Another Self-Pubber saying there is a Revolution

Stacia—Good point. There is a lot of work that goes into an album, indie or label.

acockey said:

@Mumbling Sage For some reason I can't justify paying for digital copies of anything of 9.99..just my opinion.. I like the painting esque cover of the book..price is an automatic shut down for me

Click to expand...

It's $24.00 for a print copy, actually. God Eaters has no digital edition; part of why I sort of wish it'd had a publisher...then it would be a lot cheaper! It was $20 when I bought it years ago--might have on sale, or else inflation is catching up. That's saddening, especially because the real self-publishing success stories you hear are people selling $2.99 or 99 cent Kindle books.

As a writer, my goal is to work with a trade publisher because I want to tell stories. Not make covers or sell books or call up bookstores. I also want to tell darn good stories, so I want to work with a professional editor, someone who will help me hone my craft and make each book better than the last.

As a reader, I avoid self published books because I honestly don't know how to go about finding the good ones in amongst the rest. With a trade published book I can make certain assumptions; the text is going to be relatively error free, there will be a plot that has a beginning, middle, and end, and if it comes from a publisher I know and trust that tells me something about the story. How many hundreds of thousands of self published books are there? How am I supposed to find the ones with good, compelling stories that are also properly formatted and adhere to normal rules of spelling and grammar?

It's sad, but it's true, and until someone comes up with a way for me to find the books I'll enjoy reading, I just don't bother looking at self-published books.

I look at the digital versions of self-published works on Kindle, Nook, or Smashwords. I give the book several pages to hook me. If any errors jump out and derail my immersion, I don't bother with the rest. I do this with commercially-published books, too.

I keep forgetting to add to this conversation that, before I found books like The God Eaters, I passed many hours reading fanfiction, some of which was amazingly good. So it's not like publishers are necessary to produce quality works. They just help a lot--and also as gatekeepers. Even if authors didn't want or need publishers to do the heavy lifting, readers want them to help filter out books of the quality and genre they want.

If self-publishing is so wonderful, why did James sell Fifty Shades to Random House? Also, Fifty wasn't technically self-published (as I understand it) but distributed by the e-and-POD publisher, The Writer's Coffeeshop. AFTER a shrewd platform-building campaign in the world of fan fiction.

Click to expand...

Grocery stores.

Nevermind bookstores, they're hard enough to get into. Grocery stores, drug stores, department stores. The places where people buy books who usually don't buy books. FSOG is in all of those.

Everyone stands on even ground with an ebook, but when you get into print, it's difficult, to say the least, to get a POD book into a bookshop and even if you do, the profit margins on POD are pretty mediocre. You can't touch mass market without the distribution chain and printing economies of scale of not just a trade publisher, but a very large one.

I'm with Shadowalker. The number of people grandstanding on "fighting the man" are mainly a few bloggers. Most of us make reasonable guesses about what makes the most sense to us. The latest of the melded models is people retaining ebook rights, but selling print rights with the feeling that this is where each model works the best. Mark, more or less, needs to spend less time evangelizing and more time working on his site. I have a lot of respect for what he's done, but his site is falling way behind and there are some new competitors.

Again, it comes down to distribution and sales. When I queried e-pubs last year, I picked only those with the highest total average sales. My book is not a wild bestseller, but the sheer size and good reputation of my publisher means I get a lot of browsing readers I wouldn't get with a smaller pub - or in the sea of self-publishing.

Finding out how well a publisher sells isn't always easy, but it's worth the time to research.

I'm certainly not going to self-publish anything until I have enough of a commercial presence to use as a marketing platform.

I would note that Fifty Shades was online, then with a small press. It wasn't self-published in ebook or print form.

Katie Elle said:

The latest of the melded models is people retaining ebook rights, but selling print rights with the feeling that this is where each model works the best.

Click to expand...

I have trouble believing the big trade publishers are going to relinquish e-rights without a fight, given the increasing share of the book market e-books are consuming. It's more than a decade since J. K. Rowling started retaining her digital rights to the HP books, and Little, Brown kept digital rights to The Casual Vacancy.

folkchick said:

An album can be cut and released the same day online.

Click to expand...

Usually, an indie recording follows months or even years of public performances and road dues. It doesn't happen overnight.

Stacia Kane said:

I'm sure there are still a lot of labels and bands that produce physical copies.

Click to expand...

When I was playing the festival circuit, most of our income was from sales of CDs from the bandstand. It's why we toured. The band I toured with is still doing it.

acockey said:

@Susan Littlefield I can point you to one or more interviews were this holds true

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidvi...owning-in-indie-books-and-thats-a-good-thing/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bernard-starr/the-new-vanity-publishing_b_1821945.html

http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2012/0...l-publishers-and-self-publish-ebooks-instead/

these articles are more or less in the same vain as the first..Self pubbing equals "jet pack future"

Click to expand...

The articles are others opinions, not the opinions of self published writers themselves. You have made a sweeping generalization about the attitude of those who are self published.

Self publishing is not good or bad in of itself, it's just another tool for writers to utilize. Success is about how you use the tool, not that the tool exists.

Stacia is right on.

My significant other is a professional musician, and his band has recorded three albums under independent labels. There is a lot of work to putting together an album whether it be with a major or indie label. Many

Usually, an indie recording follows months or even years of public performances and road dues. It doesn't happen overnight.
__________________

Click to expand...

