Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion
III. Goodreads Readers
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Why don't more people read Self-published authors?
Linda wrote: "One thing I would add to Martyn's comments to Ripley is this:
I remember the bad old days when a writer might wait weeks or months or sometimes even years to hear back from a publisher on whether ..."
I was also a fugitive from those bad old days, abandoning writing some years ago after a moderate amount of success among the small magazines. Back then you would get readers' comments about the flaws in your stories, and most of us knew not to respond. I left writing because some of the editors made writing worse than it needed to be, and discouragement reached a critical point. The first publisher I sent my first novel to kept it 2 1/2 years after telling me it had passed the "first readers." False hope. The second publisher kept it 6 months, and rejected it by saying, like the first, that it was "well written," but giving no other clear reason for rejection. (By the way, I recently looked at that novel and found that it was soundly based, but had major, and correctable flaws; why didn't they tell me that -- after keeping it for so long?). But, aside from vague rejections, or rejections simply because of budget, the process itself also discouraged me. It was expensive, with the postage and typewriter ribbons and paper, not to mention photocopying. So you have formatting problems? You have problems marketing your book? At least you can put your book "out there" at little or no cost, with the major effort being the actual writing. This was a long time coming, and very much welcomed.
I remember the bad old days when a writer might wait weeks or months or sometimes even years to hear back from a publisher on whether ..."
I was also a fugitive from those bad old days, abandoning writing some years ago after a moderate amount of success among the small magazines. Back then you would get readers' comments about the flaws in your stories, and most of us knew not to respond. I left writing because some of the editors made writing worse than it needed to be, and discouragement reached a critical point. The first publisher I sent my first novel to kept it 2 1/2 years after telling me it had passed the "first readers." False hope. The second publisher kept it 6 months, and rejected it by saying, like the first, that it was "well written," but giving no other clear reason for rejection. (By the way, I recently looked at that novel and found that it was soundly based, but had major, and correctable flaws; why didn't they tell me that -- after keeping it for so long?). But, aside from vague rejections, or rejections simply because of budget, the process itself also discouraged me. It was expensive, with the postage and typewriter ribbons and paper, not to mention photocopying. So you have formatting problems? You have problems marketing your book? At least you can put your book "out there" at little or no cost, with the major effort being the actual writing. This was a long time coming, and very much welcomed.
Martyn V. wrote: "Ripley, I read your post with attention and I will check out your blog later,Please do! There you will find I've been around the block a few times, and though I rarely socialize with other writers, I do read widely other's blogs. Sometimes I comment, sometimes I don't. I'm also a man. The pic is on my blog, but I like the Ripley King persona, so will stick with her.
Over the last few years, and you can safely say the last two, is where the indie movement took root and really bloomed. I was there with them, and when Amazon brought out the KSP, I watched while others bailed on Smashwords. My sales dropped to zero with the invent of Amazon's KSP, but I made a decision to continue with Smashwords. My sales never recovered in following year, and I read dozens of other writers, in their blogs, wonder why. I also read other authors gain great traction with with Amazons KSP, and their constant giveaways. Yet, I lived by my decision to stick by Smashwords, and their wonderful distribution network.
I had friends up the wazoo on facebook, tweeted, and got creative with my own giveaways, on ordinary giveaway blogs. Coupon codes ruled.
The freebie newsletters had yet to be born.
My covers were those I painted myself, and they were good for my skills as an illustrator. The avatar is one of my pen and inks. You can go to my facebook page for more of my art. It's there somewhere.
I weighed options then, and gave up my then persona, Facebook, twitter, blog, and reinvented myself. For the last year and a half I've been Ripley King.
I tore through my books, editing, fixing, learning from my mistakes, and found a way to generate some great covers for free, and the digital cover art craze for me was sweet. There is a learning curve with the digital 3D art.
I made the Corner to help other writers. I invited dozens of writers to post guest blogs, and their books on my shelves, and gained twitter followers, almost 3000 followers. I posted articles on writing, editing, publishing, marketing, gained readers, but they were all ghosts.
I got nowhere. Sucks to be me. I laugh about it now.
So I bailed on Smashwords, did the KSP for the last year, and about four months into 2013, discovered the best kept secret on the Web, the Freebie Newsletters, all brought about for those who used the KSP. Their review requirements brought about the birth of the pay for fake reviews industry. Only, I couldn't do that. I knew my books could earn their reviews on their own merits.
I decided to pull through all my material again, look for more mistakes, make changes for the good of the story, posting all new updated files, and got off the KSP. I'm still working through the process of getting back on Smashwords, and their distribution network is slow. I'll contact them about that, see if I can light a fire under their butts.
The freebie newsletters are what they are, and many will not feature Smashwords. Most still have their review requirements. And yes, I should update my Goodreads profile and pages.
But, folks, don't forget the point I was trying to make. If online doesn't work for you for whatever reasons, get creative with offline.
Find your readers.
And, do read my blog. The signs look cool.
Read some of my samples, if you want. I'm a cheap date.
But for me to STFU, never. My reasons for that are there on my blog, too.
Martyn V. wrote: " If you're eager and not careful, you sell your right away for a long period"You're right, and it's not something that would happen anyway, unless I had sales like Hugh Howey - and I'd have to in order to be in any kind of negotiating position.
If ever such a thing happens, I think the hardest part would be to have the will and good sense to resist wanting to sign due to desire to be "published" and fulfill an ill-advised dream.
Going it alone is tough, but will be better in the long-run. But I have plenty of time to develop my skills before I'll have to worry about having a dream conflict.
