Richard
from St. Louis is reading various anthologiesNovember 12, 2012 - 8:52am
good to see you too, AJ. it HAS been a long time. glad to see you made it over here.
WendellB
from New Orleans. Now, Southern Califronia is reading Meditation for Multi-TaskersJanuary 25, 2013 - 1:41pm
I'm choosing the self publishing route. I've managed a book store for five years so that has given me a decent amount of market research and insight. I think the key is to find the balance between the e-book/ print book dynamic. With e-books there is a lot more social network marketing involved. With print books you're doing a lot more interacting with people in the physical world. I believe my strengths lay in that area so I'm opting to create a nice print book so I can sit at book stores on my days off and sell them to people who like my genre.
rmatthewsimmons
from Salt Lake City, UT is reading I just put down 'A Game of Thrones' after 6 chapters....Couldn't do it.July 19, 2013 - 8:47am
Not to beat this dead horse, but I had an interesting lunch with an established author yesterday.
In short, she had gone the self-publishing route initially back in 1999, spending about $7000 on her first run of books and an additional amount to pay an editor, ISBN #, and someone to Photoshop up a cover for her, and then all the press packets she created and mailed off at her own expense.
She finally sold out of her first print and was ready for a second printing, when an editor for Harper Collins found her book in a small bookstore in NYC and contacted her. Months later she signed with Random House and published two books with them.
When I pressed her on how they compensated her and what they did for her, her response was "not much at all." They sent her on a four city book tour, to cities as she described it, "made no sense to her target audience." (She is African-American and writes fiction aimed at that audience, they sent her to a small town in Texas that was 99.9% white and no one had heard of her.) As far as any marketing help, most of that still fell upon her shoulders.
She is finishing up her third book and given the feedback her agent has given her, their is not a whole lot of money to be had for writers who are not of the Stephen King caliber. So she is now seriously considering going back to self-publishing and dropping Random House (which just blew me away to hear her say that), as she will make a lot more money going at it on her own. And seeing as how they don't really give small authors much of a marketing budget anyway, her feelings are 'what's the point?'
She did mention that it was a huge boost to her self esteem to have such a prestigious publisher approach her. At the time she didn't have an agent and never thought her book would get much further than it did. However, given the nature of the traditional publishing routes (even as much as they have changed since she first published 14 years ago) she doesn't see the point.
Anyway. It was an eye opener for sure and will be interesting to see what she finally decides to do.
Tim Johnson
from Rockville, MD is reading Notes From a Necrophobe by T.C. ArmstrongJuly 19, 2013 - 10:27am
Not to beat this dead horse
Actually, I really appreciate the necrobump. I missed this the first time around, and it was interesting to read through.
Has anyone read any opinions on the value of having the publisher's name behind you? Obviously, self-publishing still carries a stigma with it, but I wonder if the simple ability to say, "my book is with X publisher," is worth more than some authors acknowledge.
Do readers actually care if your book is self-published or with a publisher? What about your career's development? Does the ability to go forward and say, "I have a book with X publisher," provide any boost over saying, "I've self-published a book"?
I guess I'm looking at it as a credential development standpoint.
Brandon
from KCMO is reading Made to BreakJuly 19, 2013 - 10:50am
"Do readers actually care if your book is self-published or with a publisher?"
My first novel has gone through three iterations: the first was through a vanity press called iUniverse, the second was a small publishing house called Otherworld Publications that has since closed its doors (more on that HERE), and the third will be through Perfect Edge Books which is an imprint of John Hunt Publishing.
I can tell you from experience that your average everyday reader doesn't care whose logo is on the spine. All they know is what they see: the quality of the cover art, the layout, the typeface, etc. So to them, there's really no discernable difference between iUniverse and Perfect Edge. A book is a book.
Now if the cover looks like crap and there's a ton of grammatical errors in the story, then a reader might take it upon themself as to why, and the shortcomings of a vanity press/self-publishing experiment might be the cause.
