Tumbleweeding
Radical candor content warning -- if you're triggered by frankness, turn away! I think the indie (and, for that matter, trad) publishing landscape as we know it will be radically different in the next three years.
I've already talked about the flood, drought, and famine taking place simultaneously, but here's a brief summary if you missed those earlier posts:
Flood: Too many writers putting work out there
Drought: Too few decent* venues
Famine: Too few sales among non-celebrities
*"Decent" defined as good-paying venues.
Many (most?) indie writers are tempted to fling their stories to Kindle Unlimited, gambling that giving their books away for free (oh, sorry, $.99) will somehow give them the exposure to raise their profile enough to do what? Start selling books for a fair price? I think the Kindle Unlimited crowd are folks who just like getting something on the cheap, and aren't particularly caring how they get it.
Once you're aboard that train, it's pretty hard to get off, I'd imagine. I would never know, because I won't put my stuff on Kindle Unlimited. Does that make me foolish? I don't believe that. I believe that readers who are interested in my work will pay for it.
Maybe indie writers are able to gin up enough support from their allies and acolytes to lift their work through Kindle Unlimited, but it all feels very off, like they're selling themselves cheaply and don't actually believe in their work, so they're effectively giving it away, hoping to make it up with pennies flung their way here and there if they get enough people scooping up their $.99 story that those pennies turn to nickels, maybe dimes if they're really lucky (like actual nickels and dimes, not euphemistic nickels and dimes).
However, despite (or, hmm, because) there's over 1.5 million books on Kindle Unlimited, it's important to note that among Big Four publishers, only HarperCollins has put a bit of its backlist on Kindle Unlimited. Of that 1.5 million titles, around 1.3 million are Amazon Exclusives -- aka, almost entirely self-published, exclusive to Amazon.
It's a colossal Amazon slush pile, where anyone hoping to be discovered is likely to be disappointed. Readers will be finding the popular books via the Big Four, and it's highly unlikely that there are any actual jewels in the Kindle Unlimited midden heap -- certainly not enough to warrant slogging through all the junk.
Writers can do what they want, but Kindle Unlimited is where books go to die. It's like a massive boneyard. Maybe enough hype and gamesmanship can elevate someone through it, but I highly doubt it.
And there's the brute reality that the majority of indie writers out there are unable (most) to and/or unwilling (few) to write novels. They don't have enough stories to tell, or the stories they have to tell are short ones, which are venue-dependent (and, as I've mentioned, those good venues are drying up).
What I think we'll be seeing is indie presses closing/collapsing, and a host of indie writers (save for the most determined/fanatical) just giving up or (likelier) running out of worthwhile stories to tell. It's probably why fairytale retellings have been one of those popular crutches among indie writers -- it's easier to lean in on a fairytale retelling for your narrative structure than building something actually new.
Writing fiction is a dream for anyone who does it. Whether it's an illusion or a delusion depends on their expectations, and how professional they are or aren't. Being professional means cranking out the work and finding homes for it. It doesn't mean giving your work away.
The tourists will move on, and I think there are a ton of lit tourists in indie -- they will move on to other hobbies and diversions, once the brutal reality sets in.
Flood, drought, and famine.
RHCP | Give It Away Now
I've already talked about the flood, drought, and famine taking place simultaneously, but here's a brief summary if you missed those earlier posts:
Flood: Too many writers putting work out there
Drought: Too few decent* venues
Famine: Too few sales among non-celebrities
*"Decent" defined as good-paying venues.
Many (most?) indie writers are tempted to fling their stories to Kindle Unlimited, gambling that giving their books away for free (oh, sorry, $.99) will somehow give them the exposure to raise their profile enough to do what? Start selling books for a fair price? I think the Kindle Unlimited crowd are folks who just like getting something on the cheap, and aren't particularly caring how they get it.
Once you're aboard that train, it's pretty hard to get off, I'd imagine. I would never know, because I won't put my stuff on Kindle Unlimited. Does that make me foolish? I don't believe that. I believe that readers who are interested in my work will pay for it.
Maybe indie writers are able to gin up enough support from their allies and acolytes to lift their work through Kindle Unlimited, but it all feels very off, like they're selling themselves cheaply and don't actually believe in their work, so they're effectively giving it away, hoping to make it up with pennies flung their way here and there if they get enough people scooping up their $.99 story that those pennies turn to nickels, maybe dimes if they're really lucky (like actual nickels and dimes, not euphemistic nickels and dimes).
However, despite (or, hmm, because) there's over 1.5 million books on Kindle Unlimited, it's important to note that among Big Four publishers, only HarperCollins has put a bit of its backlist on Kindle Unlimited. Of that 1.5 million titles, around 1.3 million are Amazon Exclusives -- aka, almost entirely self-published, exclusive to Amazon.
It's a colossal Amazon slush pile, where anyone hoping to be discovered is likely to be disappointed. Readers will be finding the popular books via the Big Four, and it's highly unlikely that there are any actual jewels in the Kindle Unlimited midden heap -- certainly not enough to warrant slogging through all the junk.
Writers can do what they want, but Kindle Unlimited is where books go to die. It's like a massive boneyard. Maybe enough hype and gamesmanship can elevate someone through it, but I highly doubt it.
And there's the brute reality that the majority of indie writers out there are unable (most) to and/or unwilling (few) to write novels. They don't have enough stories to tell, or the stories they have to tell are short ones, which are venue-dependent (and, as I've mentioned, those good venues are drying up).
What I think we'll be seeing is indie presses closing/collapsing, and a host of indie writers (save for the most determined/fanatical) just giving up or (likelier) running out of worthwhile stories to tell. It's probably why fairytale retellings have been one of those popular crutches among indie writers -- it's easier to lean in on a fairytale retelling for your narrative structure than building something actually new.
Writing fiction is a dream for anyone who does it. Whether it's an illusion or a delusion depends on their expectations, and how professional they are or aren't. Being professional means cranking out the work and finding homes for it. It doesn't mean giving your work away.
The tourists will move on, and I think there are a ton of lit tourists in indie -- they will move on to other hobbies and diversions, once the brutal reality sets in.
Flood, drought, and famine.
RHCP | Give It Away Now
No comments have been added yet.