I get good feedback and plenty of sales, but I'm not letting that delude me into thinking I don't have a lot of room for improvement.
And now I’ll continue as if I haven’t been off this thread for a day and a half….This conversation has amply established that people who avoid reading self-published books do so because of poor writing and low editing quality, the main reasons I shun most SPAs. To me, an equivalent problem is that in general self-published works are missing something indefinable that overcomes my aversion to a well-written book with minor editorial deficiencies (can’t stand either a mediocre but well-edited book or an interesting one with boo-boos up the wazoo, although I’ll grant you that “mediocre” and “interesting” are completely subjective and that my tolerance for mistakes is quite low). I’ve read books with less-than-beautiful editing that I’ll read over and over because of this intangibility. Yes, the errors still bother me; at times I write snide comments in the books’ margins so I can at least have a laugh when I run across the stupid errors again and won’t be so tempted to experiment with tome-tossing as a sport. But I do reread them regardless, and I can’t explain why.
I checked the sample chapters of several authors participating in this thread, and some of them were well written, but they didn’t have that elusive element that draws me. I skedaddled long before the end of the first page in each case. I’m beginning to suspect that a much higher percentage of books with this facet are published traditionally, which may partially explain why more people don’t read SPAs—they have to wade through the blurbs and samples of far too many books to find one that has it. For example, at a guess, if I were to pick 50 indie books and 50 traditionally published books and read their blurbs, assuming that something about them had piqued my interest and that all were well written and edited, I’d probably want to read 30 of the trad books and be interested enough in another 10 to read beyond the first page of the sample chapter, whereas I doubt that more than 1 of the indie books would hold my attention.
I think that what I’m referring to goes beyond my preferences in reading material. But I could be crazy.
Ripley wrote: "Please do! There you will find I've been around the block a few times, and though I rarely socialize with other writers, I do read widely other's blogs. Sometimes I comment, sometimes I don't. I'm also a man. The pic is on my blog, but I like the Ripley King persona, so will stick with her..."I read your blog and I commend your persistence. I do get a feeling that earning money through your writing seems important (re: mentioning your low income and food stamps). I don't know if writing/publishing fiction is the best way to earn some extra income. Even if your writing is stellar, quality writing does not equal success.
Edward wrote: "If ever such a thing happens, I think the hardest part would be to have the will and good sense to resist wanting to sign due to desire to be "published" and fulfill an ill-advised dream..."I've played these 'what if'-games, and I found that my personal integrity was more important than cold hard cash. However, that's 'easy' for me to say, because--while I'm far from wealthy--I have no financial problems, which is one of the reasons many writers want the 'security' of a publishing contract.
Another reason is the validation. If a publisher wants to sink money into publishing your book, it must be a good book, right? Alas, publishers are not the 'gatekeepers of quality writing'. While they do have professional standards, I never had a problem meeting them, so it's not about the quality, it's the commercial mass appeal. And while my books were appealing enough to get offers, the offers themselves were carefully crafted to profit mainly the publisher with as little risk as possible. The contracts were so restrictive, I stood a lot to lose, and only validation to gain.
I don't need a publishing contract to validate my writing. My readers are enthusiastic and I get great reviews and feedback, which is all the validation I need.
C.M.J. wrote: "I’m beginning to suspect that a much higher percentage of books with this facet are published traditionally,"I would say to that: of course!
A tiny percentage of books submitted to traditional publishers get published. They usually manage to select the cream of the crop (although are also known to pass on what later become bestsellers.)
On the other hand, you have the world's largest slushpile.
I don't think anyone would argue your conclusion that you'll find better books in the Trad pile than the Slush pile.
That's why I've been saying (along with others here and there) that what the indie community needs is an association to help filter the wheat from the chaff.
Indies need their own vetting process to separate those who are serious about their art from those who wrote a first draft, got confirmation from their sub-literate Wattpad friends that it was "great" and then published on Amazon.
We want readers to take us as seriously as trad authors, but we can't blame the readers for not doing so as long as there's no way to differentiate anything.
And yes, there's sampling and book covers, etc., but none of that is concrete proof of anything. Some great writers have no clue about how to get a cover made and can't afford a designer, etc. Others, such as myself can't write a description worth a crap.
Publishers have the benefit of filtering out anything and everything that doesn't meet high standards, giving them a good yield of profitable, quality books.
Indies need to do something similar. One such effort is taking place here on GR with The Source project. I encourage indies who would like to participate in a volunteer vetting process to check it out. Submit your book for screening, and help screen others.
Let's try to find a way to make it easier for readers to choose good indie books.
Edward wrote: "Let's try to find a way to make it easier for readers to choose good indie books..."Join the source and volunteer to screen and review indie/self-published books.
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
I honestly mean no offense to people who are participating in The Source, or publicizing it.But why are random volunteers considered any sort of vetting organization? If any reader or writer can sign up to be in that group, how is it more valuable than trusting reviewers to do the screening for us?
I hate to say 'show us your credentials' because it kind of makes my teeth itch, and yet...
Interns and new hires at traditional publishing houses do not get to start making purchases on their own right away. They are taught by people who have been doing their job for years and often decades. They have consistent, house-based standards they're looking for and have to really fight for their authors if they happen to find a new writer they feel deserves a chance.
I realize that it's a matter of majority rules over there, but why should we trust that members of the Source have any more experience picking "good" or "quality" books over non than Joe Average on the street? And if they don't, then what's the real benefit behind having members of the Source say a book is worth a reader's time?
