A lot of articles we cover tend to carry the slant that traditional publishers are on the ropes and self-publishing is the big new thing that will save the industry. For a little bit of balance, here’s an article by Roxane Gay, a writer, micropress editor, and assistant professor of English, pointing out some problems with self-publishing. You may not agree with all her points, but they are interesting ones to make. She explains:
I have no problem with self-publishing. It is not an option I would choose for myself, mostly because I don’t have the time to do the work required of someone who self publishes. However, I don’t begrudge writers who do avail themselves of the self-publishing route and it can be a really interesting way of challenging the publishing establishment and getting your work out there without having to deal with some of the more problematic aspects of mainstream publishing. At the same time, just because you can do something does not mean you should.
Gay contrasts Barry Eisler’s decision to turn down a $500,000 advance with Amanda Hocking’s move to traditional publishing. She finds the decisions both made interesting, but is troubled by a number of the comments implying things about “the direness of publishing.” She points out that there isn’t a whole lot of difference between self-publishing and publishing with a micropress except that authors don’t have to spend their own money with micropresses, and micropresses do the same sort of curation and polishing as traditional publishers.
Also, she echoes Rich Adin’s plaint about self-published e-book quality: she sampled a number of self-published books and found only one of them to be excellent—she cites issues with quality of writing, grammar, plotting, etc. that would have caused them to be rejected by traditional publishers.
And she is concerned by the trend toward $.99-$2.99 pricing for books, fearing that it devalues authors’ work:
I could see myself selling a short story for a buck or two but a book, a whole book? My work is worth more than that. Your work is worth more than that. If I cannot sell my books at a ore [sic] reasonable $8-$10 price point, perhaps the market is telling me something about my writing. Humbling? Perhaps.
She doesn’t make any mention of the fact that a $2.99 book will sell far more copies than a $8-$10 book, and the 70% royalty offered by self-publishing on Amazon means a writer could make more money from a $2.99 e-book than a traditionally-published hardcover.
Her main point about self-publishing seems to be that “[we] live in an age of entitlement” but, in order to learn and grow in their craft, writers should learn to take “no” for an answer. If you’ve been rejected enough times, she suggests, maybe you should think about what you’re doing wrong instead of rush to publish it yourself. She gets the sense that a lot of people considering self-publishing do so out of impatience and “a certain need for instant gratification.”
I also sense that these writers want to have a book, any book, even a mediocre book, rather than wait for the right agent, publishing opportunity or even the right book from their arsenal as if we each only have one book in us. While publishers have finite resources, writers, generally do not have a finite number of words they can write. If you write one book, you can probably write another. What’s more important—publishing a book or publishing a good book?
Gay writes that she is optimistic about publishing, and continues to believe that if someone is a really good writer, they will eventually get a book deal. As many good writers as can be found in any bookstore, it seems like good writers have a pretty good chance of making it into traditional press themselves. The publishing industry can’t always be to blame, and she’s puzzled by how publishers have now become “the enemy”—though she admits part of this might spring from being too lazy to want to do the kind of work required to self-publish herself.
And she notes, as I’ve said before, that a lot of writers involved in self-publishing have already built up reputations and audiences in traditional publishing that they bring with them to their self-published efforts.
When they evangelize about self publishing it’s like watching a Jennifer Hudson Weight Watchers commercial and believing that all it takes is following the program to look as amazing as she looks right now. For every writer like these bigger hitters there are, literally thousands of writers who will never do more than sell a handful of their self-published books. There’s nothing wrong with that. Success is a personal measure but it’s important to acknowledge that there are just as many small miracles required to succeed via self publishing.
In the end, she says, writers should have faith in their writing, but learn to take “no” for an answer and do something productive with it.
It’s an interesting essay, and generated a lot of interesting discussion in the comments as people like Nick Mamatas emerged to defend the low price point or other self-publishing-related matters. Whether you agree or not, she does make some points that are worth considering.
My comment, left on her site:
As a self-published author, I’d like to point out something you may have overlooked.
When, in 2004, I began submitting my books for traditional publishing, I was not told, “No.” I was told, “Don’t bother sending it.” Most of the publishers I contacted weren’t even accepting queries, so they couldn’t very well tell how good or bad it was. The few who did accept the manuscript have, to date, never responded to them.
So, when you suggest authors do something constructive with their “No” responses, I’d suggest that going independent is a very constructive alternative to traditional publishers who don’t have time to even look at new authors. Assuming all unpublished authors are necessarily bad is doing a disservice to a lot of good writers that the publishing industry chose to ignore out of hand.
I agree wholeheartedly Steven. How many times was J.K. Rowling rejected ????
You can always submit your next manuscript to the Journal of Universal Rejection: http://www.universalrejection.org/
I find that when someone starts talking about how we live in an age of entitlement, they’re usually already among the entitled. Publishers and traditionally published writers should really stop using this as an argument; it doesn’t help their case.
“Gay writes that she is optimistic about publishing, and continues to believe that if someone is a really good writer, they will eventually get a book deal.”
