Michael J. Riser
from CA, TX, Japan, back to CA is reading The Tyrant - Michael Cisco, The Devil Takes You Home - Gabino IglesiasJune 13, 2012 - 11:43am
I have to be honest with you, that's kind of an awesome idea.
Nikki Guerlain
from Portlandia
June 13, 2012 - 11:46am
i know, right? you got a group of guys who want to believe all sorts of things and they have ca$$$$$h.
Michael J. Riser
from CA, TX, Japan, back to CA is reading The Tyrant - Michael Cisco, The Devil Takes You Home - Gabino IglesiasJune 13, 2012 - 11:47am
That might be the only thing that would actually get me into a strip club. Let me know if you do this in Texas. I'll show up just to give you a high-five.
Nikki Guerlain
from Portlandia
June 13, 2012 - 11:49am
sweet! will do :-) got to gather my pussy posse book buddies.
Bradley Sands
from Boston is reading Greil Marcus's The History of Rock 'N' Roll in Ten SongsJune 13, 2012 - 2:44pm
I brought a couple of Kindle books down from $4.99 to $2.99 and sales actually went down. I just changed them back to $4.99 because of Michael's post. (My publisher is cool because they allow us to retain digital rights to our books, although perhaps it's different for authors who have signed contracts more recently with them.)
bryanhowie
from FW, ID is reading East of Eden. Steinbeck is FUCKING AMAZING.June 13, 2012 - 6:26pm
Nikki, I will be at every reading you give. Do you do private readings?
Nothing would be sexier than a girl reading her short story while masturbating on stage. Shit, did I type that out loud?
Richard
from St. Louis is reading various anthologiesJune 13, 2012 - 6:40pm
^lol
Dwayne
from Cincinnati, Ohio (suburbs) is reading books that rotate to often to keep this updatedJune 13, 2012 - 8:03pm
@Sands - I haven't read or bought it but Please Do Not Shoot Me in the Face: A Novel is the coolest name for a book I've seen in a long time. You're awesome.
Bradley Sands
from Boston is reading Greil Marcus's The History of Rock 'N' Roll in Ten SongsJune 13, 2012 - 10:51pm
Thanks, Dwayne.
Nikki Guerlain
from Portlandia
June 14, 2012 - 12:39am
Nice Howie. If you come out you'll have to bring a horse out and do a "reading" too. :-) lol
Matt Attack
from Richmond, Va. is reading As I Lay Dying, William FaulknerJune 14, 2012 - 3:10am
Niks where ya been!
There some other sight I heard of recently....lulu or something that is self publishing.
Nikki Guerlain
from Portlandia
June 14, 2012 - 11:45am
I've been writing and working on a few big things. :-)
bryanhowie
from FW, ID is reading East of Eden. Steinbeck is FUCKING AMAZING.June 16, 2012 - 9:27am
@Michael J. Riser - yeah it's hard to keep track of all especially with things changing so fast. When you feel overwelmed just remember that this is the best time ever to be an author so the fact that there are many more opportunties now is ultimately a good thing. Keep on writing...commit yourself to quality...once you're ready (i.e. have your stuff done and polished) then you can evaluate which way to go. Until then the best thing you can do is just concentrate on getting your work finished.
Michael James S...
June 16, 2012 - 1:36pm
@Dwayne - currently I have six full length novels out but they are published as a trilogy so there are physicaally 3 books "on the market. Generally each of my titles is 90,000 - 160,000. During the time I was self publishing I was putting out one book every six months so it looked something like this:
oct 2007 - one book (90,000 words)
apr 2008 - two books (205,000 words)
oct 2009 - three books (305,000 words
apr 2010 - four books (415,000 words)
oct 2010 - five books (530,000 words)
Then there was a pause while the series transitioned from self to traditional
aug 2011 - no books (0 words)
Nov 2011 - one book (2 book set) 205,000 words
Dec 2011 - two books (2, 2 book sets) 415,000 words
Jan 2012 - six books (3, 2 book set) 700,000 words
jyh
from VA is reading whatever he feels likeJune 18, 2012 - 10:13am
I get what people say about charging a respectable price so that people will value the work, but I've been thinking about this_guy. Due to a mixup, his book was priced at $0 and downloaded over 5000 times in a short while. He didin't get royalties but he gained a bunch of readers. Then he wrote a sequel (I haven't seen how many he's sold of that.)
If I give away the first book, do you think I'll mainly attract cheapskates who would never pay for a book anyway? Or could I go free at the beginning to gain some readers who may buy my next? (In my case, this book won't be a novel, but a small batch of shorter works: fiction, poems, prose-poems, vignettes, weird stuff which would be hard for me to market and which nearly all publishers wouldn't want to fool with anyway, so the chances of me getting a deal on it are basically nil.)
