# Don't Publish That Book!



## Steerpike

Article from Forbes:  Don't Publish That Book! - Forbes

What can I say about it? The author is right. The plethora of bad self-published offerings bears her out.


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## BWFoster78

I agree completely. 

Thanks for posting this.


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## Aosto

Although I do plan to self publish my first novel. I plan to heavily edit and have it edited before hand 
I have several beta readings will to rip it apart. Some for grmatical and formating, others for story consistency and readability. 
I agree that one should not rush to publish. At the same time I think k it wise to publish your first after heavy editing. Regardless of how well you think the story is. If you don't put your name out there, if you think "it's not good enough" then it will never be.


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## BWFoster78

Aosto said:


> Although I do plan to self publish my first novel. I plan to heavily edit and have it edited before hand
> I have several beta readings will to rip it apart. Some for grmatical and formating, others for story consistency and readability.
> I agree that one should not rush to publish. At the same time I think k it wise to publish your first after heavy editing. Regardless of how well you think the story is. If you don't put your name out there, if you think "it's not good enough" then it will never be.



You will continue to improve your writing your entire life (assuming that you keep with it).  At any point you publish, you'll always be able to have done better if you had waited.  It is important to pull the trigger when it's ready.  I think the point is to attain a certain level of professional quality.  It's pretty easy to find friends proficient enough to edit it for grammar and to proof read it.  

It's also important, however, to have someone evaluate it and tell you if it's good enough from a story standpoint.  If you don't have a friend in the publishing industry who can do this for you, pay the couple of hundred dollars for a manuscript evaluation.


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## Mindfire

There's one thing I object to in this article. What's wrong with black velvet cloaks?


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## Devor

Mindfire said:


> There's one thing I object to in this article. What's wrong with black velvet cloaks?



It's cliche garb for an opulent vampire.


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## Mindfire

Devor said:


> It's cliche garb for an opulent vampire.



But what if it's just being worn by ordinary, non-vampire aristocracy? The villain in my book is an albino count who wears richly dyed purple velvet as a sign of affluence and patriotism (purple is their national color).


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## Caged Maiden

Oh man, you guys this article is bang on!

When I look back at the dresses I made when I was 18... I cringe.  Oh how far I've come in ... several years HAHA!

Art is a development, of not only your skill, but your personalization of your work, whether it is sewing, writing, painting, whatever.  It takes time to find your personal style, and too often I look at my writing and know it's still falling flat on its face, but some parts are getting really good.  I take that as a sign there is hppe for me yet.  

We all have a road we're traveling, and for some it's just full of helpful people, with empty pickup truck beds, but for me, it is a sort of twisty, disorienting road, and I'm meandering, loving the scenery.  It's going to take me a while before I'm ready to get to the end, but I'm loving the road!

I don't want to live with the regret of stamping my name on something that I don't think is the best I can do, so for me, time isn't a concern.  But then, I'm not an impatient youth, I'm an experienced woman who has seen the results of rushing in the past.  

Thanks for posting this Steerpike.  It was fun to read, and encouraging to be reminded that everyone started somewhere.


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## Christopher Wright

So what? I hate these articles, they are utterly pointless. They only serve to salvage the original author's rapidly diminishing feeling of superiority in the face of a wave of people writing things who DON'T ACTUALLY CARE WHAT HE OR SHE THINKS.

So you have to ask yourself, why do you care what other people are doing? Write your own stories and focus on them. Stop trying to shame everyone else out of the way so you get a better playing field. That's not how it works, and it's TOO LATE. 

The floodgates have opened, the barbarians are flooding the city walls, and at this point everyone just has to deal with it. For every good story there will be five hundred misspelled "epics" that are thinly-veiled BDSM fanfic adaptations of cross-dressing vampires fighting dragon hookers while being pursued by a grizzled faerie cop.[1] And then following that up will be 1000 variations of someone desperately trying to tell their life story, which might actually be sad and moving and heart rending if it wasn't so badly written it feels more like a mashup of an essay on what they did last summer and a stereotypical 13-year old girls Double Secret Journal of Really Important Thoughts, decorated with sparkles and pictures of unicorns.[2]

There's no getting over it or past it, and people can complain on Forbes all they like but the can is open, the worms are out, you might as well go fishing.

