Thoughts on Self Publishing?

[srg]

Kevin, that was an excellent post. Thanks!

Ravana, I think we are going to have to agree to disagree. Obviously our thoughts on self-publishing are coloured by what we personally look for when buying books; unlike others in the thread, I *don't* look at the publishing house on the book. About the only thing that constitutes a label that I look for is the author, and even then I will occasionally take the chance on a new author (regardless of how it was published).

I think that's why I don't see self-publishing as such a bad way to go if you're going to release a book. Yes, if I'm going to self-publish, I have to do all these things myself (or at least hire somebody myself, as it were). To be frank though, I would probably release my stuff for free rather than worry about making sales. So why sink a ton of money into it when I can do as much on my own as I can? People are a lot more forgiving when it comes to free stuff.

I also have reasonable expectations when it comes to self-publishing. I definitely don't have it in my head (at least not anymore) that I'm going to make a decent income by self-publishing. I know how much work is involved when it comes to self-publishing.

But I would still recommend it to anyone if they're on the fence about it. Like I said earlier, if someone is dead set on submitting their manuscript to a publishing house, I wouldn't stop them. I agree, there are plenty of advantages to going with a print publisher. Still, I think there are more advantages to self-publishing. But I'm looking at it from my own interests, and not everyone sees it that way.

 

[Philip Overby]

Be reminded that offering stuff for free also has a stigma attached to it. Readers may shy away from something that is free, strangely enough. I know I have in the past.

 

[Ravana]

To be frank though, I would probably release my stuff for free rather than worry about making sales.…

I also have reasonable expectations when it comes to self-publishing. I definitely don't have it in my head (at least not anymore) that I'm going to make a decent income by self-publishing.

Well, I did say it depended on your goals. Myself, I'm going to write the stuff whether it ever sees print (or any other form of distribution) or not, and while I'd love for it to be at least a money-making hobby–my present output is too low for it to be a "career" in any event–I'm not worried about the difference between it making little money or no money. That being the case, though, I have no more reason to self-publish than to go a through traditional publisher… whereas I'd rather not close off the possibility of traditional publication in the long run, which is a very real danger when one self-publishes.

I agree, there are plenty of advantages to going with a print publisher. Still, I think there are more advantages to self-publishing. But I'm looking at it from my own interests, and not everyone sees it that way.

Precisely. My warning applies mainly to those who are considering (or simply fantasizing about) writing as a professional or semi-professional career in the long term. Maybe the attitude within the industry toward self-publishers will change over time, but I highly doubt it, simply because I can't see any reason why it would… quite the opposite, in fact. Certainly, e-books will continue to increase their market share–but I firmly believe that publishing houses (some new ones, some trad houses that acknowledge the trend and transition) will still ultimately control the overall market, through exclusionary distribution and promotion deals with online retailers. (In fact, I suspect most will start selling e-books directly… if they haven't already: I haven't looked. Though they'll still want to cut deals with retailers, because that's where customers are most likely to go looking for product.)

If all you want to do is make your stuff available to whomever, and maybe make a couple bucks a month off it, then sure, self-publishing is a viable option. If you think you might ever want to go beyond that… then you should avoid self-publishing, no matter the format: at best, it will be of no benefit, and unless long-hardened editorial attitudes toward self-publishing undergo radical change, it will probably be detrimental. I admit I could be wrong; maybe they will change… but I also know what they are now, and I'd like to see some reasons to believe that change might happen before trusting my future to that possibility–which, at present, I don't.

-

I will even go so far as to admit that I have (gasp!) "self-published" a chapbook of poetry once–that is, I selected some of my poems, laid them out so that they'd appear correctly on folded, saddle-stapled 8 1/2 x 11 (which is actually harder than it sounds…), drew a cover illustration (poorly), then went down to (what was then) Kinko's, ran off a couple dozen copies on really nice parchment with a cardstock cover, and sold them to family and friends at cost. Maybe the remaining copies will be worth something, someday, to someone–as "rare juvenilia" (not strictly true) editions. So, yes, it all depends on your individual needs and aspirations.

And if you think I would ever claim that as a "prior publication" on a cover letter–or even mention it in casual conversation with an editor–you're nuts. It will remain my little secret… at least until after, say, my fortieth published title: should be okay to admit it by then.…

 

[srg]

I think the bottom line is that in order to have a successful career self-publishing, you need to be writing on Kevin J. Anderson output levels. And he writes a LOT. I think he had a blog post one day where he basically said what some writers do in a year, he does in 6 weeks or something like that.