Dwayne
from Cincinnati, Ohio (suburbs) is reading books that rotate to often to keep this updatedJune 18, 2012 - 7:55pm
If you can get a bunch of press from people saying it was under charged that'll help.
jyh
from VA is reading whatever he feels likeJune 18, 2012 - 8:03pm
^ yeah, I was thinking I'd send a bunch out for review (they're free, after all) and hopefully get people to say things like, "Worth every penny." "There's no excuse for this." "Made me wonder what the hell was I thinking, charging money for my own book which is so clearly inferior?"
jyh
from VA is reading whatever he feels likeJune 18, 2012 - 11:51am
The point was, I don't know if he was actually helped by the fiasco. It's not like it was on 60 minutes or anything. (As of today his sequel is #208,795 in paid kindle sales.)
Gordon Highland
from Kansas City is reading Secondhand Souls by Christopher MooreJune 18, 2012 - 1:41pm
I don't know if free/cheap books actually generate interest in unknown authors or not (meaning paying for your next book that you do charge for). But if someone already finds themselves intrigued by your synopsis, then price can definitely incite them to buy in a timely fashion. I've got 60+ unread on my shelf, some of them impulse buys/freebies, but none of them in genres or plots that don't interest me.
On the other hand, the last time I did a Goodreads giveaway, none of the winners were people I would consider my audience; they literally just sought out free shit. They did read it, which I was surprised by, but weren't too favorable with their opinions.
jyh
from VA is reading whatever he feels likeJune 18, 2012 - 7:41pm
Thanks for the input.
Richard
from St. Louis is reading various anthologiesJune 18, 2012 - 8:32pm
giveaways can lead to sales, you never know what can happen. we gave away my first book Transubstantiate for FREE for a few days, about 2,200 downloads. the next day we sold 50, and then another 20 the following day, then it died down. but we were top 15 on Amazon's FREE list, and heck, 70 sales in two days is better than my ebook did all year, probably. experiment, you never know.
jyh
from VA is reading whatever he feels likeJune 18, 2012 - 9:13pm
experiment, you never know.
Given my lack of networking skills and my unshakeable belief that no publisher exists who would want to risk any money whatsoever on this book, I may just throw it out there (with a pen-name) and ask every conceivable magazine for a review (which is probably no less likely than getting published by them. Actually, it may be. I don't have the slightest idea how they pick what to review.)
I can't think of anything I'd lose; the book either has a potential audience or it doesn't.
Richard
from St. Louis is reading various anthologiesJune 20, 2012 - 6:53pm
you can always write more.
jyh
from VA is reading whatever he feels likeJune 21, 2012 - 8:25am
^ thus far, yes.
underpurplemoon
from PDX
June 21, 2012 - 9:27am
When I self-published my book, I ended up giving them almost all away. I just considered a gift to the lucky few.
jyh
from VA is reading whatever he feels likeJune 21, 2012 - 9:27am
What's your book? Was it printed or electronic?
underpurplemoon
from PDX
June 21, 2012 - 4:49pm
What's your book? Was it printed or electronic?
Print, but I got a PDF version of it too. Let me know if you want the bootleg PDF version of it for free. I'll PM you the book.
GaryP
from Denver is reading a bit of this and thatSeptember 22, 2012 - 5:50am
Here's an interesting blog post by a self-pubbed author (who originally was traditionally published). He's currently making around $200,000/year doing the self-pubbed thing if I read his number breakdown correctly.
Danisidhe
from Melbourne, Australia, currently living in Bangkok is reading The Limits of EnchantmentSeptember 22, 2012 - 11:38am
In my opinion, the most important issue when deciding to self-publish or not, is honesty. Are you (general 'you' not specific to any poster) asking yourself the right questions and being honest with yourself with your answers? Are you sure that your work is actually up to a minimum standard? Are you self publishing with awareness that you have done your best and your work is truly ready to be seen, or are you seeing self pub as a way around a lot of hard work?
I read a lot of self pubbed work, whether as a beta reader, content editor, or just because the author is in my writers network. The following are some of the questions I wish self pubbers would ask themselves before they self publish: (note: In case this sounds like I'm touting for work - I'm not, I'm not taking work atm, while I'm deep mid-novel)
Question 1
Are you self pubbing a trilogy or series? So many self pubbed books seem to be! If yours is, too, does your story fall into three (or however many) distinct and engaging parts, each with their own beginning, middle and end, or - be honest - was your first draft too long for a standard (or even GRRM-length) novel and it's just too precious to you to whittle it down? If the latter, have you at least restructured to justify the 'parts', or have you just looked for the closest "reveal" around the right wordcount and amped it up into a "cliff hanger"? If so, you are not publishing a trilogy or a series, you're simply publishing an unfinished, unedited, flabby draft, in bits.
