Fantasy Aficionados discussion
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When to revise your book?
Randy wrote: "http://www.amazon.com/dp/0385199570The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition [Unabridged] "
Red wrote: "We've already covered the difference between issuing a significantly expanded Author's Preferred Edition with a new cover, new ISBN and clearly identifying subtitle, as opposed to sneaking in edits of the same book under the same ISBN and leaving two different readers, who think they've read the same book, with totally different experiences. I am not going to reiterate that conversation. "
THANK YOU, Red
My God, man! Don't you know the difference between a revision and an edition????!
Until you learn the difference, I will not respond to any of your comments that try to pawn the idea of a new EDITION as being the same thing as a constant REVISION. I suggest others do the same.
And, as a Mod, I want you to stop trying to derail the conversation with wrong information.
Seriously. It's tiresome and makes you look rather silly. EVERYONE has already pointed out to you that THERE IS A DIFFERENCE. No matter how much you don't want it to be.
very interesting comment and news today. I read it at Dear Author.Waterstones - a UK b&m book seller - is trying to lure readers away from Amazon. Their current plan is an exclusive deal with an author. The deal: customers who by the DTB format from Waterstones will receive an extra chapter not found in the ebook and the copy will be signed.
You would *think* this was a good idea, right? Instead, most of the people I know are pissed off about it. They don't want to hunt around for bonus features that are tied to a format they don't care for. They don't want to pay more money for a feature that should be attached to every single book.
One commenter said:
It’s analogous to the discussion we had a while back about revising self-published ebooks and not making clear that there are different versions. How do you have a conversation about the text, and what comprises the text in these cases?
I thought this comment was right on point as to our conversation.
MrsJoseph wrote: "very interesting comment and news today. I read it at Dear Author.Waterstones - a UK b&m book seller - is trying to lure readers away from Amazon. Their current plan is an exclusive deal with a..."
I can't help but think that this is really similar to the video game industry wherein a lot of gaming orgs. offer different sorts of content to different distributors. So on Amazon you'll get the figurine but on play.com you'll get an extra level of play or 'dlc' (downloadable content) seems like the publishing industry is catching up....
I can't help but think that this is really similar to the video game industry wherein a lot of gaming orgs. offer different sorts of content to different distributors. So on Amazon you'll get the figurine but on play.com you'll get an extra level of play or 'dlc' (downloadable content) seems like the publishing industry is catching up.... Agreed. It sounds very similar. Of course, gamers have been complaining about those tie-ins as long as they've existed, have mixed feelings on DLC (unless it's Day One, in which case the feeling is rage), and paradoxically pay for it all. It's a shame that this sort of thing is spreading to a new industry.
Natasha wrote: "I can't help but think that this is really similar to the video game industry wherein a lot of gaming orgs. offer different sorts of content to different distributors. So on Amazon you'll get the figurine but on play.com you'll get an extra level of play or 'dlc' (downloadable content) seems like the publishing industry is catching up.... "But on one really likes that. It's annoying - especially with books. I'm ok with extra features or special editions (sometimes) - at least those books are labeled "special edition." But it inhibits conversation. The rest of the post discussed how hard a book club has found discussing Captive Prince. It seems that each different format contains different information. Some have maps, some have additional chapters, etc. So - when one person speaks about something...only those with the same format can discuss. The rest are just clueless. The moderator for the club stepped back, located all the different formats with their different extras. It would cost the reader $35USD to have all the extras. Very unfair.
Now as a mod we're going to have to look into excluding even more books from options as group reads. We already exclude books that don't come in at least two formats (print and ebook - we've given some thought to excluding those without audio format for members who need audios but haven't done that as yet). Now we need to sort through books to make sure they don't have additional content related to the storyline of the book dependent on format. We have enough problems facilitating conversation. *sigh*
Steve wrote: "Agreed. It sounds very similar. Of course, gamers have been complaining about those tie-ins as long as they've existed, have mixed feelings on DLC (unless it's Day One, in which case the feeling is rage), and paradoxically pay for it all. It's a shame that this sort of thing is spreading to a new industry. "I agree about the rage. As I'm only a casual gamer...I've stopped caring about day of releases and I've stopped pre-ordering just for reasons like this. Now the only ordering I do is super sales. Can I get it for 40% off or less? No? Keep your game.
