Self-published books

[HomeInMyShoes]

We all have our fluffy and not-so-fluffy favourites. I try to include things that will give me a bigger picture of the world now and things that will make me laugh. Two important things to me right now. Are we going to find great authors in the self-published world? I think yes, but they will be the exception because publishers do proofing and plot checks. What we are losing with publishers is the vast array of opinions and ideas that are part of humanity because they are a business. Both sides of this are important. What I hope is that the self-published realize that their message is important and it is important enough to run it by friends and acquaintances for proofing before setting it loose on the world.

We can always choose better books issy, but sometimes it is a case of the right book at the wrong time. There is something great about finding a book that just hits you. I've had quite a few of those over the last few years, but that speaks more about me figuring out what I need at what time then the books themselves.

Don't go all Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance on me DiapDealer.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by issybird

It also tells you, at a minimum, that a corporation thinks they can make money producing it. That might not indicate quality, but at least it indicates a level of popularity or liking.

Yeah, like 50 Shades of Gray.

That means nothing. Popularity is not a universal qualifier, whereas grammar is arbitrarily right or wrong.

And I simply have no faith that looking through popular books will skew my purchasing towards better-for-me books.
If only because my tastes aren't popular.

...

With the exception of the really big names, most tradpub books aren't really all that popular themselves.
It is well-known that the Big 5 take a gamble on books that *they* like, and think others may like as well -- hoping to find a tremendous hit. By definition, most of those books are failures at that goal.
The popular and/or well-known indie books are at least as popular and well-known as the rank-and-file tradpub books of comparable quality, and whether a corporation originally thought they can make money producing it, is mostly irrelevant.

There are some tradpub failures that are less-well-known than some of the obscure irrelevancies in inde-pub.

[Atunah]

Originally Posted by meeera

I don't have Paralysis Analysis. I just choose not to spend hours of my time clicking around Amazon, reading chapter after chapter of illiterate drivel, in the hopes of being the very first one to find a hitherto-hidden nugget of gold. It's not freezing or anxiety or fear, it's an informed consumer choice.

If there is a shining nugget in there that's up my alley, it will eventually come to my attention: either via recommendation from bookish friends, the bookish blogs I read, or the tradpub imprints I've gotten along with well in the past.

Yes this.

I have to say I tend to not like to respond to threads like this much anymore as those of us that just have issue for various reasons with self published books are made to feel like we are somehow missing something. Or that we can't deal with choice, or we bow to trade publishers and all that.

I just want to read good and great books. I been reading for a long time and of course those books were all through a publisher. I am one of those that was really exited discovering self published books in the early days of me having a kindle. I have had one since 2008. I am also one that used to enjoy sitting down with a cup of tea and spend some time browsing on Amazon through the newly released stuff by publishing date and in the old days also best seller. That was when best selling was not just top 100, but just another sort option of the all listings. Amazing what I could find in the best selling 1000's and so. Unfortunately, that is gone.

Now this might be because of the genres I love reading and I am looking at, but I cannot browse anymore. There is so much garbage there now that my eyes start to cross after page after page. I read a lot of romance and it is the genre that in the last 1-2 years has had a lot of folks jumping on the band wagon. Its also the genre a lot of scammer like to target. We read a lot of books, we spend the most over other genres. So everyone wants a piece of that pie.

After the scammers came the writers not successful at their chosen genre so they think, oh its just romance, simple to write. They even brag about on sites how they hate it and just slap it up. Then followed those that confuse porn and erotica with romance. Many of them male writers. Yep, I said it. So they slap that stuff into the romance also to not get that adult label from Amazon.

So yes, there is much more garbage coming from self publishers. For a while I got sucked in by the raving stars and reviews on goodreads and amazon for those that at least looked professional. And found many of them just shallow. I guess if one slaps a book up ever 2 weeks, something has to give. So I pulled back a bit from even trying them now.
And there is so much street team gaming going on in romance genres now you just can't trust anything anymore.

What I miss out of now not browsing like that are the back list titles. I would always give priority to a self published book if it was published before by a publisher. There is a huge back list catalog in romance and so I can recall some authors and it always makes me happy when those books come out again. Those to me are proven already so vetting is made easy.

I will still read self published from those authors I already know and if other reader friends happen to recommend something.
I am much more adventurous with publisher books as I can at least have a minimum of quality as far as writing, editing, formatting. I know I'll get pushback on that again and be told how horrible trade published books have been, but it has not been my experience. Maybe its the genres I read, I don't know. Its an overall experience that is mine.

