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Self Publishing an INSULT to the written word
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R.L.
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Feb 18, 2017 03:16PM
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The Huffington Post is garbage! I don't listen to anything from that "publication" If you can even call it that. Take it with a grain of salt. I would.
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I know but just the audacity of some of these traditionally published snobs. I guess when you have people like Amanda Hocking, J.A Huss and Liliana Hart making millions and getting to actually KEEP them, that has them pissed, but don't devalue anyone's hard work.
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Her article is horrible and should never have been published."
Seriously. I need to find that rebuttal lol. At least someone put her in her place.
Oh yeah I know! I totally get it! It irritates me too, but I would rather just ignore it. Let them be snobs it doesn't change anything. They are probably just miserable people and you know what they say? Misery loves company!
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So very true
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Author Brad Thor agrees: “The important role that publishers fill is to separate the wheat from the chaff. If you’re a good writer and have a great book you should be able to get a publishing contract.”
Yes- so we are force fed whatever someone else's concept of "literature" is. I wonder who is separating Dan Brown or Clive Cussler's wheat from chaff. I can name a dozen A lister authors who are churning out the same crap. I just read The Chemist this weekend- I guess whomever was chaffing the wheat took time off and let another one slip through. Books are subjective- they appeal to us on a personal level. What I considered great literature when I was a kid, I'm bored with today. I've read many books, and while they may not appeal to me- I know they hit someone else on a primal level. The "gatekeepers" only care about money. Once you've had a hit, you can churn out garbage and they manipulate publicity making it a classic.
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Lol i can imagine!
I read both traditionally and self-published books. I'm not afraid. The beauty of Amazon is that people now have more choices. I'm all about discovering self-published books that are great (and I have!). Maybe the books this author has been exposed to aren't her cup of tea. Bound to happen since books are so subjective. Amazon is smart to offer the 'look inside' feature. I can usually tell if a book is for me before the end of chapter one.
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A client eventually hooked me up with a big Hollywood agent. I considered myself touched by stardust. He sent it everywhere and it was rejected. Finally after about two years, he returned it, but it was an exciting year, even if nothing happened.
I forgot to add my point. They liked my book, actually liked it, but decided not to publish it because some "suit" decided it wouldn't fit the trend. They were predicting what people would read based on what they wanted them to read.
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I maybe wrong but David Brown's Da Vinci Code was refused buy all the traditional publishers he querried and look how things turned around. Stephn King once said he was surprised to see his publisher accept what he considered as pure trash written during his let's say drinking problem years .Self-publishing is an option writers have and has nothing to do with the existence of more lower quality writing than traditional publishing.
P.S. Sorry about my English, I maybe had one too many. LOL
Don't let this insult you!If you don't plan to read this article, I'll sum it up. The author had little or no understanding of how much work is involved with self-publishing. She takes pride in her work and doesn't want to see it diminished by those who bypass the 'gatekeepers' of traditional publishing. Seems like she was under the impression most of us spend November writing a novel and press publish on Dec. 1st.
Everyone here knows it doesn't work that way. From what I've read, many long-time traditionally published authors are also self-publishing now because it makes good business sense. Please, don't let silly articles get you down.
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If you don't plan to read this article, I'll sum it up. The author had little or no understanding of how much work is involved with self-publishing. She takes pride in h..."
You're so right about that too CC. A lot of trad published authors are secretly asking self-pubbers what they have to do to break away lol, saw that in a Joanna Penn interview recently and thought it was hilarious
Well I'm certainly not reading that article. I have enough in my own head to deal with. I've had a few things "liked" by trad publishing that didn't get through and I hit a self imposed deadline and couldn't wait any longer so I did it myself. I could mention one very successful erotica series that I and a lot of the critics think was badly written but it was picked up by trad publishing and was huge. That was recent. There was one years ago before the ability to self publish that was also published. I have been rejected for less than the flaws in that one.
Just because these people working in publishing have a salary doesn't make them right all the time. And just because someone has a trad publishing contract doesn't automatically make them any good. It only makes them lucky.
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I looked up her books. One of them has almost the same number of ratings that mine has, but mine has been out for three months whereas hers was published over ten years ago. And her average rating is lower than mine. Another of hers, published last year, has a third the number of ratings as mine, and also a lower average rating.
Sour grapes? Poor woman. She wants to believe that she's different from the rest of the struggling writers out there.
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I like the control I have over self-publishing. I publish as many as I want, when I want on the subjects I like. I spend a lot of time finding people who have similar interests to read and have widened my social circle in ways I've never imagined.
While I wouldn't mind the prestige of being selected by the "guys in the know," and I realize in my son's case, there will be no movie deal unless he is published traditionally- in a lot of ways, I prefer this.
