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Where Did I Go Wrong???
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message 101:
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Jen
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Jun 04, 2014 12:54PM
Thank you!
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Henry, I can have unicorns driving around in tanks?! Put someone on this - NOW!!!
Oh, and you were hiding behind the couch...
No, that makes sense. When I started this, I had a lot of questions. Many people are leery of formally rejecting work based on their own preferences. I wanted to give the most thorough guidelines I could come up with for others to reference in order to judge a book. Whether they are followed or not is up for debate, but that's okay. When others read through my list, they get an idea of the sorts of things they should be looking for, and no one opinion will ever decide the fate of any one title.
As to cover art - I do understand the struggle many selfies (LOL!) face here, and formatting, too, can be difficult to manage alone. However, this is supposed to be a professional product, and it should look like one.
I consider myself more harsh on screening, simply because it's a snapshot of the work. From that brief glimpse, everything really needs to (at least) appear to be above-board.
Jen wrote: "Linda wrote: "Even I'm not that picky! :-("Well, now I feel bad...
Okay, that's a lie. When it comes to screening, there's no excuse for more than three errors in a twenty page sample. It's twe..."
To what does twenty pages correspond in word count?
Stan wrote: "...To what does twenty pages correspond in word count?"According to my references 20 pages would represent approximately 4,000 to 5,000 words.
So, no more than three errors in 5,000 words? That seems fair. As a reader I could live with that if the book was a good read, and as a writer I would be embarrassed if I had more errors.
Jen wrote: "However, this is supposed to be a professional product, and it should look like one..."I think on the surface a self-published book should be virtually indistinguishable from a trade-published book. And the content should be better than a trade-published book...
Of course that's easy for me to say... *grin*
I won't argue that with you, Martyn. Hell, I think I said exactly the same thing in my review of Reprobate...
Jen wrote: "I won't argue that with you, Martyn. Hell, I think I said exactly the same thing in my review of Reprobate..."The thing is, it doesn't necessarily take tons of money to put out a professional product, so the whole 'I cannot afford an editor/formatter/cover artist' is just an excuse.
Putting out a professional product does take a lot of effort and patience and learning new skills. And I have the feeling many self-publishers don't want to take the time, don't want to put forth the effort, or simply claim to lack the patience to do what I did.
But if they don't want to invest time putting out the semblance of a professional product, why should I waste my time reading their 'cobbled-together rough draft' posing as 'book'?
Sometimes I see authors offer a 'money-back-guarantee' and I think they're clueless. Reimbursing whatever I paid for the book is useless to me. And they cannot give me back the time I wasted on their 'book'.
That is why I joined The Source, Jen. To make sure that readers could find books that didn't waste their time.
I won't say I spent "tons" of money, but I did consider starting my indie author career as starting a small business. There are upfront costs to getting a quality product on the market. It's been under thousand per book, but I write long books, so editing does take a chunk of change even though she charges me the lowest rate per page because my ms don't need major work. I hire a proofreader after editing, and a cover artist. I wouldn't have opened my yoga studio (back when I had that business) if I couldn't have afforded the initial costs of starting the business. I would not have published my first book if I could not afford the professional assistance to get started. I think indie authors need to be realistic about the costs and about their ability to self-edit.
You make a good point, Amber.I was talking to the father of a girl who has dancing lessons with my daughter. He happens to trade on the online stock markets and he told me not to be discouraged selling only about a book a day, because most small businesses fold within two years and only a small percentage actually gets out of the red and starts turning a profit within two years.
If it helps, I joined a while ago and screened one book. I check the list every once in a while to see if there's something in a genre I'm interested in (mystery). There rarely is so that's why I haven't screened more books.
M.D. wrote: "If it helps, I joined a while ago and screened one book. I check the list every once in a while to see if there's something in a genre I'm interested in (mystery). There rarely is so that's why I h..."M.D., I'm working on that...