Question 2
If you are self pubbing because the query process is tough/inhuman/unfair, and/or you've tried and failed, previously, were you really just submitting a polished first draft or have you self edited properly? Adding or removing words with an eye to word count is not editing, nor is proof reading, even polishing prose isn't really revising - it's called 'polishing' for a reason - it's the last thing you do. There is a LOT more to telling a story than how to form sentence out of words - the real trick, the craft of it, is how to form a story out of sentences.
If you get your structure as tight as it can be, or even halfway there, on your first draft, you're either a savant, or lying to yourself. If you've had partial or full requests, and been rejected, chances are structure is where you're falling down (afterall, they liked your sentences enough to ask for more).
Question 3
Have you had your work truly edited? Proof reading is not editing. Every piece should be at least content edited (story structure, again), first, then, after all your story kinks have been worked out, only then should you engage a line editor. After you've responded to the line edits, then you have it proofed (this is the only stage you can entrust to well read friends, family, or English teachers with a soft spot for you.) Beware short story writers or journalists who claim to be able to content edit for novels - they are very different beasts (as are editing and writing, for that matter.)
All that editing sounds expensive? Well it's not free, and it's a major reason to go traditional (if in an Indie house) - that's one of the things they offer. Not affording it is not an excuse not to do it, you're only short changing yourself and your readers. You could get the money through kickstarter, or a patron of some kind - there are ways, if your work catches others' imagination (which is what it's about, right?)
Question 4
When you received feedback during editing and/or querying, did you consider it honestly? Did you make any changes based on that feedback? If you didn't take the advice, did you at least understand it, see where the reader/editor was coming from and decide not to make a change with the full awareness of your craft? If so, then your book is the best you can make it, so self publish or keep querying. If, on the other hand, you dismissed the critique because the person giving the feedback didn't understand you, your art, or your intention, then you're not ready for any type of publishing, because you simply aren't being honest with yourself. You're a writer, not a visual artist or musician, if someone has read your work and they didn't understand your intention, then you've failed to communicate your intention, and you're adding to your mistake by failing to accept the critique - your fault, not theirs.
If you actually didn't understand the critique, then ask them to clarify (that may be their fault), if you still don't, perhaps you need more education in your craft. If you understand it, but don't know how to fix it (it's not the editor's job to tell you that) then you definitely need more education or practice. That's the beauty of the editing stage, it's when you really find out how well you've mastered your craft!
I hope this hasn't been too harsh, but I did warn that this was about honesty. If anything really touched a nerve, then it's probably the question you need to ask yourself, most.
@GaryP That's the "Konrath" referred to in the first few posts of this thread. He's a self publishing advocate with some excellent points about the ethics of traditional publishing houses, but his success is based on a particular confluence of circumstances (like having an audience base from trad pub) and personal process (like publishing something every few months) which not everyone will be able to copy.
Covewriter
from Nashville, Tennessee is reading & SonsSeptember 22, 2012 - 10:40pm
GO TRADITIONAL ROUTE. You get publicists who know how to get you booked places. You get publishing house reps reading your stuff and talking about it. Self published, unless it gets a viral thing going, still mean a major publisher didn't say yes.
JEFFREY GRANT BARR
from Central OR is reading Nothing but fucking Shakespeare, for the rest of my lifeSeptember 22, 2012 - 11:33pm
Number of works published by Danisidhe:
Via 'trad' publishing:
Via 'self' publishing:
Brandon
from KCMO is reading Made to BreakSeptember 24, 2012 - 6:56am
@Jeff
We should all be taking advice from people with zero credentials.
rmatthewsimmons
from Salt Lake City, UT is reading I just put down 'A Game of Thrones' after 6 chapters....Couldn't do it.September 24, 2012 - 1:08pm
I recently read an article (can't remember which online zine, perhaps here?) where a woman had put an electronic version of her novel up on Amazon and made a little over $400,000. However, when she approached publishers via traditional avenues and used the success of her e-book no one was interested as they believed it was 'too played out' or something to that effect.
Basically she wanted the novel edited by a professional and published in paperback in a traditional manner as she thought that made her more legit as a writer. The result of using the online success of her book proved to be opposite for what her end goals were, even though IMO she did quite well in the short term going the e-book route.
Anyway, like so many people of mentioned here publishing seems like a giant shit show that just comes down to throwing the dice.
Alex Kane
from west-central Illinois is reading Dark OrbitSeptember 24, 2012 - 1:16pm
Right now there are so many viewpoints on the subject that it's all a matter of risk-taking, luck, and experimentation. There are no rules anymore.
You can have a traditional, four- or five-figure book deal through a big house publisher, have bookstores gradually stop shelving your books, and before you know it your contract is up and your publisher is trying to sweep you under the rug in favor of fresh blood.
