Self Publishing VS Agent

[Joe Abercrombie]

You'll never see self-published books get any respect because of the same old bullshit about crap and blah, fucking, blah.

I think self-published books which break out and are really successful will get respect, and often lead to a traditional publishing deal, in fact.

Publishers don't want the boat rocked because they might have to admit that they fuck up at least half of the time with books that get published.

Fucking up a lot is, and has always been, a big part of the business. A few very successful writers fund the experiments taken on a lot of others. Publishers are there to make money, so sure they jump on bandwagons, and the money the bandwagons make helps them to take punts on more experimental things in the hope of starting a new bandwagon. You can't expect everything they produce to be something you want to read, but I don't think you could say that mainstream publishers haven't brought out a lot of exciting new fantasy authors in the last few years.

Trying to fight your way into a dying 1% presents tremendously ridiculous odds.

If you write a brilliant, original, highly commercial book I'd say your chances of getting a traditional deal, possibly right away, are actually very, very high. What you need to do is write something that the editor or agent reading it thinks is so good they have to buy it. That's it. It's really hard to do, but it's not magic either, and actually it's very much the same sort of thing you have to do to have a self-publishing success. Your 1% discounts the fact that most submissions are garbage. In the UK, at any rate, genre publishing is in rude health. Jo Fletcher just set up a new imprint with heavyweight backing and has signed a whole pack of new authors. Hodder are starting a new genre list, you have mid-size guys like Angry Robot and Solaris looking for stuff, and the main players of Tor UK, Orbit, Gollancz and Voyager are all still ticking over. I was talking to an agent recently who was saying there's never been a better time to be selling sci-fi and fantasy.

I wonder how many good to midling authors, or better, never submit out of fear of rejection - something that is pretty much a guarantee. It sometimes takes authors years to get published, and so many stop, and potentially great works sit in some desk drawer.

It's tough sending your babies out to be slaughtered by the uncaring industry, no doubt, but if an author can't bring themselves to plan an approach, write a letter and send a sample, believe me they're not going to make a success out of self-publishing, where you have to do all your publicity and marketing yourself. Self-publishing is a way tougher way to go, to my mind, and requires far greater effort and energy, not to mention a certain amount of cash, and a tough business head as well as the creative talent. I've got a lot of admiration for those who can pull it off, but there aren't many of them.

I'd rather wade through piles of shit to find a few good stories, than rely on publishing houses and review sites to maintain this strangle hold that they have, convincing everyone that what they are producing or reviewing is the best that there is to be had.

By all means get shitty. But let's not pretend that this is some vast, sinister conspiracy. Publishers want to make money, so they publish books that they think will make them money, sometimes that means books they think are commercial, but mostly it means book that they think are good. They then put effort and skill on the part of a lot of professionals into making them better, presenting them well, selling them as widely as possible. Readers tend to buy traditionally published books because there is at least some quality control being exercised. They look at and listen to sources of reviews that they trust because they produced other good recommendations. Self-publishing represents another route that's becoming with the advent of e-books a lot easier to take, and with good planning and effort word of mouth will produce some successes. But a traditional contract to my mind represents way the best option for the majority of authors, and I don't honestly see that changing any time soon. As one example from dozens I could give, I sell a lot of my books in Germany, both in translation and in English. Without a publisher or agent, how would I even begin to go about putting those deals together, checking the contracts, checking that I'm being paid what I'm due? How much of my writing time would be swallowed up attending to that business, developing the skills, knowledge and contacts that the publisher already has at their fingertips? Of course you could pay somebody to take that work off your hands, along with negotiating with the world's retailers, carrying out publicity and marketing, dealing with printers and typesetters, doing the art and design work, handling the logistics and production and distribution, doing the editing and management and so on and so on. But that's sort of what an agent and publisher do for you when you sign a deal...

[pat5150]

Not reviewing self published books that are said to be good by a lot of people is just asshole-ish.

Read them and make up your damn mind. It's your job anyway.

