Self-publishing: a quality issue

seun · Sep 7, 2007

A couple of self-published books have just arrived here at work. I've read the first few pages of both. If I didn't know they were self-published, I'd say they were first draft pieces from a new(ish) author. The story might be great; I'm more interested in the basics of these two books. The sentence structure, grammar and spelling (in a couple of places) are extremely poor.

I don't think there's anything wrong with self-publishing, but wouldn't an author want their work to be as professional as any other title on the shelf? What's to be gained by having a book that reads as poorly as these two?

CaroGirl · Sep 7, 2007

You're probably looking at the best those authors could do alone. Did they try to publish through traditional routes, or go directly to self-publishing?

I know that self-pubbing isn't right for me, but it's nice that it's an option for those who just want to give a few away to family and friends. On the surface, they look pretty good.

maestrowork · Sep 7, 2007

I agree. It's not so much about self-publishing, but about getting it through proper editorial processes. It doesn't mean commercially published books don't have errors... I agree that if someone wants to self-pub, they should hire a professional editor and go through a vigorous editing process to make sure the work is polished before going to print.

Azraelsbane · Sep 7, 2007

I have to agree with Carogirl on the quality probably being top notch for them. Also, everyone benefits from having a real editor look at their stuff, otherwise they wouldn't exist at the high end level.

When I finished my first novel, seven or so years ago, I seriously thought about self-publishing. I was scared to death of queries, my book didn't have a definitive genre, and I just wanted to see it in book format. I decided against it (though I never queried it, and likely never will). Dunno why, probably money issues. I was only 17 and about to head off to a 35k a years school, when my dad made less than that in a year, lol. I could either hand iuniverse 500 bucks, or have food for the semester.

Anyway, I've finally got a book I think is good enough to query, and I'm hoping it can land me an agent/book deal. It's a stressful process though. I belong to two fairly large writing groups in my city, and in both, vanity/self-pub is the norm. I don't think there's one person in either group that has been published the traditional way. They all seem to have gotten so worn out by years of rejection, they just did it themselves. It scares me. Maybe that's why so many people self-publish. *shrug*

PeeDee · Sep 7, 2007

Who knows what those authors thought, too. Maybe they were less concerned about putting their best feet forward and were more interested in Being Real Published Authors with books on shelves.

Or, it might be as Caro says. You just can't tell, unfortunately.

kristie911 · Sep 7, 2007

I think in some cases authors look at their product and say, "It's perfect, I couldn't possibly make it better." and stop there. It's extremely difficult to edit your own work and for some people they just can't see their own mistakes. When they get rejected by agents or publishers, their thoughts are somewhere along the lines of, "They can't see my brillance!" And they self-publish because they know they're brillant.

Not saying this is what happened...but I've seen this mentality more than once. Delusions of self-granduer are never a pretty sight!

Calla Lily · Sep 7, 2007

When I finished an early draft of the book that got me an agent, I thought it was the best it could possibly be. Then I got crits. Ouch. And I am infinitely grateful for those brutal crits.

I just reviewed an iUniverse book. Interesting storyline, likeable antihero. But the typos, the grammatical errors, the copyediting fizes that should've happened and didn't. I actually threw it across the room when I finished. When I read the first chapter of the next book in the series at the end of book 1, I emailed the author. HE has hos own promotion business--built for his own books. I strongly suggested he get a copyeditor for the rest of the series (13 projected books!). He replied with a nice pat on the head explaining that iUniverse didn't make his last set of edits and said it wasn't their fault--so he was going to AuthorHouse.

I gave up. This series is going to be several wannabes, and it's a shame. Why won't more writers go the crit-rewrite-fix-query route rather than self or vanity pub an embarassment?!

I know. It was a rhetorical question.

Gillhoughly · Sep 7, 2007

Going from iUniverse to Authorhouse???