Readers do have a way to choose good indie books. First these indie books have to catch their attention. Then if they want to read the sample provided they can. Smashwords has proven the bigger the sample, the more likely the reader will buy.It's so simple. I like it.
Now if Amazon would provide 50% samples.
Catching the reader's attention. That's the problem. That's why I'm going offline this year, and doing so cheaply, but in a big way.
This is a business. It's a fun business, but it's still a business. I should be able to make money at it, the world over. I don't see why I can't.
A Bookbub ad for a mystery or crime thriller runs about $1250.00 for one ad, one day, to over 18,000 plus subscribers. I would pay about $150.00 for each book, one ad, one day. I'll have to work on my offline, as well as my online marketing to get to that point.
For me, online barely works. I have enough to do in one day here at home, and with my new material, online is a chore. Rack me for that too.
The way I see it, we all need some new ideas, and I offered some. I asked for comments on my ideas. I wanted to share my new ideas with you, as well as my blog readers. So far your preaching to the Pope.
Marketing equals success.
How to market, and new ideas are needed. You can only do so much online, with only so many new eyes to go around. Once you run out of these new eyes, you have to find more eyes.
The ratio of readers to writers here on Goodreads is what?
You here have done all you can online, and now you need new ideas. I offered some. Crazy works, and sometimes you got to suck it up and drop trou'. Nobody has yet to say something, even one thing here about even one idea. What's up with that?
S.L. wrote: "But why are random volunteers considered any sort of vetting organization?"It's the random reading public that ultimately decides the success of a book.
Random volunteers are a subset of the random population.
How many years of training does it take to spot a badly designed cover that looks like a 10 year old made it in a cheap graphics program with low resolution and pixelated text?
What level of education is required to spot horrible prose filled with typos, fragments, run-on sentences, bad formatting and confusing sentences?
I think you're over-thinking it.
Anyone can spot a bad book, except apparently an "author" and their friends and relatives.
What we're doing is proclaiming to be the equivalent of Big 6 vetting, but I'm sure you'll find that if you were to select several books at random from those that have been vetted compared to a random sampling of those that haven't, you'll find something at least closer to what you'd expect to find from a trad publisher.
You compared our efforts to to publishing house staff who have to work for years before they can get an author a chance in a publishing house.
That's not close to what what we're doing, so it's an invalid comparison. We're merely saying, these books here have been looked at by readers and writers and found to be of good quality in terms of their writing and publication. As for the story, that's up the reader and their personal taste.
What makes the readers and reviewers on GR any more qualified than the Average Joe at selecting good books? Nothing. It's just opinions. In this case, we're offering an opinion on craft quality.
It's not an end-all solution, and it's not the only such project or organization doing such a thing. I hope one day there will be a leading group that becomes the standard for vetting indie quality. And even then, it will be a voluntary process. No author needs to subject themselves, and no reader will ever need to select from such offerings.
But it makes for a nice option to know that the books that have been vetted having a starting point of being well-written and appear to have been published to something like professional standards.
If it works for readers, it'll grow. If it grows and becomes known, then more indies will try harder to get that stamp of quality to improve their sales.
You can stand in a forest fire and say pissing all around yourself isn't going to help. I say, it ain't going to hurt.
:)
Too many books traditional or otherwise have blurbs that bear no correlation to the story. Perhaps that indefinable something is a sense of just how badly someone is getting stepped on.Using that line of reasoning, I'd have to say I like looking for jobs where I'll be grossly underpaid, my immediate supervisor will get at least a $10,000 raise based on his habit of taking credit for work I did, and I'll have my check withheld because the people in accounting are incompetent.
S.L. wrote: "Interns and new hires at traditional publishing houses do not get to start making purchases on their own right away."Neither are the volunteers at The Source. What are the qualifications behind a book blog? Or the GoodReads reviewer?
The Source is trying to first select books for reviews by judging the cover, blurb and (Amazon) sample on the professional appearance. No judgment is made on content at that point. A book needs 5 approvals the professional appearance to be moved to the review section, where reviewers can select a book, review it and the books will then be listed with their reviews.
The volunteers at The Source consider it a service to readers who have trouble finding 'professional' books in the heap of self-published crap. So all we do is pre-select books, we don't sell them, we don't have anything to gain by doing this, other than perhaps changing people's perception of self-published books and the stigma that ALL self-published books are crap.
Ripley wrote: "Readers do have a way to choose good indie books. First these indie books have to catch their attention. Then if they want to read the sample provided they can. Smashwords has proven the bigger the..."I haven't seen your ideas, Ripley. Just that you're taking your efforts offline - which in my opinion is totally crazy.
You'll forake the ability to reach billions of people at no cost in order to improve your exposure by reaching mere hundreds at some expense.
Of course, I'm just throwing numbers out there because you haven't explained what you mean or intend to do by going offline.
I'm sitting here in my pajamas, blabbing on GR, and people are buying my books - Online.
Are you saying I'd be better off getting dressed and heading out into the snow to do... something?
I'm fond of how things are working online.
I agree that if I want to sell paperbacks, I'll need to go to some offline effort, visiting bookstores and seeing if I can get them to stock my books, which I doubt they will, and I doubt I'd have the know-how to determine things like what they should cost, and how buybacks work, and who knows what else because it means taking on a business position that I've never held before and don't know the first clue about.
But meanwhile, there's still that wacky online method where I sit in a chair and reap the benefits from the past online work that I've done.
