The self-epublishing bubble

[QuantumIguana]

The demise of the book is greatly exaggerated. People too often look at the past with rose-colored glasses and exaggerate how much people read in the past, or exaggerate how much people read classics. The YA market would not exist if teenagers weren't reading. You may not see them in school reading for pleasure, but they are reading these YA books somewhere.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

The demise of the book is greatly exaggerated. People too often look at the past with rose-colored glasses and exaggerate how much people read in the past, or exaggerate how much people read classics. The YA market would not exist if teenagers weren't reading. You may not see them in school reading for pleasure, but they are reading these YA books somewhere.

This. Harry Potter, Twilight, The Hunger Games, and so many more.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by teh603

Although with things going the way they are, I wouldn't be surprised if literacy was to become a massive stigma in a few years, with a large vocal class of "won't read" people actively destroying what writings they can. Its already happened once or twice in human history.

I don't expect that to happen. However romantic a "literacy resistance" might be, the fact remains that the best-paying jobs will need high-literacy, and people will want to make money; so literacy will always be in demand.

[MichaelJScott]

Thanks for the interesting article. I think, if there's a "bubble" aspect to e-pubbing, it has less to do with price inflation than it does with so many people jumping on the bandwagon and publishing their books before the book is ready, or pushing out something that is, frankly, garbage and pricing it high in the hopes of making a buck or getting rich. I've seen stories on Smashwords priced at $4-$5 for 5k words or less. I mean, really?

Once people realize that e-publishing won't make them wealthy, the rush to publish will drop off, and those who truly love to write and tell stories will still have the potential to release their books just because they want to.

[VydorScope]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

The demise of the book is greatly exaggerated. People too often look at the past with rose-colored glasses and exaggerate how much people read in the past, or exaggerate how much people read classics. The YA market would not exist if teenagers weren't reading. You may not see them in school reading for pleasure, but they are reading these YA books somewhere.

This.

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

I don't expect that to happen. However romantic a "literacy resistance" might be, the fact remains that the best-paying jobs will need high-literacy, and people will want to make money; so literacy will always be in demand.

And this.

The fact is our society requires reading to operate. There will always be the less well read groups, but even then will use text messaging, facebook (or what ever replaces it) and so on. Reading is very ingrained into our society. I do not foresee it going away with out some major (WW IV?) disaster preceding it that forced us back into a society were reading was so much a part of it.

[Ken Irving]

Originally Posted by G J Lau

The solution most writers go to--and one which Amazon has now institutionalized--is to offer one or more of their works for free, hoping to attract readers. But as Ewan Morrison points out in his article, free isn't a good long-run business model. I'm learning that the hard way on KDP Select, but that's another story.

It's not even a good short-run business model. On B&N where it is very easy to search free stuff by typing either "free" or "$0.00" in the search box, currently you come up with 180,000+ in that category. Most of it seems to be erotica and badly formatted archive.org ripoffs. I haven't found a way to get a comprehensive free list on Amazon, but did notice that when I tried "$0.00 free ebooks" the 5th one down on the first page was Free Books for Kindle - Secrets for Finding Millions of Free Books, by ElecTRICKS, Inc. Price: $2.99.

A version of free that might work, but obviously requires a known author and publisher is to offer the first book of an already-written series free for a limited time through a deal with Amazon/B&N/etc. that will get it advertised. I always go for freebies like that as they are usually at least entertaining and in 2 out of 20 or 30 cases I would seriously consider a paid follow-up of the series or at least other works by that author.

[VydorScope]

Wow, really? Free give aways have been a hallmark of successful business since before ANY of us were even born. From drug dealers, to retailers the concept is the same. Give a little for free and if your product is good people come back and pay for it. If your product is not compelling then you have a different problem to solve, and the give away is not the issue.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by Beryll Snyder

Only a very small fraction of authors ever made a living by writing books. The vast majority wrote for fun or because they hoped to eventually earn something.
And many wrote books solely for the closet - without the opportunity to publish their stuff, because the handicap of cost or acceptance by a publishing company.
At least these authors have a better chance of being read.

Nailed it.

And since there are now people reading these self published works and reviewing and rating them, I am glad to read some of them.

This is where music went, where news is going, and where I expected books to go when I got my first ebooks back in 1998.

[dadioflex]

All those books require a filter.

Traditionally the publisher was the quality filter through which most books did not pass.

