Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion
III. Goodreads Readers
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Why don't more people read Self-published authors?
Brenda wrote: "The Look Inside feature just shows the first 20 pages or so of the work, I think. So if you load your book file up with a whole lot of extraneous stuff at the front then there it is. I believe you ..."Actually, its supposed to be about 10% of the book.
Brenda wrote: "The Look Inside feature just shows the first 20 pages or so of the work, I think. So if you load your book file up with a whole lot of extraneous stuff at the front then there it is. I believe you ..."Look Inside shows a percentage of the work. The default I think is 10%. You can ask Amazon to bump it to 20% for shorter works (so folks can get past the front matter to the story).
Brenda wrote: "The Look Inside feature just shows the first 20 pages or so of the work, I think. So if you load your book file up with a whole lot of extraneous stuff at the front then there it is. I believe you ..."Hm, a bit annoying, then. I know a lot of authors put legalese and dedications at the beginning (I guess you need to put it somewhere), and I agree that having to wade through this before getting to some actual bit of story is no good. Oh, well, I suppose that stuff can be booted to the last pages. Or kept to a minimum.
Yzabel wrote: "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 ti..."
If you're uploading the book yourself, you can control what you decide to put in as front matter and you can specify a percentage to expose to the reader (that's an e-mail to support to get anything other than the default percentage). But I don't think you can specify an exact cut-off point (cut it off at the end of Chapter 2, for example). Also, it's advisable to place your TOC in the back of the book (for eBooks).
I would put all the thank yous, the appendices, the History of Middle Earth stuff at the back, for this very reason. If I were Looking Inside and there were 20 pages of stuff, I might get bored before I got to the actual Look.
Gregor wrote: "Look Inside shows a percentage of the work. The default I think is 10%. You can ask Amazon to bump it to 20% for shorter works (so folks can get past the front matter to the story)."With my short stories, I only have the copyright page, the pitch and the short dedication, so samplers get a quite a long sample.
With my novels, I include an one page explanation 'About the Amsterdam Assassin Series', so readers know the order of the books. The 'About the AAS' page has been relegated to the back matter in the short stories, to avoid making the sample of the actual story too short.
Since my novels are 100K+, the 10% sample includes the first three or four chapters, so that should be enough to sell the books. I'm thinking of changing the percentage for the shorter KillFiles to 20%, although the first two are perma-free and not many readers would download the sample of a free story.
Linda wrote: "Unless it's a longer work (200+ pages) I don't think a linked table of contents is even necessary, especially if it takes up two pages or more. It also depends on the nature of the work, my work-in-progress Seattle in Shorts has numbered chapters of a novel and titled short stories between each chapter. It is as important that potential readers see the range of short stories as see the preview. I might change that opinion before the final version goes live, but some works would find the chapter/short story titles as important a part of the preview as the snippet of the opening chapter.
Maybe a tangent has begun??As a self-published author with experience converting books I thought I would comment..
The is not an option to have or to not have the "look inside" feature. That function is done entirely by Amazon. You can email as much as you want, but I believe it is their policy..
Again..vote with your dollar...
If someone won't let you "kick the tires" walk away.
Front matter can get out of hand, but it is expected to be in all books..
If you can't preview enough of the book, don't buy it.. (If you do buy it and you don't like it, you can return any ebook you want with just a couple of clicks)
In regards to the table of contents..I have converted/made dozens of ebooks you have to have a table of contents or there is no way to navigate the book.
Some self published authors don't know that the TOC thing works better with HTML so often this is why it takes up too much space.
A fascinating article about, among other things, why there are problems with self publishing:http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/20...
I think the STAR WARS analogy will strike home to every heart.
Brenda wrote: "A fascinating article about, among other things, why there are problems with self publishing:http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/20......"
Great article, Brenda. And thank you for showing me another blog to follow!
I agree that many self-publishers don't know how to put themselves in constraints.
this is an excellent article. Thanks for posting this. Really interesting. For the record I hated Phantom Menace for all the reasons listed here.sorry for the nature of this post. Sometimes I post from my phone.
I am tempted to go off and search out THE PHANTOM EDIT.
Fascinating discussion! I haven't read every post but I agree with many of the points being made. I think what clued me in that there are a lot of poorly edited books out there were reviews I received on my own books commenting on what a nice surprise it was to find a WELL-edited one! Like it's a rarity! Of course, I've come into this a bit differently than many self-published authors, in that I was trad published for years, then started self-publishing my backlist as I got the rights back, then finally started self-publishing new books. So I'm well aware of the necessity to have extra pairs of eyes on every manuscript before letting the public see it. With so many freelance editors, formatters, cover artists, etc. out there, many of them quite reasonably priced, self-publishers really are shooting themselves in the foot (feet?) by neglecting those important steps.
