Debut author turned down $120,000, 3 books New York publishing deal to self-publish

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Do I really need to start posting lists of mistakes in corporation published books again?

What would that show? That commercially-published books contain errors? Nobody's disputing that they do. What's being stated is that the typical commercially-published book contains significantly fewer errors than the typical independently-published book, and that's unquestionably true. You only have to look at the Writers' forum here at MR to see that many independent authors don't bother to have their work professionally edited.

[Top100EbooksRank]

Brenna wrote this reply on another forum. It gives a more detailed reasoning on why she decided to go with self-publishing.


Brenna Aubrey: You make some great points here that I'd love to address. There are definitely advantages to traditional publishing. Absolutely there are. Believe me, I considered and weighed those carefully when I had my offers in hand.

Print is a big one. But consider that the size of print is dwindling rapidly with the diminishing floor space in book stores and in the big box stores. A WONDERFUL article on print from hybrid author Courtney Milan (a good friend of mine). She just wrote this on her blog. Check it out (with the disclaimer that it applies specifically to her genre, historical romance but I think a lot can be extrapolated from it for just about any genre):

http://www.courtneymilan.com/ramblin...ales-in-print/

I don't know what your genre is but let's assume that, like mine, it's one that is heavily ebook dependent. If you self publish, you make 70% of the gross sales (full sale price). If you trad publish, you get 25% of the NET (which means the wholesale price) which works out to be 12.5% of the full ebook price. So you have to sell many more books (and these books are usually priced higher) in order to make more from a trad deal than from going indie.

But let's say your goal, as you state above isn't about money (at least right off the bat) but about exposure and finding a readership. I do honestly state that my situation is not typical. I had an extremely successful first month. It had very little to do with the exposure about turning down the trad deals. Most of my readers don't even know about that.

In my particular genre, word of mouth is the most important exposure you can get. This is why I focused on getting the book into the hands of the loudest: book reviewers, good readers, bloggers, etc.

But let's not talk about me, let's talk about you. You have no readership but you have a book. What will a publishing house do for you that you cant' do for yourself? Well, they will put your book in bookstores, which is great. But again, see above. Returns will kill you and the book is gone after 6 months at the most.

What can they do for your ebooks? They will do almost exactly the same thing I did. Send ARCs out to bloggers and put the book up on Netgalley or Edelweiss.

Publishers no longer do the old school publicity things (with good reason, they don't really get results) like book signing events and book tours unless you are Nora Roberts or John Grisham.

The book is what sells the book. More books from the same author sell more books from the backlist of that author. Think about your habits as a reader when you find a new author that you REALLY get excited about. You glom onto them and don't let go and read everything they've written. Readers are voracious and want content. Some read 2-3 books a week. No one author can keep up with that! Once you've built a readership and hopefully maintained that relationship via social media and your newsletter, you keep that readership via putting out new books. And with each new book you add new readers who then go and buy your backlist.

Sometimes it's a slow build, sometimes it's faster. My "luck" came from writing a good book with a hooky premise in a hot genre.

All I'm saying with the points I've made above is to educate yourselves on the terms that publishers will offer you (and don't rely on your agent to explain everything to you). Know what the terms mean and know what you are giving up for a long time (35 years) in order to get it and ask yourself if you are willing to make that exchange.

I begrudge no one who chooses differently than I did. I have traditionally-published friends who are very successful and several of THEM urged me to consider going indie rather than taking the deal. Yeah I know, surprising, right?

The point of this entire diatribe of mine is just to show that this is the most exciting time ever for authors. We have choices. Wonderful, amazing choices. Whichever way you go, I wish you luck.

[DiapDealer]

I once found myself reading an (indie|self|vanity|whatever)-published book that I didn't think was very good at all. Of course, I immediately blamed its failure-to-engage on its less-than-traditional pedigree. But then I asked myself if I'd ever read a traditionally-published book that I thought was even worse. It was pretty easy to answer, "yes, several times in fact."

It was at that point that I realized trad-pub vs indie wasn't as relevant to "quality" as I initially thought--or was indoctrinated to think--it was. The quality of millions of bad books that are never going to make it through my filters (the same filters that I've had in place for decades), let alone get read by me, is totally irrelevant. So I've learned to be rather publisher-agnostic about the books that make it through my existing TBR filters. Hasn't hurt me a bit. *shrugs*

[pendragginp]

Originally Posted by Ken.Hagdal View Post
You should have posted this as a disclaimer straight away. It adds so much perspective to your -purported- outlook and reasoning.

Originally Posted by Catlady

Seriously? Like all the authors and wannabe authors include disclaimers when they post their opinions?

It helps to explain why you seem so cranky on this subject.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I once found myself reading an (indie|self|vanity|whatever)-published book that I didn't think was very good at all. Of course, I immediately blamed its failure-to-engage on its less-than-traditional pedigree. But then I asked myself if I'd ever read a traditionally-published book that I thought was even worse. It was pretty easy to answer, "yes, several times in fact."

It was at that point that I realized trad-pub vs indie wasn't as relevant to "quality" as I initially thought--or was indoctrinated to think--it was. The quality of millions of bad books that are never going to make it through my filters (the same filters that I've had in place for decades), let alone read, is totally irrelevant. So I've learned to be rather publisher-agnostic about the books that make it through my existing TBR filters. Hasn't hurt me a bit. *shrugs*

When it comes to things like character development and storytelling, there is no ceiling for indie books. Good indie books are good books, period. The real difference, is the floor, not the ceiling. Both indie and commercially published books can be bad, but commercially published books can only be so bad before the publisher refuses to touch them.

