Sue Grafton: "The universe will come to your aid."

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

It's fine to weed out self-published. The topic was centered around whether a writer should self-publish--so I think the difference is whether someone is saying, "all self-published books are that way because they aren't good enough" versus "I choose not to buy self-published."

Exactly.
Most people have automatic filters in place that reflect their personal biases in reading and buying. Biases *for* and biases *against*. Both based on personal taste and experience.
Perfectly fine...
...as long as we don't pretend that our *personal* biases are a law of nature.
Bad things come of that. (Ask Grafton.)

Me, I'm biased in favor of Science Fiction. It appeals to my curiosity and my contrarian nature. I'm strongly biased *away* from lit-fic. That is a genre that has no appeal to me. I could make all sorts of snarky negative statements to denigrate the genre or try to justify my preferences to the world but it would really achieve nothing. And I have better ways to waste my free time between runs...

I choose to buy SF because it appeals to me, I choose *not* to buy some other genres because they don't. Doesn't mean others shouldn't try it.
(I'm not about to volunteer to get Grafton'ed. )

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

It's fine to weed out self-published. The topic was centered around whether a writer should self-publish--so I think the difference is whether someone is saying, "all self-published books are that way because they aren't good enough" versus "I choose not to buy self-published."

Exactly.

EDIT: Looks like we've had a mild case of the 'zactlies.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

I bet some of her earlier work would be better than some of her later stuff...just my opinion. Her latest stuff lacks imagination and forward development. It's stale.

I wouldn't doubt it.
That is the tragedy of this whole trad-pub vs self-pub (not so) civil war that is brewing: everybody loses.
Grafton loses sales and we don't get a chance to see what she wrote when she was exploring the boundaries of her talent and before she settled down to write series mystery.
The same for all the other "established" writers taking pot-shots at self-pub. *They* are the ones who stand to gain the *most* from self-publishing yet they go out of the way to stamp it out.
Hardly seems rational...

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Exactly.

EDIT: Looks like we've had a mild case of the 'zactlies.

It's called convergence.
In my circles, it usually means it's time to go for pizza and beer and check the baseball scores.

In these circles, it means it might be time for another go-around from the dissenters.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

I wouldn't doubt it.
That is the tragedy of this whole trad-pub vs self-pub (not so) civil war that is brewing: everybody loses.
Grafton loses sales and we don't get a chance to see what she wrote when she was exploring the boundaries of her talent and before she settled down to write series mystery.
The same for all the other "established" writers taking pot-shots at self-pub. *They* are the ones who stand to gain the *most* from self-publishing yet they go out of the way to stamp it out.
Hardly seems rational...

A friend of mine (trad author) has some backlist books that I keep telling (begging?) him to put out in e-reader format. Won't do it. Part of it is the work, but I can't help but wonder if part of it is the "self-published" stigma. These were previously published books! They're good (I've gotten my hands on one.) Just from conversations we've had, there's a lot of "this part is my job" and "this other part is someone else's responsibility." Shrug. Nothing to be done about it. Not everyone is wired to do self-publishing and some people simply don't want to--even if they are the ones with the most to gain.

I want pizza!!!

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Exactly.
Most people have automatic filters in place that reflect their personal biases in reading and buying. Biases *for* and biases *against*. Both based on personal taste and experience.
Perfectly fine...
...as long as we don't pretend that our *personal* biases are a law of nature.
Bad things come of that. (Ask Grafton.)

Me, I'm biased in favor of Science Fiction. It appeals to my curiosity and my contrarian nature. I'm strongly biased *away* from lit-fic. That is a genre that has no appeal to me. I could make all sorts of snarky negative statements to denigrate the genre or try to justify my preferences to the world but it would really achieve nothing. And I have better ways to waste my free time between runs...

I choose to buy SF because it appeals to me, I choose *not* to buy some other genres because they don't. Doesn't mean others shouldn't try it.
(I'm not about to volunteer to get Grafton'ed. )

and I was seconds away from suggesting you read my cozy mystery series...

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by Catlady

So it's fine and dandy to weed out books by their covers and by reviews, but it's somehow narrow-minded and petty (paraphrasing someone's earlier comment) to weed out books by whether they are traditionally or self-published?

Use whatever criteria you want to select the books you read.

An author doesn't have the money to hire an artist or is a washout when it comes to graphic design, and therefore his work doesn't deserve to be read? Why is that a legitimate criterion, but an insistence on traditional publication is not? Why are reviewers acceptable gatekeepers, but traditional publishers are not?

No one is saying that traditional publishers are unacceptable. Again, use whatever criteria you want. No one is forcing you to read self-published books. It doesn't take a lot of money - or even any money - to make a cover that isn't terrible. I have a lot of books to choose from, the cover is one of a number of criteria I use to determine if I will take a closer look at a book. If a cover looks like the author put no thought into it, that gives me reason to think that they may not have put that much thought into the book itself.

Reviews are not gatekeepers. A gatekeeper is someone who keeps works away from me; a publisher or a museum curator are gatekeepers. Reviews don't keep reviews from me, they simply let me know what other readers thought of the book. What a publisher thought of the book doesn't interest me much. If other readers liked it, I may like it too. If I get personal recommendations from people I know, that carries even more weight, as I know their tastes and how they match up with mine. People rely on reviews as part of their book selection process whether the book is traditionally published or self-published.