-----
[1] Note to self: write this.
[2] Note to self: give this one a pass.


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## BWFoster78

Christopher Wright said:


> So what? I hate these articles, they are utterly pointless. They only serve to salvage the original author's rapidly diminishing feeling of superiority in the face of a wave of people writing things who DON'T ACTUALLY CARE WHAT HE OR SHE THINKS.
> 
> So you have to ask yourself, why do you care what other people are doing? Write your own stories and focus on them. Stop trying to shame everyone else out of the way so you get a better playing field. That's not how it works, and it's TOO LATE.
> 
> The floodgates have opened, the barbarians are flooding the city walls, and at this point everyone just has to deal with it. For every good story there will be five hundred misspelled "epics" that are thinly-veiled BDSM fanfic adaptations of cross-dressing vampires fighting dragon hookers while being pursued by a grizzled faerie cop.[1] And then following that up will be 1000 variations of someone desperately trying to tell their life story, which might actually be sad and moving and heart rending if it wasn't so badly written it feels more like a mashup of an essay on what they did last summer and a stereotypical 13-year old girls Double Secret Journal of Really Important Thoughts, decorated with sparkles and pictures of unicorns.[2]
> 
> There's no getting over it or past it, and people can complain on Forbes all they like but the can is open, the worms are out, you might as well go fishing.
> 
> -----
> [1] Note to self: write this.
> [2] Note to self: give this one a pass.



Yeah, there's no reason to go on the internet and complain about what other people are doing.

Wait, didn't you just...


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## Christopher Wright

Yes I did! I'll grant you the point and acknowledge the irony, but my point still stands.


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## BWFoster78

Christopher Wright said:


> Yes I did! I'll grant you the point and acknowledge the irony, but my point still stands.



Sorry.  Couldn't resist, though I probably could have tried harder 

Anyway, I can sort of see the author's point.

There seems to be two types of people who self publish: those who honor the development of writing craft and those who rush to get something out there.

In any human endeavor, those who work hard and struggle to accomplish goals look down with derision and anger at those who seek to take shortcuts.  The same is true in writing.  I want to make sure that my work is a good as it can be before I release it, and, if an editor tells me it's not ready, I'll wait until it is.

I get your point about tilting at windmills, though.  There's nothing that I, or the author of the piece, can do about it.

I think, however, there is value in putting it out there that an author harms both themself and other authors by publishing prematurely.


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## Christopher Wright

Yeah, I don't come from there.

There's a very famous photo of a hand-written poster hanging in (I think) Malcom McLaren's SEX shop in the 70s, during the birth of the punk rock movement. The poster has three chords scrawled out in very badly done tablature, and under it are the words NOW START A BAND.

Punk rock in the 70s had some absolute crap. And it birthed some of the greatest music I've ever heard. And it all came from the same place--a raw, undisciplined energy that flipped the "v" to all the labels who were acting as gatekeepers for proper, sellable music.

There are people who hate punk rock and say it's all crap. And they can think what they like, but it was raw and vulgar and brilliant and even the people who came after who weren't punk were still defining themselves by what punk did (by explicitly NOT doing that). And I see absolutely no difference between that and this. Yes, parents, we HAVE come for your children, and there's nothing you can do about it.


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## BWFoster78

Different strokes for different folks.

There are a lot of struggles at play here:

Art vs commerce
Following rules vs going with the flow
Just do it vs planning

I don't see that either of us would be able to move the other's viewpoint an iota.


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## Christopher Wright

No, but we'll never stop trying. ;-)


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## Devor

Chris, I don't understand the point you are trying to respond to.  Most self-published work needs more work, and marketing online takes a tremendous amount of time - especially the way most go about it.  The same is - has always been - just as true in music, punk rock or otherwise.  Success doesn't happen just because you're crazy and different.  You still need to take the extra time to do things well.  It takes a ton of work.

