Publish and be damned

[aurelio]

I do agree that there ARE lots of writers self-publishing because they don't want to have to rewrite, edit, and do the hard work of creating a book on a professional level. And self-publishing allows them to do this without someone there to kick them in the butt and make them do a better job. It definitely can be a simple way to slap a cover on a piece of crap and call it a book.

There are lots of others that do it for more logical reasons, however. If you look at the bulk of self-publishing, a good number are books for fairly specific or limited audiences, or often specific topics, like specialty informationals that the big companies would NEVER publish, period. I think for these authors it is really a blessing that they can self-publish.

And the world of publishing is changing, on both ends of the spectrum. Publishers these days are much happier making book deals with, say, the Clintons before a page is even written than reading through a manuscript from an unknown writer and seeing if it has merit. They are more interested in the mega-book-best seller stuff. Publishing has suffered from its incorporation into the larger media conglomerates and this is an obvious indication of that.

On my last animated film, HarperCollins published at least a dozen spin-off books related to the film. All of them were crap, but in the corporate mindset they were "pre-sold" and therefore low risk.

My fear is that eventually even the academic press and non-fiction books will suffer (if they aren't already), and may even be driven off into self-publishing as the big publishers pursue ONLY the big money books. This may seem like a pretty extreme prediction, but if you look at the parallel universe of the movie biz (and these are the same companies now), this is exactly what has happened there, and those filmmakers who want to make something other than a "blockbuster" must do it independently.

My reason for going the direction I did with "EVE" was rebellion against a system that I believe is not seeking the best writing or most interesting stories. I truly believe this is the best thing for my book at this particular point in time.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I do agree that there ARE lots of writers self-publishing because they don't want to have to rewrite, edit, and do the hard work of creating a book on a professional level. And self-publishing allows them to do this without someone there to kick them in the butt and make them do a better job. It definitely can be a simple way to slap a cover on a piece of crap and call it a book.

There are lots of others that do it for more logical reasons, however. If you look at the bulk of self-publishing, a good number are books for fairly specific or limited audiences, or often specific topics, like specialty informationals that the big companies would NEVER publish, period. I think for these authors it is really a blessing that they can self-publish.

Indeed - and I agree completely.

 

[Mark Robson]

I have been watching this over the weekend with interest and amusement. Damn but you're good at playing devil's advocate, Brian!

Aurelio, how have you found the experience of self-publishing? What would you say have been the more positive aspects of it, other than seeing your work in print? I note that you have done your own marketing on the net - I'd love to know how that went, as my experience here is precisely nil! Did it work? Have you had many takers? There are so many other questions that I itch to ask, but I suppose the final obvious one is what exactly is the book that you've published?

 

[Brian G Turner]

Here's the site:
http://www.evethenovel.com/

The Flash animations are a pretty inspired piece of marketing, actually.

 

[Mark Robson]

Looks very impressive. Is this book available in the UK?

 

[aurelio]

Mark, I believe the distributors - Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and AuthorHouse all have UK distribution. "EVE" is POD, and it can be shipped anywhere, or so I've been led to believe.

I've only been at this a couple of months so the jury is still out as to whether or not I'll be able to actually sell books this way. I tried with the site to generate interest and awareness, and the animation has gotten the site a lot of hits, but there is that other step of giving the book a read that requires more commitment of money and time on the part of my visitors.

I'll get some sales figures early next month, so that may tell me more, although AuthorHouse screwed up the printing on the book initially, so the book was actually pulled off the market for a couple of weeks in there too while they fixed it.

It's been very difficult to get any mainstream reviewers or critics to respond yet, but I expected that would probably be the case. If I can generate some decent sales, then I'll try to use that as an incentive with the press, but it is definitely a big experiment and like swimming upsream.

Please feel free to write me directly if you have any more specific questions. It looks like you've been at this a lot longer than I have, so any thoughts/advice you have to offer would be appreciated!

So far, the up side to self-publishing for me, once the manuscript was publishable, was the total hands on involvement with the cover design, marketing strategy, style and look of the book, and the not having to rely on waiting for others to do things. This type of work has been my paying job for ove 20 years, so I was lucky that way. I like to work hard, and I generally get frustrated when other people take too long to do things or don't do a very good job at them, and this avenue removed that frustration. I've also enjoyed the maverick quality of trying to forge a new path (or at least travel a less than paved one) and hope that if I succeed it will help open this self-publishing market as a more acceptable alternative.