In my experience, no self-published books have ever been said to be good by a LOT of people. I may be an asshole, true. But I have stuff by Gaiman, Hamilton, Stephenson, King, Reynolds, GRRM, Carey, etc, waiting to be read. Will I give some self-published novel a shot, or do I go with the real deal?

Don't expect any review for self-published works on the Hotlist any time soon. . .

Patrick

[Mark Lawrence]

Trying to fight your way into a dying 1% presents tremendously ridiculous odds. I wonder how many good to midling authors, or better, never submit out of fear of rejection - something that is pretty much a guarantee. It sometimes takes authors years to get published, and so many stop, and potentially great works sit in some desk drawer.

I'd rather wade through piles of shit to find a few good stories,

Mine is simply an annecdote - it doesn't prove anything - but here it is.

i) I suspect it's far less than 1%

That suspicion combined with a 'disinterest in' rather than a 'fear of' rejection kept my novel in a desk drawer for more than 3 years. When I finally did send it out I got an agent in 4 tries over a 2 month period and a book deal six weeks later. And now it's into its 3rd and 2nd editions in the US and UK respectively.

I strongly suspect that if I had self-published my book I would have found nobody interested in reviewing it - the tiny number of reviews I got would have been swallowed in the noise - and most likely my readership would never have reached three figures. Without two parallel universes to experiment in I can't say for sure - possibly it would have become a kindle sensation and brought fame and riches to my door ... but my feeling is ...not.

I'm sure publishers miss out on some great authors and publish some terrible ones - but not out of malice or a secret agenda - it's just hard to know what readers will buy.

[Spring Bass]

In my experience, no self-published books have ever been said to be good by a LOT of people. I may be an asshole, true. But I have stuff by Gaiman, Hamilton, Stephenson, King, Reynolds, GRRM, Carey, etc, waiting to be read. Will I give some self-published novel a shot, or do I go with the real deal?

Don't expect any review for self-published works on the Hotlist any time soon. . .

Patrick

Same goes for the people reading your blog (and the blogs of other good reviewers). Why should I spend an hour wading through a pool of bad stories, looking for a handful of (possibly) decent self-published stories out of all the garbage using free samples for e-books? I could be reading books that come with actual reviews from reviewers I like and trust.

There's also the "library" factor for me. If I'm iffy on whether or not I want to buy an author's book, I can usually find a copy in my library system to read first (that's how I got into ASOIAF - I read the first three on library loan, then went back and bought all of them). How many self-published authors are there in your average library system (aside from Robert Stanek *shudder*), and how many of their books are actually readable?

[awesome possum]

Traditional publishers are about to get a punch in the mouth by self-publishing, or at least by my company. They're dropping the e-book price for all books (unless an author specifies not to) to $3.99.

In my experience, no self-published books have ever been said to be good by a LOT of people. I may be an asshole, true. But I have stuff by Gaiman, Hamilton, Stephenson, King, Reynolds, GRRM, Carey, etc, waiting to be read. Will I give some self-published novel a shot, or do I go with the real deal?

This reminds me of certain people in high school back in the 90s when talking about music.

"Hey, have you heard ____'s new album"

"Are they on MTV?"

"No..."

"Then no. And I don't plan on it. I only listen to good music."

[Prince Alexander]

Traditional publishers are about to get a punch in the mouth by self-publishing, or at least by my company. They're dropping the e-book price for all books (unless an author specifies not to) to $3.99.

This reminds me of certain people in high school back in the 90s when talking about music.

"Hey, have you heard ____'s new album"

"Are they on MTV?"

"No..."

"Then no. And I don't plan on it. I only listen to good music."

I can't understand how music and books are still being compared. Indie music vs indie books is not apples/apples.

I can listen to a shitty 3 minute indie song while I'm at a club and say "meh".

I can listen to a 3 minute JB song on the radio while driving and say "meh".

I can't bloody waste 20+ hours of my life staring at a shitty book, self published OR traditional.

I'm sure there are self published gems out there (none I'm personally aware of, btw, sorry, Locke and Hocking don't do much for me).