That same article was mentioned and talked about on another group thread. I have been on both sides of the spectrum trad and indie publishing. Let's just say I have no regrets about being indie. I don't have to be restricted or worry about defying authority. I've been rejected and also accepted by (at least one) trad publishers, I've been told by trad publishers "I have a unique insight into mankind," but and there's the "but" coming, "we can't market that." I took as "What a lovely compliment, hmm well I may as well market this quality of mine myself, since they weren't capable." That compliment I take with me always when I write, a perfect quality to have as an indie author, don't you think? I also majored in Journalism, English literature, Psychology, Liberal Arts and three colleges later I still knew I was going to be an indie, I knew it when I was 19 and dropped out of my Journalism.
When I told my professor I wanted to drop her journalism class she said "You'll never make it." I smiled and said, "We'll see about that." I dropped out of the class because it consistently subdued my natural talents, prior to taking the class I had been writing for six years and had been accepted for a publishing contract with Harlequin, when I was fifteen (Harlequin didn't know my age at the time, by the way) which my mother encouraged me to take, but I turned the contract down because the pressure to be restricted in to a single genre and also because I didn't think they were going to accept me so I had only a chapter or two and hadn't decided to finish the whole novel, since I was expecting to be rejected anyway.
Back to why I drop the journalism class, I wrote for my college newspaper and the student yearbook, it wasn't because I couldn't do journalism, it's because I didn't like the fact that once I wrote the articles they were edited so much that my writing voice wasn't there anymore, people at my college were coming up to me and saying "I love your articles," or "I love what you wrote," I'd tell them "I didn't write that." They'd always look with a surprised or disappointed look on their faces. "I would tell them I actually wrote the article better.
The editor edited so much that only a very few words were used that I actually wrote. I thought what's the point. I know I can and have done better. So I told my professor about how I felt and why and she made her comment after she signed the papers to give me permission to allow me to withdraw from the class. I wanted my original writing voice to be heard and it wasn't. It was being stifled.
It was only when I was in literature class in college that my voice could finally be heard, which was years later, when I wrote critical literary analysis papers as an assignment on Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne's works and on Bertrand Russell's philosophical works. I still have those on my flash drive. I'm hoping to make a collection of them and produce a book of my critical analysis on those among others. I always got all A's on literary and philosophy type stuff.
I also took a Philosophy class which I excelled. Point being those things among other experiences I can use in my writing as indie, which probably wouldn't be appreciated or subdued by mainstream publishing. I freedom as an indie. And as far as that article says about indies, I don't care. I've been doing and have been in this writing/publishing industry for nearly three decades, what they say is just static and I have had no problem making noise like that irrelevant. R.L. don't let that bring you down. Ok, I'm done. Mic drop.
That's a good point, Carole. I guess I expected anything from Big 5 to sell millions or even tens of thousands of copies, but I'm learning that books that achieve these figures are the exception, not the rule, of trad publishing.
Marie wrote: "That's a good point, Carole. I guess I expected anything from Big 5 to sell millions or even tens of thousands of copies, but I'm learning that books that achieve these figures are the exception, n..."Yep, and the book companies only invest in marketing for proven authors (like King or Grisham). So, heck, even if you started out self published just to prove that your books could sell, it could increase your chances not only of getting a Big 5 publication on your next book, but getting actual marketing dollars spent on you.
1. CL- Interesting that this trad published author doesn't have zillions of reviews.2. Angel-I'm too weird to be traditionally published, I'd be edited out of all recognition.
3. Alex-I don't deal with people well. I prefer lizards.
But if that offer I had had come in without the £2300 price tag attached I would have gone down that route like a shot. (And probably have been out of pocket £2300!)
Once attended a book signing with a bestselling author who said because of the success of the first book the publishers pushed her so much for another bestseller that she had a nervous breakdown. Maybe being an indie is better for your mental health!
Amy wrote: "1. CL- Interesting that this trad published author doesn't have zillions of reviews.Nope. I checked Amazon, too. I have more Amazon reviews than some of her books do, and one of them was published through Penguin.
She makes a lot of assumptions in the article which are just wrong:
1. That self publishers are people who couldn't get published through publishing presses so they just published themselves. False. I didn't get rejected a billion times, or even once. I never sent it out. I mean, publishers rejected JK ROWLING thirteen times. Like yours, Amy, my book is weird. Not "marketable". So I chose not to go that route.
2. That self publishing is the lazy way to go. Oh, heck no. It just means I had to pay for my own editing and book cover, and do the marketing myself. She didn't. Now who's lazy?