Self-published books are no different from indie bands, indie artists or indie restaurants. Use whatever criteria you like to select books.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by LuvReadin

Quite true - I'm currently reading one where there are three different spellings of a character's name, and I'm finding it very annoying. But is it a case that editors aren't as good about catching mistakes, or that editing is being skipped altogether? I suspect that in at least some cases, it's the latter - for instance, in this same book, most of the mistakes are homonyms, which a spellchecker woudn't pick up, but any half-decent editor should.


TBH, I'm not entirely sure that's true any longer. IME, and as others have pointed out, publishers are becoming increasingly reluctant to pay for copyeditors, even though readers are becoming far more aware of the importance of editing and proofreading, if the increasing number of book reviews mentioning the dire spelling and grammar are anything to go by.

Do you have any basis for your statement that "publishers are becoming increasingly reluctant to pay for copyeditors"?

There's copyediting, and there's proofreading. Proofreading has become somewhat iffy. Plus there may well be greater time constraints for copyeditors, and a lot of subpar copyeditors.

But my objection was mostly to the notion that copyediting and proofreading are done or not done based on the author's star power or lack thereof.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Do you have any basis for your statement that "publishers are becoming increasingly reluctant to pay for copyeditors"?

There's copyediting, and there's proofreading. Proofreading has become somewhat iffy. Plus there may well be greater time constraints for copyeditors, and a lot of subpar copyeditors.

But my objection was mostly to the notion that copyediting and proofreading are done or not done based on the author's star power or lack thereof.

I know of one author who was told it would not be done (either the proofreading or the copyediting). This was five years ago and she had to hire her own. She had a small publisher, not one of the big 6. I know of two authors who were with the big 6 who were told the book would go straight to copyediting and get no other editing steps due to time constraints (I believe the books were read by said editors and deemed good enough.) One of those authors had it happen within the last 2 years and the other was probably 7 years ago. I was at a conference when one author giving a talk (he was with the big six) said that after his original editor left, his book received no editing at any level. He got galley proofs and had only that chance to make his own final changes. No copyediting, not proofing, etc.
That is commonly known in the industry as "orphaning."

Also beware of what is expected at the different levels of editing. Some copyeditors do not consider things such as "eye color went from blue to green" to be part of copyediting. Yet some proofreaders consider typos and grammar part of the job. There are very loose standards in the definitions. This is true in the entire industry these days and never more true than when hiring a contractor. If you're ever looking to hire a contractor be very careful to get an exact description and examples of what types of things the person will be looking for.

[BeccaPrice]

Why are reviewers acceptable gatekeepers, but traditional publishers are not?

Because a good reviewer will tell me what works and what doesn't in a book. All that trad publishing tells me is that somebody thought it would sell.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

and I was seconds away from suggesting you read my cozy mystery series...

Not out of the question; Mysteries I'll read.
Romance, on occasion. (They'd better be quirky or zany, though.)
Non-fiction, often.

Neurotic urbanites whining? Sorry. Nope. No can do.

I'd say I'm 70% SF, 15% fantasy, 10% non-fiction, 5% other.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

I was at a conference when one author giving a talk (he was with the big six) said that after his original editor left, his book received no editing at any level. He got galley proofs and had only that chance to make his own final changes. No copyediting, not proofing, etc.
That is commonly known in the industry as "orphaning."

Apparently "ophaning" is common enough to have a generally understood name recognized industry-wide.

Here:
http://indiereader.com/2012/08/war-s...-i-went-indie/

Between 1985 and 2008, I published eight books of nonfiction with major publishers. Having fought in the publishing trenches for two decades plus, I have, not surprisingly, war stories to tell. Almost all of them involve editors, especially editors being fired. After an editor acquired one of my books, the publisher fired him, but he refused to leave. He kept coming in to his office week after week, month after month, carrying on his duties, without pay. Few people knew he was fired; he was so revered in the business no one dreamed his publisher would be stupid enough to fire him. Then, out of the blue, the way almost everything happens in publishing, he signed up a novel that became a runaway bestseller — and he was hired back instantly out of fear he might take his new hot author and move to another house.

I sold another book to an editor who was actually running the company, thinking there was no way this editor could be fired. Wrong again! From what I’m told, that editor exited the business altogether and ended up overseeing a pastry shop in one of New York City’s outer boroughs. Of the eight books I sold, only twice did the acquiring editor survive to see the book published.

When a book is “orphaned,” losing its editor, departments in a house are at a loss as to how to publish it. How do you market it? Publicize it? Then again, publishers grapple with those same questions for books that aren’t orphaned. Here’s the big secret about Big Time Publishing. No one ever really knows if a book is going to sell or not. Even with Stephen King, his publisher can’t predict which of his books is going to outperform or underperform his previous ones. This shouldn’t be surprising. Unless one has a crystal ball or a Ouija board, how can anyone possibly know what the public is going to buy?

This one writer lost the editor on six of his eight trad-pubbed books.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Not out of the question; Mysteries I'll read.
Romance, on occasion. (They'd better be quirky or zany, though.)
Non-fiction, often.

Neurotic urbanites whining? Sorry. Nope. No can do.

I'd say I'm 70% SF, 15% fantasy, 10% non-fiction, 5% other.

I keep forgetting that on certain boards the readers tend to have a wider range. Some boards I'm on if you dare mention another genre, people blink and stare. They may even laugh. I read fantasy, urban fantasy, mystery, cozy mystery, thrillers, romance (and it better be zany and fun and it would make me happy if there was some mystery or spy element) sci-fi (but I'm particular in this genre, more so than others) and a smattering of non-fiction. I'm always so thrilled to talk to others who dabble.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

Some boards I'm on if you dare mention another genre, people blink and stare. They may even laugh.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by ApK

Exactly!!!