I don’t see where this point is defensible. There are only a limited number of publishing companies, especially if you write genre fiction. The chances of any agent or editor even looking at your work are very low. I spent 4 years trying to get an agent. Of all the rejections, I think 2 people actually asked for and maybe looked at the sample chapters. I’m suppose to accept that I’m not good based on the rushed opinions of 2 people? There are way more writers out there who really believe in their work than there are publishers willing to make a business investment in them. And remember, just because someone has a book deal hardly means that they made much money or that they are going to make a career out of it. And just how many authors are there in any given bookstore? A few hundred? And the bulk of titles at a bookstore are nonfiction, so there is actually very little outlet for fiction writers, unless they choose self publishing.
“She doesn’t make any mention of the fact that a $2.99 book will sell far more copies than a $8-$10 book…”
Assertion not backed up by evidence. You’re assuming that every book has an infinite pool of potential readers who base their decision on nothing but price point. I’d argue that instead, every book has (a) one group of author fans who’ll buy it at any cost, (b) another group of interested readers who’ll buy at varying price according to interest, and (c) everyone else who wouldn’t even read it if it were free.
You’re assuming that (a) is small and (b) is large. What if, instead, (a) is a meaningful size and (b) isn’t?
“the 70% royalty offered by self-publishing on Amazon means a writer could make more money from a $2.99 e-book than a traditionally-published hardcover.”
Apples to oranges; nobody’s talking about “traditionally-published hardcovers” except you. A $9.99 self-published ebook on Amazon will return $3.50 to the author, while a $2.99 self-published ebook on Amazon would only return $2.10.
As a self-published writer I agree with much of what Ms. Gay had to say about quality, (which is expensive and paid for out of a self-pub’s pocket like anyone else) and yet her tone smacks of Utopian value regarding ‘real’ publishers somehow being guaranteed to produce a great product. Not so, for this site and many other site bear numerous complaints of errs, grammar issues, misspellings and formatting problems in the eBooks produced from “professional”publishing houses, along with a fair amount of subsequent griping on the lack of customer service. Self-publishers have as good a chance as any these days to both garner returning customers and attract global attention. It is true, however, that self-publishers must continue to strive to produce the best prose they can, taking the time to consult customers for ‘wish-lists’.
“For every writer like these bigger hitters there are, literally thousands of writers who will never do more than sell a handful of their self-published books.”
Some version of this statement appears so often in pieces like this one. They never mention how few “bigger hitters” there are among the traditionally published – and that’s if you count only those who got a deal with some publisher somewhere. If you added to that all those who are agented but never published, or if you added to that all those who are submitting… and submitting… and submitting….
“I could see myself selling a short story for a buck or two but a book, a whole book? My work is worth more than that.”
In your mind, perhaps, but not in mine, an average reader. When I read fiction, I read purely for entertainment and I have so many choices, including numerous web sites, that I don’t need to spend more than a few bucks for an ebook.
As several people with experience have stated above, getting published is a crapshoot, not an automatic indication of the quality of your work. The only book I can ever remember that was so poorly written that I simply couldn’t finish it was a traditionally published pbook. Now, I avoid poorly written ebooks by reading the samples and reviews. So far, that strategy has worked and I’ve found many entertaining books for $2.99 or less.
Kudos to those of you who have taken the trouble to self-publish. My experience is that there’s more talent out there than will ever be recognized by the traditional publishers.
Roxanne says “I could see myself selling a short story for a buck or two but a book, a whole book? My work is worth more than that. Your work is worth more than that. If I cannot sell my books at a ore [sic] reasonable $8-$10 price point, perhaps the market is telling me something about my writing. Humbling? Perhaps.”
This lady is sadly, again, confusing the selling price of her work with her sense of ‘personal value’ instead of the gross earnings from her book. Very unfortunate I think.
“she cites issues with quality of writing, grammar, plotting, etc. that would have caused them to be rejected by traditional publishers.”
There’s something missing from this argument: READERS DON’T CARE. If you look at the top selling self-published ebooks you’ll invariably see many reviews citing grammatical issues and typos, but many more 5 star reviews. Many of the books that are selling in droves are not good writing and would get rejected by a publisher – but that doesn’t stop them from becoming bestsellers. So the “self-published books are bad” stigma is meaningless b/c there are millions of readers who don’t seem to care about bad writing.
Most of our greatest, most talented, and gifted writers were rejected MANY times before someone finally said yes. I am sure glad THEY didn’t take NO for an answer.
The difference for writers today is that they no longer need to even ASK. The days of begging the gatekeepers are gone. There has never been a better time to be a writer.
An article I wrote for Independent Publisher on this topic can be found here: http://www.independentpublisher.com/article.php?page=1422&urltitle=Independent Publishing – the Wild Wild West!
And, yes – I am an Independent Author. And, ultimately, it is the reader who says “yes” or “no” – just as it should be.
