, and this is very true:

The Long Tail is... an economic principle that reveals a strategy that can be used by creative businesses: sell less of more. That is to say, release a large amount of things that sell in small quantities. To date (and much to everyone's surprise) the major record labels have grasped this far more quickly than the independents.

The reason this is so true? "Hits" don't disappear just because we live in a long tail world:

The Long Tail is not... the death of the hit. While the niche market expands because the availability of products is greater and greater - to the extent that the sum economic value of all non-hits combined is greater than the sum economic value of all hits combined - that doesn't mean that the number of hits decreases, or that Britney Spears goes away.

The same thing applies in the market for any product. Take development tools. Just because it's easier to get the message out about Smalltalk doesn't mean that there won't be hits (Ruby) - what's different about the current era, compared to, say, 15 years ago is this: a hit doesn't suck all of the oxygen out of the space. It was hard to get a word in edgewise; now it's much more possible, which makes it much more possible to make a living down at the long tail end of things.

The key things are increasing exposure and decreasing the "friction" involved in making sales.