A fascinating article about, among other things, why there are problems with self publishing:http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/20...
For me, even if I achieve wondrous success with my self published books [Ha, Ha] I will still continue to publish traditionally if possible. It is such a great lesson on tight writing. I've been working with Tradewind Books for almost 3 years on a young adult novel called Switch. It was at 82,000 words a couple of months ago when my editor said that everything was working well and no major revisions were needed. Now it was time to do some tweaking. Because print novels are so expensive for small presses, I would have to cut it by 22,000 words. I thought I'd might as well get a start, so I cut 13,000 while I tweaked the few rough spots. I honestly don't know where I'm going to cut the other 9,000 but I'm sure it can be done. I've noticed that new publishers sometimes allow their writers to be self-indulgent. I recently started a new fantasy and was bored by page 11. What took four pages to say could've been told in one. Life is too short.
There are a lot of wonderful, deserving, need-to-be-discovered books out there that are self-published. But they get a bad rep from some of the not-so-polished indies that are put out just to make a quick buck. That said, there is so much writing even in journalism that is sloppy and full of typos. Writers everywhere are under the gun to produce and writing quality sometimes gets sacrificed, especially if writers are going it alone. Opinion towards indie books may be changing. I self-published two years ago and had a hard time finding top reviewers. I just self-published my second book and reviewers are much more willing.
Personally I'm always willing to read and review Indies - some of the best books I read last year were from Self Published authors. I do investigate sometimes previous reviewers to make sure its not one of THOSE authors who can't cope with a bad review, but personally I've never come across one, all the people I interact with on the book stuff have been lovely. In the trad world and in the Indie world. There is a load of crap out there I've seen some horrific examples of so called "writing" but I've been lucky - mostly I've had great experiences. These days the SPA has a wealth of "help" at their fingertips if they look for it, and a good book is a good book doesnt matter where it came from.
Bonnie wrote: "Because print novels are so expensive for small presses, I would have to cut it by 22,000 words."Richard wrote: "Not trying to be rude here, but that seems to me like a bogus reason to perform surgery on an essentially finished manuscript. :-) ..."
So your book shouldn't be over 60,000 words? Weird, I thought that 60K was the bare minimum for a novel. Most novels seem to be 80-90,000 words...
Martyn V. wrote: "Bonnie wrote: "So your book shouldn't be over 60,000 words? Weird, I thought that 60K was the bare minimum for a novel. Most novels seem to be 80-90,000 words."Technically, a novel starts at 40,000 words. But every publisher has their own requirements about what they consider to be the proper length for a novel.
"The challenge is what makes the success worthwhile.”—Keely Barton
This is a small Canadian children's book publisher. I guess that's how they've managed to survive in such a tough market, by keeping expenses down.
Kodai wrote: "Elle wrote: "It seems that either people love to read self-published authors, or they refuse to. Why do you or don't you read self-published authors? Likewise, if you find a book that looks good bu..."Kodai,
I totally agree. I think one of the challenges with self-published authors finding good editors is that there doesn't seem to be a resource to vet these services for indie authors. Writers google around and find someone--or just use a friend. I hired two professional editors, and one of them I should have reported to the BBB. She charged me $5K and only gave me a 5-page summary of her thoughts on the book and told me to start over. My second editor, who was supposed to be a copyeditor and proofreader, charged $1200 and missed at least 100 typos. That's far more than the "human error" we had agreed to.
Maybe there's a resource for vetting editors and proofreaders online, but I haven't found it.
Lisa wrote: "Writers google around and find someone--or just use a friend. I hired two professional editors, and one of them I should have reported to the BBB. She charged me $5K and only gave me a 5-page summary of her thoughts on the book and told me to start over. My second editor, who was supposed to be a copyeditor and proofreader, charged $1200 and missed at least 100 typos. That's far more than the "human error" we had agreed to."Wow. That really is a lot of errors, and an awful lot of money to spend for that type of shoddy work.
The advice I give is for writers to contact a LOT of editors for samples/evals. Prices for edits vary while staying within a certain range, but a free evaluation should help a writer to determine which ones are a "no" immediately. Contacting the authors with whom an editor has worked is often the deciding factor. If their reviews mention editing issues or missed typos, you probably want to avoid that editor. Or if the writer was unhappy with the editing experience (due to price, personality, or quality), I'm sure they'd be willing to tell anyone who's thinking of hiring that particular editor.