Somehow I missed your ideas. Maybe they're convincing. But I recall Martyn pointing out that you've done little to nothing to even give Goodreads a chance as an author. I'm skeptical about how you have superior offline marketing ideas after not truly availing yourself of online opportunities.
I think the ratio here must be something like multiple millions of readers to thousands of authors. Vague, but still a good ratio.
Not that I'm saying GR works great for everybody. I've got no traction here to speak of. My friends don't even read my blog posts. And when my "friends" review my books, well, we all know those are totally fake as hell and not worth the electrons they're written with.
So I'm definitely not saying that GR is the best place to promote, but it's one place, and you haven't tried here yet, but are pronouncing all of "online" a failure and saying it's time for new ideas, offline.
I'm not convinced, but will be happy to view your ideas if you can link to the thread or tell me where to find them.
Martyn V. wrote: "The volunteers at The Source consider it a service to readers who have trouble finding 'professional' books in the heap of self-published crap. "I think I should just hold my tongue, wait till Martyn posts, then I can post a follow-up, saying, "Yeah. What he said!"
S.L. wrote: "I honestly mean no offense to people who are participating in The Source, or publicizing it.But why are random volunteers considered any sort of vetting organization? If any reader or writer can ..."
S.L., I agree.
First of all, readers, caveat lector: read the sample of a book you're interested in and decide for yourself whether it's worthwhile to fork out bucks for it. You are the only accurate arbiter of what you'll like. If you have buddies who love to read what you do, that’s a different story; you can probably take their advice on what’s a great read and not be sorry. The upside is that you know where they live if they let you down. :)
I appreciate what The Source is trying to do, being very frustrated with indie books myself, but I see it as being beneficial only to readers who know that the organization's taste in books is similar to their own, which means that the vetters will have to establish a hefty library so that their recommendations can be tested by users for preference similarities. If readers find that they can trust the group's taste, then the vetting efforts become useful, but only to those readers.
Then I'm crazy for advocating offline.The link was in my first post. But, here it is again.
http://ripleyking.blogspot.com/
C.M.J. wrote: "I appreciate what The Source is trying to do, being very frustrated with indie books myself, but I see it as being beneficial only to readers who know that the organization's taste in books is similar to their own, which means that the vetters will have to establish a hefty library so that their recommendations can be tested by users for preference similarities. If readers find that they can trust the group's taste, then the vetting efforts become useful, but only to those readers..."Oh, I agree. Except for the 'organization' part. The Source is a GR group, which might become a website at some point in the future. The people who came up with the idea to do this have set out guidelines and we're trying to work out a system where we can reliably give advice to readers on books that might be worthy of their valuable time.
As with any 'start-up', the reliability will only become apparent after we amassed a library of books that even critical readers can agree on adhering to a professional standard, i.e. equal in quality to the books published by trade publishing houses.
That will take some time, and lots of volunteers, so if you think our (non-profit) service could be a boon, please consider participating.
By the way, I always read samples, even if a book has been praised unto the heavens, because regardless of quality or content, the prose itself could still be written in a style that irks me.
C.M.J. wrote: "beneficial only to readers who know that the organization's taste in books is similar to their own"That sounds oxymoronic to me. How can an organization have it's own taste? It's necessarily comprised of individuals with individual tastes.
So far, I've seen historical, crime, LGBT, post-apocalypse, romance contemporary, etc.
The organization's tastes are as random as its members. And the screening doesn't involve personal preference.
There's no one saying, "I happen to like poorly designed covers with cheap graphics."
It's like a car. 5 people have to agree that the body doesn't have any dents or dings; there are four tires, inflated with treads. The paint job looks professional and there's no paint on the windows. The engine starts up and sounds healthy.
We're not saying the paint job is the wrong color, or that we prefer low-profile tires, or a manual transmission.
We're verifying that the car seems road-worthy in the first step. This gives you a currently small, but nice lot from which to select a car where you start off at least knowing that there aren't any lemons being passed off as reliable vehicles.
And while it's true that you can sample a book yourself, there's still the question of what to sample, and sampling many books until you find one that's worthy. We're just trying to make so that you can start by sampling books that are already per-determined to meet a minimum quality standard.
If nothing else, one's own sampling efforts should be reduced in time and effort and become more fruitful. If everything you sample from our lot is of good quality, now your effort is reduced to only finding what you prefer to read - not what's worthy of reading.
I'm at a loss as to why this is so hard to understand. There's a general complaint that indie books lack quality. Here's a group trying to help people find quality, and some people see only a downside in it.
Well, to each his own. I like reading indie authors, and I like helping other authors, so it's a worthwhile project to me.
Edward wrote: "I'm at a loss as to why this is so hard to understand. There's a general complaint that indie books lack quality. Here's a group trying to help people find quality, and some people see only a downside in it."Relax, Edward. All C.M.J. is saying that The Source needs to amass a huge library to show that we're 'for real'. And that's true. Meanwhile, The Source is still taking its first steps, so we'll see how it goes. Some people will have doubts, but let's hope we can take them away.
Meanwhile, readers and reviewers have commented that indie authors should 'police themselves' against the crap artists spoiling the market. The Source is one of these projects that tries to do so in a positive way.
Ripley wrote: "Then I'm crazy for advocating offline.The link was in my first post. But, here it is again.
http://ripleyking.blogspot.com/"
Okay, I just read through 6 blog posts, which it would've been nice if the suggestions were centralized somewhere instead of spread throughout other unrelated topics, but all I could find about your offline marketing venture is the car magnet.
