The Big Reasons Indie Authors Aren't Taken Seriously

[RHWright]

Originally Posted by Catlady

No professional editor is going to touch a novel for that kind of money.

If you mean just basic proofing (i.e. grammar, punctuation, spelling), then maybe, depending on length.

If you mean actually acting as an editor, i.e. working with the writer to improve the ms. as necessary (structure, plot, pacing, suggesting rewrites, etc) then expect that number to grow significantly.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by RHWright

If you mean just basic proofing (i.e. grammar, punctuation, spelling), then maybe, depending on length.

If you mean actually acting as an editor, i.e. working with the writer to improve the ms. as necessary (structure, plot, pacing, suggesting rewrites, etc) then expect that number to grow significantly.

Agreed. Different authors want different things. Mine pointed out a couple of tiny plot-holes, but I didn't want massive changes because I'd been lucky enough to have strong and helpful beta readers.

[QuantumIguana]

Taking a chance with an indie author is like trying a new diner or trying something new from the menu. If you don't like it, you aren't out much. But if you find something really good, you've found something new that you can keep coming back to.

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Big Reason #1: Bad Editing
Granted. While there are indeed some horribly sloppy things that get through the mainstream presses, including some atrocious typos, books that have been past a professional editor, however briefly, won't contain a two-page run-on sentence that wasn't intended to be avant-garde or "artistic." Nor do they have blurb text like
nor internal quotes like

I think this is likely to remain the big issue for indie books, because although some, even many, are excellently well-written, they'll always be greatly outnumbered by the offerings of people who think their own data-dumps are interesting to other people.

Big Reason #2: Quantity Over Quality
The article seems unclear; this point seems to be an adjunct to "lack of editing," as in "skipping the editing makes it easy for authors to churn out lots of ebooks, none of which are particularly readable." Which it does, but I'm not seeing that as a separate reason.

One person says the indie movement won't be taken seriously until all published books are held to a basic minimum standard of literary quality--punctuation, grammar, somewhat-cohesive plot. It's not gonna happen. The internet isn't going to ever insist that content be well-written, and there's not going to be a nice sharp line between "stuff I threw together at my blog" and "my novel, published in serial form online."

Big Reason #3 – The Lack of Gatekeepers
"Having a trusted place to find credible reviews would certainly help separate the good from the terrible," the article says. Yes, it would. And those places are starting to appear. There isn't going to be a replacement for the gatekeepers that worked when "book publishing" was measured in the tens of thousands per year, not millions. And there will continue to be plenty of people willing to take a chance on unfiltered content.

Big Reason #4 – Crappy Covers
. I love this series; I waited for YEARS for ebooks; I cringe when I recommend them to friends because the covers are SO BAD. (Where are the tentacles? Nothing about those covers even says "science fiction," much less "post-apoc scifi where humanity has split into two symbiotic subraces.")

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

This is the *primary* reason. Many indie books are badly written.

This acts as a multiplier to the primary reason: *a lot* of indie books are badly edited. If 5% of indie books were badly edited, it would just mean that you need to be a little careful. But I think the actual numbers are more like 95% are badly edited, so finding the well written books becomes a chore. Often too much of a chore.
This is a tertiary reason. Gatekeepers wouldn't be important if so many indies weren't poorly edited. If there were a basic assurance that the fundamentals of the vast majority of indie books were on a par with publisher books, the presence of a gatekeeper would have little more effect than a positive NY Times review...persuasive, perhaps, but not more. But as things stand now, the presence of the gatekeeper is insurance that the book is at least properly edited.


The three above reasons all dealt in various ways with the quality of the underlying book. This is more of a marketing issue, but since the cover is how many people judge a book, it's also fairly important, especially as a signal. After all, if it looks like your cover was slapped together, why should I assume you took any care with the writing itself?

I agree with both of you! I am very sick of shifting through crap to find gems. I just don't have the patience, lol. What's worse is that as I've gotten older I stopped forcing myself to finish books I hated - which means I'm loosing money. I've bought some books by indie authors that were so bad I COULDN'T finish - even though I wanted to.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

I agree with both of you! I am very sick of shifting through crap to find gems. I just don't have the patience, lol. What's worse is that as I've gotten older I stopped forcing myself to finish books I hated - which means I'm loosing money. I've bought some books by indie authors that were so bad I COULDN'T finish - even though I wanted to.

I've taken to trying the samples at Smashwords. If the first dozen pages don't have me riveted, I skip it. I know there's something else I'll love reading; I don't have time for entertainment content that I don't find intensely interesting.