I don't read samples. Never have. I don't like it as I don't like reading partial stories. I just want to open a book get sucked in and read it all the way through. It works for me. I am not limiting myself if I find great books. I can never read all books in my lifetime anyway. So if I can maximize the chance my next read is a good one, the better for me.

[eschwartz]

@Atunah,

It is possible this is a genre issue, as you say.

I don't know, romance is not my genre.

[John F]

Originally Posted by HarryT

A serious author will use the same services regardless of whether or a book is traditionally- or self-published. Ie they will employ an editor, a cover designer, etc. Only an idiot publishes an unedited book, but unfortunately there are idiots in every walk of life.

Good to know that all those BPH authors with ebook OCR errors are idiots.

[Atunah]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

@Atunah,

It is possible this is a genre issue, as you say.

I don't know, romance is not my genre.

I do think much of it is genre. Scammers go where most of the readers are.

The other thing for me is also that some genres I read are not really represented by self publishers at all. Historical Mystery and Urban Fantasy are some of the other genres I love and I don't really see an SP stuff there. Mind you, I only read full books, not shorts and novellas or serials.

So its publishers or nothing on those. Same with some sub genres of romance. So without the so called "gatekeepers", I wouldn't even have access to some of the stuff I like reading as its not put up by indies.

But that's for a different thread.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes

We all have our fluffy and not-so-fluffy favourites. I try to include things that will give me a bigger picture of the world now and things that will make me laugh.

Yes. I could read only fluff, but I wouldn't be as content after. Some books are a struggle, but it's a struggle I'm glad to have made.

We can always choose better books issy, but sometimes it is a case of the right book at the wrong time.

My plans don't take sufficient account of how tired I can be on weeknights and how it's a struggle to concentrate. I'd like to read mostly harder books, but that's my not reality. Still, I can try to push the marker along that line.

Originally Posted by eschwartz

That means nothing. Popularity is not a universal qualifier, whereas grammar is arbitrarily right or wrong.

It means something. An enormous proportion of indies are books that no one but the author and his doting mother could like (and she doesn't, really, and wishes he would stop wasting his time and clean up his language).

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by issybird

It means something. An enormous proportion of indies are books that no one but the author and his doting mother could like (and she doesn't, really, and wishes he would stop wasting his time and clean up his language).

I'm sorry, I just don't find this to be a problem when looking for books.

What am I doing wrong?

[Difflugia]

The glut of indies and the corresponding glut of crap has just changed how I read. I used to rarely buy books from authors that I wasn't familiar with and so I had fewer books to read. With all the free books now, I like fishing through the stacks for something interesting and don't mind discarding a book (or ten) after a few pages if its grammar is poor or if it's plain old boring. If I'm not in the mood for fishing, I not only have a TBR list of authors that I know I like, but I also reread books that I particularly enjoyed the first time and that list is now growing much faster than it used to.

The biggest problem for me is that most indie authors need day jobs and so the ones I like haven't written as many books as I want to read.

Originally Posted by Atunah

The other thing for me is also that some genres I read are not really represented by self publishers at all. Historical Mystery and Urban Fantasy are some of the other genres I love and I don't really see an SP stuff there. Mind you, I only read full books, not shorts and novellas or serials.

I can't say anything about Historical Mystery, but I troll Amazon's SF/Fantasy freebies and find lots of Urban Fantasy. There may be some other criterion that eliminates many for you (the protagonist is in high school or there's too much sex with werewolves, for example). but I don't find the overall genre to be lacking.

Since part of the fun of this thread is describing some of the bad editing, two of the recent errors that I couldn't get past were descriptions of a northern forest with its many "fur trees" and heroes converging on a city that was "ripe with corruption".

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Difflugia

[...] descriptions of a northern forest with its many "fur trees" [...]

Depends on the book.
Stranger things are considered quite normal in, say, Oz.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Atunah

Yes this.

I have to say I tend to not like to respond to threads like this much anymore as those of us that just have issue for various reasons with self published books are made to feel like we are somehow missing something. Or that we can't deal with choice, or we bow to trade publishers and all that.

