# The right way to view self-publishing



## Steerpike

Nice blog post by Chuck Wendig:

Self-Publishing Is Not The Minor Leagues Ã‚Â« terribleminds: chuck wendig

It's Wendig, so a few warnings for language


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## Graylorne

Just got it by Twitter.

I fully agree. Self-publishing is equal to trade publishing, so you should treat it in the same professional way. 
That's all there is to it


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## BWFoster78

> The culture forgives and sometimes congratulates even the most meager of efforts because of how courageous someone is to take the plunge to publish their own work.



The first time I ran into this viewpoint, it absolutely astounded me that someone would feel this way, but they do.


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## Steerpike

BWFoster78 said:


> The first time I ran into this viewpoint, it absolutely astounded me that someone would feel this way, but they do.



Yeah, I've come across that sentiment numerous times. "Hey, the important thing is to get it out there. Don't sweat it if there are errors or other problems." It's a bad approach.


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## Graylorne

From the whole post, that's the only reaction you two can think of? Speak of keeping stigma's alive.


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## Steerpike

Graylorne said:


> From the whole post, that's the only reaction you two can think of? Speak of keeping stigma's alive.



It's a reaction to a specific comment in the post. Addressing a specific point does not imply that one was unable to think of anything else in relation to the source material, and I think that's rather a bizarre conclusion to draw.


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## Caged Maiden

you know.. I decided a year ago, that self-publishing wasn't for me.  I spent this last year learning how to really edit effectively, awaiting my chance to once again submit (after I got a partial request last year, but botched it with poor editing).  

HOWEVER... the more I see about self-publishing, the more I think it's the way to go.  It just sounds so much more effective, if you can get over the marketing hurdle.  I really need to know more and I'm sure those who have been very successful with self-publication aren't simply "waiting" for marketing to fall out of the sky... but I'm unsure what an individual can accomplish with their own marketing.  How does one market their book?  Do we rely on reviews?  I'm just so confused about the specifics of self-publishing, I'm too afraid to try it.  Why don't we have a mentoring service, rather than agents?  Like, I'd be happy to pay a mentor a cut of my self-published profits (like I would an agent), if they could assist with the process, hold my hand, and make it easy.

Thanks for posting the article... just a few more things to consider, for those of us still torn.


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## Graylorne

Wendig's whole post was to say exactly that, but he said it in a positive way.
Your remarks echo only the negativism. To my mind that doesn't help.
If you find that bizarre, I'm sorry.


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## BWFoster78

Graylorne said:


> Wendig's whole post was to say exactly that, but he said it in a positive way.
> Your remarks echo only the negativism. To my mind that doesn't help.
> If you find that bizarre, I'm sorry.



I guess I just don't have a problem saying something in a negative way.  If people want to change the stigma about self publishing, it's not enough to simply put out quality material yourself and post things telling others to put out quality material.  The fact is that sometimes you need to call out those who are putting out the crap that causes the stigma in the first place.


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## Graylorne

Brian, I'm completely fed up with these discussions. They are not constructive and they never go anywhere. And that's the last I'm saying about it.


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## BWFoster78

Graylorne said:


> Brian, I'm completely fed up with these discussions. They are not constructive and they never go anywhere. And that's the last I'm saying about it.



Okay.

You are perfectly free to refrain from responding.  

Thanks for the information?


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## BWFoster78

> I'm unsure what an individual can accomplish with their own marketing. How does one market their book? Do we rely on reviews? I'm just so confused about the specifics of self-publishing,



I think a lot of us feel that way to a certain extent.

It seems that the answer is that you have to do some marketing, but the consensus seems to be that your best tool to make money is to write more books.


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## psychotick

Hi,

I liked the article. I'd agree with it too. There are too many writers who are taking the freedom that self publishing offers and squandering it on poorly produced works. Chuck's right, this is a business and it has to be treated as such. That means that along with the freedom to put out the books you want to write and which the Big Five would never touch, there's a need for quality.

But regardless of how many bad books are being put out, self publishing has to be considered a viable option for any would be author.

Cheers, Greg.


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## Chessie

Thank you for the article, Steerpike. I like Mr. Wendig's outlook on self-publishing. I also see it as an equal choice to traditional publishing, but the reason why I have chosen to go this route is because (and I've probably mentioned this somewhere before) I'm already a small business owner. 

My practice is coming along rather nicely and the interesting part is that I haven't done much marketing. Next to none, really. I don't think it might work this way publishing books though. But the valuable lessons I have learned are to not only put your best work forward, but having a respectful attitude and the intention of really contributing to the community helps. You can still put out quality work as a self-publisher and that should still be respectable.


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## Philip Overby

I haven't read the article yet, but I'm sure it has some good points. I'll come back and address some of them later. 

Just one thing I'd like to note first. Why does one have to chose traditional OR self-publishing? The hybrid approach seems to be working well for quite a few authors. You can self-publish books that aren't getting bites from publishers to keep your name out there and then publish the books that do traditionally. Sounds easy (in theory), but it's kind of like this idea that novel writers shouldn't write short stories. Just do both. It's not going to hurt anything, I don't think.


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## Philip Overby

> In fact: I criticize because I care. Because I want to see the option done right. If I didn’t give a shit, I’d just point and laugh from the sidelines and snarkily snark with other smug, self-superior traditionally-published authors. (And just as that superiority isn’t attractive from them, it’s not attractive from the side of author-publishers, either, by the way.) The authors who often get held up as paragons of the form? They’re doing it right. They’re treating it like it’s a professional endeavor, not some also-ran half-ass effort. They’re acting like it’s the real deal — a trip to the Majors, not time spent in some Dirt League.



I like this point a lot. I don't think pointing fingers and saying "Your way is stupid" or "Your way is sloppy" is good on either end. Self-publishing's image isn't like it used to be. But it has to be something seen as being your best foot forward also. The best self-published writers have pride in their work and treat it like their career depends on it, because it does in most cases.

It really is a more exciting time for writers. Being that there are more options now than there were years ago makes it possible for people to achieve their goals in different ways. That's a good thing. I don't think sniping at one another about which way is better really achieves anything. 

That said, I do think always taking the road that "Most self-published work is crap" is kind of like saying "All stuff produced on Youtube is crap." It's sometimes harder to find the good stuff, but it's there in bigger quantities than it was when people were publishing with vanity presses anyway.


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## Ankari

I read the blog post. I don't see anything that approaches scandalous. He raises a lot of good points. What's all the hub-bub, bub?


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## skip.knox

Phil the Drill said:


> That said, I do think always taking the road that "Most self-published work is crap" is kind of like saying "All stuff produced on Youtube is crap."



Seems like an appropriate place to quote Theodore Sturgeon: Seventy percent of *everything* is crap.

The story behind that, possibly apocryphal, is worth looking up. I have to say, I have yet to find an exception to Sturgeon's Law. It has made me regard the world in a more kindly light.


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## Chilari

Graylorne said:


> Wendig's whole post was to say exactly that, but he said it in a positive way.
> Your remarks echo only the negativism. To my mind that doesn't help.
> If you find that bizarre, I'm sorry.



Surely the best way to improve self-pubishing as an industry, as well as the image people have of self-publishing, is to do exaclty what Chuck Wendig has recommended in his blog post - don't be afraid of criticising self-publishing. Don't go defending it against indefensible claims. If there are indeed strange individuals who, shockingly, believe it is acceptable to put out low quality works because even just doing that is "brave", or because publishing something is more important than making that something good, we are obliged, as supporters of self-publishing, to be critical of that belief, to let such individuals know that this approach isn't acceptable and that striving for quality is the way to improve the industry.

If there was any negativity in what Brian said - which I can't say I detected - then it was justified because it is negativity directed at an attitude which needs to be challenged, and attitude which is undermining the integrity and reputation of the industry.


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## C Hollis

> Surely the best way to improve self-pubishing as an industry, as well as the image people have of self-publishing, is to do exaclty what Chuck Wendig has recommended in his blog post - don't be afraid of criticising self-publishing.



I agree, but I think the criticism should be more focused than the "self-publishing" is crap.  The criticism should be directed at the writers who help strengthen that belief.  Call out the writers who pollute the market with hastily written garbage individually.  Call out the writers who do it intentionally, don't generalize.

There are writers in the self-publishing world who openly admit publishing crap knowing it was crap when they published it.  Call those people out, but knock it off with the vague generalizations.

Get rich quick schemers - mass producing unedited crap to populate their author page with titles.  Prevalent in erotica, but not exclusive to it.
Impatient writers - The ones who self-publish because they don't want to wait out the traditional process, openly admitting their work isn't quite ready.
Improving by publishing - And they admit it.  We all get better as our work at the keyboard progresses, but when you know you're not quite there and you publish anyway...and tell people about it in some "watch me as I learn" blog.
Not ready for traditional publishing - I'm not talking about the stories that traditional publishers don't think will sell.  I'm talking about the crap that would get rejected because it's poorly written.  In this sense, if it's not ready for traditional publishing, it is not ready for self-publishing.  Don't insult the readers.

Like I said, I agree we need to criticize.  Many of these writers deserve harsh words of criticism, but not the self-publishing industry as a whole.  When you generalize, you also attack the good writers.


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## Graylorne

Thank you, C Hollis; that's what I wanted to say but for some stupid emotional reason couldn't find the words.


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## Chilari

C Hollis said:


> I agree, but I think the criticism should be more focused than the "self-publishing" is crap.  The criticism should be directed at the writers who help strengthen that belief.  Call out the writers who pollute the market with hastily written garbage individually.  Call out the writers who do it intentionally, don't generalize.



Expressing shock that such people exist is hardly generalising the whole industry of self-publishers as being the same.


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## Philip Overby

C Hollis said:


> I agree, but I think the criticism should be more focused than the "self-publishing" is crap.  The criticism should be directed at the writers who help strengthen that belief.  Call out the writers who pollute the market with hastily written garbage individually.  Call out the writers who do it intentionally, don't generalize.



I tend to feel like calling out people individually is kind of a hard thing. And there's always going to be people that say, "let them write what they want." It's sort of enabling this kind of work to get out there. In the fantasy genre, I'm not sure what the status is, but I think this problem is probably prevalent in erotica. 



> There are writers in the self-publishing world who openly admit publishing crap knowing it was crap when they published it.  Call those people out, but knock it off with the vague generalizations.
> 
> Get rich quick schemers - mass producing unedited crap to populate their author page with titles.  Prevalent in erotica, but not exclusive to it.



I tend to preface these kind of questions by saying, "This is a serious question" so people don't think I'm being glib, but how do you call these people out? Read loads of crap and then review each one? Someone with an awful lot of time and a strong stomach would have to take on a task like that.


> Impatient writers - The ones who self-publish because they don't want to wait out the traditional process, openly admitting their work isn't quite ready.



This is the absolutely last reason I'd want to self-publish myself. I don't want to feel impatient or rushed to get something out there just to reach some kind of nebulous goal. I want to feel proud of my work regardless of how I publish it. Having complete control is no excuse to phone it in.


> Improving by publishing - And they admit it.  We all get better as our work at the keyboard progresses, but when you know you're not quite there and you publish anyway...and tell people about it in some "watch me as I learn" blog.



I don't so much mind this kind of thing because it's typically not someone asking for money or having really high expectations for a huge audience. They're just dabbling in things. One reason I like the Challenges section here at Mythic Scribes is to encourage people to write and share it with people. Some of the stuff I've written in the Challenges section is crap at times, but it's a low risk, low visibility place to hone my writing with other people who like doing the same thing.



> Not ready for traditional publishing - I'm not talking about the stories that traditional publishers don't think will sell.  I'm talking about the crap that would get rejected because it's poorly written.  In this sense, if it's not ready for traditional publishing, it is not ready for self-publishing.  Don't insult the readers.



I also agree that self-publishing should be a dumping ground for writing that's not good enough. If a certain piece just isn't get picked up, but is still good work, I think self-publishing has obviously been a viable solution. But to publish something that's unfinished or bottom shelf just to "get something out there" seems kind of short-sighted. 



> Like I said, I agree we need to criticize.  Many of these writers deserve harsh words of criticism, but not the self-publishing industry as a whole.  When you generalize, you also attack the good writers.



I'm of the opinion that the writers who are harshly criticized aren't going to change anyway. I'll go back to my Youtube analogy. There are people on Youtube that give false thumbnails, create spammy kind of content, steal from others, make lazy webcam videos with little to no quality behind them (webcam videos _can_ be very good), etc. Self-publishing is going to have these same kind of things existing. There's no solution to getting rid of it really. If they know what they're doing is sleazy or crappy, then why change? It's the job of writers who take pride in their work and loyal readers to support other writers who take pride in their work. Lift up the good ones so the bad ones fade into obscurity. You can't warn readers about every single awful hack out there, but you can direct them to the writers you think are pretty awesome.

That's my take anyway.


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## C Hollis

> Expressing shock that such people exist is hardly generalising the whole industry of self-publishers as being the same.



And I said this where?

Sometimes I fail to express my thoughts clearly, but this was definitely not implied.

I actually agreed with your post...

Maybe I should have disagreed?


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## C Hollis

> I tend to preface these kind of questions by saying, "This is a serious question" so people don't think I'm being glib, but how do you call these people out? Read loads of crap and then review each one? Someone with an awful lot of time and a strong stomach would have to take on a task like that.


Oh heck no.  I can only stomach so much.  But, if we all do our part when we come across that bad book, it adds up.  Too many times I hear people railing against self-publishing, but they never take the time to write that bad review for the books they read.  It's like I always encourage my readers, write the review.  If it's good, write it.  If it's bad, write it.  Be clear and respectful, but write it.



> I don't so much mind this kind of thing because it's typically not someone asking for money or having really high expectations for a huge audience. They're just dabbling in things. One reason I like the Challenges section here at Mythic Scribes is to encourage people to write and share it with people. Some of the stuff I've written in the Challenges section is crap at times, but it's a low risk, low visibility place to hone my writing with other people who like doing the same thing.


Kind of redundant for me to say, but I disagree.  It's one thing to post a story on a peer review site, another to publish it to Smashwords, etc.  Peer reviewers know what to expect.  Readers (customers whether there is a price tag or not) expect to pick up a quality story.


> I'm of the opinion that the writers who are harshly criticized aren't going to change anyway.


Without a doubt.  They are who they are.


> There's no solution to getting rid of it really. If they know what they're doing is sleazy or crappy, then why change? It's the job of writers who take pride in their work and loyal readers to support other writers who take pride in their work. Lift up the good ones so the bad ones fade into obscurity. You can't warn readers about every single awful hack out there, but you can direct them to the writers you think are pretty awesome.


