Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

Coming from a decades-long pre-internet fanzine tradition, I’ve spent a lot of money on self-published stuff over the years.  Some were brilliant and some were mediocre, and the stuff that was really awful, I didn’t buy.

Now, I would only buy a self-pubbed book if I knew a lot about how that author wrote already and liked it or maybe if it was recommended to me by someone I trust to know my taste and it was really, really cheap. 

As for born-again, star-struck, bi-sexual hack writers who are also crack-head killers… er, no. The HEA in that has got to be either dead or behind bars with no parole, because the world is definitely better off without them running free in it.  Not my thing.  I’ll pass on that one.

I don’t buy self-pub books at all - primarily because the author usually goes into a rant about how “the system” doesn’t allow for geniuses like her/him to be published and how agents/publishers aren’t looking for new talent, yatta yatta yatta.

Add to that the recent mantra about how only Idiots Sell Books to Publishers Because You Can Make So Much More Self-Pubbing on Amazon and I doubt I’ll ever pick up one.

As for this one… er, no thanks. I can and probably will find better on ff.net if I really tried. And poured bleach in my eyes. And sporked myself. Multiple times. Not to mention the issue of copyright violation, unless we’re seeing Charlie’s Angels as now in the public domain.

Unfortunately, the blurb above is exactly why I avoid self-published books. There is the perception, deserved or not, that they will be riddled with grammatical errors and a plot too wild to be restrained by Dolly Parton’s corset. There is the perception, deserved or not, that traditionally-published books will not suffer the same ailments.

I purchased one self-published book based on many recommendations. The upshot was that I loved the story and characters, but, yikes, the errors, the mangling of sentences! I almost wrote to the author to offer my editing services free of charge, just so she could avoid the same cake wreck in her next book. In the end, I didn’t, because what do I know after all, but I also did not buy her subsequent books.

The now defunct blog PODdy Mouth did all the hard work of reading a slew of self-published books.  When she declared the winners, I bought two of them. One I can’t even remember the title, and I didn’t finish it. It was good, very well written, but it was not my thing.  The other was Ransome Seaborn by Bill Deasy, which I immediately lent to others and have recommended many many times. It’s an excellent book and I wish the author had perused traditional publishing.

SherylNantes pretty much echoes my opinion of self-published fiction, though. I would not buy a self-published book unless I had heard from a trusted source that the book is worth the extra money (such books do tend to be more expensive) and my time reading it. I suppose the exception might be if the author was also published via an editorial process—I think we’ll see more of this as traditionally published authors get control of their backlist and/or write titles for which they know there is reader demand, but not from their current publishers.

I think publishers have missed opportunities with mass market backlist. They’re not monitizing it and I think we’ll see authors do that themselves.

I doubt sincerely that I would ever buy a self pub’d book.

That said, I’ve been given one by friends of the author.
I’ve never read it.

Having been involved in a couple of fan boards, I’ve read a bit of fan fic… but very little & what I read was not the greatest quality. Yeah, some fan fic is good & it can be funny & enjoyable for some…

I’ve got too many ‘regularly’ published books in my TBR pile. and I’m so behind in my reading it may take centuries to finish. I’m sure that when I finally die, someone will point to the pile of books & the bookcase by my bed and ask what those books are doing there… and someone will say that those are the books that she never got to finish.

So, unless someone highly recommends a self pub’d book to me & it is in a style or genre that I normally read, that it catches my attention & interest…. I won’t waste my time.

I might miss out on a fantastic read, but I have to take that chance.  Life is too short & I’ve got too much to read already.

What Sue said, basically.

There are bad published books, for sure. But if I’m picking a book without a recommendation (and most recs for me have to be either fairly detailed or from someone I know and trust to get my tastes) I want the assurance that at least five or six other people have thought it was good enough to invest in.

I’m also enough of a cynical capitalist that a company’s willingness to pay money for a work is a point in its favor. It’s easy enough to find something nice to say when you’ve only got words riding on your praise; most people speak a lot more honestly with their wallets.

I can’t overcome the perception that most self-pub is not yet ready for prime time and that is why it did not go the traditional route. Which is frustrating, because I have so many friends who write- well- and are struggling to get an agent. So every now and then I buy a self pub book. Or at least browse one, like a sample chapter from Amazon.

Basically, there is too much to dig through to find the good stuff. If you end-around the vetting process of contests, submitting to agents, editorial reviews and changes, you miss the chances to make your story tight and polished. So I have several DNFs from my self-pub forays.

It makes me crazy because I know that there are great books out there, books I would love, and I am missing out because an agent and a publisher haven’t stamped their approval yet.

I’m a librarian, which colours my attitude toward self publishing—I’m annoyed by the constant stream of self published authors trying to get my library to buy 20+ copies of their book. Unless it’s local history/memoir, we’re not interested because it won’t circulate.

Like Gwynnyd, I’m also a fanfic reader who doesn’t understand why I should pay $$ for a crappily-designed, non-proofread piece of WTFery when I can read better online for free. (Yes, lots of fic is terrible, but once you find a good writer it’s easy to follow the trail of breadcrumbs to more good stuff.)

I never buy self-pubbed stuff without some kind of recommendation (unless it’s free or a buck and sounds really good).  There’s just too much crap out there and I don’t want to be the one sorting through it. 

There is some self pubbed stuff that’s truly good (Shayne Parkinson’s “Promises To Keep Series”, first book ‘Sentence of Marriage free on Smashwords and Vicki Tyley’s ‘Thin Blood, $2.39 Amazon; $2.99 Smashwords come to mind), but there’s more crap than good at least in my experience and there are too few resources out there to help separate the wheat from the chaff.

My brother-in-law, Jim Tobin, wrote a social media marketing book called SOCIAL MEDIA IS A COCKTAIL PARTY and used a print-on-demand service to publish it.  He owns his own social media company (Ignite Social Media) and is very successful at it.  When I read the book, I found it to be good information.

I told him he should have submitted it through a traditional publisher, but I think he wanted to keep it as current as possible.  Social media is constantly changing, and by self-publishing it, he can immediately update it, switch out the file online, and anyone who buys a new copy will get the latest information.  I’m not sure he could do that with traditional print, because of the costs involved.

In the case of non-fiction, I can see where self-publishing could be a very valid option.  But fiction tends to be a different animal.

I did buy and read (part of) a book that I consider self-published. Boy, was I sorry I’d bought it. It was sold via a web site as romantic fic, so I figured it’d be okay, and I wouldn’t be wasting my money. I cyber-knew the author, so how far wrong could I go?

The web site lied. It was a mawkish piece of memoir. It was NOT fiction, NOT romance, and NOT well written or even very interesting. I skimmed most of it out of a misbegotten sense of obligation. I never will buy from this purported publisher again. The abysmal quality and mis-labeling, plus lack of evidence of any editorial eye whatsoever, led me to call this self-pubbed, even though technically it wasn’t.

Woof. I didn’t realize how angry people could get about self-publishing. I self-publish, and don’t partake in “bashing” that other self-pub authors seem to do. I know page design and have a design masters degree. I’m an entrepreneur. I intend on hiring a copy editor. I’m determined to release a quality product.

I’ve been buying self-pubbed books for years. Now, admittedly, some were better than others. I tend to go for the self-pubbed comic books and graphic novellas because the artist needs the money to keep doing the great work they do.

I feel like the self-publishing prose industry will sort itself out in a similar fashion. The good ones will rise, and the not-so-good ones will fall by the wayside. I just hope I end up on the good side.

All in all, really eye-opening to see the comments on this post.

While respecting all the caveats above, I’ve read a number of self-pubbed books on Kindle this year.  All were recommended by more than one person on a mystery listserv I am subscribed to, and all were under $3.  While I had quibbles with probably all of them, they were no stronger than those I have with traditionally published works (anybody really think there’s no copyediting problem with “real” books?  I have quite a number I can show you!).  Even established and relatively popular authors run a constant risk of being dropped by their publishers if the numbers don’t add up.  One advantage to the ability to self-publish on Kindle is that authors whose rights to their back lists have reverted to them can make those works available.

The only self-published book I bought I bought because I knew the author (she was in a book publicity class with me). But her book was being carried in stores and was professionally produced, so it didn’t have those many tells of self-published books: bad layout, bad photoshopped cover, rampant typos.

That being said…I still haven’t read it.

Laurel wrote:

It makes me crazy because I know that there are great books out there, books I would love, and I am missing out because an agent and a publisher haven’t stamped their approval yet.

I agree with you, and am waiting for a new system to help filter out the bad stuff. Problem is my bad stuff is someone else’s good stuff.  I’ve read lots of crap that has been through the agent/publisher filter, might even be a best seller and is still crap. 

Mainly I stick with the classics because

a) They’re free

and

b) if people are still talking about them and enjoying them hundreds of years since they were written, there is probably something of value.  Who knew Montaigne could be so engaging?

That being said, I’m willing to throw away a few dollars on a book instead of a meal out or something equally useless.  You never know.

I sort of think the last question needs another option: “The author is a friend/relative of mine”. The option “author email/pitch” doesn’t quite cover it if you’re buying it sight-unseen (pitch-unheard?) just to make your cousin happy. I believe social pressure is a strong force in selling self-published books: as in Tupperware, kitchen utensils, and scented candles, pleasing the salesman is more important than having the product.

Isabel C wrote:

I’m also enough of a cynical capitalist that a company’s willingness to pay money for a work is a point in its favor. It’s easy enough to find something nice to say when you’ve only got words riding on your praise; most people speak a lot more honestly with their wallets.

I think what we will see in the future is the electronic version of traditional publishing.  Publishing houses will move online, the same filtering process will happen, and readers will learn to trust the brand name.  The major difference will be that since epublishing is so much more cost effective, the publishing houses will be able to be more open to taking chances on a new author, adn we the readers will benefit.

I’ve bought self-published books from authors I’ve read before who wanted to continue with a series their regular publisher had dropped.  Wil Wheaton has self-published his books and I’ve bought them (whoops, wrong genre!) and enjoyed them.  I’m 99% sure that every good experience I’ve had with buying self-published books has come through Lulu.com as opposed to a more traditional “vanity press” and a writer who was already established in some way.

It might help if we realized that most the stuff that was printed (aside from the Bible) when Gutenberg perfected the printing press was pretty bad, too.  It was mostly tracts and pamphlets and political and/or religious screeds.  Not so different from self-pub stuff today. I think the market will help shake out the bad stuff, and the cream will rise to the top.

I find it so funny all the folks who say they’d never buys a self-pubbed book.

Because, um, if you’re buying off kindle, you wouldn’t know it was self-pubbed unless you went out of your way to check the publisher.  Before I started writing I never knew the publisher of anything I read.  And even now as I writer, I almost never check publishers before buying.  I choose books based on recommendations and good reviews.

Self-pubbed books don’t come with enormous warning labels on the cover any more than ladies of ill-repute walk around with scarlet letters sewn on their clothes.

I’ve only read one self-pubbed book so far.  It was recommended to me by a writer friend, who did not mention that it was SP.  It was Darkling Seas by Madelaine Montague, and I really enjoyed it.  I’d read a book by one of my favorite NYT Bestselling authors a day or two before, and felt Darkling Seas was better in some ways.  It was only when I went to check who the author’s publisher was that I learned it was self-pub.

So if anyone who commented here thinks they’d “never” read self-pub, you might want to go through the titles on your e-reader and check everyone’s publisher. One of those horrid, awful self-pub authors may have snuck in… while you were none the wiser.

My ebook reader is the Nook - and I actually check the publisher before I buy, believe it or not.

If the name is something I’m unfamilar with I’ll Google the publisher. And if I see that it’s an author trying to pretend to be a publisher or that it’s through Smashwords… uh, no.

The problem with relying on reviews, especially those on Amazon, is that self-pub authors tend to flog each other to each other by posting five star reviews on EVERYTHING. Not a four, not a three. And by Jove, there better not be a two-star review, else the self-pub author will do an Anne Rice-rant on the reviewer.

I don’t trust the reviews on Amazon anymore because of that. And I do check the publisher. It may “only” be a few dollars but I’d rather put my money towards a publisher who takes the time to edit, create good cover art and does the work to market the work than someone’s hiccuped tome that they claim is faboo “if only the agents/publisher would take on new talent”.

Time for tea!

I’m incredibly unlikely to ever part with a penny on a self pubbed book. I’ll also look askance at a self pub that gets picked up by a big house.

Back in the way back when I was reviewing for AOL our book selection was mandatory and pot luck. I read many a self pub in those days. My opinion of self pub is that it’s like paying to go through a slush pile. While standard pub is not free of it’s dogs, my personal self pub experience was bleak indeed. And my Amazon Encore experience is no better.

(Is it wrong that when I saw your topic I was ready to cue up Jane’s Addiction? Specifically a track that starts ‘here we gooooooooo ‘

PS - thought of an exception. If a midlist author I used to enjoy started self pubbing (a Danielle Harmon, say) I would consider it. But I wouldn’t know about it since I buy off the pub release lists.

Kilian: I think you’re right, and I’m looking forward to it!

Another factor I thought of after my first post: usually I buy books these days based on recommendations from friends or review sites like this one, or because I already like the author. The exceptions are when I need books urgently and have to go with the selection at the train station or whatnot, in which case the traditionally-published works are likely to *far* outnumber the self-pubbed ones.

What I don’t get (and please, if possible, enlighten me - I’m still new to this!), is this: There are so many small, online publishers now (in the case of romance, Ellora’s Cave, Samhain Publishing, etc.). Shouldn’t that make it easier for a decent writer to get some kind of publishing that’s not self-publishing? It just seems to me like it’s not as if writers are limited to Random House and other huge names. If you really, really can’t get any kind of publishing deal whatsoever, then maybe you’re either not trying hard enough or your book just isn’t ready. Of course, sadly, it’s usually the former, because there’s still a frightening amount of dreck that *does* get published.

Regardless, with the rising popularity of e-books, it seems like the playing field has been leveled a bit. I’m pretty sure the only place I’d ever find a self-pub is online, and the amount of Ellora’s and Samhain’s books that I’ve read has spiked considerably since buying an e-reader. If I come across a self-published book whose summary is promising and it’s reasonably priced, there’s just as much likelihood that I’ll read it as there is for any other e-book.

That said, that summary up there makes me cringe. For many reasons. As an aspiring writer, it’s embarrassing to see “self-published” represented by something that feeds the stereotype, you know? That summary reads like a mediocre-to-bad fanfic, it has grammar and punctuation issues all over the place, and it’s just ONE paragraph. Would Not Read.

I"ve bought some self-pubbed non-fiction (local interest/history) and for the most part have found them to be full of fascinating info delivered with mediocre to awful writing (what I’d expect from a letter from a relative, not a professional author). Those experiences have made me unwilling to buy self-pubbed fiction—I really hate being knocked out of a decent story because of poor writing/nonexistent editing. (FWIW, I tend to avoid—or carefully scan before purchase—certain traditional publishing lines for the same reasons). I would be willing to follow an author I previously loved into self-publishing, or to purchase OOP books in self-e-pub, but haven’t yet.

As for the fan-fic-meets-LSD-meets-homophobia blurb (really? gotta mulch the lesbian cop and have the bisexual guy get born again?), all I could think after I stopped laughing and shaking my head was that whoever owns the rights to Charlie’s Angels is going to sue Mr. Trivers’ ass into the ground.

Sorry, Sarah, for getting off-topic, not to mention more than a little scrappy. ;-)

(I’d delete my earlier comment but can’t figure out how.)

Anyway- My limited experience was positive, but I read something recommended by a friend.

I’ve not bought a self-pubbed book mostly because I worry at the quality of the work. If I’m looking at an author I’ve never read before, be it on-line or in a book store, I like to take a look at the writing, read a few paragraphs and see if this is worth spending time with. All of the self-pubbed things I’ve found on Amazon don’t allow you to do that and so I’ve no idea how good or bad the thing is going to be.

The best of the self pubs I’ve read had potential and were almost enjoyable.  So yeah, my experience hasn’t been great and it will take some major buzz before I try again.  Or a little bit of buzz, a long excerpt and a low price.

As for the comment above about not knowing if books I’ve read were self published or not I absolutely look at the publishers of each and every book I buy now that I mainly read digital.  I might not remember who publishes what once I’ve bought the book but looking at the publisher has become part of the buying process for me and impacts my decision to buy right along with reviews, recommendations, cover art and excerpts.

I always check publishers, too, and I’ve even been classifying publishers in my head since I started reading as a child.  When I first dreamed of getting published, I wanted DAW to pick me up (I was 11 or so and mainly read sci-fi/fantasy).  Over the years I’ve learned more and more about the traditional publishers and about the various forms of self publishing, and then worked for years in bookselling…

Minus a few exceptions, I see self publishing as epic failure. 

I’ve written a few books that will never see the light of day with a real publisher, but instead of self publishing, I realize my earlier stuff is crap, and I’m learning from my mistakes and getting better and writing new books, and someday I hope to get a proper contract.  If I don’t, I don’t.  My goal is not just seeing my words in print; I want that small-press or big-NY publisher stamp of approval.  It’s like a challenge. 