The rest that I saw was online stuff. As for that, it's nice to trade shelf-space, but unless your site has a following, it's not of great benefit to anyone aside from being yet one more place to have one's name and titles online, which is always good.
But I also have to point out that if you accept any books on your virtual shelf in an even trade for space on someone else's site - what's the draw? That invites a quality control issue.
It's similar to authors who say, "Like my FB and I'll Like yours!"
I hate that. That makes Likes meaningless. (Or more meaningless, rather.) If one "Likes" indiscriminately, then the value of their endorsement is nill. Even worse, one grows a following of "fans" who know nothing about their work and often have no interest in it and are thus not even fans. They're just Like-swappers. Those are NOT your target audience. Then people wonder why their constant promotion to their FB "fans" doesn't result in sales.
Okay, I'm off on a tangent. I'll stop now.
Car magnets. Can you point me to the other offline marketing ideas?
My response to the car magnets is - again, it's always good to have exposure. So those can't hurt. And they can lead to some sales. But my thought is, how many cars are actually behind me each day. Although I drive 15 miles to work, most of that is on the freeway, so there's probably no more than 3 cars behind me each way, daily.
But you'll probably reach more people that way than by tweeting. :)
But as a replacement for online exposure? Not a chance.
My next post will have more ideas. And when I picked up a pallet of wood pellets the other day (my winter heat), I counted hundreds of cars from one end of the city to the other and back again, with all them new eyes. Me at a glance, and in this day and age, where smart phones rule all, I don't see why I can't get more sales. These cars were behind me, on both sides, and since I drive the speed limit, they were passing me, too. New reader eyes.
Martyn V. wrote: "Relax, Edward. All C.M.J. is saying that The Source needs to amass a huge library to show that we're 'for real'."At which point, C.M.J. believes it will become "beneficial only to readers who know that the organization's taste in books is similar to their own."
That's still a belittling dismissal, which I've already addressed, pointing out that a group with revolving, random volunteers will not have "a taste." It's impossible. Other than the taste for quality.
What percentage of the entire reading public is here on Goodreads? I think it would be generous to say 5%. It may even be optimistic to say 1%. What this says to me is that there will always be a need for the traditional publishers. They may morph and change but they won't go away. The other thing it says to me is that perhaps a three-chapter sample is too short. I will go Elsewhere (to Book View Cafe) and discuss with the denizens there whether we should be more generous.
Ripley wrote: "My next post will have more ideas. And when I picked up a pallet of wood pellets the other day (my winter heat), I counted hundreds of cars from one end of the city to the other and back again, wit..."Cool. And with cell phones pretty much all having camera's these days, I imagine car magnets are more effective than they used to be. No one has to be extremely interested enough to search for a pen and paper while driving.
On the downside, I'm sure I encounter hundreds, if not thousands of cars on my daily commute. But only a few hold the position directly behind me. If you were stationary and hundreds of cars were passing you - that would be new eyes.
I think passing out flyers on windshields in parking lots (at Barnes & Noble maybe?) with a coupon included might have a higher yield.
Edward, Martyn, thanks for the responses. I guess if the point is simply to go through books and look for decent covers, a lack of typos and whatnot, then it's not as confusing.
When it comes to the review stage, then I'm pretty much with CMJ. There would need to be a large body of reviews, probably from multiple reviewers for each book, before it seems to me like it would prove much in the way of quality. Quality in terms of content rather than formatting is subjective as we can all agree.
S.L. wrote: "Edward, Martyn, thanks for the responses. I guess if the point is simply to go through books and look for decent covers, a lack of typos and whatnot, then it's not as confusing.
When it comes to..."
You're right. And it will take a while to build that up.
For the most part, the quality judgment has to be up to the reader. And we're not screening things like saying, "This is filled with romance and I hate romance, so this sucks." lol
But if the book appears to have the basics of professionalism, we can confidently say, well, this doesn't appear to be complete shit. Maybe it's good.
It's also possible that everything is structurally sound, but then you read the preview and have no clue what the author is saying or where the book is going and you can't follow anything - and all of that can occur with proper, well-formed sentences. That would be a car that runs fine, but the tires are stuck in the mud. lol
--
etc: typos
That 50% sample stat, is me quoting Smashwords. Each year they list what works best for their readers, and their authors.Check out their blog. Read more than a few posts.
http://blog.smashwords.com/
Quality control is a problem even for the established, traditional channels. I can't remember the last time I didn't find a typo or grammatical error in a book by a well recognized author. On the other hand, I love that 'free sample' feature for e-books. I can download a dozen prospects, scan them all, delete all but the one or two that resonate, and buy what's left. And yes, if the first few pages are roughly edited, I don't go any further.
I've found authors and stories I love that I would not have found through traditional channels.
Go to Wattpad people!!! There is a bunch of really good authors who “WRITE FOR THEIR PASSION FOR WRITING and GETTING A CHANCE TO TELL YOU THEIR STORYIES.” It's like the same big difference between authors Rowling and Meyer - one writes for the story and the other for the money.
There are actually some amazing stories and writers at Wattpad, some who even use the site to spring board their confidence before deciding whether to self-publish or not (recent self pub. author Tijan for one).
Sure, there are some really bad stories but hey, you take the good with the bad – but I can also say that about some of the self pub books, too. The big difference Wattpad is FREE… Yes, people… FREE… It only cost your time. Time they already invested bringing you a story that just might surprise you and make you want to follow them in their pursuit of becoming perhaps a well known author in the future (Jules130, ACRL37, Misguided, K.C.-Blares, Lydia161290, and PrettyInPinkJessica- to name a few).
