Like you would any other book? By reading the blurb, by taking advantage of the fact that you can read the first two chapters for free. Instead of just dismissing the work out of hand. I'm not saying the stigma isn't deserved. I'm saying that the kind narrow-mindedness that you've been demonstrating doesn't reflect the changing face of self-publishing.
The changing face? Well, it's getting worse, not better. Self-publishing used to be hard and expensive so you could be confident that the author put in the required effort. Now it's a free for all!
As they say, the biggest benefit of self-publishing today is also the biggest problem - anyone can do it. Blame that on the early birds who went on to tell everyone that not only could they do it, they should do it. Y'know, because trade publishers were going out of business or were out to screw authors, yada yada yada. But that stigma really is starting to change. People are realizing that just because it's easy to put up an ebook doesn't mean getting rich from it is easy. They're finding out, via reviews they don't pay for and that don't come from the cheering section, that their golden words aren't so golden - and it stings. They're finding out that it's not all the things those gurus claimed it was. And a lot of them give up and drop out. But the ones that learn, the ones that understand the business end, the ones that aren't out there for a lark or vanity - they're building a following and earning some money. It's not going to happen overnight, and of course, for every 10 writers that drop out, 10 more drop in. But dismissing anyone who self-publishes without even looking at what they've written is short-sighted.
Like the internet boom itself, it'll settle down and eventually we'll have a better level of publishing. Although instead of publishers being the gatekeepers, I think it will be the actual sales portals. They'll decide on quality, because the end user wants a smaller, better selection they can count on, rather than keep taking risks and be dissapointed. It might be short-sighted to dismiss self-publishers, but it's easier. I'll be right 90% of the time. And frankly, it's irrelevant if I do or not.
Here are my thoughts as a reader. I have a limited amount of money to spend on books each month, so I'm really picky when it comes to buying books. I'm much more likely to buy a traditionally published book than a self-published one because I know that an editor at a publishing house has approved the book. Of course, I do buy books based on recommendations from trustworthy sources, but so far, no one has recommended a self-published book to me. In fact, I've never bought a self-published book before. I've looked through some self-published books on Amazon and other sites and wasn't impressed with what I saw. So my biggest beef with self-published books is the quality. Based on my experience, a traditionally published book is, on average, of greater quality. I honestly don't see this changing soon. Until I find the next Murakami or Roth, I'm going to stick to buying traditionally published books.
Traditionally printed books are great, I've got quite a few and they are old friends, with memories. I have somewhere in the region of 10x more ebooks. These ebooks probably cost me around 10x less, in fact I'd say that over 80% were free owing to a marketing plan Amazon have created. The quality of the ebooks, and range of genres far out way my printed books. (ie. quality as to my taste, academic level). About five of the ebooks I purchased didn't live up to my expectation, so I asked for my money back. To return an ebook is easy with Amazon, literally it is one or two clicks, with a space to comment (optional) if you want to complain. Amazon magically removes all downloads, whether I've downloaded it to my Kindle, or my tablet. It's done, my money is returned instantly, it is painless. All I wasted was a few moments of my time. The author will have a black mark against their book because I asked for a refund, which means it will go down in Amazon's search algorithm. If it has too many returns, then Amazon will know that the description is wrong, and that possibly the author is trying to spam. Two of the books I returned comes to mind; one was about a 'revolutionary diet', the latest thing blah blah, a diet that will transform my life overnight. It turned out this book was about counting calories (which by my experience doesn't work). The other was originally published in the 70s, it was a book about choosing the best power words for advertising etc. Okay, the power words worked for the advertising or book description; because I bought it! I sent it back because I was disappointed with the content, it was old hat, stale, trite, and I could have compiled it myself. As for being a self published author throwing rubbish into the world. I can't see that would make any difference really. The book still has to stand up by itself. Just like poorly written and ill-conceived websites, they sink into oblivion, we don't get to see them when conduct a search - therefore, they cease to exist. I do have a huge problem though with some ebooks, it's not all rosy. I hate the fact that Amazon's filter system is adequate. In my searches on the Amazon platform, books come up that are just so gross to mention, real depravity (to my senses anyway). I took this up with Amazon, only to receive the normal spewed out letter in response to my type of complaint. Amazon even gave me instructions in their generic letter on how to take my complaint further; I did, but got nowhere. The title of the book in question (sorry can't write it verbatim) was about a little girl telling her father he was too xxx - I was horrified. This is my huge problem with Amazon that authors of such explicit nature (I don't mean porn in the normal sense) can self-publish. I'm all for free books etc., but I have a line that I have drawn, and frankly I don't want to see such filth on my monitor. If I can see it, then so can a child. Sorry for rambling. Just adding my tuppence.
ebooks and prints books can both be self-published or trade. Self-published does not = ebook, although it is far more common due to the ease.
Hi Selbbin, I could be wrong, but don't all publishing houses offer books in both formats? If not, they would miss out quite a bit. Sorry if I'm going off thread, the area of self-publishing vs publishing has got a little muddy.
It has gotten muddy, and I believe most trade also publish ebooks now. They undertstand it's an important market.
While not every self-published book can be the next Eragon, Fifty Shades of Grey, or even just Fifty Shades of Bacon; traditional publishers are not the bastions of high quality they once were. Businesses still need to make money. Selbbin: you said that you have self published. This leads me to wonder if you value your own work so poorly that you feel it should be shunned by people everywhere?