At the World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago recently I met Hugh Howey, whose "Wool" novelettes and omnibus book have brought him tremendous success, including a film rights option to Ridley Scott. He made an interesting comment: "Taking a bad deal from a traditional publisher is the new vanity publishing."
In other words, he experimented with story and book lengths, did the publishing and promotional footwork himself, and now he's making more money than he perhaps would have otherwise--if he'd been accepted in legacy publishing at all.
That said, none of this matters if you can't write your way out of a paper bag. But it does grant you the freedom to write and sell whatever the hell you want, provided there's an audience for it out there somewhere.
Definitely an interesting time.
GaryP
from Denver is reading a bit of this and thatSeptember 24, 2012 - 1:23pm
To add to what Alex said. The new self-pub route is a boon to those writers who do get swept under the rug. These are the mid-listers who have books traditionally published and have since been dropped because none of the books were break-out successes. So they can get a "shelf" of books e-pubbed under their own brand and have a nice catalog of books out there. It's still a crap shoot, of course, to get noticed and get those self-pubbed books sold, but at least they now have an avenue to do that.
Alex Kane
from west-central Illinois is reading Dark OrbitSeptember 24, 2012 - 1:30pm
Yeah, exactly, Gary.
A certain series might also be dropped, but the author could potentially take a new creative direction to appease his or her current publisher, while simultaneously self-publishing additional installments of the old series via electronic formats, print-on-demand, etc.
Or in the case of Cherie Priest, one or two installments of a series may be too short, or too different, than the rest. And so she has books in her "Clockwork Century" continuity out from two separate traditional publishers. Very interesting.
Change can be scary, but in the case of publishing it's going to become better and better from a reader's perspective. Hopefully from a writer's, as well, but it's going to mean more and more work--three new books a year, say, instead of just one--as time goes on.
Courtney
from the Midwest is reading Monkey: A Journey to the West and a thousand college textbooksSeptember 24, 2012 - 2:09pm
Self-publishing doesn't need to be a shortcut or "cheat" to get around any of the things that go along with traditionally published material. I've read some terrible smut for free on my Nook that makes me want to cry from laughter, but that's true for traditionally published material, too.
Personally, I have trouble letting other people control my work. I love having input, but ultimately, I want final say -- over the cover, the story, the ins and outs. So self-publishing will be the way to go. It's unfortunate that some people consider themselves better because they do one or the other. It needs to be a personal choice based on what you want to do with your writing.
I'm not looking to do this full-time (I have other things I want to do) and I don't think I'll become successful enough to make a living wage from it. I'll be content to put out what I love writing and let that stand on its own merit, and be happy if one or two people read it.
Dwayne
from Cincinnati, Ohio (suburbs) is reading books that rotate to often to keep this updatedSeptember 25, 2012 - 4:49am
I'm more and more starting to wonder if we can't see the forest for the trees. The people I see who are making a living of writing, self published or traditional, seem to have a much higher then average number of works put out and a higher then average number of series. I couldn't find anyone else to have come out with support or disproof of the idea so just my thoughts.
GaryP
from Denver is reading a bit of this and thatSeptember 25, 2012 - 6:33am
I think you're right, Dwayne (though your comment also confused me about forests and trees and disproof). The writers I know about (who are not bestsellers), but make a comfortable living writing fiction, work their butts off. They have a lot of books out there already. And like Alex said, they're doing multiple novels a year along with short stories. And they all seem to have a mix of traditional and self-pubbed work.
But the bottom line is that they work really really hard and produce a lot of product.
Brandon
from KCMO is reading Made to BreakSeptember 25, 2012 - 4:09pm
@Dwayne
Totally agree.
When Phil Jourdan came to town, we had a discussion about the formula for success in this business, and one of the things we noticed is the authors that were making some hard coin just so happened to be prolific as fuck.
Being able to crank out two or three books per year might soon become the standard, especially in regards to self-publishing success.
Danisidhe
from Melbourne, Australia, currently living in Bangkok is reading The Limits of EnchantmentSeptember 25, 2012 - 12:55pm
@Dwayne, Gary and Brandon - Being prolific does seem to be the key with self pub, at least, and it's most likely because readers who have liked something will go looking for something else by that author and if there's product there, they might go on a chain reading spree. Of course, many of the successful ebook authors I know of have padded the one book out to three or four (not necessarily for commercial reasons) and anyone who likes the story enough has to buy them all to find out what happens. One particular I'm thinking of has found about 50% of those who bought (as against getting it at $0) the first bought the second (I haven't heard stats for the third, yet.)
Which brings me to what I think @Dwayne meant by 'forest for trees'; quality versus quantity - quantity does seem to matter more if one's goal is money, in ebooks certainly, and the 'literati' have long lamented that the 'airport book' authors, who almost all publish annually, at least, sell so well despite sometimes appalling craft (subjective content/depth judgements aside.)