:dies laughing: :roll:

III · Sep 7, 2007

My question would be, why is your library buying and stocking self-pubbed books? My next question would be, why isn't mine one of them? My books have a certified 77% spelling accuracy and that's something you can neither fake nor buy. As for proper grammar, I leave that to the inbred masses - they can keep it!

Shane Fitzsimmons · Sep 7, 2007

Personally, with the exception of very niche non-fiction books, I think that Self-Publication is almost always an obvious sign to a lack of professional quality in work. I realize this probably isn't a popular opinion, but quality writing gets published, eventually. There's a great many things that self-publishing fiction can suggest, and unless you're just looking for a small project to put together and hand out to your friends, I just can't take seriously people who self-publish and then consider themselves valid writers on a level above your regular old-Joe non-published writers.

Given, I know there's more than one example out there of self-published authors who wound up being quite successful as a result of their self-published work, but these are rare exceptions, like the Stephen King's and JK Rowlings of the world. More often than not, self-publishing fiction just shows a lack of quality in the writing, and a lack of integrity in the author.

aadams73 · Sep 7, 2007

Gillhoughly said:
Going from iUniverse to Authorhouse???

:dies laughing:

Talk about a lateral move

seun · Sep 7, 2007

III said:
My question would be, why is your library buying and stocking self-pubbed books?

Don't ask me. I just open boxes and pull out the goodies from within.

seun · Sep 7, 2007

kristie911 said:
I think in some cases authors look at their product and say, "It's perfect, I couldn't possibly make it better." and stop there. It's extremely difficult to edit your own work and for some people they just can't see their own mistakes.

The author in this case thanked his proof readers on the first page. I would have asked them to do a better job

mum23 · Sep 7, 2007

seun said:
A couple of self-published books have just arrived here at work. I've read the first few pages of both. If I didn't know they were self-published, I'd say they were first draft pieces from a new(ish) author. The story might be great; I'm more interested in the basics of these two books. The sentence structure, grammar and spelling (in a couple of places) are extremely poor.

I don't think there's anything wrong with self-publishing, but wouldn't an author want their work to be as professional as any other title on the shelf? What's to be gained by having a book that reads as poorly as these two?

I suppose it depends on ones desperation to have their work published.

III · Sep 7, 2007

aadams73 said:
Talk about a lateral move

Literally lateral - the two companies just merged.

PeeDee · Sep 7, 2007

Authors like callalily are talking about are just role-playing being writers. Its just auctorial-masturbation. Its the desire to Be Published and to be able to Condescend. Useless. And, er, laughable, really.

Azraelsbane · Sep 7, 2007

Gillhoughly said:
Going from iUniverse to Authorhouse???

:dies laughing:

At one of my writing group meetings last week, two people got into a discussion over why one person chose Authorhouse instead of iuniverse. Not joking. I didn't even know her book was self-pubbed till they brought up iuniverse. I'm basically an idiot when it comes to recognizing self-publishing houses.

JoNightshade · Sep 7, 2007

I think the process of actually attempting to get published by a mainstream house is the "refining fire" for any book, as it were. If I wasn't seriously attempting to get my work past an agent's reader, an agent, an editor, and then the general public, my book would never be as good as it is. I would have finished the first draft, read it over a few times for errors and typos, and then said, "Hey! It's done! I love it!"

I think that's the problem with self publishing. It's too easy. It allows you to convince yourself that you've done the best that you can (by yourself) and that this is the way for you. I'm sure there are a ton of self-published books out there that could have been pubbed through mainstream publishing companies if the author had just been willing to be a little more humble and go through the necessary revisions. It's too bad so many of them aren't willing to do this.

Andre_Laurent · Sep 7, 2007

mum23 said:
I suppose it depends on ones desperation to have their work published.

I can wait till hell freezes solid, if necessary. Because that's what will happen before I go that route.