That said, other people have different goals and desires.  Some people do just want to see their stuff in official-looking book form. 

But as a reader, unless it’s non-fiction or some established author’s backlist, I don’t foresee buying self-pubbed books.  As others have said above, while there may be a few diamonds in the pile, they’re covered by truckloads of muck. It doesn’t seem worth the time to dig when I already can’t keep up with my traditionally-pubbed TBR pile.

Here is what I’ve learned from my experiences with self-published books:

Lesson the First: The editing is never good. There are spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors that an eight-year-old could spot from a mile away. I know that traditionally published books run into the same issues; I’ve read a couple of Fern Michaels novels that made me CRINGE. However, the number of traditionally published books with this issue to the extent that I’ve seen in the self-published ones is considerably smaller.

Lesson the Second: The plots range from “weird” to “unbelievable.” The most common reaction I have had to reading a plot summary is “WTF?”

Lesson the Third: The writing is never good. Most of the ones I’ve read have no idea how to structure a story or write a scene. The dialogue is atrocious. The description is pathetic. It’s like reading something a teenager wrote, and I almost feel bad saying that, because I have read some really good teen writers.

To me, self-published books have almost always been from people who just wanted to see their name on a book and have it in print. And that’s fine. Just don’t expect me to spend any money on it unless it has an EXCELLENT recommendation from people I trust.

Here endeth the lesson.

*Please note I’m speaking about print books, not digital. I don’t have an ereader, so I am still print-only on reading fiction.

I’m an indie fan. I like supporting artists directly, whether it’s painting, music or fiction. I like how out of the box art can still find an audience. I like the more direct contact with artists.

I’m very active in the online interactive fiction world, and most self-published books I’ve read and bought tend to be by authors I’ve read stuff from online. I know their writing abilities, know that I like the kind of stories they tell.

I do the same with regular published books though. Even with raving reviews, I’ll always read the sample first. If not digitally available, I’ll wait for the book to arrive in the library, read it, and then decide if it’s worth to buy.

There’s nothing that shows if an author is your thing than the actual fiction.

But I do think that Holly is on to something. There are enough smaller digital romance publishers that accept and publish out of the box romance. I have a Samhain addiction. So for my out of the box romance desires, I don’t need to look far.

So far I’ve only bought one Self-Published romance book, Kept by Zoe Winters, a paranormal novella, and it was okay. It suffered from some flaws, mostly related to the fact that it’s hard to write a novella with AND good worldbuilding AND good character development AND good plot. If I compare to my other ratings of romance novella’s I find that only 1 book got 4 stars, a whole bunch got 3, and a couple got 2. Kept got 3. (All out of 5, long live my Goodreads shelves so I could check).

All in all, I don’t really make the difference between self-published books and regular published books. If it gets recommended to me, if I like the sample writing, and if the plot speaks to me, I’ll probably read it.

I just spit coffee on my keyboard. I will never EVER be able to watch “Charlies angels” again without those disturbing scenes flashing though my head.

I once bought a self-published book because a friend wrote it . I liked the story and the plot but cringed at the spelling and grammar mistakes ( I once noticed 15 mistakes on ONE page). It was so distracting that I wanted to go through the book with a pencil to mark all the mistakes. I will probably never buy a self-published book again.

I work for a newspaper in my day job and we receive several offers to review the books of local authors who have gone the self-pub route — we turn down every single one.

Unfortunately, the quality simply isn’t there. While people may have legitimate complaints about the traditional publishing route, the process does serve a purpose in that it weeds out the work that’s just not ready yet.

Every writer, at some point, believes their work is genius — even when it’s not. I didn’t get published until December 2006 but I wrote my first book at 16. Would I want ANYONE to see that first piece of work? Good God, no! The idea is mortifying. However, at the time I thought it was fantastic. It took many years of honing my craft and taking my licks (paying my dues) to find a publisher who wanted to take a chance on me with a contract and an advance.

I believe in the traditional publishing model and support it whole-heartedly. I doubt there’s much that would change my mind on that score.

So, with that said, I would not purchase a self-pubbed book. I cannot afford to spend my hard-earned money on a book that I don’t feel confident has gone through the proper channels (editing, etc) on its way to the bookshelf.

As a reader and a self-published author, I have to admit I still won’t buy a self-published book unless I can read a free sample somewhere. Personally, I don’t care who published the book. As long as the blurb grabs me and the writing is up to par, I’ll give any book a chance.

I haven’t bought any self pubbed books.  I *do* pay attention to the publisher now that I’m buying ebooks and everyone has a level playing field.  I used to just look at reviews, and if something had several good or great reviews I tried it.  I learned my lesson.  I’m guessing the good reviews came from friends and family, because the two I’m thinking of were hard to read.  AND they were from publishers - one was Samhain for sure, not sure of the other.  So, now I look to see who published. 

It just seems like there is so much to wade through and I’ve learned a well written blurb does not equal a well written book.  So I rely on review sites like this one, Dear Author and others.  I haven’t bought a book I just happened to browse and find since my bad experience mentioned above. 

Laurel (way up toward the top) has it right.  I might be missing out on really good self pubbed books, but I’m not willing to wade through the slush to find them. I’m glad for review sites to help me spend wisely!

Lot of hate for the self-pubbed. I`ve started reading free self-released novels ie smashwords, freeonlinenovels, obooks, feedbooks etc.

I don`t find most of them to be unreadable. Nor are the plots as summerized in the post. They could use a good polish, which wouldn`t be difficult.

Every writer, at some point, believes their work is genius — even when it’s not

Uh, no. I find most serious indies to see their flaws and to be realistic in what they produce. I didn`t do anything with my writing until I had something I felt I would enjoy reading. Before that I wrote a lot, but I wouldn`t share it with an ant.

it`s not shiney, but no one has told me it`s utter crap.

I have bought one, read that ONE, self-pubbed book.  And it’s only because I know the author personally.  In general most self-pubbed books I’ve come across (Mostly online.  Few and far between.) have either not caught my interest, or have been so poorly written they make me wince in pain.

Thriller author Chris Kuzneski claims he started by self-publishing and selling out of the trunk of his car before getting a deal with a traditional publishing house.  Though I do not think it was a multi-million dollar deal.  Then again, he’s a thriller writer, not a romance writer.  I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a romance writer who went from self-pub to OMG-rich-as-Midas.  But I could be wrong.

Most of the self-published stuff I have come across is digital and I suspect I have probably read a few novellas that have been self published but I’m not sure because I don’t really check the publisher.
I would say a lot of the time what keeps me from purchasing   is the god awful cover art and titles.  I’m not going to lie, if the cover art is really terrible, I am going to judge a book by its cover.

Twice—one is a book my sister wrote (non-fiction, not presently intended for wide distribution but she’s thinking about it for the future) and another is a book written by a friend of a member of a book discussion club I’m in (which, given some intelligent editing, could probably have sold to a publisher—the bones were there).

In both cases, they considered going the regular publisher route and went Nah, not worth the trouble at this time.

I’ve read self published books, but it started because Sarah Frantz recc’ed the author. I can’t remember if at the time Matthew Haldeman Time had traditionally pubbed books. I’d love to know how she found him. Mostly the author has to be recommended from reviewers I trust or I have to find a sufficient amount of information to know I’m not wasting my time/money. The other thing that will convince me is if the author has traditionally published works. Then I tend to assume the publisher declined the self published works for reasons other than the author not being able to plot or write well enough.

WHOA. That book blurb makes me go “baroo?” - in the bad way.

Like saltypepper mentioned above, the only self-pubbed books I’ve read are by actor/writer Wil Wheaton. Strictly non-fiction, very well-edited, and utterly hilarious.

As a self-published author, I’ve purchased and read many self-published books, all of them Kindle ebooks.  I’ve enjoyed many of them.  I will tell you that I only buy a book once I’ve read the sample and it’s grabbed my interest, and I can see it’s quality writing.  Have I grabbed samples of self-published work and not liked it?  Sure.  I’ve seen some real stinkers.  But those don’t usually sell, and don’t get much attention.  The books I have enjoyed (off the top of my head) have been Thin Blood, by Vicki Tyley; Deed to Death, by D.B. Henson; 33 AD, by David McAfee; Portal, by Imogen Rose; and right now I’m reading My Blood Approves, by Amanda Hocking.  All very good books.  If you like YA romance, Portal and My Blood Approves are must reads.  Don’t judge a book by who published it, you’ll be missing out on some great books.

As a reader:
Such a great discussion. I am so mixed on this. The free marketeer in me *wants* to believe that the cream always rises to the top, that we are not all pawns in Emperor Franzen’s Evil PR Empire, that artists are free. Then I sag and start humming Joni Mitchell: “That was just a dream some of us had.”

As a writer:
This past June/July I used Amazon DTP as a beta-reading platform for family and friends (“I hope you will read my book and let me know what you think,” and figured if I sold a few, all the better), meanwhile fully intending to query agents and publishers with a version of that book. (True Confession: I also sent an email about it to you, SB Sarah, which I have been meaning to ask you to destroy. Please. I live in fear of being your next object lesson.) While at RWA Orlando I spoke briefly with Angela James of Carina about the DTP-as-beta and she said (I’m paraphrasing) “Don’t.” She said as long as I had not marketed it (does that email to SB Sarah count as marketing, I still wonder?) I could pull it from Amazon and still *try* to pitch it to print publishers. I scurried out of the conference room and “unpublished” right then from my iPhone on the window sill of the Dolphin Resort. I realize now how much I want the total experience (or failure from a valiant attempt) of a traditional agented/edited/published author. (Good thoughts on same at http://tiny.cc/at2dr Jane Friedman’s interview with Johanna Harness, creator of the #amwriting Twitter hashtag).

That said (one of my least favorite transitional phrases, sorry) if you have the time, energy, and focus to dedicate to marketing you and your book, have at it. (But most writers need that time for writing.)

As a capitalist:
I do not think re-released backlist titles should enter into this discussion: they’ve been professionally edited, marketed, etc., and if the publisher is foolish enough to relinquish possession of their rights, then of course the author should take advantage of name-fame and, for lack of a better phrase, re-publish.

Lastly, I have never purchased a self-published book, but I would on a friend’s recommendation, minced star-struck lesbians excluded—no matter how multi-layed (one of my favorite typos in a while)!

SORRY to be so long-winded!!!

That is a whole other question, though: would a reader want to know if a book had been released by a publisher awhile ago and was now self-published by the author? Would that be enough of an indication of quality or vetting of the book?

It would be for me. I would consider that more of a re-issue than a self-pub. I recently picked up some of Karen Ranney’s OOP backlist at Smashwords that way. But, having read and liked Ranney, I already had a pretty good idea of what I was getting.

I’ve bought a few self-published books. I have seen the proverbial woman selling books out of the trunk of her car, if you revise that to man selling books out of a box on a subway platform—there are a handful of people hawking books on the NYC subway, and I know of one (his name escapes me right now) who sold a book to a curious editor and got a contract out of it. Or you have authors like Ann Herendeen who self-published a novel that was later bought by HarperCollins. So, stranger things have happened.

I’ll buy a self-published book if a) it got a really positive review somewhere, b) if someone I know wrote it (a good friend of mine who is an absolutely brilliant writer self-published a book of essays a few years ago), or, apparently c) if it looks interesting and is priced reasonably? I was browsing Amazon last week and stumbled upon a self-pubbed book that looked good based both on the title and the blurb (the cover art was not so great, but I’ve seen a lot worse) and I wound up buying it because it was $0.99 for the Kindle, so I felt like it was a low-risk purchase. (I haven’t read it yet, so I can’t speak to its quality.)

I have a pile of my own biases, as both someone who has worked in the editorial department of a Big Scary New York Publisher and as a writer who chose to publish with smaller presses, but it’s a good option for some writers. Just to devil’s advocate, I know a woman who tried the usual agent route, failed to get a contract, and decided to self publish, and she’s completely happy with the experience and even sold a few books. Some of the criticism leveled at self-published fiction is certainly valid, but there are some diamonds in the rough, too.

asrai said on…
09.08.10 at 10:30 AM

Lot of hate for the self-pubbed. I`ve started reading free self-released novels ie smashwords, freeonlinenovels, obooks, feedbooks etc.

I don`t find most of them to be unreadable. Nor are the plots as summerized in the post. They could use a good polish, which wouldn`t be difficult.

I haven’t seen any hate just a bunch of don’t like.  But I really just wanted to say there’s a HUGE difference between reading a story for free that has merit but could use some polish and PAYING for it.

As a self-published author and fanfic writer, I blushingly put myself forward here.

My motives for self-publishing are two: first, I don’t want to wait and work and wait and hunt for an agent and wait and proof and wait and wait to see my book in print, and second, there is little market for my style (“sweet” Regencies). My self-pub Regencies have now been published by a commercial ebook company, which gives them a bit more validity. And for those of you with grammar gripes, my ebook publisher returned my first manuscript with very, very few changes.

That said, being a self-pub/fanfic writer, I have cruised Lulu (where my books are) and ff.net a lot, and I have to say that, well, to put it bluntly, there is a lot of crap out there. Yeah. True.

Obviously having no prejudice against self-pubbed books, I do buy them, and I use the exact same criteria that I do for traditionally published books. That is, I buy if (a) I can read a sample (I am always lingering in bookstores, reading the first chapters), or (b) someone I trust recommends it.

Given the way the publishing industry works, and the pervasiveness of the Internet, I am really hoping that self-pubs and ebooks continue to grow in value, stature, and volume. “Indie” does not always equal bad! Just… a lot of the time. Yeah.

(By the way, “Eragon” was a self-pub sold out of the trunk of a car.)

I’ve purchased a few self-published books, whose content and grammar/spelling/punctuation has ranged from average to excellent, and whose design and layout has ranged from dismal to very good.  However, these were all non-fiction books—a home organization guide, two sock knitting pattern books, a genealogy book, etc.  I’d read the person’s website and knew they could write essays on the topic, or I’d seen several strong reviews from reliable reviewers, or I knew that the book would contain information I needed; I knew the books would probably be worth my money.

I own one novel that I believe was originally self-published (no, I’m not counting anything published before 1900), but the edition I have is the one that was picked up by a Big 6 publisher.

I might buy self-published fiction that hasn’t made the leap to a traditional publisher, but it would have to have stellar reviews from sources I trust, or be by a person who I knew could write a competent story (because I was already familiar with their previously published fiction, or because I’d read their fanfic or a free original story).  I’ve done slushpile reading; I know there’s a lot of writers who think their story’s publishable when it isn’t even readable.  I’m not willing to spend any of my money on slush, and if I want to spend my limited free time looking through slush, I’ll hie over to a fanfic archive.

I started to fill out the survey, but remembered the only self-pubbed romance I’ve read was handed to me by the author as a gift. It wasn’t bad, but it could have greatly benefited from a good edit.

I will admit that I am probably prejudiced against self-published books. Like many people have mentioned, there is a lot out there that’s awful. There is also very good stuff, I’m sure, but I’m not willing to trawl through the “slush pile” to find it. I’d rather someone else did that for me, and established publishing houses do that quite nicely as far as I’m concerned.

My tastes are fairly mainstream, so I’m not looking for wild, out of the way plots and I like something to be well edited. I have plenty to read already, so don’t often take a risk on new authors (sorry, new authors) no matter how they are published.

I don’t think I’ve ever bought a self-published novel. I have bought some short stories - but those were from an established author who was telling some extra tales in her worlds where she doesn’t currently have contracts for full books. I’ll happily do that.

If some of my old, favourite authors self-published futher books in favourite series that have been dropped by their publishers, I’d buy them (so long as I knew they were well edited).

If a self-pubbed book came highly recommended by people I trust, the plot interested me and I was promised it was well edited, I’d be willing to give it a try.

But just scanning the shelves/online bookshop, not it isn’t likely.

Will totally admit that I am prejudiced against self-pub after being burned on several purchases.

Back in the early days of Amazon, I found these books with some amazing themes that I never saw on the bookshelves at Barnes & Noble. One was an ancient egypt time travel! One was about the Highwayman but he was a ghost sexxoring up the heroine! All kinds of strange and bizarre paranormal plots (back before there was a paranormal boom) and all with very plain covers and $20 a pop for a trade paperback. me being a great ignorant fool who had no idea who ‘Xlibris’ was, I happily purchased these books by the DOZENS.

They all sucked. Sucked haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaard. I found out after the fact that they were self pubbed and I felt ripped off.

So no, I won’t try self-pubbed stuff anymore.

I was once handed a book on the subway in NY. It went on my shelf and I never cracked it. Still haven’t, but mostly because I read historical and it is contemporary. That said, I have read two excellent self-pub’d books The Proviso and Stay by Moriah Jovan. I’m no editor, but I don’t remember anything that bothered me. The plots are wonderful! I love her books! I am waiting with baited breath for her next self release, Magdalen.

