12% of ebooks are self-published; most are rubbish, claims editor

[fjtorres]

Since I linked to Good ereads above, I figure I might as well link to Laura Resnick's riposte:
http://lauraresnickauthor.wordpress....d-oh-nooooooo/

A lot of her column eloquently restates what some of us have been saying above, but this point is worth pointing out:

rather than being about the “value” of books, literature, or authors, the $10-$14 price range that publishers are setting for a lot of their ebook releases is an example of their overhead problems (compare Hachette’s overhead to the overhead of indie bestsellers like Joe Konrath, Hugh Howey, or Barbara Freethy, and the problem is self-explanatory) and problems in their business model, which was built around the print format. In particular, traditional publishing has been focused on the hardcover, whose market and pricing they’ve been trying to protect in the digital era. Meanwhile, they’re facing a new market full of competitors who are not operating with the twin drawbacks of high overhead and a business model built on a declining format.

And what consumers increasingly see are books priced $10-$14 for no good reason from the reader’s perspective, since the reader is interested in paying for content, not overhead. The format for those higher priced books is the same as books in the “sweet spot” of $4-$8, to which readers have been gravitating in their purchasing choices.

Moreover, an ebook that was $12.99 last year is $7.99 this year. Why? Because the hardcover was released last year and the mmpb is released this year, and the pricing of the ebook–the exact same ebook as before–is being tied to both those formats. So if you bought that exact same ebook last year, you’d have paid almost 40% more for it than this year. Why? Well, from the consumer’s point of view, for no good reason (i.e. overhead and the cost of other formats).

The big sticking point isn't really price at all; it is *operating costs*.
Overhead.
Those manhattan glass towers and smart MBA execs making millions a year don't come for free.
And indie publishers can outsource their editing and formatting (just as the big boys) to veteran pros and can produce a product just as slick and clean as the traditionalists (in ebooks, often better; they're not trying to pass off unproofed OCR'ed computer output as an ebook) and still sell at the market sweetspot because they don't need millions in revenue just to break even.
Indie publishing, as a business, has low entry costs ($3000-5000 gets you full pro service, $5000-7000 gets you Author Solutions) and very low overhead and recurring costs. Breakeven, at the low-end $2.99 can come with sales of 3000 units, a *tenth* of what I hear is the minimum at which a BPH will keep a midlister, and at $4.99 those same 3000 units will out-earn the typical mid-lister advance ($3000, these days.)

Those are not hard numbers to meet for professional writers.
The ramp-up newcomers? Well, those either come with lower expectations or quickly go away.

I still hold that one of the best indicator of (likely) story quality for an unknown author (trad-pub or indie) is depth of catalog and "time of service".

In the end, the djinn is out of the bottle.
Indie publishing--alone, in co-ops, or through tiny corporations--is here to stay.
The economics are simply too good for authors and readers for either to pretend otherwise.

Once upon a time, writing *and* publishing were both small businesses, even "cottage industry". Then publishing went corporate and (for good reasons *for the times*) went on a gigantism kick that still is still ongoing. But the same scale that made sense in the days of bestseller pbooks and giant retail chain is a serious handicap in the online and digital worlds. And that is the world we now live in.
The giants will likely find ways to adjust their business to the new realities but those adjustmentt are going to leave big gaping holes in marketplace coverage that will readiy support a horde of quality indie publishers. "Anybody Press" as the fabled Mr Shatkin calls it.
http://www.idealog.com/blog/anybody-...ooks-at-least/

Of course, he only sees this as an ebook issue. It isn't.
The "second wave" of Indie publishing is already starting to build up; that one will be built atop broadly distributed, affordable Trade Paperbacks and Indie retailers (as well as the online pbook vendors).
The "third wave" targetting hardcovers is still a few years away, though. But the economics and logistics of the 21st century are writ in large flashing neon letters for those willing to read the tea leaves.

The cottage industry of Indie Publishing is here to stay; FUD campaigns are not going to change the hard reality of the numbers.
The only choices left are adapt to minimize the impact or grumble powerlessly.