You can't tell readers about every writer you think is pretty awesome, but you can direct them away from the hacks.


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## BWFoster78

> Just one thing I'd like to note first. Why does one have to chose traditional OR self-publishing?



I don't know about the rest of the authors on this site, but I'm working on finishing my first book.  It's not like I have a huge backlog to choose publishing methods for...


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## Noma Galway

BWFoster78 said:
			
		

> Just one thing I'd like to note first. Why does one have to chose traditional OR self-publishing?
> 
> 
> 
> I don't know about the rest of the authors on this site, but I'm working on finishing my first book. It's not like I have a huge backlog to choose publishing methods for...
Click to expand...

I'm working on the first draft of my first book. But I took the question as: Why is the mentality that once a person either traditionally publishes or self-publishes, he or she has to keep publishing in the same manner?


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## BWFoster78

> I agree, but I think the criticism should be more focused than the "self-publishing" is crap. The criticism should be directed at the writers who help strengthen that belief. Call out the writers who pollute the market with hastily written garbage individually. Call out the writers who do it intentionally, don't generalize.



C Hollis,

This objection clarifies the issue, so thank you for that.  I don't agree with you, but I do appreciate your argument.

First of all, I do criticize individual authors.  I've told two people recently that the work they were getting ready to publish wasn't, imo, ready.  One of them took the message and my advice for improvement well.  The other didn't.

Second, and more to the point, I believe that the first step to finding a solution is to identify the problem.  Here's the way I see it:

Problem - Self publishing has a serious image problem in that it is considered by a lot of people to be a form of vanity publishing
Reason for the problem - Though quality self publishers exist, self publishing is a form of vanity publishing for a large number of authors.
Solution - Get the word out that publishing for vanity's sake hurts you and hurts other indie authors.

How can that word be gotten out if people are so reluctant to admit that a large portion of the problem is that most self published stuff is crap?  In another thread, I ran into the argument that, basically, there is no such thing as crappy writing.  The theory, apparently, is that the quality of all writing is relative to a person.

Really?

I'm not trying to attack the good writers; I'm trying to point out that the standard for good quality writing is higher than most self publishing authors realize.  As a group, we need to raise our game.

I salute and applaud and try to draw attention to those authors who have raised their game.  People like Michael Sullivan and Robert Bevan are doing fantastic work, and it's people like them who will be ultimately responsible if the perception of self publishing does change.

Unfortunately, it seems to me that, for every Sullivan or Bevan, there are a dozen people who had their brother-in-law who is an English teacher look over their manuscript and pronounce it to be fine.


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## BWFoster78

Noma Galway said:


> I'm working on the first draft of my first book. But I took the question as: Why is the mentality that once a person either traditionally publishes or self-publishes, he or she has to keep publishing in the same manner?



Noma,

I get you, but a lot of people on this site are like Caged Maiden and myself.  We have a book that we're getting ready to put out there, and we're tying to make that decision, "Which method do we choose?"


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## Philip Overby

BWFoster78 said:


> Noma,
> 
> I get you, but a lot of people on this site are like Caged Maiden and myself.  We have a book that we're getting ready to put out there, and we're tying to make that decision, "Which method do we choose?"



I think the original quote was attributed to me, but when I said why does it have to be traditional or self-publishing, I meant as a kind of a career choice. I think some authors want to do either one or the other. More and more are trying the hybrid approach, which is to sometimes self-publish and sometimes submit to traditional publishers. 

I believe the choice should come depending on the particular book. You may feel different ways about one book than you do another as far as how you want to market it and promote it.



> You can't tell readers about every writer you think is pretty awesome, but you can direct them away from the hacks.



That way works too, but I like to spend my time reading fiction by writers who I like and admire. If a book turns me off in the first five pages or so, I'm not going to finish it and I'm definitely not going to write a review for it. That's just me though. Maybe I'm part of the problem because I don't want to write negative reviews just to trash someone. I rather spend that time trashing my own writing.


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## BWFoster78

> how do you call these people out? Read loads of crap and then review each one?



Phil,

Obviously, reading everything isn't possible.  I think the important thing is, when given the opportunity, give honest feedback.  I look at it this way: if my writing is complete crap, I want to know it before I put something out there that embarasses me. 



> I don't want to feel impatient or rushed to get something out there just to reach some kind of nebulous goal.



I think that impatience is a relatively valid reason in terms of impatience with the traditional publishing industry.  My understanding of the way it works is that you submit a manuscript, wait for months on end for someone to pick it up out of the slush pile, and, most often, finally get a form rejection that doesn't tell you anything about why you were rejected.

Was it because you're not good enough or is it because they didn't feel there was a market for your book?

Even if they do choose to publish you, you're looking at a year or more before the book goes to market.

It seems to me that one serious problem with self publishing is that it is so hard for the aspiring author to get an answer to the question, "Is my writing good enough?"


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## Svrtnsse

For me, it's so far seemed like an easy decision. I'm going to self-publish, though admittedly I haven't actually thought very much about it.

This is my first novel too and I'm putting in a fair bit of time and effort into making sure I get it right. I've rushed out enough junk in the past in other ventures that I think I've learned my lesson and will let this one take its time. I guess one of the things that makes me want to go the self-pub route is that it feels more like it's my project. I'm writing this book on my own (albeit with the help and feedback of a lot of others here) and it just feels natural to me to go all the way with that and do my own publishing as well.

I should also make it clear that I don't expect this book to be a huge success. I'll make it the best I reasonably can, but I don't expect it to launch me into writer stardom or even sell to people I don't already know personally. It's going to be a good book, but it won't be a new Harry Potter or a new Lord of the Rings.
What it will be is my first book, and I'm going to make my best not to have to look back at it with embarrassment. It'll always be the first book I wrote. I intend to keep writing after it's done and hopefully I'll be able to put out some decent stories. Hopefully people will like my style and my stories and pick up my earlier works as well. 

Whether later works will be self-published or not remains to be seen, but I want to put out my first book myself. I think that's all there is to it really.


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## Chilari

It is, I think, more difficult to warn reader off bad writers because of exactly the problem Phil has identified - we don't write reviews for books we've only read the first five pages of. I'm only going to finish a book and review it if it meets a certain quality standard. I think this is why bad books have one or two five star reviews, whereas good books have dozens of reviiews with an average of 4.2 or 3.8 stars or whatever - people do read to the end, then give it four stars or three stars or even one or two ifthey didn't like the ending, but it was good enough to get to the end.

So given that we don't read to the end of really awful books, those books are harder to challenge; easier is to look at the root causes - we see X number of books which have something in common, like not having been proofread, and so we'll tell potential authors "get your book properly proofread before publishing it". But then some people take that to mean "you must spend money getting your novel proofread" and react badly because they think self-publishing shouldn't require investment of money; and some interpret it as meaning "self-publishing is shit because nobody proofreads" and come out on the defensive because they self-publish and they think their books are being attacked, and things turn bad and people get annoyed.

And at the same time - at least as far as my British sensibilities are concerned - it doesn't feel polite to give a downer review on a book. It's not nice or pleasant to rate something 1 star, even if it deserves it. I don't like being mean to people, I don't want to be seen as a bully, and I don't want the potential fall-out that comes when particular individual writers (and we can't necessarily predict who they might be) react in an agressive or bullying manner to even a valid one star review.

So we're left with a problem - do we criticise based on generalities, but try to make it lear that we don't mean every self-publisher, but are merely trying to advise those who need advice; or do we go one by one, trying to convert self-publishers to a more quality-based approach after they've already jumped in feet first? Are we trying to be a prevention or a cure?

And so the balance in how we approach the necessary criticism of the failings in the self-publishing industry and the culture surrounding it is hard to find.


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## Philip Overby

BWFoster78 said:


> I think that impatience is a relatively valid reason in terms of impatience with the traditional publishing industry.  My understanding of the way it works is that you submit a manuscript, wait for months on end for someone to pick it up out of the slush pile, and, most often, finally get a form rejection that doesn't tell you anything about why you were rejected.
> 
> Was it because you're not good enough or is it because they didn't feel there was a market for your book?
> 
> Even if they do choose to publish you, you're looking at a year or more before the book goes to market.
> 
> It seems to me that one serious problem with self publishing is that it is so hard for the aspiring author to get an answer to the question, "Is my writing good enough?"



My view on this is more "traditional" (pun intended?) Meaning I appreciate the idea of writing a book, polishing it, submitting it, and then waiting. This allows me to forget about that book and do what many people say is one of the keys to true success, start writing the next book. In the meantime, I can self-publish other books that are maybe riskier or have a more of niche audience while I wait to hear something back from the traditional publisher. I really like the idea of a little bit of chaos: several books in rotation with traditional publishers while I work on new books and self-published pieces. 

I know some authors prefer to only focus on one book completely before even beginning to worry about other things, but I want to get to a point where I get this down to more of a science (in the loosest meaning of the word) where I'm writing a first draft, polishing, getting critiques, getting beta readers, submitting, waiting, and starting a new book. 

This is just my personal choice. Some writers prefer faster turnaround and that's cool. I may change my stance later on, but for now that's kind of my philosophy on publishing both ways.


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## psychotick

Hi,

As an indie I can really only take responsibility for my own work. I know there are some awesome indie writers out there and there are some terrible ones. But there are no more gatekeepers so for good or ill it's all going to keep going out there in webspace. I can't stop that, and I know that the fact that there are so many poorly produced self published works hurts me as an indie. But in the end I can only concentrate on my own stuff, and make it the best that I can. That's fairly much all that any of us can do.

Cheers, Greg.


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## Mythopoet

It seems to me that a lot (most, maybe all) of the people who criticize self-publishing don't actually understand it very well if at all. And they seem to know very little about the people who actually do it. Honestly, I don't know where the critics get their information from. Most of the articles that appear in the media about self-publishing are woefully misinformed about how it works or what it costs or how successful its practitioners are. They tend to be flat out wrong about almost everything. Most of the people who write those articles are clearly speaking out of ignorance and prejudice, often because they are part of the system that self-publishing rejects. 

If you want to see the true face of self-publishing I would recommend a few prominent blogs to investigate:

Kristine Kathryn Rusch's blog: Kris is an author with decades of experience in the publishing industry as an editor, a co-owner of a small publisher and a best selling writer. Every Thursday she writes a lengthy blog post about the business of publishing aimed towards writers who want to treat their writing as a career and a business and be professional. These posts are so full of good information and insights. I would strongly recommend that any aspiring authors should go and read as many of them as possible. (They go back a few years so set aside some time.) Right now she's in the middle of a great series on discoverability for self published writers. The comments are always very informative as well. Kris's advice can sometimes be controversial, but she speaks from a position of experience and, in my opinion, always in a very level headed way and deserves much respect.

David Gaughran's blog: David Gaughran is a self published writer and author of the books Let's Get Digital and Let's Get Visible aimed at helping self-publishing writers understand and navigate the process. He has done his research and is VERY knowledgeable about how the nuts and bolts of self-publishing and self-promoting work. There's lots of great insight on his blog and he often features guest posts by successful self-publishers who offer interesting data and points of view. The comments are also well worth reading. 

And most importantly...

The Passive Voice blog: Passive Guy, who runs this blog, is an IP lawyer whose wife is a successful self-published author. PG, as he is affectionately referred to, posts excerpts from and links to articles about "Writers, Writing, Self-Publishing, Disruptive Innovation and the Universe" from all over the internet. Sometimes he offers his own very insightful commentary, but often he leaves the commentary up to the commenters. If you only have the time to hang around one blog it should be this one. It has grown a large readership which includes a thriving community of commenters who, I think, might be the best representatives of the self-publishing community around. The commenters tend to be very smart and well informed. I've learned more than I can say from hanging around the blog. Recently, a publishing executive (CEO of Kensington Press) stopped by the comments of The Passive Voice and got into a long discussion with the regulars. It was very interesting. Prominent self-publishing authors like Joe Konrath, Kris Rusch, Barry Eisler, and Hugh Howey sometimes stop by to comment as well. If you want to know all about self-publishing go there and explore for a while. Dig up old posts, READ the comments and get to know the regulars. It's an awesome example of the kind of community which self-publishing has made possible and which I can't imagine wanting, as a writer, to do without.


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## Steerpike

C Hollis said:


> Like I said, I agree we need to criticize.  Many of these writers deserve harsh words of criticism, but not the self-publishing industry as a whole.  When you generalize, you also attack the good writers.




True, but no one here was generalizing to the industry as a whole.


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## Kevin O. McLaughlin

Caged Maiden said:


> I really need to know more and I'm sure those who have been very successful with self-publication aren't simply "waiting" for marketing to fall out of the sky... but I'm unsure what an individual can accomplish with their own marketing.  How does one market their book?  Do we rely on reviews?  I'm just so confused about the specifics of self-publishing, I'm too afraid to try it.  Why don't we have a mentoring service, rather than agents?  Like, I'd be happy to pay a mentor a cut of my self-published profits (like I would an agent), if they could assist with the process, hold my hand, and make it easy.



Caged, let me toss you in the direction of some resources.
"Let's Get Digital" by David Gaughran, about the best intro to "how to" available today
"Let's Get Visible", also by David; have bought this, have not had time to read it yet, but have it on good authority that this is THE go to book on Amazon ebook marketing today. Note: if you read this six months from now, this book may not be as viable. Things change fast. Which is why...

Self Publishing Podcast: Self Publishing Podcast |
Superb way to stay up to date with what's going on in the market.

Also kboards.com - lots of noise mixed in with the signal, but most of the top names in indie publishing hang out there, so the place is full of SUPERB news and advice; just ignore the occasional "sky is falling" post. OK, ignore the FREQUENT "sky is falling" type posts. 

Lastly, check out "Write. Publish. Repeat." By the guys from the Self Publishing Podcast. IMHO this is the BEST resource on running your writing and publishing venture as a business available today. Superbly well done, and probably an indispensable part of every writer's bookshelf today - because whether or not you opt to indie publish, it's simply not something any professional writer csn afford to NOT understand.

Hope this helps.


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## Kevin O. McLaughlin

Ok, i've read through all the comments on the pages now. So the debate seems to be over whether it is OK to merely tell writers "god produce good work!", or whether we should actually call out writers for daring to publish bad work.

Well, first... I hate to ask, but who gets to decide which work is bad and which is not? I mean, I can't STAND "Moby Dick". So if it were up to me, I think that would be listed with the "bad" books. Because it's just boring. What a slog to read. 

I think we need to be very cautious about quality when it comes to writing and storytelling, because it is a very subjective thing.


OK, that aside...? It just doesn't MATTER.