Then the agent became that filter as publishers gave up the job, allowing agents to do the work for them.

There's only one filter left and that's readers. That tidal wave of crap is going to be filtered through the ratings systems of Amazon and others.

So with tens of millions of books crashing against Amazon's shores each year, there's a real chance good books will simply never be read because they never make it through the mass of low rank reviewers/readers without reputations to the inner circle of high rank Amazon reviewers (top 200 on Amazon.co.uk, baby) with opinions that matter.

How does a good writer avoid getting lost like that? I'd say building a reputation with shorts and hob-nobbing with other writers who're prepared to offer them patronage and introduction to the inner rank of influential reviewers, like Pat's for Fantasy or SF Signal for Science Fiction - I'm sure there are similar for other genres.

[MichaelJScott]

Originally Posted by dadioflex

How does a good writer avoid getting lost like that? I'd say building a reputation with shorts and hob-nobbing with other writers who're prepared to offer them patronage and introduction to the inner rank of influential reviewers, like Pat's for Fantasy or SF Signal for Science Fiction - I'm sure there are similar for other genres.

Good point. There was a reason the "gatekeepers" came into being in the first place. That's probably going to morph into the reviewers, who'll soon find themselves inundated with the same crap that used to land on editors' and agents' desks.

I wonder if the "new boss" will become the "old boss" (ie: can reviewers find a way to "ethically" make money by offering reviews?). Perhaps a subscription thing...?

[speakingtohe]

There's only one filter left and that's readers. That tidal wave of crap is going to be filtered through the ratings systems of Amazon and others.

Sure to happen in the future, but for now the traditional filters seem to still exist.

And why shouldn't the readers vote. People with similar tastes banding together whether via Amazon, social networking etc. One person's garbage is another person's treasure

I am probably wrong, but the traditional gatekeepers have probably excluded some pretty good books in their time, and have never strongly influenced readers preferences. Just their access in some cases.

I only read books I want to read, regardless of the gatekeepers. When I was very young I read historical and classics strangely enough, when I was a teen, it was Sci-Fi and Harlequin. Now I read mostly mysteries and thrillers and noir or urban fantasy.

Most of my life I was influenced by what was available in the stores, both new and second-hand and libraries and the occasional sidewalk sale. Those were my gatekeepers.

Now I may be confronted by a lot of choices, both good and bad, but overall choice is a good thing and the idea of too many choices seems an oxymoron at best.

Helen

[Annie Seixas]

Me personally, I think that at the end of the day quality stuff will get noticed and sell. This will outweigh the flood of authors. It's actually a bit better overall because all those potential eyeballs are there *because* authors are writing on spec

There's always going to be tons of crap, little gold

[dadioflex]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Sure to happen in the future, but for now the traditional filters seem to still exist.

And why shouldn't the readers vote(?)
Helen

Nope, I'm all for it. Power to the people. You'll see new authors being discovered not only on Amazon etc, but on genre forums all over the world. And not just specialist reading forums - cycling enthusiasts, pot-holers, knitters etc etc anyone with a hobby can champion a writer who shares or highlights their interests.

[John Barlow]

It's true that most writers never made enough to live, but many used traditional publishing as the basis for a life as 'a writer'. I've been doing that since 2004. To your advances/royalties you add bits of journalism, editing, ghost writing, whatever you can get (or want). Many writers also teach.

But each of those activities is getting more difficult nowadays, not least trad publishing itself. That's why I decided to try self-publishing this time around. I don't think ebooks are a bubble. I think potentially they provide a source of income for pro writers at a time when other streams of revenue are drying up.

Best wishes, JohnB

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by dadioflex

So with tens of millions of books crashing against Amazon's shores each year, there's a real chance good books will simply never be read because they never make it through the mass of low rank reviewers/readers without reputations to the inner circle of high rank Amazon reviewers (top 200 on Amazon.co.uk, baby) with opinions that matter.

Of course, ten years ago, almost all of those good books would never have been offered to the public at all, because they weren't among the tiny fraction of writings that got through the many filters that publishers required.

The ratio of good books to available books has gone down. But the numbers of both have skyrocketed; I'll worry about the ratio when I can't find two dozen books I'd love to read but don't have time for.

How does a good writer avoid getting lost like that?

1) Good titles & book covers
2) Good blurbs
3) A bit of social networking--more is better, but a little bit is all it takes to start building an audience.

Finding "the right people" to promote one's book is less important than basic marketing skills.