If anyone would like a list of some very good stories there, 1 - You can see there is an actual group here at GRAmazon who discuss Wattpad stories, or 2- all you have to do is ask. I do believe Booklikes has something as well… AND… There is a Wattpad App, too… ALSO FREE!!!- If I remember correctly.
Besides, in the end both self-publish authors and Wattpad authors do share one major similarity, they both seem to overlook their honest need for a good editor.
*Bonus Note* Wattpad company based in Canada and it's growing in members and writers. It has not been tainted by Amazon and hopeful it will not become the next GRAmazon influenced thing.
Cozen wrote: "Go to Wattpad people!!!"I apologize if my portrayal of Wattpad painted all writers there with a broad brush. I didn't mean to say that there's no one there with talent.
My exposure so far has been very limited. Some idiot signed up and used my email address. (This happens all the time. I don't know how people can mistakenly type the wrong email address twice, and do it regularly, but they do.)
So I went to check out my new Wattpad account and see what I was up to there with my new identity. (I was transformed into a teenage Jewish boy who wants to be "a auther", and will some day presumably be able to spell the word author.)
I looked at the writing of some of his friends, and then their friends, and I could not believe the ass-poor quality of the fiction, as well as the non-fiction, and the weird biographical data that always started like this:
I'm Jill. I'm 16 and single. STALKER
Kacee is my bestie so you better not hurt her ever!!!!
That's not an anomaly. That was the norm in my random sampling. Apparently there's a digital serial assaulter running around Wattpad, so users must warn visitors to their profile whom they better not hurt, or else!
Anyway, I thought the place was a ridiculous sandbox for sub-literates with cotton-candy for brains, but then I realized that I started on a young person's account that which linked to other young people, so I only saw a small sampling and I assumed (and prayed) that these weren't representative of the overall culture.
It was sad to notice though that of high school aged would-be writers, only one out of ten had 3rd grade English skills. And these are kids who want to be writers!
I'll give it another look, and maybe even publish my shorts stories there. I just have to revert to being a gentile, change my name, and become full-grown again. But the foreskin... damn!
Edward wrote: "Cozen wrote: "Go to Wattpad people!!!"I apologize if my portrayal of Wattpad painted all writers there with a broad brush. I didn't mean to say that there's no one there with talent.
My exposure..."
Like I said there are some really bad ones but then there are some surprisingly great ones.
The older and more mature writers usually write the R rated stuff so a lot of those stores are sensored and not listed in any search at the site. You literally need to know someone to Follow them or else the "R" material never shows up. Tricky and a bit annoying... I understand why but it really cuts off a lot of titles available there. Many times writers are reluctant to list their stories as "R" because they know it wll get sensored during any search.
And I do add my annoyance for the sites search engine. Usually it leaves me almost always irrated at the results.
In any case, I don't want you to leave feeling all that hatred for the site. PM me. I will be happy to let you see my library list for favorites. It actually contains quite a few R rated titles like, "His Rights" by Sexton (an amazing Austrailan male writer).
I also just did a review for the "Sink Into Me" series by Misguided, an 18+ (I actually just found this out a few days ago and was completely surprised by it.) She has been better at writing the actual behavior for the age of her characters then almost 90% of the self pub books I have had the misfortune to purchase and attempted to read. The series is really amazing.
The link for that review: http://cozen.booklikes.com/blog
I haven't really adventured out of the Romance paranormal (mostly werewolf related) so I can't vouch for any sci-fi, historic, or westerns titles - well maybe a couple of historic ones.
And yes, I think the site's writers tend to be more in the pre-teen to 25+ age group. Some post their stories on HOLD for exams.
I do think some writers use the site to know if they actually can be a writer and a good one. It's a stepping stone for them. I also know of some current self-published writer even came from Wattpad. Kristy Moseley and Tijan to name a few.
I am sorry your experience with the site has been not tolerable. But still, personally, my experience with self pub titles is just about equal to your experience with Wattpad.
I often think the majority of them can't write their characters acurately with the correct maturity level and behavors common to that age. Just how many college virgins are there, that act as if they are only 16 (Demon at My Door - for an example). I have even read 40 year old characters that only barely could be considered no longer a virgin, but you couldn't tell they were even older than their 20's by the behavior or the dialog of that character.
And lets not get into the over abundance of virgins out there by just looking at the numbers of recently released contempory novels by self-pub. authors. There must be an epidemic because after I did a bit of online stat reseach (actually spent an entire day on it) on that particular subject, there is an over abundance of them. Not to mention the insult if I was a real virgin and was being depicted as most are. I am seriesly alarmed at how writers are labeling virgins as.
Then, lets not even get into the current constant theme running in most all of them. The personal message of okay rape and dub consent themes to gender bias views of woman vs men appalls me (a good example - Fallen From Me).
I could go on and on... There is a lot of backwater earlie 1800 ideal norms that are been packaged as acceptable. Not on your life. Many have tried to make rape and abuse an acceptable with flimsy excuses. Oh.. just don't get me started on that... Maybe I should just leave out the whole contemp genre for this arguement on self-pub material, that groups just exceeds to norm on that topic.
In the overal end, we probably just have the same attitude towards each of these groups.
I will and do admit and acknowledge those few self published authors that I admittently love despite their publishing status. Usually I don't know until I come across the constant editing issues for their paid in full draft. Suzanne Wright is the top one on my favorite self pub authors I hate loving, but I do give credit where it is always deserved. Always.