The stigma? Guys, there is no self publishing stigma. Understand, HALF of all Fantasy ebooks sold last year were self published. HALF. Ditto for SF. Ditto for ROMANCE, which dwarfs any other two genres. Indie publishers sold about 25% of the unit sales for ALL fiction, ebook and print, in the USA in 2013.

Stigma? There isn't one, except in the minds of a few authors and folks in the legacy publishing business (and I use the legacy word here to mean "folks who have stuck their heads in the sand rather than keeping up", not as a negative comment about all large publishers). Readers generally have no idea if what they're reading was self published or not. Readers generally don't care, so long as they're getting a good story.

And increasingly, readers actually FAVOR indie books over trad pub books, because there is a big movement in the USA to pay artists directly, rather than paying big corporations who then shell out pennies on the dollar to the artist.

Are bad books produced? Sure. There were bad books produced in 2005, too. Also in 1990. Ditto for 1950. There have ALWAYS been some bad books produced, and readers have always ignored them. Readers don't buy bad books. If they buy a bad ebook by accident, they return it. All those writers out there producing "bad books"? They are not hurting anyone but themselves. I mean, it would be better - for them - if they produced better work. But they're not hurting ME any, so I am unlikely to berate them for their actions.

Bad books suffer the worst fate anything can, on the internet: they are irrelevant. They are meaningless bits and bytes that nobody pays any attention to at all

Don't fret about the bad books, unless you're the one writing them. If you are, then write better ones. Because as writers, we owe it to our readers to give them good stories, and if we want to make a living at our trade, we MUST provide them with good stories.


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## Chilari

But there is a stigma. I have personally heard people say "I never read self-published books, they're all crap." The thread on /r/writing on Reddit about Chuck Wendig's blog post had a couple of users completely dismissing all self-publishing (one was even accused on being a paid shill for the Big Five, so vehement was he that nothing good ever came of self-published works). It might be that there are people who prefer self-published books on the basis of how payment reaches the creator, but that doesn't negate that there is still a stigma.

As for judgements of quality - fine, you don't like Moby Dick, but I wouldn't argue that makes it a bad book. I don't like Brian McCellan's Powder Mages books, but I recognise that they meet certain quality standards with regards to prose and proofreading. The problem isn't the books that some would like and some would not. The problem is the books that have been published without proofreading, without any kind of editing, without a basic grasp of storytelling or characters. Books which are all tell and no show, books which begin with two pages of the main character's life history and accomplishments and hobbies as if it were a resume or a Wikipedia page about a notable individual. Books where there isn't a hint of a plot until 10,000 words in, or even any kind of conflict in that time.

I think it's safe to say that books like these should not have been published. That the authors lack the necessary experience or willingness to put in effort required to produce books for sale.

The problem isn't that bad books exist, it's that they exist in such quantities that never were seen before - in the last, traditional publishers were gatekeepers and such stories as I have listed were read once by a slush pile reader and never again. Now the authors writing them are asking money for them, are flooding the market with them, and as a result there are still people who will not read self-published stories on the basis that it's not worth it - depriving good authors of potential readers because of the stigma bad, unready or inexperienced authors perpetuate.

And I think we do have the right to say "this is a bad book that should not have been published" when it opens with a poorly punctuated prologue describing the history of the novel's world using awkward sentence structures and sometimes even words that sound similar to, but mean the opposite of, the word they intended to use - and I have here in mind the sample of a novel about Nephilim or something that was discussed in the Chat a few months ago, which I am sure other members here will recall.

How we go about trying to improve self-publishing is one thing; but I think we are justified in making judgements, provided it is a minimum standard of quality we measure against, and not a subjective liking or disliking.


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## Mythopoet

Chilari said:


> But there is a stigma. I have personally heard people say "I never read self-published books, they're all crap." The thread on /r/writing on Reddit about Chuck Wendig's blog post had a couple of users completely dismissing all self-publishing (one was even accused on being a paid shill for the Big Five, so vehement was he that nothing good ever came of self-published works). It might be that there are people who prefer self-published books on the basis of how payment reaches the creator, but that doesn't negate that there is still a stigma.



As one of the commenters on the original article said, "The source of the stigma has nothing to do with anything about self-publishing, self-published books, or self-published writers. The stigma arises from the fact that self-publishing is a threat to legacy publishing. This happens in every industry transition caused by disruptive innovation. The incumbent industry leaders denigrate the quality of the goods and services produced by the innovation. They have to. It doesn’t matter how many great books get self-published or how few are total disasters. The people who benefit from the stigma will have some self-published books to point to that justify the stigma." 

That commenter, who goes by the handle "William Ockham", is a regular over at the Passive Voice blog and is a very, very smart man. I think he's spot on here. I have yet to hear a regular reader, and by that I mean a reader who is not in any way connected to the publishing industry, just a casual reader, buy into the stigma. (And no, writers don't count. Book bloggers don't count.) I'm sure there are regular readers who do. But I suspect, based on what I've seen, that they are very few compared to the readers who just don't care how their book is published as long as its enjoyable. It's the industry that's bogged down by the stigma. (Though, of course, not so much that they won't jump through hoops to sign a contract with a best selling self publisher.)

And no, readers don't need any "experts" to curate their selection and tell them what a good book is. They know what they like and what they want and we have all kinds of tools nowadays to help us find what we're looking for. 



Chilari said:


> And I think we do have the right to say "this is a bad book that should not have been published" when it opens with a poorly punctuated prologue describing the history of the novel's world using awkward sentence structures and sometimes even words that sound similar to, but mean the opposite of, the word they intended to use - and I have here in mind the sample of a novel about Nephilim or something that was discussed in the Chat a few months ago, which I am sure other members here will recall.
> 
> How we go about trying to improve self-publishing is one thing; but I think we are justified in making judgements, provided it is a minimum standard of quality we measure against, and not a subjective liking or disliking.



No, you have no such right. Unfortunately for you we live in a free market society. Publishers have the right to reject a book, but only because to publish a book they would be investing money and resources. But even when a publisher rejects a book it doesn't mean "this book shouldn't be published". It means no more and no less than "our company does not feel the potential sales of this book are worth the investment it would require". 

Don't believe me? There are countless writers all over the internet with stories about how they got rejection notices from editors that said something along the lines of "I love this book! But the sales team said no". Great books are rejected all the time, not because they shouldn't be published, but because someone at the publishing company didn't think it would be a success. And of course, stories abound about famous books that went on to be huge getting rejected many times. (Harry Potter, for instance. Man, I bet the people who rejected that feel stupid. If they still have their jobs.) 

And then there are all the books that, by certain standards, could arguable be called "crap" and yet are published and hugely successful. Twilight springs to mind. It has as many critics as it has fans. Should it not have been published? I dare you to suggest it shouldn't have been published to the people making millions off of it. All books have critics. And all books have fans. I've encountered just as many traditionally published books that I thought were crap as I have self-published books. 

Sometimes I wish The Sword of Shannara had never been published, then copying Tolkien badly might never have become so popular. But it still remains that I have NO RIGHT to judge Shannara as a book that should never have been published. In doing so I deny countless readers the enjoyment they found in the Shannara books over the years and I'm also denying Terry Brooks his livelihood and success. I have NO RIGHT to do that. 

In the end it's the author who decides whether to take the risk and put his work out in public and it's the readers who decide the work's fate. That's as it should be.


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## BWFoster78

> No, you have no such right.



Excuse me?

She absolutely has the right to say, "This sucks!"  It's called free speech, and everyone has the right to voice their opinions.

If an author has the right to put out something that is truly dreadful, I have the right to stand up and tell everyone my opinion of that author and his work and his decision to publish.


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## Mythopoet

BWFoster78 said:


> Excuse me?
> 
> She absolutely has the right to say, "This sucks!"  It's called free speech, and everyone has the right to voice their opinions.
> 
> If an author has the right to put out something that is truly dreadful, I have the right to stand up and tell everyone my opinion of that author and his work and his decision to publish.



Oh silly me. I was thinking from a moral point of view. But who needs morality, or even common sense and courtesy, when you have arrogance to fall back on? Funny, isn't it, how our society shun judgementalism.... up until the point where people find something they feel should be judged.


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## BWFoster78

Mythopoet said:


> Oh silly me. I was thinking from a moral point of view. But who needs morality, or even common sense and courtesy, when you have arrogance to fall back on? Funny, isn't it, how our society shun judgementalism.... up until the point where people find something they feel should be judged.



Why is it morally wrong to call something that sucks sucky?

If I hire a contractor and that contractor does a horrible job, is it morally wrong for me to tell others, "Hey, don't hire this guy.  His workmanship was so shoddy that my wall fell down a month after he left."  I consider it not only morally justified to do so, but actually more moral to do so than to keep my silence.

If a guy puts up a horrible book on Amazon and charges money for it, how on earth is it morally wrong for me to tell others not to waste their money?


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## Chilari

Mythopoet said:


> And no, readers don't need any "experts" to curate their selection and tell them what a good book is. They know what they like and what they want and we have all kinds of tools nowadays to help us find what we're looking for.
> 
> No, you have no such right. Unfortunately for you we live in a free market society. Publishers have the right to reject a book, but only because to publish a book they would be investing money and resources. But even when a publisher rejects a book it doesn't mean "this book shouldn't be published". It means no more and no less than "our company does not feel the potential sales of this book are worth the investment it would require".
> 
> Don't believe me? There are countless writers all over the internet with stories about how they got rejection notices from editors that said something along the lines of "I love this book! But the sales team said no". Great books are rejected all the time, not because they shouldn't be published, but because someone at the publishing company didn't think it would be a success. And of course, stories abound about famous books that went on to be huge getting rejected many times. (Harry Potter, for instance. Man, I bet the people who rejected that feel stupid. If they still have their jobs.)



I am not talking about just _any_ book that traditional publishers or agents would reject. I am talking about *unready* books, books which contain four typos per page - I made a whole list, I won't repeat it. I'm not talking about books that might be judged subjectively as "not marketable" or "I didn't like it", I am talking about books which do not have continuous prose or a competant grasp of English (or whatever language it's written in). I am talking about *minimum* standarads of quality - a basic expectation that the book published is not a first draft, has been read by someone other than the author, has been thoroughly proofread. I don't mean to judge based on a book being too slow paced or having flat characters, I mean to judge based entirely and solely upon the quality of the written English, the polish the book has undergone, the effort the author has put in to making it ready for other people to read.

And I do have the right to make that judgement - just as you have the right to ignore what I say, and so does the author of the book.

let me repeat: *I am not judging books on a subjective scale based on star ratings and how people feel about the story, I am judging the book on the basis of objective standards of completeness of the manuscript.*

I have absolutely got the right to say that a book published as a first draft, where the main character's name is spelled four different ways, where the author uses council and counsel interchangably and doesn't know which form of their/there/they're or right/write/rite to use, should not have been published.


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## Chilari

And as for the moral aspect, I believe I am morally obliged to tell an aspiring author who plans on publishing a work which is not ready that they should not publish it, because they will regret it down the line and they won't make much money (if any) on it, and furthermore they will further dilute the pool of self-published works.

Not publishing unready works is common sense; telling people who have their heart set on publishing an unready work is courtesy. It will save them much embarrassment and regret down the line.


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## BWFoster78

Another aspect of the morality, Chilari, is this: as an author, which do you consider a worse result?

You put up a piece of work and:

1. It gets negative reviews.
2. Crickets.

I'd much rather someone tells me that I suck than ignore me.  At least with a negative review, I can learn from my mistakes.


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## Kevin O. McLaughlin

I don't know, Chillari. The average indie title is outselling the average trad pub title, in ebooks anyway. By quite a lot, actually.

I mean, I guess there are still some people out there who say "I don't read self published stuff". But first off - I suspect most of them actually do, if they read very much at all. They simply aren't aware of it. And second, if I asked around, I am pretty sure I can still find some folks who think college is a scam. That doesn't mean there is a stigma against higher education - it means a handful of people have a minority opinion.

The reason we see/hear about the stigma so much more than most people is because we are writers. And some of the major publishing conglomerates have pushed a LOT of money over the last few years into spreading the word that their books are somehow inherently better than indie ones. Mostly, they have failed to penetrate mass media (which is MUCH more interested in the latest indie success story), but they have reached most writers. So writers "know" there is a stigma. Writers "know" there are too many bad SP books. Writers "know" that "tsunami of bad" is destroying the industry.

It's all made up crap, of course. It's been engineered to keep writers with their publishers. The truth is, most readers don't know if a book is indie or trad, and don't care. There is no stigma. The truth is, to a reader, ANY book that reader doesn't like is bad - so most books have ALWAYS been "bad" from the point of view of any given reader. Another truth: bad books don't sell, so bad books SINK to the bottom of the ebook pile, where readers simply don't see them. If a book is visible, it's because it is selling and readers are not returning it. If readers are buying a book and not returning it, then it is by definition not bad. Readers don't buy bad books.

The industry is growing faster than ever before. More sales. More readers. It's an amazing period of growth and increased creativity. The people being hurt? Major publishers, who don't want to be forced to pay writers what they're worth. And high profile writers, who got major co-op marketing dollars from their publishers, and benefitted enormously from special placement of their work.

The playing field isn't quite level, even now. But it's come close enough to be very uncomfortable for a lot of folks.


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## BWFoster78

> The reason we see/hear about the stigma so much more than most people is because we are writers. And some of the major publishing conglomerates have pushed a LOT of money over the last few years into spreading the word that their books are somehow inherently better than indie ones.



Kevin,

I can buy that we hear about a stigma because we are writers.  We are naturally more interested in the industry and have our ear to the ground much moreso than the regular public.

I am not any kind of shill for traditional publishers, and here is what I have observed:

In the past two years, I've read in the neighborhood of, say, 60 books.  Of those, I'd say around 20-30% were traditionally published and the rest indie or small market (I've made a concentrated effort since learning about indie to support indie authors).  Overall, the quality level I perceived of the traditionally published works was much, much greater than that of the indie books.

I grant that my experience, however, is much different than the average reader.  Some of those books were from authors seeking reviews, and, overall, I dug more looking for obscure books than the average reader would.  I think those factors would tend to lead me to a lower level of quality.

I will also say that the "good" indie books were just as good or better.  For 2012, I named an indie book my best read of the year.  For 2013, I named a small publisher book as best read.

Beyond the top few, though, the quality drops off a cliff.  The low end books, imo, should never have been published.  The quality simply wasn't even close to where it needed to be by any objective standard.  Even the books I enjoyed had significant issues compared to books of a similar enjoyment level from traditional sources.

For me personally, it seems like a slam dunk that traditional, at this point, does carry an inherent quality advantage.  I don't know if that advantage is worth the massive price difference, though.