So yeah, there is certainly a lot of crap out there in self publishing, but honestly the same can be said in traditional as well. With epublishing I am far more open to self pub’d works than ever, but an excerpt or a strong and trusted recommendation is required.

I have read a good number of self-published books this year, and with the exception of one not being my cup of tea, I can’t say I disliked any of them.  In fact, compared to the traditionally published books I’ve read recently, some of them were better.  Yes, there are some crappy self-published books.  But there are also some crappy traditionally published books.

It occurred to me while I was reading all this that much of the world thinks genre fiction is crap, and more of the world thinks romance is crap, and even more of the world thinks small press romance is crap, and still more of the world thinks erotic romance is crap, so I guess that puts self pub at the bottom of the crap heap. If it’s true that many self pub authors point at trad pub books as being the true crap (the self pub authors I know don’t, but I don’t know many), it’s kind of a crap snake eating its own head thing. I guess we all need someone to point at as being crappier than thou.

I have bought two self-pubbed books to date and was disappointed by both.  One had spelling/grammar errors left and right - and was therefore just a pain to read.  I felt embarrassed for the author and there is *absolutely no way* this book could have been published through a traditional publisher. 

The other one did not flow at all…it was all over the place…and so again, it was difficult to read.  Reviewers said the same thing. 

I bought them both for the topics and out of genuine interest, and ironically, both books had an editor name on them, so I thought they had been edited.  When I opened the books, I realized that these must not have been professional editors.  They were probably friends.

Both books were extra pricey because they were self-pubbed, so I ended up feeling ripped off and annoyed.  I always check publisher names now and am very careful about buying a self-pubbed book because honestly folks, it’s a gamble.

I realize that there are good writers out there who are probably self-pubbing…trying to be independent of the publishing industry.  I respect you’re ambition, but you have a challenge on your hands because self-pubbed books are risky business.

I have been guilted into buying only a handful of selfpublished books and I have always been disappointed.  I no longer buy them because I’d rather have nothing to say than have nothing nice to say in the long run.

Now, it’s been a while, and things, as you say, are changing faster than you can keep up with them in the self-publishng world, so perhaps I might be persuaded to purchase in the future, but I’d have to be guaranteed in advance that an actual editor was involved somewhere along the line.

I’m buying some self published digital books.  Some have been excellent—whatever one thinks about Ann Somerville’s opinions, I enjoy her writing quite a bit.  Which says a lot because I’ve decided I am not a m/m fan.  Let me also jump on the Vicki Tyley bandwagon.  I’m current reading Thin Blood and have Sleight Malice lined up next.  It’s currently only 99 cents on Amazon. 

I’ve also found three other authors that I really enjoy who self published on Kindle.  None have nearly as many editing errors as the last Dorchester published novel I read.

What really puts me off is if the book was “published” by PublishAmerica. I don’t like it when I feel the author was taken advantage of by the publisher.  I also now avoid POD books from small presses.  I have bought some POD books that were put out by small presses that will remain nameless because I can’t remember any of them although one of the books won some sort of an online award.  Really horrible.  Even the award winner.

One digital book published by a small press, Amber Quill, has the dubious honor of being declared The Worse Book We Have Read In Our LIves So Far—see, I’m leaving room for the future, by the friend I shared it with and myself.  Shame. It had a clever title and a good cover, just needed an author.

I’ll take a chance on a book that sounds good for $2.99 or less.  I’ll try a sample based on recommendations. 

And with regard to Amazon non-reviews, has anyone else noticed

Now the FTC has announced a settlement with marketing firm Reverb Communications, who was accused of writing fake reviews of apps in the iPhone app store. This FTC action makes sense, as it’s clearly a case of someone passing off a review as legit, when it was part of a marketing campaign.

The rest of the story is here:  http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100826/16563710787.shtml

while I read stories in online news articles about the mythological author who sold books out of the trunk of her car then got a six figure publishing deal, I’ve never actually seen said author

While she writes lit fic—not romance novels—Hilary Thayer Hamann iss an author whose self-published novel Anthology of an American Girl was picked up by a major publisher. It’s also garnered a ton of favorable reviews (if that’s how you determine success I guess) so there is one story to back up that self-pub myth. Again, it’s only one author in the thousands who will publish shit and then suffer under the weight of their own genius.

I think I’ve read one self-pubbed book - Darlene Marshall’s Captain Sinister’s Lady - and that was after seeing it and other of her books reviewed on various sites by people whose opinions matter to me. It was a really fun book, nothing special, but definitely on par with traditionally pubbed books I’ve read in terms of quality.

As a rule, however, I avoid self-pubbed like the plague. Why? Because the authors annoy the ever-loving piss out of me on the Amazon romance board. One too many has spammed the board or recommended this great book they “found” or generally spoken to us like we’re dimwits. Then whenever they’re called on it, they break out this high-pitched whine about how The Man doesn’t appreciate special snowflakes. No way I’m going to support twats like that. Their heroines are guaranteed to make me reach for the gas can and the lighter.

When they stop behaving like emo teenagers, I might buy their books.

What turns me off self published or indie books?

Lack of editing. Bad/amateur formatting. Lack of editing. Ugly cover art with funny colored fancy fonts, like yellow Comic Sans or Curlz that scream “I did it myself”. The same holds for a lot of small press. Plastic people on the covers straight out of a 3D program with no post work. Bad cut and paste and awful compositing. Covers that look like a tribe of 3 year olds with crayons made them. (Unless it is a book about or by three year olds.) Misspellings in the pitches/blurbs, product descriptions, or author webpage.

On the other side, there are incredibly talented authors out there in the indie world. They have professional editors. They get professional cover artists, and you can tell. They format with care, or find someone who can. Kindle or print book, it is quality, well presented, well written, well plotted, exciting, and re-readable. The good ones are out there. You just have to find them.

I filled out the quiz but think you could use another category.  I bought one self-published book because I felt sorry for the author, a friend who’d gotten caught by a scammy press.  I avoid them like the plague otherwise.  I get annoyed by the occasional professionally published book that I think could use a bit more editing - every self-published book I’ve ever picked up has given me the impression that no editors at all were involved.  Possibly I’ve run into mostly bad ones.

Because I was mentioned here: http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php/weblog/comments/self-publishing-reader-survey/#122907 I feel I need to clarify what I said.

While at RWA Orlando I spoke briefly with Angela James of Carina about the DTP-as-beta and she said (I’m paraphrasing) “Don’t.” She said as long as I had not marketed it (does that email to SB Sarah count as marketing, I still wonder?) I could pull it from Amazon and still *try* to pitch it to print publishers.

I remember this conversation! And I did say don’t, but not because I was discouraging you from self-publishing, but because you clearly indicated this wasn’t a book you wanted to self publish/hadn’t intended to publish, but wanted to shop to publishers. And I was saying that once you self publish the book (and it’s self published as soon as it’s for sale anywhere), it’s now considered previously published by editors and agents, and you’re entering a whole different level of querying, because now the editors/agents are going to want to know how many copies you sold. Why it did or didn’t sell well. And they can’t (or shouldn’t) present it to their readers as a new book. Because technically it’s been previously published. No matter your intentions!

I have purchased quite a few printed self-published books.

Eight years ago, paranormal romance was much more difficult to find, and I was hungry enough for the topic to order and give them a try.  My local retail store would order a couple at a time for me, and let me take a look before I put down my hard earned cash.  Yes, those with horrible grammar were rejected and returned.  To be honest, none of them were literary works of editorial art.  The selling point was how the author handled the sex scene; I leaned more toward the paranomal erotica, and I don’t buy sex scenes with “throbbing manhoods” or “sweet manjuice”.

As mainstream publishers picked up on the paranormal trend and more was available, I tapered off the self-published simply because mainstream has professional editing and a more consistent product.

As far as purchasing another self-published, I won’t buy e-books; it has to be in print format so I can look at it.  I have to be able to actually flip through and check the consistency of the editing.  Skeptical?  Yep.

As for your survey questions, the cover art doesn’t make or break a self-published book for me because I know these people are working on a budget.  The blurb itself is the primary contact that will get me to pick it up.

(However, cover art from a mainstream publisher WILL have a big impact on the sale for me, because if the publisher doesn’t believe enough in the book to pay for decent cover art, then the book probably isn’t worth much.)

Thank you for elaborating Angela.

I’ve bought self-published cookbooks and some new-age stuff that has a limited market, but I’ve never bought self-published fiction.  I have an acquaintance who self-published, and she paid a professional editor, and it sounds kinda interesting, but I still haven’t bought it.  It may be that I’m just not into that historical era anymore, but it’s more likely that I don’t want to feel obligated to give her my opinion—especially if I don’t like it.  So many books to read, so little time…

Even reading e-books these days, I’m finding myself relying very heavily on reviews, and taking fewer chances when I buy.  When I only bought in paper, I’d buy a lot more chancey books, because they were published by houses I recognized.

I think I should have clarified earlier - Ultimately, I very rarely buy *ANY* book without reading a sample of it. Those I do purchase without previewing, it’s because it’s an author I’ve either already read, or they’ve come highly recommended by a friend or trusted source (like SBTB!.

Maybe because I’m familiar with fan fiction and have had the pleasure of coming across some real gems that are extremely well-written and have wonderful plots, I’m less inclined to be prejudiced against *all* self-published works. Yes, there’s a LOT of crap. But there’s a lot of crap everywhere - in self-published fiction and published fiction (and fan fiction). And yeah, the crap ratio is higher in self-published. But I guess the way I see it is that there’s so MUCH crap everywhere, I’m ecstatic when I find something really great anywhere. And I’m not willing to write off entire sources of reading material on the argument that most of it’s crap. I kind of think it’s the “most of it’s crap” argument that leads to people making sweeping generalizations about whole genres of fiction (like romance).

Maybe because I don’t purchase without sampling, period, it’s all the same to me. *shrug*

Up until about 2.5 years ago, I had purchased 2 or 3 self-published paperbacks, all mysteries that fit in a particular niche I’m fond of and never get enough of. None of those books were terrific, but none were so awful I felt cheated either.

Then came Kindle. At the time I purchased my K1 I had no idea how much difference the sample feature would make. In the beginning I got some indie books without knowing they were indie. They were inexpensive, so I gave them a try. As time passed I found and joined some of the Amazon and other forums and became more aware but also found more information about indie books. In fact, full disclosure here, I found the information about Amazon’s DTP that led me to become an indie author last February with books that had been sitting on my PC’s hard drive for years, not because anyone doesn’t appreciate genius I make no claim to have but for other kinds of reasons I won’t bore anyone with in this long enough post.

I absolutely understand anyone who doesn’t want to bother with the self-published and have no urge to try to change anyone’s mind. However, I personally am grateful that there are thousands of readers out there who are more adventuresome, and I do have to wonder why a discussion of self-published books couldn’t feature the description of, or an excerpt from, one of the many successful ones.

IcePrincess said
I do not think re-released backlist titles should enter into this discussion: they’ve been professionally edited, marketed, etc., and if the publisher is foolish enough to relinquish possession of their rights, then of course the author should take advantage of name-fame and, for lack of a better phrase, re-publish.

What she said.  I’ve bought several of this variety. They’re in a totally different category, IMO.  “Re-released by the Author” or something.

On the subject of self-publishing, I feel compelled to mention Dara Joy. 

Sorry to revive those memories, but it had to be said.

I’m definitely leery of self-published books. I’m hard to please in the first place, and self-pubbed books tend to have so many errors and a general lack of quality that I have to be VERY interested to buy one. I read a fair amount on literotica, and some of the authors that I read have gone on to self-publish but I have never bought any of their stuff. I don’t mind reading half-baked plots for free but paying for it, even if it is the edited version, is not something that I’m willing to do.

I’ve bought self publisheded and still do. There’s an author that sells on Fictionwise that I buy when ever I can. All self published are not error filled crap. Just like all pro. published books are not error free wonderful stories.
I’ve gotten books from Dorch.,Tor, Harlequin ect. that were just awful. I couldn’t understand how they managed to get a contract for them. All but 1 professionally published author I have read in the last 2 years had multiple mistakes [at least] in their books. Including the heavy hitters from major houses. I’m not talking spelling or punctuation either. I’m talking major mistakes. Character going back & forth between her/him he/she when they were a single sex character. Non shifter main characters having different eye colors; wrong names; doubling of words etc. etc.etc. If I can catch them, they are pretty blatant.
When that’s mentioned with prof. published books there is always an excuse. There are crappy books in both groups. Don’t be closed minded… not all talented writers have an agent to go to bat for them or are willing to wait how ever many years to be picked up by a publisher. In the internet age why should they have to wait to be considered legit.?  I don’t get the thinking they need to suffer thru rejections to be actual writers. From what editors & agent alike are saying rejections are not always because a book isn’t any good, correct?
To me it’s like saying review bloggers for example are not legit because their reviews are not being published in a newspaper or magazine, they haven’t gone thru the rejection process and eventually been picked up. I don’t think that’s true either.

I’m thinking of several authors whose digital rights are returning to them soon. One in particular is Lois Bujold, whose novel Spitit Ring, published in mmpb by Baen Books and digitally by Fictionwise.com is now being offered by Amazon for Kindle.

Baen Books is negotiating with Amazon to offer its entire back list through Amazon. Mind, they already offer all their books in multiple formats including kindle already. So many potential customers associate Amazon and kindle as the only ebooks that it’s worth it for the added exposure. I understand the sticking point is how much the authors get from the sales. Toni Weiscopf at Baen is holding out for a bigger slice. Lois, meanwhile, is sticking a toe in the water and hoping for noticeable movement in her back list.

I have purchased one (1) Book from LuLu in three overpriced volumes of 175 chapters. So, I will buy self-published books. The reasons were that I wanted to help the author financially without just sending a check (which I had done before), and I enjoyed the story when he published it freely on the net, though it desperately needed editing and trimming. The author never let three dot elipses do the job when he could indicate a longer pause with eight dots, and he also loved expressing vehemence and excitement with multiple exclamation points, just to give a couple of examples. I also hate when points become mute.

I have downloaded free stories from self-publishers. I have not purchased any others.

Code “again39”? I wish!!!!

I bought a self-pub book once a few years back because the author had already put the entire story online to read for free, and I liked it enough to want the print copy.

The problem was that there were so many typos (just on the back cover!) when the author had claimed that she had spent a month or so on editing. She also never revised, so all the constructive crit that people sent her way (“I like this, but there is a small inconsistency with this part”) went ignored.

Months later she posted another story, but only half of it was free and the rest went straight to eBook. Eventually she ended up posting a long rant on her blog (with comments disabled) telling people off because there were questions about large inconsistencies. She basically told her readers to fuck off because it was her story and if they didn’t understand it then that was their own damn fault.

Um, what?

So I don’t bother with self-published authors anymore. There are a few people here and there that post original fic free to read that is usually much better done than the self-pub crap. And they’re usually more polite too.

kinsmith wrote:

(However, cover art from a mainstream publisher WILL have a big impact on the sale for me, because if the publisher doesn’t believe enough in the book to pay for decent cover art, then the book probably isn’t worth much.)

I’m in complete agreement.  I never judge a book by its cover unless the cover is by Kinuko Craft.  I have never read a bad book with a Craft cover.  I can spot her style across the room and head straight for it.  Judging from the prices on her web site, she doesn’t come cheap, so if the publisher has enough faith to pay her rates,the book must be good.  I’ve never been disappointed.  I’ve found new authors that have become favorites because her covers sold me the book.  She’s the only cover artist I follow and automatically buy.

Nonfiction: I’ve bought it. Especially in college, there was usually at least one or two self-published books on my required and/or recommended reading list from the professor. I also got a few gift cards to a small bookstore that sold textbooks and self-published works so I picked up a few there. My mom, whose a hypnotherapist, has a number of books from self-published people on her bookcase about her field.

Fiction: The chances of me buying self-published fiction (unless we’re including authors releasing their backlist or an established author I already read selling a new book s/he couldn’t find a publisher for) is slim to none, because a) I don’t run across many self-published books and b) I don’t buy many new-to-me authors for full price without a really amazing sample chapter and/or a boatload of recommendations in any format. As for e-books, I only buy a very specific sub-genre in digital, and I tend not to buy beyond a few authors, all of which come from one of three e-book publishing houses.

By the way, “Eragon” was a self-pub sold out of the trunk of a car.

Scribblerkat: Ah, that explains so much. :) (Kidding…kind of…)

Jody W: *thumbs up* I was thinking a lot of the “I hate self-pub and will never ever read it cause it’s almost all utter crap” reminded me of what non-romance readers say about romance.

There are so many small, online publishers now (in the case of romance, Ellora’s Cave, Samhain Publishing, etc.). Shouldn’t that make it easier for a decent writer to get some kind of publishing that’s not self-publishing?