Like it or not, skipping traditional "gatekeepers" means that you are publishing from their slushpile, or at least seen as doing so.  That's a huge image deficit that you need to jump past.


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## Christopher Wright

Well it wouldn't be the first time that people were unable to understand my rants. But my guess is you didn't hear the dogwhistle that went off about those great hordes unwashed writers and how they should go away and make more room for the Serious Authors Who Are Serious About Authoring.

The image deficit I have with readers is legit and something I need to fix. My image deficit with the Serious Authors Who Are Serious About Authoring means jack all to me, other than the fact that they keep bringing it up, and people I like keep bringing it up in turn.


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## The Dark One

Couldn't agree more Christopher. (And I think your punk analogy is bang on.)

No doubt what we will eventually see is someone finding a way to really make a lot of money out of the new publishing paradigm like...erm...amazon?

Seriously, I suspect there must be a way for self-published writers to find some sort of decent forum/audience outside the traditional publishing route. Malcolm McLaren could have done it on his ear.


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## Steerpike

Let me just say:


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## Devor

While you have a point, I don't agree that the article was an example of that.  Despite the title, the first line of the article says that self-published stories are just published too soon.


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## Christopher Wright

"I'm a Hyena" is also appropriate.


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## Christopher Wright

Devor said:


> While you have a point, I don't agree that the article was an example of that.  Despite the title, the first line of the article says that self-published stories are just published too soon.



The implication being "go through the formal publishing process." It's really no different from the advice another writer gave that the period of time when a big publisher DOESN'T accept you is the time you need to spend "getting better."

And then she quotes JOHN MEYER to support this. But here's the thing--that time of a musician's life that he's talking about, when the musician is struggling and unknown? The musician is *STILL PLAYING LIVE SHOWS*. It's not like the band says "we're not coming out of our garage/basement until we get signed by a label!" No, they're throwing themselves into the world, into the crowd, against the derison of drunk fratboys and bikers and scenesters and whoever else happens to be hanging out at whatever crappy little dive they're playing at. They're actually DOING IT and getting better as a result. And from this the author's advice is "never show anyone how bad you are!"

The first live show I ever played was a disaster. The sound guy didn't mic our electronic equipment correctly, so while he heard everything through his mixer monitors all the audience heard was one guitar and the microphones. It was a disaster and after the show all anyone could ever talk about was how badly we sucked. Life is like that. It won't kill you.


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## Steerpike

Christopher Wright said:


> "I'm a Hyena" is also appropriate.



That's going back a little further. Good tune 

I would also have accepted anything by the Clash, early stuff by the Ramones, the first Offspring album, and anything off of David Bowie's Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, whether it has a punk sound or not!


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## BWFoster78

Christopher Wright said:


> The implication being "go through the formal publishing process." It's really no different from the advice another writer gave that the period of time when a big publisher DOESN'T accept you is the time you need to spend "getting better."
> 
> And then she quotes JOHN MEYER to support this. But here's the thing--that time of a musician's life that he's talking about, when the musician is struggling and unknown? The musician is *STILL PLAYING LIVE SHOWS*. It's not like the band says "we're not coming out of our garage/basement until we get signed by a label!" No, they're throwing themselves into the world, into the crowd, against the derison of drunk fratboys and bikers and scenesters and whoever else happens to be hanging out at whatever crappy little dive they're playing at. They're actually DOING IT and getting better as a result. And from this the author's advice is "never show anyone how bad you are!"
> 
> The first live show I ever played was a disaster. The sound guy didn't mic our electronic equipment correctly, so while he heard everything through his mixer monitors all the audience heard was one guitar and the microphones. It was a disaster and after the show all anyone could ever talk about was how badly we sucked. Life is like that. It won't kill you.



