Last month, Chuck Wendig posted an entry on his terribleminds blog, entitled Self-Publishing Is Not The Minor Leagues. Like a lot of Chuck’s posts, it’s a great read. I’m just going to quote a small portion of it, because you should read the whole thing:
The attitude that pervades self-publishing is that it’s a good place to test your craft, to hone your work. We are reminded constantly that the cream floats to the top, that all the crappy self-publishing efforts have no effect on anything or anybody ever despite evidence to the contrary. The culture forgives and sometimes congratulates even the most meager of efforts because of how courageous someone is to take the plunge to publish their own work. The culture says, “Just click publish!” The culture criticizes the faults of traditional-publishing, but excuses (or celebrates) its own. And yet, sometime in the same breath, self-publishing gets painted as a path to traditional publishing, not as a path separate and scenic all its own.
The culture is full of contradictions.
One of the things that he talks about is that self-publishers should be more critical. The basic gist of it is this: if you think your writing is good enough to complete with traditional publishing, then you should make sure that it is presented as professionally as traditionally-published books.
That means revising. That means proofreading. That means editing (and that means getting someone else to edit it as well). That means formatting it properly. That means either designing a professional cover or hiring someone to do it for you.
Now to me, that all sounds pretty non-controversial, right?
Well apparently, I was wrong. Because it has set off a firebomb in the self-publishing community. The entry generated 217 comments, and not all of them were agreeing with Chuck. Over at kboards, there was a lot of pissing and moaning about it, so much that Chuck posted a follow-up. Then there was another post. And another.
You can read some of the comments from people who vehemently disagree with Chuck. As usual when someone suggests a bit more self-criticism, there have been cries and shouts of, “YOU’RE TRAMPLING ON OUR FREEDOM!” One person said that mediocrity and half-assed books should be celebrated and then, in the same post, said that no one is suggesting that self-published books shouldn’t be the best they can be.
Yeah, I know. I was confused, too.
Here is a fact about self-publishing: it has a terrible reputation. Fairly recently I had a conversation with someone who said that if it’s not good enough to be accepted by a publisher, it’s not good enough to be published, period. Yes, that is a very ignorant way of thinking, but it’s also, unfortunately, not uncommon.
And this race-to-the-bottom, anything goes, “it’s okay if your book looks like shit” mentality does not help. It only encourages the thinking among the general public that self-publishing is a toilet. The fact that a site like Lousy Book Covers even exists is not encouraging.
Is it true that all self-published books are crap that no self-respecting publisher would ever touch? Absolutely not. Is it true that all traditionally-published books are staggering works of brilliance? Hell no. There are both self-published books that are far superior to traditionally-published books, and there are both self-published and traditionally-published books I wouldn’t deem good enough to throw in my fireplace (if I had a fireplace).
If you want to be taken seriously as a professional writer, then you need to start approaching your work with the mindset of a professional.
I’ve seen some retorts to this. Like “well people can browse free samples on Amazon and then they’ll know if a book is worth their time.” Say you need five pages before you decide whether or not a book is worth your money. So you read five pages of one book. It’s poorly edited (if edited at all), there are grammar and spelling mistakes that would cause your high school English teacher to smash the blackboard, and the formatting is sloppy. So you then go to another book. Same problem. And another. And another. Say you go through the first five pages of ten books and they’re all terrible. That’s fifty pages you’ve just read. Would you keep going or would you stop and jump over to the best-seller lists?
This isn’t just speculation—this is stuff I’ve heard from readers. There are a great many people who have sworn off self-published books because of problems like this.
Yes, you learn things over the course of a writing career. Yes, your first book will be much different from your tenth book, because you’ve learned a lot over that time. You learn more about characterization and description. You learn more about pacing and plotting. You learn more about marketing. But one thing you should not be learning as you go is, “wow, I guess Comic Sans is not a good font choice for a cover.” One thing you should not be learning as you go is, “huh, maybe it would have been a good idea to revise this before I published it.”
Here’s a little test you can do: go to your local bookstore or library and find a traditionally-published book that you think is terrible. Look at the cover. Flip through the pages. Regardless of the quality of the story, do you know what you will not find? You will not find an abundance of grammatical and spelling errors. You will not find poor formatting. You will not find Comic Sans anywhere on the cover. Regardless of the story inside, the product has a professional standard. That’s what I’m talking about—hold your book to that same standard.
Self-publishing is easier than ever. You could drink an entire bottle of tequila, bang out a few thousand words on your computer, and then upload the file to KDP without even looking twice at it. You could also spend your entire weekend sitting in your own feces because you don’t want to get up from the couch while binge-watching Breaking Bad on Netflix.
Or in other words, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do it.