There are enough competent editors and enough writers to go around, and there's plenty of work for all of us. If someone doesn't hire me, I'm fine with their decision, as long as they don't end up hiring someone who's going to rip them off and do a poor job of it.
Richard wrote: "What a rip-off. For $5k she should have re-written the book for you."Lisa, if you have $5K more, I'll edit your next book, lol.
Not making fun of you; just hoping to make you smile.
My two-cents to this question:Publishers have distributed tons of sub-par books in the past. TONS. That's why we always hear things like "Even once a writer is published the majority of authors never sell enough to pay off the advance."
The fact is, it will just be a matter of time before publishers can stop claiming that they are producing higher quality books than indie authors. And soon, readers will be reading books that are either marketed well, or reviewed by their peers well—published, or self-published.
Sure...self-publishing sites opened the floodgates for people who don't take the craft seriously, and just throw their half-baked ideas online. And readers are still trepidatious to try indie authors when so much riff-raff is online.
But soon all of the terrible/half-edited indie books will settle to the bottom with the tide of time. If you are writing good novels, and your are self-published, I think with a good effort in marketing on your part your books will easily be separated from the chaff. Your books will be read. And publishers will be knocking on your door saying "Hey! We want to publish your book! Please? We'll take %80 of your royalty...And for that price we'll let you put our name in the front matter of your book. What do you think?"
Well? What do you think?
---Demar
Richard wrote: "Bonnie wrote: Because print novels are so expensive for small presses, I would have to cut it by 22,000 words.Not trying to be rude here, but that seems to me like a bogus reason to perform surge..."
Word count seems to me less important than the words themsleves. As a professor I don't give my students word or page count requirements. I want content, and tell them that if they respond thoughtfully to the essay prompt, the paper will be long enough. This prevents padding and fluff. A critique partner suffering of word-count-anxiety cut a good book too much, and felt she'd done so much damage she had to start over. I write long books, but I try to go through them for superfluous words and unnecessary scenes, and my critique partners are good at making me cut more. The books are still long, but that's one reason I self-publish. I like to read long books myself, if the characters and plot draw me in. I'm in no hurry for something I enjoy to be over.
J. wrote: "My two-cents to this question: ...Well? What do you think?"
Hmmm... Bear in mind that I'm cranky and suffering from extended cabin fever. I think that it's:
(1) kinda obnoxious (and ironic) for you to toss in IMG for your book (read: blatant OT promo in everyone's face) in this particular thread; and
(2) against GR policy for you to be rating your own book from non-author profile.
Just sayin'
ETA: But do love that you're a fan of yourself.
Richard wrote: "Karma♥Bites ^.~ wrote: "toss in IMG for your book (read: blatant OT promo"LOL... But everyone else is doing it!"
Alas, 'tis too true (which is why it's another list item apropos this thread). Hence my inability to restrain myself from noting it this time. Poor J/Demar drew the short straw. :)
Lisa wrote: "Kodai wrote: "Elle wrote: "It seems that either people love to read self-published authors, or they refuse to. Why do you or don't you read self-published authors? Likewise, if you find a book that..."That is an awesome idea. Perhaps on Absolute Write Water Cooler. Start a thread about experiences with editors like they have about publishers.
There are good proofreaders and editors, and of course, shoddy ones. Ask for recommendations. I'm a member of the Eastern Shore Writers Association and one was highly recommended to me, though I already had people engaged in this. May use for second novel. The amount one poster quoted here to only be given a shoddy summary with idea to start over seems scandalous. People merely trying to make a buck. Buyer beware it seems.
Tough subject. I am a member or Romance Writers of America. They delve into these issue for authors and have overall been very helpful to me in my quest to write a "good book" and get published. They have had great courses, contests and even recommended the publisher I eventually went with. I hope you can find such an organization in your genre. :-) Rory Home by Christmas
Lauren wrote: "There are good proofreaders and editors, and of course, shoddy ones. Ask for recommendations. I'm a member of the Eastern Shore Writers Association and one was highly recommended to me, though I ..."This is all so . . . true.
Richard wrote: "In case anyone out there is still wondering about this question... Here's an example of a self-pub author undergoing melt-down over a rating:https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/..."
Linda wrote: "The worst of it is, I didn't rate his book. No stars, no rating at all. I didn't star any of his books."