The difference between gaming and books, here, is that the game add ons do not really change the game. They may add content - like 10 levels - or make you able to play a different race - but the level is still the level and the race is still the race.Adding a chapter to a book totally changes the book. I would refuse to purchase any book by any author who chose to do this. IMHO - this is a poor way to avoid Amazon.
Snarktastic Sonja wrote: "Adding a chapter to a book totally changes the book. I would refuse to purchase any book by any author who chose to do this."Agreed.
Sometimes this drove me crazy about the BluRay/DVD release of movies I saw when they were given alternate endings, but at least the alternate endings were stored away in another section and the movie remained the same. I think I'd go nuts if the movie itself was changed in that fashion.
Terry wrote: "Sometimes this drove me crazy about the BluRay/DVD release of movies I saw when they were given alternate endings, but at least the alternate endings were stored away in another section and the mov..."I agree.
Terry wrote: "but at least the alternate endings were stored away in another section and the movie remained the same. I think I'd go nuts if the movie itself was changed in that fashion."I've had a number of DVDs where the first question asked is, "Theatrical release or Enhanced version/Director's cut?".
It sounds facile, but I support revising your MS till your eyes bleed to reduce corrections to later editions.
Whoa! Here's one to take note of:http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BV79DGI
Book Description:
First eight chapters only!! Not a complete book!!
One rewrite. Needs editing. If you read, please read primarily for story and content. There are known grammar issues and tense shifts, but if you see more, please let me know. Contact me with any feedback or editing suggestions.
If you do read for editing and I use your suggestions, you will be listed as a contributor once the final version is published.
Pick me, pick me! I want to provide free edit and reviews so I can have my name on a maybe-book!
Carol wrote: "Pick me, pick me! I want to provide free edit and reviews so I can have my name on a maybe-book!"I...can't tell if you're being sarcastic.
Carly wrote: "Carol wrote: "Pick me, pick me! I want to provide free edit and reviews so I can have my name on a maybe-book!"I...can't tell if you're being sarcastic."
Me either. It's such a glaringly awful idea that I'm unable to reach the heights of necessary sarcasm to fully mock it.
...Although come to think of it, an interactively crowdsourced novel might be fun to write, even if the result wouldn't be fun to read...
Carly wrote: "...Although come to think of it, an interactively crowdsourced novel might be fun to write, even if the result wouldn't be fun to read..."It's already been done. People who don't read got together and crowd sourced a romance ebook. *sigh*
Randy wrote: "Whoa! Here's one to take note of:http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BV79DGI
Book Description:
First eight chapters only!! Not a complete book!!
One rewrite. Needs editing. If you read, please read p..."
WOW. I've been saying that for the last 2 minutes.
I read that to my husband. He paraphrased it to, "Wanna read a bad book?!"
*facepalm*
Carly wrote: "...Although come to think of it, an interactively crowdsourced novel might be fun to write, even if the result wouldn't be fun to read..."Which is an idea that is kind of growing on me. Yikes.
How did he even get Amazon to list that thing as free. Hell, why did they even allow it up there ....
Terry wrote: "How did he even get Amazon to list that thing as free. Hell, why did they even allow it up there ...."I'm assuming...bots.
With fiction, I agree that adding new things like maps and pictures are a good reason to update. If you are told of a single typo, I'd file that info or look for more. If there are mistakes, you should immediately update. I update each book every time there is a new release so that my "other works by" are up-to-date. For my nonfiction, I haven't run into a situation where I can justify someone re-buying my books for a new edition, so I just update there as well.
Robby wrote: "With fiction, I agree that adding new things like maps and pictures are a good reason to update. If you are told of a single typo, I'd file that info or look for more. If there are mistakes, you sh..."There's a thread here that lists free Amazon Kindle books. That thread is updated with about 20+ new books on a daily basis.