Everyone goes through a learning process.  However, I'm not going to charge someone for watching me practice.  Isn't that why you spend time learning how to play your instrument?  I can't play the guitar, and my voice is awful.  Should I get up in front of a crowd, start wailing and making random hand movements on the strings, and expect the audience to pay me.

If I'm asking someone to pay me, isn't there a reasonable expectation on their part that I provide something approaching professional quality?


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## Devor

Writers aren't muscicians.  Reading takes a much bigger investment from your audience than listening does, and many times the audience isn't choosing what band is playing live.  One crappy book holds a lot more power than a bad show.  Don't show them how bad you are is definitely good advice for a writer.


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## Christopher Wright

Brian, your philosophy can best be summed up as "don't do anything until it's perfect." Because you have a lot of talent, you can probably get away with that. Most of us can't. For most of us it's going to be try, fail, try, fail less, iteratively, until we hit the mark.

Devor, actually enjoying music takes just as much investment as reading a book. It's just different investment. People can go to a show and ignore what's going on, treating it as nothing more than background noise, but guess what? The bands and musicians that succeed are the ones that *make you stop doing that and actually pay attention*.


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## Ankari

Christopher Wright said:


> The first live show I ever played was a disaster. The sound guy didn't mic our electronic equipment correctly, so while he heard everything through his mixer monitors all the audience heard was one guitar and the microphones. It was a disaster and after the show all anyone could ever talk about was how badly we sucked. Life is like that. It won't kill you.



Wouldn't it be wiser for an aspiring author to mimic that of an aspiring musician?  Start small and grow bigger?  Start with a short story or scene and allow your writing group to review it and give feedback.  Do this a few times until you're getting more positive feedback then negative.  Take the next step and shop around for an online publisher (for the hypothetical short story).  Get the appropriate feedback and write another.  Keep doing this until you're finding a consistent audience for your work.  Go the next step and write a novel.  Get an alpha reading group together for feedback.  Make any appropriate revisions until you think it's ready for larger beta audience.  Make the appropriate revisions until you're ready to self publish.  Put your work out there and get feedback.  Take what you've learned for any following books.

If you have a few bucks, you can publish your own short stories on your own website before you submit them to online magazines.  If you have a few more bucks you can send your novel to a freelance editor before you self publish.


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## Christopher Wright

An aspiring musician takes whatever gig he or she can get. Why wouldn't an author do the same? Other than, you know, being embarassed. But being embarassed is pretty much part and parcel with exposing yourself to the world.[1]

-----
[1]Or getting arrested, depending on how you define "exposing yourself."


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## Mindfire

Hold it. Hold it! *HOLD IT!* When did Ankari become "staff"?


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## BWFoster78

> Brian, your philosophy can best be summed up as "don't do anything until it's perfect." Because you have a lot of talent, you can probably get away with that. Most of us can't. For most of us it's going to be try, fail, try, fail less, iteratively, until we hit the mark.



Okay, the most important thing I got out of this is a huge ego boost.  Thanks!

I think you have summed up my philosophy pretty well.  I'd refine it a bit to say that you need to provide the best quality that you can based on your ability and that you shouldn't try to provide anything unless you meet a certain minimum quality.  However, I'll grant that your version was more succinct 

To me, the asking for payment part of the equation is a pretty big deal.  If you're giving away stuff and not claiming to be a "writer," sure put your stuff out there.  If you're asking for payment, you're implying that your work is worth the money.  It's dishonest, from my view, to make that claim if you haven't made the effort.


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## Christopher Wright

Well I didn't say it to pander, I said it because I think it's true. You might be my arch nemesis on the board, but you're a worthy one. 

But the payment thing you're just going to have get over. You're going to spend the rest of your professional life watching people who don't deserve to get paid, getting paid. There's no getting around that. There isn't nearly as much correlation between who gets paid and who deserves to get paid as you might think, and this was true even before people started self publishing. Save yourself the trouble of an ulcer and make some sort of peace with that.


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## Mindfire

BWFoster vs Christopher Wright: the ultimate battle of Order vs Chaos.


Seriously, you should get custom ranks. Brian can be "Order Lord" and Chris can be "Chaos Lord".