I don't have time to discover these gems. I might hear an awesome indie song while drinking out and then look up the band and buy their album, I can't just randomly "hear" an awesome indie book while browsing ahem knitting fansites.

So your argument should really go like this:

"Hey, have you heard ____'s new book?"

"Are they published by big six?"

"No..."

"Then no. And I don't plan on it. I have way too many great books to read... books which were published by big six and have at least some guarantee of quality control."

And as for Kindle self-publishing: it's a bubble. You heard it here first.

[alguien]

That many "self-published" authors subsequently go on to to sign deals with publishers once they've achieved success is rather telling.

My favorite bit on this from John Scalzi's blog Why In Fact Publishing Will Not Go Away Anytime Soon: A Deeply Slanted Play in Three Acts

Spoiler ahead:

for my favorite bit at the end:

KRISTINE: Ah. Could you come over here for just a second?

STRAÜMANN (walks toward KRISTINE): Yes?

KRISTINE clocks STRAÜMANN in the head, stunning him, then rips off his testicles, stuffs them into his mouth and sets him on fire while he chokes on them. STRAÜMANN dies.

KRISTINE (to SCALZI): You. Find a fucking publisher.

SCALZI: Yes, dear.

CURTAIN FALLS.

:laugh:

[awesome possum]

I can't understand how music and books are still being compared. Indie music vs indie books is not apples/apples.

I'm not comparing music and books. I'm comparing the attitude. The, "well I haven't heard about it from so-and-sowhich means it must not be worth it."

And yes, for the most part they're correct. I've stated the reasons why earlier in this thread. To dismiss an entire industry because of some weak sort of elitism? It's, well, weak. It does smack of elitism. "I can't be bothered to read this because it doesn't have a certain picture on the binding saying it's published by this house... it doesn't matter that that publishing house puts out maybe half a dozen books every year that are worth reading. It's the name brand I'm buying! And I certainly can't be bothered to review this book. What will the authors who I interview who won't remember my name ten minutes later think of me?"

Of course, the "dedicate 20 hours of your life" thing is fairly ridiculous too. Usually within a chapter or two I've discovered whether I'm going to continue a book. And I get all my books for free, so I don't care about price or time.

And as for Kindle self-publishing: it's a bubble. You heard it here first.

There are more e-book readers than just the Kindle. All smart phones have e-book readers on them now, or can download one for free.

[alguien]

Actually, while I think publishing will be fine, I feel bad for a lot of printers that I work with, especially the medium-to-small guys, as I know this hurts this business somewhat.

[awesome possum]

Actually, while I think publishing will be fine, I feel bad for a lot of printers that I work with, especially the medium-to-small guys, as I know this hurts this business somewhat.

That's true as well. I work with five different printers, three of which depend on my company now for the vast majority of their business. Of course, I'm sure that's how our CEO and board prefer it, as they get better contracts and deals when the printers are practically begging for work to avoid shutting down.

[Serious Callers Only]

In my experience, no self-published books have ever been said to be good by a LOT of people. I may be an asshole, true. But I have stuff by Gaiman, Hamilton, Stephenson, King, Reynolds, GRRM, Carey, etc, waiting to be read. Will I give some self-published novel a shot, or do I go with the real deal?

Don't expect any review for self-published works on the Hotlist any time soon. . .

Patrick

Fine.

Read Elvis Has Not Left the Building by J R Rain (or most of his latter books, there is even a 6 book kindle edition).

Then tell me that's bad stuff.

[Seli]

Oh, true enough, but I find that the second part of the process is exactly the same with professionally published books. The only difference is that a publisher has already weeded out the obvious crap. After that, you still have to trawl through the reviews, eliminating the unnaturally glowing ones - the friends of the author, sockpuppets and professional reviewers - and download the sample. But yes, an hour's work to find one book you might want to read is not a bad estimate.

True. But a decent review will give enough information to make a preliminary judgment.

The problem is that currently my selection procedure for new books is not based on randomly reading samples. And I do not read so much each year I'll have to start doing it anytime soon.

The first selection layer is books by authors I know I enjoy.