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

Srg, I think what a lot of folks miss is that you need to write at or close to that level to make a living in ANY form of publishing - for most authors, anyway. If you leave aside the top tiny percent who sell a book a year for hundreds of thousands of dollars in advance per book, and look at "everyone else" - you're going to see a lot of books that get very small advances, and almost require a writer to be producing 3-5 books a year to make a decent living.

Most professional, full time writers are producing at that speed. You just don't always see them, because corporate publishing usually puts artificial constraints on authors (one book per year, maybe two, for most people, the Nora Roberts of the writing world being the exception). So you have one full time writer producing four books - under four different names, possibly even in multiple genres.

(Incidentally, that's one thing indie publishing is doing away with - writers are free to produce books under their own names, rather than using pen names for "extra" books.)

Most writers who can only produce one book per year are working some other job at the same time, or being financially supported by someone.

I think Ravena is dead on about the attitude in the industry. Corporate publishing HATES self publishing. I don't see that changing. Why would it? Indie writers are competition for them. And the number of quality indie writers is continuing to swell, enlarging their competition manyfold. I don't know that indie published books will ever become a majority, but I think the future is almost certainly going to be one where indie publishing owns a significant minority of the market.

All you have to do is look at the Amazon ebook bestseller list, and see 38% of the top 100 fiction ebooks written by indies, and you can see the way that wind is blowing. The good news is though, that readers don't care. We've got multiple indies selling tends of thousands of copies of their books per day - hundreds more selling thousands per month - thousands more selling hundreds per month. This isn't small anymore. This is huge. It's a sea change in the way writing is brought to readers. It's still just drops in the ocean right now compared to the size and wealth of corporate publishers - but those drops are continuing to increase in number exponentially.

 

[Kelise]

Be reminded that offering stuff for free also has a stigma attached to it. Readers may shy away from something that is free, strangely enough. I know I have in the past.

I agree here. I go to a few writing conventions a year, I follow publishers and other book groups on facebook and twitter and last year alone I got 36 free books just by putting up my hand, or answering a question in 25 words or less, etc.

Some of those books are good deals - good books we've been waiting on for ages to come out, and YAY it's finally here. These kinds of books are usually given away singly, and you have to be lucky.

Then there's books that are given away in their 20s. Or, if you're paranormal romance - in the hundreds, literally. And these books are generally not worth the postage.

So be wary if there's giveaways of books that are too generous. It usually means they need all the help they can get for publicity. I'm yet to have enjoyed a book that was given away by the dozens, sadly enough.

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

I've actually enjoyed a book given away in the tens of thousands (John Scalzi's "Agent to the Stars", originally posted on his blog before he sold it to a publisher) but I think that's sort of the exception that proves the rule.

I could see maybe posting short stories to your blog. I know some pro writers who do that - post the story to their blog for a week or so, then publish to ebook for sale at 99 cents. Publishing it on their blog might lose them a handful of sales once it goes "live", but it also draws readers in to their site, gives potential buyers of their novels a taste of their writing, maybe gets some more readers. You're only making 35 cents a sale on a 99 cent short story anyway, so losing a few sales there to pick up new readers? Sure, makes sense to me.

But seriously, if you want to write professionally - either your writing is good enough to sell, or it should probably stay in your desk drawer or hard drive. Getting an audience of people who like reading free stories probably isn't going to help you when you try to transition to selling your stories.

 

[srg]

What do you think of Cory Doctorow's success? Granted, his books are both given away for free under a Creative Commons License AND published via traditional publishing. I don't think he suffers at all by giving his books away for free (which, actually, does often promote sales of the real thing. Another book doing this right now is Machine of Death - while they prefer sales, they're also giving away free PDF versions).

 

[Ravana]

It's the same as with most other "success" cases: since he's already published traditionally, he can get away with giving some of his stuff away if he wants.

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

Cory Doctorow's success is based on Cory Doctorow. He's a well known name, so people go and buy his books.

However, I don't think his model is sustainable. We've reached a point where a large number of folks in the field are expecting fiction, at the least, to be 50%+ digital by the end of 2011. Nonfiction is trailing fiction, but will pass that 50% mark in 2012 at the latest.

Mike Shatzkin just made a blog post today about another major change in publishing that just happened - albeit a quiet one. For the first time ever, publishers are beginning to make deals where *print* is the subsidiary right, and digital the primary. That's huge, because it means publishers are acknowledging that by the time books they are buying *today* hit bookstores, digital is already likely to be the primary format.

Giving away the digital and selling the print is going to be a losing proposition, very soon. For everyone, even Doctorow.

It's the same as with most other "success" cases: since he's already published traditionally, he can get away with giving some of his stuff away if he wants.

