Category Archives: Commentary
Do readers care about self-publishing?
I’ve read a lot of blog posts and articles recently about why and how readers buy ebooks. Many pundits claim that Amazon is so full of self-published drivel that readers have no clue what to buy. I want to add to this debate by analyzing a couple of my recent Indie ebook purchases.
First, at the risk of losing you, go read this excellent post. Please come back. 
One of the most interesting points in there is how does a reader know a book is self-published?
They rarely do. As writers, we think like authors and self-publishing business people, which means we analyze Amazon listings objectively. Readers do not, they react emotionally to a name, a title, a cover image or a sentence in the blurb. Often the only pointers are: The book is only available in ebook, the low price, and that it might list Smashwords or similar entity as the publisher.
So let’s look at two of my recent purchases. The books and authors shall remain nameless, but neither are well known.
1. An author happened to follow me on Twitter. I liked their profile so followed them back. Their profile mentioned their major book. I saw them tweet about it a couple of times. (Just a couple.) Fast forward a month to where I saw someone review it on Goodreads. I checked it out on Amazon. Mixed reviews, not a bestseller by any means. Fast forward another month, when I saw someone else tweeting about it. I returned to Amazon, read the blurb more attentively and bought it for $2.99.
What does this tell us? First off, that sales cycles take a long time. Most sales people learn this day one – that it takes 5 touchpoints to sell something. Second, all sightings on social media and the web carry weight. You never know what is going to tip a reader over the edge. This is a long-haul game. Play every card and every angle, and you will gain an audience, one reader at a time.
2. I read a great book on Amazon by an author that I have in paperback. I’ve learned to pay attention to Amazon’s recommendation widget since it has given me good results. It recommended a book whose title grabbed me. I checked it out and bought it for $2.99. It was only much later, after I had enjoyed the book, that I realized that it was self published. So what. His next book is on my to-read list.
I bet most readers are influenced by Amazon, and as the blog post above says, tools like this make it easy to find books. I didn’t know or care that it was self-published. In hindsight I should have guessed from the price, but I firmly believe readers don’t look at it that way. Something attracts them (the cover, the blurb, the title) and THEN they look at the price. Whee, you can’t go wrong at that price, they think.
This is probably typical of how I, a writer, buy ebooks, so why should I think that readers are any more sensitive to self-publishing than I am. Readers only care about a good story. They couldn’t name a publisher on any paperback or hardback that they own. I think authors are projecting their own fears onto readers.
What do you think? What makes you buy an Indie book?
Can publishers and ebooks co-exist?
As more and more authors move away from traditional publishing, to publish themselves (selfpub) on ebook, many have predicted the total collapse of the agent & publisher system, at least for fiction. Selfpub is compelling to authors, allowing them total control over the process, and nearly all of the profit too. So what role is there for publishers and agents?
Many pundits propose that publishers will suffer the same fate as brick-and-mortar bookstores, namely being relegated to a niche role for specialists and purists, in the same way that record stores exist and boutique record labels produce limited supply runs of vinyl albums. People aren’t quite ready to give up on the delight of a physical book in their hands.
The big publishing are staring down the same turmoil that the music companies faced with the might of iTunes and digital downloads. They managed to carve a role for themselves, in that most music today still comes from a music company than an artist “self-pubbing” to iTunes. I’d like to see the stats for independent vs. music company. Maybe book publishers can do a similar thing, and I believe the secret is value-added-services.
The author’s argument goes like this: I dedicate years of my life to a book, and then I have to spend a ton of time querying to find an agent, who then has to spend time attracting a publisher. The author has to do his own marketing and promotion, pay for his own editing, and gets a tiny fraction of the profits when the book hits the shelves 1-2 years later. That used to work in the old days, when publishers did provide editorial services and marketing (some still do, but rarely on midlist or below).