In regard to that, however, right now self-published books are considered ignorable by those who work in the press industry and press related media. The reviewer from Warpcore, who really liked "EVE," wrote me directly and asked me why I self-published, implying I may have done a disservice to my book by doing so (she felt I could have gotten a publishing deal with the manuscript) . She may be absolutely right, and I'll have to wait and see, but I had no stomach for the whole process of first selling an agent on the novel in order to get them to sell a publisher on it. Everyone, even the best writers, spend years at this process, and I suck at sucking up, so I thought if I self-publish this one and can get it read, it will work as a public "manuscript" to my writing in the same way as a manuscript already works, except that with it out there and the hype of my site, it may actually get read by an agent or main stream publisher, whereas if I simply sent them a manuscript the chances of them reading is would be slim to none. And I'll start to build a name for myself with the public as well.

But, I have no idea if this is a great or smart approach. It felt right to me, so I'm giving it a shot.

 

[aurelio]

I forgot to add that I have found internet people to be the nicest and most generous people on the planet, with few exceptions! Lots of folks have listed my site or my book - all for free - and have brought literally tens of thousands of visitors to my site in the process! It is really amazing and wonderful how open the web is and how much people here are really willing to lend a hand without that "what's in it for me?" attitude.

This was and unexpected and delightful surprise.

 

[Mark Robson]

But, I have no idea if this is a great or smart approach. It felt right to me, so I'm giving it a shot.

Aurelio, I'd love to comment and reply on so much of this, but I'm swimming in a sea of editing right now, so I'll just say that I've read this post and will try to email you sometime over the next couple of weeks. Very quickly, however, I think you've done a great job on the presentation. I think you will get a fair number of sales on that alone. You win over me hands down on that front. I'll keep in touch and watch your progress with great interest. I'm just in the process of reinventing my covers at the request of the big UK chain stores, because that was the one thing that I didn't get right. I didn't invest enough in my artist to ensure top notch covers. I'm now rectifying that. It's a constant learning process. I've been going about four and a half years and have just cracked 25000 books sold. I'm pretty pleased with that, but I feel that I've not even scratched the tip of the iceberg yet! Good luck.

 

[aurelio]

Good luck to you as well, Mark. It sounds like exciting times in your life!

I'll look forward to chatting futher when things ease up for you.

 

[aurelio]

A good friend (she's a bestselling on-fiction author, BTW) sent me this article for an interesting perspective on self-publishing, From the Wall Street Journal:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110004578

Of course author Andy Kessler was already established and did hava quite a lot of high powered connections, but I think his concerned assessment of the current publishing industry is pretty accurate.

And I think it is even harder to break in as a writer of fiction, as it is not generally so topical.

 

[Phoenix]

If you listen to PC magazine, they made a good review on these publish on demand companies, rating iUniverse as their favourite.

Certainly it is a risk that your work will not be at its finest with such a way of publishing, but I know from experience not every student who get refused to university is because they are lesser bright or intelligent as those admitted.

It is well known that all those methods of filtering people are not 100% bulletproof. Whatever the area, countless of talented people have managed to go around these barriers created by a flawed society, making their way to the top by different means.

Publish on demand is an open door for these exception who have chosen to be authors. Not every author who gets refused is a bad writer, or a less potential than another who was accepted. Denying this fact is accepting to be blind.

I am not saying this because I have chosen to publish myself this way, but because my life was full of refusals on various levels and I know I am talented because of the many things I have accomplished so far. God knows my teachers praised me for working so hard, always exceeding their expectations. They could not believe I was refused over and over again from programs I had talent for. What they saw in my, knowing me, strangers giving five minutes of their time to consider how talented I was, could not see it.

Whether applying for a study program, a job, or getting published, a refusal does not mean you don't have it. If you believe in yourself and your work, I say go for it! Because had I waited people's approval, all these projects that were on my "to do list" would still be there.

My only advice if you do choose to get self published, find as many capable people to proofread your work. There can't be too many corrections and rewrites.

 

[aurelio]

Not every author who gets refused is a bad writer, or a less potential than another who was accepted. Denying this fact is accepting to be blind.

I agree, Phoenix. And I am not opposed to the process of submission and rejection, if it is honest rejection, but when the agents/publishers are not even looking at the work, it becomes a bogus rejection. One is not rejected if they are not even considered in the first place. This is the problem with the current submission process. Personally, I would welcome being rejected if I was given a professional critique on my writing and reasons for the rejection. This would be helpful to me.

But, the fact that one is required to cheat the system somehow with work-arounds to even get through the door, and that it is now simply an accepted part of the process is sad indeed.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Publish on demand is an open door for these exception who have chosen to be authors.

Yes - but there is *no* quality control. And that's the big problem.

Just because someone is told in school that they are a good writer, does not mean that they are a commercially acceptable writer. Just because someone can tell a good story, doesn't mean to say they couldn't tell it better with good editing.