I guess that depends on how you define success, Ravana. I lost count months ago of the number of folks who had zero corporate published books, but are now making a decent full time wage from self published books. To me, that spells success. At this point, I think there's literally hundreds of them, which is pretty amazing. Now admittedly, that's only hundreds, out of a couple of tens of thousands of people trying - but that's about the same odds you see if getting your book through the whole "get an agent, find a publisher" system, so the odds seem pretty even right now.

And I think the future is going to be one where publishers slash their midlist writers to the bone, concentrating mostly on guaranteed bestsellers. We're already seeing those cutbacks bump a lot of talented midlist writers into indie publishing, and I expect that will accelerate. My guess - which is all it is, and worth about as much as anyone else's guess - is that within a year, big publishers will be almost entirely bestseller focused, using their marketing push to make big sellers out of a few books; small press and agents-turned-publishers will be handling publishing for writers who don't want to do it alone. And most books - what used to be midlist and low list books - will be published by either those small/agent presses or indie published.

 

[srg]

I'm fairly certain (like 99%) that Cory Doctorow has always given away his works online. Also, I don't think he is successful because he is a previously published author; in fact I don't think he even measures up too well against most "mainstream" authors. He's mainly famous online amongst the early innovators crowd and people who are also big about creative commons.

I'd have to dig around for it but I'm pretty sure he's established that he makes decent sales partly because he gives his stuff away for free.

 

[Ophiucha]

The problem still stands, though, that self-publishing is unregulated. I think, in light of ebooks boom in success, small publishers may become the more profitable option, but it should still stick with the publisher. Self publishing is still such a flawed industry. I might not be getting a good book when I pick something up from Ballantine or Tor, but at least I can feel fairly confident that it won't be missing any punctuation or misspelling words. And that is still a big problem with self-published books. I browse ebooks online from time to time, reading excerpts to see if there are any gems in the rough, but once you hit your 90th copy with a typo in the first chapter, you just have to say "**** it, I'll shell out the money for a proper book."

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

The problem still stands, though, that self-publishing is unregulated.

I think that's a misunderstanding. It's not unregulated - it's regulated by readers. Same as video is today, on YouTube. Same as music is today, on iTunes, and the same as blogs and community sites are, using Google. It's worked for every form of media that's been run through this "convert to digital" mill. I have confidence that it will work for literature as well.

And I don't think that confidence is really misplaced. Right now, somewhere in the 35% range of the top 100 bestselling fiction ebooks are indie published. That's astonishing - and spectacular! Because it means that when someone produces quality work, the reader really doesn't care. Heck - in a lot of cases, probably just doesn't even *know* it's a self published book.

I mean, think about it - how many thousands of small presses are there, out there? How many more are popping up this year to take advantage of epublishing? How many readers are going to bother remembering more than one or two small press names? Almost none.

So from a reader's perspective, assuming you write a good book, it is well edited, and packaged in a professional manner, is the reader going to see any difference between that ebook, produced by your company "Magic Dragon Press" and stories produced by some other small press named "Twilight Stories" or "Amber Press"?

Probably not.

That quality is absolutely and completely key, though. It might not matter quite as much right this second - folks are selling thousands of copies of some less well edited books right now. It's sort of a wild west at the moment. But I do completely believe that will fade, and the folks who self-publish like pros will have pro careers. Those who don't, won't.

 

[Ophiucha]

I think that's a misunderstanding. It's not unregulated - it's regulated by readers. Same as video is today, on YouTube. Same as music is today, on iTunes, and the same as blogs and community sites are, using Google. It's worked for every form of media that's been run through this "convert to digital" mill. I have confidence that it will work for literature as well.

I don't think that is quite the same, but... What do I listen to on iTunes? Bands I've already liked who are mostly if not entirely produced through labels, and if they are not, it is because they are famous enough to not need one. What do I watch on YouTube? Mostly music videos, produced by major record companies who have YouTube channels. The original content I watch varies wildly on whether or not it is 'popular' or not. I'll take my vihart and melinapendulum over Fred or sxephil any day, though, but really, most of those sorts of people I follow are friends-of-friends. Blogs? Again, most of the ones I follow are from people who are famous for something else, or who have well under a thousand followers (usually just my friends or friends-of-friends). By this token, I'd end up buying indie published books almost entirely by authors who have published something professionally before, or from people who I know IRL or at least very well online (good friends on writer's forums like this one). So...

 

[srg]

Bands I've already liked who are mostly if not entirely produced through labels, and if they are not, it is because they are famous enough to not need one.