The second layer consists of authors I have heard about consistenly for years, since there has been so much good stuff published in the past that I have yet to sample.

The third layer are books given to me by people I know in real life who know me and know good books when they see them.

The fourth layer consists of authors I have seen samples of in 'walled environments', short stories in collections, magazines etc.

A fifth layer are new authors who get the reviews and the buzz - by people I've gotten to know and trust.

A final layer consists of authors that are new to me but are preselected, in libraries, in small, quality publishers.

As long as I am not in a highly experimental stage self-published work has to find its way into this selection system somewhere to get a chance to be read. And at this point there does not seem to be a way in yet.

[Arthmail]

Firstly, Joe...we've actually emailed a bit back and forth so i feel that you might be getting the wrong impression. Maybe not. Doesn't really matter. I have no problem with the business of publishing. Nor do i think that there is an overarching conspiracy of some sort. But because there is not an overarching mechanism of control does not mean that there is not a system set in place, dictated by industry indirectly and reinforced by the market. You have businesses working to make a profit, which is fine. I own a small construction company, i look to my bottom line first and always will, otherwise i may as well call it a day. But there is this backlash of a sorts against self-published authors. In the books that i have read on publishing, they always stridently warn the reader to never go the self-publshing route.

Then you have people from the review sites saying they'll never do reviews of self-published works because its all crap. This is simply reinforcement of the status quo. At no point do i think, nor do i hope, that traditional publishing houses disappear. I've got proof readers reading my newest book, and it'll be off to find an agent hopefully before christmas (and i mean send it out, not find an agent...that could take longer). I don't want to do the marketing and business side of publishing, at all. I'm not even considering self-publishing. You make excellent points about translations into other languages and all of that.

But i detest this notion tha there is only one way of going about getting published, and that the only way to find quality is to go the traditional route. I suppose as a bussinessman, i find such an idea to be narrow minded and disassociated from the technology that can help to change things.

As for writing a brilliant and highly commercial book getting snatched up right away, you are mostly right. But who is to say you know right off that it is either of those things. Tolkien getting published today might have had some serious problems. And did it not take Richard Morgan like 7 years to get Altered Carbon published because of the extreme level of violence ( i swear i remember reading that somewhere).

There is a book called the Black Swan, by Niccolas Taleb. He postulates that our economic systems are predicated around the idea of looking for what has come before, trying to find an average, while the really damaging events (at least economically) are the outliers. The things that you did not see coming. Professionals tend to think along rigid lines. Who would have thought that Twilight would do as well as it did? Now fucking vampires are a bunch of sparkling emo-assholes and they are EVERYWHERE. Or even Harry Potter. Sure, it could have done fairly well...but its sheer size and scope was unprecented. So if a new author comes along with a unique work, it might not be recognized for what it is.

I am not saying the self-publishing route is the way to go. It is still too far undeveloped to be of much worth at this point for those that might actually have a chance of getting published. There are not the structures set in place to support it as there are with publishers. That being said, i strongly object to the notion that there is nothing good that

can be found there. I guess i take offense to this notion that its all crap, even though i have never done it and have no desire to do so.

For some reason i'm reminded of a little game called Minecraft. It probably would have been shoved under a rug by your traditional gaming company. But as an independent, its been a roaring fucking success (and it consumed nearly two god-damned months of my life with its sheer 1995-ear graphics awesomeness).

I just refuse to discount the little guy.

[Michael J Sullivan]

I would personally love to read the positive accounts. Though I really cannot go that route myself (I am looking to teach and they require a book-length publication in PRINT and from a reputable publishing house) in order to take you seriously.

But, I'm still very curious about it. I have some nonfiction material that I'm interested in publishing. I feel that maybe ebook format might be an interesting route to take.

I wonder if SEO (search engine optimization) could have any bearing on your success in self/ebook publishing.