What pisses me off no end is when people like Phoenix publically laud the values of self-publishing - but are still left to spamming forums and setting up false reviews of their own work, all in an attempt to validate it.

Self-publishing can be an empowering method to the serious writer - but to many others it's a thoughtless cop-out, by people who lack the maturity and professionalism to be a traditionally published writer.

 

[aurelio]

Yes - but there is *no* quality control. And that's the big problem.

Obvioulsy there is truth in your many objections to self-publishing, Brian, but statements like the one above are way too sweeping. Please. As with anyone going into business for themselves, they need to do a professional job to compete in a professional marketplace, but this can be accomplished by someone without the requirement of a large institution to do it for them.

I also understand your objection to the self-published writers who are sloppy and spam everyone with their ignoble work, but for every one of those people I would wager there is another who has put concerted and professional effort into creating a genuine piece of literature.

Self-publishing is obviously not what you would choose for your own work and for you that is the best choice. I would never claim otherwise, and do not wish to convince you to alter your personal goals. And I do appreciate your feeling and thoughts on the potential pitfalls of self-publishing. But I wish you were comfortable to leave it as your personal choice, and not continue to insinuate all self-published writers are hacks. It's not only untrue, it's unfair to those of us who have goals similar to yours but are simply using a different path.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Self publishing is far more respectable in the eyes of professionals than Vanity publishing, as is going with a small press (some of which, like Meisha Merlin, are growing in size and prestige), but the fact is that it is very, very hard to get a self-published book into any bookstore but a local one. Not impossible, but you have to be a very motivated and excellent salesperson -- in which case you could almost certainly make more money selling cars or real estate.

I have a friend who went the publish-on-demand route. She is a highly respected writer with a vast number of short story credits, and a wide acquaintance in the field. Sales were dire. I don't think anyone who didn't know her personally bought the book, because the publisher sure as heck didn't do anything to promote it beyond mentioning it on their website, and publish-on-demand also means that someone isn't going to just happen across the book in a store and like the look of it. Clearly, writers who deal with these companies are not automatically hacks, but the publishers themselves are often far less professional than they would have an aspiring writer believe.

If a writer really believes in his or her work, why trust a manuscript he or she has labored over long and lovingly to one of these quasi-professionals, without at least trying some of the professional publishers first? Why not give your book a better chance, if you can?

 

[Brian G Turner]

Obvioulsy there is truth in your many objections to self-publishing, Brian, but statements like the one above are way too sweeping. Please. As with anyone going into business for themselves, they need to do a professional job to compete in a professional marketplace, but this can be accomplished by someone without the requirement of a large institution to do it for them.

By quality control I mean that self-publishing is much more available to more people who wish to use it. There are no controls on who actually gets published. So the difference in quality within self-publishing as a medium would almost certainly be much more varied.

I'm not trying to bash self-publishing as a method - thought the previous post was a little venomous at Phoenix.

 

[Chefo]

I just scanned through the discussion here (I'm a bit short on time) and here are my 2 cents.

As an aspiring writer, I would prefer to go the established way- write a book, get it to a publisher, draft a contract etc. In an ideal world, the publisher's editor will at least take a look at my piece before accepting it or giving me a recommendation on what to improve.

Still, my first experience with the industry was a rather dissatisfactory one. I sent my 100,000 word novel to a respected US publisher who pride themselves (and are not shy about pointing it out) with accepting works from never-before published authors. One of their primary goals was searching for and developing talent. What a cartload of BS! So, what do you think happened?

Three weeks later, my manuscript was returned to me (apparently without being read) accompanied by a generic rejection letter that did not even have my name on it, in a smaller than necessary sized envelope (a customized box was provided by me but was obviously discarded).

In short, I was rejected without the piece even being read! The letter stated something along the lines that publishing nowadays is tough, and although the publisher accepts manuscripts from first-time writers they do not really publish them. So, tough luck for you ('Dear Contributor' in their own words) because we do not feel your work has commercial potential.

Needless to say, I felt quite disappointed. If I put the time to write a novel of that size, then edit it a million times and format it professionally, later spend $80 to print it and send it over, I expect more than a photocopied rejection letter with a photocopied signature on it.

That rejection will bring me back to editing (probably during the winter break) yet it showed me that the industry leaders have a rather dismissive attitude for unpublished writers. It beats me how many less than inspiring (to put it mildly) pieces get in print while newcomers are dismissed without so much as an effort to glance at what they are offering.

I am not giving that up so easily because I believe that my work has some merit (whether developed or not) and will one day see it in print one way or another.

Anyways, that's my take on the issue.

