Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion
III. Goodreads Readers
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Why don't more people read Self-published authors?
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No, D.A., I wouldn't do that. The beginning of a book is extraordinarily valuable territory. Remember, I have 1000 words to grab you by the neck of your tee shirt and twist. I am fighting not only all the other books in your TBR pile, but the ping that tells you there's a email, your dog hoping to go out for a walk, all the household chores that you are ignoring at this very instant, and whoever it is that Jimmy Fallon is going to have tonight for a guest on late-night TV.The number of people you have to thank is sometimes quite large -- more than a thousand words worth. The place for that is in the Author's Notes at the very back. By that time, the reader should be your slave, sucking the very last drops out of the book before tottering, exhausted, to bed because it is 2:30 a.m.
Linda wrote: "@Yzabel -- When authors post comments that their lives depend on reviews, that they are pouring their life's blood into their books, that negative reviews are the equivalent of an assassin's bull..."
Yes, those are pretty high-strung reactions. I didn't mean that no authors held such views, just that the other view ("EVERYONE thinks they can make it big") may not be so universal either.
That's why I thought of the area-related factor. It's merely a guess, anyway. I'm French: worldwide-speaking, there is statistically less of an audience for any writing I could do in my mother tongue, so I naturally won't expect crazy deals (not without reprints and translation, at least). The situation may be different for people who write in a widespread language like English. I wouldn't deem it as illogical for aspiring authors in those countries to naturally expect they can rely on a large audience from the beginning. The market's just bigger, is all.
As for the reactions you mentioned, well... Big babies and all that. We have those in France, too, by the way. They're definitely annoying.
Yzabel wrote: "Linda wrote: "@Yzabel -- When authors post comments that their lives depend on reviews, that they are pouring their life's blood into their books, that negative reviews are the equivalent of an a..."
Yzabel, I suspect that, yes, possibly, this is more of an American problem than in other areas of the world. After all, we are the country that gives participation trophies to everyone for everything throughout their entire childhood.
We are also a country that is extraordinarily driven by economic success - if you don't get paid (a lot) for something, it is not an accomplishment. We are also obsessed with celebrity and living our lives so loudly that everyone knows everything about us. So, maybe, when you put these aspects of the American character together (rewarding even the most mediocre result with a trophy + an extremely mercenary society + the unceasing desire to be the center of attention) what you end up with is people who can't write for shit thinking that they should be paid a gazillion dollars because they strung 100K words together and acting like they just freaking cured cancer by writing a zombie novel.
I don't know.
I think, though, that this thread asks the wrong question. There is no inherent "value" or "merit" to reading self-published books, nor is there inherent value or merit to not reading self-published books.
Self-published writers shouldn't look at it like they are the bush league or the farm team. Your books sit on amazon's virtual shelves side by side with books written by Hilary Mantel and Brandon Sanderson and Michael Connelly and Jim Butcher and Patricia Briggs and et cetera. If you can't compete with the leaders in your chosen genre, why would you expect anyone to read your books? Because they are the cheap alternative?
If you aren't publishing because you think you are good enough to go pro, then why are you publishing? Why not start a blog and give your words away?I am, actually. In fact that's exactly what I started out doing, and still do. My blog became very popular, and readers were asking for it to be put out on Kindle to make it easier to read (it's become a huge cumbersome blog). So I did. I hired an editor, re-wrote it several times, and made it suitable for publishing.
I never suggested one should just turn out art for art's sake, and then throw it out there on the market and expect to get paid for it. The stuff on my site is not suitable for publishing as-is. That's why it's free. My finished, published books, on the other hand, are not free.
I think a lot of SP folks are forgetting that they are nowhere near finished when they are done writing the book.
I like that you compared it to the gold rush. I write westerns, so that made me smile. And it's accurate. You're right, everyone does think they are going to strike gold. Some might. I personally don't expect to because...well, I write westerns.
About my artwork budge someone mentioned...yes, it's being kept track of, just not by me. I don't do numbers. I could probably get the books and figure out what I've spent. I get artwork for gifts and whatnot...someone will give me a check for a gift to put towards artwork or advertising or whatever. But going back to my blog, the blog supports the book, not the other way around. Other than the covers, the artwork is featured online, and then it shows up in the books because, hey, I already have it, so might as well use it. So it's hard to split hairs on the actual expenses, because oftentimes the same money goes into both projects...someone in the thread talked about some writer's expenses being a bit nebulous. I'm in the same boat.
