Okay, a qualification to the post's title: whether or not you should self-publish your book depends on your goals. The common example of wanting only a couple dozen copies of a family history is a good enough reason to self-publish, if you are willing to invest the money. And the costs can be substantial, as laid out in the following article from this morning's New York Times:
The Joys and Hazards of Self-Publishing on the Web
So what's your goal? Is it just to see your book in print (or on the Kindle or Nook or whatever)? Or is it actually to make a name for yourself as an author, possibly even earn a little money?
Sure, if you have a spare $5,000 or $10,000 burning a hole in your pocket, and you want to see your name in print, go for it. Most of us don't have that kind of money. In fact, many of us are living paycheck-to-paycheck or supplementing with nearly-maxed-out credit cards or sometimes even selling our own stuff on eBay (although in about an hour I'm going to discuss a job offer, for real -- as a 34-year-old with 3 bachelor's degrees and a PhD, I'm supposed to be in that full-employment group...but I digress).
You could do the Kickstarter thing and maybe come up with enough to pay for all the editing and cover design. If you go that route, I'd advise hiring someone to help you format your work for the various electronic distribution platforms. I once read that if you don't have a Kindle (or iPad, or whatever) and absolutely love it and use it all the time, then you're really not qualified to do the formatting of your own book for a Kindle. It's not just "press a button and everything magically converts," I gather. Although I don't have an e-reader so I don't know this for a fact. But I see a lot of complaints about Kindle formatting issues in Amazon reviews, so it is a real problem. (Especially in the early days, when there was a rush to put as many titles on Kindle as possible.)
My own manuscript has now been in the "black hole" for 59 days. Another month or two and I should hear something. If it gets rejected, well, on to the next publisher. (If it gets rejected 3 or 4 times, well, I've got some ideas or I can post a bit on Book Country and get feedback.) If it gets accepted, well, then, I'll have a team of professionals to help me make it a polished product on every platform, and a marketing team. Not that I expect to slack in the marketing area, but Twitter is full of small-time authors trying to self-promote.
Bottom line: if you want to sell lots of copies of your book, self-publishing is not the way to go. For every E.L. James, Amanda Hocking, or Michael J. Sullivan, there are thousands of people whose work doesn't get a bit of attention. Even if it is more deserving (at least in the case of James or Hocking...Sullivan was all right, at least).
And for every Suzanne Collins or J.K. Rowling, there are thousands of people whose work never even gets seen by a single reader, because it's languishing in the slush pile with all the other manuscripts. You've got a pretty decisive bottom line there without much data to back it up. As an originally self-published author who has been picked up by Amazon Publishing, and who has talked to lots of traditionally published authors, I would absolutely not recommend going with a traditional publisher, unless you want zero control over your work and getting screwed on royalties.
ReplyDeleteI suspect the reason the majority of works remain in slush piles is because they're not fit to be printed. I've lately spent some time glancing through the sample chapters of self-published work on Amazon. I've also spent a lot of time reading original (as-yet-unpublished) fiction on various critique websites. So I've seen a lot of work that hasn't made it through the gatekeepers that are agents and traditional publishers yet. And in the majority of cases, this work is simply not ready for prime time.
ReplyDeleteIf it's in a slush pile, it'll get read (assuming the agent or publisher you queried is accepting unsolicited submissions). It might take awhile. But if you can't choose your submission targets appropriately, and hook the gatekeepers in the first couple of pages, you might get a few takers for a $0.99 Kindle title, but you won't garner the kind of attention you need to get a real following. I could not even tell you how many self-published authors there are on Twitter whose every Tweet consists of self-promotion for their book. If they follow me, I'm polite and I follow back. But I don't actually pay any attention to their posts.
In a way, it's about patience. Self-publishing makes instant gratification possible, but at what cost? I know plenty of people who won't read self-published works because of serious quality issues. I'm in no way accusing all self-published authors of producing poor-quality work, but these days, anyone can slap together a document and put it up for sale. There are actually quite a few self-published books for sale that are compilations of Wikipedia articles, for example. There are self-published books for sale that are completely plagiarized from fiction sharing websites. There are poorly-edited and poorly-formatted self-published books. When everything costs only a couple of bucks, how do you expect the reader to find the gems among all the crap? Sometimes the crap rises to the top -- it's the law of averages.
Sure, people are proud of their own work. I get that. But I think a number of self-published authors need to read this speech, and consider its application to their own lives:
http://www.myfoxboston.com/story/18720284/2012/06/06/full-transcript-youre-not-special-speech
Look, I've beaten some pretty good odds before -- I went to Harvard, after all. But I've also been looked over by other selective processes (e.g. the National Science Foundation graduate research fellowship). (Actually, going to Harvard really reinforces the "you are not special" point -- I was only average there, which was a shock.) Failure is a part of life. Failure to get published is a part of the writer's life. Where would Stephen King be today if he hadn't accumulated a pile of rejection letters? If he'd been able to self-publish, he might be toiling away in obscurity still today. He wouldn't have had any incentive to improve.
Okay, this comment is getting long enough to be a blog post of its own. I'll probably revisit the topic over the weekend.
Truly self-publishing is a great way to showcase your talent, bring your work from the quiet recesses of your mind, to the public where it belongs. However, somewhere along the way most authors fall short of their goals, because once they have created their book, they feel their work is done. Unfortunately, this is where the journey begins. And truly, we need to be aware of the hazards of self publishing. Thanks for sharing your experiences.
ReplyDeleteWell, you are absolutely right about the journey starting once the words are on paper (or in the computer file, or whatever). I am sure people will continue to self-publish, and I'll gladly congratulate anyone who succeeds in gaining a following that way. But too many people get their hopes up too soon. Anything worth getting is worth working for (well, except winning the lottery). Truly rewarding experiences are NOT easy to come by.
ReplyDelete