There is no way in hell most people are going to update books and collect new books and read and review, etc.
I never check for new updates on books I've already read. That author has already earned their bad review/DNF from me and I've moved on. If I get an update notification, I usually ignore it.
I'm glad that some people are able to keep up with the swiftly changing tide that has become the Self-Published book.
Sadly, for a lot of people like me - who actually collect books to read and spend quite a great deal of money on them - I'm not doing it. It makes me feel that both me and my money are being disrespected.
But, that's just me.
Whoah, I feel like Sumi here - in a way very discouraged and disheartened by some of the comments. Disheartened because there seem to be an appalling number of self-pub writers out there who are too lazy to want to get their book to the best level possible before publishing it, and discouraged because it causes readers to start tarring all of us with the same brush.It's infinitely frustrating really - I personally did my utmost to ensure that my novel has no plot holes, no typos and no grammatical errors. It has been endlessly critiqued by my editor and beta readers, and I have probably read it about 35 times by now to ensure it was as good as I could possibly make it. However, until other people start reading and reviewing it, you only have my word for that. Except many people won't read (never mind review) it, because of the kind of examples people have mentioned above.
The thing is, I can't even blame anyone for doing so - I bought the self-published novel of a friend of a friend on the (possibly naive) assumption that they had taken as much care with their book as I have with mine, and had to leave off halfway through reading it, if only because the author didn't seem to know the difference between 'passed' and 'past'.
And after all that, I still discovered two typos in my book. Was that immensely annoying? Hell yes. Would I update and revise it because of that? Hell no. I cannot think of a single book I've ever read where I didn't come across one or two typos in the text. It happens.
Have I updated my book since it was published? Yes, last week, to include a better map, and to include the teaser chapter of the sequel, which hadn't been fully edited and beta-read at the time of first publication. At that point I did also fix those typos, but the book itself I wouldn't change. I have no idea whether an update went out to those people who already bought it, but reading the above comments I rather hope not.
It's just sad that so many self-pub authors don't have any integrity. =/
Erica - THANK YOU. That's pretty much all that we want. For authors to take pride in their work and want it to be the best it can be BEFORE it's put out for public consumption. For all my heat-of-the-moment swearing off of self-pubbed authors though, I am currently reading a self-pub book for review, and quite enjoying it. So all hope is not lost. ;)
Becky - my pleasure. *bows*It's just a shame that as an author I can't really go 'hey, I'm one of the good ones!' because as I said, you only have my own word for it. =)
@Erica - I know what you mean. I'm an author too and I try to make my manuscript as clean of errors and typos as possible before it even goes in front of the editor. One of the techniques someone suggested is to change the font before reading it for the umpteenth time. When we read our story in the same font multiple times, we stop seeing it really. Have you tried this technique? It works too.
Dean Wesley Smith stated today in his blog that the slush pile has moved into the pile of self-published books on Amazon. Yes, there are gems there (as there were in old slush piles), but there's a ton of crap also. Basically the new distribution method has made the reader the First Reader.I don't think this is horrible, but it does mean as readers we have to be more cautious before clicking that "Purchase" button, by using the Look Inside feature and/or downloading a sample. I sample ALL my books now, including traditionally published ones.
As a writer, I too went through multiple rounds of editing, so finding poorly edited books and parts of books out there just makes me grind my teeth. (I think it's even worse because I was an English major. Grammar mistakes are like fingers on chalkboard to me.)
Red wrote: "I'm not interested in being the first reader, myself, so I still only read fiction that has been through the traditional gatekeepers. I think if self-publication is going to succeed for more than t..."While I do read more SPAs than Red - I have not a smidgen of interest in being a first reader, either.
But I can say this. For quite a few years I was a hard core ebook reader. Now...I've been slowly sliding more and more back into print books. I just feel more comfortable knowing that the book has been properly edited. And print runs cost too much for the constant updating activity.