I have had three books published by Cerridwen (an imprint of EC)  and yet I chose to publish my latest book myself. Why? Because it wasn’t an appropriate genre for Cerridwen and after more than a year of soliciting agents and publishers, just after the big economic downturn, I had lots of positive feedback but no firm interest. (Incidentally, this was manuscript which did very well in a chick-lit contest) Publishers are less and less likely to take a “risk” on what they consider a new writer in our current economic environment. Since my publisher wasn’t doing much to support and market my books and I am an experienced writer who believed in my story, I didn’t figure that I was losing much by publishing on my own.

Lesson the First: The editing is never good. There are spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors that an eight-year-old could spot from a mile away. I know that traditionally published books run into the same issues; I’ve read a couple of Fern Michaels novels that made me CRINGE. However, the number of traditionally published books with this issue to the extent that I’ve seen in the self-published ones is considerably smaller.

Lesson the Second: The plots range from “weird” to “unbelievable.” The most common reaction I have had to reading a plot summary is “WTF?”

Lesson the Third: The writing is never good. Most of the ones I’ve read have no idea how to structure a story or write a scene. The dialogue is atrocious. The description is pathetic. It’s like reading something a teenager wrote, and I almost feel bad saying that, because I have read some really good teen writers.

Never say never. While I cannot deny that many many (too) many writers skip steps, are blind to their own writing problems, and impatient to just get on with it, not all self-published writers are the same. I take the time to write well, to edit my work, to have it read and get feedback, and pay for a good cover design - in general, to put forth the best, most polished work that I can, just as I would do if I were going through a publisher. No outlandish plots.

My book, Separation Anxiety, is available on Smashwords.com for $2.99 with a 20% free read option. I can’t really make it any more risk free than that, and it’s sad to think that just because I did it myself it will be dismissed out of hand.

Since I’ve been name-checked in this thread, it’s not surprising to learn that yes, I’m self-published. And pro-published, print and digital. In my mind, there’s zero difference in quality and editing polish between my Smashwords books and my Samhain books, because nothing gets submitted that’s not edited to within an inch of its life. I’ve given up trying to convince people who think all self-pubbed stuff is crap, but for anyone interested in why you should give my self-pubbed books a go, I wrote a little post about it. (Link on the front page)

But let me give you another example of an author whose self-pubbed books are as fabulous as her pro published books - Tamara Allen. Whistling in the Dark was published by Torquere (which is so close to being self-published it makes no difference), then self-pubbed, then picked up by Lethe. Downtime, which is one of the more superior books I’ve ever read, is self-pubbed. Check out reviews of either book - you won’t find people bitching about lousy grammar or bad editing there.

M/m is a genre where for so long, there was no market at all for our writing, that a lot of authors put their stuff up for free - this is before Lulu and Smashwords, or before Samhain and Running Press. So a lot of our longterm readers don’t have this artificial divide between free, self-pubbed and pro pubbed work - if it’s good, they’ll read it (though the downside of this is convincing that yes, now, they do have to pay for quality work even if they could get things like Kei’s Gift online for free for years.)  I notice trad Romance readers are much more resistant to the idea, which is rather sad - a lot won’t read free books, and the comments here demonstrate the prevailing thoughts on self-pub.

But that’s okay. I can wait for people to catch up with the trend. Until then, I’ll be happy with the income I get from Smashwords, which equals or betters what I get from the pro pubs. I’m laughing all the way to the bank :)

I didn’t figure that I was losing much by publishing on my own.

This. Sales through Samhain are decent, but the figures for some other epresses are woeful. Editing is equally varied, and marketing is non-existent. If a press is going to sell under 100 copies in a year and give me 10% or less per copy (while tying me to a 10 year contract and refusing to release a digital version), which is my experience with one publisher, I’m a million times better off keeping control of my own work, sell as many or more copies in a month, and decide what formats and marketing my audience wants. People assume pro publishers have a clue about how to sell books - well, a lot don’t, especially in the small sub genres. No more small indy presses for me.

I absolutely understand anyone who doesn’t want to bother with the self-published and have no urge to try to change anyone’s mind. However, I personally am grateful that there are thousands of readers out there who are more adventuresome, and I do have to wonder why a discussion of self-published books couldn’t feature the description of, or an excerpt from, one of the many successful ones.

This.

When I started reading this post, the first name that jumped into my head was the African-American writer E. Lynn Harris.  He self-published his first book and sold it from the proverbial “trunk of his car.”  He later got a book contract and had ten consecutive books on the New York Times best-seller list.  One of the rare Cinderella stories in the self-publishing world.

The perception of self-published books is that they are full of clunky prose, misspellings, grammar mistakes, poorly-conceived characters, massive plot inconsistencies, and/or are bullhorns for the author’s political/social/religious theories (usually of the paranoid/conspiracy variety).  On the other hand, I’m sure most of us have read traditionally-published books can also fill that bill.  However, because money and reading time are limited, you have to take some steps to separate the wheat from the chaff—and often, fair or not, one of the filters is to avoid self-published books.

That blurb sounds like fun.
Obviously a dark farce.
Whether it is good or not depends on the execution.
All of you who are pledging on the souls of your first-born to never look at a self-pubbed book are just plain nuts.

That said, most self-pubbed books are crap. In fact that blurb shows more imagination than you’ll find in any random group of 100 self-pubbed books.  But so what? Why such a hard line? Who knew romance addicts were such connoisseurs of fine literature?
The real conundrum is how does the mountains of crap in print get through the

real

publishing process?

I bought my first self-published book because it was a series that the author decided to continue on her own. I was really engaged and decided to continue reading it despite my misgivings. The second book was okay, the third, not so much and the fourth was unreadable. The lack of continuity was absolutely insane, and I absolutely LOVED this series. I’m sure there are authors out there who don’t need editors, however, I’m not one of them and unfortunately neither was this writer.

I’ve bought a few more that came highly recommended and ran into the same problem. For me it’s not so much the typos, but the tendency to go off on unrelated tangents. I get it, we fall in love with these characters and want to share every detail. We’re fascinated with our research and want to share that too. That’s where a good editor comes in, to cut through all that fluffery and get back down to the bones of the story. I can’t ever imagine self-publishing without hiring a good editor, and since I can’t afford one I don’t think I’ll be self-publishing anytime soon.

Roslyn, that’s actually why I’m running a Kickstarter campaign, because I want to be able to afford a good editor. Click on my name to learn more about Kickstarter and my project. I’m determined to release a quality product and fight against these negative self-published experiences mentioned in the other comments on this post.

Self-publishing authors can be a good thing, if they take the time to do it right.

It’s frustrating that when someone gets on the bandwagon 85 more jump on.  Why limit yourself and say never?  Just like the publishers in NY, if a reader goes to Amazon or Smashwords they’re going to have to wade through a lot of coal to get to the diamonds.  But it’s there.  Oh, wait, sounds a little bit like when we go to a bookstore.

I haven’t bought self-published books before the internet as they basically never came my way, but I’ve discovered some authors that were regularly published who have books they have digitally published themselves. Most visible example: Book View Café and Closed Circle

So far my experience has been that if I liked their published books I would enjoy their self-published ones. Case in point: Ann Somerville who has quite a few books out with Samhain and others and whose brilliant epic fantasy series Darshian Tales is self-published (and now available via Smashwords). Being a fantasy fan, I actually think it’s the best work I’ve read of hers and reading her blog, she has said herself that she considers this her masterpiece so far.

In finding review and book blog sites I have also read comments by self-published authors and explored their sites (with big excerpts) the most successful example for me being Moriah Jovan commenting and being mentioned by Jane from Dear Author and having huge excerpts of her two novels up on her site.

I bought the more traditional second book, Stay, first and was quite fascinated - it worked as a romance but included topics such as the beliefs of Ayn Rand and Mormonism which were completely outside my knowledge zone.

The first book, The Proviso, was a really dark family saga a la Dynasty/Dallas but with a core of fascinating couples who had to worke their way toward a happy end, which they did get. Only one irredeemable villain by the way, which I thought pretty cool.

Or there’s suddenly a review from trusted Book Bloggers which will make me develop interest in a self-published book. The Book Smugglers reviewed Michael Hicks In Her Name and now I own the Smashwords edition of the first book in the trilogy.

Of course, it’s hard to separate the good stuff from the people who only jump on the bandwagon… but it is possible with some effort.

I have only bought one self-published book and this was because the author was somewhat local and appeared at the local library. I went to her ‘author talk’ and bought an autographed book for my mom’s birthday gift. I never even read it. That said, I am not ruling out the possibility. I don’t think all self-published books are awful or riddled with errors any more than I think that all traditionally published books are perfect.

I have bought some Ellora’s Cave books that I thought were terrible. Also, in Robyn Carr is a successful print author and I enjoyed her books, but in some of the Virgin River books there is a grammatical error that keeps popping up. (For the life of me I can’t remember now what it is.) Because I read these books one right after the other, I think I noticed it more. I came to the conclusion that either the author or editor (or both) just didn’t know the rule since it was broken more than once. I’m just giving this example to show that there can be good or bad in both publishing routes. Odds are, however, that there will be less errors/bad plot, etc. in traditionally published works.

As a writer, I have yet to submit anything for publication and have decided against self-publishing, I am not going to judge those who choose that path.

I usually don’t buy self pub books because of bad editing and usually bad stories. Only one author I know writes a well written self published book.  But I’ve also had horrible experiences with e pubs.  I will have be courted to ever do another one. I do not want an e reader of any sort. Just another device to plug in. Yes, they are fantastic for people who live in confine spaces but I’m not impressed by anything other than their catchy tune on commercials. No, I want a book to hold, to curl up with, and yes to carry along. They don’t make cavernous purses for nothing! Like anything in life, one must pick and choose. Besides, I know too many people who still do not have computers. If everything went to digital, we’d disenfranchise so many people. We are already becoming a nation of no readers. More would be the pity.

All of the self-published books / booklets I have read have been factual. By and large they have been about a particular place or subject, and while they may be by a single author there has clearly been editorial input from others. The authors have been in love with the subject, keen to share their love and humble enough to accept correction (well I assume the latter given the lack of mistakes, it’s difficult to edit/copyedit your own writing).

I don’t have a digital reading device, if I did I would be prepared to expand my reading of self-published books provided I could read samples, I always want to read a sample of new-to-me authors.

Already commented high up but I wanted to mention that I want self pub to be a viable option for writers. This is the biggest reason I keep trying self pub books. Writers should get a better percentage on their own work than the industry allows. If someone hits several bestseller lists two or three times, she ought to be able to quit her day job. Debut authors very seldom have the option of negotiating from a position of strength and I wish that would change. Self-pub should be a choice. A good choice.

But I am just a normal person. I don’t want to dig for the good stuff- not at the bookstore, and not on Amazon. I don’t shop at T J Maxx for the same reason. I don’t care if the good stuff has a big house publisher’s name or not, but I don’t find nearly as high a percentage of my DNFs come from traditional publishing.

Writing a book is easier than it used to be. (Not a good book…just a book.) Most people have computers and can type now, you can photoshop a cover, and the internet makes it super easy to upload your book for free to Amazon where you can price it however you want. Or you can set up your own site and sell it there. Whatever. But with all the hoop jumping removed, there is an avalanche of dirty snow with a few pebbles of gold rolling around in it.

It is overwhelming for people like me, people who just want to start reading and enjoy every word instead of skim the first chapter of 15 different books until one chimes.

I think you’re going to find more and more authors self publishing, especially since the economy is making it even more difficult to sell books. Plus, a lot of authors are self publishing their backlists. And self publishing gives authors the freedom to write what they want.

I decided to self publish my next book when I realized that there were self published authors (who had never been published by NY) who were making way, way more money than I had with my little NY deal. Like many authors, I made very little money on my book deal and then spent the money I made doing ads in place like RT and RWA. So basically I’ve made no money. It’s crazy. By self publishing on someplace like Amazon, it costs me no money to do (ebook format) and I won’t have to spend any money on ads. Why not do it? Especially if you have a book just sitting on your computer.

And as for authors who are making it, there are many. Here are just a few:

MaryAnn McFadden is one woman who couldn’t get an agent so she self published her book (print) sold many, many copies on her own and only then was she able to get an agent and her book went onto auction.

Here’s a ya author who makes more than many NY authors:
http://amandahocking.blogspot.com/2010/08/epic-tale-of-how-it-all-happened.html

Zoe Winters is another author making more money than me. She has consistently been in the top 100 on Amazon kindle.

these are just a few of the many authors who have had success. And there are many; the more I research the more I find. But my idea of success might be different than yours. If they’re making more money than I did with my NY book, I consider them successful.

I’m not saying all self published books are good, of course not. But let’s keep an open mind here. You can’t say all self published books suck. There are reasons why writers self publish other than their books sucked so much they couldn’t get a deal. With the book I’m planning to self publish, my editor wouldn’t even look at it because it has ghosts in it (they’re only secondary characters, but still).

Anyway, we’ll see what happens. I’m doing what I can to see my dream accomplished, and that dream is to make a living being an author anyway I can.

I think everyone just needs to take a deep breath and calm down. I’ve seen a lot of self published authors who are very bitter. And I’ve seen a lot of published authors who seem to have this desire to knock down self published authors. I know, I was there a year ago. I just don’t get why authors become so angry about it. If you don’t want to self publish, don’t do it. Move on. Work on your books and don’t worry about what self published authors are doing. And the same goes for self published authors.

You have to watch what you say because you might be back peddling a year from now. I see a lot of authors who ripped on e publishing who hare now going that way.

Anyway, I’m done. Now, let’s all take hands and sing Kum ba yah.

I don’t get why so many are saying “Don’t be close minded, all you haters of self-pubbed books!”

Several (negative) comments here are “I tried a self-pubbed book and it sucked/had typos/was bad and I felt ripped off.”

If I went to a restaurant, ordered chicken and it was horrible and overpriced, why should I go back? Why should I try it again? Just because you say that you enjoy that restaurant and don’t feel that it is overpriced, does it make my experience less? Am I somehow wrong because you disagree?

No.

Can’t some of us just not LIKE what a lot of self-pubbed authors are putting out? Why does it have to be that people are ‘close minded’?  They tried it, didn’t like it, and don’t feel the urge to try again.

Frankly, the defensiveness of the self-pubbed author is a HUGE turn off and keeps me (as someone who was ‘burned’ in the past by buying poorly written/overpriced self-pubbed books) from trying more.

I’ve looked at the odd self-published book and in the print form and in my personal sample, it seems as if they have primarily been written by hypergraphic religious paranoid schizophrenics with a bad case of CAPS LOCK disease.  So I have some bias to overcome against self-pubs in general.

I did buy a self-pub romance e-book once, but it was previously published and the author’s rights reverted.I happened to read the recommendation (from the author!) on amazon.com in one of their forums, and the description made it sound like something I might like.  It was a good read.  I would continue buy self-pub books by an author who had already published something, and whose previous works I enjoyed or if I *really* liked the book description and the sample wasn’t horrid.

I read self-published stories that have been recommended by friends and other writers, and will sometimes browse Smashwords or Lulu to see if anything catches my eye. I’ve found most people offer excerpts which give you a fairly decent idea what the overall story will be like. Having been-there-done-that with self-publishing, I feel a huge sympathy for authors trying to find an audience via the same route.

But let me give you another example of an author whose self-pubbed books are as fabulous as her pro published books - Tamara Allen. Whistling in the Dark was published by Torquere (which is so close to being self-published it makes no difference), then self-pubbed, then picked up by Lethe. Downtime, which is one of the more superior books I’ve ever read, is self-pubbed.

Thanks, Ann.:) (I would still be slogging away, entirely unknown, if not for this woman.)  Let me correct one thing; Downtime was the book originally pubbed by Torquere (and yes, you’re right—the only editing they did was to correct my tendency to use Brit spellings of words like “traveled”. The rest of the editing was done solely by me.) Whistling I subbed to numerous presses (with numerous rejections) before deciding to self-publish it. Lethe picked it up because Ann was willing to read and review a self-pubbed book, thereby winning me a publisher’s interest. I never thought to sub to Lethe because I thought they published only literary fiction.)

I really have to hand it to writers who choose to self-publish. It’s no simple matter to just toss your work out there. I’ve done it on Lulu, Smashwords, and CreateSpace and found it a bothersome lot of work, most of which I was not good at. I especially hated learning to format to specifications, and I still can’t do it properly.

To self-pub, you’ve got to have a knack for several things, including self-promotion (another fine bit of torture), or you need the money to pay someone else to do it. You’ve also got to want to spend the considerable time it takes to put everything together (and lose valuable writing time, too.)

I know some writers like (and probably love) being writer, editor, cover artist, and publisher of their work, but I’m devoutly hoping I won’t have to do it again (especially not with Amazon - oh my God, after six months and a dozen emails, they still can’t get my name right on the royalty checks.)

Because of my experience, I have a lot of respect for writers who can and do self-publish, especially writers like Ann who do it with such jack-of-all-trades skill. Seeing all the uniformly negative comments here is dispiriting. I agree there’s a lot of unreadable work being self-published, but the quality stuff is there, too, and I hate to see it all being dismissed as bad just because it’s self-published.