Al Stevens, I have to agree, especially when it comes to full length albums. I was using a very stark example of something that could happen if all the key elements came together in the right way. A person could have their guitar, a nice microphone*, Garageband and about four or five songs, an EP pretty much. They play straight with no mistakes, do a quick mix with no bells or whistles, then they upload it to Soundcloud with a jpeg they took in their bathroom mirror. This could all happen in one day. Albeit, the marketing is nonexistent at that point, but they did produce a product for consumption, and maybe even a good product. If a person has written solid songs they can go bare minimum and still really have something great. In fact, I think many sound engineers spend WAY too much time mixing the hell out of an album, very often losing track of little idiosyncrasies that could have added to the final sound.

Talking about the music business depresses me so I was kicking myself for writing anything on here, but I do like the idea of Instant Karma as John Lennon once put it. It doesn't always work, but it can. I don't think it works as well in the publishing industry on a general basis. It just seems like a different monster; there's much less forgiveness when a book has mistakes than there is with an album.

* a cowbell would be awesome too

Roger J Carlson said:

The comparison between music and literature also breaks down in terms of the audience's investment of time. You can download a song and it takes 3-4 minutes. When you download a self-published novel, you've got an investment of hours at least.

Click to expand...

It breaks down on numerous levels, IMO. Musicians have two products: recordings and performance, both of which generate income streams (and in the case of albums, multiple income streams, since songs can be sold individually), and each of which can be used to promote the other. Whereas writers have a single product--their writing--which can't be broken up and sold in pieces; and the promotional avenues available to them are mostly unpaid and outside the boundaries of craft.

Plus, you can buy a song and listen to it over and over, but how often do you re-read a book? Buying a song is an investment that pays out many times. Buying a book is an investment that pays out once. A much different reality for consumers.

I do think a broad comparison can be made between indie musicians and self-publishing writers and the challenges they pose to the establishment--but at the individual level that comparison breaks down, because the financial, promotional, and artistic realities are very different.

- Victoria

Here is a link to a well known Australian agent's blog, and to put it in her words or for that matter, rant, why the self publishing bubble will burst

http://callmyagent.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/this-bubble-will-burst.html

Also, he went into how everyone, at every point in their life has a right to publish.

Click to expand...

Sure, anyone can self publish if they want to.

acockey said:

Where a guru of self-publish is saying the ship is sinking, meaning the big four, and we should all self-publish, because those money grubbers at the Big Four take most of your profits.

Click to expand...

Hahaha no. They aren’t going anywhere IMO. Publishers can do a lot that is much more difficult for self-pubbers to do. There’s the marketing, the book layout and cover design, the whole physical-book-in-a-store thing, etc etc.

Some people just don’t want to do all of that.

The houses also act as a filter of sorts. The people that don’t publish with a major house probably 1) got unlucky and submitted at a bad time (too many similar works or too few works like it and they don’t know if there is an audience for this), 2) didn’t have a good query, or 3) didn’t have a great story. It’s #3 that doesn’t get filtered out with self-published novels. The publishers have pretty decent editors on-board as well, whereas you’d have to pay for one yourself if you self-pubbed.

Basically, the publishers make sure the published work isn’t an absolute pile of stinky socks. That’s a good thing, IMO. I can buy a book from them and feel pretty confident about my choice. It’s not the same with self-published novels (unless it’s someone I already know). I don’t get that same level of, “I’m sure this will be decent,” that I do from traditionally published ones.

I do like to buy books that have been self-published, but it’s considerably more difficult. I have to wade through a freaking sea of stories from people I’ve never heard of until I find one that makes me say, “This sounds interesting.”

Anyway, that’s how I feel as a reader. As an aspiring writer, however, I want to say, “Woohoo! Self-publishing is awesome!”

It really irks me when the British press try to make out FSOG is some kind of secret vice. There was a huge display of the flipping books in ASDA (WalMart). That's about as secret as the sunset.

veinglory said:

Self-publishing has opened up great opportunities. But it is not a cult that has the 'answer' for every writer.

Click to expand...

acockey said:

My original intent I think of posting this was to one: say the interviewee is wrong headed, and two: to say that cant we all just coexist, why is always all or nothing with most of these self pubbing die hards.

Click to expand...

Any time I see someone using a black-and-white EITHER-OR argument I classify them as a fool. The real world is most often a rainbow world – or at least one with many shades of grey.

I self-publish. I will also pursue trade publishing sometime later this year.

acockey said:

@Susan go back and reread I even said in one of my posts that self pubbing wasn't inherently a bad option..

Click to expand...

Whether self publishing is or is not a bad/good option is not what I am referring to. You said:

More to the point I am asking self pubbers to stop acting like that guy on the street with the "Apocalypse Now" sign around his neck

Click to expand...

This statement is a generalization because you are putting "self Pubblers" into a certain group. I could be misunderstanding, so perhaps you can clarify the quoted statement.

Plus, you can buy a song and listen to it over and over, but how often do you re-read a book? Buying a song is an investment that pays out many times. Buying a book is an investment that pays out once.

Click to expand...

I just finished re-reading a favorite series that I discovered in high school, nearly 20 years ago. Speak for yourself!

I often wish I could read like I listen to music, while driving or doing laundry. Unfortunately, audiobooks are really expensive, and slower to get through.