Becky wrote: "Erica - THANK YOU. That's pretty much all that we want. For authors to take pride in their work and want it to be the best it can be BEFORE it's put out for public consumption. "Quoted For Truth
So the updates aren't for people that have already read the book, although they're available if people want to re-read. I know I re-read my favorite novels every few years and it's always jarring to come across a typo here or there. It'd be nice if that was updated, but hard to do with paper books :pBut if a typo is discovered and you don't change it, then the next person that buys and reads your book is going to be jarred by it and the next and the next and the next.
Clearly there's a lot of indie-hate going on, but that seems to stem from quality and the idea of when to update is independent of quality. There are many reasons to update that have nothing to do with the quality of the editing. Anything from forewords, afterwords, author's notes, updates to the author's bio, updates to the "other works by", and then there's always the route that JRR Tolkien took, where he went back and started rewriting the Hobbit so that it fit better with Lord of the Rings. If the father of modern fantasy felt that updates could be good, then I don't think there's any reason to dismiss a book or author for updating. Releasing unfinished or rough/raw books is entirely different than uploading an updated version.
Also, I only have a handful of books myself on my Kindle library, but I have all of my own books/novels and I am never sent a notification for any update I publish. My first novel has been updated at least three times (once for each other work I release). I believe that notifications to re-download are only sent when a significant revision is made, not a minor one. I've yet to change the edition number and am waiting for a new cover and an in-book map to include before I go to 2nd edition, but I suspect that would trigger a round of notification e-mails.
This is really no different than traditional publishing. Minor updates/fixes can be included in future printings of the same edition while significant revisions cause a new edition.
Hmmmm.So, it seems that the majority of readers on this thread are on the side of not liking the updating trend.
And it seems that the majority of people who are for updating are authors.*
Why am I not surprised?
And - clearly - it's not "indie hate" but rather a dislike of the updating trend. Sadly, it's only SPAs who do this. Any traditional published author who decides to do the same...will garner the same feeling from me.
*excluding those SP authors who treat their work as if it were being printed and put in the work to garner reader confidence.
Robby wrote: "But if a typo is discovered and you don't change it, then the next person that buys and reads your book is going to be jarred by it and the next and the next and the next."Exactly. I said earlier that NOT fixing known typos is disrespectful to all future readers of the book. Because they could easily have been fixed.
I thought I was a minority of one. :)
Randy wrote: "I thought I was a minority of one. :) "Now you're a minority of two.
Red wrote: "I'm not interested in being the first reader, myself, so I still only read fiction that has been through the traditional gatekeepers. I think if self-publication is going to succeed for more than t..."And there's the clincher. I'd love to get my book published traditionally, and that gatekeeper you mention is of course the agent who pitches you to publishers. It's just that trying to get an agent as a first time writer with no proven success is like trying to squeeze milk from stones.
One of these catch-22 situations. =/
I'll never understand an argument against updating a book. Only significant revisions ping a notification, and those should be new editions anyway. Are people saying they would rather have the book unpublished and be forced to buy the new edition as a separate work? The idea that this is something only indie authors do is similarly hard to understand. If the people arguing against updating see it as a symptom of producing crap in the first place, then that is something I think we can all agree should be avoided. I personally don't want to scam people of their money so when I make updates to my books, I'm not going to force previous buyers to buy a new edition when they can re-download a new edition from the old one. Updating is not something that should be used to fix tarnished reputations, it should be used to provide a service to people already satisfied with your work and guarantee future readers are similarly satisfied.
Robby,From what I gathered earlier in the thread, it's a trust issue. There are enough indie authors who consider published books a work in progress and make major changes that some readers would rather see 5 typos in a book than a revision notice.
It's also a technology issue. In the world of physical books, if you want to make a change, it's at the very least a new print run. There might be minor differences between a hardcover and the second printing of the mass market paperback, but there's a clear demarcation. There's also space for new editions with major changes, but again, it's clearly demarcated.
