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.