Why does self-publishing have such a bad rep?

The thing about self-publishing is that there's no filter, no gate-keeper. You can literally publish a book containing the sentence "All work and no play makes Homer something something." repeated over and over for 80K words. As you've pointed out, many SP books could use a good edit, at minimum.

Thing is though, Self-pubbing won't 'ruin' your career. Many authors started out SPing a novel and became successful after that. Some, like Weir, got discovered based on their SP novel. At minimum, SPing your novel will teach you a lot about the process, and about having a thick skin. Most importantly, IMO, there's a feeling of "done it!" when you've put that book up on Amazon and can move on to the next one.

Some differences (these are generalizations):
- SP requires you to do all your own marketing. TP still requires you to do some, but you'll have guidance.
- SP pays you more per unit. TP sells more units.
- TP gets you in brick-and-mortar book stores. SP does not, at least not without a lot of work and risk on your part.
- TP gets your name 'out there', since you end up on the publishers' lists, and may even get the benefit of some of their marketing.

Then there's the whole question of getting an agent, which is a different subject than getting a publisher. My advice: get an agent first.

One, because there's a lot of companies out there whose only goal is to part you with your money. Just be very careful, do your do diligence checking out reputations, ect. Let the buyer beware, I'm sure you've heard. Don't be a victim.

There's probably many, many, excellent books out there in self-pub land because writers chose to self-publish. Unfortunately the difficulty is connecting readers to the books - or finding them. The good books can get buried under the mass of not-so-very-good ones out there in self-pub land because there's no fences or gates, and anyone at all can wander in and put their book up for sale, regardless of quality or anything at all.

In the final analysis, all books are judged on their content, not on where they were found or bought.

Good luck, whichever route you choose, and Welcome KayMitch

...because a great many people do it very badly.

KayMitch said:

Why I ask about the bad rep self-publishing is because if I don't find the right agent/publisher etc for my novel, I will turn to self publishing and I don't want people to look at my book like it's a joke. Which is the impression I got from my professors when they spoke about self-publishing.

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I know several self-published authors who are making six-figure incomes from their writing (no, I'm not one of them). They all have one thing in common: they work their butts off, and publish on a consistent, frequent schedule.

If you take the time/effort to put out a professional product, it doesn't matter who published it; most readers don't know and don't care. But it's certainly a lot more work than going with a publisher, because you're both the author and the publisher.

veinglory said:

...because a great many people do it very badly.

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Not sure if this is helpful nowadays, but I would suggest taking some business courses, but if course there's nothing like a real life experience to open eyes to the realities of publishing. Yeah, I'm old (74) and cynical - but I don't want young people to be sheep among wolves.

Some of it's the attitude of the old guard. A decade or two ago, the only way to self-publish was through vanity presses, or to run off print copies and hope to hand-sell them out of the trunk of your car.

Ebooks changed that PoD changed that. The freakin' internet changed that.

But a lot of people still have trouble getting over that perspective.

That said, a whole lot of self-published books are crap. Mainly because there are a WHOLE LOT of self-published books. Going by Sturgeon's Law, ninety percent of everything is crap. So yeah, plenty of bad self-published books out there. But I find the good ones make up for it.

In the end, it doesn't matter. Rep changes in the face of the almighty dollar, given time and profit. I know many people who make good income from their efforts, and I'm doing decently myself. So long as this doesn't change, then eventually the stigma will fade until it's the new normal.

There are some very good and successful self-published books out there. I've read some of them, and I know people who don't even stop to check if a title is listed as "Amazon publishing" or whatever when they click "buy." I don't think the stigma is as great as it once was.

However, just as it is very hard to get through the gatekeepers to attract a trade-publisher for your novel, putting together a high-quality book and then having it discovered by readers on one's own is very hard. Even if your self-published book is a perfect rose, it will be drifting in a sea of turds (I think I'm borrowing imagery from Chuck Wendig here). Some people will toss a book up on Amazon or Smashwords or wherever with a cover they or a friend designed and no editing, or even proof reading. Not everyone will even have a story that would be much good if it were carefully edited. The average self-published book might sell a couple hundred copies in its lifetime, but it is a right skewed distribution with a few selling far more and many selling far less.

https://www.kameronhurley.com/the-cold-publishing-equations-books-sold-marketability-love/

http://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/writer-beware/pod/

There is also no shortage of people offering services or offering package deals to put your book together who may not exactly check out when it comes to experience and quality.