In other words, you actually haven't self published & haven't really explored what that actually entails.
Yeah, that's not self-publishing. That's printing it out for editing, and I would assume almost every writer does that.
?? If someone states they self-published, but what it really was was just getting it printed for editing, and it wasn't made public, then it's not published. What difference does it make where they got it printed? Besides, there's much more involved with self-publishing than just uploading it, and if that's all one has done and think that's all that's involved, they don't understand self-publishing. Unfortunately, far too many authors really do think that's all they have to do. Then they either learn or drop out.
I didn't say I was self published. I said I went through the avenues to do it. I did the typsetting, layout, editing, cover design, everything to the point where I had a finished book in my hands. I just didn't box it up and put it in shops. The point is I did it, and I did it easily. Urgh. Like trying to explain how a vacuum works to a three year old. No, there isn't. There can be, but for a lot of people there really isn't, and that's the problem.
Yes, you did the easy part - the uploading. If you consider the editing and cover design easy, then perhaps you aren't as different from those self-publishers you disregard. Which I addressed. And I find it ironic that you make this statement after the previous one about doing everything except put it in shops and stating you did it easily. Self-publishing the right way (other than the actual uploading) is not easy. Too many people think it is and that's why we have a lot of crap out there. There are also authors who take the publishing side of it seriously and professionally, and that includes fiction and nonfiction. If people prefer to put all self-publishers down without considering all the various authors and all the various reasons, well, I can only conclude that they do so to boost their own egos and not because they've taken a real look at self-publishing and the people involved. Frankly, I think there's way too much hot air on both sides.
I gotta say, being new to this forum and all, there are so many great posts I wish I had the time to respond to more of them. I'm just grateful for the varying opinions on not only this topic, but throughout the whole forum. If anyone decides to publish, be it self or otherwise, the work would be far better presented if looked over by an editor. It would solve many of the reputation problems that plague self publishing. Ebooks can be the worst. I wonder if there is a company out there who could offer at least a final read and stamp it with their approval so that there could be a quality control standard to help buyers be more confident. If there is such a service please advise. However, I've seen glaring problems in printed books that make you want to scream as well, even if there is a much higher quality level to that kind of publishing. As an old web press printer of both the Key West Citizen in the late 70's and a local publisher in the 80's I've seen so many printed mistakes. Newspapers, sure, it happens all the time. Paperbacks, not as much but way more than there should be. I found them all the time. Still, the quality level is far greater than ebooks because the cost is so low. I plan to self publish because I believe in my product and I enjoy marketing. I've been in printing, publishing and marketing my whole life. I'm willing to invest in my work because as a business man I do that every day. I sell myself all the time. If there is no market for my product I'll deal with that as with any investment I make. If there is, I'll deal with that as well. Point is, I wouldn't be spending so much time writing if I didn't think it had value. And I've never been one to sit idle waiting for someone else to approve of my effort.
My question is this: If you're working with little-to-no money, which is better? I've heard that in order to have a decent chance at getting traditionally published, you have to hire an agent. Well, I don't have the money for that. I have also heard you can self-publish an e-book for free This is why I am leaning towards self publishing; if I can do it for free then that may be the way to go. I literally have less than $40 bucks in the bank and not much hope of any more coming in soon (I'm writing this from a public library and live with family), so for someone with my limited resources, traditionally publishing may be out of reach. My trepidation is that I feel my ideas are very solid, my writing style is very decent and I'd hate to incur the stigma attached to self-publishing, and get lost in the sea of mediocrity as well, simply because I don't have the money to get my foot in the traditional world of publishing. I'd prefer doing it the traditional way To summarize: If you feel your work is good enough to be picked up by a traditional publisher, but don't feel you have the funds to do it that way, is it best to risk self-publishing or should you sit on your work until you have the means to hire an agent and go the traditional way?
The writer doesn't hire/pay an agent. The agent gets paid when you sign the contract with the publisher. Traditional publishing doesn't cost the writer anything (except maybe the cost of printing). The writer gets paid by the publisher, not the other way around.
Firstly, it costs an author more to self-publish than to go via traditional publishing. Any agent or publisher charging up front fees is scamming you. However, as a self-publishing author, you do in theory get more of the money from each individual sale as there is no agent or publisher taking a cut from your sales. However, in SP you're highly unlikely to sell as many books as you might do via TP, unless you're already known to the marketing chain and can get deals on getting your books in front of the public and critics alike. All this doesn't mean you shouldn't self-publish though. Just be aware that the successes in SP are very rare.
I notice that this forum includes a "blacklist" of agents that have been deemed to be scammers, so you may want to give that a browse & familiarise yourself with some of the traps they use on new writers (like a "reading fee" - they don't even have to read your manuscript, they could just wait three weeks, say it's not good enough, & they've earned money for doing literally nothing). There's a billion places that can give you waaaaaay more advice than I can, but the internet is a wealth of knowledge & will be able to tell you more than you ever wanted to know about acceptable word counts & writing pitches & a synopsis, etc. Good luck!
Already said, but going with a trade publisher doesn't cost the author a red cent. The agent takes a commission, meaning they get paid when you do, and they provide valuable services in exchange - doing the leg work, getting in touch with the right publishers, ironing out contracts, following up as the book goes through the publishing cycle, etc. Some agents also help with editing before it goes out to publishers.