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## T.Allen.Smith

I would like to remind everyone involved in this thread that a certain level of composure is required of all members on Mythic Scribes.

While this may be a derisive issue due to it being weighted largely in opinion & personal perception, please understand that opposing viewpoints exist. As much as each member has the right to free expression, each member is required to deliver that expression in a respectful & constructive manner. You should underline "constructive". Let's not allow our disagreements to derail our discussions into realms ruled by emotion or negativity.

Mythic Scribes is meant to be a positive, creatively conducive environment. Free expression is encouraged. Tact & civility is expected.


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## Mythopoet

Chillari, my apologies for misinterpreting your intent. If you're talking specifically about errors in spelling, grammar, formatting, etc. (things that can be judged by a standard) then that is different. I stand by my comments in general however, if not directed at you.


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## psychotick

Hi,

Of course there's a quality difference between trade and indie - how could there not be? Even if we assume the spread of author and editor abilities are the same in both worlds, the trade published has one advantage. The gatekeepers weeded out the worst books - the ones that should not have been published. Therefore the average trade published book has to be of better quality. It's no different to say apple picking. If one picker picks everything and another picks only ones that meet a certain quality standard, his average quality is higher. That doesn't mean that the one who picks wormy apples etc, doesn't also have apples that are of the same quality as the other. It just means that his buyers are going to occasionally discover wormy apples whereas those who go to the other picker won't.

As for the stigma yes it does exist and it's based on the simple fact that readers will occasionally come across poorly edited and written indie books. Again that can't be avoided. As long as everyone can be an indie that's simply the price you pay.

However, as more and more indie authors climb the ladder of success, that stigma will - and is - lessoning. Especially as it becomes harder and harder for readers to tell what is indie and what is trade. But there are a great many people - publishers and sadly some authors - who are heavily invested in trade publishing, who will always push this barrow. This is bread and butter for them and in the question of quality they have a weapon that they will use. So they will continue to use it. Again that's not going to change.

If indies are to fight it, the best we can do is produce books of the highest quality we can, and then fight back with the view that indie books are more likely to be fresh and original than trade publishe - which I believe they are. Those same gatekeepers that knocked out the substandard books, also knocked out those books that were too far out of the popular genres / themes to be saleable.

And yes if someone writes a bad / or poor quality book you have every right to say as much. You are I assume a reader and no one can take away your rights as a reader to have an opinion. But quite frankly there are so many of these new age penny dreadfuls out there that your opinions would be a drop in the ocean. And besides, I have better things to do than read bad books. (Although at the moment since I'm editing, that's actually questionable!) But to be fair to an author I would not review a book without having read it completely. I won't read a few pages an then review as too many seem to. I think that's miserably unfair.

Cheers, Greg.


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## Kevin O. McLaughlin

Brian, I agree with just about everything you just said. 

There really are some pretty bad indie books out there. And if you look at the average trad pub book and the average indie book, the percentage of really obviously terrible ones are going to be much higher in the indie realm - however you choose to define really obviously terrible!

That's because tp books represent a selection from among the best books submitted to publishers. Note: they aren't ALL the good books submitted, or even MOST of the good books submitted. Publishers turn down a lot more good books than they are able to accept. But because they are forced to turn down so many good ones, it's rare for them to publish a truly terrible one.

SP, on the flip side, is everything in the slush pile. The great. The good. The mediocre. The bad. All mixed together.

I'm not arguing against any of that. I just don't think that it matters at all.

Understand: to a reader of fiction, any book that is not to that reader's taste is effectively a bad book. So readers have been dealing with bad books (books they don't like) for as long as there have been books. This is not a new thing for readers. They're used to figuring out which authors they enjoy, and which they will take a pass on.

Bad books are being self published. But they're not selling. Readers don't buy bad books. (And with ebooks, if they do happen to buy one, they return it!)

And because they aren't selling, these bad books quickly sink to the bottom of the slush pile, never to be seen again. In fact, it's doubtful publishing a bad book is likely to damage a writer's career or rep, because so few people will see it that it's irrelevant! (Er, provided the writer takes it down before becoming better read, anyway!)

Bottom line is, the people writing bad books have an impact on the industry, readers, other writers, and (most important to me!) my business that is so close to ZERO that it would be difficult to measure. 

They might hurt themselves, which IS a shame and ought to be discouraged. But they're not hurting anyone else.


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## Philip Overby

Sorry to derail, but you can return e-books? 

Back on topic, are we talking about bad books as in badly written books (poor grammar, technical problems etc.)? For me, if I see this kind of thing early in a sample, I may put it down if it's really pervasive, but this doesn't kill a book for me. A book being boring or not being presented well does that. That's what kills my enjoyment of a book. This is subjective of course. 

I'm always going to be a content over technical expertise kind of person. That's just me though.


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## Kevin O. McLaughlin

Yes, you can return ebooks to most retailers, Phil.

As for the rest...that's why i think it is so hard to define what a "bad book" is. Because it's SO subjective. One person might love a book that another hates.


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## Benjamin Clayborne

I think it's fair to say that everyone should be able to expect a certain minimum standard when it comes to ANY book, whether it's self- or traditionally-published: Zero (or almost zero) typos or misspellings or formatting errors, and a proper grasp of grammar. It does us no good to congratulate authors for being brave enough to publish something that doesn't meet this incredibly low bar. (Unless maybe that person has severe socialization issues, and for them, publishing something IS actually a huge step forward—but then that's probably an issue better handled between that person and their therapist, rather than bringing the reading public into it.)

For my part, I can't abide reading books with bad editing. It's so distracting that I will toss it aside almost immediately. With so many books out there that clear this bar, why would I ever waste my time with one that doesn't?

Beyond that, there is no such thing as (and no point in classifying a book as) "good" or "bad." For an author, there's only "how many copies can I sell?" or, if you're more interested in critical rather than commercial approval, "can I get good reviews from critics?" For a reader, there's only "did I like it or not?" This is why I routinely avoid describing books (or movies, music, or any creative endeavor) as "good" or "bad," except as a direct alias for "I liked it" or "I hated it."


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## Philip Overby

> For my part, I can't abide reading books with bad editing. It's so distracting that I will toss it aside almost immediately. With so many books out there that clear this bar, why would I ever waste my time with one that doesn't?



This definitely bugs me as well, but not so much I'd throw a book aside. If the content is pretty good or a topic I'm interested in, I can forgive these kind of things as long as they're not glaring. I tend to find my time wasted, or at least woefully misspent, if I read a book that I find uninteresting to me. Some readers can look past certain elements that others can't. For me, if the characters and plot is interesting, I can deal with minor technical things and just hope the author's next book cleans it up.



> Beyond that, there is no such thing as (and no point in classifying a book as) "good" or "bad." For an author, there's only "how many copies can I sell?" or, if you're more interested in critical rather than commercial approval, "can I get good reviews from critics?" For a reader, there's only "did I like it or not?" This is why I routinely avoid describing books (or movies, music, or any creative endeavor) as "good" or "bad," except as a direct alias for "I liked it" or "I hated it."



This is a good point. I rarely myself say, "That was a bad book" I'll just say "I wasn't my cup of tea" or "Yeah, I couldn't get into it." This often goes with well-written books that I just can't connect with because I'm not the target audience or the content is muddied one way or another.


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## BWFoster78

> Brian, I agree with just about everything you just said.



Just highlighting this because it so rarely happens with anyone on this site 

Regarding the concept of good vs bad books:

I believe that most readers can distinguish between a good and a bad book based on more than taste and criteria like grammar and typos.  Yes, there is subjectivity involved, but the quality level of a lot of self published books is bad to a degree that readers have never experienced.

A reader may not like a traditionally published book that is well written.  For example, I absolutely hated Grapes of Wrath.  Loathed it.  Every minute I spend reading it was terrible.

For the longest time, when you asked me what a bad book is, I would have said, "Grape of Wrath."

It wasn't that it was poorly written; it was just that I didn't like it.

Grapes of Wrath does not meet my definition of a bad book any longer.

Having now read a lot of truly bad books, I understand what a bad book is: it's a book written by an author who has not yet adequately learned how to write fiction.  I'm not talking about an error here or there or a character that rubs me the wrong way or a plot I hate.  I'm talking about an author who doesn't understand the fundamental concept of how to craft a story and how to convey information in a manner that engages the reader.

Why is being able to identify bad books important?

Because Kevin is absolutely correct.  Bad books are never going to rise to the top.  They're never going to do anything at all.

Why is that an issue?

It's not an issue for me.  It's an issue for the author of the book.

You want to talk about having your dreams crushed?  The way to crush your dream of being an author is to put a book out there and have it not sell.  To have no reaction whatsoever, and to not know why.

If you truly want to help those authors, tell them, "Look, this book just isn't ready.  You need to study this.  Go get some feedback and develop your craft more."

Yes, it is a lot of work for them.  No, it isn't what anyone wants to hear.

It is the truth, though.


----------



## Philip Overby

Maybe I'm old school, but I believe that you only have one chance to make a good first impression. If you write something that wows a certain segment of readers, you may have those fans for life. For me, Joe Abercrombie's fiction just lit a spark for me. I'll pretty much buy everything he writes now without fail. Why? Because he made a good first impression and I know that the chances of his books being good are raised by that.

Say someone publishes their book and it's not ready (by whatever definition people want to peg on it). If I see another novel by this person, it may actually be better than their first book, but I may be reluctant to get it because of problems I perceived from my first impression. If the first impression made is the writer is pretty good, has a good handle on storytelling, and paints interesting characters, I'm much more likely to get their next book. 

On the flip side, I do believe my view on this is slightly changing as time goes on. Meaning because of the influx of self-published works, I may be willing to give an author a second chance even after an underwhelming debut. That is if I saw a lot of good in their previous work, but for whatever reason something wasn't clicking or working. I'm willing to give a writer with a ton of potential a second (or third) shot if I think it's warranted. Writers I tend not to give additional shots to are ones that appear to have just hastily written a first draft and put it out there for the world to buy.


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## MichaelSullivan

Chuck is right. Just because you CAN hit publish doesn't mean you SHOULD. We are in complete agreement in that you don't release something that you know is of low quality - you have to set the bar to producing something that is indistinguishable from traditionally published.

I think where the two of us diverge is the self-publishing I do, and the authors I know - do exactly that...whereas I get the impression that Chuck runs into (or just has a biased and thinks that) hitting self-publish on first draft dreck is what most self-publishers are about.

From a pure numbers standpoint Chuck is probably right...but for me, since those works sink to oblivion I don't see them nor do most people. What I focus on is the "professional" self-published authors of which there are many and most of them are seeing very good success...and income that supersedes their  traditional counterparts.


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## MichaelSullivan

Phil the Drill said:


> Just one thing I'd like to note first. Why does one have to chose traditional OR self-publishing? The hybrid approach seems to be working well for quite a few authors. You can self-publish books that aren't getting bites from publishers to keep your name out there and then publish the books that do traditionally. Sounds easy (in theory), but it's kind of like this idea that novel writers shouldn't write short stories. Just do both. It's not going to hurt anything, I don't think.



Hybrid works well for me ;-)  I do think that it doesn't have to be one or the other. But here's the thing.  Hybrid is only good for a very small % of people - because they have to do two really hard things.

1. Be able to get a traditional contract

2. Be able to successfully self-publish

If you consider that #1 is small let's say 1% and #2 is equally small - again 1%.  The number of people that fall in BOTH sets is probably something south of 0.5%.


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## MichaelSullivan

Mythopoet said:


> It seems to me that a lot (most, maybe all) of the people who criticize self-publishing don't actually understand it very well if at all. And they seem to know very little about the people who actually do it. Honestly, I don't know where the critics get their information from. Most of the articles that appear in the media about self-publishing are woefully misinformed about how it works or what it costs or how successful its practitioners are. They tend to be flat out wrong about almost everything. Most of the people who write those articles are clearly speaking out of ignorance and prejudice, often because they are part of the system that self-publishing rejects.



Hear, hear. I totally agree.  And in some respects I think Chuck is a bit from this school.  Yes, he self-publishes - but I don't think he does particularly well at it. He's not working at building his self-publishing revenue to the same extent that he does his traditional. I think for him it is a bit of a "sideline."

That, combined with the fact that I think he really does see most self-publishing as stuff that is low-quality and wasn't adequately polished makes him focus on the wrong end of the equation.  Sure we can all find a lot of crap in self-publishing -but  so what?  No one is buying those books and they sink into oblivion  What I think is more important is to highlight the people who are "doing it right" - of which there are many - because it is their examples that should be followed.


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## MichaelSullivan

BWFoster78 said:


> I salute and applaud and try to draw attention to those authors who have raised their game.  People like Michael Sullivan and Robert Bevan are doing fantastic work, and it's people like them who will be ultimately responsible if the perception of self publishing does change.



Just wanted to thank you for the amazing compliment. To me, my writing is the same whether it ultimately reaches the reader via traditional or self-publishing. The determining factor is usually related to contract terms or how "mainstream" a piece is. Having the flexibility to do either really is a nice position to be in.


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## MichaelSullivan

BWFoster78 said:


> It seems to me that one serious problem with self publishing is that it is so hard for the aspiring author to get an answer to the question, "Is my writing good enough?"



Indeed. This is the thing that I see as the biggest hurdle.  It takes a lot of self-awareness to make such a determination. My first published book was lucky 13.  Of those 12 previous novels - 8 were never intended to be published as they were the novels I used to practice the craft and find my voice. The other four they are not "ready for prime time" (or they would be out there). But I now have enough experience to know what is wrong with them and what I have to do to fix them.  

Most authors have no idea at what level their writing is. There is a lot of subjectivity in such a determination. I can make such a determination - but there is no way of saying that my opinion is "right."  There are going to be things that I say are "good enough" that fail miserably, and other things that I thought were "off the mark" which could go on to sell well. 

I have been doing  a "First Five Pages" where I try to give authors a basic idea of where they fall.  Most of the submissions I get are far from where they need to be.  For those interested in submitting...here is a link for details.


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## MichaelSullivan

Caged Maiden said:


> I really need to know more and I'm sure those who have been very successful with self-publication aren't simply "waiting" for marketing to fall out of the sky... but I'm unsure what an individual can accomplish with their own marketing.  How does one market their book?  Do we rely on reviews?  I'm just so confused about the specifics of self-publishing, I'm too afraid to try it.



Whether you self or traditionally publish your responsibility for marketing remains about the same.  If you have a good sized advanced your publisher will do some as well, but you think of that as gravy and not rely on just that.

I have a few sources for you:

* A sub I have on reddit Pay particular attention to posts on the sidebar such as "An Author's Guide to Self-promotion.