My impression, also, is that self-published books are much like a publisher’s slushpile—there’s some good stuff but you have to wade through a lot of junk to get there.  Which is, IMO, what publishers DO to earn their keep.

IMO - Self publishing will get bigger than it has been, mainly due to improvements in the technology.
But - I think the main beneficiaries will be the big names. Dan Brown, Diana Gabaldon, JK Rowling. I’m not saying that they will, or that it’s inevitable, but these writers almost stand apart from their publishers. They have a market and a platform. If they employ decent cover artists and editors, etc, they can make a killing.

It also means that main publishers will have to do without their stars. Which puts extra pressure on them to retain their big names, which means they’ll have to offer them a bigger cut, or more benefits, which means less money for the other authors on the roster.

The other winners of self publishing will be the people with a built-in platform. The British ex Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has just made huge sales on his book. He isn’t exactly famous as an author, but his fame in another area pushes the sales. He could have done it without a publisher.

Then there will be legions of people who self-publish for a variety of reasons, mostly because they want to see their name in print and they believe the drumbeaters who tell them how good it is. That blurb is scary because there’s too much plot. No room for anything else. And no central focus.

I have to admit that I became a self-publisher recently. I published a free read associated with a release at Samhain (“Barbara’s Wedding”). So I will use Smashwords and Amazon from time to time, but only to publish stories that I can give away for nothing, or next to nothing. Annoyingly, I have to charge for the Kindle version, as they won’t let individuals give it away, but it’s a dollar or less. It’s linked with “Hareton Hall,” and there’s a good example of great editing. My editor said it was a lovely chapter, but it didn’t add anything to the central drive of the book, so she asked me to take it out, but suggested that it would make a nice free read. Me, I would have left it in because I wrote it and I loved it. I would have been wrong.

I need the promotion, the editing and all the other things my publisher does for me. I don’t have the platform or the fame to go it alone and make a success of it.

And as a reader, you bet I check the publisher, but only if I don’t know the author. I recently checked the Christine Feehan books I own and was quite surprised to see all the publishers there.

While I’ll never say never to a self-pubbed book (I’m lookin’ at ya’ll, Ann Somerville and Tamara Allen.  Gonna check out you ladies!), let me illustrate the reason I tend stick with traditionally pubbed:

Generally the author starts by convincing an agent to read her book and love it, then the agent gets an editor to read the book and back it in a meeting where she has to convince the rest of the team of editors and marketers to read the book before they have another meeting where they may (or may not) decide to believe in the book and take it on… That’s a simplistic version of how it can go at a traditional publisher.

What that means to me is that a whole handful of people (at least) are recommending that book to me before it even hits shelves.  And if I don’t like it, it’s more likely my personal taste or biases or whatever rather than actual quality of the book (at least in my experience). 

As for self publishing?  The author is the only “gatekeeper” for the public.

If I went to a restaurant, ordered chicken and it was horrible and overpriced, why should I go back? Why should I try it again?

I see your worry and it’s clear that you were burned and badly, but…um…perhaps because different authors write different books? :-)

It seems that you’re making the assumption that one or two bad (perhaps even excruciating) examples means that every single member of the entire group is that way, too. You wouldn’t assume that about a bad traditionally-published book, would you?

This kind of thinking, although understandable and human, reminds me of a few other examples of that “tarred by the same brush” thing going around. Seems to me that we have enough of that going on, even though the trad. v. self-pubbing issue ranks near zero on the scale of relative importance.

(This also reminds me of the NY pub vs. small-press pub debates from a few years back. Ah, the more things change, the more things stay the same.)

Yes, the big basket of self-published books as a heap o’ crap in it. Traditional publishing has some, too, though on a smaller scale.

But the thing about self-publishing is that each other is working for herself/himself. They’ll each do things differently. Is it quite fair, then, to assume they’re all the same?

Will you have to search a little harder to find good self-pub? Yes. Do good self-pub books exist? Yes.

To make the search easier, anyone with a Kindle or the free Kindle software on their PC/Mac/iPhone/iPad/Android can read a nice chunk of Kindle books before they buy. By all means, do that. Sample ‘em first. It’s a great benefit! Decide whether you like the style/voice/story/editing before you hand over your $.99-$2.99. Quality is crucial, and you should expect that as well as a good read.

I have a two-time RWA Golden Heart® finalist that got three agent offers. I signed with one who shopped it in NY, but it didn’t fit comfortably into the fantasy vs. romance marketing boxes. It did receive two small press offers.

I ended up publishing it on Amazon for many reasons, including the chance to have control over my own sales terms/price/cover and to do some quiet and interesting marketing (like excerpt exchanges with authors of other quality books), the opportunity for readers to sample my book to see if it’s their cup of tea, a 70% royalty per ebook sale, and because I heart the Kindle platform (I’m on my third Kindle now).

Will I only self-pub? Someone else once said (and I wish I could remember to whom credit should go): why does it have to be either/or? Why can’t it be whatever works for that book and that author?

The industry is changing and more and more authors will take advantage of the new publishing options in the next few years. If someone doesn’t want to consider any self-pubbed book now, no worries. It’s possible that in the five years, even that reader’s auto-buy authors may be doing it.

My anti-spam word was finally99. Prescient?  :-)

The first self-published book I purchased was in the late 1990s, when Vince Flynn was selling the self-pubbed version of Term Limits out of the trunk of his car. He came to the independent bookstore where I worked and asked if he could do a signing there. The owner went ahead with it—we weren’t out anything, because Flynn supplied the books and the publicity—and it was successful enough that Flynn used that signing to set up a signing at a chain bookstore, where his second signing was even more successful. By the time he came back to our independent store a couple of months later for another signing, he’d gotten a contract to publish Term Limits and another book with a major publisher (Bantam, I think). Now he’s written, what? More than a dozen novels? I think all of them have made the NY Times best-seller list.

I haven’t purchased any self-pubbed romances, mostly because I don’t make the time to seek them out. But I should do so, because I think my tastes are becoming more esoteric (specialized? non-traditional? I don’t know), and e-presses and self-published books are more likely to have what I’m searching for, especially with so many big-time publishers staying with more conventional books.

My self-published novella Space Junque just came out on Amazon a few days ago. I’ve gone with indie publishing for a number of reasons. I hate the degrading query process. I love the control I have as an independent.

I have a professional cover. My book was edited by USA Today bestselling author Anne Frasier/Theresa Weir. She likes it enough to let me use her name in the credits.

Self-publishing is like many paradoxical things. It can be very easy. But I don’t think it’s easy to do it well. There’s a lot of resistance to SP work, and with good reason.

And yet I believe more and more authors will choose this route. It’s so much more fun than reading snarky #queryfail-type digs, and I will never be embarrassed by my cover. I can see instantly when a sale is made, so I can see what works as far as promo goes.

Am I happy I did it? Yes, yes, yes.

I started to fill out the survey, as I’ve read, enjoyed and reviewed a number of very good self-published ebooks recently. But then I realised that I haven’t actually paid for any of them. They were all free or on special offer at the time I read them. It might be interesting to run your survey again with the question ‘Have you ever read a book that was self-published by the author?’ - to see if that produces a different picture.

What irritates me the most about the (very few) self-published authors I’ve had dealings with is the lengths to which they go to avoid having to admit they’re self-published.  This in itself speaks volumes to me.  For example, a personal acquaintance of mine used iUniverse to self-publish her novel.  However, nowhere on her website and (extensive) marketing materials does it say she is self-published.  Instead, iUniverse suggested she incorporate a “micro-publishing” company.  So, she insists she is not self-published, but professionally published through this company (which has to my knowledge only published one book: hers).  This pisses me off royally.

The other thing that aggravates me is when people insist on comparing themselves to Virginia Woolf and D.H. Lawrence, as in the following examples: “Virginia Woolf was self-published.  No one would publish her work so she started her own publishing company and published her own books.”  “D.H. Lawrence was self-published.  No publisher of the day in their right mind would touch his pornographic material and so he had hundreds of copies printed and distributed at his own expense.”  (these are quotes from actual conversations I’ve had.  With ... oh alright, you got me, it was the same person who self-published through iUniverse that I mentioned above.)

Them:  “So, as a self-published author, I’m actually in the same category as Virginia Woolf and D.H. Lawrence.”  Me:  “Uh, no.  No, you’re not.”

I never have bought a self-pub, but I won’t say I never will.  But, time reality being what it is, it’s not likely to happen unless someone whose reading taste has proven to be twin of my own raves up and down and sideways about a self-pub.  I have an entire closet full of TBR paperbacks, several books checked out and on order from the library at any given time, and books I’ve downloaded that I’ve not yet read.  Hell, I pre-ordered the latest Nora hardback and even it sits to collect dust.  So the odds of me searching out unknown and unheralded authors are slim to jack at the moment.

Okay, that is one badly socialized fan!
You don’t approach the talent with fanfic.
You don’t make money on fanfic.
You damn sure don’t publish fanfic commercially!

It figures that he’s male. He probably thinks he’s doing something new and awesome and is unaware of net fandom. Women tend to be better socialized in fannish norms and keep their fanfic where it belong: on the net and in zines.

As for self-pub, I’m not sure. I do print re-issues of my short stories that are out of contract. However, these are just that: re-issues of previously published short stories, meaning they have been accepted and edited and re-edited.

I have some books where I’m not sure if they’re self-pub or not. The author is the only one that house handles, so far. Or the house was started by the author’s husband, but takes other authors as well. Or the author has a financial interest in the house that’s run by a good friend.

Small press can get weird.

For me, I’ve read so many terrible traditionally published books in the last two years that I’ve stopped buying paperbacks. The typos, weak, recycled plots and over-sexed characters make it too expensive to plunk down my hard-earned cash for a book that is mostly one boring sex scene after another.

So I bought an e-reader and am happy to report that I’ve found plenty of indie books to read. I’m not bothered by the occasional typo, I have yet to read a book with zero errors. But I can read 3 or 4 e-books for the price of 1 paper book. The tradeoff works for me.

I can appreciate where those who are wary of independently-published books are coming from. The non-existent barrier to entry created by epublishing (specifically Amazon/Kindle) has resulted in a flood of self-published work. Some of it is really quite good. The majority of it isn’t.

I’m a traditionally published author who is seriously considering going the indie route in the future. While I plan on sticking with my publisher for the genre I currently write, I’m interested in branching out to different types of novels, and though I feel I would have a better-than-average chance of being traditionally published in this new genre (given my experience, etc.), I’m not convinced that there isn’t something to indie publishing.

There are a lot of reasons why someone might make this choice. Sure, there are people out there whose work has been rejected by traditional publishers for good reason. But that’s not the only reason someone would self-publish. Personally, I like the idea of hanging on to my rights (after a bad experience with my first publisher, I know firsthand how horrible it can be for your work to remain the property of someone with whom you have a strained relationship). I also like the idea of earning 70% royalties on ebooks instead of the 10-15% (based on total number of copies sold) that my current publisher offers.

After publishing five novels and even more short stories, I have enough experience to take on self-publishing with confidence. Editing, cover design, etc. will be no less important to me if I’m producing my own work. It will require more effort on my part, but I guess that’s part of taking a bigger slice of the profits.

Again, I totally sympathize with a lot of the perceptions of self-published work. Those negative opinions are not without a basis in reality. But it’s silly to assume that all self-published authors have the same motivations or skill level.

The great thing about epublishing? Samples. Use them. Love them. :)

I’m not even sure where to start, there is so much I want to say.  I’m an Indie author, self-published and proud of it.  I had my own reasons for wanting to go Indie, none of which had anything to do with being turned down for a publishing contract.  For me it was mostly about control.  I write romantic suspense, and I do not have paranormal characters.  I tend to write closed-door sex scenes, and right now, my style of writing just isn’t popular with publishers.  I do not want to be pressured into putting vampires or erotic sexual scenes in my books just to get sales.  I realize that if I did include those elements, I’d have sales out the wazoo.  However, the inclusion would be for gratuity’s sake, wouldn’t add anything to the plot, and I won’t make my story a farce just for sales.  For the record, I have nothing against vamps or erotica.  They just don’t fit with this particular series I’m talking about.

I’ve produced a solid product, and I’ve worked my tail off to do it.  My covers are professionally designed, albeit in-house.  I am lucky enough that I am married to a man who has a small, professional, graphic design business on the side, and he does my covers, website, layout of books, etc.  On average, we spend about 40 hours per book doing layout and design, and it takes me 4-6 months to write one book from start to finish.  The book goes through several revisions, beta reader testing, and through an editor whom I pay.  No freebies from friends here.  When I am writing, I commonly spend upwards of eight hours a day working, six or seven days out of every week.  I have a trusted circle of friends who are not afraid to tell me when I produce something that should only line the bottom of a bird cage, and I do not put anything out there for public consumption unless I know it is as good as what NY produces. 

I’ve networked with other Indie authors who feel the same way about their books as I do, that if we can’t produce a professional product, then we’d rather not put anything out there.  We know that success rides on the back of professionalism as well as luck, and we encourage other Indies to embrace that practice. 

That being said, there is a lot of self-published work out there that isn’t professional, and the authors are okay with that.  For whatever reason, whether it be ignorance of grammar and style, budget constraints, or the authors just not giving a damn, their work is released to the public in the form of something that would get a fifth grader a very marked up C-.  I understand the frustration you all have shown.  No one wants to pay good money for a book, only to find out that it was not as advertised, the editing sucks, the grammar is horrible, the dialogue is stilted, and the plot sounds like a cross between Salvador Dali’s dreams and Mystery Science Theater.  That is why the best option Indies can offer to readers right now is sampling.  Smashwords is the best place to do that, because we can offer up to 50% of our work for free over there. 

I’ll volunteer to be a guinea pig and challenge anyone interested to read my books.  Be honest, give me feedback.  If they suck, I want to know.  If there are problems, I want to fix them.  You can read enough of my work free at Smashwords to make a judgment.  Message to take away from this post - please don’t give up on Indies.  There are many of us who are dedicated to our work.  You might be surprised by what you find. 

T. L. Haddix

Downtime was the book originally pubbed by Torquere

Yeah, I woke up this morning and realised I’d mixed the two histories up. Sorry, dear - but it only underlines what an achievement Whistling in the Dark is. I’d say to anyone, if you can find a better romance than WitD published anywhere, then you’re damn lucky.

I won’t convince anyone that most selfpubbed books aren’t dreadful, because they are. And I’m just as wary as anyone else about them when it comes to mainstream genre books because I figure if you can’t sell a perfectly ordinary romance, mystery or crime book, then there’s probably a good reason (Which is why I was so skeptical about one of our local ‘journalists’ who kept using the local paper to puff his self-pubbed crime book, and his courses on how to succeed in self-publication.)

But self-pub (sorry T L Haddix and co, I just can’t use ‘indie’ - Zoe Winters and her friends made me allergic to the term) comes into its own when the book doesn’t fit any tight genre requirements. Too long? Romance falling outside the ‘boy meets boy/girl/ginormous big cat, boy loses boy/girl/ginormous big cat, boy and boy/girl/ginormous big cat live happily ever after in cosy bliss’ plot limitation? Romances/relationships which take multiple stories to develop? Or god forbid, really good stories you were stupid enough to put up on the web for free because no one was buying them at the time? All these aren’t going to fit into the narrow requirements of most publishers - but that doesn’t mean the stories suck. Self-pub lets you read books that are a little unusual, and still interesting. (It also lets you read some truly psychotically crazy stuff, but hey, someone must like that too, right?)

T L Haddix is right though - buying from Smashwords is damn close to risk free. If the author doesn’t offer a substantial sample, don’t buy from them. If they do, then try them out before you spend a cent. No epublisher lets you read 20% or more of their books before you buy them - but I do. Can’t say fairer than that, guys.

Can I give a shout out to two other self-pubbed authors - both who offer their books free on their site - one who is still self pubbed, and the other who’s issuing her books through a small press (which ironically set up as a way for the owner to self pub - as so many of them do.) M. Chandler’s Shadow of the Templar series (http://mchandler.org/sott/), and Manna Francis’s The Administration series (http://www.mannazone.org/). Very different books, stunningly good and well edited. Again, you’d be incredibly lucky to find books of this quality from a regular publisher. Try them, I beg you. You won’t be sorry.

BTW, I was having problems linking to my article about my books because the SBs server hates self pubbed books too :) Sarah suggested I tinyurl it, so I have - link here: http://tinyurl.com/3y2furw

Google made me come here. To the gentleman above who mentioned my books as an example of good self-pubbed work: thank you! Your comment cut through my usual early morning stupor.

And thanks, Sarah, for raising the subject. I have nothing new to add to the discussion, but I won’t let that stop me.

In my naive, all wide-eyed innocence, early forays into the world of self-publishing I did stumble across some dire stuff: more confessional (and not in a good way) than narrative, and having only a distant acquaintance with such niceties as grammar and correct spelling. But now that I’m more experienced in the ways of the world, Dear Reader, I’ve found many gems under the indie banner.