I guess it comes down to whether the story really grabs the readers - most will forgive almost anything if it does.
Dwayne
from Cincinnati, Ohio (suburbs) is reading books that rotate to often to keep this updatedSeptember 26, 2012 - 4:40am
@Dan - Mostly. Every writer I know who has to keep a day job would love to make enough to just write, even if they don't really want to be a best seller/airport author type. And I keep seeing all these debates of 'being good' or 'what is good enough' or editing or covers and we all know self vs. traditional publishing. Maybe it's just write more.
rmatthewsimmons
from Salt Lake City, UT is reading I just put down 'A Game of Thrones' after 6 chapters....Couldn't do it.October 27, 2012 - 10:15am
@Ryan Noir thanks for the blurb way early on in this thread about Elance. I placed an ad earlier this week and after two days and wading through about 25 proposals I found an editor specializing in the genre I'm writing and who seems interested in my project and with the appropriate background. I finalized the contract with her this morning. All in all, it boiled down to two really good editors with a handful of honorable mentions.
With the escrow fees to Elance to cover the editor for a 50K word piece as well as purchasing the rights (royalty free) for the photo to be used on the jacket and website background, I'm sitting at $1300 in expenses so far-not including a landfill's worth of printer cartridges and paper *sigh*.
My novel was picked up by Random House, Germany in 2010 and went on to sell pretty well. But still, I couldn't hook a UK book deal, so on my agent's advice we've put it on Kindle. I have a bit of a leg-up as Amazon are offering a 'white glove service' to writers with agents. It means I get to write a page on their author blog, and it will be featured on a couple of lists. Whether that amounts to anything, who knows, but it's nice to know it's getting read. Also, it's great that my non-German-speaking friends (i.e. all of them) can now read it.
My agent's just started representing a guy called Nick Spalding who has sold 4000,000 ebooks online with no help from anyone. I know these cases are rare, but they're not that rare. You do have to pimp, though. Get on twitter, phone people, email whatever.
Richard
from St. Louis is reading various anthologiesNovember 9, 2012 - 10:27am
wow, way to go AJ. good luck RMS
AJ
from London
November 9, 2012 - 12:00pm
Hey Richard, nice to see you agin - long time, fella
Class Facilitator
ReneeAPickup
from Southern California is reading Wanderers by Chuck WendigNovember 9, 2012 - 3:11pm
sweet!
Matt Attack
from Richmond, Va. is reading As I Lay Dying, William FaulknerNovember 9, 2012 - 3:33pm
Grats AJ. Man this thread really took off.
AJ
from London
November 10, 2012 - 9:43am
Couple of good links
The first guy has the same agent as me, he sold something like 400,000 units self-publishing on Kindle.
I have to be honest with you, that's kind of an awesome idea.
i know, right? you got a group of guys who want to believe all sorts of things and they have ca$$$$$h.
That might be the only thing that would actually get me into a strip club. Let me know if you do this in Texas. I'll show up just to give you a high-five.
sweet! will do :-) got to gather my pussy posse book buddies.
I brought a couple of Kindle books down from $4.99 to $2.99 and sales actually went down. I just changed them back to $4.99 because of Michael's post. (My publisher is cool because they allow us to retain digital rights to our books, although perhaps it's different for authors who have signed contracts more recently with them.)
Nikki, I will be at every reading you give. Do you do private readings?
Nothing would be sexier than a girl reading her short story while masturbating on stage. Shit, did I type that out loud?
^lol
@Sands - I haven't read or bought it but Please Do Not Shoot Me in the Face: A Novel is the coolest name for a book I've seen in a long time. You're awesome.
Thanks, Dwayne.
Nice Howie. If you come out you'll have to bring a horse out and do a "reading" too. :-) lol
Niks where ya been!
There some other sight I heard of recently....lulu or something that is self publishing.
I've been writing and working on a few big things. :-)
Getting a horse to fuck a guy isn't as easy as it sounds. Especially on stage.
@Michael J. Riser - yeah it's hard to keep track of all especially with things changing so fast. When you feel overwelmed just remember that this is the best time ever to be an author so the fact that there are many more opportunties now is ultimately a good thing. Keep on writing...commit yourself to quality...once you're ready (i.e. have your stuff done and polished) then you can evaluate which way to go. Until then the best thing you can do is just concentrate on getting your work finished.
@Dwayne - currently I have six full length novels out but they are published as a trilogy so there are physicaally 3 books "on the market. Generally each of my titles is 90,000 - 160,000. During the time I was self publishing I was putting out one book every six months so it looked something like this:
Then there was a pause while the series transitioned from self to traditional
I get what people say about charging a respectable price so that people will value the work, but I've been thinking about this_guy. Due to a mixup, his book was priced at $0 and downloaded over 5000 times in a short while. He didin't get royalties but he gained a bunch of readers. Then he wrote a sequel (I haven't seen how many he's sold of that.)