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## Christopher Wright

OK, that would be *hilarious*.


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## BWFoster78

> But the payment thing you're just going to have get over. You're going to spend the rest of your professional life watching people who don't deserve to get paid, getting paid. There's no getting around that. There isn't nearly as much correlation between who gets paid and who deserves to get paid as you might think, and this was true even before people started self publishing. Save yourself the trouble of an ulcer and make some sort of peace with that.



Though I agree with your point, I tend to deal with the world as I think it should be rather than the way that it is.


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## Mindfire

BWFoster78 said:


> Though I agree with your point, I tend to deal with the world as I think it should be rather than the way that it is.



Looks like this is becoming a battle of idealism vs. cynicism as well.


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## Christopher Wright

A cynic is an idealist who figured out the fix was in but remained an idealist anyway. That's why the cynic always seems so bitter.


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## robertbevan

the only thing that bothered me about this article is that it's just one more whack at a long dead horse. have any of you seriously not read an article before saying that you should edit your work before you publish it?


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## Jess A

Steerpike said:


> Article from Forbes:  Don't Publish That Book! - Forbes
> 
> What can I say about it? The author is right. The plethora of bad self-published offerings bears her out.



It had to be said. There is so much crap out there on Kindle. Poor writing, poor stories, errors ... the list continues.

Unfortunately, a lot of rubbish gets published in print form and becomes popular, too. Need I name any? But they're rich and I am not, so ...


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## The Dark One

I think what makes this argument a tad pointless is that you have to use your own judgment to decide when your stuff is ready to go live. It's really hard to judge your own material - partly because you know what you intended so can't tell easily how well you conveyed that to readers. They may not get at all what you think is obvious and/or tasteful.

I thought my first book was a work of unutterable genius when it was finished. These days I can't read two sentences without cringing in embarrassment. It takes time to acquire judgment (and skill) but you don't know if you don't have it - so you might as well publish and hope for the best.

I honestly don't think it would matter much if you put something out which people hate. Not too many will read it, but if they do it's probably a good problem to have.


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## JCFarnham

I would like to circle back to the part where the blogger said don't engage with social media until you have a product. 

To me thats both wrong _and_ right. I agree in the sense that when you don't have anything to prove yourselves with, you are more or less bringing yourself down in people opinions ("who's this guy? why should we listen? doesn't even have a story out there?"). To be honest though, when you consider that the author themselves is the brand, with the books being analogous to the products under that brand (duh...), the bloggers thought breaks down. I'm strongly of the opinion that authors have more to give. What you want is a brand staying power, not the ability to sell one moderately successful book and then fade into the background. In this day and age the best and perhaps only way for your brand to reach your audience is social media (backed up of course by AT LEAST something free). 

That being said, I'm well aware the blogger is some kind of social media guru. I'm sure she knows this already. 

Regardless of whats right (is anything?), at the moment I'm going to continue on with my blog how I am. It's the internet, it's not like I can't pull things down when they become unimportant. It's the same with self-publishing, no gatekeepers means--if you wanted--you could simply stop selling that awful first novel. No one (without the skill to dig deeper and find the remnants) would be any wiser to it.

That's the beauty of the market at the moment. You have a lot more freedom in both writing and music to do whatever you need to do. On the music side of things, an amazing service is Bandcamp. No musician need ever worry about being trapped by any contacts they may already be in. If they want to make music, if they want to put their art out there, up it goes and people can buy it direct. It think that's a morally good thing (same with self-publishing) regardless of the complete rubbish you _could_ find.

I kind of expect people to act professionally. Clearly that isn't something universal. I can just as easily not read any of the self-published rubbish. I judge books by the book. If an author came out with something and everyone was saying how much better it was... I'd probably go read it. People improve over time and I'm cool with that.

I'll be honest with you guys, I'm not sure what point I'm making anymore. I just wanted to say a few words


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## Devor

I think the point to take away from that comment, JCFarnham, is that whatever you produce on social media is also a product under your brand and needs to be just as good.  Having something already published can give your posting extra credibility in that regard.