I believe there are difference in sales strategies for self publishing and trade publishing too, though this might vary with genre. The self-published authors I know who have sold a decent number of books say they write shorter books and bring them out (at most) three months apart, rather than writing longer books and publishing once a year or so. If you are a slow (or even medium paced) writer, or write books that are more epic in scope (and can't be broken up into independently marketable chunks), you might have trouble with this marketing strategy. The best advertisement for your future books are your current ones. This is true for all authors, but it's especially vital for self published writers.

An alternative to writing your books one at a time (if you are a slower writer) is to write your series or trilogy or whatever in advance, then publish them in rapid sequence. This means investing a lot of time and effort in a set of titles you don't know will sell at all, of course, but writing is always a risk.

This is so timely to me.

After 14 months or so of near full-time writing and re-writing, of crit partners and lovely beta readers, I finished a novel that was close to my heart (aren't they all?). Over time, I submitted it to 130 agents and was rejected by all of them but for two lovely rejections and one request for full. Her reply: "I didn't like it as much as I thought I would."

Those who have read it, by and large, enjoyed it, but the rejection has destroyed my will to write and crushed my life-long dream. (I know. Cry me a river.)

Anyway, I promised my mate that I'd look into self publishing it so friends who supported me can find it and it doesn't end as an unchecked box in life's "to do" list. Thus I'm embarking on the educational process. I knew it was full of scams and pitfalls. After a day of research, I'm pretty sure I should just mass-mail to them my bank account and social security number and be done with it.

• Not that money was ever the goal, but the Ingram route pays everyone and leaves you with $0.87 per book, but that's before they take their taxes out of it. So more like... they'll send you a bill. Of course, they do work for that money, right? Hard to say. Other than actually printing ink on paper and putting your book on an invisible list used by bookstores they won't name, they don't really say what they do for all that money. But they do have a webpage with a list of SEVEN independent publishing associations. As if joining seven associations is going to make this more transparent. Don't forget - you're supposed to still enjoy writing during this process.
• CreateSpace does a little better but the user experiences include things like: You must pay constant attention to pricing because you can end up in debt to them when they put your book on sale for less than it costs to produce it.
• There are a bazillion companies out there that offer editing, layout, and POD services. Many of them have a second website with "educational" material that ranks their competitors beneath them. Services in addition to POD tend to be a la carte (which is fine) but by the time you've paid for a $3,000 copy edit, a $500 service fee, a $200 cover, a $20 annual hosting fee, you're still lucky to make $1 per book. The chances of selling 3,720 books to make it back again are fairly dismal. Oh - and each of them has a "how to self-publish your work" book that they'll be happy to sell to you. Really.
• I did a quick search on "how to self-publish and avoid scams." I would avoid that. This wonderful article from AARP back in 2011 has some good tips, but it doesn't provide any advice for self-publishing a book without needing an infomercial with a Sarah McLachlan soundtrack to get yourself out of trouble.

I'm still digging into the research but it is a scary world. Especially when you've been trained for decades to believe that agents and publishers can guide you.

KayMitch said:

Why I ask about the bad rep self-publishing is because if I don't find the right agent/publisher etc for my novel, I will turn to self publishing and I don't want people to look at my book like it's a joke. Which is the impression I got from my professors when they spoke about self-publishing.

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Some people hate self-publishing because they're being snobbish, which is not something you can do anything about, so don't worry about them. Some people are cautious about self-publishing because they've wasted money on a bad book. You can do something about that, by doing the best job you can with the book production (should you decide to self-publish).

Felix said:

Anyway, I promised my mate that I'd look into self publishing it so friends who supported me can find it and it doesn't end as an unchecked box in life's "to do" list. Thus I'm embarking on the educational process. I knew it was full of scams and pitfalls. After a day of research, I'm pretty sure I should just mass-mail to them my bank account and social security number and be done with it.

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Something that's noticeable with your plans is you seem to have your heart set on a paperback. I'd suggest focusing more on an ebook to sell on Amazon. It's a simpler (and cheaper) place to start. A lot of the sites offering POD services are not a good idea. I mean the ones offering to do everything for you, not the places offering the basic POD printing (like CreateSpace).

Few people have the money to pay for all the things a trade publisher would do, so look for alternatives. You can swap skills with other authors, buy premade covers rather than custom ones, and things like that.