My only point is that Wattpad should be given a fair shake since mainly all I see in the difference between the two is the amount of money I lose out on in the end...
I am on Wattpad as well, although very sporadically. Everyone mainly uploads their ENTIRE work on there, sometimes even complete manuscripts. I only do the first few chapters of a book. I think this is a very good way to allow readers to sample your work for free. The only thing is you do not get a lot of attention unless you post more and constantly share your links in the forums for views.
Ripley wrote: "...And when I picked up a pallet of wood pellets the other day (my winter heat), I counted hundreds of cars from one end of the city to the other and back again, with all them new eyes. Me at a glance, and in this day and age, where smart phones rule all, I don't see why I can't get more sales. ..."I hate to burst your bubble, Ripley, but how many people actually read the text on a car? Most will just assume it's the name of a plumber or construction firm, and don't even notice. Others won't know what to do with it.
Another thing, I see regular posters when I walk down the street advertising books, but I won't remember those posters when I'm home and online.
If I'm online however and something strikes my fancy--say, an interesting post that makes me want to check out the author--it will take me a few clicks and I'm on their Amazon page, where I can sample and buy the book.
Brenda wrote: "What percentage of the entire reading public is here on Goodreads? I think it would be generous to say 5%. It may even be optimistic to say 1%. What this says to me is that there will always be a need for the traditional publishers. They may morph and change but they won't go away."Eh? What does this have to do with 'why don't more people read SPA?'? Is that your solution? Quit self-publishing and get a trade publishing contract?
The conclusion I draw from your 'percentage of readers' is not to go after getting a trade publishing contract, but to explore other avenues of promotion, like libraries and bookstore, bookblog and GR clones like Booklikes etcetera.
Brenda wrote: "The other thing it says to me is that perhaps a three-chapter sample is too short. I will go Elsewhere (to Book View Cafe) and discuss with the denizens there whether we should be more generous."
I disagree. Right now, the Amazon sample is 10%. If you check out one of my 100,000 word books, you get the first four chapters. The first page should tell you whether you should bother or not, so everything after the first page serves to peak your interest.
Simple enough, if someone doesn't want to buy my book after reading 10%, I don't think they'll buy it after reading another 40%.
S.L. wrote: "When it comes to the review stage, then I'm pretty much with CMJ. There would need to be a large body of reviews, probably from multiple reviewers for each book, before it seems to me like it would prove much in the way of quality. Quality in terms of content rather than formatting is subjective as we can all agree."Of course.
However, one important thing about the review for The Source would be to tell the reader if the quality visible in the sample is carried on throughout the book, and whether the book delivers on its promise (i.e. satisfying conclusion/resolution).
I've read too many books that started great, sagged in the middle, and fizzled out in the end, leaving you with feeling of wasted time. And that's the main thing we want to select: books that won't make you waste your time.
Cozen wrote: "The older and more mature writers usually write the R rated stuff so a lot of those stores are sensored and not listed in any search at the site. You literally need to know someone to Follow them or else the "R" material never shows up. Tricky and a bit annoying... I understand why but it really cuts off a lot of titles available there. Many times writers are reluctant to list their stories as "R" because they know it wll get sensored during any search..."I have a feeling, correct me if I'm wrong, that Wattpad is especially suitable to YA, YA paranormal, horror lite and romance lite. Not too much literary fiction or fiction geared towards adult readers.
Edward:I know what you’re trying to do, and as I said, it’s good that you’re concerned enough to try it.
But screening is done by people, all of whom are 100% biased. We can’t escape it, and whether you realize it or not, whether you want to or not, you will screen both covers and content through your filter of biases. I’m not saying this is wrong; it just is. Therefore, your tastes and preferences will be reflected in the books you choose for The Source. And what you consider a professional cover or writing may not meet my criteria because, for one thing, you and I have different biases. And as I mentioned before, there’s also an indefinable quality at work in the reader.
Martyn understood what I was trying to say. What I’m not saying is that you shouldn’t try. It’s a laudable effort. What I am saying is that you need to realize that your biases will creep in, like it or not, and that some people won’t find your choices useful as a result: your biases are not their biases. I’m actually trying to help you, Edward, by bringing to your attention something you may not have thought of: the problem of bias. And it is a problem. You’ll all have to fight it, right down to the color of a cover or the title of a book.
Edward, you wrote: “At which point, C.M.J. believes it will become 'beneficial only to readers who know that the organization's taste in books is similar to their own.'
"That's still a belittling dismissal, which I've already addressed, pointing out that a group with revolving, random volunteers will not have 'a taste.' It's impossible. Other than the taste for quality.”
Belittling you wasn’t my intention, and I’m sorry you took it that way. I was responding to S.L.’s comment and trying to tell you that the inherent biases of the individuals in your group will exclude a portion of readers who don’t share your preferences and that it’s not going to be a universally useful group because of that. It’s not realistic to assume that it will be. Once again, I’m not saying this is wrong; it just is. Nor did I say I won’t ever take a look at the books you screen. Think of my comments this way: If a blog group screens and recommends books and I don’t like the majority of those they advocate, their suggestions are not useful to me. That doesn’t mean others won’t find them helpful or that the bloggers are “wrong.”
As Martyn pointed out, you’re just getting started. Now is the time to address major obstacles as well as you can.
Right, Linda. It's true across the board, whether in regard to traditionally published or self-published books.