How I find a book I might enjoy:
- An author whose works I’ve enjoyed in the past
- Recommended to me by someone whose taste is similar to mine
- Reviewed and recommended by someone who makes a good case for it

For me at least, this is the case for both traditionally and self-published books. The main difference is that reviews for self-pubbed work are more likely to be found on blogs than in print or on the radio.

Nobody owes me a read, but I owe my readers. I owe them the best writing I’m capable of, and books that are thoroughly researched and carefully edited. But then I owe that to myself as well.

Is music better if it’s owned by a corporation? Is food always better at a chain restaurant than at a mom and pop’s?

It’s true, when reading an independent book you may indeed run into some crap. And it’s true, you are more likely to run into spelling errors. I personally find that particularly disappointing. All published work needs to be at the highest level before being released.

But its not true of all independent artists. Gross generalizations simply aren’t often true. I’ve actually been impressed by the independent authors I’ve read. Yes, I recently published my own first work independently. And when I went into this I honestly expected to be the one guy with actual talent in a sea of misguided, if earnest, amateurs. It wasn’t true! There is real talent out there in the realm of independent books. I promise!

I would never buy a book by an independent author without reading the free preview first, but then again, I’m not likely to buy a book by a traditionally published author with my eyes completely closed either. I usually read the beginning chapters in the store before making the purchase.

Well that answered my doubts about self publishing my two books.  Like many other writers I don’t want to wait, mess with an agent, publisher etc.  But these posts have said basically what I think about the subject…if it was that good someone would have grabbed it and done it right.

Dara and Estara, thank you so much for the shout-out!

I try not to get into these discussions, as they’re problematic from all angles, but, like Ann, I was name-checked, so I wanted to say thanks much!! :)

As it happens, my books have paid for themselves and they earn me a respectable residual income, but what happened *for me* was I got a new career: ebook formatting and interior print design.

And let me tell you, I format a lot of books (all self-pubbed). About half of it’s fiction. And you know what? About 80% of what I see really isn’t that bad. Not eye-grabbing, but decent stories. That said, the last (fiction) book for which I did the interior design work, I ended up reading all the way through and forgetting I was supposed to be WORKING on it. It was that good, but it fit NOTHING. NOWHERE. There is no bookstore shelf on which that book could have comfortably rested, but it was well written, well edited, and excellent all the way around.

So…you know, I’m looking at this from the point of view of being immersed in the production of some pretty good, if not stellar, stuff. Of the clients who aren’t so pretty good, they’re trying to be. They ask questions. They take advice. They learn. They get better. It’s just…they’re doing it in a more public forum. As time goes on, the overall quality of the work coming through my shop is getting better and better.

I use the sample feature to “test drive” every book I purchase on Kindle store. It works.

I’ve purchased many self-pubbed books that were high quality. Check out Karen McQuestion (she’s now been signed to Amazon Encore), Amanda Hocking, Ellen O’Connell. There are many other self-published works that are highly ranked on the genre bestseller lists, but I don’t have time to read them as I’m busy writing my own books for publication on Kindle store.

The problem with telling someone if they work harder at finding the right indie author then…  is that it misses the point.

People that don’t want to work harder won’t. They don’t have time/desire to read samples. They want the experience of having found a publisher whose line roughly meets their reading list, and they don’t want to risk their money or spend their time sifting.

Some people love that sort of thing. The ones that don’t never will. I think the initial sample of this was very honest, and I think it reflects a great many readers who stay silent because they’re not out to hurt anyone’s feelings or argue about it - they simply aren’t interested in the experience.

(Captcha is telling me I must69, I think it’s ready for the weekend.)

The publishing industry is changing so much so quickly that I don’t think it’s fair to state that if a book is self-published it’s because it’s not up to par with the rest of the books on the shelves. Agents are afraid to take a chance on new and even established authors. Publishers are cutting imprints left and right. And the ones really getting the raw deal are the authors themselves who’ve spent months, sometimes years, working on a novel. When an author gets handfuls of rejections from agents stating that her voice is fresh, her writing is fun, and her story is unique, but they still aren’t willing to rep it, what’s she to do? Of course, there are those out there that truly have a poor quality book and low rent production to go with it. But, peruse a couple paragraphs and you’ll figure that out pretty quickly. I, for one, never purchase a book, any book, without reading the first page. If I feel compelled to keep reading, I buy it. If not, I don’t. And I couldn’t give a damn who published it. A good story is a good story.

if it was that good someone would have grabbed it and done it right.

Well no. Lots of very very good books are never picked up by publishers because of the economy, cowardice, false perceptions about reader taste, poor judgement, and because a lot of genres are very narrow and rigid. And lots of unappealing, poorly written dreck gets published for the same reasons.

I didn’t just write a book and go, hey, I’m a genius! I will sell my bookses and make lots and lots of moneys! I put most of my books up on line for free, and it was reader feedback from complete strangers which confirmed that I was, in fact, a genius :) (and yes, in one way, I’m better than Virginia Woolf because my books don’t make my readers want to slash their wrists.) I built a readership, I honed my craft, and when I finally subbed one short novella to pro publishing, that experience helped me hone it some more. But that first book really is very good. I’d never have had the gall to charge people for it at the time, but now I do because I’ve proved to myself and my readers that my stuff is worth paying for.

A lot of self publishers (and vanity published authors) aren’t prepared to wait, to build the audience, to learn from their mistakes. They wrote a book and they want money now, damn it. And that why there’s just so much dreck. It doesn’t mean none of them have talent, but a lot of them haven’t any patience, and patience is as much a necessary virtue to an author as the ability to write and learn the craft. So is being realistic - if you know your book is never going to fit a publisher’s narrow niche (and they become narrower and more stupid all the time), then test the waters with readers who don’t know you, and then if the response is positive - why not self pub?

That’s ‘doing it right’ as much as any other way, at least for some books.

“they simply aren’t interested in the experience. “

That’s probably true, and another reason why self-pub works for subgenres where there is less choice of good material, than in saturated genres like mainstream Romance. All any author hopes is that if a reader *is* looking for good stuff in a less crowded genre, that they won’t overlook self-pubbed books out of prejudice.

Meoskop,

I’ve never been able to assume a book would be good based simply on who published it. It would be a lot easier if that worked for me! I’ve never known any way to find a new author that I will like, independent or traditionally published, without reading the opening pages and checking for myself.

Your experience and taste may be different than mine.

And I’m just as wary as anyone else about them when it comes to mainstream genre books because I figure if you can’t sell a perfectly ordinary romance, mystery or crime book, then there’s probably a good reason

There are so many reasons a book might not be picked up by a traditional publisher which have nothing to do with quality. The book might be interesting and perfectly well written but if, for example, the publisher doesn’t have an open slot on their list or the marketing department doesn’t think that Walmart / Target will buy it for their book aisle that book isn’t going anywhere no matter how great it is. Given that there are fewer and fewer publishers to shop and not all of them represent every genre and you can quickly run into a brick wall.

There are so many reasons a book might not be picked up by a traditional publisher which have nothing to do with quality.

Yes, and I made that point in a subsequent comment.

BUT….

When someone can’t sell a genre novel AND they’re trying to make their money by selling courses on how to make it big in self-publication, their credentials based solely on their experience trying to sell one book…my spidey-sense starts to tingle, and I’m thinking ‘scammer/desperate and untalented wannabe’, rather than ‘talented author who doesn’t fit easily into the few and narrow slots’.

It all comes down to track record. And since this bloke is an undistinguished git of a journalist writing for a free local rag, with no sign of any great fluency or skill in English or writing, I’d bet the income of at least a month of my own publishing income that his books sucks donkey balls. Because, like so many others here, I’ve been burned too, and I want some evidence of ability before I spend a cent or second of my time.

Since my name came up here . . .
I’ll throw in my two cents. In the Way Back Machine (say, oh, 15 years ago) when I first heard about e-books, they were sold on floppy discs at local RWA chapter signings—autographed!. The publishing industry was still receptive to my work and I, like most other pubbed authors who were working, thought that a book on a floppy disc was a ridiculous, pathetic attempt to sell a book that NY wouldn’t touch with a poop scoop and a pair of rubber gloves. Um, actually my opinion about those days hasn’t changed. I’d sold the first book I ever wrote and didn’t receive my first rejection until about eight books into my career. About that time, everything began to get a little tighter and more uncomfortable. Enter the new age of online publishers, some of which folded up their tents in short order, taking their authors’ rights with them to bankruptcy court. Desperate writers would proclaim in a newsletter that they’d “sold” a book to one of these entities, when in fact, no money changed hands because most of these outfits didn’t pay an advance. Nothing was actually “sold.” Ellora’s Cave and Samhain have held on, but even at my lowest point, I still held out hope to get another traditional contract, agent, and publisher. I’d gotten my rights back on my first books, and two years ago decided I’d better get the rest of them back too. When I kept getting rejections from agents (sometimes after as long as a year!), I began to consider Kindle for my OOP titles. I wasn’t getting any younger and I wanted to work. I looked around at some of the indie stuff and saw incredibly bad covers, bad spelling, bad sentence structure, bad everything. I made my backlist available on Kindle and Smashwords—NOT WITHOUT some major bumps on my part since I was totally unfamiliar with this new media. I’ve since written and made available an indie-only new title, HOME BY MORNING. (I hired a freelance editor for that, just so you know.) This will be followed up by a sequel.

Yeah, there is a lot of crap out there right now—but I’m advising not to blow off every indie writer. Some have great talent and want to write a story about something besides vampires and erotica. Readers want something besides vampires and erotica. I’m having the best time of my writing career and I’m making more money than I ever did as a print author. This sector of the business is really in its infancy. (Autographed floppy discs were part of the Plastimagnetic Era that some archeologist might eventually discover.)

I guess I’ve used up my two cents and now owe Sarah about $5.00 here. :) So I’ll close this by saying that in November, I will be giving away a new-generation Kindle on my web site so if you’re interested, stay tuned for details.

I worked in book retail for many years. Self Pub authors were viewed as vermin by most of the book sellers.

The rare exception was the self pub author who was really a writer perfecting their craft day after day. Most were just “the-publishing-world-does-not-understand-my-talent-and-I’m-too-busy-and-special-to-bother-to-learn-how-to-get-a-book-published-or-even-how-to-properly-write-one.”

I’ve read several self pub’d titles because I had to for my job. They were all awful. As a rule, the authors with the least amount of talent were usually the pushiest about insisting we carry their book. Far from convincing me to stock their books, we usually banned their titles from the shelves except for pre-paid customer orders.

Even years after leaving the retail book selling world, I still view self pub authors as lazy narcissists.

I have tons of self pubbed reference books, since the subjects I’m most interested in are often so small and niche-y that there’s be no point in a publisher putting out an edition.

Fiction?  Not so much.

However…

I self published a book of my own that was far outside the genre I’m traditionally published in, and deemed unmarektable and a bad career move.  When I tried to sell to an e-press, they didn’t want it either, since it wasn’t romance, paranormal, UF or erotica.

I am not getting rich.  But I made enough to pay for a better cover, put it through another round of edits to solve formatting problems, and buy some advertising.  Sales are going up.  And I offer generous samples, so readers know they aren’t going to get burned.

In my spare, non contracted time, I am working on a sequel to the book that everyone told me would not sell, and a collection of essays and blog entries.

I am also following the careers of a bunch of self published writers, and planning to glut myself on samples and ebooks, with the purchase of a reader for Christmas.  These people are outselling me.  I want to know why.  But I am pretty sure it has to do with quality of work, and not a naive audience.

Again, I’m not getting rich.  But I am officially very doubtful about the ability of a small e-press to offer more than an author is willing to get for themselves, should they be willing to put the work into a project, edit, cover design, etc.

I definitely do not consider previously published books from traditional publishing companies self-published if the author starts publishing their back list after they get their rights back.

I think we have to treat them just as we do print books when they are reissued with a new cover. This really is just a book that is reissued except this time it’s in digital format. To call that self-publishing after the book has gone through publication through a traditional publishing company (professional editing, line editing etc) is a misnomer.

I’ve bought two because I knew the authors. Both were worth reading; neither would have succeeded in traditional publishing.

One was poetry about the author’s life. She’s had a very interesting life and is one of my role models; of course I bought it.

The other was from a guy who’s written several very good nonfiction books. He’s both studied and lived his subject matter, and they’re excellent, if not widely known. They were published traditionally. He wanted to write a semi-autobiographical novel (he changed names, the number of siblings he had, and added a major historical figure come back to life). First novel, not that good, poorly edited. But because it stemmed from his early life, it was very authentic and worth reading.

I look at what’s in hardback on my shelf and wonder if those same books would be published in today’s publishing world. Probably not. Sho-Gun, for example - which I loved. Long, wordy, involved and deep. Not your average read for your average reader. Anyone else agree that it would be a hard sell in today’s market? Then I wonder how many other great reads aren’t getting past the traditional publishers - which is why I’m willing to give self pubs a chance.

Yes, there’s a lot of crap out there. Anyone who’s been in a writing class or writing group (or participated at writing.com, for that matter) knows that. And a lot of that crap is now making its way into the world thanks to self publication and fairly easy distribution online. That said, traditional publishing has a bottom line they have to pay attention to, which means a book that’s really good but might not have a large audience or fit in a particular niche doesn’t get published because it won’t make enough money to support the bottom line. It comes down to whether you’re willing to mine for gold on your own or let someone else make the choice for you, a choice that is based largely on profit margins.

I do not have much to say about the world of self-publishing (never bought or read one that I am aware of).  However, I wanted to let you know that while I do not qualify, my girlfriend is a (sometimes) star-struck lesbian who went through the police academy. 

Close enough to be wary of the wood chipper.  ;-)

I’ve tried them, and won’t again for a while.

I got burned on Smashwords with my very first buy when I tried an indie author/publisher.  I found a book that sounded good. No reviews on it at that point, so all I had to go on was the description which sounded good, tags, very nice cover, and decent excerpt, which I realize now was very selective and short. The cover and title were the only good things about the book. The author/pub should have invested some of the cover expense on an editor.

I was very disappointed because the blurb and tags didn’t match the content, and it was a wallbanging crapfest to boot.  I haven’t bought anything by that publisher or author or Smashwords since.  It was so poorly written my brain and eyes were fried.

For now, I’ll stay with traditionally published authors until my brain and eyes heal.  Even free indies don’t appeal to me right now.

I needed to make a second post because I have purchased more Self-published books than I realized. I didn’t name the first book but the second is Naked Through the Snow (and Other Bits of Silliness) by Sailor Jim Johnston. Paperback, originally $10 from Quarterion Press. Amazon has some available used from $23.98, LOL.

I also owe an apology to the first author - he’d had the book proofread and eliminated the eight dot ellipses and excessive exclamation points, and the “mute” points problem was a different author altogether.

I must confess to a deep prejudice against self-published books.  When you work in a library, you frequently encounter local “authors” who feel that you are obligated to purchase their books.  In a high school library, alumni “authors” have an even greater sense of entitlement. 

Logically, I know there must be some good stuff out there, but my encounters with the breed have all been negative.  They’ve also been limited to print materials.  I particularly loathe those who believe that young people are an eager, undiscriminating audience for bad didactic writing.  My biggest gripe is that some of our alums have been published by standard publishers, big and small, and have been ignored because they are not as heavily into self-promotion as self-pubbed authors.  There’s a reason it used to be called vanity press.

I entered Barnes & Noble to find a table with an author and books planted right by the front door. It was awkward to pass without being rude, and I’ve been one of those authors feeling awkward and so, after glancing very quickly at the cover and title to see that it wasn’t totally offputting, allowed the very confident author to engage me in conversation.  The subject matter of her book was intriguing.  I flipped through and then realized that this was not a traditionally published book, and it was crap.

I will admit it.  I simply didn’t know how to put it down and walk on, and I bought the damned thing.  Took it home, tried to read it, and by the third page had already closed it, never to open again.  It ended up donated to some charity or another, for which I hope I am forgiven.  I should have just tossed it.  (Honestly, a 1940s private eye’s response to a situation is a straight-out-of-blogdom Grrrr. in his thoughts?  Oh my.)

I still haven’t figured out how she got B&N to let her sell her self-published book there.  It did not do their store any favors.

[Begin frustrated rant]

Self-publishing is not “indie publishing.” Self-publishing is publishing one’s own work. Indie publishing is done by independent publishers.

That may seem like an unnecessary quibble, but on behalf of the nearly 150 authors whose works we publish I assure you it isn’t.

When the two terms are used interchangeably, it becomes infinitely more difficult for authors published by small independent digital presses to be taken seriously. They are immediately treated as though they had, in fact, self-published, and all the various assumptions regarding quality are applied.

Digital publishing hasn’t only opened the gates to a flood of authors thinking DIY will maximize their income. It has also allowed people who think they know what they’re doing to offer themselves as editors, even though their actual experience in the field is all but nil.

As an aside, I will also note that, having read some of the books self-published on Kindle by established authors, whether backlist or original, the same problems listed here as affecting all self-published works are just as rampant.

