The Thing about Self-published Ebooks...
I was on a business trip this past week to the west coast and as everyone knows I've been struggling for something to read as I wait for a lot of my favorite authors to release their books in the next few months. It came down to crunch time as I was going to have a five hour flight back and forth to the west coast. (I won't go into the part about how my boss convinced me to check my carry-on and then they lost it and I was stuck at a Walmart at 12:00am at night struggling to find something business appropriate. Business travel sucks!)
But to my delight as I went on Amazon I found an author whose historicals I really enjoy. I was surprised because I know when her next release date is and this wasn't it. In this case this was a self-published eBook.
I was like – okay. Let's give this a shot. I want to self-publish some of my titles why not start reading other's self-published work and see how it goes. Other than short stories this was my first foray into this world. The price point was less than one of her normal books, but not .99. For a little more than six dollars I got what I felt was a full sized book. One that would suffice for my trip out and back.
It was good. But… every other sentence started with And… First this made me smile – I don't know if you remember my rant on cleaning up my own work and realizing I start all my sentences with "And" too. Then it got a little in the way of the reading experience.
Overall I couldn't see why publishers would have passed on this book but they must have. I could feel this was an older work but the author's voice still came shouting through and really that was enough for me.
But it is a reminder of why it's going to be worth it to pay a little extra for an "agency" priced book. There is no doubt about it – a professionally published book may not be "better" – but it sure as heck is going to be more polished unless a whole lot of effort is put into the copy-editing. Which let's face it - costs money - which can result in a decrease in profits. After all the whole point of this is to make money.
So my message to the big "Six" is you all have nothing to fear. While I may seek out new self-published works, I know concretely what professional editors and copy-editors bring to the table and will always continue to want that level of professionalism in the books I read.
But to my delight as I went on Amazon I found an author whose historicals I really enjoy. I was surprised because I know when her next release date is and this wasn't it. In this case this was a self-published eBook.
I was like – okay. Let's give this a shot. I want to self-publish some of my titles why not start reading other's self-published work and see how it goes. Other than short stories this was my first foray into this world. The price point was less than one of her normal books, but not .99. For a little more than six dollars I got what I felt was a full sized book. One that would suffice for my trip out and back.
It was good. But… every other sentence started with And… First this made me smile – I don't know if you remember my rant on cleaning up my own work and realizing I start all my sentences with "And" too. Then it got a little in the way of the reading experience.
Overall I couldn't see why publishers would have passed on this book but they must have. I could feel this was an older work but the author's voice still came shouting through and really that was enough for me.
But it is a reminder of why it's going to be worth it to pay a little extra for an "agency" priced book. There is no doubt about it – a professionally published book may not be "better" – but it sure as heck is going to be more polished unless a whole lot of effort is put into the copy-editing. Which let's face it - costs money - which can result in a decrease in profits. After all the whole point of this is to make money.
So my message to the big "Six" is you all have nothing to fear. While I may seek out new self-published works, I know concretely what professional editors and copy-editors bring to the table and will always continue to want that level of professionalism in the books I read.
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