I just want to read good and great books. I been reading for a long time and of course those books were all through a publisher. I am one of those that was really exited discovering self published books in the early days of me having a kindle. I have had one since 2008. I am also one that used to enjoy sitting down with a cup of tea and spend some time browsing on Amazon through the newly released stuff by publishing date and in the old days also best seller. That was when best selling was not just top 100, but just another sort option of the all listings. Amazing what I could find in the best selling 1000's and so. Unfortunately, that is gone.

Now this might be because of the genres I love reading and I am looking at, but I cannot browse anymore. There is so much garbage there now that my eyes start to cross after page after page. I read a lot of romance and it is the genre that in the last 1-2 years has had a lot of folks jumping on the band wagon. Its also the genre a lot of scammer like to target. We read a lot of books, we spend the most over other genres. So everyone wants a piece of that pie.

After the scammers came the writers not successful at their chosen genre so they think, oh its just romance, simple to write. They even brag about on sites how they hate it and just slap it up. Then followed those that confuse porn and erotica with romance. Many of them male writers. Yep, I said it. So they slap that stuff into the romance also to not get that adult label from Amazon.

So yes, there is much more garbage coming from self publishers. For a while I got sucked in by the raving stars and reviews on goodreads and amazon for those that at least looked professional. And found many of them just shallow. I guess if one slaps a book up ever 2 weeks, something has to give. So I pulled back a bit from even trying them now.
And there is so much street team gaming going on in romance genres now you just can't trust anything anymore.

What I miss out of now not browsing like that are the back list titles. I would always give priority to a self published book if it was published before by a publisher. There is a huge back list catalog in romance and so I can recall some authors and it always makes me happy when those books come out again. Those to me are proven already so vetting is made easy.

I will still read self published from those authors I already know and if other reader friends happen to recommend something.
I am much more adventurous with publisher books as I can at least have a minimum of quality as far as writing, editing, formatting. I know I'll get pushback on that again and be told how horrible trade published books have been, but it has not been my experience. Maybe its the genres I read, I don't know. Its an overall experience that is mine.

I don't read samples. Never have. I don't like it as I don't like reading partial stories. I just want to open a book get sucked in and read it all the way through. It works for me. I am not limiting myself if I find great books. I can never read all books in my lifetime anyway. So if I can maximize the chance my next read is a good one, the better for me.

At one point I thought about emailing Amazon about a job. The job would have been filtering the adult stuff out of romance. Two separate genres, two different sets of readers as a general rule. Then I realized it would take a year just to get through the A authors.

You know what I found odd/strange. It was that the authors themselves didn't know how to find erotica unless it was in the wrong place.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Oh what is her name? Oh yeah. Breena Aubrey. She turned down a 7 figure advance from a big publishing house to self publish. And note that "advance" was in 3 installments over 3 years.
She made that herself in 4 months.
Let's see Russell Blake started out in self-publishing and he is now a co-author with that Clive Cussler.
JA Konrath is a traditionally-published author that went to self publishing.
Traditional publishing had to make Hugh Howey a good deal for him to talk to them.
I know 2 self-published authors that have full time employees.
Shall I continue?

This. And there are a ton of horrible traditionally published and independently published as well as self-published books.

So there!

[Cinisajoy]

Just for disclosure,
Right now I am reading an Ann Rule, a Gennita Low (trad and self published), and a Russell Blake (self-published).

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by tompe

Really. All examples people usually give for this are books that are published by traditionally publishers.

What examples are you thinking about?

J A Konrath and Ian Rob Wright spring to mind. Then there's Blake Crouch, though some of his earlier books were originally published by corporations. Both types have the same volume of mistakes in them, except for the ones I proofed. David Moody went back to self publishing after selling a few books to corporations, if anything there's less mistakes in his own books than there was in the corporation ones -- in one of them I only noticed an apostrophe error. In comparison, one of his corporation owned books had mistakes every few pages.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by issybird

It also tells you, at a minimum, that a corporation thinks they can make money producing it. That might not indicate quality, but at least it indicates a level of popularity or liking.

...

Which implies that a significant number of people will like it, or expect to like it to the extent they're willing to plunk down money for it. Most indies can't meet that qualification; they're just an exercise in vanity and ignorance.

Corporations exist to make money, so they will only publish books they think will make a profit, that much we agree on. But they are only interested in big profits and mass market sales. There are plenty of genres that used to be popular that the corporations are no longer interested in. To say everyone who writes in those genres has no talent isn't just silly it's insulting to people who like to read them.