It’s a different world now. Perhaps the publisher should mutate their role toward publicist. Authors like to write. I’m sure most of us don’t really want to spend so much time promoting, arranging book tours, blog tours, merchandising, etc. Those things are fun, but a lot of work. If the publisher did all that, we could write more books, and everyone wins, right? Self-pubbing to ebook gives instant gratification for the author, but it’s becoming a swamped market now that the barriers to publication have fallen. Perhaps publishers could step in and help readers become aware of specific ebook titles. Without physical inventory and sale-or-return publishers could devote more money to providing excellent services for debut authors too. Many so-called boutique publishers are doing this right now.
The question is, having gained control of their destiny, do authors want to hand that back to others? Is avoiding marketing and promotion worth it?
What do you think? Do publishers have a role?
The Torment of a writer
Writing is an insane pastime. You spend long hours alone, hunched over a keyboard, desperately trying to turn the fabulous images and scenes in your mind into words. Yes, we have writing buddies, beta readers, a writer’s group, social media friends, but it’s still largely a non-team sport. Worse, you have to convince your significant other and family not to bother you. “Why is that computer more important than me?” they say.
Writing isn’t as easy as non-writers think. The words rarely come out the way we imagined, scenes fall flat, characters can be wooden. It takes considerable perspiration to get down even 1,000 words that survive the delete button. Then, when you are three-quarters through your masterpiece, you see the huge flaw in your plot. Arg! The first draft is only the start. Now you have to edit, rewrite, massage, edit again. Are you tired of rewriting that scene five times? Are you tired of reading your manuscript a dozen times? Then your friend asks, “Aren’t you done with your book yet? Why is it taking you so long?”
When you’re finally done, years later, you have to convince others how masterful your story is. Oh boy! It’s survived the beta-readers, and the writing group, so that’s a start. But that’s childs play compared to attracting an agent and publisher. Those folks are professional. They don’t know you, and they look at your work with a cold, objective eye backed by enormous experience in the industry. Sigh, here come the rejection letters.
If you’re still reading this post of despair and gloom, then fantastic. It means that you share the spark of creativity that isn’t easily put out. You can write a book and you can get it published. It happens every day.
Forget everything I said above. Writing is a wonderful pastime. You get to act out your fantasies (well the palatable ones anyway), you get to tell a story, craft something that will give others enjoyment for years to come. Creation is one of the best facets of the human condition. You just brought something brand new into the world that didn’t exist before.
Amongst the torment, writing can be extremely rewarding. When that scene comes out better than you hoped, when your narrative imagery flows like poetry, when the emotional impact gives even you goosebumps, you know you’re in the groove. Your beta-readers or critique partners gasp at the twists and turns, rabidly turn the page after the cliffhanger, and mutter “I knew it!” at the right moment… Yes! What a great feeling. Those moments revitalize you, and make you recommit to the incredibly hard work that it takes to be a successful author.
Myself, I’m at that nerve-wracking stage of waiting for the ultimate approval – an agent and publishing contract. I’ve lived that moment vicariously through other debut novelists, and I can’t wait. I love writing, and want to spend the rest of my life imbibing this delicious drug.
Yoda gives advice about your first book
Help where I can, I will, but walk the road of an author, only you can. Challenging road, it is.
Indeed it is. While writing my book, my worries centered on my craft. Am I good enough to tell this story? Are my characters believable and interesting? Is my plot too difficult to follow, or too easy? Is my story exciting? Does my writing suck? I feel lucky that my writing group and beta readers were full of excellent criticism and excitement, and genuinely seemed to enjoy my story.
Surround you on your journey, positive force must. Help you it will, yessss.
It’s only natural that if left to our own devices, our negative self-talk will convince us that we aren’t worthy of being an author. These doubts will grow and fester without encouragement and support from others. But at the end of the day-
Believe in yourself, you must. If a writer want to really be, you will. Let anyone take that dream away from you, do not, and take it away from yourself, do not. Heh, heh, heh.