The point of turning off your internal editor when writing your first draft is so you can just get it out there. But once that draft is finished, you have to turn that internal editor back on and let him go ape-shit on your manuscript. Then you should revise it and hand it over to someone else. And you should format it to a professional standard, regardless of if it’s an ebook or a print book. And then you should design a professionally-looking cover.
And yes, if you cannot do this, then you may have to pay someone. Don’t give me that crap about how “it’s too hard” or “I can’t afford it”—either buckle down and do the work, or save up until you can afford it.
There is no excuse for shoddy products. Self-publishing is great, it’s opened a lot of doors for me that would have otherwise remained closed. If you want your work to be taken seriously, then you have to take it seriously yourself. If you want to be treated like a professional, then act like a professional.
If that’s too much to ask, then please go somewhere else. Because you’re only hurting the rest of us.
EDIT: This post has recently gotten some new traffic. And since I’ve already had to deal with one person who evidently thought it would be more fun to simply skim the post and then call me to task for things I never even said (all while ironically badmouthing me for making false assumptions), I’m going to lay a new ground rule: comments are moderated. I don’t put up with any bullshit here. If you’re not going to play nice, then your comments will be marked as spam. Simple as that.
Spot on. The problem is that a lot of writing communities – and particularly ones that cater to self-published authors – are more like self-help groups than anything. They’re very soft, with a lot of coddling and very little criticism. Spend enough time in these circles, and you’ll feel great about yourself – right up until you take criticism (constructive or otherwise) and you’re not prepared for it. That’s always going to be a problem when you work in a creative field. A lot of those authors who were upset by Wendig’s post were no doubt used to being told that everything they do is great.
Excellent point, Andrew. Thanks for stopping by!
The problem I find is that many self-published authors lack the confidence to actually *grasp* that they’re in anything but the minor leagues. Even for myself, it took a few years for me to realize.
Still, you’re absolutely write, and thanks for putting it into words.
That’s absolutely true as well, I know the confidence issue is something I struggle with, too.
Love the blog post. Nice work.
I never went to a publisher before I started with KDP, so that old adage about “good enough” is not always accurate. Why would anyone with confidence in their book and a little cash to invest in a start-up business not try indie publishing first? Hire an editor, a good cover artist, some basic marketing, and off you go. It’s less money up front than opening a hot dog stand.
In 2011 when I finished my first tome, I read that the average advance for new writers was $5,000. Math made the decision easy for me. At 70% average royalty rates, I didn’t have to sell a truckload of books to make back my investment in the book. After that, it was all profit.
The days of self-publishing being the “last resort” are numbered. More and more, being an indie is becoming plan-A. At worse case, you’ll refine your skills, learn about the business and gain a better understanding of the marketplace. If your book doesn’t sell, then you can go to a NY house and peddle. Your chances will be better because your product will be better.
If it does sell, even in modest quantities, those checks from Amazon, B&N, KOBO, iTunes, ACX, and others can be very, very nice.
Keep up the good work!
Thanks for the comment, Joe. All very good points and you’re absolutely right. We are fast-approaching a day when self-publishing will not be viewed as a last resort but rather the first route.
When I decided to turn to writing professionally and bring my stories to the public, I originally viewed self-publishing as a way to build sales numbers so I could then use that as a negotiating point with a publishing house to get my books accepted.
Now, I’m starting to view it the other way around, that I would consider hiring a publishing house to build a foundation of readers to build an audience for my self-published books.
At this point, a publishing ‘service’ would have to approach me with a good business plan for selling my books before I would be willing to hire them for that much money out of my income.
I think therein lies the Catch 22. I don’t know of any publishing house that would give you the kind of support you need in order to build that audience, unless you already had that audience to begin with. I’ve got a few friends who have been on both sides of the publishing aisle, and they’ve told me that as far as the marketing and audience-building goes, you pretty much have to do it yourself. Doesn’t matter if you’re trad or self-published.
Percival, I liked what you had to say about self-publishing and writing in general on last night’s IBR podcast.
Indie Book Rebels #2 tobtr.com/s/6507617
Thanks!
Here’s the problem: Whether or not anyone thinks it’s politically correct to say so, all authors do not have the same abilities. When I wrote my first book, which I trashed as crap, I had different abilities than after I’d written a million words. I have different abilities now than I did 3 years ago, when I’d already clocked a million. I hope to have considerably greater grasp of craft in 3 more.
Those that dislike the idea that work should be a quality product and not something that reads like they fought their way off the keyboard by pounding keys, who trumpet the freedom to suck, are those at the bottom of the abilities rungs, I’ve found. They don’t want to have to improve their product so it meets minimum guidelines. They want the freedom to foist their crappy screeds on unsuspecting readers, because they view readers as rubes to be conned. Alternatively, they simply can’t grasp that their work is sub-par. Usually, though, they are broke or dismally parsimonious, and want something for nothing. They want to make money without investing the money or serious effort to produce something with decent quality standards. I guarantee you if it cost $100 to publish each title on Amazon, 90% of the freedom brigade would be howling about their “right” to publish being trampled.
