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

I don't think anyone's had any trouble admitting that the author's had success self-publishing here. The discussion's been about whether or not the $120k offer was genuine or a marketing ploy - so if anything people are having a hard time believing she could have success with trade publishing. Her success with self-publishing is evident.

To be honest, while I admire her for choosing what I feel is the more exciting way of publishing her book, I'd find this more impressive if it was a marketing angle. If it had been calculated, it'd be a really clever way of generating buzz, and if you're going to self-publish you can't really afford to think 'marketing' is a dirty word.

 

Indeed: there's been a public discussion here - offensive to some - about whether or not she's a liar and a fraud, because (as I explained just above) some of the forum's less well informed members' prejudices against self-publishing are such that they're even quick publicly to impugn the integrity of people about whom they know nothing at all. I suspect they don't think it through at all - it's like a reflex, to them. Apparently it's tolerated here, but it doesn't show the forum in a very good light, obviously.

 

How does questioning the so-far unproven offer mean people are "less well informed" or show prejudice against self-publishing? As Ginger noted, not everyone believes everything they read on the net. And typically stories like this tend to get picked up by the news media. I haven't called anyone a liar, but frankly I would question any claim of this nature when there is no verification it actually happened, and when I'm not personally acquainted with the person making such a claim. Most reasonable people would understand that.

Get off your high horse, lex. Sometimes healthy skepticism is just that.

 

Hey, Lex, I appreciate the efforts. I'm really not inclined to waste energy participating on a am I or am I not a liar discussion. There's no way to win it.

However I will say that the publishing community is rather small (once you leave the realm of aspiring authors in random forums on the Internet--and this one, to me is rather random.... I'd never even heard of this place before it showed up in my stats for my blog) and I am friends with some very well-known authors, both traditionally and independently published. They were privvy to the facts of what happened AS IT WAS HAPPENING because I discussed things with them. I named authors in my blog. They are WELL KNOWN and they know this is true and wouldn't vouch for a fraud.

But for some it seems easier to just call me a liar (and also imply that my reviews must be fake, too LOL). I guess all that is easier than believing that I turned down 85% of 120,000. Even though I'll probably end up making more than that self-publishing. Wouldn't it just be easier to accuse me of lying about my royalties too? Why not just call it all a lie?

As for marketing being a "dirty word"--not at all. If I thought that then I'd be a pretty poor indie author. But I'd never tell a doozy whopper of a lie to get publicity. Especially one that could be easily disproven by my former agent or whoever else.

As I said. I'm not inclined to bash my head against the wall to try and convince the tinfoil hat convention. There's no winning that kind of fight. I'd rather just answer honest questions about the business decision I made. So if you want to get the discussion back on track to that, great. Or better yet, just send me a private message (that's possible here, right?) or email (available on my web page).

 

Excuse me, but I do NOT wear a tinfoil hat, but I do tell people's fortunes using a bowl of alphabet soup.

 

Lex, It's not to do with the success of self publishing that is in question, it is the relative success compared to going with a publisher that is the question. I don't have to be a published author or have ever even written a shopping list to pose this question. It has a lot more to do with business than writing and being negative about the idea does not imply that anyone wishes the author ill will. On the contrary, it is good such a high level of success within the self published market. But one last time from me, I think the author would have done better over the long term with the print deal.

 

Brenna, I have not called you a liar. I've barely addressed that issue. But I think you can understand that people are skeptical of claims made that seem fantastic when there is no verification given and they don't know the person making the claim from Adam. It's really nothing more than we expect of people who give "facts and figures" on this forum - we ask for cites to show it's not just them saying it. You may be a very nice and totally honest person - you may be the biggest scam artist in the world. We have no way of knowing which it is. That's just the nature of the world, and particularly the internet.

 

You are conflating separate things here.

I have no issue with self publishing, expect to have to go that route as a new author writing my first book. And you won't find any posts of mine in the threads debating publishing that are against self pub.

Don't confuse the skepticism of the claim with the opinions of self publishing. In this thread they are distinctly different opinions.

Also, it's my experience that someone who has an honest claim challenged would be a little more understanding of the skepticism. When defensiveness surfaces, it adds to the likelihood the claim is bogus, IMO. Just saying.

And regardless, I'm still interested in different marketing tactics. Though I'm not sure I would go this route, I don't completely condemn it. And as I said, the book had decent reviews.

 

So, let's see how this works: someone impugns your integrity in public - if you don't defend yourself, you just stand undefended, looking guilty because nothing disputes the allegation that you're a liar; but if you do defend yourself, that "adds to the likelihood the claim is bogus"?

Nice choice for someone to have to make ...

 

Can you give specifics as to why you think this?

 

Or, no one impugns your integrity, they simply note the evidence supporting your claim is thin and this is the Net where false claims are many. And rather than defending your claim or at least giving a bit more to the story, you get all defensive.

Here's an example one would expect from such a claimant were it true:

"Oh, I know it's hard to believe. I guess I was just lucky or blessed that the publisher liked my book. I sent out a dozen query letters and was surprised to get such an offer. But when I looked over the contract and since income is not an issue for me right away (more blessed luck) I decided to go the self pub route."​

 

Yeah I'd call that quite the Catch-22

 

You know what this site needs? A list of all the pros and cons of traditional publishing and self-publishing. Such a list should be stickied in my opinion.

 

Unfortunately, it would be very difficult to establish much agreement about what they are. Specifically, many of the members aware of the advantages and the realities of self-publishing have been driven away from the site by the behavior of some of the more biased, prejudiced and ill-informed members.