My first novel got rejected by 11 publishers before I decided to suck it up and self-publish. I did a ton of creative marketing to get the word out, and a year later I got a call from the execs at Amazon offering me a traditional publishing contract with AmazonEncore. Since then the book (Perfect on Paper) has also been picked up by Random House in Germany and Alexandra Publishing in Hungary. I now have a Hollywood film rights agent (she came to me), and yesterday I found out that Perfect on Paper is now being sold in 3,000 CVS stores across the United States. My second book is coming out later this year, again with AmazonEncore. NONE of this would have happened if I had taken no for an answer. Self-publishing is a lot of work, but it’s worth it! 🙂
“She doesn’t make any mention of the fact that a $2.99 book will sell far more copies than a $8-$10 book, and the 70% royalty offered by self-publishing on Amazon means a writer could make more money from a $2.99 e-book than a traditionally-published hardcover.”
The issues here are very important and the concept of work being devalued by selling so cheaply is a very complex issue. I am a writer, publisher (with a trad. publishing house) and reader so I come at books from all angles. RE the lines quoted above, it is unhelpful to the debate to use this type of unqualified claim. It is nothing but wholly wrong to suggest that “a $2.99 book will sell far more copies than a $8-$10 book”. It has the potential to, and there are statistics to make a case, but to assert it as simple fact is very misleading. It is also true to say that there are many $2.99 ebooks that *don’t* sell as well as $8-$10 books, but I’m not about to start waving a flag and claiming that we must raise prices and that this is proof of the fact.
I enjoy Teleread, I read it regularly and I appreciate it is both deeply partisan and forward-looking. There is a lot of highly commendable thought, comment and analysis on here. But that does not give license to use unfounded assertion as proven fact. There is nothing wrong with arguing on the base of assumptions or inferences (there is, after all, a long history of evidence showing lower prices can equal higher sales, but that does not mean that lower prices automatically mean higher sales, or indeed sales of a high enough magnitude to offset that lower price) but make it clear that these are assumptions and inferences. Do not confuse “commonsense” with fact.
“She doesn’t make any mention of the fact that a $2.99 book will sell far more copies than a $8-$10 book”
This is self evident. Anyone who doubts it has no experience of selling, just pontificating.
Howard: You’re assuming that there’s an infinite market of readers who fit perfectly to the price/demand curve. What if, instead, there’s a group of author-fan readers who’ll buy the book no matter what; a smaller group that is curious and driven by price; and the vast majority of people who wouldn’t touch it even if it were free?
With that distribution, the author would indeed lose money by pricing the book lower. The people who would have bought it no matter what will still do so; the people who wouldn’thave bought it still won’t buy it. The only thing you’ll get with a lower price is a scant few curious parties, and meanwhile you lose 30% of your income.
Howard:
It is self-evident that tall people will be better at basketball isn’t it? Funnily enough, whilst height is a massive advantage (in 2007, all the teams in the NBA had an average height of over 6’6”) it is *not* true to say that all tall people are better at basketball than their short counterparts. It’s the same argument with ebooks. Price is a massive factor but as DensityDuck says there is more than just one driving factor. Price helps because people are sensitive to their expenditure and on a leisure item in a highly congested leisure market where everything is competing for our time, price indicates an investment of time and money. The lower the price, the lower the cost of the time investment and so if a book is not read after purchase, there is a lower value loss to consider. And that is merely skimming the surface in the tiniest way possible. There is nothing *self-evident* about low prices and that is a damaging and misleading argument to make.
If you paid a bit more attention you would find that no where is the word “all” used. And it is indeed self evident.
Howard:
The line “a $2.99 book will sell far more copies than a $8-$10 book” is a collective statement that is the direct equivalent of saying “all $2.99 books will sell far more copies than all $8-$10 books”. Such is the way of the English language.
Also it frankly isn’t self-evident and stating so without proof is doubling the error. Please engage more.
PS If you’re unsure as to why it means “all” – “a” represents “any given”. “Any given” by logical definition has to include the entirety of the field – i.e. “all” of it – in order to sustain itself. If only you paid a bit more attention.
What a lot of cr@p. There is no other word for it.
Maybe it’s just the luck I’ve had and the genres I read, but I’ve yet to pick up a high quality book by a small press. They’re line-edited fine, but the big-picture conflicts/stories/etc are…well, you can tell why agents and bigger publishing houses didn’t take them on. I’ve not found many high qualities reads by indies either but they’re usually charging a third of the price, if that, so I’m willing to cut them more slack.
There aren’t any qualifications required to put together a publishing house (obviously), so I’m not sure why any indie would choose to go with a small press, when you don’t get anything except a professional edit and cover art (whoopie, you can get professionals to do this for a few hundred bucks), and some of the cover art I’ve seen from small presses looks like a kid did it. It’s not like they can do anything you can’t when it comes to marketing, and I sure don’t see any small press books on the shelves at Barnes & Noble.
a) it’s your luck – I’ve read plenty to excellent books from small presses. Your implication is nonsense.
b) Your bias toward large publishers is clear, and without substance. Your comment on B&N is just silly.