No opinion is objective and unbiased, so any vetting will be subjective. However, we will not be 'choosing' the books, but anyone can pitch their book for inclusion. At this moment, we have ten or fifteen different people who approve or reject the pitched novels. And a novel needs five approvals to go through, so different people with different ideas of professional appearance still have to agree on a single book.Even biased, The Source will still have standards that Amazon doesn't have, so crappy unprofessional books won't make it through the screening phase. In the end we'll end up with a library of books that--regardless of the content--can be considered equal in quality to trade published books in the care given to deliver a quality product.
Another important factor is that the intention is helping readers inexperienced in selecting quality from dross to find books that adhere to a professional standard. Once someone sees what we're looking for, they can do so for themselves with books that are not listed on The Source, so there might be an 'educational' factor as well. And authors who want to be included will have to do better to be featured on The Source, because the low content standards of KDP/Kobo/B&N/iTunes won't be enough.
C.M.J. wrote: "What I am saying is that you need to realize that your biases will creep in, like it or not, and that some people won’t find your choices useful as a result: your biases are not their biases. "Thanks for clarifying, C.M.J.
I still think we're not seeing eye to eye though.
I'm absolutely certain that my personal biases will not be other people's biases. But how can it be said that the biases taken from a large, random, ever-changing group will not match with those of a large, random, ever-changing group?
Don't you agree that they'll largely overlap?
The screeners and reviewers all have different tastes, as do potential readers. In database terms, it's a many-to-many proposition, rather than a one-to-many.
If you consider the entire group of screeners versus the entire reader base, at some point there's a good chance that, yes, preferences will overlap, maybe even completely. But when you begin to consider individual readers, that no longer holds true, and that's what S.L. and Linda were getting at also, I think. Readers would have to plow through your database just as they'd have to plow through Amazon's or whatever bookseller's database, and they won't care about the work you put into screening if you disappoint them a few times in a row because they choose to check out books that have been vetted by people whose biases don't match their own. So in the end, you still are not going to appeal to everyone and there still will be people who take a look at your site and never return because they feel that they can go straight to Amazon/Barnes and Noble/etc. and do the same thing.
C.M.J. wrote: "So in the end, you still are not going to appeal to everyone and there still will be people who take a look at your site and never return because they feel that they can go straight to Amazon/Barnes and Noble/etc. and do the same thing."You can please some people all of the time.
You can please all people some of the time.
You cannot please all people all of the time.
And those readers who don't need The Source to preselect their novels are not the intended audience. The intended audience is those who cannot see the forest for the trees. The people who get overwhelmed by the enormous choice, don't know how to shift the quality from the dross, and revert to reading only trade published novels because of the 'guaranteed quality'.
Naturally, it won't be perfect for everyone. But once the library is large enough, it should provide a viable alternative collection of works that the reader knows will be easier to sift through than an un-screened collection.Succeeding at that for a good percentage of readers should make it clear, if nothing else, that there is a large selection of indie published books to choose from that are of a high quality - and thanks to the project - easy to find.
Martyn V. wrote: You can please some people all of the time.You can please all people some of the time.
You cannot please all people all of the time.
Exactly. And the explanation of your intended audience was excellent.
Ripley wrote: "I'll give you that, hands down. And I'm sure to hear more about my misspoken words. Also, I'm not claiming to be great, either. That's not for me to decide. Readers are the gatekeepers, and they ..."
I wasn't actually criticizing you. I was agreeing with you and then expounding on your thoughts about knowing other great writers and helping them out.
Lilo No problem. I'm always trying to learn more about the craft, and discovered a few flaws in my material I fixed! Now I got to get the changes to the public. And I might go over to Wattpad, check things out, see what's up, and give it some real thought.
Ripley wrote: "Then I'm crazy for advocating offline.The link was in my first post. But, here it is again.
http://ripleyking.blogspot.com/"
Ripley, I understand that you are very proud of your covers, so I'll try to be gentle. And I want you to know I'm saying this from a background of study in both writing and art (BA in Creative Writing and minor in Illustration).
You need to place your covers side by side next to traditionally published books in the same genre. How do they compare? You're an artist, so you should be able to judge and see if they are of similar quality. Now some of your covers have good images, but the fonts and typeface are currently branding you as an amateur. (I do my own lettering and I know mine are not quite up to standard yet, but I'm getting closer).
Right now I think your best cover is
. It looks good as a thumbnail, but the font is a bit crude when you look at a larger image. But this is close. Be aware that while the use of pseudo-humans has become popular recently with self-published, it INSTANTLY brands you as a self-published author. I can't think of any traditional publishers who use pseudo-humans outside of video games. As a reader, I tend to avoid them because they too often accompany really bad writing. So be aware of that as well.
While I have some knowledge of graphic design (enough to know that my covers aren't horrible but aren't yet at traditionally published standards), I have neither the time nor the ability to create truly professional art, so I hire that stuff out. Ironically, I did do a watercolor for my short story Purple Irises and it gets more sampling downloads than any other of my books, according to Smashwords.
All this again to say that the more professional indie authors appear, the more likely they'll gain readership trust. We have to have trust for them to take the chance to even look at the sample and see what the writing is like. So that starts with the cover.
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The bleak thing is that as an unknown writer you cannot negotiate your way out of a boilerplate contract filled with clauses that will bind you hand and foot. Do a search for 'non-compete clause' and 'multiple book contracts'. If you're eager and not careful, you sell your right away for a long period against an advance that will be low enough for the publisher to swallow if the book doesn't 'earn out' in the first few months.