PeeDee · Sep 7, 2007

JoNightshade said:
I think that's the problem with self publishing. It's too easy. It allows you to convince yourself that you've done the best that you can (by yourself) and that this is the way for you. I'm sure there are a ton of self-published books out there that could have been pubbed through mainstream publishing companies if the author had just been willing to be a little more humble and go through the necessary revisions. It's too bad so many of them aren't willing to do this.

Absolutely right on this. Heck, with services like Lulu, I can go from finishing my novel in first draft to selling it in about half an hour, without ever losing that "Wow, it's finished and it's brilliant!" buzz that I should really lose before getting into offering it to the world.

wee · Sep 7, 2007

seun said:
A couple of self-published books have just arrived here at work. I've read the first few pages of both. If I didn't know they were self-published, I'd say they were first draft pieces from a new(ish) author. The story might be great; I'm more interested in the basics of these two books. The sentence structure, grammar and spelling (in a couple of places) are extremely poor.

I don't think there's anything wrong with self-publishing, but wouldn't an author want their work to be as professional as any other title on the shelf? What's to be gained by having a book that reads as poorly as these two?

I, erm, recently saw here on AW why self-pubbing remains a popular choice. I saw someone post a piece for crits, something that had potential but also had some fairly big problems, too, and get extremely defensive when great crits were offered. Next thing, this author announces a contract with, basically, a vanity house. The saddest part was, this person was basically announcing it in such a way as to say, "See? I didn't need to improve at all!" My mouse hovered over the Reply button for just a moment, and then it hit me: this is who the self-pubbing industry was made for. Nothing to say. This same person just barely got free of one big scam-house to sign up with another.

No matter how great your potential talent, if you are more interested in having your ego stroked than in hearing honest feedback & improving your craft, then you will always remain self-deluded and wonder why your brilliance goes unrecognized.

It is a big shame, but in a way, not really. Every person who remains self-deluded and refuses to perfect their craft is one more person who won't be competing with me on the best-seller lists. :tongue

Bully for them, and bully for me! Go for it! Self-pub your little heart out. I think that's awesome! As for me, I'll keep practicing until I'm good enough for the big leagues. And bring on the crits!

wee

maestrowork · Sep 7, 2007

You're all just jealous of my genius™.

Azraelsbane · Sep 7, 2007

wee said:
I, erm, recently saw here on AW why self-pubbing remains a popular choice. I saw someone post a piece for crits, something that had potential but also had some fairly big problems, too, and get extremely defensive when great crits were offered. Next thing, this author announces a contract with, basically, a vanity house.

This got me thinkin'. There is this contest in my area. Some writers' conference novel contest. And if you win, you get a contract with a publisher. It sounded like a sweet deal, and I was going to submit my novel to it and hope for the best, but then I went and checked out the publishing house, and turns out it's a vanity press. I had no idea what that meant, so I came here and checked it out. Wow. Made me think twice about entering the contest. From what I got out of most threads is that those places are worse than normal self publishing, because they actually hold the rights to your book.

Did I get the right idea about them? Entering would have been a bad idea, right? Not that I would have won, but still.. Just sayin'.

Calla Lily · Sep 7, 2007

Azraelsbane said:
From what I got out of most threads is that those places are worse than normal self publishing, because they actually hold the rights to your book.

Did I get the right idea about them? Entering would have been a bad idea, right? Not that I would have won, but still.. Just sayin'.

Azrael, pat yourself on the back for recognizing the scam and running away. The only correct choice.

dobiwon · Sep 7, 2007

wee said:
As for me, I'll keep practicing until I'm good enough for the big leagues. And bring on the crits!

I think this is a good analogy. From what I've read by people who chose self-pubbing, they often believe that self-publishing is the equivalent of the minor leagues, where they can showcase their talent, and some big league scout will be impressed and snap them up. Big misconception, on both counts. Minor leagues are places to polish and refine your skills. The write-get critiques-rewrite-submit-refine... process is the real "minor league" for writers.

Self-publishing: a quality issue

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