The New Gatekeepers

I’ve watched anumber of videos over the last year where established indie authors urge authors interested in self publishing to go about it in the properway. Which is to say, the traditional publishing way. By this they mean authors should hire professionals to produce their books, professionals ranging from developmental editors to punch up thestory, plus line editors and/or proofreaders, professional coverartists, and even professional cover designers, as well as professionals toformat the book, and human narrators to narrate audiobooks. Thisprocess costs thousands of dollars. Indeed, I’ve heard $5,000 to$10,000 figures tossed around as the cost of self publishing a bookthese days, though I have to assume that includes ebooks, paper, andaudio versions of the book. While these authors may acknowledge thatthis may cost more than some authors can readily afford, and maymention in passing, some cheaper alternatives, the thrust of their adviceis that authors owe it to their readers to produce as professionallyproduced book as they can afford to spend. Moreover, they imply that authors owe it to the selfpublishing industry to produce traditional publishing quality books,in order to raise the perceived level of quality in self publishedbooks. To do any less is to let the side down.

Well, yes and no. Yes is likely a given in that most, of not all, self-published authors try to put out the best bookthey can, if only as it is a reflection of their expertise. However,publishing is a business and should be approached as a business. Thechances of making back even $1,000 are statistically very slim. Anauthor would need to sell at least 200 and 270 ebooks at full price tocover every $1,000 they spend on a book. The average self-published bookis said to sell a 100 copies. Just say’n. 

Moreover, no matter howmuch professional help is hired, indie authors can only charge self-published prices for their books, if they expect to sell it. Thus,all these professional services add no tangible financial benefit tothe books. Finally, it's not the quality of the book that limits thesale of most self-published books. Its visibility, or rather, the lack ofvisibility. A developmental editor can't increase the chances of abook being discovered. Even a professionally designed cover can’tpay for itself if the book is rarely or never seen by a receptiveaudience. Unless we can get our books seen and talked about, theseexpensive professional services just don’t matter in the end. Money wasted.

There are a number of reasons why this proposed method is wrong. First, look at  the proposed business model. Only one book out of three in traditionalpublishing ends up making the publisher any money. Indeed, theindustry is largely dependent on a relatively small number ofbestselling authors and books to make most of their money. Is thisreally a successful business model that solo authors should imitatein their self-publishing business, especially if their publishingbusiness has yet to start minting money needed to support it? It is a system that works only for best selling authors, traditional or self-published.

Next, let’s lookat the market, or rather the markets. While there is some overlap ofreaders, the traditional publishing market and the ebook/KindleUnlimited market are very different beasts, in both expectations andpriorities. The ebook market is largely made up of avid,story-orientated genre readers who will overlook nondescript writingand a certain amount of typos, if the story is compelling enough. Ispeak with experience here. On the other hand, the readers oftraditional published books are more likely bookish readers who placea greater emphasis on style and writing quality. There are few, ifany, grammar connoisseursreading self-published ebooks, so there’s no need to spendthousands of dollars to please them. Beta readers are sufficient.

So, all in all, I see promoting this expensive method of producing a self publishedbook as the best, and most ethical way of producing a book, as a form of gatekeeping. 

By setting such a very high financial bar for entryinto the self publishing market it discourages many would-beauthor/publishers from even attempting to publish their work, unless they already have thesix figure income necessary to spend, and likely lose, on theirpublishing project. And even if these authors did mentioned lessexpensive ways, the clear implication was that you needed to spendas much as you could scrape together to publish your book in a manner as close to theright and proper way as possible.

The reason, we are told, that these services are expensive is that these editors, artist, and such need to make a living. Most authors, traditionally published or self-published rarely make a living writing. But now we self-published authors are being told that we need to pay a living wage to these self-employed professionals, before the we ever have a chance to earn any money from our book at all. There is something wrong in the traditional book business where the the very basis of the business - the writer of the book - is paid the least. And so those promoting this unfair system for the self-publishing business, earn my wrath.

I view this message as a subtle method of gatekeeping. A way of keeping self-publishing to an exclusive group of would-be self-published authors - the well heeled and well connected. They want to close the gate behind them. 

There’s alwaysbeen people selling authors all sorts of schemes and services to sellbooks. Would-be authors are some of the greatest chumps in the world.It’s like shooting trout in a barrow. So this pitch, in a way, isjust the same old thing. But it is also different in that it isbeing promoted by people who are not trying to make money fromselling their secret to success. They might even be well meaning, andbelieve this is the right way to go about self-publishing a book.Anything is possible.

But still, the cynic in mesees it as a subtle way to discourage the competition in a field were thereis way too much competition – at least from an author’s point of view. Forthe readers, well, it’s a wonderful opportunity. I’m for the readers.The more books there are, the merrier.