If I give away the first book, do you think I'll mainly attract cheapskates who would never pay for a book anyway? Or could I go free at the beginning to gain some readers who may buy my next? (In my case, this book won't be a novel, but a small batch of shorter works: fiction, poems, prose-poems, vignettes, weird stuff which would be hard for me to market and which nearly all publishers wouldn't want to fool with anyway, so the chances of me getting a deal on it are basically nil.)
If you can get a bunch of press from people saying it was under charged that'll help.
^ yeah, I was thinking I'd send a bunch out for review (they're free, after all) and hopefully get people to say things like, "Worth every penny." "There's no excuse for this." "Made me wonder what the hell was I thinking, charging money for my own book which is so clearly inferior?"
The point was, I don't know if he was actually helped by the fiasco. It's not like it was on 60 minutes or anything. (As of today his sequel is #208,795 in paid kindle sales.)
I don't know if free/cheap books actually generate interest in unknown authors or not (meaning paying for your next book that you do charge for). But if someone already finds themselves intrigued by your synopsis, then price can definitely incite them to buy in a timely fashion. I've got 60+ unread on my shelf, some of them impulse buys/freebies, but none of them in genres or plots that don't interest me.
On the other hand, the last time I did a Goodreads giveaway, none of the winners were people I would consider my audience; they literally just sought out free shit. They did read it, which I was surprised by, but weren't too favorable with their opinions.
Thanks for the input.
giveaways can lead to sales, you never know what can happen. we gave away my first book Transubstantiate for FREE for a few days, about 2,200 downloads. the next day we sold 50, and then another 20 the following day, then it died down. but we were top 15 on Amazon's FREE list, and heck, 70 sales in two days is better than my ebook did all year, probably. experiment, you never know.
Given my lack of networking skills and my unshakeable belief that no publisher exists who would want to risk any money whatsoever on this book, I may just throw it out there (with a pen-name) and ask every conceivable magazine for a review (which is probably no less likely than getting published by them. Actually, it may be. I don't have the slightest idea how they pick what to review.)
I can't think of anything I'd lose; the book either has a potential audience or it doesn't.
you can always write more.
^ thus far, yes.
When I self-published my book, I ended up giving them almost all away. I just considered a gift to the lucky few.
What's your book? Was it printed or electronic?
Print, but I got a PDF version of it too. Let me know if you want the bootleg PDF version of it for free. I'll PM you the book.
Click here.
Here's an interesting blog post by a self-pubbed author (who originally was traditionally published). He's currently making around $200,000/year doing the self-pubbed thing if I read his number breakdown correctly.
http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2012/09/konraths-sales.html
P.S.
I am most likely not a robot.
>beep<
In my opinion, the most important issue when deciding to self-publish or not, is honesty. Are you (general 'you' not specific to any poster) asking yourself the right questions and being honest with yourself with your answers? Are you sure that your work is actually up to a minimum standard? Are you self publishing with awareness that you have done your best and your work is truly ready to be seen, or are you seeing self pub as a way around a lot of hard work?
I read a lot of self pubbed work, whether as a beta reader, content editor, or just because the author is in my writers network. The following are some of the questions I wish self pubbers would ask themselves before they self publish: (note: In case this sounds like I'm touting for work - I'm not, I'm not taking work atm, while I'm deep mid-novel)
Question 1
Are you self pubbing a trilogy or series? So many self pubbed books seem to be! If yours is, too, does your story fall into three (or however many) distinct and engaging parts, each with their own beginning, middle and end, or - be honest - was your first draft too long for a standard (or even GRRM-length) novel and it's just too precious to you to whittle it down? If the latter, have you at least restructured to justify the 'parts', or have you just looked for the closest "reveal" around the right wordcount and amped it up into a "cliff hanger"? If so, you are not publishing a trilogy or a series, you're simply publishing an unfinished, unedited, flabby draft, in bits.
Question 2
If you are self pubbing because the query process is tough/inhuman/unfair, and/or you've tried and failed, previously, were you really just submitting a polished first draft or have you self edited properly? Adding or removing words with an eye to word count is not editing, nor is proof reading, even polishing prose isn't really revising - it's called 'polishing' for a reason - it's the last thing you do. There is a LOT more to telling a story than how to form sentence out of words - the real trick, the craft of it, is how to form a story out of sentences.
If you get your structure as tight as it can be, or even halfway there, on your first draft, you're either a savant, or lying to yourself. If you've had partial or full requests, and been rejected, chances are structure is where you're falling down (afterall, they liked your sentences enough to ask for more).