Moonlight Reader wrote: "Yzabel wrote: "Yzabel, I suspect that, yes, possibly, this is more of an American problem than in other areas of the world. After all, we are the country that gives participation trophies to everyone for everything throughout their entire childhood. [...]"Ah, I hadn't considered this, I was more focused on the widespread language aspect, but now that you mention it, it may be part of it, too. I honestly don't know. (And probably not 100% on topic, but 1600+ posts in, it's kind of hard to stay 100% on it anyway.)
Regina wrote: "I think a lot of SP folks are forgetting that they are nowhere near finished when they are done writing the book. "I don't think that they are forgetting. I honestly don't think that they ever knew this so that they could forget it.
I am amazed at the number of self-published writers who don't read. They don't read in their chosen genre, they don't read classics, they don't read the masters. They do nothing to develop their craft. The vomit words onto a page, slap a fiverr cover onto it, and upload it and price it at $2.99.
I read their blurbs, and I wonder what the everlovingfuck I just read. No subject-verb agreement. Random tense changes, random narrative style changes without any actual intention behind it. Misspellings, improper grammar, and continuity errors in a two paragraph synopsis.
I am amazed at the number of self-published authors who have published and have no sense at all about publishing. If you are self-publishing, you're not just the writer (and therefore, you'd better know how to write) but you are also the publisher (and therefore, you should understand something about publishing). They don't understand the numbers. They don't know how to choose an editor.
A self-published author in another thread asserted to me this morning that somewhere around 5K books are published a month. That number is off by a factor of at least seven. In 2012, there were 35K books published a month. I know this. I'm not an author. Why doesn't someone who is a "professional" (i.e. who asks people to pay money for his books) have even the slightest understanding of his industry?
I will absolutely read books by professionals, whether those books are self-, indie- or trad-published. But if I want to read unedited, amateur bilge, I can write that myself.
I really like what John Locke has to say about this very thing. He says that you don't really have to prove that you're as good as the writers that are at the top of their chosen genre. Those writers now have to prove that they are ten times better than you are. I don't know if I entirely agree with every bit of this, but it's food for thought. It puts an interesting spin on the conversation.
I do think you have to prove that you're at least able to compete before you can expect people to pay you for your work. And you have to factor in that nobody's heard of you. You might be the best writer out there right now, but if nobody knows that, the market's not going to shower you with money and fame. I'm not saying give your work away for free. I've never done a large giveaway (I think my biggest giveaway was limited to twenty books for a group on here doing a BOTM.) But until you prove yourself, you can't ask to be paid was the big dogs get paid, either. You have to find a reasonable balance somewhere. And you'd better make sure your work is as polished and professional as you can possibly make it.
Regina wrote: "I really like what John Locke has to say about this very thing. He says that you don't really have to prove that you're as good as the writers that are at the top of their chosen genre. Those write..."Why do they have to prove they are ten times better? I don't get that.
Yzabel wrote: "EDIT - Martyn, if I'm not mistaken, you're from the Netherlands, right? In which case I'll assume (correct me if I'm wrong) that the state of publishing in your country is the same as in mine, and that you're not exactly used to thinking of "writing" as a job that will make you filthy rich. ^^ "That's right, I'm from Amsterdam, although I have to say that most Dutch authors write and publish in Dutch and with a few exceptions they are rarely translated into other languages. Also, the Dutch authors who are bestsellers (Mulisch, Wolkers, Grunberg) are literary fiction writers. Genre writing, like suspense or horror, is generally looked down upon.
So I deviate from the norm by writing in English. Some Dutch authors have commented that writing in English gives me a bigger market, but I always tell them that the competition is bigger also. And, as I live in Amsterdam, it's difficult for me to attend book gatherings like the ones organised in the U.S. (I can go to the Frankfurter Buchmesse, but I don't think I'll be able to generate interest there).
Anyway, as Yzabel points out, most European writers know they have to supplement their royalty income with giving lectures or public appearances or having a regular day job.