Also, I note that a lot of the negative reviews of her books on Amazon and Goodreads complain that she seems full of herself.
So...
This article is just plain wrong and I'm astounded her publishers allowed it to go to print. You can't judge the millions of self published books by a sample size of 12. It's ridiculous!Are there poorly written self published books out there? Yes. And I could say the same of traditionally published books.
The part that really proves how out of touch she is is her claim that you only self publish if you can't get traditionally published. What a load! Hugh Howey anyone?
I've seen several articles like this before and I'm sure it won't be the last. One of the local arts magazines in my area recently published an article with a similar (false) conclusion that all self-published books are bad. Then the rest of the magazine focused on local bands who are trying to get the CDs recorded in their garages out to the people, and experimental plays that are performing in non-traditional theaters. The fact that they couldn't see the irony astounded me.
M.K. wrote: "I've seen several articles like this before and I'm sure it won't be the last. One of the local arts magazines in my area recently published an article with a similar (false) conclusion that all se..." Excellent point. Funny how Indie is respected in so many other kinds of arts, but not writing.
Alex wrote: "@Amy LIZARDS!!!!! I love lizards, I was going to get myself one of the big ones once but couldn't afford it at the time. My favourite is the Komodo Dragon, I think they're awesome."
Those things are huge! We've got a bearded dragon. She's 17 inches long, flies and breathes fire. I lied...about the inches-she's 18 inches long.
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I spoke with a well-known romance writer at a conference. She was writing under a different name with her husband- YA- enough so that he could quit his day job. She was toying with the idea of going completely indie. She said she usually got five figures for a book-( when I pressed- she told me about 70 thousand for a book- I am shameless- I wanted to know). then she would get royalties. She was a New York Times Best selling romance writer. She was sick of their games and liked the indie model better. She said right now the ball seems to be in their court because traditionally published authors a re leveraging to get better deals from the publishers with the threat that they'll go indie.
However, there was a lot of press there and one asked us if Scholastic offered to become our publisher, every author said they would give up being indie, except for me. How could I say that- I was there as a guest of KDP highlighting the ease of self-publishing. So, in retrospect- would I do it? Maybe for LOTS of money- but it would have to be a ton.
C.L. wrote: "M.K. wrote: "I've seen several articles like this before and I'm sure it won't be the last. One of the local arts magazines in my area recently published an article with a similar (false) conclusio..."That's because indie music is seen as a more free-spirited genre where as the art of writing, the written word is seen as the kind that should be restrictive, to fit in a certain mold.
Carole wrote: "She was probably asked by her publisher to write the article and they got it publishing in the HP. I've been asked by some of our big players to do exactly the same thing- from our point of view. K..."Wow to all of that.
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My favourite is the Komodo Dragon, I think they're awesome."
..."
Wow- to that too- who cleans up the poop?
That'd be me. It's my daughters lizard of course.
That is a rather sad article. There have been so many indie publishing success stories (The Martian anyone??) and now there so many people creating amazing works and series of books, it's like a renaissance!
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Yes, but realistically, once they hit that jackpot- they are not staying indie. The Martian is now published by Broadway Books- part of Crown publishing. Vintage- which is part of Knopf published Fifty Shades. That being said, I'm proud to be an indie author and I'm sure they were too- but when they start throwing money at you, I guess it's easy to switch sides.
I will say that I've been told in order to be bought by a production company- they prefer to partner with books that are traditionally published. Maybe they had to go traditional in order to get the movie deal.
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I'd imagine that is a full-time job."
One of the many hats I wear. lol
Carole wrote: "She was probably asked by her publisher to write the article and they got it publishing in the HP. I've been asked by some of our big players to do exactly the same thing- from our point of view. K..."Wow that's extremely interesting!
"I've read some excellent indie published books, and I've read trad published that was rubbish."This. I've read trad published with errors as well, so that excuse, (it's a clean, well edited book) doesn't fly either. Too many novels published by the Big 5 have also been so edited they blend in to one another. I don't mind a few mistakes here and there if the story is good, the characters are excellent and it speaks with a unique voice. Publishing, (and to some extent the entertainment media as a whole), seems intent on pushing out predictable, homogeneous content; Indie gives an alternative to that.
I read that article not long after it came out and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the overwhelming majority of the comments (at the time), were in defence of Indies.
Ah yes another pet peeve-every book having to be the same as the next. No. If everything gets edited to sound like everything else where is the originality?
Holly wrote: ""I've read some excellent indie published books, and I've read trad published that was rubbish."This. I've read trad published with errors as well, so that excuse, (it's a clean, well edited book..."
Need like buttons for this Holly!!