Question 3
Have you had your work truly edited? Proof reading is not editing. Every piece should be at least content edited (story structure, again), first, then, after all your story kinks have been worked out, only then should you engage a line editor. After you've responded to the line edits, then you have it proofed (this is the only stage you can entrust to well read friends, family, or English teachers with a soft spot for you.) Beware short story writers or journalists who claim to be able to content edit for novels - they are very different beasts (as are editing and writing, for that matter.)
All that editing sounds expensive? Well it's not free, and it's a major reason to go traditional (if in an Indie house) - that's one of the things they offer. Not affording it is not an excuse not to do it, you're only short changing yourself and your readers. You could get the money through kickstarter, or a patron of some kind - there are ways, if your work catches others' imagination (which is what it's about, right?)
Question 4
When you received feedback during editing and/or querying, did you consider it honestly? Did you make any changes based on that feedback? If you didn't take the advice, did you at least understand it, see where the reader/editor was coming from and decide not to make a change with the full awareness of your craft? If so, then your book is the best you can make it, so self publish or keep querying. If, on the other hand, you dismissed the critique because the person giving the feedback didn't understand you, your art, or your intention, then you're not ready for any type of publishing, because you simply aren't being honest with yourself. You're a writer, not a visual artist or musician, if someone has read your work and they didn't understand your intention, then you've failed to communicate your intention, and you're adding to your mistake by failing to accept the critique - your fault, not theirs.
If you actually didn't understand the critique, then ask them to clarify (that may be their fault), if you still don't, perhaps you need more education in your craft. If you understand it, but don't know how to fix it (it's not the editor's job to tell you that) then you definitely need more education or practice. That's the beauty of the editing stage, it's when you really find out how well you've mastered your craft!
I hope this hasn't been too harsh, but I did warn that this was about honesty. If anything really touched a nerve, then it's probably the question you need to ask yourself, most.
@GaryP That's the "Konrath" referred to in the first few posts of this thread. He's a self publishing advocate with some excellent points about the ethics of traditional publishing houses, but his success is based on a particular confluence of circumstances (like having an audience base from trad pub) and personal process (like publishing something every few months) which not everyone will be able to copy.
GO TRADITIONAL ROUTE. You get publicists who know how to get you booked places. You get publishing house reps reading your stuff and talking about it. Self published, unless it gets a viral thing going, still mean a major publisher didn't say yes.
Number of works published by Danisidhe:
Via 'trad' publishing:
Via 'self' publishing:
@Jeff
We should all be taking advice from people with zero credentials.
I recently read an article (can't remember which online zine, perhaps here?) where a woman had put an electronic version of her novel up on Amazon and made a little over $400,000. However, when she approached publishers via traditional avenues and used the success of her e-book no one was interested as they believed it was 'too played out' or something to that effect.
Basically she wanted the novel edited by a professional and published in paperback in a traditional manner as she thought that made her more legit as a writer. The result of using the online success of her book proved to be opposite for what her end goals were, even though IMO she did quite well in the short term going the e-book route.
Anyway, like so many people of mentioned here publishing seems like a giant shit show that just comes down to throwing the dice.
Right now there are so many viewpoints on the subject that it's all a matter of risk-taking, luck, and experimentation. There are no rules anymore.
You can have a traditional, four- or five-figure book deal through a big house publisher, have bookstores gradually stop shelving your books, and before you know it your contract is up and your publisher is trying to sweep you under the rug in favor of fresh blood.
At the World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago recently I met Hugh Howey, whose "Wool" novelettes and omnibus book have brought him tremendous success, including a film rights option to Ridley Scott. He made an interesting comment: "Taking a bad deal from a traditional publisher is the new vanity publishing."
In other words, he experimented with story and book lengths, did the publishing and promotional footwork himself, and now he's making more money than he perhaps would have otherwise--if he'd been accepted in legacy publishing at all.
That said, none of this matters if you can't write your way out of a paper bag. But it does grant you the freedom to write and sell whatever the hell you want, provided there's an audience for it out there somewhere.
Definitely an interesting time.
To add to what Alex said. The new self-pub route is a boon to those writers who do get swept under the rug. These are the mid-listers who have books traditionally published and have since been dropped because none of the books were break-out successes. So they can get a "shelf" of books e-pubbed under their own brand and have a nice catalog of books out there. It's still a crap shoot, of course, to get noticed and get those self-pubbed books sold, but at least they now have an avenue to do that.
Yeah, exactly, Gary.
A certain series might also be dropped, but the author could potentially take a new creative direction to appease his or her current publisher, while simultaneously self-publishing additional installments of the old series via electronic formats, print-on-demand, etc.
Or in the case of Cherie Priest, one or two installments of a series may be too short, or too different, than the rest. And so she has books in her "Clockwork Century" continuity out from two separate traditional publishers. Very interesting.