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## JCFarnham

Devor said:


> I think the point to take away from that comment, JCFarnham, is that whatever you produce on social media is also a product under your brand and needs to be just as good.  Having something already published can give your posting extra credibility in that regard.



Exactly. 

I know in a couple of years I'll find my current writing to be awful. That being a given, I'm going to keep on putting out what I can now. Sitting in the dark, keeping everything in reserve until I'm great, is just not what I'm after. Nor I suppose am I looking for instant gratification. I just want to do something more than keep my art to myself. Whether that's selling it, or giving it away for free, or only ever being a blogger with some challenge writing under his belt, I'm cool with that. I've given myself permission to be that person. 

I think everyone needs to be able to do that.

And I mean... I have a blog I can flaunt and hopefully demonstated knowledge. That's something that makes me unique (okay not really, too many people have crappy blogs). But what I'm try to say is in the world of work I believe blogging and writing as a past time is getting some eyes on my applications.

Nothing bad about that. I could do a lot worse.


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## Steerpike

A famous writer once said (paraphrasing) the difference between a published author and an unpublished one is a tolerance for imperfection.


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## MichaelSullivan

Steerpike said:


> A famous writer once said (paraphrasing) the difference between a published author and an unpublished one is a tolerance for imperfection.



I can't agree. The difference between a published author and an unpublished author is the published author wrote a book that the publisher thought they could make money on.


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## MichaelSullivan

Articles like this are just one in a long line of "self-publishing sucks never do it" which are getting quite tiresome.  It's really quite simple.

Only a small % of any book will be successful.  


If going the traditional route it will not make it through the query-go-round.  
If going self, people will see it's terrible, won't recommend it (or by other books by the author) and it will fade into obscurity.

If you don't want to self-publish, or don't want to read self-published books...so be it.  But why do you care that others go that route and expend energy to try and get them to stop?  It makes no sense.  

I've made hundreds of thousands of dollars in self-publishing.  I've done the same in traditional.  I see advantages and disadvantages in both.  Let each author choose what is right for themselves and stop arguing about "which way is right" because you know what...there is no "right" just advantages and disadvantages of each and the author just needs choose the route that aligns the best with their goals.


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## Steerpike

MichaelSullivan said:


> I can't agree. The difference between a published author and an unpublished author is the published author wrote a book that the publisher thought they could make money on.



I think he was referring to the idea that you have to get your work out in front of people in order to be published, and some writers may be unwilling to do that because they view their work as flawed.


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## Devor

Steerpike said:


> I think he was referring to the idea that you have to get your work out in front of people in order to be published, and some writers may be unwilling to do that because they view their work as flawed.



There are definitely times when perfectionism can hold you back.  Although I may be a prime example of that, I still think the opposite is a much more common problem.  But the seriousness of it depends, I suppose, on whether that perfectionism is actually making the story better.  In business, it might be called business-card syndrome; caring too much about what your business cards look like and not enough about reaching customers.


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## Steerpike

The article doesn't advise against self publishing.  It advises against rushing to self publish as soon as you've typed the last letter of your first draft. The other quote advises against never putting anything out there because it is imperfect. For most writers there is probably a happy medium between the two.


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## BWFoster78

MichaelSullivan said:


> Articles like this are just one in a long line of "self-publishing sucks never do it" which are getting quite tiresome.  It's really quite simple.
> 
> Only a small % of any book will be successful.
> 
> 
> If going the traditional route it will not make it through the query-go-round.
> If going self, people will see it's terrible, won't recommend it (or by other books by the author) and it will fade into obscurity.
> 
> If you don't want to self-publish, or don't want to read self-published books...so be it.  But why do you care that others go that route and expend energy to try and get them to stop?  It makes no sense.
> 
> I've made hundreds of thousands of dollars in self-publishing.  I've done the same in traditional.  I see advantages and disadvantages in both.  Let each author choose what is right for themselves and stop arguing about "which way is right" because you know what...there is no "right" just advantages and disadvantages of each and the author just needs choose the route that aligns the best with their goals.