John Gresham self-pubbed his first novel A Time to Kill. It sold 5,000 copies before it was picked up by a traditional house.

I've beta'd self-pubbed novels that were riddled with grammar errors. I mean riddled. So, yeah, no filter can bite you.

Cindyt said:

John Gresham self-pubbed his first novel A Time to Kill. It sold 5,000 copies before it was picked up by a traditional house.

I've beta'd self-pubbed novels that were riddled with grammar errors. I mean riddled. So, yeah, no filter can bite you.

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Actually, no, he didn't. A Time To Kill was published by Wynwood Press for an initial 5000 copy run. His second book, The Firm, was published by Doubleday and Wynwood released a trade paperback edition of A Time To Kill and using leverage of the success of The Firm, Dell released a mass paperback edition.

BenPanced said:

Actually, no, he didn't. A Time To Kill was published by Wynwood Press for an initial 5000 copy run. His second book, The Firm, was published by Doubleday and Wynwood released a trade paperback edition of A Time To Kill and using leverage of the success of The Firm, Dell released a mass paperback edition.

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That's right! Thanks.

It can be done - but it's a LOT of hard work and you have to be prepared to put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into it. You'll be your own publisher and promoter, marketer and all of that is on your shoulders.

It's not for the weak of heart.

But there's plenty of resources to help you if you choose that route - just go slow, do your research and be prepared for a lot of hard work for possibly little return at the start.

Most of the options out there lump ebook and paperback together. Being 42, I'm far more interested in holding a book, personally. No one has asked me for an eCopy so, for my limited intentions, access to a paperback is a priority. Most people in my realm aren't interested in staring at a screen to read. It's the escape of that which brings some value to the reading process.

Anyway, I have since learned that there are two Amazon plans. CreateSpace is one, Kindle Direct Publishing is the other. It gives a writer access to both ebook and Paperback with more financial return than most options and no overhead.

Anyone can self-publish with or without a professional approach, and the writers who do the latter give the rest a bad name.

It's entirely possible to produce a book every bit as professional as anything you see from a traditional publisher (I read several by friends recently), but they went the extra mile to hire excellent editors, proofreaders and cover artists. Readers don't care if a book they enjoy is traditionally or self-published, but they may be less inclined to take a chance on a self-published novel.

The stumbling block for me was that I wanted an independent third party who agreed that my book was publishable and was willing to pay me for the privilege. I was not interested in releasing a book based solely on my own assessment.

I've had four books trade published (small press) but I've just finished my first sci-fi novel and there are no sci-fi publishers (to speak of) in Australia. I'm trying to get a UK agent but I'm unknown over there, so if there is no interest I will almost certainly self pub it.

I do have a bit of a following so I hope that will help get word out - but the sci-fi book is quite different from what I've produced before and I suspect many of my crime fiction fans will avoid it. But some won't.

Iain Banks wrote offbeat crime and sci-fi so no reason I can't.

I wonder what your professors would think of the genres that do well in self-publishing. Like romance.

I wouldn't be surprised if they call all romance writers "hack writers" too...

Dennis E. Taylor said:

The thing about self-publishing is that there's no filter, no gate-keeper. You can literally publish a book containing the sentence "All work and no play makes Homer something something." repeated over and over for 80K words. .

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I think Amazon's bots would pick up that up and reject it.

LJD said:

I wonder what your professors would think of the genres that do well in self-publishing. Like romance.

I wouldn't be surprised if they call all romance writers "hack writers" too...

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Only a few would have any respect. When I did my first Eng Lit degree in the early nineties there were literally professors who sneered openly at all books by women believe it or not.

mrsmig said:

That AARP article confuses self-publishing with vanity publishing, and advises registering your copyright with the Library of Congress, which is totally unnecessary.

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The AARP article is right on the money regarding copyright registration.

The Article said:

And in the United States, an author automatically owns the copyright to his or her work. Never sign yours away. Protect your copyright by registering your work online with the Library of Congress for $35.

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While you do automatically own the copyright to your work as soon as it's put into a fixed, tangible form, your legal remedies are severely limited if the copyright is not registered. Without registration, you can only sue an infringer for actual damages, which are probably next to nothing. With registration, you can sue for statutory damages, which can be as high as $150,000 per infringement (though usually no higher than $20,000), and you may also be able to recover court costs.

For self-published authors who have no publishing house backing them, yeah, registering the work is a good idea.