* posts I write for Amazing Stories]


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## MichaelSullivan

Chilari said:


> I am talking about *minimum* standarads of quality - a basic expectation that the book published is not a first draft, has been read by someone other than the author, has been thoroughly proofread. I don't mean to judge based on a book being too slow paced or having flat characters, I mean to judge based entirely and solely upon the quality of the written English, the polish the book has undergone, the effort the author has put in to making it ready for other people to read.



The problem is a book can have all those things and still not meet a *minimum requirement* . Hence the "polishing a turd" mentality. Just because someone does multiple drafts, passes it through other readers and puts a tremendous amount of effort into it doesn't mean it can't still fall below the mark.



Chilari said:


> let me repeat: *I am not judging books on a subjective scale based on star ratings and how people feel about the story, I am judging the book on the basis of objective standards of completeness of the manuscript.*



But herein lies the rub - ALL judging of art (books) is subjective. Period.  An objective statement is one that can't be disputed. The size of the book, it's weight, how many words it contains. These are objective criteria that can be measured and unless someone denies reality they have to agree with the conclusion that book a is 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" and weighs 1.3 lbs.

Cormac McCarthy has won the Pulitzer prize for a book that contains sentences such as: "Bedrock this." and "Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before." Both of which I hate.  But given his commercial and critical success - who am I to judge?

I had a respected reviewer that declared my book as "pretty close to the worst book ever published" and was so upset with my publisher for putting it out that they thought their nose should be rubbed in excrement.  And yet, it has been nominated for an Audie, the series has sold more than 460,000 copies, and is still one of the top rated fantasy books two years after it's release.   

My point is its easy for an individual to come up with a set of criteria by which THEY will judge books...and yes these will be subjective.  The problem is when you try to extend that beyond the individual and search for the unattainable "objective" criteria of which you speak.


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## MichaelSullivan

Kevin O. McLaughlin said:


> The truth is, most readers don't know if a book is indie or trad, and don't care. There is no stigma.



I don't thinks this is true.  When people see a $0.99 book (Even one with a good cover and good blurb) they are going to think it is self-published - unless it has a title or name they have heard of in the past (in which case they figure the publisher has it on temporary sale.  

Now...take a self-published author that is making his/her book indistinguishable - and I think they will assume it is traditional.  Mitchell Hogan's Crucible of Souls comes to mind. He debuted it at $7.99 and it has an AMAZING cover.  He sold 10,000 books in just over a month not because it was self-published, but because people didn't know it was - or so my theory goes.




Kevin O. McLaughlin said:


> Another truth: bad books don't sell, so bad books SINK to the bottom of the ebook pile, where readers simply don't see them. If a book is visible, it's because it is selling and readers are not returning it. If readers are buying a book and not returning it, then it is by definition not bad. Readers don't buy bad books.



On this point I couldn't agree more. And it is these very visible self-published books that people do indeed "give a try" and are usually "pleasantly surprised."  They do know they are buying  self, but there are enough sales and reviews to put them past their risk threshold. A good case in point - Anthony Ryan's Blood Song.



Kevin O. McLaughlin said:


> The industry is growing faster than ever before. More sales. More readers. It's an amazing period of growth and increased creativity.



Once more I agree 100%



Kevin O. McLaughlin said:


> The people being hurt? Major publishers, who don't want to be forced to pay writers what they're worth.



I wish this were true.  Not because I want publishers to be hurt, but because it would force change in the industry. The truth is there are still more "good books" that they have to turn away that losing a title here and there to self-publishing really doesn't sting.  There are plenty of writers waiting in the wings to sign any bad contract put before them and as long as this is the case they won't change their ways.   I think it will start to shift...but it will be a slow one.




Kevin O. McLaughlin said:


> And high profile writers, who got major co-op marketing dollars from their publishers, and benefitted enormously from special placement of their work.



Very true, and I'm seeing a new trend.  Now that the DOJ case is over, Amazon can sell books below cost and have done so. For instance some of Brandon Sanderson's top sellers were priced at $1.99 around the holidays.  This is REALLY good news for Brandon and his publisher as they are being paid their full fee and sales spiral even higher because they are such a good deal.  But in the long term...will that end up devaluing books so that ALL books must be sub $2 to sell?  I'm afraid that might be a possibility.



Kevin O. McLaughlin said:


> The playing field isn't quite level, even now. But it's come close enough to be very uncomfortable for a lot of folks.



I don't think they are uncomfortable, as I said their supply of good books to publish is greater than the slots they have to fill.  But they are at least starting to realize that there is more competition than just "the other publishers" self is now viable and they will lose people to it.  Yeah, that means losing an author here or there, but for the most part there are plenty of othes to fill the void.


----------



## Chilari

MichaelSullivan said:


> The problem is a book can have all those things and still not meet a *minimum requirement* . Hence the "polishing a turd" mentality. Just because someone does multiple drafts, passes it through other readers and puts a tremendous amount of effort into it doesn't mean it can't still fall below the mark.



I understand what you mean. What I intended to convey was that, as a first step to improving the average quality of self-published books, no book should have been published if it doesn't meet a minimum standard of written English - which can be judged objectively, or at least far more objectively than someone saying "I didn't like this" about an otherwise well-receieved book. The criteria I'm looking at here are things like spelling, grammar, proofreading. A book that has an average of 30 typos and spelling errors per 100 pages isn't good enough, whatever the quality of the storytelling and characters, because it is distracting and it is an easy way to determine whether the book has been thoroughly proofread and copyedited or not.

At the same time, you're right - expecting these more objective standards is still, in some cases, polishing a turd. However, expecting those kinds of standards does at least mean that the mediocre are also polished - often not the case in what I've seen. It brings it up a little. At the same time, expecting such standards as a reader enables quick judgement of books, because generally the better polished books are also better written (though this isn't always the case). Finally, telling those in possession of a turd of a manuscript that it doesn't meet those quality standards might lead to them not merely polishing it, but rather getting an outside opinion - like a proofreader - and coming to the realisation that other elements of the book beyond written English are also in need of improvement. One would hope that anyone hired to proofread something that is also poorly written in terms of plot, characters and storytelling would suggest to the author that more than proofreading is required. Even if most don't, even if only 1% of proofreaders do this, that's still 1% of sub-par authors who hear what they need to hear about their books, and so some improvement is made.

As I say - it constitutes a first step, taking out the very dregs and raising the lower threshold a little. I don't claim it constitutes a solution to quality problems in self-publishing, but it does go some way to enabling improvement in a generally unobjectionable manner (after all, what writer would claim that clear language without errors isn't necessary?)


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## MichaelSullivan

psychotick said:


> Of course there's a quality difference between trade and indie - how could there not be? Even if we assume the spread of author and editor abilities are the same in both worlds, the trade published has one advantage. The gatekeepers weeded out the worst books - the ones that should not have been published. Therefore the average trade published book has to be of better quality



If we look at the total pool of all books - yes you are absolutely right - because the self-publishing's set includes those that would be weeded out.  But to me, that set means nothing as those "bad books" will fade into obscurity.

Instead lets look at the subset of books that I consider "good" and by "good" I mean will sell at significant numbers (10,000+), be highly reviewed (at least 4/5), and generally recommend by readers to their friends and family.

If we take this subset of books, then it's really a crap shoot which will do better.  Traditional publishing doesn't focus on "quality" they focus on what will sell.  So many books that might be "outside the box" may be passed over.  Some publishing houses devote amazingly small resources to editing and the little they do is rushed and miss things.  Whereas a self-published author may be more diligent about the editor selection. I've made no secret that I HATE the cover of The Rose and the Thorn done by my big-five publisher and many have said that my self-published covers are better than they did.  Personally, I'm 99.9% sure I can ALWAYS produce a higher quality book myself then traditional and that is really saying something as my traditional publisher is at the top of their game and does EXTREMELY high quality work.  The difference is that I only have my books to worry about and my publisher is stretching limited resources across multiple authors an dozens of titles each calendar cycle. But, doing that takes A LOT of work, so I often opt to sign the rights and have them do that so I can get more writing done.  I know the book will still be professional and will sell well because they know what they are doing and more often then not will score highly on all the packaging factors.


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## MichaelSullivan

Chilari said:


> A book that has an average of 30 typos and spelling errors per 100 pages isn't good enough, whatever the quality of the storytelling and characters, because it is distracting and it is an easy way to determine whether the book has been thoroughly proofread and copyedited or not.



Assuming a 250 word per page that's 30/25000 = .0012 or .12%.  That's pretty damn good.  Especially considering there are literally thousands of ways to mess up on a single page.  Wrong word, typo, comma missing, period instead of comma, missing a quotation mark, capitalization error, noun verb disagreement, excessive words that should have been cut, wrong tense, missing word. So it's not 250 possible mistakes per page it's more like 2500 possible errors so now your 30 errors per 100 pages is .00012.  Most people can't maintain that type of error rate. 

I've been published traditionally by one of the best publishers in the business and I can open any of my books and find some form of error fairly quickly even after multiple edit passes and extensive proofing.  The difference...when a typo occurs in traditional books, readers don't freak out. It's kinda of a "oh look there - they missed that."  Heck I found several dozen errors in Harry Potter and that had a huge editing budget!  But self-publishing has to be twice as good to get half the credit so a typo in it is held up as "proof of poor quality."  There is definitely a double standard being applied.


At the same time, you're right - expecting these more objective standards is still, in some cases, polishing a turd. However, expecting those kinds of standards does at least mean that the mediocre are also polished - often not the case in what I've seen. It brings it up a little. At the same time, expecting such standards as a reader enables quick judgement of books, because generally the better polished books are also better written (though this isn't always the case). Finally, telling those in possession of a turd of a manuscript that it doesn't meet those quality standards might lead to them not merely polishing it, but rather getting an outside opinion - like a proofreader - and coming to the realisation that other elements of the book beyond written English are also in need of improvement. One would hope that anyone hired to proofread something that is also poorly written in terms of plot, characters and storytelling would suggest to the author that more than proofreading is required. Even if most don't, even if only 1% of proofreaders do this, that's still 1% of sub-par authors who hear what they need to hear about their books, and so some improvement is made.

As I say - it constitutes a first step, taking out the very dregs and raising the lower threshold a little. I don't claim it constitutes a solution to quality problems in self-publishing, but it does go some way to enabling improvement in a generally unobjectionable manner (after all, what writer would claim that clear language without errors isn't necessary?)[/QUOTE]


----------



## Chilari

You don't think 30 typos in 100 pages is unacceptable? Most books I read don't have one error (and believe me, I notice). There was a Pratchett book I spotted one in once, and when I was reading a pre-publication review copy of Emperor of Thorns I caught three or four errors, one of which the editor had not since caught. And that's a 400-odd page book. Traditionaly publishers don't have an error rate so high as 30 per 100 pages. They don't even have an error rate as high as 1 per 100 pages. A book that's got that many errors quite simply hasn't had enough polish, hasn't been checked by enough eyes, to be indistinguishable from a traditionally published book.

I agree that there's a double standard - confirmation bias where a typo is seen in self-publishing means that typo is seen as evidence of poor quality where is wouldn't be in a traditionally published book. But that only applies when you've got errors in the single digits per book, not when you have a dozen or more per chapter.

Besides, precisely because of that confirmation bias self-publishers need to hold themselves to a very high standard indeed. Self-publishers can't be content with publishing a book full of errors, just because it's "only" an error incidence on 0.0012 or whatever. What's wrong with saying "no, 0.0012 isn't good enough, I want it to be 0.nothing"?


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## Mythopoet

Chilari said:


> There was a Pratchett book I spotted one in once



I've got a couple of hardcover Discworld books that are rife with missing quotation marks, a particularly annoying type of error since it often forces one to go back and figure out where the dialogue actually ended. The first ebook my husband bought for his iPad was a traditionally published book that had ridiculously bad formatting. Almost (almost, because readers aren't stupid) made it unreadable. 

I remember reading about how Amanda Hocking's books had pretty poor editing, but readers still bought them and enjoyed them in droves. The editing just didn't matter as much as the story. 

And this is why I believe that ultimately it should ALWAYS be the readers who decide. If the readers think the editing is too poor or if the story just isn't good enough to overlook the errors, then they won't buy it. The book won't succeed. But if the story is good and readers are willing to overlook the errors because they're enjoying the story then there is no reason the book shouldn't succeed. The story is paramount. 



Chilari said:


> Besides, precisely because of that confirmation bias self-publishers need to hold themselves to a very high standard indeed.



But that's the whole point of self-publishing, authors holding _themselves_ accountable and no one else in a position of authority or control over them where their work is concerned. No one else has the right to hold me or any other writer to their own standards. No one gets to draw a line in the sand and say "The books on this side of the line are good and the books on the other side are bad." Most inexperienced writers seem to want to do just that. They want a clear cut standard to judge their work by because that makes things a lot easier. But eventually they have to accept that fact that no such thing exists. 

The readers decide. With their wallets. End of story.


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## Philip Overby

I think this Chuck Wendig post is timely (which I think sparked the original debate.) He talks about why using self-publishing as "slush pile on display" might not be a good idea. Note: he is very much for self-publishing but raises some interesting points about doing one's best to put out the best quality work. 

NSFW language per usual:

http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2014/02/03/slushy-glut-slog-why-the-self-publishing-shit-volcano-is-a-problem/


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## BWFoster78

Phil,

Chuck's points are exactly what I've been trying to say.  Wish I had stated them as effectively, though maybe not a colorfully, as he did.

Thanks for posting this.

Brian


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## Chessie

Normally, I dig Chuck's posts. But this one seemed to be especially laced with bitterness. Just what I picked up, could be I'm sensitive today. I disagree with segregating self-published works. I don't see how his proposals (or rants) add anything positive to the equation. I promised myself that I would stay out of these conversations but I want to learn more about self-publishing so I give in to reading these threads. Michael Sullivan & Kevin McLaughlin's posts are so inspiring and educational. I want to personally thank them for putting their best intentions forward when sharing their views on this subject. Its refreshing.


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## BWFoster78

Chesterama said:


> Normally, I dig Chuck's posts. But this one seemed to be especially laced with bitterness. Just what I picked up, could be I'm sensitive today. I disagree with segregating self-published works. I don't see how his proposals (or rants) add anything positive to the equation. I promised myself that I would stay out of these conversations but I want to learn more about self-publishing so I give in to reading these threads. Michael Sullivan & Kevin McLaughlin's posts are so inspiring and educational. I want to personally thank them for putting their best intentions forward when sharing their views on this subject. Its refreshing.



I interpreted Michael and Chuck to, fundamentally, have a similar viewpoint: to succeed as a self-published author, you need to work really hard on your craft before publishing and put out something that is professional quality.