Michael,

While there are a lot of the type of articles that you refer to out there, I'm not sure your statement about this one is accurate.  The way I read it is that they encourage you to self publish; they just want you to make your product as professional as possible first.  I thought their message was pretty much in line with yours.


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## Devor

Steerpike said:


> The article doesn't advise against self publishing.



I know, and I'm pretty confused about why people are having such a negative reaction to it.  As for the perfectionism, working with a good editor can help an author to focus on the important elements and resolve that problem.


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## BWFoster78

Devor said:


> I know, and I'm pretty confused about why people are having such a negative reaction to it.  As for the perfectionism, working with a good editor can help an author to focus on the important elements and resolve that problem.



But working with an editor and following rules can ruin the "artistic merit" of the book.  It's the same argument we've been battling about for what seems like a hundred million threads.


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## Steerpike

BWFoster78 said:


> But working with an editor and following rules can ruin the "artistic merit" of the book.  It's the same argument we've been battling about for what seems like a hundred million threads.



You're just trolling the thread now. Besides, he said "good" editor.


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## BWFoster78

Steerpike said:


> You're just trolling the thread now. Besides, he said "good" editor.



Sorry if it seems that way.  I felt I was making a legitimate point.

There's an obvious divide between a lot of people on this forum and, I guess, me about this subject.  Devor stated that he couldn't figure out the reaction.  I feel his pain.  It took me a long time to understand it as well.  To me, the arguments presented against this article are similar in nature to the same old argument.

Trolling, to me, indicates a post desirous of stirring up trouble.

That was not my intent.  I felt I truly was answering his question.


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## Steerpike

I was just kidding you.  I should have added a smiley...I can see my intent wasn't clear. I'm typing on my blasted phone 

I do think there is plenty of room for the various viewpoints. You can look on the shelves and find plenty of books written in the way you prefer,  and plenty, including by first time authors, that break just about every rule in favor of art or style. And they've all gone through a professional editor.


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## BWFoster78

Steerpike said:


> I was just kidding you.  I should have added a smiley...I can see my intent wasn't clear. I'm typing on my blasted phone
> 
> I do think there is plenty of room for the various viewpoints. You can look on the shelves and find plenty of books written in the way you prefer,  and plenty, including by first time authors, that break just about every rule in favor of art or style. And they've all gone through a professional editor.



It's cool.  Thanks!


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## Benjamin Clayborne

robertbevan said:


> the only thing that bothered me about this article is that it's just one more whack at a long dead horse. have any of you seriously not read an article before saying that you should edit your work before you publish it?



1) Some ideas need repetition to sink in. A lot of people read an article like this and think, "Yes, but _I'm_ a brilliant writer, so this doesn't apply to me."

2) For any given person, there was a first time they encountered an article like this. It's entirely possible that some readers here have never seen an article like this before. Might be a small set of readers, but you can't assume they don't exist.


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## Christopher Wright

I still hear a dogwhistle. That's all I hear.


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## The Dark One

So do I, but why does it bother you so much?

In the end, writing (both the practice and your career) is a solitary pursuit. What's more, in order to be successful there is an inevitable darwinian struggle in which you have to claw your way over the top of other writers. The dog whistle, I suspect, is just a tactic to win some gouging room in that struggle.

These forums, in fact, are a funny sort of postponement of the struggle in a way. We can be all supportive and collegiate here but there is always the reality hanging over us that we are in competition for slots with publishers...or self-pubbed amazon breathing space...or the even more vicious darwinian struggle of the bookshop.

Let them whistle and stay focussed on the ultimate prize.