I do a lot of quick sample-and-forget (which means I'm likely to run across them again later, sigh; SW has no "don't show me this again" option), and then buying the entire collection of any author I actually like.

[QuantumIguana]

First I look at the blurb. There are some pretty awful blurbs there. If the blurb is riddled with errors and is poorly written, I assume the whole books is. Then I look at the cover. If it looks like it was made by a grade schooler, I avoid it. A good cover will never sell me on a book, but I bad cover can make be avoid it. A cover can be a bit bland, that's OK. If the blurb is well-written and looks interesting, and the cover doesn't look terrible, then I might try the sample.

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

Taking a chance with an indie author is like trying a new diner or trying something new from the menu. If you don't like it, you aren't out much. But if you find something really good, you've found something new that you can keep coming back to.

THIS! Some of the best books I read last year are from indies I've found since entering the ebook world, and it was totally worth ingesting the not-so-good offerings to find them.

I try to approach any given indie author with an open mind. I don't stop taking them seriously unless/until:
a) They just don't write well but are convinced they do
b) They display a lack of sense when responding to criticism
c) They do things like starting a whine-drenched multi-site campaign to get a prominent book site to instate "ratings rules" because it's "not fair" and "authors are sensitive"

This sort of thing is why I try to avoid authors' blogs and such, but sometimes they go so public in the places I frequent online that I can't avoid running into it by accident. If I don't see it, then I can judge the work separately from the author, but once I see tactless behavior, it's hard for me to separate them. Maybe that's just my problem, but either way, they don't get my money as a result. I already have too many books and too little time.

[MrsJoseph]

I just don't have the patience. I used to sort through SW a lot - till it started feeling like work & I got burned quite a lot.

Now I only get indie authors if they are rec'd to me by someone that I trust and who's taste is similar to my own. I just have too many books that I own and haven't read already - and favorite authors who have backlists/new releases - to force myself to read crappola to find that gem.

Not that they are not out there - the odds are high that there are many - but the crap is legion.

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

... the crap is legion.

but I'm thinking about putting that in my signature. It applies to so much in life.

[MrsJoseph]

lol! Doesn't it, though?

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

I said indie professional, and I speak from experience, as I pointed out in my post.

I order to be "professional", one needs merely to do a job well and to do the job for money. My indie editor does both.

He or she can't possibly be making a living editing books at $100-$250 a pop. I define professional more narrowly--someone whose full-time job is editing.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by Catlady

He or she can't possibly be making a living editing books at $100-$250 a pop. I define professional more narrowly--someone whose full-time job is editing.

So anyone who doesn't quit their day job isn't a professional when they accept money for a service? You ARE defining professional narrowly.

I have no idea how my editor makes her living. I didn't demand to know. Editing is what she does; I pay her for it; she provides what I consider high-quality edits. That's good enough for me, and I would think it would be good enough for any indie on a tight budget. Since that is what we were talking about, I considered the information relevant.

Descending into speculation about how she earns the bulk of her keep is none of my business.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

So anyone who doesn't quit their day job isn't a professional when they accept money for a service? You ARE defining professional narrowly.

I have no idea how my editor makes her living. I didn't demand to know. Editing is what she does; I pay her for it; she provides what I consider high-quality edits. That's good enough for me, and I would think it would be good enough for any indie on a tight budget. Since that is what we were talking about, I considered the information relevant.

Descending into speculation about how she earns the bulk of her keep is none of my business.

They're amateur professionals apparently.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

First I look at the blurb. There are some pretty awful blurbs there. If the blurb is riddled with errors and is poorly written, I assume the whole books is. Then I look at the cover. If it looks like it was made by a grade schooler, I avoid it. A good cover will never sell me on a book, but I bad cover can make be avoid it. A cover can be a bit bland, that's OK. If the blurb is well-written and looks interesting, and the cover doesn't look terrible, then I might try the sample.

I don't let the cover be the decision maker, but the blurb can be. If the blurb is well written, I then look at a few sample pages at random. But the bottom line really is that I rarely will buy an unknown indie author's ebook if it costs more than 99 cents. If I find an indie author I like, I will buy more of their ebooks at prices up to $4.95, although I do think twice at prices above $2.99.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

Now I only get indie authors if they are rec'd to me by someone that I trust and who's taste is similar to my own. I just have too many books that I own and haven't read already - and favorite authors who have backlists/new releases - to force myself to read crappola to find that gem.

Two indie authors I highly recommend are Shayne Parkinson (historical fiction) and Vicki Tyley (mystery). Everyone I've recommended Parkinson to and who has tried her raves about her books and the first book in her series is free (Sentence of Marriage).