Do you disagree with that sentiment or the way it was stated by Chuck?  Or, do you disagree that both Michael and Chuck stated, essentially, that?

I don't think Michael wants you to self publish if your writing isn't ready, and I don't think Chuck wants to discourage you from self publishing if your writing is ready.  And, I think that everyone agrees that it can be difficult to determine whether your writing is or isn't ready.


----------



## Chessie

Yes, I believe in my work being of professional quality before I submit publish. I don't think that self-published works should be segregated in the way that Chuck Wendig mentioned in his article for my own reasons. I don't wish to add on to anything negative so I'll stop here. But I appreciate when other authors state their viewpoints in a polite and helpful fashion. Instead of focusing on the negative, do so on the positive. 

Focusing on the negative isn't getting anyone anywhere. But I have a different take on it and all our viewpoints vary. I think being negative accentuates the problem and gives a bad image where it isn't needed. 

I follow one Indie author in particular on Twitter and her blog. She's doing very well for herself and I like to think that she teaches me the proper way to do things. I never read anything negative from her. She shares her experiences about the industry and does it in an effective way. That's what I appreciate and that's all I meant from my comment above.


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## BWFoster78

> I don't think that self-published works should be segregated in the way that Chuck Wendig mentioned in his article



Chesterama,

I think you may have misread his point.  The way I interpreted the post, he's not advocating for those changes.  Instead, he's saying that those changes (segregation of self published authors) are possible natural consequences if things don't change.  He's not saying, "I want these things to happen."  He's saying, "If self published authors don't change what they're doing, these negative consequences are going to occur."

He's trying to stop those consequences from occurring by drawing attention to them.



> Focusing on the negative isn't getting anyone anywhere. But I have a different take on it and all our viewpoints vary. I think being negative accentuates the problem and gives a bad image where it isn't needed.



I get that you don't like seeing the negative pointed out.  

It seems to me that, if you're trying to convince someone to change their behavior, you have two choices - tell them what can go wrong if they keep doing what they're doing or tell them all the positive things that can happen after the change is made. (Actually, an obvious third choice is probably best - tell them both the good and the bad.)

I happen to think that both approaches are valid, but I accept that you disagree.

Hopefully, however, you understand that Chuck is trying to help self publishers even if you disagree with his methods.


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## MichaelSullivan

Chilari said:


> You don't think 30 typos in 100 pages is unacceptable? Most books I read don't have one error (and believe me, I notice).



I'm saying that there are many ways to make an error, and I've NEVER read a perfect book without at least 2 - 3 errors that I see, and I don't notice them very often so if I find a few there is probably 10 times as many in there.  I've passed the same book through multiple editors and I can tell you that editor #2 finds WAY more than 30 errors per 100 pages after editor #1 and we are talking about professional editors that are employed by big-five and have worked on New York Times Bestsellers.  So my point is that when you have that many words, and with all the combinations of ways to make a mistake, I think it that there will always be some in there.  Ask a programmer if he/she writes bug-free code?  They don't we all have mistakes.  The world is an imperfect place. We do the best we can.  Also, people don't often agree on what is "right" I've had people report an error and it turns out they didn't understand things like the difference in punctuation between a dialog tag and and an action tag.  So why they thought there was an error it was actually correct.

There is a lot more subjectivity then you would think and one person's subjectivity is another person's "error."  Take for instance commas on introductory prepositional phrases.  Some editors always put a comma, some only put the comma if the phrase is "long" (4 - 5 words) some omit it if two words.  Depending on who you talk to commas there can be right or wrong - some will count it as an error, some will recognize it is a stylistic mistake.  Same thing with a comma before too at the end of a sentence. Some houses take it out, some leave it in, some do a bit of both.  Is it a typo? Depends on who you talk to.





Chilari said:


> There was a Pratchett book I spotted one in once, and when I was reading a pre-publication review copy of Emperor of Thorns I caught three or four errors, one of which the editor had not since caught. And that's a 400-odd page book.



My guess is there are many more than that in there - if you were to give those to a "fresh editor" the book won't come back with just 1 - 3 changes.



Chilari said:


> Traditionaly publishers don't have an error rate so high as 30 per 100 pages. They don't even have an error rate as high as 1 per 100 pages. A book that's got that many errors quite simply hasn't had enough polish, hasn't been checked by enough eyes, to be indistinguishable from a traditionally published book.



I'm traditionally published, by a very large and respected publisher.  And I know my book has errors in it. Some I see when I do re-reading, some are pointed out by readers.  Is it 30 / 100 pages?  I don't know I've never really added them up - but I still content that if 5 are found there are probably 3 or 4 times that many that are there and not being reported.




Chilari said:


> I agree that there's a double standard - confirmation bias where a typo is seen in self-publishing means that typo is seen as evidence of poor quality where is wouldn't be in a traditionally published book. But that only applies when you've got errors in the single digits per book, not when you have a dozen or more per chapter.



It depends on the person and their particular threshold. I got an email once from a reader that was "outraged by the number of errors they found." I apologized and told them I would get them fixed if they would send them along. They reported 6 errors in a 320 page book - and one wasn't actually an error.  For them that was outrageous - to me it was "pretty good."



Chilari said:


> Besides, precisely because of that confirmation bias self-publishers need to hold themselves to a very high standard indeed. Self-publishers can't be content with publishing a book full of errors, just because it's "only" an error incidence on 0.0012 or whatever. What's wrong with saying "no, 0.0012 isn't good enough, I want it to be 0.nothing"?



No argument there.  As I said you have to be twice as good to get half the credit. It's one of the reasons I'm so picky about edits and drive my editors crazy - sometimes even pitting two editors against one another because their edits don't agree.  Nothing wrong with having  a "zero tolerance policy" I've just never found ANY book that has met that criteria.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

Chesterama said:


> Yes, I believe in my work being of professional quality before I submit publish. I don't think that self-published works should be segregated in the way that Chuck Wendig mentioned in his article for my own reasons. I don't wish to add on to anything negative so I'll stop here. But I appreciate when other authors state their viewpoints in a polite and helpful fashion. Instead of focusing on the negative, do so on the positive.
> 
> Focusing on the negative isn't getting anyone anywhere. But I have a different take on it and all our viewpoints vary. I think being negative accentuates the problem and gives a bad image where it isn't needed.
> 
> I follow one Indie author in particular on Twitter and her blog. She's doing very well for herself and I like to think that she teaches me the proper way to do things. I never read anything negative from her. She shares her experiences about the industry and does it in an effective way. That's what I appreciate and that's all I meant from my comment above.





Chesterama said:


> Normally, I dig Chuck's posts. But this one seemed to be especially laced with bitterness. Just what I picked up, could be I'm sensitive today. I disagree with segregating self-published works. I don't see how his proposals (or rants) add anything positive to the equation. I promised myself that I would stay out of these conversations but I want to learn more about self-publishing so I give in to reading these threads. Michael Sullivan & Kevin McLaughlin's posts are so inspiring and educational. I want to personally thank them for putting their best intentions forward when sharing their views on this subject. Its refreshing.



I also had problem with this post.  You know when someone says, "I don't mean to be insulting, but..." you know that an insult is coming your way.  I kinda feel this way about Chuck.  He says "I want to get it out right away that I'm an author-publisher and I support it...but now I'm going to tell you what is wrong with everyone who self-publishes and why they have to be segregated and kept away from "professionals."  To say use "goose, goose, book" to pick a book at random is ridiculous. I doubt many people are "discovering books" through this.  That's not how people "discover works."

Whenever I hear people say they can't find "good" self-published books, I immediately think the don't "want" to find them. Look at the Amazon Bestingselling list and Top Rated lists in your favorite genre - you'll find A LOT of novels that you can sample and if it tickles your fancy buy it.

Chuck is not particularly successful at self-publishing.  He may produce quality work (I don't know I've never tried any of his stuff) but I don't think he operates the way I see most "professional" self-publishers act. They are much more dedicated to willing their books into existence by constant improvement.  Trying a new cover, a price promotion, a different blurb. A follow-up book.  They keep at it and it pays off - as you can see by their ratings.  Chuck, on the other hand seems to put up something but then expects it to take off on it's own - and low and behold it doesn't. The conclusion....well if only there wasn't all this junk laying around they would find my books - so I must berate all the junk.

I'm with Kevin, and others....books that are poorly conceived and executed fade away. Yes they are still on Amazon but with rankings of 1,000,000+ they sell one every 4 months so who cares.  I don't concern myself with the "volcano of sh*t" I'm too busy writing books that my fans are clamoring for...but when I do roll out a book...I do it right. Doesn't matter whether it is self or traditional, I'm going to give it as much care in the marketing as I do in the writing, because if I don't then it will fail, and I'll have no one to blame but myself.

On a more personal note. I'm glad that you find my posts helpful and inspiring.  You are very welcome...to me it is reward enough to hear that people get something out of them.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

Chesterama said:


> Normally, I dig Chuck's posts. But this one seemed to be especially laced with bitterness. Just what I picked up, could be I'm sensitive today. I disagree with segregating self-published works. I don't see how his proposals (or rants) add anything positive to the equation. I promised myself that I would stay out of these conversations but I want to learn more about self-publishing so I give in to reading these threads. Michael Sullivan & Kevin McLaughlin's posts are so inspiring and educational. I want to personally thank them for putting their best intentions forward when sharing their views on this subject. Its refreshing.



I also had problem with this post.  You know when someone says, "I don't mean to be insulting, but..." you know that an insult is coming your way.  I kinda feel this way about Chuck.  He says "I want to get it out right away that I'm an author-publisher and I support it...but now I'm going to tell you what is wrong with everyone who self-publishes and why they have to be segregated and kept away from "professionals."  To say use "goose, goose, book" to pick a book at random is ridiculous. I doubt many people are "discovering books" through this.  That's not how people "discover works."

Whenever I hear people say they can't find "good" self-published books, I immediately think the don't "want" to find them. Look at the Amazon Bestingselling list and Top Rated lists in your favorite genre - you'll find A LOT of novels that you can sample and if it tickles your fancy buy it.

Chuck is not particularly successful at self-publishing.  He may produce quality work (I don't know I've never tried any of his stuff) but I don't think he operates the way I see most "professional" self-publishers act. They are much more dedicated to willing their books into existence by constant improvement.  Trying a new cover, a price promotion, a different blurb. A follow-up book.  They keep at it and it pays off - as you can see by their ratings.  Chuck, on the other hand seems to put up something but then expects it to take off on it's own - and low and behold it doesn't. The conclusion....well if only there wasn't all this junk laying around they would find my books - so I must berate all the junk.

I'm with Kevin, and others....books that are poorly conceived and executed fade away. Yes they are still on Amazon but with rankings of 1,000,000+ they sell one every 4 months so who cares.  I don't concern myself with the "volcano of sh*t" I'm too busy writing books that my fans are clamoring for...but when I do roll out a book...I do it right. Doesn't matter whether it is self or traditional, I'm going to give it as much care in the marketing as I do in the writing, because if I don't then it will fail, and I'll have no one to blame but myself.

On a more personal note. I'm glad that you find my posts helpful and inspiring.  You are very welcome...to me it is reward enough to hear that people get something out of them.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

BWFoster78 said:


> I interpreted Michael and Chuck to, fundamentally, have a similar viewpoint: to succeed as a self-published author, you need to work really hard on your craft before publishing and put out something that is professional quality.
> 
> Do you disagree with that sentiment or the way it was stated by Chuck?  Or, do you disagree that both Michael and Chuck stated, essentially, that?
> 
> I don't think Michael wants you to self publish if your writing isn't ready, and I don't think Chuck wants to discourage you from self publishing if your writing is ready.  And, I think that everyone agrees that it can be difficult to determine whether your writing is or isn't ready.



I think you are right int that both myself and Chuck are saying - you owe it to your readers and your reputation to publish only books that are well written and well executed.  I think where we disagree is our impressions of "self-publishing" as a whole.  Chuck is much more critical and comes from a position that it is all crap and that is ruining it for everyone.  I'm very much of the opinion is that there is a lot of crap, but it's existence doesn't hurt me as an author, nor does it affect readers (who will never even know that most of it exist).

My focus is on "those doing it right."  Chuvck focuses on "those doing it wrong."  And I think that is where our primary differences lie.


----------



## Benjamin Clayborne

I've said it elsewhere, but it's relevant here too: I don't think it's particularly meaningful to say that a book is "good" or "bad." There are books I hate that have sold millions of copies, and books I love that barely saw the light of day. All that one can reasonably say is that they like or hate a book, or that a book sold well or poorly.

You could argue that a book that sells 400,000 copies can't possibly be bad, but if I read it and hate it, what difference does it make whether I think it's good or bad? The author's doing okay.


----------



## Mythopoet

Chesterama said:


> Yes, I believe in my work being of professional quality before I submit publish. I don't think that self-published works should be segregated in the way that Chuck Wendig mentioned in his article for my own reasons. I don't wish to add on to anything negative so I'll stop here. But I appreciate when other authors state their viewpoints in a polite and helpful fashion. Instead of focusing on the negative, do so on the positive.
> 
> Focusing on the negative isn't getting anyone anywhere. But I have a different take on it and all our viewpoints vary. I think being negative accentuates the problem and gives a bad image where it isn't needed.
> 
> I follow one Indie author in particular on Twitter and her blog. She's doing very well for herself and I like to think that she teaches me the proper way to do things. I never read anything negative from her. She shares her experiences about the industry and does it in an effective way. That's what I appreciate and that's all I meant from my comment above.



Thanks for this reminder. I tend to be very opinionated and very passionate and so I often get caught up in my own fervor. But I agree with everything you've said here. I'm not very good at exemplifying it, I have to struggle against my own brand of self-importance all the time. So thanks for reminding me that it's always better to be a creative force than a destructive force.


----------



## BWFoster78

Benjamin Clayborne said:


> I've said it elsewhere, but it's relevant here too: I don't think it's particularly meaningful to say that a book is "good" or "bad." There are books I hate that have sold millions of copies, and books I love that barely saw the light of day. All that one can reasonably say is that they like or hate a book, or that a book sold well or poorly.
> 
> You could argue that a book that sells 400,000 copies can't possibly be bad, but if I read it and hate it, what difference does it make whether I think it's good or bad? The author's doing okay.



Benjamin,

I've said this before, too:

It's meaningful to the author.

To be clear, I'm not talking about books that are hugely successful; I'm talking about books that someone sends to my blog, books that they've self-published and are now trying to market, books that are so bad that they are unreadable.

Some on this forum would, as far as I can tell, say that I should only do one of two things in response to that submission:

1. Praise the author for the few things he may have done right - "Great job!  One of your paragraphs on the first page didn't have any typos or grammatical errors!"
2. Ignore the submission.