Even so, it's pretty easy to separate out the really crappy indie books, it's sometimes time-consuming, but it's not that hard.

However, even the good indie books have more errors than commercially published books. There really is a noticeable difference in quality there; it doesn't mean indie books are bad reads, but copyediting is the one place they do normally fall down, and that's enough of a difference for people who cannot stand those kinds of errors.

It's all about what puts a reader out of a book, and that's one area where there is a real difference.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

There really is a noticeable difference in quality there; it doesn't mean indie books are bad reads, but copyediting is the one place they do normally fall down, and that's enough of a difference for people who cannot stand those kinds of errors.

But that's exactly my point: the "floor" just doesn't matter. Nobody reads from the floor (commercial or indie). It only takes one single indie where the copyediting/proofing is on par with trad-published books (and I've encountered more than one), to make the bad "in general" indie copyediting/proofing rule irrelevant.

"Embracing" indies doesn't have to mean suffering through scads of horrible dreck. It can simply mean; stop using the path to publication as means to summarily dismiss books/authors that have garnered the notice and/or recommendation of people whose tastes have previously aligned with your own on occasion.

I'll grant you that "on the whole," self-published books contain more errors than traditionally published books do ("on the whole"). My point is; who cares? If there's even a handful that are on par (and there are), they don't deserve to be dismissed with the dreck. And they're not hard find... they're the ones that you hear about (whose premise/genre interests you, of course). Who cares about "on the whole" when nobody's being asked to read "the whole?"

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I'll grant you that "on the whole," self-published books contain more errors than traditionally published books do "on the whole." My point is; who cares? If there's even a handful that are on par (and there are), they don't deserve to be dismissed with the dreck.

I care, for one. As I've explained, I buy the monthly ebook bundle from Baen because I know that it's pretty certain to contain high-quality books that will appeal to me. Can you suggest a method by which I could equally easily obtain high-quality independently-published SF and Fantasy books every month that I could be equally certain of enjoying?

[Catlady]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken.Hagdal
You should have posted this as a disclaimer straight away. It adds so much perspective to your -purported- outlook and reasoning.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Catlady
Seriously? Like all the authors and wannabe authors include disclaimers when they post their opinions?

Originally Posted by pendragginp

It helps to explain why you seem so cranky on this subject.

If I'm "cranky," it's because of the extreme bias, exaggerations, half truths, and extrapolations from anecdotal evidence that people on the other side of the argument rely on.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

No, because it is both unnecessary and irrelevant. No one is arguing that every book from every commercial publisher is spotless and without blemish.

However, the presence of errors in commercially published works neither excuses nor eliminates the far greater number of errors found in self-published works. In religious terms, you're pointing at the speck while ignoring the beam.

Maybe it's due to the ones I read, but I don't see any more errors in self published books than corporation published books. One big difference though, most self published books get fixed when the mistakes are pointed out. Corporation published books stay full of mistakes forever.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Corporation published books stay full of mistakes forever.

Not so. As I believe I've said before, SF Gateway, which is an imprint of Hachette, is extremely receptive to error reports, and fixes them promptly when they're reported. They actively request people to report errors to them.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

Both indie and commercially published books can be bad, but commercially published books can only be so bad before the publisher refuses to touch them.

Would Fifty Shades of Grey and its sequels, plus the legion of imitators, have been corporation published if quality was their only concern? Or are those above this level of quality they deem acceptable?

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Can you suggest a method by which I could equally easily obtain high-quality independently-published SF and Fantasy books every month that I could be equally certain of enjoying?

Quite frankly, no I can't (though unless you only buy the works of authors that you've already determined you like, I refuse to believe you've never purchased a "clinker" from Baen. I know I sure have).

I'm not trying to convince anyone that they need to start regularly buying indies. I'm only suggesting that if a book (which is of a genre you enjoy) starts making waves in the areas of the internet you frequent (and has a premise that interests you), forget about how it was published and see if you like it. Then dislike it if it's bad and like it if it's good. At face value. Just like you would any other book.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Would Fifty Shades of Grey and its sequels, plus the legion of imitators, have been corporation published if quality was their only concern? Or are those above this level of quality they deem acceptable?

Quality is not the only concern, there's also saleability. More to the point, when it comes to the level of basic English skills, Fifty Shades is quite competently written.

As for the argument that most commercially published books have as many errors as self-published books, I'd argue that indicates either extreme selectivity in reading or large numbers of false positives.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Quite frankly, no I can't (though unless you only buy the works of authors that you've already determined you like, I refuse to believe you've never purchased a "clinker" from Baen. I know I sure have).

Oh, I absolutely have. That's why I say that I can merely be "reasonably certain" of enjoying them, rather than "absolutely certain" .

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

As for the argument that most commercially published books have as many errors as self-published books, I'd argue that indicates either extreme selectivity in reading or large numbers of false positives.

I have favourite writers I follow, same as (I'd guess) everyone else. I don't just choose books at random, and anyone I'm not familiar with I'll read the first few pages before I decide.

I've yet to read any book published this century that doesn't have mistakes, and I keep a list of all of the ones I find. The closest so far has been a self published one with only 4 mistakes per 100 pages. The worst, by far, was a corporation-published book called The Girl Next Door and that wasn't even a first printing, it was its 5th or 6th outing to tie in with a film version.

I've also followed a couple of writers from self pub to corporation pub and there has been no reduction in the number of mistakes in their books after the transition. This idea that corporation published books aren't just as riddled with mistakes as self published books is a myth.