On the other hand, Stephen King lived from hand to mouth for a long time and couldn't become a full-time writer until after the sale of, I think, his third or fourth book. So, it's not that uncommon for writers to have day jobs.
Moonlight Reader wrote: "Regina wrote: "I really like what John Locke has to say about this very thing. He says that you don't really have to prove that you're as good as the writers that are at the top of their chosen gen..."His theory is that it costs considerably more to purchase a book that is written by a big name than it does to buy one of Locke's books, which are usually priced a .99. So he poses the questions of "is the book that much better than mine? Will you get that much more enjoyment out of the more expensive book?"
That's my paraphrase of it.
EDIT: Yeah, you know, I really don't have the hang of quoting here. Sorry.
Regina wrote: "Moonlight Reader wrote: "Regina wrote: "I really like what John Locke has to say about this very thing. He says that you don't really have to prove that you're as good as the writers that are at t..."Oh, I get it.
Most of the self-published books seem to be hovering around the $2.99 mark at this point. So, it would be more like 3x better than 10x better.
Also, there are so many free books available, that if it were a straight dollar-to-dollar calculation, no one would ever pay to read a book again.
Martyn V. wrote: "That's right, I'm from Amsterdam, although I have to say that most Dutch authors write and publish in Dutch and with a few exceptions they are rarely translated into other languages. Also, the Dutch authors who are bestsellers (Mulisch, Wolkers, Grunberg) are literary fiction writers. Genre writing, like suspense or horror, is generally looked down upon."Pretty much the same as the French market, then. Elite thinking and all that. *grumbles*
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That's one of the things about insisting on going for publication. Everything you do then reflects upon the work. You sound like a moron on Facebook? Your racist or pro-Nazi blog? Your extensive and overly-sexual on-line diatribes about your ex-wife after your ugly divorce? Your vicious and idiotic Goodreads reviews? Uh oh, readers turned off.
D.A. - Please don't mock bully victims. wrote: "Lilo wrote: "The cost of publication is not ever zero, even in self-published works. Your time as an author has value. " My time as a reader has value at least to me. Purchasing or downloading ..."
What I don't understand is why readers don't just return crap books and get their money back? Is this difficult to do? Readers have you ever tried this? I know some of my Author friends have had returns on ebooks, so I know it isn't impossible.
Lilo wrote: "D.A. - Please don't mock bully victims. wrote: "Lilo wrote: "The cost of publication is not ever zero, even in self-published works. Your time as an author has value. " My time as a reader has v..."
For me, I don't read right after I buy. I have a tbr pile of around a thousand books. By the time I get to a specific book, it is well past the return-by date, unless it is a much anticipated new release by a favorite author, in which case, I wouldn't want to return it.
Hmm, I devour mine typically within 24 hours of purchase. :) Maybe I'm an oddity.
Ratings agencies will never be the answer as books are too subjective. If you buy a lot of books and spend more than $8.99 per month consider signing up for Scribd's premium service where for that price you can download as many books as you want. They are mostly trade books, but Smashwords' catalogue is currently being added to it. That way you pay your money for a service and which books you read will not matter. So if you can only stand one page of a Dan Brown or SPA novel all you have lost is the time to download and read one page.I am currently trying out their one month free trial. Currently reading Dreamland, so not SPA.
D.A. - Please don't mock bully victims. wrote: "I do realize there sure are a lot of people out there ready to rip off authors as badly as readers feel the uploaders rip us off; so, just because you hired someone to edit doesn't mean they did a good job. But it does show you attempted to put out a professional product. And can steer other authors to or from those services. "To date I have only ever read one complete SPA novel. It had an editor credited in the Author's notes. The editor probably wishes that he was not mentioned as the murder victims start as Strong, are misspelled as Stong, become Stone thrice, then return to being Strong. Probably a friend doing a favour, so a credited editor guarantees nothing. In the trade world the NYT Bestseller Snow Falls on Cedars has an appallingly proofread scan for its eBook version. So money and prestige are no guarantee either. Basically, there are no guarantees of quality other than using a library service.
Thanks Mercia for the tip!Re: rating agencies.
The items that people seem to complain about more often are less subjective.