As Kevin and Michael agree, that book is not going to be successful.  Maybe somewhere in the world, there will be a person or two who stumble across it, buy it, and somehow make it through the entire thing without barfing, but, in general, readers are going to take one look at it and click to the next book.  The book certainly isn't going to get recommendations from book bloggers or reviewers.

If I choose either of the responses above, I am doing absolutely nothing to help that author.  Nothing!  He's going to have a book that fails in the marketplace, and he's not going to know why it fails.

What happens if, instead, I tell him, "Look dude, this book is horrible.  Just in the first page, I encountered these problems..."?

In a lot of cases, the author will completely ignore my comments, deciding that his work is beyond reproach and the issues are all on me.  Fine.  At least, I tried.

In some cases though, and I have encountered these, the author used my comments and recommendations as a springboard to try to improve his writing.

I've said this a million times: what helped me become the writer I am today is that other writers took the time and effort, and cared enough, to tell me how to make my writing better.  I will continue to try and return that tremendous help by passing along what I've learned to others, and a big part of that assistance is telling them that their current writing is bad.


----------



## BWFoster78

MichaelSullivan said:


> I think you are right int that both myself and Chuck are saying - you owe it to your readers and your reputation to publish only books that are well written and well executed.  I think where we disagree is our impressions of "self-publishing" as a whole.  Chuck is much more critical and comes from a position that it is all crap and that is ruining it for everyone.  I'm very much of the opinion is that there is a lot of crap, but it's existence doesn't hurt me as an author, nor does it affect readers (who will never even know that most of it exist).
> 
> My focus is on "those doing it right."  Chuvck focuses on "those doing it wrong."  And I think that is where our primary differences lie.



Michael,

What about the, admittedly anecdotal, evidence that Chuck put forth in his article?

He tells the story of a reader who, upon discovering all the discounted books available, started buying them.  Soon, that reader realized that the quality of all these stories was dreadful and stopped buying anything priced below what traditional publishers charge.

He tells another story of a book blogger whose experiences with poor writing and unprofessional behavior in dealing with self published authors led her to decide to no longer review self published books.

You are a well-known author and aren't experiencing the same realities that people like me are in trying to break into the market.  One of my major advantages as someone who is self publishing is that I can set a lower price point to attract readers to my book.  A lot of readers won't even consider (and I've read many, many people espousing this viewpoint) buying a book from a debut writer at a high price point.  If others are now not going to consider those at a lower price point, this hurts me and everyone else starting out.  Not being able to be reviewed on a lot of blogs hurts me and everyone else starting out.

Maybe the existence of so much crap doesn't hurt you, but those are two concrete examples of real harm that is being caused to me.

How do you recommend those who are "doing it right" stand out from the hundreds of thousands of those doing it wrong?


----------



## Benjamin Clayborne

BWFoster78 said:


> It's meaningful to the author.
> 
> To be clear, I'm not talking about books that are hugely successful; I'm talking about books that someone sends to my blog, books that they've self-published and are now trying to market, books that are so bad that they are unreadable.



Feel free to tell Joe Author that you hated his book and the reasons why. My only point is that a lot of people try to objectively classify a book as "bad" (or "good"), which is a mug's game. History is littered with "bad" books that sold hugely (*cough*Twilight*cough*) and "good" books which never find much of an audience.

"Twilight is bad" is a common sentiment, but it's foolhardy to claim that everyone who liked it is somehow wrong or a moron.


----------



## BWFoster78

Benjamin Clayborne said:


> Feel free to tell Joe Author that you hated his book and the reasons why. My only point is that a lot of people try to objectively classify a book as "bad" (or "good"), which is a mug's game. History is littered with "bad" books that sold hugely (*cough*Twilight*cough*) and "good" books which never find much of an audience.
> 
> "Twilight is bad" is a common sentiment, but it's foolhardy to claim that everyone who liked it is somehow wrong or a moron.



Benjamin,

The argument of "good vs bad" books in this thread has been (in my understanding anyway and I'm one of the main contributors to the discussion) framed around books put out by self published authors.

Some would say, if I've interpreted them correctly, that it isn't possible to differentiate a good book from a bad book.  Others would say, again if I've interpreted them correctly, that it is somehow wrong on a moral or ethical level to call out someone for writing a bad book.

I disagree with both those viewpoints.

I think that it is possible to say that a given self published book is good or bad, and I think there's more moral imperative to say so than there is to remain silent.


----------



## Benjamin Clayborne

BWFoster78 said:


> Some would say, if I've interpreted them correctly, that it isn't possible to differentiate a good book from a bad book.



It isn't _useful_ to label a book "good" or "bad" because those terms mean different things to different people in the _same conversation_. Some people say "bad" and mean "I read the whole thing and hated it, but it's fine if you like it," some people mean "I read it and hated it and anyone who disagrees with me is wrong and/or stupid," some people mean "it doesn't meet basic grammatical/spelling requirements and that stopped me from reading any further so I have no knowledge of or opinion about the storytelling/characterization," some people mean "it's competently written but the way the author treats the main character pissed me off", etc. That's why I try to avoid saying a book is "good" or "bad." Nobody agrees on what those terms mean, and they all just end up talking past each other, mainly because they don't even realize they're not using consistent terminology. It's better just to be more specific.

Even terms like "poorly written," which sound more subjective, are often used to mean either "doesn't meet basic grammatical requirements" or "I don't like the writing style" (I have a friend who hates the Harry Potter books because she doesn't like Rowling's prose style, but she loves the world/story/characters–but no one can seriously argue that the HP books have significant misspellings or grammatical errors) or any number of other things.



> Others would say, again if I've interpreted them correctly, that it is somehow wrong on a moral or ethical level to call out someone for writing a bad book.



I vehemently disagree with that position. If you hate a book, you're perfectly justified in saying why. ("Calling someone out" can mean various things, though; publicly shaming them in a blog post is different than sending them a polite email explaining why you disliked it.)


----------



## BWFoster78

Benjamin,

I can understand where you are coming from.  It's the ultimate frustration to have a debate with someone and discover after much arguing that the primary issue is that you haven't defined terms.

For the record, my message to such authors is typically along the lines of, "I feel your writing isn't yet ready to be published. I suggest working on this, this, and this and then seeking feedback on Scribophile."


----------



## Benjamin Clayborne

BWFoster78 said:


> Benjamin,
> 
> I can understand where you are coming from.  It's the ultimate frustration to have a debate with someone and discover after much arguing that the primary issue is that you haven't defined terms.
> 
> For the record, my message to such authors is typically along the lines of, "I feel your writing isn't yet ready to be published. I suggest working on this, this, and this and then seeking feedback on Scribophile."



That sounds reasonable to me. I'd probably phrase it a little differently (either "I think you should change X, Y, and Z before you publish it" which is more subjective than "isn't ready to be published", or "I'd change X, Y, and Z before I published this").


----------



## MichaelSullivan

BWFoster78 said:


> Michael,
> 
> What about the, admittedly anecdotal, evidence that Chuck put forth in his article?
> 
> He tells the story of a reader who, upon discovering all the discounted books available, started buying them.  Soon, that reader realized that the quality of all these stories was dreadful and stopped buying anything priced below what traditional publishers charge.



Well I have a very simple solution for this.  Don't price at $0.99 and $2.99!!  Seriously, When I was self-published my books were $4.95 - $6.95 and I had no problem selling them (I had some months at 10,000  - 12,000 sales a month).  Part of being indistinguishable is a recognition that your IP has value and if you produce a solid product you should charge a reasonable price for it.

Giving a bit of a discount is fine...but I think a $0.99 and $2.99 (unless it is being done for a VERY limited time period as a promotion) as the "going price" is a bad idea.  In April, I'm returning to self-publishing (well actually hybrid as the print book and the audio book are put out by standard traditional publishers). I'm listing the ebook for $7.99 and provide it for a 15% discount at $6.49 if bought directly from me.  I think the book is (a) worth that price and (b) won't see push back from readers.

Bottom line...I think self-publishers put themselves in a ghetto of their own making.  They need to have the courage to price higher.  Another great example is Mitchell Hogan who released his Crucible of the Soul at $7.99 and sold more than 10,000 copies in a really reasonable amount of time.  I would venture to think that most readers didn't even know they were getting something self published.



BWFoster78 said:


> He tells another story of a book blogger whose experiences with poor writing and unprofessional behavior in dealing with self published authors led her to decide to no longer review self published books.



And he gives the solution to that - treat bloggers with ultimate respect, as they are deserving of it.  When I send out review requests I present myself extremely professionally...and always have, even when I was a nobody.  For some tips on what that means...here are some resources.

* Dos and Don'ts of Getting your books reviews
* How to get you book reviewed
* Marketing 101: Reviews

There are many review sites...and yes some of them don't accept self-published, but there are even some who specialize in that. When I was self-published many peopled didn't know it because I was under an imprint created by my wife.  So I could try to submit to sites that said "no self-publish" because there was an imprint on the spine.  But...I never did.  Because when push comes to shove I didn't have to pass any gate to get my wife to put out my books. And you know what?  As reviews of my books starting coming out I got those same sites ASKING for review copies, and more than a few of them that purchased the books on their own.



BWFoster78 said:


> You are a well-known author and aren't experiencing the same realities that people like me are in trying to break into the market.  Maybe the existence of so much crap doesn't hurt you, but those are two concrete examples of real harm that is being caused to me.



I hear this a lot...that the situation is different for me...and it is.  But we all start out in the same spot. I had ZERO following when I started out. No twiter, no facebook, no readers.  I built my audience - sometimes one at a time.  But I had a good product and once I got some people to take a look, they evangelized and brought in other readers.  If anything it is easier now then when I started as it wasn't a viable choice - so everyone there was in the camp of being there because the had no other option.  Now authors are self-publishing because there in many ways it is the better choice (for those who can produce a quality product and love having control).   I'm not saying it's for everyone, but I do know more self-published authors earning a living wage then I do traditionally published ones.



BWFoster78 said:


> One of my major advantages as someone who is self publishing is that I can set a lower price point to attract readers to my book.  A lot of readers won't even consider (and I've read many, many people espousing this viewpoint) buying a book from a debut writer at a high price point.  If others are now not going to consider those at a lower price point, this hurts me and everyone else starting out.  Not being able to be reviewed on a lot of blogs hurts me and everyone else starting out.



It's a major advantage to have control over price...but just because you CAN doesn't mean you should.  Price reductions are a "lazy mans way" of generating sales and don't work, and can even hurt if you have a product that is sub-standard and has few to no reviews. If you have a book that people have heard of, and you have a lot of reviews, then lowering a price is a good strategy to catapult sales - but only if done for a short time.  

And yes a lot of readers won't consider a debut writer at a high price point...so don't concentrate on sales until you have three books out (no longer debut) and not until you have a good number of reviews. (have already proven you are worth reading).   When you are new and no one knows who you are - you have to make yourself known.  If you make yourself known and your books still don't sell...then you probably don't have as good of a book as you thought you did.  What I'm suggesting takes a lot of work.  There is no "easy" way in this business. Those that release at $0.99 are looking for the "easy way." and shouldn't be surprised when it doesn't work.  




BWFoster78 said:


> How do you recommend those who are "doing it right" stand out from the hundreds of thousands of those doing it wrong?



A few things.

1. You have to ACTUALLY be doing it right...which means you have an exceptional book that is well executed.  95% of ALL books don't fall into this category.  This is so incredibly hard to do and it is the first step.  I personally don't think Chuck falls into the 5% when it comes to his self-published books.  He doesn't really a product that when I get done reading I say, "Wow, I have to tell everyone I know about this book!" 

2. You have to be writing books that have a reasonably-sized audience.  If you are writing "too niche" there won't be enough people to support you.

3. You have to get it in front of a few people to start the word-of-mouth.  Even if this means doing it by hand - one person at a time. You need to target people who talk about books - so bloggers, Amazon reviewers, and goodreads is where you should be looking.

4. You have to produce at least 3 books.  Less than that and you don't have enough content to justify spending much time doing #3.  When you only have 1 or 2 books you should be writing more books.

5. You need to rinse and repeat.  You may not catch with your first book, or your first series, but if you keep at it AND are doing 1-4 one of them will eventually ignite then spread the fire to the other ones.


I don't agree with Chuck that Amazon is a mess and impossible to find quality reads at.  Anyone who says that is just not trying.  All I need to do is go to any book I like and look at "customers also bought" or go to a bestselling genre list or a top-rated genre list. He seemed to gloss over why he thinks it is so hard.  It in fact rewards those that do it right - and while choosing 10 random books will produce bad results - because the bad do outweigh the good - but NO ONE finds books that way.  They look at things they have liked, and then search out others that are similar.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

BWFoster78 said:


> Some would say, if I've interpreted them correctly, that it isn't possible to differentiate a good book from a bad book.  Others would say, again if I've interpreted them correctly, that it is somehow wrong on a moral or ethical level to call out someone for writing a bad book.
> 
> I disagree with both those viewpoints.
> 
> I think that it is possible to say that a given self published book is good or bad, and I think there's more moral imperative to say so than there is to remain silent.



An individual can certainly determine what is "good" and "bad" from their perspective, given what they value and how closely the book lives up to or away from those values. 

The fallacy comes when people try to project that beyond an individual and think that there can be some "universal standard" that if a book passes it is in the clear. 

There are many who discuss "objectively" bad books - and this just is a fool's game.  Because all books are art and art is perceived, by it's vary nature, subjectively.  Objective is something that is not in dispute...this book is 480 pages long.  This book weighs 1.3 pounds.  This book has 100,000 words.  

Let's look at a great example....Anthony Ryan's Blood Song.  It is one of the few books that I felt so strongly about that I volunteered a blurb for. It has received thousands of positive reviews, been called out on a few "best of lists" and got a traditional deal with Ace (US) and Orbit (UK) and has sold very successfully.  By all measurable standards it is a success...and I think it is a good book.

But when I read the self-published version.  There were a lot of mistakes in it.  Many many more than the 30 per 100 pages that was talked about elsewhere.  But you know what...I didn't care.  The story was good enough for me to overlook those aspects.  In a "lesser book" I might not feel similarly but for this one I was willing to give it a pass on the criteria of "expertly edited."

As for calling a spade a spade.  I have no problem with you doing so. I would prefer that such discussions were held in private person-to-person as it were.  With the exception of one I've never posted a negative review. There are books I didn't like, and I can explain why, but it is always with the recognition that there are aspects about it that would work for others...it was, essentially "not my cup of tea." 