First of all I think it's unfair to compair books to music - what's going on with the switch to e-publishing is somewhat similar to what happened with music 10 years ago, sure, but music is a different beast entirely. However, when you say "bands that are famous enough to not need a label" - that's sort of the same thing as saying an author who is famous enough to not need a publishing house and is self-publishing. Sort of the same.

Sort of the same as saying, "well, this self-published author is different because he's popular." But what if said author got popular because s/he wrote good quality books that readers enjoyed, and bought en masse and spread the word to other friends? You're saying you wouldn't even try them because they weren't previously published?

Either way, you're arguing your point of views against Kevin's points, which are about the average audience. Maybe you're not the average audience then? Indie published works aren't for everyone - that much has been established in this thread. It's working for a lot of people who don't care about the label though.

 

[srg]

Gah I just lost a post I was working on because my browser crashed.

Anyway all I was going to say was that if you did want to compare the music industry to the publishing industry, you'd find that there are also a lot of independant artists who are just as good, if not better, than those signed to major record labels.

They may not be on the Top 40, but they have their own fans and probably make a decent amount of money. And they don't get screwed over by the label and get to keep most of what they make.

All of that to say, pretty much every entertainment industry has its own section of independant artists that are successful in their own right. There is a window of opportunity for them, even if it's not your cup of tea.

 

[Ophiucha]

In regards to the original point, it isn't necessarily bands that started out indie and became popular, but ones who signed to a record and became popular enough that they could do it alone afterwards. And in that regard, yeah, the same stands for books. If Neil Gaiman self-publishes a book, it'll sell by the millions because he's Neil Gaiman. Similarly, if a band I like decides to abandon their record company, I'm not going to stop buying their albums just because they don't have the producers behind them. That all said, my experience with indie music has been basically the same as ebooks. I think there's only one independent musician I honestly really love, and a couple that have a good sound, but are just lacking the polishing.

And I hate the Top 40. Just like I hate most of the NYT Bestseller's List, honestly. I don't think public opinion is necessarily indicative of quality either. I've read Marked, which hit the list and went through a respectable enough publisher. And after reading that, I've crossed one publisher off the list, let me tell you. Doesn't help that they've also worked with Dan Brown.

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

It's never going to be identical in two media. Wasn't trying to say that... Just saying that huge heaping piles of bad writing aren't going to make it much harder to find the ones which are good. Consumer-driven searching algorithms can handle enormous, insanely huge quantities of shlock with very small percentages of decent material, and still have no trouble finding the decent material.

Bad books aren't going to sell. Good books *are* selling, regardless of who is publishing them.

 

[srg]

I'll agree with that.

(One more note re: music though. I run a podcast/blog about creative commons music. Trust me when I say there's a lot of good stuff out there that doesn't get through to people. Again, it's not for everyone, but there is a lot of stuff with high production values that sounds really good. And I was just using "Top 40" as an example, because that's primarily what you see pushed on the front of the iTunes store).

 

[Ravana]

I'm fairly certain (like 99%) that Cory Doctorow has always given away his works online.

Not exactly. He was established within the SF community prior to any of his novels being released under CC… just not necessarily as an author. His first book was one of the Complete Idiot's Guide books, his second Essential Blogging, both "self-help" titles; he'd served as regional director of SFWA even before that (which means he was active in fandom–and the business–and was known by other writers and their contacts, as well as by anyone in the convention scene in his area, probably well outside it), and had seen some short publication. He is a co-editor of a SF weblog which was formerly a print mag and is a regular contributor to Wired, Popular Science, and Locus–just to name a few; I don't know when these activities began in relation to his first SF book, but they certainly contribute to his overall visibility and concomitant success.

And his SF novels have all been released by Tor simultaneously with their releases under CCL. Which means that they were accepted by a traditional publisher before they ever appeared in any other form.

Also, I don't think he is successful because he is a previously published author; in fact I don't think he even measures up too well against most "mainstream" authors.

I'd have to dig around for it but I'm pretty sure he's established that he makes decent sales partly because he gives his stuff away for free.

Think about those two statements a minute. If he's making "decent" sales, he's measuring up against other authors just fine; and if he's making "sales," it's not from giving his stuff away–that being somewhat of a contradiction. The availability of his books through CCL may serve as good advertising for the printed versions… but that's no different from having them appear on library shelves being good advertising.

The one exact thing he absolutely did not do was start out by self-publishing. In fact, as far as I can tell without digging through every last title with his name on it, he has never self-published anything. Every novel, short story collection, nonfiction book, story or article I've found so far has been accepted for publication by someone else. So, by all means, use Doctorow as an example of how to use digital distribution… as long as you also keep in mind using him as an example of how not to.