Unfortunately, the kids' frisbees are always going to land on your lawn.
(Murphy's Law guarantees it.)
I think the former will bring less heartburn.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Lost nothing of value?

Then: Playhouse 90, Twilight Zone, U.S. Steel Hour, Bonanza, Combat!, The Fugitive, Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore.

Now: Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.

Anybody holding a gun to your head to make you watch that?
Or GAME OF THRONES, ARROW, SHERLOCK, HOUSE OF CARDS, DOWNTON ABBEY, LONGMIRE, for that matter.

And, last I looked all those listed shows, mine and yours (except maybe US STEEL HOUR) are available today and watchable by anybody who, ahem, takes the time to find them. Most can be purchased at low cost, too.

http://www.idealog.com/blog/anybody-...ooks-at-least/

So, excuse me, but I'll stand my ground; nothing of value has been lost.

We're not quite yet at the Qwest ad stage of "every movie, every TV show, in every language" but we've made a pretty darn good start.

My own DVD library is nowhere as extensive as my pbook accumulation but it's deep enough I can watch SPACE: ABOVE AND BEYOND, BABYLON 5, DRESDEN FILES, CASABLANCA, WIZARD OF OZ, GONE WITH THE WIND, the PRISONER, THE CHAMPIONS, the TRINITY movies, BITE THE BULLET and UNFORGIVEN as well as BLAZING SADDLES and even WACKY RACES among the assorted video on my shelves, whenever I choose to. And that is without counting what I can tune in with the TV from Hulu, Netflix, CRACKLE, Amazon Prime, Crunchyroll or XBOX Video. (Last week I called up the Julia Child TV series for my sister the chef. Just to make this very point.)

And from time to time I do choose to sit and watch stuff like ENDGAME or THE BOOTH AT THE END in between reads and runs whacking loaders on Pandora. Just to see what they're like. (shrug)

I *like* the 21st century. It's not where I'd like it yet but...
...we're getting there.
So far, the future hasn't shocked me yet.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

So does going to the bookstore and browsing. But I don't like reading the samples either. I don't know why. I think it hasn't worked particularly well for me, partly because sometimes the sample is great and the book isn't. Partly because sometimes there isn't enough there. Partly because of the time. My way around that has been Lendleme, but that doesn't work for trad books. I still try to sample those or if it's a new author get them from the library. I've been burned on the last two trads that I sampled and bought. One was a backlist that came back and it got totally lame midway through the book (lady didn't shoot through the window because a ghost told her not to, yet her sister was about to die. OKay there were some other issues before that.) But anyway, no method is perfect. Sometimes even word of mouth doesn't work. Tastes and moods simply do not align perfectly.

I'll check a sample for a cookbook, to see if the recipes are at my level of competence, if the ingredients are readily obtainable, etc. But that's about the only type of book I'll sample (and I wouldn't buy a self-pubbed cookbook).

I mostly use blurbs and quick summaries to choose books. I like mystery series, so my version of sampling is to read the first book in the series, and then either continue with it or move on.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Not a problem in the world with that statement. I just have to wonder why you choose to then involve yourself in discussions about indie publishing if you have no interest in dipping your toes into that particular pool? Surely what you don't permit to affect you ... doesn't affect you.

It DOES affect me because I have to wade through the clutter.

I wasn't aware that a desire to read self-published material was a prerequisite for joining the discussion.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Anybody holding a gun to your head to make you watch that?
Or GAME OF THRONES, ARROW, SHERLOCK, HOUSE OF CARDS, DOWNTON ABBEY, LONGMIRE, for that matter.

And, last I looked all those listed shows, mine and yours (except maybe US STEEL HOUR) are available today and watchable by anybody who, ahem, takes the time to find them. Most can be purchased at low cost, too.

http://www.idealog.com/blog/anybody-...ooks-at-least/

So, excuse me, but I'll stand my ground; nothing of value has been lost.

We've traded quality for quantity.

Yeah, no kidding, I can watch (and have watched) DVDs of the great old shows, or I can find them on the oldies channels. That's not the point.