Chefo

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

What makes you think they didn't read it, Chefo? The fact that it was a form rejection letter? They get so many hundreds of manuscripts a month, editors at the larger houses simply don't have time to write personal rejection letters for the vast majority of them.

 

[aurelio]

I really doubt if they read it, Kelpie. If they read anything it was probably only Chefo's title.

I have a good friend that recently published a children's picture book. He'd been sending it around since the early 80's, with a pile of rejections to prove it. He is an amazing artist, and his work is very appealing. Finally, since he got a design credit on a Pixar film, HarperCollins picked it up.

His first run was only 4000 books. They told him his book was "low priority." It began to sell better than their predictions, and it went into a second printing, despite HarperCollins doing next to nothing to promote it. Last week it was chosen by The New York Times book review as one of the 10 best illustrated children's books of the year, with a recommendation to buy it for Christmas. In the same edition of the Times book review, HarperCollins had an ad for their children's books - my friend's book was still not advertised among them!

Big publishing companies can really suck.

So, I went into my local Barnes & Noble to see if they had my friend's book in stock. They didn't. But they did have lots of copies of a children's book by actor John Lithgow, and one by actress Jamie Lee Curtis. Now, I love both those performers, but this disturbs me deeply. It seems big publishers are more and more interested in "pre-sold" books, books with a hot name or topic attached, to the demise of anything else.

The only reason HarperCollins published my friend's book now was because of his Pixar connection. If he hadn't had that, he would have simply added another rejection letter to the stack.

The thing to not lose sight of, Chefo, is your belief in your manuscript. The rejection probably has nothing at all to do with that. I say, keep working on it and keep your eyes peeled for any opportunity to get it actually read.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

It's true that three weeks is a pretty brisk turn-around, but the fact that the manuscript was separated from its box rather looks like someone did take it home with a pile of other manuscripts to be read. If no one meant to look at it at all, nothing could be easier than opening it up, slapping on a form rejection, and shipping it back in the box provided.

How far they actually got into the manuscript depends on how the first part impressed them. Editors do have their own tastes and agendas, but they also read a lot of these things, and they can usually tell early on where something is going.

With all due respect, some of the people posting in these topics sound like they think the bigger publishing houses are in one big conspiracy against aspiring writers. But in fact, discovering new talent is how editorial assistants become associate editors, and so on up the line.

They have hundreds or even thousands of manuscripts to choose from, and they can only publish a small fraction. So they have to make choices. Sometimes they make good choices, sometimes bad ones. Once a book has been acquired, there is a pecking order among the editors (and with each editor a pecking order among their writers). There are office politics. That is the nature of pretty much any business. Do you think small presses and e-publishers don't have the same problems? I used to be an editor at a small press SF and Fantasy magazine, and believe me, there were personalities and politics in plenty. (Plus, the publisher ran out of money, and many people weren't even paid for stories that did appear.) If you think being ignored and shunted aside by a publisher like HarperCollins is humiliating, you should try getting the same treatment from a tiny publisher. The big difference is, that the large publishing house can do more for you, if so inclined, than the small one. Even their comparative neglect may result in better sales and recognition than the same book might receive if self-published.

When we send out our manuscripts and have them rejected, it stings. Form rejections may seem to sting more, but judging by the responses of some of the writers to whom we used to send personal responses at the magazine, detailed criticism, no matter how tactfully and encouragingly stated, tends to sting in a uniquely personal way. The first response is often to fire off an irate letter stating all the reasons why the writer was right to do things the way they did and the editor was wrong. Needless to state, editors are not in a hurry to form a (possibly contentious) relationship with a new writer unless they are particularly interested in that writer's work.

It is easy enough to feel as though were are all unsung geniuses, victims of a cruel system. But where does that get us? What do we DO with that information? I don't think any of us are in any position to do anything about that system. But if we assume that there is something WE could be doing better, that our manuscripts, no matter how brilliant in conception, are somehow flawed, that is something we CAN do something about. Isn't that a more empowering attitude than railing against the publishers?

(Although, of course, there is nothing that says we can't do both: curse the stupid publishers and still revise our manuscripts.)

I should add that my own book was just published by a division of HarperCollins. I haven't had any dealings with their children's books division, but all the editors and publicists and such from EOS that I have met or spoken with have been very kind and encouraging. They seem to truly care about books and writers. But they also have to try and make money for their bosses (a little matter of keeping the jobs they love). And they have to deal with sales and marketing departments, who may not care as much about books, as books rather than products, as they do. If an editor doesn't think she or he can sell a book to his or her superiors, or to the sales and marketing people, they will almost certainly pass, even if they personally adore the book. Just like you and me, they have limited time and resources and energy, and prefer to spend them where they think it will do the most good.