As an indie who has been very vocal about the need to produce top quality work, and taken a lot of hits for it, I shrug my shoulders now. I was drafted to write with Clive Cussler, and our first book is coming out from a Big 5 publisher in Sept. Any notions that my writing can’t hold up to trad pub standards fail on their face in light of that nugget of info. But guess what? I didn’t get there by churning out crap, “doing the best I can given all my other obstacles,” or any of the rest of the excuses for generating bilge. I got there by holding myself to as high or higher standards than the trad pubs have.
That was my business philosophy going in. Many disagree with it, and feel it’s elitist. None who share that common perception sell nearly what I do, or have the same career trajectory. So the results speak for themselves.
If you want to fail, a great way to do it is to put out sub-par dross that you’ve invested little or nothing in. Some believe that’s freedom. I believe that’s the freedom to choose which toilet bowl to swim in. You could say I don’t agree with many of my fellow indies. That’s okay. They don’t pay my bills, and frankly, each of us is in charge of our own careers, so if some want to embark on disastrous courses, nowadays I say knock yourself out. Doesn’t matter to me in the least. You can easily find the counsel that says it’s a bad idea. You want to be the equivalent of the guy in a fails vid on Youtube, that’s your right. Enjoy the freedom to fail because you didn’t want to do the work.
Thanks for the comment, Russell. I’ve heard you speak on a few different podcasts and found myself agreeing with a lot of what you’ve had to say. And you’re absolutely right about having different abilities at different points in your career.
Where are all these horribly produced self-published books you speak of? I read a lot of self-published books, and see thousands of them come through my club, and yes, some are junk/crap, but the vast majority are good, or better than traditionally published books. You just have to look to find the good, and recognize the bad.
I think you’re being reactionary because you see some junk stuff and say, “this is how most of them are.” They’re not.
Of course the opportunity to self-publish has given people the freedom to test the waters and finally get their stories told. And yes, like most authors, the first book probably stinks a bit for most. But making the assumption that this doesn’t ever happen in the traditional publishing world is wrong. I’ve seen many books come out of the Big 5 that shouldn’t have been published. You’re creating a false-equivalency.
That being said. I’ll take the massive opportunity created by self-publishing over the outdated stranglehold model of the traditional publishers any day.
Your point is dead on. I agree; make it professional. But let’s not give too much credit to those that came before us in the old model. They aren’t perfect either. Give it time and you’ll see quality improve. In the meantime, let the customers decide what’s good and what isn’t. Let’s quit the old mentality of the gatekeepers who think they control what’s good and what’s not good. They don’t get to choose anymore. The customer does; a fact that they can’t seem to grasp.
And by the way, a person reading a vampire book on their phone in the waiting room of their doctor’s appointment probably doesn’t care too much about a typo as much as you think. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive to not edit; but it does mean that reader behavior and preference isn’t what it used to be. The times are changing.
Wow, first Russell Blake and now Jim Kukral. I’m a bit flattered this post has attracted attention from the big names.
Anyway Jim, thanks for the response. I actually don’t disagree with anything you’ve said here, which leads me to believe that I should probably clarify a few things.
To begin with, you’re right, this post was reactionary. That’s because it was posted as a reaction to the comments I saw on Chuck’s blog back in February (the post has recently gotten some renewed attention). What brought this post on wasn’t seeing a lot of crap self-published books, it was seeing the mentality that drove people to spam Chuck’s blog saying things like “mediocrity and half-assed efforts should be celebrated!” That’s what I’m criticizing, and based on your own edict of “make it professional,” I don’t think you’d disagree.
But I’m also not saying that stuff like this doesn’t happen in the world of traditional publishing. As I said in the post, I’ve seen both self-published and trad-published book that I wouldn’t deem fit to throw in my fireplace (if I had one, they’re a bit hard to come by in Japan). And I’m not saying traditional publishing is preferable to self-publishing—if you look at the home page of my e-reader, you’ll find that all but the books I have to read for a class are self-published.
My overall point is that there is this mentality that self-published books are inferior to traditionally published books. Yes, it’s a false mentality, and yes it is changing, but it exists nonetheless (the quote from a friend I cited is proof of that). And I certainly don’t want to see more gatekeepers—I wouldn’t have any books published if I did. I’m saying that the mentality has to be fought by holding ourselves to a higher standard.
That’s it, that’s my entire argument in a nutshell.
Thanks for stopping by and keep up the good work with SMB and AMC. I’ve found both to be very helpful.