The fact is, in the good old days, there were fewer choices among shows of higher quality. Now there are all kinds of choices among shows of mostly horrible quality. Perhaps there are as many quality shows now as there were then, but the percentage of such shows is way, way lower--they're overwhelmed by Honey Boo Boo and shows of that ilk.

[Notjohn]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Oh, I agree, but on the other hand the comment that most indie books are crap is a perfectly valid one to make. They are.

I spend more time than I should on Amazon's KDP "Ask the Community" forum. Five years ago this was a place where a few intelligent early adopters helped other early adopters build e-books for the Kindle. Over the years, but especially since Kindle Select enabled would-be writers to give away their books, the forum has degenerated into a truly awful platform for the wannabes. They not only can't format (the purpose of the forum); they can't spell, punctuate, or write a coherent paragraph.

This morning, one of our author-publishers wanted to know whether "text" or "texted" was the correct past tense of the verb "to text." And she at least knew there was a past tense!

In that time, the backlist on Amazon has exploded from 400,000 Kindle titles to two million. I'll bet that a million of them are self-published, are unreadable, and haven't sold more than ten copies.

What would you say to this one, for example?:

http://www.amazon.com/DEPTHS-HELL-BL...th%27s+of+hell

It ranks 269,000 out of two million, suggest that it is well into the top half of the pile.

[ProfCrash]

Did people think they were high quality back then? Elvis is loved now but he was quite the rebel when he first arrived on the scene. Hip gyration was just so sexually inviting and bad.

Lets face it, there were probably shows from the 50's, 60's, 70's that we don't discuss because they sucked and we don't remember them. The shows that we remember as great today might have been deemed clutter and a waste of time by parents and the likes because kids shouldn't be watching television.

I don't have a problem with more choice, give it to me. I have a problem when it is hard to make an informed decision. I love all the choices I have at the grocery store but I read the labels to choose what foods are healthiest. And on occassion I buy the oreos because I want an oreo damnit.

With TV shows, there are a ton of choices but I know what I love and it is pretty easy to figure out what is good and what isn't based on title and reading the two sentance description. I remove the channles that we don't want from the guide so I don't even have to look at those shows.

I am struggling to find a way to sort through Indie authors. I am discouraged that the response is stop being lazy. I appreciate the folks who have pointed towards groups and blogs and have provide some type of alternative. I have a feeling that this will eventually work out, ebooks are a relativly new beast and it takes time to develop new filters to help people. So kudos to you folks who are willing to dig through and post reviews and help the process get off the ground. I appreciate it because my lazy butt wants something that works more smoothly then reading samples. :-)

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

I have a feeling that this will eventually work out, ebooks are a relativly new beast and it takes time to develop new filters to help people. So kudos to you folks who are willing to dig through and post reviews and help the process get off the ground. I appreciate it because my lazy butt wants something that works more smoothly then reading samples. :-)

It'll happen. Independent curation sites will crop up that will offer filters of every shape and size that people will grow to trust. And if they don't ... well then it really was all crap to begin with.

[fjtorres]

It hurts me in no way that somewhere somebody might be watching crap. Or smut.
Even a lot of somebodies. I don't live my life by what the masses do or think; that way lies madness. Or at least stress and ulcers. And I'm the type that *causes* ulcers, not suffers them...
As long as "quantity" includes stuff *I* consider quality, I'm happy.
This will never be me:

http://publishingperspectives.com/20...ove-bad-books/

I don't worry about how others waste their time or money; I'm busy enough figuring out how to waste mine.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

It amazes me that people actually claim to be such busy readers that they don't have time to peruse a sample or two. Or that in the past, good books just fell from the sky like manna from heaven and opened themselves in front of their waiting eyeballs; making the "effort" of checking a sample so very, very onerous by comparison. I fear those of you who feel that way are just going to have do make do with your current TBR lists for the rest of your reading lives: the free ride's over. You're going to have to make an effort to find new authors now (actually, you've always made an effort. You're just choosing to downplay it).

Seriously. Anyone who thought getting dressed, driving to the bookstore, walking the stacks and reading some back-cover descriptions was somehow effortless compared to the terrible burden of checking out free samples isn't exactly being objective.