Um… quite. Don’t give up on yourself; I think he’s saying.
Then I reached the next inevitable stage: I’ve finished my third draft and set it aside to age before a final edit. Doom descended when I began to read it with a fresh eye, and you must put your baby aside for several weeks before you can look at it objectively. Every clumsy sentence, cliché and repeater leaped off the page. Ugh, look at all those filler words. Just when I thought I was done, I faced a month or more of combing through every paragraph and every sentence, pruning and polishing.
Now I worried about my future audience. What if I put un-edited drivel out into the market? Clarity and terseness is drilled into us, but what if I went too far and sucked the life force out of my writing.
A professional editor, use you must. Provide the final layer of polish, they can, mmmm. Yet to learn from experience, you have.
That is one of the best pieces of advice I have ever learned. I read many ebooks from new authors, and while the story is always the most important thing for me, I’m upset by a clumsy presentation, or telltale signs that the author didn’t edit enough. Maybe when I have a dozen books under my belt, I can edit successfully, but until then, a pro-editor is a necessary expense.
Your first book may a masterpiece be not, but publish the best book you can, you must. Herh herh herh.
Now I am in the third and final stage of nail-biting panic. Marketing! To misquote Bones McCoy: “I’m a writer, not a salesman, dammit.” I see other authors spend every waking hour posting, tweeting, blog touring, interviewing, making merchandise, public speaking… I already have a day job, and I would like to write my next book, you know.
Time of marketing spend it wisely, balance you must. Your target audience find, and sell, your book will, yesssss. Ram it down everyone’s throats, do not. Hmmmmmm.
This is another good tip I’ve come across. It is tempting to try to sell to your friends, to your Twitter and Facebook friends, but if you’re like me, most of them are fellow authors. While authors read too, and can help spread the word and give you exposure via their blogs, the reader is the final target. Identify who your audience is and seek them out. Be creative. It isn’t as simple as tweeting a hundred times a day about your book. There’s a plethora of good blogs and books about marketing, and I’m finding it’s like drinking from a hosepipe.
Remember that, a writer first, you are, and writers write. Herh herh herh.
Yes, master. At the end of the day, we must accept that our first books may only sell a tiny amount. We are swimming in the wide Amazon now and there are thousands of us. It is unlikely the world will discover and leap upon our one book like piranhas to blood. The secret is volume. As Yoda says, we are writers. Once our initial marketing blitz is over, we must return to what we do best, and write more books. Don’t overreach on that first book.
I recall that the famous John Locke had almost a dozen ebooks with mediocre sales (~60/month) before the masses discovered him, and he sold a million copies in 5 months. When a reader enjoys your book, what are they immediately going to do? Search for the next one, and if they don’t find it, they’ll go away. Clearly, if we have four, eight, a dozen books available, we are going to sell more books and attract a wider audience. People love a series, that’s why there are so many of them.
This is the third great tip I learned, don’t-
Sweat your first book, do not. In this for the long haul, you are. Keep writing and, build a loyal following, you will. Yeesssssss.
Exactly. I think it is logical that after committing years of our life to our first book, we want to make it a resounding success; but don’t overthink it. Few people got famous off one book. Enjoy your first publication, bask in the glory, but move on. Don’t chase the sales numbers critically. Your next book will be better, and the next one. You must move on, you must write.
A final word from our guru:
Enjoy the journey because more important and fulfilling than the destination, it is. About the future, do what you love and worry not. Hmmmmmm.
I would love to hear your experiences, either by commenting here or email. I love talking to others with the same feelings, so that we can bolster each other up and walk the journey together.
Finally, if you enjoyed this post, you’ll like these too:
8 Tips to Keep From Going Batty as You Launch Your Career
What Happens When You Release Your First Book
Target Fixation
Thick Skin
Yoda and Star Wars are copyright and trademarks of George Lucas and Lucasfilm.