Spelling/Grammar/Punctuation
Formatting and professional cover
Plot Holes
Voice (smoothness of sentence flow)
I think those four are easy and it would keep a lot of people from being angry about buying junk.
Personally, I don't care so much about the first 2. I'd rather read a book loaded with spelling errors if the story really grabs my heart and stimulates my mind. But others can't stand errors and get very irritated.
The items a rating can't touch are "excitement, uniqueness, etc." They can really only say if the book is a product that was produced professionally and with a quality focus. They couldn't say if was a great product. Much of that is in the eye of the beholder.
A rating agency would simply separate the wheat from the chaff. It would not help you spin it into gold. :)
Mercia wrote: "D.A. - Please don't mock bully victims. wrote: "I do realize there sure are a lot of people out there ready to rip off authors as badly as readers feel the uploaders rip us off; so, just because yo..."What do you mean by using a 'library service' to avoid picking up a low quality book of the sort you mentioned?
What would a rating agency make of James Joyce's Ulysses? Does not know how to use quotation marks, no plot in which to have holes, untranslated foreign language, no understanding of sentence structure and why does it take 250,000 words to tell a story of "ad-man walks around Dublin in one day."
For your average reader, 'rating agencies' already exist. They're called publishing houses. Now that sounds jerkier than is my intent.But I do have to ask, if a rating agency is the answer, who sets them up? What would be the motivation for doing so? Would it be some sort of non-profit? A capitalist venture? How would the screeners get paid?
Linda wrote: "If you read a lot of negative reviews of author-published books, you'll find that -- revenge reviews aside ;-) -- complaints about poor spelling, poor grammar, poor writing, poor formatting are pr..."Linda, I totally agree.
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Wow..that is the first time that I have heard of the "swapper" thing. How disgusting..Possibly you should make a post on goodreads that the community can go to and post those kinds of fake reviews/communications to expose those people?
Truthfully, as a self published author myself I appreciate it when people take time out of their day to leave me a good or bad review.
However..
When I am going to buy a book, I never base my decision on reviews.
Realistically..
Do you ever actually read a review for a book that you find at the local book store before you buy it, or do you just preview the first few chapters?
(For every single e-book available on Amazon, the first five chapters can be sampled without even making a purchase..and you can actually return the book if you hate it)
With that said..
How many reviews a book has is irrelevant..usually the books that I end up with always MAKE me read them.
Just from skimming the first few chapters, I have discovered some some amazing books, and have also found plenty of horrendously bad books on the shelves of my local bookstore.
Amazon e-books are not any different.
Linda wrote: "It really doesn't make any difference what vehicle you use to "rate" the books. Whether it's a GR group that reads and reviews or a private group on a website or a single individual. If all you g..."I was invited to a secret group here on Goodreads and it turned out to be a review swap thing. I jumped out as soon as I figured out what it was. Not too long after, the same author who invited me to that group messaged me directly asking if I wanted to swap reviews. I, of course, turned him down. I wish I would have thought to take a screenshot of the group members before I quit the group for my own personal reference.
Linda wrote: "I still have the link. I probably should go back and grab a SS and report it. But does anyone even care any more?"Has GR ever done anything about such a group being used for such purposes before?
I've also seen a group for authors to team up and buy one another's books to bump them up the ranks on Amazon. Is that what you meant by purchase/review swaps? Or was that just to get fake verified purchase reviews on Amazon?
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Linda wrote: "The link I have -- I just forwarded it to Support -- is ostensibly to purchase and move the books up in the rankings, but those who posted in the thread immediately began swapping reviews.I forwa..."
I'd certainly be interested in their response.
There are all kinds of ways to game the system. Rather than dealing with a bunch of other swap buddies, you could just create a couple dozen fake email accounts, and run around on Amazon and Goodreads posting 5-star reviews of your own book. Do this enough and you can force all the genuine 1 star reviews down out of easy view.I find egregious typoes and blatantly bad sentence structure a dealbreaker, but I used to copyedit menus and hand them back to the bemused waiter. I have given that up, since there is no correlation between correct punctuation and great Chinese food.
Linda wrote: "One of the members of the "group" supposedly read an entire book and posted a 5-star review within the space of about 7 minutes.Yeah, right."