Granted, as an editor I’m particularly sensitive to it, but nevertheless the statement made by one such author that experience as a published author relieves one of the necessity of an editor is hogwash.

It’s also frustrating for me when I read a self-published book and my reaction is how truly good it could have been had the author received proper editing support. What’s sad is I pick up far too many traditionally published books and have the same reaction.

@pooks: It’s my understanding that B&N gives their store managers some leeway in stocking books from local authors, even if the books are self-published or vanity-published.

I work with a group that puts on a Science Fiction convention, and every year we get requests from self- and vanity-pubbed authors asking to sell books, sign autographs, sit on programming, and so on. We have to turn them down. One reason is that we have so many authors with commercial presses (large and small) who want panel time, that we can afford to be selective.

Like the librarians and booksellers who have commented above, it seems the aggressive self-published authors aren’t doing the ones who know what they’re doing any favors.

@Julie

Thanks.  I assumed as much.  I just couldn’t figure out how any bookseller could take an even cursory glance at her book and think it was a good idea to allow her to sell it through their store, much less give her a table by the front door so she could address people both coming and going.  I have to assume she was a relative.

As a reader who knows she’s going to have stuff to read no matter what happens in self or indie or trad pub (my TBR pile would probably last me for years, at this point), the stigma against self-publishing bothers me because it feels very much like the stigma that’s still attached to Romance from those who don’t read it or who are judging the entire genre by one (or three) horrible book(s) they picked up or heard about. There’s good stuff and absolute crapola published in all genres, and I wonder if the percentage (not the number of books, but the ratio) is similar across genres and modes of publishing.

Still, I do wish we could talk about self-publishing separate from the self-pubbed books any of us has encountered.

Clearly it’s NOT a process by which ANYONE can produce a quality product. Nor would/should every author want to go that route. Because acting as author AND publisher is an incredible responsibility, requiring many skills beyond simply writing a manuscript. Editing, cover design, formatting, marketing and promo—all of these functions and more a traditional publisher manages (or is supposed to, anyway) must be assumed by the author in a self-pub venue, even if (like many trad publishers these days) s/he farms them out.

But for an author who has those skills or knows how to effectively outsource them, why can they not act as publisher of their work without being seen as “vermin”? Why does shitty editing or cover design or marketing/promo from a big NY pub get a pass? IMO failures of publishing are failures of publishing, whether by a NY pub or a self-pubbed author. In fact, IMO there should be FAR LESS slack given to trad NY pubs that try to pass off badly edited or otherwise inferiorly published books.

Publishers are in the business to make money, and they demand an astonishing percentage of the author’s earnings (and value of their work) to do so. Self-pubbed authors who are seriously trying to market a book (as others have pointed out, there are many, many reasons to self-pub a book, from wanting physical objects to pass out to family members to being able to constantly update editions of reference works) want to retain the lion’s share of their book’s earnings and value. That seems completely logical to me, given the percentage of earnings and value an author cedes to a publisher (and these days, how much of the marketing and promo work is done by the author, anyway?).

It also seems completely logical to me that self-publishing needs to be taken more seriously by many of those who enter it, since publishing is a much different enterprise than writing. But at the end of the day, IMO bad publishing is bad publishing, and good publishing is good publishing, no matter whether it’s a NY pub or a self-pubbed author on Kindle. That many self-pubbed books are crappy IMO doesn’t—or shouldn’t—mean that self-publishing is a disreputable business, any more than Romance should be viewed as littering the bottom of the fiction barrel.

Wow, this one has a lot of comments!

Now I’ll add another one.

1. Have I ever read a self-published novel?  Not to my knowledge, though I won’t swear to that.  I’ve read lots of books of varying levels of quality.

2. Have I ever bought one?  I don’t think so.  There have been some places that I went (conventions & renaissance-faires) where I think there may have been self-published books, but they either did not appeal based on subject matter/cover/back cover description or I had no money at the time.  I have some books on Kindle - it never occurred to me to check the publisher, just author, description and price.  a) I have not read them all yet to be able to give an informed statement other than ‘it had a interesting description’ and b) I refuse to pay more for something in Kindle-format than I would for the same thing in paperback.

1) I do agree that an author re-releasing a previously published book/story without the traditional publishing companies involvement in the current go-round is NOT the same as a self-published story.

2) I do agree that with various factors including the recent economic down-turns, fewer new authors are being given traditional publishing opportunities.  Each new author/book is an investment from the publishing company, and in the more recent times, all companies are thinking very carefully about investments, and wanting to be VERY sure that it will pay off for them.  A new author is not such a guaranteed investment.

This means that many good stories by talented authors are NOT being given that contract with a real, established my-story-into-a-printed-book publishing company.  Especially if the story in question isn’t easily categorized, easily marketed, and fitting nicely into a few niches and blurbs.  Especially if it isn’t currently part of one of the big trends.

Does that mean that I think every story/author rejected is being pushed aside because an unknown name is a risk the company won’t take, and if their story could be easily classified as UF - leather-clad heroine in love triangle with (cross out as appropriate) vampire/shifter/fae/detective/rival/mercenary/wizard or historical romance with (cross out as appropriate) Nobility/kilts/bastard half brothers trying to steal inheritances/scandalous affairs/inheritances depending on marriages/plucky adventurous girls/gambling for inappropriate stakes?  No.

Does that mean that I’d be willing to purchase a self-published book?  Maybe.  IF the subject matter appeals to me, IF the description sounds interesting, IF I could read a sample first before forking over some of my not-so-plentiful money.  IF I had said money at the time.  If the website didn’t make me leery if giving any information (not that I’m aware of any credit-card fraudsters attempting to scam credit information by pretending to sell e-books, but you have to be at least a little careful), and IF it was available in a format compatible with what I already have (which would mean printed or Kindle).

Yes, I’m sure that there is a vast quantity of bad self-published fiction out there in a range of classifications.  Comparable to fanfic in that there will always be many, many people who’s writing is NOT the category/mood/character types that you enjoy reading, and that skill levels vary.  With fanfic, many get better with practice (mine did - the stuff I first wrote, that I remember being quite pleased with at the time, sort of makes me cringe now.  Reader comments about those early works (the dialog is stilted, your action sequences are clunky, make the reader feel the emotions) helped me know where & how to improve.  My current stuff is much better than the early efforts.

Like many others, I’d be cautious about a self-published work, and also like many of the above, I’m a bit cautious about buying traditional printed books (most of which are presumably from established publishers) because not everything published will be to my taste.  What leaves one reader shouting praises will make the next go ‘not too bad’ the next ‘oh my’ the next say ‘what?  How did this get published?!?’ and another toss it against the wall and never finish and another not even have the interest to start.  I do like the ability to compare to known (to me) authors and to see what people who’s reading tastes I know have to say.  But I apply that to movies and fanfic - why wouldn’t I apply it to a self-published book?

But I can definitely see why someone would be upset at finding abundant spelling errors, grammatical problems, and inconsistencies.  I don’t like finding those in my own forum postings - finding one in a fanfic of mine is frustrating.  The idea of not looking over something that was an original work for publication (and having a few other people look over it as well, even if guilt tripping, calling on friendship, ect. is required) is mind-boggling to me.  This is the way most people will receive their first impression of you - why wouldn’t you want it to be the best one you could possibly make?  (and yes, some grammatical rules are relaxed or ignored for dialog.  Speaking is different than writing.)

anti-spambot word is college29 - if these people had better than a 29% in college, they’d know that spelling, grammar and consistency count.

second try (my computer is having issues) is research29 - again, if they did the research…

What Robin said.

My day job: editor. I’ve gone through phases of wanting to be Moriah Jovan, but I’m not that good at design and my wrists hurt. There are many parts of this process to put out a quality, pleasing-to-read book, and I’ve chosen to specialize instead of trying to do it all (and Moriah, I know you specialize too).

As a self-employed person, one thing I’ve learned is that it’s hard to learn about the field when you’re working alone. Pitching self-pub as a way to start a career as a writer is a little like teaching to swim by throwing you in the deep end of the pool.

I work for small and niche publishers, so perhaps I have more tolerance for self-pub because I see that there are small and niche audiences looking for something they don’t get from the nationwide best-seller list. Readers have a thousand different reasons for picking up a book, just as writers have a thousand different reasons for writing one, and I don’t think it’s useful to globally condemn one or another without considering whether the book meets any of those specific goals.

That excerpt didn’t sound so bad to me. I recently read about a book about hermaphrodite gunslingers in the wild west having a last stand in a town where the residents have TVs for heads (um, before TV’s were invented?)

It was by a trad publisher, and in my opinion sounds far worse than the book quoted above.

In the passed two months I have read a lot of (free) indie books over at Smashwords. Some were shit, others were fantastic. Today (it’s my birthday today) I got an e-reader device.

Before I got it I wasn’t willing to pay for e-books (any e-books, not just self pub) but now I am willing… and I have a list of about 25 must have e-books by self publishing authors.

A self-publishing author I know recently told me she spends $80 per hour on cover art. I know self-pub authors who have spent $700 getting their books edited. I know of one self pub author who made it into the top 25 of ALL books on Amazon.

I’m putting my book out self-pubbed this month. It isn’t a romance, so probably won’t appeal to you guys. I come here because I like to read paranormal romances, not because I want to write them.

If my book is phenomenally successful and a big six publisher offers me a publishing deal, I will turn them down. You can believe me or not, but I don’t write for the money, the fame or whatever else and, honestly, publisher’s can’t offer me the things I want.

I have friends who have published with small publishers. These friends are good writers but they’re not so good at business. Not everyone is, and they took the path best suited to them. On the other hand, I studied business at college and I live in a country that seriously rewards entrepreneurs (for example, the gov. gave me a completely free website because I started a company. And they’ve offered me some very good, heavily subsidised deals which I am currently considering).

Small publishers can’t offer me a single thing I can’t get for myself.

In response to those who have been burned before, I would ask… when? If it was 2+ years ago, you may want to reconsider your opinions.

Self-pub e-books are usually about $2.99. The most expensive are $4.99. Traditionally published e-books are $14.99.

Self-pub e-books are often well-edited and with professionally designed covers.

They are often by authors who really can write.

More and more authors who could be traditionally published are putting their work out themselves. They sell less copies but get much higher royalties, and their e-books will be available forever.

Sure, some folk are sticking together any old crap and publishing, but others seriously see this as the only competent business move they could make. I know self pubbed authors who self pub as a full-time job and earn enough from that to have a livable wage.

Course, there’s a lot of shit that’s going to make you wish you were blind, too. But that’s life…

Ann Marie, yes, you’re absolutely right. I specialize in ebook formatting and, while it’s not the majority of my business, interior print design.

I farm out editing to a brilliant editor (who edited Stay), and cover design to whichever artist I know who fits my client’s needs. I discovered through trial and error that I DESPISE doing covers for anyone but myself. I don’t have the patience to edit others’ work and don’t have the distance necessary to edit my own.

I’ll even go so far as to say The Proviso (even though it has a lot of fans) needs another edit. I just didn’t have enough money to do it at the time. When I get around to it, I’ll do a second edition.

As for the “lazy narcissist” comment, well… I just don’t know what to say to that.

Is it lazy to spend three years, almost 18 hours a day, thousands of dollars trying to build a publishing company and the 1,000 true fans? Or is it just being weary of the query/reject hamster wheel?

Is it narcissistic to think my stuff’s good enough to put out for public acceptance or rejection? Arrogance? Mere confidence? Or is it a willingness to hold one’s breath, jump off the cliff, and go directly to readers for them to decide?

I know of no other entrepreneurial endeavor that engenders this level of blanket disdain.

I haven’t bought anything by that publisher or author or Smashwords since.

Argh. You know what? Refusing to even try another self-pub book because you read one or two that sucked, is like refusing to eat meals served on white china because you got food poisoning once off a meal served on a white plate. The mode of delivery doesn’t make something suck. Nor is ‘Smashwords’ a publisher, responsible for the overall quality. It’s a distributor. Do you boycott Walmart just because you bought one brand there that you didn’t like? No.

Self-publishing is not “indie publishing.” Self-publishing is publishing one’s own work. Indie publishing is done by independent publishers.

Yes. And as Chris Kelly said “Small publishers can’t offer me a single thing I can’t get for myself. ” My experiences with three small ‘indie’ presses have been entirely negative - incompetent, unprofessional and downright nasty owners wanting to do minimal editing and get a maximum cut from my work, for doing less than I would expect to do putting out a book myself (and before you say, oh well, your book wasn’t very good, I’ll say that they have been extremely well reviewed, and one was picked up by another epress - and sold very well - after the first press owner threw a temper tantrum. My sin? Objecting to his *typesetter* doing on the fly edits, ‘removing many adverbs’, in the *typesetting* process. Yes, that’s quality editing right there.) I would rather set fire to my manuscripts than ever submit to a small press again.

However, not all small presses are the same, and I wouldn’t refuse to buy a book from a small press just because I know of three which are utter fuckups. But I’ve stopped buying paper books completely from big and small publishers because the product is so often incompetently edited and indifferently written. Even the more successful and reputable epresses don’t offer consistent editing standards, and it’s immensely frustrating to pay money for a so-called pro-published book that still contains a multitude of line errors, egregious POV switches, and flaccid prose. Don’t tell me that there aren’t mountains of crap in the pro world, because there are. At least self-pub books don’t charge a premium for rubbish editing.

Look, I won’t convince anyone who has a prejudice against self-pub books to try them, no matter what I say - and that’s their loss. But I’m so immensely irritated that most all we hear are blanket statements about how awful and unprofessional the books are, and the experiences of those who’ve read good self-pubbed books are ignored. I’d like to see some reader recs of books they’re read and enjoyed, because this ‘self-pub sucks and the authors are all delusional’ gets really old. Self publication is like Print On Demand. It’s a way of getting books to market. It’s not a genre.

I know of no other entrepreneurial endeavor that engenders this level of blanket disdain.

Which is even more interesting when you think about how many “inventors” start their own companies to market the product they’ve created (Apple comes immediately to mind). When these companies fail, no one says, “See, look what scum these inventors are thinking they can SELL their own work!” Although clearly not everyone who creates something is suited to selling it, either.

I do wonder how strong the psychology of endorsement in publishing is, though. A publisher is basically putting its name on a book and saying it approves. The higher status the publisher, the more that recommendation can mean (assuming one pays attention to these things, of course). It doesn’t matter that the publisher is merely acting as agent for the author, that they are looking to make money on books that sell, whether or not the “publisher” (as if the publisher were a person and not a corporate entity separate from the single editor who acquired the manuscript) loves the book.

The perception that someone is standing at the quality-control gate seems strong, despite the objective evidence we can all point to that a third party publisher does not guarantee a high quality product (or even a product for which everyone would set the quality at the same level). The psychology of the third party publisher is still very powerful, it seems, regardless of the fact that, as Ann Somerville said above, publishing is “a way of getting books to the market,” not the core creative content itself. Which is not to say that the vehicle isn’t of substantial importance (editing, especially, is critical in so many ways that can substantially and substantively affect the creative content), but it’s still a vehicle of the market.

What’s so interesting to me, Sarah, is that readers would pay so much attention to differences among publishers. Because until I was reviewing, I sure as hell didn’t.

While I completely see how authors would acknowledge and value that gatekeeping function (and I think that’s an interesting phenom, too—the way publishers are perceived to have so much more power than content creators!), as well as booksellers, but it surprises me a bit coming from readers. Is it just a more knowledgeable and aware cohort of readers we’re dealing with, is it a function of reader loyalty to authors (i.e. Nora Roberts fans will know that Penguin pubs her books, etc.), or something else?

Like has the awareness increased as the digital market has emerged (although I’m thinking that may be more responsible for the positive reader comments, with recommendations, I’m seeing here)? Or is it something else entirely?

If readers objecting to self-published books is so objectionable, who’s going to start reviewing the self-published books? 

The only time I buy a book without reading a review is when the author has a track record with me.  I also own more reading material than I will ever get around to reading.  If I’m not willing to waste time choosing traditionally published books serendipitously, why would I do it for self-published books where the gems are even harder to find?

The perception that someone is standing at the quality-control gate seems strong, despite the objective evidence we can all point to that a third party publisher does not guarantee a high quality product (or even a product for which everyone would set the quality at the same level).

My perception is that publishing has a slush pile.  Traditional publishing weeds through the slush pile and self-publishing expects readers to do it.

At one time there was a site that reviewed POD books. I think the proprietor gave up because there were so many books, and so many of them were bad beyond belief.

Fact: the success of Ellora’s Cave and the popularity of erotica and erotic romance in ebook format has given birth to a plethora of small ebook publishers whose main focus is in that area.

Many of these are run by people with no publishing experience of any kind, except perhaps for having worked as an editor or in some other capacity for another ebook publisher. Others are authors who were unhappy with their publisher and started out self-publishing, then expanded to include additional authors.

However, as Ann said, not all small presses are the same. There are many who are just as professional as any larger publisher. The size of the company has nothing to do with the professionalism of those who operate it.