If I came across a book from an author (self or traditional) that I thought wasn't up to par, I'd explain that I'm (a) very picky and (b) give them the choice to hear my opinions or not.  A strong willed person who wants to improve will say yes. For those that just can't take the heat...I give them a way out.  That's what "I" do and as for what others "should" do - I don't have the right to say one way or the other.

I will say, that I think that writing is a really hard gig - and writers should support and encourage one another and I hate seeing when we "eat our own."  I see this mostly from "literary writers" who slam anything that sells well as being somehow "unworthy."  It's an attitude I"m tired of seeing.  It stinks of "sour grapes" and an "elitist" and  attitude.  I'm not saying you do this. I'm just speaking in generalities about writers reviewing writers in the larger context.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

Benjamin Clayborne said:


> It isn't _useful_ to label a book "good" or "bad" because those terms mean different things to different people in the _same conversation_. Some people say "bad" and mean "I read the whole thing and hated it, but it's fine if you like it," some people mean "I read it and hated it and anyone who disagrees with me is wrong and/or stupid," some people mean "it doesn't meet basic grammatical/spelling requirements and that stopped me from reading any further so I have no knowledge of or opinion about the storytelling/characterization," some people mean "it's competently written but the way the author treats the main character pissed me off", etc. That's why I try to avoid saying a book is "good" or "bad." Nobody agrees on what those terms mean, and they all just end up talking past each other, mainly because they don't even realize they're not using consistent terminology. It's better just to be more specific.
> 
> Even terms like "poorly written," which sound more subjective, are often used to mean either "doesn't meet basic grammatical requirements" or "I don't like the writing style" (I have a friend who hates the Harry Potter books because she doesn't like Rowling's prose style, but she loves the world/story/characters–but no one can seriously argue that the HP books have significant misspellings or grammatical errors) or any number of other things.
> 
> 
> 
> I vehemently disagree with that position. If you hate a book, you're perfectly justified in saying why. ("Calling someone out" can mean various things, though; publicly shaming them in a blog post is different than sending them a polite email explaining why you disliked it.)



Benjamin is a great and wise man - but only because we are in complete agreement.


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## BWFoster78

> An individual can certainly determine what is "good" and "bad" from their perspective, given what they value and how closely the book lives up to or away from those values.
> 
> The fallacy comes when people try to project that beyond an individual and think that there can be some "universal standard" that if a book passes it is in the clear.
> 
> There are many who discuss "objectively" bad books - and this just is a fool's game. Because all books are art and art is perceived, by it's vary nature, subjectively. Objective is something that is not in dispute...this book is 480 pages long. This book weighs 1.3 pounds. This book has 100,000 words.



Michael,

First of all, thank you very much for your replies.  I found your response to my first post above quite informative.

As to the quoted section, it seems at odds with what else you've said.  Maybe we're just not understanding one another.

In the post that I liked so much above, you said this:



> You have to ACTUALLY be doing it right...which means you have an exceptional book that is well executed. 95% of ALL books don't fall into this category. This is so incredibly hard to do and it is the first step. I personally don't think Chuck falls into the 5% when it comes to his self-published books. He doesn't really a product that when I get done reading I say, "Wow, I have to tell everyone I know about this book!"



To me, this is saying that it is possible to judge, on some objective level, whether a book falls into the 5% or not.  That is all I'm trying to say, that it's not all that hard, if you're trying to judge a book objectively, to say, "Yes, this book is good enough to fall in the 5%."  It's ridiculously easy, by comparison, to be able to say, "Look, your book doesn't even fall in the top 50%."

And I agree 100% with you that "mistakes" don't matter at all if the book is good, which is what makes it so hard to define what a good book is.  I keep saying, "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it."



> As for calling a spade a spade. I have no problem with you doing so. I would prefer that such discussions were held in private person-to-person as it were. With the exception of one I've never posted a negative review.



I agree with you here as well.  For the most part, these exchanges take place over email.  If the remarks are public, I try to tone them down quite a bit.

I went back and forth on the negative reviews.  At the moment, I pretty much don't publish a review if I can't give it at least 2-stars, and all my reviews are in the form of: I liked these things about the book AND I didn't like these things about the book.



> I will say, that I think that writing is a really hard gig - and writers should support and encourage one another and I hate seeing when we "eat our own." I see this mostly from "literary writers" who slam anything that sells well as being somehow "unworthy." It's an attitude I"m tired of seeing. It stinks of "sour grapes" and an "elitist" and attitude.



Though I haven't encountered this, I can understand your concern.  Everyone I've dealt with that has criticized me, I've really felt that their ultimate goal was to help me improve my writing.  I think that the standard we should all stive for: ultimately are you trying to help the other person?  I try to behave as I want others to behave to me.  If there's an issue with my writing, I want it pointed out so that I can fix it and learn from fixing it.

EDIT: BTW, I referenced some of your advice on my latest blog post and linked to your site.  Here's the link: http://www.brianwfoster.com/ill-be-your-gatekeeper/


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## stephenspower

Wait, what? Every book will have a couple of mistakes in it, but 5 or 10 is embarrassing and 30/100 pages is outlandishly shoddy. Chilari is right.


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## BWFoster78

stephenspower said:


> Wait, what? Every book will have a couple of mistakes in it, but 5 or 10 is embarrassing and 30/100 pages is outlandishly shoddy. Chilari is right.



The problem is that Michael, I think, included "writing" mistakes in those errors and Chilari, as far as I can tell, only intended obvious typos and grammar/punctuation issues in her number.

I hate it when one side is saying, "Man, I love oranges." and the other is saying, "No, apples suck."


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## Benjamin Clayborne

MichaelSullivan said:


> Benjamin is a great and wise man - but only because we are in complete agreement.



I'm going to have that tattooed on my sternum.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Benjamin Clayborne said:


> I'm going to have that tattooed on my sternum.



Better yet, use it as a book endorsement on a back cover!


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## MichaelSullivan

BWFoster78 said:


> First of all, thank you very much for your replies.  I found your response to my first post above quite informative.



You are welcome...I'm enjoying the exchange.



BWFoster78 said:


> Michael Sullivan said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You have to ACTUALLY be doing it right...which means you have an exceptional book that is well executed. 95% of ALL books don't fall into this category. This is so incredibly hard to do and it is the first step. I personally don't think Chuck falls into the 5% when it comes to his self-published books. He doesn't really a product that when I get done reading I say, "Wow, I have to tell everyone I know about this book!"
> 
> 
> 
> 
> As to the quoted section, it seems at odds with what else you've said.  Maybe we're just not understanding one another.
Click to expand...


Oh, sorry...I should have elaborated. I forget that there are things I say so often that I take them as a given and forget that I may not have mentioned them here.

As I said, various people are going to have different (and subjective) terms of what a "good book is."  When I'm speaking about an author who is building a writing career that can support themselves financially what I mean by "good" is one that a reader enjoys so much that they recommend it to others.  That is VERY hard to do. Think about your own reading and how many books you've read over the years.  How many have you talked about and recommended to others?  Probably a very small % of the total.  But a big component to getting to that point is getting someone to read it in the first place and that means a "professional execution" -- an attractive cover, compelling marketing blurb, well designed layout (because the person is going to sample or flip through the book) and an opening that captivates...as they aren't going to read the whole thing when sampling.  That's a lot of criteria to hit simultaneously hit out of the ballpark - which increases the difficulty level exponentially.

Under this criteria...Twilight and Dan Brown are "good books."  I'm not speaking about the quality of their writing.  But another "objective" criteria is sales...and there is no disputing the sales numbers of these books are substantial.  I know it offends some people's artistic sensibility to say such things...but the fact is no matter what we as writers might think of the quality of the craft, there is no denying that they told a story that resonated in some way with enough people that it became successful. If the goal is to "earn" a living wage you MUST write a book that people will recommend to others.  This may be because it is a "thrilling page turner."  It may be because it provides some amazing insight into the nature of one's soul.  Or it may be because it is on a particularly "hot subject." 




BWFoster78 said:


> To me, this is saying that it is possible to judge, on some objective level, whether a book falls into the 5% or not.  That is all I'm trying to say, that it's not all that hard, if you're trying to judge a book objectively, to say, "Yes, this book is good enough to fall in the 5%."  It's ridiculously easy, by comparison, to be able to say, "Look, your book doesn't even fall in the top 50%"



No, I can't agree.  There is no way to "objectively judge the top 5%.  Trying to determine which book will "catch fire" and be in that top 5% is not easy.  If it were, then there would never be a book that bombs coming out from the big-five.  I do agree that saying, "In my opinion your book is not ready for prime-time." And in fact I give that unhappy news to aspiring authors often.  I'm not saying you can't do that (again based on your personal bias), but you could also be completely wrong, just as I'm sure that certain books that some authors would deem "unworthy" went on to sell millions.



BWFoster78 said:


> And I agree 100% with you that "mistakes" don't matter at all if the book is good, which is what makes it so hard to define what a good book is.  I keep saying, "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it."



Well I always think mistakes "matter," but also feel people will be more than happy to overlook a typo for a compelling story.  But your statement proves my point.  Based on your individual subjective criteria you can divide the books into "good" and "bad."



BWFoster78 said:


> I went back and forth on the negative reviews.  At the moment, I pretty much don't publish a review if I can't give it at least 2-stars, and all my reviews are in the form of: I liked these things about the book AND I didn't like these things about the book.



I think it is important to provide some "sugar" with the "medicine" and appreciate that you find what you think is good.  I really like the way Bookworm Blues does her reviews. She definitely doesn't like everything she reads, but she tempers her negative criticism by mentioning that just because something didn't work for her, doesn't mean that it won't be enjoyed by others.



BWFoster78 said:


> Though I haven't encountered this, I can understand your concern.  Everyone I've dealt with that has criticized me, I've really felt that their ultimate goal was to help me improve my writing.  I think that the standard we should all stive for: ultimately are you trying to help the other person?  I try to behave as I want others to behave to me.  If there's an issue with my writing, I want it pointed out so that I can fix it and learn from fixing it.



It's a good attitude, and one that will serve you well in your career.  Just don't fall into the trap of projecting your feelings to others. It "should" be how all authors feel. But there are many who do not.  For some people it just won't help, and in some it can even hurt. Knowing which you are dealing with is the rub.



BWFoster78 said:


> EDIT: BTW, I referenced some of your advice on my latest blog post and linked to your site.  Here's the link: IÃ¢€™ll Be Your Gatekeeper | Brian W. Foster



Thanks I'll check it out.


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## MichaelSullivan

BWFoster78 said:


> The problem is that Michael, I think, included "writing" mistakes in those errors and Chilari, as far as I can tell, only intended obvious typos and grammar/punctuation issues in her number.
> 
> I hate it when one side is saying, "Man, I love oranges." and the other is saying, "No, apples suck."



I'm glad that we came back to this because again it depends on how a mistake is defined.  Is an incomplete sentence a mistake?  Many will say yes.  But there are times when I purposefully write an incomplete sentence for artistic reasons.  I do this more frequently since traditionally publishing because I can get away with it.  When you are self-published, the incomplete sentence is more likely than not seen as someone who doesn't know what they were doing or didn't pay attention when editing.  When it is is done by Cormac McCarthy it's "cutting edge prose."  It's that whole you're allowed to the break the rules thing...but you can't determine if the reader will know it was a "rule break" or a "I didn't know the rule existed."

Also most readers (even those that claim that they see all errors) really don't.  Take this example.

"I won't go with you," Sarah said, and walked out the door.

But if someone saw it written as:

"I won't go with you," Sarah said and walked out the door.

Would they notice the error?

What about 

"I won't go with you," Sarah turned and walked out the door.

Also wrong.  In this case it should be "I won't go with you." Sarah turned and walked out the door.

What about

"I won't go with you," She said, and walked out the door.

This is wrong as it should be "I won't go with you," she said, and walked out the door.

And also 

"I won't go with you." she said, and walked out the door.

Which of course is also wrong.

When you consider the amount of dialog in a book and the wide range of errors that can be introduced then 2 - 3 errors for an entire book is a standard that I don't think most professional editors can live up to. There isn't a book I've read that hasn't had these kinds of errors so when I count, my # of errors is probably much higher than others. Most won't see these and therefore it doesn't turn up in their "error count."


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## BWFoster78

> "I won't go with you," Sarah said, and walked out the door.



Michael,

Don't want to turn this into a writing rules discussion, but I'd love your opinion on this:

In the sentence above, the author combines a speech tag and a beat.  I'm of the opinion that the tag portion is simply wasted words.  Since the quotations marks indicate speech and the beat tells the reader who is speaking, inclusion of "said" is poor craft.  Yet I see a lot of published works that do this...


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## Benjamin Clayborne

BWFoster78 said:


> Michael,
> 
> Don't want to turn this into a writing rules discussion, but I'd love your opinion on this:
> 
> In the sentence above, the author combines a speech tag and a beat.  I'm of the opinion that the tag portion is simply wasted words.  Since the quotations marks indicate speech and the beat tells the reader who is speaking, inclusion of "said" is poor craft.  Yet I see a lot of published works that do this...



I'm no Michael Sullivan, but I think I can answer this. The "Sarah said" is technically redundant insofar as the phrase "Sarah walked out the door" lets you know who the speaker was; but the function of "Sarah said" isn't _only_ to convey the speaker's identity. It can affect the pacing of the scene, for one thing, or the impact of Sarah's action of walking out the door. It can emphasize that Sarah was saying those words in a normal speaking voice as opposed to letting the reader try to guess whether she was angry, bitter, calm, bored, etc. It can affect the reader's perception of the narrator's mental state. Maybe the narrator is self-involved and not paying attention to Sarah's verbal cues. Etc.

By itself, I don't think you can assume that those words are wasted. It would have to be in the context of how the author typically renders such phrases. Do they ALWAYS include an "X said" in such situations, or only sometimes? And so on.


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## Steerpike

Yeah, I'm with Benjamin. The way it is worded gives a certain character and impact to the sentence. I like it. So while in general you might say that combining a tag and a beat might be avoided, in a particular instance you may well want to combine the two to make the sentence read a certain way. It's not poor craft, it is done to achieve a certain effect from the sentence. You could take out the tag, but the sentence is going to read differently and it's not wrong for an author to decide they don't want it to read differently.


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## MichaelSullivan

BWFoster78 said:


> Michael,
> 
> Don't want to turn this into a writing rules discussion, but I'd love your opinion on this:
> 
> In the sentence above, the author combines a speech tag and a beat.  I'm of the opinion that the tag portion is simply wasted words.  Since the quotations marks indicate speech and the beat tells the reader who is speaking, inclusion of "said" is poor craft.  Yet I see a lot of published works that do this...



Haha - I wasn't using this as an example of craft - it was merely a demonstration of punctuation grammar rules.


----------