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## BWFoster78

The Dark One said:


> So do I, but why does it bother you so much?
> 
> In the end, writing (both the practice and your career) is a solitary pursuit. What's more, in order to be successful there is an inevitable darwinian struggle in which you have to claw your way over the top of other writers. The dog whistle, I suspect, is just a tactic to win some gouging room in that struggle.
> 
> These forums, in fact, are a funny sort of postponement of the struggle in a way. We can be all supportive and collegiate here but there is always the reality hanging over us that we are in competition for slots with publishers...or self-pubbed amazon breathing space...or the even more vicious darwinian struggle of the bookshop.
> 
> Let them whistle and stay focussed on the ultimate prize.



I'm not sure I agree with you.  

By JK Rowling and Stephenie Meyer writing books that got kids and young adults interested in reading, it actually helped all of us.  Those kids are now much more likely to become purchasers of books in the future.

As a consumer of fantasy books, if you produce a really good book, I'm going to buy it, regardless of whether everyone esle on the forum also produces a good book.


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## MichaelSullivan

BWFoster78 said:


> Michael,
> 
> While there are a lot of the type of articles that you refer to out there, I'm not sure your statement about this one is accurate.  The way I read it is that they encourage you to self publish; they just want you to make your product as professional as possible first.  I thought their message was pretty much in line with yours.



I saw no "encouragement to self publish" in this article nor even any indication about editing first.  This is what I saw: If you write a book, then self-publish it, doing so will be a mistake that you'll be tied to the rest of your life. Conclusion: Best to leave it in a drawer.  The title of this post wasn't "Don't Publish until you are ready" it was "Don't Publish that Book"  What it failed to do is give a road map from getting from "first manuscript" to "one that is worth publishing." 

If we explore the premises that were put fourth it seemed to be:

Your first work won't be any good
If you subscribe to Gladwell then after 10,000 hours you will be
But how does writing book after book and filing them in a drawer help a writer to get good?  What is needed is feedback, and there is no better feedback then putting something out there and seeing what people think. If you are concerned the work is crap, put it out under a pen name.  Use feedback from reviews to indicate what you need to work on.  Is your dialog flat?  Characters poorly defined? Pacing uneven?  This is what you need to find out.  

Here's my take...if the book you put out is crap, you'll learn why.  If it is good you'll make money.  If it sits in a drawer you get neither.

Anyway that's why I responded the way I did.


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## TWErvin2

The Dark One said:


> So do I, but why does it bother you so much?
> 
> In the end, writing (both the practice and your career) is a solitary pursuit. What's more, in order to be successful there is an inevitable darwinian struggle in which you have to claw your way over the top of other writers. The dog whistle, I suspect, is just a tactic to win some gouging room in that struggle.
> 
> These forums, in fact, are a funny sort of postponement of the struggle in a way. We can be all supportive and collegiate here but there is always the reality hanging over us that we are in competition for slots with publishers...or self-pubbed amazon breathing space...or the even more vicious darwinian struggle of the bookshop.
> 
> Let them whistle and stay focussed on the ultimate prize.



While there is, I believe, some truth to the competition for available publishing slots and/or attention from self-published as in survival and thriving of the fittest, the overall higher quality work that is out there will increase the number of readers and the amount the are willing to spend, this increasing the size of the pie (or the available habitat for more writers to survive and thrive).

In addition, there is such a variety of fantasy out there for the varied reader taste, little is a carbon copy of another work. 

I've found, for example, at book signing events, that writers 'hard selling' only their works tends to encourage readers to move on, while, for example, when through conversation and observation that a reader browsing isn't interested in my novels, if I am aware and suggest the works of other authors in the room that have available something more along that reader's interest, a sale for that author is far more likely. When such is reciprocated, I also have better sales. But if I am in a room/hall of hard sellers focused only on their works, on average, we all experience lesser success in attracting readers and selling our works. That's been my observation over the past few years. 

Whether that similarly translates to online sales, I am not sure.


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## Kit

Mindfire said:


> BWFoster vs Christopher Wright: the ultimate battle of Order vs Chaos.
> 
> 
> Seriously, you should get custom ranks. Brian can be "Order Lord" and Chris can be "Chaos Lord".



ROFL. Where do we get our T-shirts?   "Team Chaos Lord" here.....


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