As for the bias against self-publishing—and, frankly, digital publishing in general—it’s basis is simple. Those who struggled for years to get an agent, then struggled more years till they signed that first major contract, resent that there are authors who opted for another route.

So, they denigrate the publishers and the publishing method by issuing a blanket dismissal that the books thus produced are badly written/poorly edited/etc. because you aren’t really a professional unless you’ve “paid your dues.”

I know this because I’ve had traditionally published writers tell me in so many words. They aren’t even cognizant of how they’re insulting me and all my authors, who work very hard to ensure what comes off the presses or the server farm is as good as we can make it.

The reasons behind the loathing that is directed at self-published or Indie published authors are complex.  There are a lot of different points of view regarding the process, and all sides have valid arguments.  It does astonish me, however, that so many people seem to take it personally when authors decide to go it on their own. 

Reviews have been mentioned several times in these comments.  It is very hard for me to buy a book these days that does not have at least a few reviews.  I’ve been burned very badly more than once, ironically enough by traditionally published authors, because I trusted their names and didn’t research the books in question.  However, I can say that I have never been burned by an Indie book, as there are so many resources available now with which to do research, not the least of which is Smashwords’ 50% sample availability.  If nothing else, I can email the author and ask them to send me a sample if one is not available.  That’s one of the small perks of the authors not being hidden behind twelve layers of agents, assistants, publishers and the like.  I’m new to the whole idea of self-publishing, so I don’t know what it has been like for readers in times past, but these days, there is no excuse for getting burned - the resources are out there, and pretty readily available to weed out the good from the bad.  In most cases, it is as easy to find out about an Indie book as it is to find info on a trad. pubbed. 

There has been a popular misconception that Indie authors trade reviews.  Um, no, we don’t as a general rule.  That behavior is frowned upon.  It’s considered bad form, smarmy and very unprofessional.  Reviews for Indies are hard to come by - we don’t have the traditional routes available to us, since we don’t have a free pass (a.k.a. publisher’s name behind us).  Yes, there are self-published authors out there who pay for reviews or who get their friends and family to write reviews for them, but there are a lot of us who depend on our readers to be honest and share their feelings on various websites - Amazon, Smashwords, etc.  As I mentioned before, if I write crap I want to know.  So far, no one has told me that my work is crap, but a lot of people whom I do not know have said otherwise.  Given how upset folks become when they encounter a bad self-pubbed book, I have to think someone would have said something by now. 

If you, dear reader, are firmly set against self-publishing or Indie authors, or whatever tag you want to reference us as, you will never cross over and explore the new authors who are up and coming, rising through the ranks, the Amazon sales numbers and headed on the path to success.  That is a very sad thing, in my mind.  As someone who loves to read, I wouldn’t deny myself the opportunity to find new writers simply because they don’t have the stamp of NY on the spines of their books.

has the awareness increased as the digital market has emerged

It has for me.  I’ve bought some real stinkers of e-books, some of which actually show up on my e-reader as Word documents.  I’ve read some really fantastic ones.  I’ve started paying attention to publishing companies, because the fantastic ones seem to be coming from the same publishers.  For example, Dreamspinner Press (the books I’ve read so far, anyway) has good writing, good editing, EXCELLENT formatting.  By contrast (I’d name names, but I can’t remember at the moment), one book I read was purported to be an Adobe ePub, but was so very not.  On every single page, the first sentence would start, jump to the next, and then finish off at the end of the line.

ItAdded to the fact that every page filled half the screen, so Iwas kind of like this, and quite irritating. had to turn the page every paragraph, I ended up just too irked to enjoy the story.

@Ann Somerville:  I didn’t say I totally refuse to try another indie author or pub ever again, just not right now.  Maybe in the future.

If someone rec’d a “great” book by an indie pub’d author, and I was assured that there was some good quality control happening, I might read it.  I’m just not going to actively seek them out on my own—right now.  I don’t disdain all indie pub’d authors or small pubs.  I read a lot, and am open to new authors.  I’m not slamming ALL doors due to being burned that time.  But I definitely won’t buy anything else by that author or publisher again.  Live and learn.

One HUGE reason I requested my rights back for the three contemporary romance books I have published with Cerridwen is so I can offer them myself through Smashwords at a price I set. Currently they are *way* overpriced. Who pays more than $10 for a digital book from a largely unknown author? NO ONE. I want the right to offer the book for much, much less (a reasonable price, gasp!), offer the book in print (which is where most of the vanilla contemporary market is), and collect the majority of the royalty myself as well. All of these books have received very good reviews so it makes sense to me to do this at this time. Now I can only hope that people won’t immediately dismiss them as “crap” because they no longer have an Official Publisher’s stamp of approval.

Jennyfer—

Do you not intend to state that they are re-released, previously published by…?  There would be no reason for confusion.  I think people using re-published books in this discussion are getting caught up in a straw dog.  It’s not the same thing and would not be seen as the same thing unless the author neglected to put it’s earlier publishing history in the description.

... its earlier publishing history.

Sorry for the typo.

@ pooks - I suppose I will do so now - especially after this enlightening comment thread. I’ll just have to hope that the reviews will transfer and people will be willing to give them a shot, in spite of being re-self-published.

The novel I published completely independently? I guess I’ll have to wait and see on that one.

Jenyfer—

I guess I continue to be confused by people claiming the “self-published” label when their book was traditionally published.  It’s not the same, just as indie-publishing is not the same, which is part of the point of this thread, right?

there isn’t a lot that can be done to review all the self-pubbed books out there (we’d never sleep!)

But why do you need to review ‘all’? The number of self-pubbed romance novels is relatively small, and all you’d have to do would be to open up a post for suggestions in the genre you want to read in. For example I’ve already given you several good tips for excellent self-pubbed m/m authors (and here’s another I forgot to mention - Jordan Castillo Price http://jcpbooks.com/), and I’m sure het lovers could do the same. Given how few of your readers seem to have tried and liked self-pubbed books, the ultimate number of recs from which to choose a few to review would be pretty small.

It’s not an unmanageable task, is all I’m saying. Most review sites just won’t touch self-pubbed at all, or conflate self-pubbed with previously pubbed/resissued and concentrate on the latter. There’s no reason why they have to, or why the craziness of some self-pubbed authors should affect what you choose to review.

I’m not saying, by the way, that you have some unique duty to review self-pubbed books at all. I’m just pointing out how it could be done, if you were interested.

@pooks - I will re-publish three previously (currently) published romances I have with Cerridwen, but also recently self-published a women’s fiction novel on my own so I have both situations to manage.

As for reviews, even if the only people who reviewed a book were the ones who’d read it - like at Fictionwise, Amazon, etc - it would be helpful. I know that isn’t a foolproof system either, but it would be more helpful than nothing at all, especially in conjunction with a generous excerpt.

@Sarah – I hope this info is okay to share – if not, I’m sorry!

I’ve been following this thread since it started and I’ve noticed a lot of talk about the lack of review venues for self-published romance novels. In an effort to help the authors who need reviews, and the readers who want as much info on a self-published book as possible before they’ll consider buying – here’s a list of romance sites that reviewed my self-published dark paranormal romance novel:

Coffee Time Romance – coffeetimeromance.com

Bitten By Books – bittenbybooks.com (they only review paranormal)

Romance Junkies – romancejunkies.com

PNR ParaNormal Romance – paranormalromance.org

Romance In The Back Seat – romanceinthebackseat.com

Mrs. Giggles – mrsgiggles.com (She has a special POD/SP section – I didn’t request the review from her, it just showed up one day - but she does review self-pubbed romance.)

I should tell you that I was very upfront with the above sites (aside from Mrs. Giggles), and opened my review request by immediately telling them I was a self-published romance author. I let them know I understood the stigma attached to self-pubbed books, and then I invited them to read the free chapters on my website before they made a decision (unless they asked for the e-book to be uploaded with the request). Luckily, each site e-mailed me and said they were happy to review the book. However, as with most review sites, each site above reserves the right not to review any book they receive - but none openly state that they won’t review a self-published book. 

So, for you self-published romance authors, I’d say give these sites a shot. I had a really good experience with all of them. And for you lovely romance readers, if you run across a self-pubbed book you think you might like but want more info about before spending your hard earned cash – check out these sites. Most of them review a lot of small press and e-press books too, as well as all the major traditionally published releases.

Hope this info helps!

Being the author of “Touched By A Charlie’s Angel” I find this self publishing debate intriguing but in my case, it doesn’t really apply to my ebook.  “Touched By A Charlie’s Angel” is not self published, it was published by Club Lighthouse publishing ebook publisher who edits and markets my work.  By the way, I have been published by Prentice Hall, Harper Collins, Avon and in the U.K. by Quartet Books.

In response to the previous comment, I have to wonder why this blog is called SMART bitches.

I mean, come on Sarah, as every single self-publishing naysayer in the comments above has pointed out, self-publishing books are EASY to spot.

Unless you knew it was traditionally published, and you were fucking with peoples heads in order to challenge traditionally held self-publishing views.

So, you’re either dumb or devious. I wonder which…

Wow! How’s that for a punch-line! It WASN’T self-published!!!!!!!!

I recently published Dating My Vibrator (and other true fiction, a collection of nine short stories on Kindle. I chose to self-publish in this venue because it offers me great freedom as a writer, and I’m proud to be part of the Indie writing movement. If you’ve ever been divorced, desperate, or if you’re dating, you may enjoy these stories. Please judge the quality of my writing for yourself.

Here’s the opening of my story, Dharma Dan:

    I remove my glasses, so I can really see him. Could be handsome if he’d smile. His face is soft, a little bland. Indefinite.

    “So, you’re a Buddhist?”

    “Yeah.” He looks around distractedly.

    Friday, and the place is packed. Dim lighting and alcohol mask the lines that creep across my forehead, enhance the lines designed to lure me into bed. I spot another guy I met on Match. The accountant. About a month ago, we went out for coffee. Dutch. He’s wearing a black tee-shirt; I can’t see the logo but I suspect it says Harley-Davidson. Our conversation consisted of a blow-by-blow description of rebuilding his motorcycle. I don’t mind a guy who’s passionate about transmissions, but our date ended abruptly when he asked if I’d be into group sex.

    Not if the group includes you.

    Didn’t say that, but I thought it. Truthfully, the idea of getting naked with one person is frightening enough. A middle-aged group-grope holds as much appeal as a colonoscopy. In fact, a colonoscopy might be more pleasurable; they use good drugs to knock you out.

    I focus on my current date. The Buddhist thing intrigues me—I want a guy who’s conscious.

    “These are good.” He drains his glass and motions to the waitress. “Another Appletini.”

    I didn’t know Buddhists were so into alcohol.

    The waitress glances at my drink, tonic with a hint of gin—the Happy Hour special. I’ve barely touched it. Alcohol makes me forget things, like promises I make. For example: no jumping into bed on a first date. I’m not taking any chances.

    “A glass of water, please.”

Thanks for reading.

Suzanne

So, you’re either dumb or devious. I wonder which…

At no point did Sarah say that Trivers’ book was self-published. She just used the the whatthefuckery of the summary to segue into a discussion about how people reject self-published books allegedly because of their over the top plots.

So she’s neither dumb, nor devious, but you’re just rude - and a really poor advertisement for your company.

Most of the time, they (self-published books) are pitched to me for review.

Case in point, this book,

That is basically her saying “People pitch me self-pubbed books to review. Here is one.”

That is not a segue, that is a statement. She said it was self-published.

My devious comment was a compliment, actually. If she set up the whole thing so she could come back at a later date and show people how their base opinions about self-publishing could be easily manipulated, that would be something I could respect.

If, on the other hand, she claimed a book was self-published when it wasn’t, and didn’t bother to check her facts, then that is dumb.

And my saying such a thing is dumb is not rude, it’s honest. I haven’t called her dumb… I’ve wondered if she is, or not. As I said, she might be devious. So I don’t think I was rude.

As to advertising my company, I’m a self-publisher so 98% of the people who’ve commented here were never going to buy my book anyway.

She said it was self-published.

Not in so many words, but yes, there is room for confusion - which could have been created in the back and forth with the author over whether to publish the summary. The summary is still on crack.

I’m a self-publisher so 98% of the people who’ve commented here were never going to buy my book anyway.

Well, as another self-pubbed author, thanks so much for adhering to the stereotype of us all being obnoxious self-promoters. I really need another self-pubbed author behaving aggressively towards a blog reviewer like I need another arsehole.

Dude, let Trivers fight his own damn battles - unless you have some personal interest in the matter? In which case, declate it.

Obnoxious: fine, maybe. I see it as blunt and honest, but there are people I view as obnoxious who have told me they view it as blunt and honest, too. So perhaps being obnoxious is a sliding scale, and our opinions are at different levels.

I stand by my comment that my comments were not offensive. Perhaps they were. Should I apologise? Maybe. Will I? No. Because Sarah has just used a traditionally published book to paint a negative picture of self-publishing. Will she apologise for that?

To be honest, I doubt she’ll acknowledge it.

Travers waited a long time after this post was dead to make his comment. I’m not fighting his battle, his battle is a different one to mine.

In all the comments above you will see things like “Star struck lesbians. I am never buying a self-pubbed book.” At any point Sarah could have dropped back to say “By the way, I used this book as an example. It was traditionally published.”

She didn’t.

I am sorry if you see my comment as hindering your chances of getting reviewed. Personally, I see someone who is dishonest (she didn’t lie, but she wasn’t honest) and generates this much undeserved negativity towards self-publishing as hurting all of us.

That is my personal beef with it.

She could have found an awesome self-pubbed book and segued into a self-publishing conversation.

I recently started reading and reviewing free fiction on Smashwords. I’ve read 4, reviewed 1 (so far). One was not my thing. One was really good, one was good but needed a little editing. One was so bad I nearly stopped reviewing them altogether.

There are good books out there.

As to self-promoting, you mentioned my business before I did. I’m on a post that has been dead for a while, on a blog that’s about as far from my genre as you can get, where, as I said, most of the readers have sworn off self-publishing, and I haven’t mentioned the name of my book, the fact that it’s getting released this month, or, you know, did anything self-promoting of any kind…

We agree on one point, though, that summary was on crack. And a lot of self-pubbed books have bad summaries, too, they are hard to write.

And that’s all I’m saying, I’m not coming back, Ann. I’ve said my points, and you’re kinda right that it’s not my battle.

Hold the phones: the book that started this whole discussion was traditionally published???  If so, that’s pretty disingenuous of Sarah.  I really didn’t think she’d stoop that low, so I went back and re-read the original post to see if I’d somehow misinterpreted what she said.  I read it three times to be certain, and unless I’m completely blind and/or stupid, the original post is quite unambiguous in its representation of James Trivers’ book as self-published. 

That being said, I did go on to investigate Club Lighthouse Publishing, and well.  *cough*  Let’s just say that it may technically qualify as small press e-book publishing (definitely not “traditional” publishing as I understand the term) but if the website is anything to go by, I won’t be submitting anything there anytime soon.

This of course does not excuse Sarah from her (as far as I can tell) misrepresentation of James Trivers’ book as self-published. 

Maybe she simply didn’t know?  I respect Sarah and SMTB a great deal, so I’m trying to give the benefit of the doubt until we hear back from her.

Far too many indie writers don’t bother with basics like grammar and the spell checker. Can you blame readers for being gun shy?

Will I buy an indie-pub book?  No. I’ve a backlog of pro books to read first and am on two budgets: limited time and money.

Will I read one handed to me for free?  Only the first page, and only if I wholly fail to discourage the writer from handing it to me.  “Oh, no, you need to get your overhead costs back / I’m sorry, but I just don’t have the time!” 

Take that as code that I’m not interested and attempting to be polite so the writer may save face.

(By the way, “Eragon” was a self-pub sold out of the trunk of a car.)

Yes, we’ve ALL heard that one.

What we don’t hear often enough was that Paolini spent 2 years running around in a funny costume selling the books by hand. No one gave a tinker’s d—- for the book his parents printed for him through their company.

He was at the point of throwing in the towel. Sales sucked.

In Summer 2002, the stepson of author Carl Hiaasen found Eragon in a bookstore and loved it, and Hiaasen brought it to the attention of his publisher, Alfred A. Knopf.  Knopf subsequently made an offer to publish Eragon and the rest of the Inheritance cycle.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Paolini

THAT’S what tripped things for the indie writer—sale to a professional publisher, not selling out the trunk of the car, wearing a funny costume, or having parents who own a printing company.  Otherwise we’d have never heard of him.

If I thought any of THAT would put me on the NYTimes bestseller list I’d leap on it like a spider monkey.

Am I self-publishing?  Yes.

I’ve done so from my website. The book was a runaway bestseller in indie terms, (500 copies sold). It tanked in commercial publishing terms, but what the heck, I turned a small profit, and the readers seemed to like it.

It was professionally edited, proofed, and obsessively polished before it went to the printer. I put a reasonable price on it, and posted a hefty excerpt on the website.

We can hope that more indie writers would do the same. Just a thought.