Change can be scary, but in the case of publishing it's going to become better and better from a reader's perspective. Hopefully from a writer's, as well, but it's going to mean more and more work--three new books a year, say, instead of just one--as time goes on.
Self-publishing doesn't need to be a shortcut or "cheat" to get around any of the things that go along with traditionally published material. I've read some terrible smut for free on my Nook that makes me want to cry from laughter, but that's true for traditionally published material, too.
Personally, I have trouble letting other people control my work. I love having input, but ultimately, I want final say -- over the cover, the story, the ins and outs. So self-publishing will be the way to go. It's unfortunate that some people consider themselves better because they do one or the other. It needs to be a personal choice based on what you want to do with your writing.
I'm not looking to do this full-time (I have other things I want to do) and I don't think I'll become successful enough to make a living wage from it. I'll be content to put out what I love writing and let that stand on its own merit, and be happy if one or two people read it.
I'm more and more starting to wonder if we can't see the forest for the trees. The people I see who are making a living of writing, self published or traditional, seem to have a much higher then average number of works put out and a higher then average number of series. I couldn't find anyone else to have come out with support or disproof of the idea so just my thoughts.
I think you're right, Dwayne (though your comment also confused me about forests and trees and disproof). The writers I know about (who are not bestsellers), but make a comfortable living writing fiction, work their butts off. They have a lot of books out there already. And like Alex said, they're doing multiple novels a year along with short stories. And they all seem to have a mix of traditional and self-pubbed work.
But the bottom line is that they work really really hard and produce a lot of product.
@Dwayne
Totally agree.
When Phil Jourdan came to town, we had a discussion about the formula for success in this business, and one of the things we noticed is the authors that were making some hard coin just so happened to be prolific as fuck.
Being able to crank out two or three books per year might soon become the standard, especially in regards to self-publishing success.
@Dwayne, Gary and Brandon - Being prolific does seem to be the key with self pub, at least, and it's most likely because readers who have liked something will go looking for something else by that author and if there's product there, they might go on a chain reading spree. Of course, many of the successful ebook authors I know of have padded the one book out to three or four (not necessarily for commercial reasons) and anyone who likes the story enough has to buy them all to find out what happens. One particular I'm thinking of has found about 50% of those who bought (as against getting it at $0) the first bought the second (I haven't heard stats for the third, yet.)
Which brings me to what I think @Dwayne meant by 'forest for trees'; quality versus quantity - quantity does seem to matter more if one's goal is money, in ebooks certainly, and the 'literati' have long lamented that the 'airport book' authors, who almost all publish annually, at least, sell so well despite sometimes appalling craft (subjective content/depth judgements aside.)
I guess it comes down to whether the story really grabs the readers - most will forgive almost anything if it does.
@Dan - Mostly. Every writer I know who has to keep a day job would love to make enough to just write, even if they don't really want to be a best seller/airport author type. And I keep seeing all these debates of 'being good' or 'what is good enough' or editing or covers and we all know self vs. traditional publishing. Maybe it's just write more.
@Ryan Noir thanks for the blurb way early on in this thread about Elance. I placed an ad earlier this week and after two days and wading through about 25 proposals I found an editor specializing in the genre I'm writing and who seems interested in my project and with the appropriate background. I finalized the contract with her this morning. All in all, it boiled down to two really good editors with a handful of honorable mentions.
With the escrow fees to Elance to cover the editor for a 50K word piece as well as purchasing the rights (royalty free) for the photo to be used on the jacket and website background, I'm sitting at $1300 in expenses so far-not including a landfill's worth of printer cartridges and paper *sigh*.
GretelTrilogy
Just done it.
My novel was picked up by Random House, Germany in 2010 and went on to sell pretty well. But still, I couldn't hook a UK book deal, so on my agent's advice we've put it on Kindle. I have a bit of a leg-up as Amazon are offering a 'white glove service' to writers with agents. It means I get to write a page on their author blog, and it will be featured on a couple of lists. Whether that amounts to anything, who knows, but it's nice to know it's getting read. Also, it's great that my non-German-speaking friends (i.e. all of them) can now read it.
My agent's just started representing a guy called Nick Spalding who has sold 4000,000 ebooks online with no help from anyone. I know these cases are rare, but they're not that rare. You do have to pimp, though. Get on twitter, phone people, email whatever.
wow, way to go AJ. good luck RMS
Hey Richard, nice to see you agin - long time, fella
sweet!
Grats AJ. Man this thread really took off.
Couple of good links
The first guy has the same agent as me, he sold something like 400,000 units self-publishing on Kindle.
http://indieiq.com/2012/10/23/meet-nick-spalding-400000-ebook-sales-and-...
http://indieiq.com/2012/09/21/karl-vadaszff/