Thanks Steve. Is the trust an issue even if you've already read the book and know its quality or is it just an issue when people download the free books offered without knowing anything about the book or author and then rarely get around to reading it? I teach for my day job so I don't have a ton of money to buy books and not read them, so maybe it is an issue I can't understand.
I've been thinking about this a great deal.It's a trust issue, it's a quality issue AND its a work ethic issue.
The fact is - when someone writes a book and it has to go through a print run...it's too expensive to be careless. Editing has to be as tight as possible because otherwise its a waste.
But now...anyone can publish a book and not spend a dime. The emphasis on quality and editing is not there - because it's simple and free to "update."
All the time - and I do mean all the time - I see SPAs screaming that "its not fair for a reader to give [the book] a bad review based on the fact that the editing/grammar/etc is piss poor." "I can't afford an editor until I sell lots of books!" is the battle cry. Meanies! Bullies! and the dreaded "I pushed out an update! You read the wrong version!"
What in the FUCK?!
Have we forgotten that book selling is a business? That most of yall are not in it for shits and giggles?
Are we really getting to the point that pushing out an inferior product is ok because updating is easy?
Would you have this same belief if you had to pay serious money for that new print run? For some strange reason, I don't think so.
So, my question is this: Why am I supposed to pay to be your beta reader??
No one expects the book to be perfect. Only God is perfect, the rest of us can only strive. Typos will happen.
Robby wrote: "Thanks Steve. Is the trust an issue even if you've already read the book and know its quality or is it just an issue when people download the free books offered without knowing anything about the book or author and then rarely get around to reading it? I teach for my day job so I don't have a ton of money to buy books and not read them, so maybe it is an issue I can't understand. "Well, I do have money to buy a bunch of books I haven't had a chance to read yet. The question here isn't to sit in judgement on those who do decide to buy books - the question is if you want to be one of the people who sells a book to one of those people. I'm sure that not a single author who's books I own are sitting around pissed off that they have my money but I haven't had a chance to read them yet.
MrsJoseph wrote: "I've been thinking about this a great deal.It's a trust issue, it's a quality issue AND its a work ethic issue...
All the time - and I do mean all the time - I see SPAs screaming that "its not fair for a reader to give [the book] a bad review based on the fact that the editing/grammar/etc is piss poor." "I can't afford an editor until I sell lots of books!" is the battle cry. Meanies! Bullies! and the dreaded "I pushed out an update! You read the wrong version!""
Yeah, you can't start a business and expect it to grow if you take the attitude of, "Just give me the money, man, I'm new at this. Cut me some slack."
I've spent no small amount of time on author forums, and the public bitching about low review scores is disgusting. There's definitely a pretty common sense of entitlement.
Olga - no, I haven't tried changing the font, but it sounds like an interesting thing to try! Thanks for the tip. :)
MrsJoseph wrote: "Randy wrote: "I thought I was a minority of one. :) "Now you're a minority of two."
Make that three :-) I have no problem with authors fixing typos (which are mistakes, after all). They can happen to anyone. One of the worst offenders was the first ebook I bought - George R R Martin's Game of Thrones. A few months later, I was notified of an updated version. That's fine by me.
That's not to say authors/publishers shouldn't strive to eliminate such mistakes, and nobody should be putting out material that hasn't been through a proper editing process in the first place. And heaven preserve us all from authors who change the substance of the story after publication! But correcting typos? No big deal.
Let me first be clear and say I strive to put out the best book I can. I hire a cover artist, an editor. My maps I do myself because I am very, very good at them. I do my own formatting because again, I am very, very good at it. So now to play devil's advocate a bit. Don't kill me Mrs. J :)The book selling is a business goes both ways. First, we have no idea who started this trend of updating books. It's not limited to SPAs. Big pubs do it too and NOT always as a new edition.
Here's my point on it being a business goes both ways and why although we can blame an SPA for what he does, can we say you absolutely should not have done it IF we are looking at it from a BUSINESS stand point? First let me run some numbers from last summer.
July SPA sales numbers
The numbers since then have only gotten BETTER.