I noticed that, also. No stars = no rating. You shelved it for your own purposes,
I would have thought he'd be too embarrassed to appear on any of the threads after his last tantrum. And now I miss Feliks.
I also didn't rate his book, and yet was continually lumped in with the 41 carpet bombs (or carpetbaggers, depending on which of his posts you read). There was no logic or reason happening in his world last night.
I'm SO thankful I know all SPAs are not like him. Otherwise this, along with the previous day's meltdown by another author, would have had me running hard and fast for a trad pub book. Or maybe just Youtube.
Linda wrote: "The worst of it is, I didn't rate his book. No stars, no rating at all. I didn't star any of his books."Which is yet another example of some people not paying attention, not knowing the difference (or import) re: shelving rating, & reviewing, and/or not giving a shite.
This is wildly unprofessional behavior. I fail to see why anyone would ever read this person's books at all. He is clearly unable to handle even the slightest criticism (heaven have mercy upon his spouse, if he has one!) and should never read reviews.
Lynda wrote: "...There was no logic or reason happening in his world last night. ..."TBT, I seriously questioned his lucidity. The tone of his posts were... *smh* Ya know it bad when you feel embarrassed for the other person.
I have 21 Word doc pages of screen shots from last night, and I'm sure it will come as a surprise to no one that the author's comments have mysteriously disappeared.So thankful I saved those classic moments, and others copied them with their replies. I wondered at the time if he realized every time others replied with only his words that we were saving them for posterity. This is such a typical pattern: have a tantrum, spew a bunch of insults, and then remove it all later.
He must know (who could not?) that such ranting is a major turnoff, and that there is no faster way of choking off GR/Amazon reviews. And from his comments he can't handle the English language anyway, and is so best avoided.
Lynda wrote: "This is such a typical pattern: have a tantrum, spew a bunch of insults, and then remove it all later."Did I miss anything spectacular?
Lynda wrote: "I have 21 Word doc pages of screen shots from last night, and I'm sure it will come as a surprise to no one that the author's comments have mysteriously disappeared. ..."I think that all of his comments when poof! when his newly-created account did.
Linda wrote: "Oh, you did indeed, but we preserved most of it for you."I read it, yes. My compliments on staying civil during the onslaught. :)
Martyn V. wrote: "Did I miss anything spectacular?"Oh, Martyn. Spectacular isn't even a big enough word for it.
You really shouldn't take time out to sleep, you know. It's making you miss all the free entertainment.
My only regret is that I missed the author's final post. When I got up this morning and clicked on the link, it was already gone.
Karma♥Bites ^.~ wrote: "I think that all of his comments when poof! when his newly-created account did."I'm not so sure about that. I've seen plenty of posts with [deleted user], so it stands to reason that deleting a user doesn't automatically deletes their posts.
Lynda wrote: "You really shouldn't take time out to sleep, you know."Wish I could do without sleep, but my children have spring vacation. Even with the oldest staying with his grandparents, I still have the 3.5 year old daughter to entertain. And being permanently high on strong painkillers is making my life more and more surreal.
James made a right arse of himself, that's for sure. He seems to be easily excitable for someone his age...
Girls and boys, you have greatly amused me with your witty banter in regard to James and the Giant Screech. Thanks, Richard, for post 1686, as pointed out by Linda. I needed a laugh. My deepest and most heartfelt appreciation!
I hope he gets his anger management issues treated.
I tell you now that it was a hoot to be in the discussion with him as well. If we could just chase off all the speshul snowflakes, that'd be great.
C.M.J. wrote: "Girls and boys, you have greatly amused me with your witty banter in regard to James and the Giant Screech. Thanks, Richard, for post 1686, as pointed out by Linda. I needed a laugh. My deepest and..."James and the Giant Screech.
Lol.
Moonlight Reader wrote: "C.M.J. wrote: "Girls and boys, you have greatly amused me with your witty banter in regard to James and the Giant Screech. Thanks, Richard, for post 1686, as pointed out by Linda. I needed a laugh...."I just knew there was another former kid in this thread! :)
Well that was entertaining. And, alas, another instance of "Why don't more people read SPAs? --> Because they behave like asses" (generalisations, how we hate you).
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It becomes problematic when a work has a lot of one-page things -- like recipes, say, or poems. At that point people might read the one recipe and never go on to purchase the whole work.
OTOH, editors know this, and in short story collections or anthologies will take care to put the strongest work at the front. I am in an anthology titled HOW BEER SAVED THE WORLD. If you go look at it on Amazon and use Look Inside you can read my entire short story, because it's the first one in the book!