Ha! That's great. I'm sure he'd probably already read the book, forgot about it, and once he heard about the review swap it triggered his memory.
I JUST released my third book and it seems I CAN NOT reach a fan base.....as a self pub author. Ive tried giveaways, showing teasers, offering my books for a reasonable affordable price. I mean I get sales. But not "FANS".
Renea wrote: "I JUST released my third book and it seems I CAN NOT reach a fan base.....as a self pub author. Ive tried giveaways, showing teasers, offering my books for a reasonable affordable price. I mean I g..."Three books over what period of time?
Renea wrote: "I JUST released my third book and it seems I CAN NOT reach a fan base.....as a self pub author. Ive tried giveaways, showing teasers, offering my books for a reasonable affordable price. I mean I g..."It looks like you've got 72 fans on your GR author page. What will these missing fans have to do to let you know when they've arrived?
I'd also say that it likely takes more than 3 books and longer than 6 months to build a fan base.
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Actually the correlation is negative. I don't want the chef to be a Stanford grad. I want him to have arrived recently from Guangdong.
Brenda wrote: "Actually the correlation is negative. I don't want the chef to be a Stanford grad. I want him to have arrived recently from Guangdong."I wish there was a LIKE button. :-)
Just reading this conversation thread, I went and looked up some of the works on Goodreads. I'm one person, but every look up or review is something.
Richard wrote: "@Robert (fyi): Richard wrote: "I've seen some of the look-inside previews where there's so much front matter ... My point being basically that a preview of a book shouldn't be larded up with boring..."$9.99 for 40 pages!
Gregor wrote: "Richard wrote: "@Robert (fyi): Richard wrote: "I've seen some of the look-inside previews where there's so much front matter ... My point being basically that a preview of a book shouldn't be larde..."Wow. I wouldn't even pay 10 bucks for any ebook in general, so...
Remember that the author can ASK any price he likes. Whether he GETS it is quite a different question.As to front matter -- the less of it the better. The author has a very short time, sometimes only a paragraph or two, to grab the reader by the shirt collar and twist. That Look Inside feature is key, the equivalent of standing in the bookstore and opening the novel to the first page. To waste it on dedications, notes, and technical matters is a sin.
Brenda wrote: "Remember that the author can ASK any price he likes. Whether he GETS it is quite a different question.As to front matter -- the less of it the better. The author has a very short time, sometimes o..."
Speaking of the Look Inside feature: can you (the author) decide on what it's going to be, or is it automatically generated by Amazon?
Well, if anyone's interested, I've got my debut science fiction and fantasy novel promoted & discounted at 99 cents on Amazon if anyone would care to give it a shot. Paperback and hardcover is available as well.
I would agree that the high cost some authors put on their debut, (and short, for that matter), offerings is kind of silly.
At this point, I'm just excited and hopeful to have someone look at it. To be greedy on top of that seems to defeat the purpose.
What the author writes/chooses for front matter is up to them..amazon has no control over traditional books either..(Front matter=less is more)
9.99 makes me roll my eyes too
Again it is no different than the traditionally published ones at the book store..
Vote with your dollar....
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I wonder. This may be an area- or culture-related view. In my country, any vaguely decent aspiring author has to quickly come to terms with the fact we can't live off writing only. Most published authors here have to retain at least a part-time job, or to fill in the blanks with writing seminars. Only a low percentage of authors can afford to quit their daily jobs, and when they land a deal, it's not those dream-like 4-zeros deals we see mentioned on what I suspect are mostly, let's say "Anglo-Saxon" websites. (Just for the record, a standard upfront payment for a first-time author here is around 1500 euros... And a publisher will often try to give less, or to pay it in several installments, owing to the fact that budding authors are often too starry-eyed at the prospect of "getting published!" to bother with the fineprint much.)
Whether self- or traditionally-published, I hold absolutely no illusions of making it big and striking gold. Which is probably for the best.
EDIT - Martyn, if I'm not mistaken, you're from the Netherlands, right? In which case I'll assume (correct me if I'm wrong) that the state of publishing in your country is the same as in mine, and that you're not exactly used to thinking of "writing" as a job that will make you filthy rich. ^^