My point is that there are plenty SPAs selling whose books that are in dire need of editing. Take a look at some of the top books in Urban Life. There are many in fantasy. There are many everywhere. Many are SELLING and garnering good reviews. How? I ask myself the same thing, but one way is because of the story.
One of my favorite SPA books was Blood Song. It was in need of editing, but it was an awesome story. The READERS, en masse, ignored the editing issues or only mentioned them in passing and still gave the book 4 or 5 stars. Penguin signed the author. Penguin then edited the book and reissued it in an update.
There are other examples out there.
So if we were to look at it from a pure business stand point, then a lot of SPAs are hoping to be the next Ryan or James, or whoever else puts out books that became a success and yet still needed updates or editing.
There are plenty of mid list SPAs out there as seen by the list and quite a few making better than mid list. When an SPA gets a taste or sees a person they know doing it, they might think, why can't I? Does this excuse the whole editing issue for either an SPA or a trad pub or the whole too many update issue? No.
But if we're looking at it from a business stand point, there's two sides of the coin. The side that does everything necessary and might or might not make it. And the side that knows their books needs a pro editor and still puts it out, because the big pubs are willing to pick up those who SHOW they can sell.
Don't get it twisted. That's all the big pubs care about. Green.
Many SPAs who sign a deal STILL selfpub because it IS a lucrative business. The Trad deal just helps them get their name even bigger and draws in the folks who would only buy traditionally pubbed books.
I mean, Sanderson self publishes some of his work now and will continue to do so. Dalglish just signed 6 books to Orbit, 6 to Amazon 47North, and will STILL self pub. I remember just recently my friend, Mark Lawrence, had this to say about his earnings when Prince of Thorns went on sale on Amazon and bypassed Game of Thrones in rank.
Prince of Thorns sales on Amazon
I've made this longwinded post to say: Although it's a business and not every business is successful or not every business does the right thing, it's also more like the lotto. You know the chances on you winning are like 0.000000001%. Do you still play Mega Ball when that Jackpot is a few 100 million? I sure do.
MrsJoseph wrote: Well, I do have money to buy a bunch of books I haven't had a chance to read yet. The question here isn't to sit in judgement on those who do decide to buy books - the question is if you want to be one of the people who sells a book to one of those people. I'm sure that not a single author who's books I own are sitting around pissed off that they have my money but I haven't had a chance to read them yet "Are you saying that I am sitting in judgement? I think you've mistaken me for you. All I am saying is that you are entangling the ideas of updating-a-book with indie-authors-doing-a-piss-poor-job.
I am glad that you have enough money to buy books you don't have time to read. What sort of system do you go through to choose your books? Do you have a trusted reviewer? It seems that you need to be making sure that you are spending money on books that are not of piss-poor quality and it might help some of the vitriol you feel over owning books that are that poor.
Personally, as an author, I am not sitting around counting the dollars I am making from my writing (well, I do count them, but I don't count on them). I'd much rather get through to people and know that they are enjoying what I am putting out at this point. Maybe things will change if I ever can afford to quit one or two of my day jobs and writing becomes something more than my dream of what I want to do with my life.
I agree with all of your points about what authors should not do and all of the things you are complaining about *EXCEPT* when you say they shouldn't update it if they find a mistake or want to include bonus content or even have a new edition with a cover, images, new front matter, back matter of whatever.
If wanting to provide extra content for free (which is one NICE thing about software patches and updates everyone is overlooking) means that I've lost a reader that has these biases, then I've lost those readers. I think that makes my product MORE attractive and that refusing to change makes an author seem as an ostrich with their head buried in the sand.
Maybe it's the mathematician in me and not the author, but to people that have already bought the books it appears as though the book was good enough at that level to purchase and read (whether you read it or not), so an update would mean that it is at least as good as when you purchased it (and probably better) so it is hard for me to see that as a bad thing.
I no longer give a shit.Do what you do. I've had enough of it. Yall can talk amongst yourselves about what a great thing it is. I'll just keep my money to myself.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0385199570
The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition [Unabridged]