Dwayne
from Cincinnati, Ohio (suburbs) is reading books that rotate to often to keep this updatedJuly 19, 2013 - 11:58am
I also think that it might be a case of people in the know assume it has a publisher unless it is bad (typos, bad grammar, etc.) and they check. So even if you do a good job with a self publishing, no one notices.
I'm wondering if maybe that lady would have a better experience as a hybrid; have some with a publishing house, have some self published.
good to see you too, AJ. it HAS been a long time. glad to see you made it over here.
I'm choosing the self publishing route. I've managed a book store for five years so that has given me a decent amount of market research and insight. I think the key is to find the balance between the e-book/ print book dynamic. With e-books there is a lot more social network marketing involved. With print books you're doing a lot more interacting with people in the physical world. I believe my strengths lay in that area so I'm opting to create a nice print book so I can sit at book stores on my days off and sell them to people who like my genre.
Not to beat this dead horse, but I had an interesting lunch with an established author yesterday.
In short, she had gone the self-publishing route initially back in 1999, spending about $7000 on her first run of books and an additional amount to pay an editor, ISBN #, and someone to Photoshop up a cover for her, and then all the press packets she created and mailed off at her own expense.
She finally sold out of her first print and was ready for a second printing, when an editor for Harper Collins found her book in a small bookstore in NYC and contacted her. Months later she signed with Random House and published two books with them.
When I pressed her on how they compensated her and what they did for her, her response was "not much at all." They sent her on a four city book tour, to cities as she described it, "made no sense to her target audience." (She is African-American and writes fiction aimed at that audience, they sent her to a small town in Texas that was 99.9% white and no one had heard of her.) As far as any marketing help, most of that still fell upon her shoulders.
She is finishing up her third book and given the feedback her agent has given her, their is not a whole lot of money to be had for writers who are not of the Stephen King caliber. So she is now seriously considering going back to self-publishing and dropping Random House (which just blew me away to hear her say that), as she will make a lot more money going at it on her own. And seeing as how they don't really give small authors much of a marketing budget anyway, her feelings are 'what's the point?'
She did mention that it was a huge boost to her self esteem to have such a prestigious publisher approach her. At the time she didn't have an agent and never thought her book would get much further than it did. However, given the nature of the traditional publishing routes (even as much as they have changed since she first published 14 years ago) she doesn't see the point.
Anyway. It was an eye opener for sure and will be interesting to see what she finally decides to do.
Actually, I really appreciate the necrobump. I missed this the first time around, and it was interesting to read through.
Has anyone read any opinions on the value of having the publisher's name behind you? Obviously, self-publishing still carries a stigma with it, but I wonder if the simple ability to say, "my book is with X publisher," is worth more than some authors acknowledge.
Do readers actually care if your book is self-published or with a publisher? What about your career's development? Does the ability to go forward and say, "I have a book with X publisher," provide any boost over saying, "I've self-published a book"?
I guess I'm looking at it as a credential development standpoint.
My first novel has gone through three iterations: the first was through a vanity press called iUniverse, the second was a small publishing house called Otherworld Publications that has since closed its doors (more on that HERE), and the third will be through Perfect Edge Books which is an imprint of John Hunt Publishing.
I can tell you from experience that your average everyday reader doesn't care whose logo is on the spine. All they know is what they see: the quality of the cover art, the layout, the typeface, etc. So to them, there's really no discernable difference between iUniverse and Perfect Edge. A book is a book.
Now if the cover looks like crap and there's a ton of grammatical errors in the story, then a reader might take it upon themself as to why, and the shortcomings of a vanity press/self-publishing experiment might be the cause.
I also think that it might be a case of people in the know assume it has a publisher unless it is bad (typos, bad grammar, etc.) and they check. So even if you do a good job with a self publishing, no one notices.
I'm wondering if maybe that lady would have a better experience as a hybrid; have some with a publishing house, have some self published.