 

Brenna, First off, I have no reason to doubt any of your stats or methods. If you say your making the sales you are, good on you, and I hope to be as lucky some day. As if luck has anything to do with it. I also assume that a high profile, productive career is what you are aiming for. I'm thinking about your overall career and what big publishers can do for you and when. Things that are intangible but have great value. For authors, from what I can gather, name recognition is very important. Can self publishing give you an equivalent level of exposure? I don't know, but I suspect the answer is no.

As volumes of self published works increase and they will, one of the things that you will likely experience, is a reduction in percentages from the various sales outlets. They will pay less. Along with this will be a lowering of sales price to remain competitive. A double whammy. There will also be a dilution effect, that even if you are well known, people will miss your work because of the sheer numbers of other titles available. Can a publisher help you to keep your work 'floating' near the top of searches? Can having a paper presence help? Can you win similar high status awards by self publishing? I can't stress enough the importance of all this. It will make a huge difference to your sales. I know all this because exactly the same thing has happened to photographers and although it can seem restrictive, some of the best opportunities still lie with the big outlets under more restrictive deals, ones that seem to pay less on the surface, but in the end the bottom line is the greatest. I understand you, it's not a simple decision.

Edit: I just saw this place for the first time. This is all competition that will dilute sales.

 

Hopefully we can get someone who's unbiased.

 

I like the link the Hugh Howey article, and I think he's a pretty reliable source of information, given what I know about him and his path through the publishing world. If Howey says that people within the publishing world are aware of the story and what was going on (which includes other authors, your agent etc.), then I'm inclined to believe it since he's a reputable, established, and very successful author (emphasis on reputable).

As @lex noted, some people don't like the idea that an author might turn down a traditional publishing route and go out on their own and be successful, so they'd rather assume the person is lying than give credence to the story. It doesn't make sense, but there you have it.

 

It makes quite a lot of sense - the story got traction because it's hard to believe anyone would turn down an offer like that to go it alone. Note the distinct lack of 'debut author signs $120k 3-book deal' stories being shared around here, even though I imagine such things happen rather more often. And when something's hard to believe, it's not really that surprising that some people, well, don't believe it.

I'm not saying Brenna's lying. For what it's worth, I do believe she got the offer, if only because anyone capable of pulling this off with the intent of making money could be making far more money at Saatchi & Saatchi. I'm just saying that incredulity with something like this is hardly unexpected, and I don't think it shows the people who aren't convinced are inherently anti-SP.

Whether or not she'll end up making more money than she would have with the traditional publisher is a different matter, and personally I think it's an irrelevant one. If she's got what she wanted from going it alone, it was a good decision.

 

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/ramblings/2014/01/18/a-note-on-historical-romance-sales-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.

 

@Brenna thanks for diatribe. Much learned.

P.S. When I buy a Kindle, I'll download and read your book. I still only have the paper things.

 

I don't agree, based on the weight of evidence thus far. You have not only the author's claims and some documentation to support, but also statements from people inside the publishing industry and in a position to know who say the story is true.

Thus far, there is no evidence to support the idea that the story is fraudulent.

We don't know with certainty, of course, but the weight of the evidence currently available supports the claim. If that changes, then conclusions might change, but right now the conclusions don't make sense, which is why they're bolstered with weird arguments like the idea that using a DBA somehow impugns the story, etc.

 

haha Don't buy it unless you like romance! Although I do have some guys who don't read romance giving me good reviews because they love the gaming/geek aspect of the story. My characters argue about Star Wars and geek out to Lord of the Rings! LOL

Just wanted to address your note/link about Wattpad. Actually many authors are leveraging a reader base from Wattpad. I haven't used it yet nor have I researched how this has worked but many put their books up on Wattpad a chapter at a time (sometimes before editing, yikes I know I personally would never do that but some have had great results from it). Then when they publish the book, the readership carries over as does the word of mouth.

Again, I'm not an expert on Wattpad at all but I certainly will be investigating it in the next little while. What I love most about being an indie is that I'm free to try new things and see how they work.

Best of luck to you.

 

I agree, based on everything we've got now. But this all started before Brenna came to the thread and added the extra links. I don't think it's that unlikely for people to be sceptical based just on the original article.

(Unless, of course, those links were also in the original blog post and I missed them, which is fully possible.)

 

I would be much more on board with self publishing if I could get some actual statistics - not success stories.
I don't care about the dino-porn that made millions ( all that proves is that their is a lot of curious/weird people on the internet ), or a children's book that made millions as these are drops in the bucket rather like Stephenie Meyer or J.K. Rowling. Right place/right time/right word of mouth.

I want to hear about regular writers who post their work. How much they spent on advertising, on the cover, how much time they took to write & edit the book and in the end how many downloads both free and paid did they receive.

I'm on several writing sites and I've met lots of self published writers but I don't hear much about the actual
end result for their hard work. Why if they're on board with self publishing is this such a carefully guarded secret?

 

Yes, I agree that based on the initial post there isn't much you can do in terms of drawing conclusions. Sounds like we agree that at this point, at least, the evidence, on balance, supports the claim.

I'm still not sure why a DBA would be criticized (maybe @GingerCoffee can answer that, unless it was someone else who made that criticism in which case I apologize for getting the name wrong). It would be one thing if a person claimed to be traditionally-published, and then it turned out the traditional publishing entity was really a DBA that was an alter ego for the author. But here we have someone who is stating that they are self-published, and merely using a DBA as the vehicle for doing so. That's something lots of self-published authors do, and indeed something that lots of individuals engaged in other business activities do. Nothing odd about it.