Hi,
Kevin, and welcome to AW.
Kevin Crabbe:
After what seems to be about 2 month's YouWriteOn's got writers getting actual book signings and book stocked in big UK stores like Blackwells and Waterstones, with one saying they'd sold out of the book, and writers getting quotes for their books from people like Monty Python's Terry Jones and Chocolat writer Joanne Harris.
Actually YWO hasn't got their writers actual book signings and hasn't got their book stocked in big UK stores like Blackwells and Waterstones. The people who did that were the authors (and more power to them). However, as has already been pointed out by other posters here, authors may be able to get one or two individual stores in a national chain to stock their book, but they simply cannot get their book into all of the stores, which is what an author needs their publisher to do if they are to hit a critical mass of sales to make publishing that book profitable.
With regard to the one author who has sold out of their book, again, more power to them, but it means that if they sold out of their book it's because they had to buy X number of copies and sell them themselves, presumably (and this is only a guess) at a price more than what they paid for it in order to make a profit. Again, this is not a normal thing for an author to do - it is for the publisher to sell copies of books, usually by doing a print run.
Finally, with regard to the quotes from Terry Jones and Joanne Harris, that's a great thing and must be a wonderful boost to the authors concerned. However, if their book is not appearing on the shelves of book stores around the country, it's not going to make a significant difference to the number of sales they can hope to make.
Kevin Crabbe:
If you provide the balance about the good things they also achieve then you get taken more seriously but if you don't it can lead to a credibility problem
Everyone involved with YWO, including Ted Smith, has had the opportunity to comment here and put their side of the story. Unfortunately, Ted chose not to answer some of the more difficult criticisms (that may be because he has no answer for the criticisms, but I would not like to speculate). Other commentators who were initially pro the YWO publishing offer have since discovered that far from making them money, it's costing them money (often money that they don't have) and with little hope of making any real return on it.
Kevin Crabbe:
Come on you guys, it shouldn't be Absolute Write versus other writers sites!
It isn't.
I'm a member of several other writer's boards and what I find you get on AW that you don't perhaps get elsewhere is a concentration of people who actually know how the industry is supposed to operate and who are therefore prepared to ask serious questions about self-publishing ventures and the pros and cons.
You will find many people here who will point to legitimate self-publishing companies as being a good port of call for writers working in particular niche areas (such as poetry) or who have a very limited set of objectives that they want to achieve from their writing.
I don't think that anyone here has or indeed had any serious issues with the message board element of YWO or the critique service (although it has been pointed out repeatedly that it's offering little a writer could otherwise get by joining a decent critique group and going down the query route). The issue is with the message boards (which are Arts Council funded and therefore in receipt of public money) being used to promote a self-publishing venture that is more likely to realise a profit for YWO and Legend Press than it is the authors concerned. That is what I find particularly insidious and indefensible about it and I'm sure a number of other Brits here feel the same way.
Kevin Crabbe:
I think some of the posters need to look a bit deeper for more balance here or it will eat away at your credibility.
If I have an opinion and I can support my opinion with evidence, then I think my credibility remains intact. If people who have differing opinions have the opportunity to post here stating their views and their supporting evidence, then their credibility remains intact. Either way, AW retains its ability to provide a message board giving each side their say.
Your problem appears to be that there aren't enough people here saying that YWO's self-publishing venture might not be that bad for authors. I don't agree with you. There are a lot of other people here who don't agree with you. And we've all set out our reasons for that.
Even people who originally thought it was a good thing and said so here are now coming back to report on the problems. I'm sorry that doesn't meet some kind of 50-50 even-handed rule of making comments that you'd prefer to see, but it doesn't change the reality.
Kevin Crabbe:
Take a look at Authonomy and writers are doing well and take a look at YouWriteOn's publishing update and writers are doing really well too.
Define "doing well". If you mean in terms of having achieved commercial publishing deals, then the figures are about the same as what you'd see in a normal slush pile and as yet, I don't think either site has benefited a total number of people represented by double digits. In Authonomy's case, some of the authors who have been picked up, were picked up because they already had agents or through separate submissions, rather than through their participation in Authonomy.
With YWO, I believe that only 1 author who self-published with YWO got a commercial deal. That's 1 author out of what, several thousand? That's not a great success rate, however you look at it.
Kevin Crabbe:
I imagine those writers must be really pleased to be in bookshops and isn't any extra reader reached a good one?
Except that it's not an author's job to have to arrange for books to store their books or sell their book to readers. It's the publishers. I don't deny that every YWO who gets a store to stock their book must feel a sense of achievement, but the terms are likely to be onerous and cost them money in the long run.
Kevin Crabbe:
Yes, it's more, but for an often very isolated vocation it's a very important one if writers feel encouraged, wouldn't you say?
Define "encouraged". There's a difference between genuinely helping someone to improve their writing and keep them motivated to do so and patting them on the head for showing some effort while simultaneously lightening their wallet.
What really irritates me about the YWO self-publishing venture is that there are more than likely some excellent writers who have been caught up in it and who, with a little more persistence and attention to craft, could have got a commercial publishing deal. However, they've now lost their first publication rights to YWO (and regardless of what YWO says about giving a release, those rights are kaput from the moment of publication) and face an uphill struggle of having to (a) get a commercial publisher to notice them by (b) hitting the kind of sales figures that suggest there could be a market or (c) getting the right editor at the right house to look at it and take a shot, either way they will probably have to spend money in order to do so.
MM