I know this thread in general is VERY old...but I do want to resurrect it because self-publishing has changed so dramatically in such a short period of time. As someone who was very active (self published from April 2009 – August 2011) I can tell you that it can be VERY successful. At the height I was selling 11,500 books (for $4.95 - $6.95 each) a month and all told sold more than 70,000 copies over the course of a few years. I made more money than most traditionally published authors, and while it is too early to tell, it is quite possible that my self-publishing earnings will turn out to have out-paced my traditional publishing (I sold a 3-book deal for six-figures and got about twice as much in foreign rights and subsidiary sales).

I’ll be more than happy to answer anyone’s questions on the “current state” of self-publishing.

[Michael J Sullivan]

All I would like to see is, firstly, that no author should be disrespected just because they happen to have taken the self-pub route;

It is starting to happen. Authors who are concerned with earning money such that they can write for a living are turning to self-publishing as they can get works to market faster, don’t have to worry about non-compete freeze out periods, and make a larger percentage of the book’s profits. There are many discussions led by people like Michael Stackpole, Katheryn Rusch, Dean Wesley Smith, Bob Mayer, Joe Konrath, Barry Eisler, and many more that actually question the sensibilities of people choosing traditional publishing as self-publishing is now so much more lucrative.

You are correct that in the “old days” it was only for delusional and narcissists, but many authors are now CHOOSING to turn down a traditional contract in favor of self-publishing. Many of these works were even signed – or had offers so it’s obvious that they are “good enough” to pass the gatekeepers seal of approval.

[Michael J Sullivan]

Got curious so did some investigation of Self-published (Indie) verses Traditional for the Top 20 Best Sellers on Amazon for Fantasy Lists that I care most about (Historical fantasy and Epic Fantasy) Here's what I found: (First number is ranking, then author's name, prices, and indie/self)

Epic Fantasy:

1, 2, 3, 4: Martin ($8.99, $14.99, $29.99) Traditional (1 Omnibus: 4-in-1)

5, 7: Pougue ($2.99, $4.99) Indie

6 : Vasich ($3.99) Indie

8, 18: Tolkien ($10.99, $21.99) Traditional

9, 11: Tesar ($2.99) Indie

10, 13: Alva ($0.99, $3.58) Indie

12: Pfaff ($8.99) Indie (Omnibus: 3-in-1)

14: Neighbors ($0.99) Indie

15, 19: Manning ($0.99, $2.51) Indie

16: Sullivan ($9.99) Traditional (Omnibus: 2-in-1)

17: Arenson ($2.99) Indie

20: Mahan ($3.99) Indie

Total Authors: 12 (3 Trad / 9 Indie)

$2.99 or less: 8

$3 - $4.99 : 4

$5 - $9.99 : 4

$10 - $19.99 : 2

$20 or more : 2

Historic Kindle Bestsellers:

1 Dayton ($4.99) Amazon

2,5,7,8,9,11,13 Gabaldon ($8.99, $13.99) Traditional

3 Scott ($2.99) Indie

4, 15, 19 Sullivan ($9.99) Traditional

6 Roberts ($3.99) Indie

10, 12 Kearsley ($7.39, $7.99) Traditional

14 Sedgewick ($3.99) Indie

16 Woodbury ($2.99) Indie

17 Clarke ($2.99) Traditional

18,20 Roberts ($4.61, $4.99) Traditional

Total Authors: 9 (5 Trad / 4 Indie)

$2.99 or less: 3

$3 - $4.99 : 5

$5 - $9.99 : 11

$10 - $19.99 : 1

$20 or more : 0

Based on this data the indies are doing quite well for themselves - selling good numbers of books and getting good income. In the 'not so distant past' the indies were all resorting to $0.99 but I see that more and more they are actually pricing higher which I think is a good thing to see. When I was self published my books ranged from $4.95 - $6.95 and at the time I was one of only a very few pricing at that level. I'm glad to see that others are able to sell well at good prices.

[Darth Vader's Bastard]

The hardest part about self-publishing is you have to do all the marketing yourself. There's a fear of spending too much time on sales, marketing, distrib, when you should be .... WRITING!

Do you want to be a publisher? Or do you want to be a writer/author? Tough to be both. It's certainly possible, but tough.