New favorite authors never fell in your lap in the past without an effort on your part, and they won't in the future (except through word of mouth ... a process that will remain largely the same moving forward).

But reading a sample really do not work for detecting the really good books. Of course you spend time on methods that are efficient to find really good books or books you want to read. But these methods does not include reading the book (which you need to do to distinguish between just OK books and really good books).

[tompe]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

So does going to the bookstore and browsing.

But that is fun. Reading the beginning of books and not finish them is not fun at all.

[Prestidigitweeze]

It isn't that I mind reading samples or looking for new talent. But on a given afternoon, I'd prefer not to be demoralized by the stupefyingly bad prose I encounter even when there are no typos or grammatical errors. It's like being stuck in a house full of Victoriana and hearing about how the owner's daughter is channeling Sarah Bernhardt, or getting trapped at a dog show and listening to description after description of the attitudes of very special Affenpinschers. "Georgie Girl certainly knows how to strut and pose!"

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

So does going to the bookstore and browsing. But I don't like reading the samples either. I don't know why. I think it hasn't worked particularly well for me, partly because sometimes the sample is great and the book isn't. Partly because sometimes there isn't enough there. Partly because of the time. My way around that has been Lendleme, but that doesn't work for trad books. I still try to sample those or if it's a new author get them from the library. I've been burned on the last two trads that I sampled and bought. One was a backlist that came back and it got totally lame midway through the book (lady didn't shoot through the window because a ghost told her not to, yet her sister was about to die. OKay there were some other issues before that.) But anyway, no method is perfect. Sometimes even word of mouth doesn't work. Tastes and moods simply do not align perfectly.

If I get 4/5 books I want to finish I consider myself lucky. And usually I am better than lucky as I know of at least 500 authors I will like 90% or more of their books. Probably several hundred I will like 75% of their books.

Sometimes I go off an author because I read too many of their books to close together. Simon R, Green comes to mind or Tim Dorsey. Not that authors fault in any way, I just like them too much and get a little burnt out. I cannot imagine not enjoying a book by Rex Stout or Robert B. Parker though, even if I read 20 in a row

I do read books by unfamiliar (to me) authors, but they are almost all traditionally published because I get them from the library generally.

I don't think I am close minded to Indie authors, but it is too easy for me to go on as I have been going, because there are just so many to chose from as it is.

I wish all authors success and fulfillment, especially yourself as you seem a swell person, because while I am not able to read all of great the books in the world, I sure would like to.

Helen

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

If I get 4/5 books I want to finish I consider myself lucky. And usually I am better than lucky as I know of at least 500 authors I will like 90% or more of their books. Probably several hundred I will like 75% of their books.

Sometimes I go off an author because I read too many of their books to close together. Simon R, Green comes to mind or Tim Dorsey. Not that authors fault in any way, I just like them too much and get a little burnt out. I cannot imagine not enjoying a book by Rex Stout or Robert B. Parker though, even if I read 20 in a row

I do read books by unfamiliar (to me) authors, but they are almost all traditionally published because I get them from the library generally.

I don't think I am close minded to Indie authors, but it is too easy for me to go on as I have been going, because there are just so many to chose from as it is.

I wish all authors success and fulfillment, especially yourself as you seem a swell person, because while I am not able to read all of great the books in the world, I sure would like to.

Helen

Thank you for your well-wishes. And you seem like a wonderful reader too--dedicated and in pursuit of awesome stories. What more could anyone ask???

I have read Tim Dorsey and Green. So yeah, too close together could be too much. Although I don't think I could read two Parkers right together either...too intense, perhaps.

I also know what you mean about gravitating towards what is available and easy. We live in a lucky time--we have a plethora of choices. We actually have TOO MANY books to read and choose from. We are very wealthy to live in such a time in history.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The overwhelming majority of independently-published books are unedited, and riddled with errors in spelling and grammar.

The same is true of corporation-published books. Proof-readers were the first to go when they needed to make efficiency savings. All books have been riddled with errors for the last 5 years or so.