I took a crazy gamble and published on KDP without anyone else reading it first.

Oh I'm not arguing against the use of an editor. I'm not that sort of writer lol. This idea that "You can write, so surely you can edit your own book and anyone who hires an editor shouldn't think they can make it as a writer" is downright ridiculous. But my original point was that it's hard to know which editor's good when you know little yourself, and you replied with "If you do your research, you can know", and to some extent you are right.

Hiring an editor is probably not always necessary - plenty of people get published without paying for one themselves. But I do believe hiring a good one can only be beneficial, if you can afford a good one. I also believe hiring a bad editor is worse than no editor at all.

I believe staff do connect, but it's mostly team-building, so my husband's hung out with other IT guys on team-build dinners and such, but nothing that connects different departments. I'm still not getting where you have this idea of "people who know what they're talking about" from? Like the folks who take care of the publishing stats? I'm unsure of why that would help you get published. They don't have agents or editors there. I'm sure I would have heard if they existed, as I'm sure my husband would have mentioned fixing their laptops at some point or other.

Like, Amazon isn't a publishing house.

 

I would imagine that he could very well have talked with employees from other departments, nothing to say that can't happen, especially in larger companies, in fact I would expect it to be encouraged. While there he would certainly have gained an amount of information that others may not have access to. Whether that will have helped him sell books is another thing. Of course the OP's original post makes it pretty clear that he didn't care whether we agreed with him or not, he wanted to do something so he did it, regardless of what others thought.
Was it the right thing to do?
Who knows, we haven't read the book have we.

 

I checked the link before I deleted it. The cover was awful. The writing was actually all right, but clearly for a very niche market. Not my thing, but it didn't look like bad writing, which was surprising to me.

Which, in a way, is actually kinda sad. Because he might have stood a chance if he'd believed in himself a bit more to actually get beta-read, edited, gave trade publishing a go, or otherwise put in an earnest effort at self-publishing.

Like, if it's gonna be trash either way, then it doesn't matter. But when your book might have actually been good if only... Well, if the author himself didn't truly believe in it, how can - and why would - anyone else, right?

 

It's not my kind of book, but I read the first few pages and didn't see any reason it needed an editor. Obviously I have no idea about the rest of the book, but clearly they can write.

I agree with another comment, though: the cover may be putting off potential readers. It would have done fine in 2015, but probably not in 2018. If I was the OP I'd spend money on a professional cover before I spent it on an editor... it's usually the first thing readers see, and these days it needs to look like a trade-published cover to bring them to the book page.

 

Not a particularly expensive thing for the OP to have done, although very subjective and generally close to the writers heart. At least the writing was ok, even if the cover wasn't to everyone's taste. It may be that he had a very specific target in mind for his book, not caring too much about making money but getting his message across perhaps?

 

Covers have become way more important than they used to be over the last few years. I think too many readers have read bad self-published books with cheap covers and decided to avoid anything that looks like that in the future.

And, for a novel, it's not a big deal to pay $30 for a decent premade cover, if you can find one that fits the book. If the cover sells another dozen copies of the book, it's pretty much paid for itself.

I actually have a few books in the pipeline where I saw a cheap premade cover that I liked and decided to buy it and write a book to fit the cover. Kind of like the Lionel Fanthorpe method, where the publisher sent him a cover and told him to send back a book.

 

I've always believed that continued writing is the best way, but yes if you can get someone to read then that also helps.

 

Probably best to get some other eyes on it first.

 

I have both worked with professional editors and been contracted for my editing services. And it's never just been about one thing. Editors should be able to help figure out what wrong with the work or what it needs AND catch typos. I would be livid if I paid an editor or even worked with an editor provided to me and they said typos weren't their thing. Seriously, I mean no disrespect, but there are editors who do it all, and those are the ones you want to work wth.

 

I'm still not seeing how knowing those systems regarding bestsellers and stats would help you actually get published. I guess it may give you a few tricks into how to manipulate the stats and gain some visibility?

Honestly, I don't know. I just know my husband mentioned the online shop is a tiny part of their business. If the entire shop is a small part, then I really don't think KDP stuff would make up a "big" part of their business. I think Amazon's investing into Cloud and drones right now.

You've got me curious though. I'll ask him tonight

 

As I understand it, a lot of Amazon's revenue comes from the store, but essentially all of their profits come from the 'cloud'. The store is effectively just a hobby business.

 

Sorry but you are losing me with all those acronyms...

I did ask about a Kindle team though, and while they exist, my husband only knows of two sites where they exist. Likely they exist in more sites, but there's certainly not one in Prague where he works (and there are 3 sites here - two corporate and one warehouse I believe.)

 

In principle, what would you ask the Kindle team? I don't think my husband knows anyone in the Kindle team but... in theory, if he was willing and managed to get some answers - it would be interesting!

And thanks for the explanations!

 

Even if your not interested in spending a dime before you self publish there are plenty of websites where you can post your story chapter by chapter and get awesome feedback and the only investment is you do the same for someone else. I've done this myself and it's worth the exchange. Not just because someone has torn your work to shreds but because you, yourself learn to spot errors.
Don't rush it. A month of putting it through critiques would be incredibly valuable. I suggest pulling it -- giving it to someone to read and get some feedback.

 

Oh man, I picture the two of you having meetings, both walking away and not understanding a word the other said

Seriously though, sounds cool. I've dabbled with the idea myself of just saying fuck it! and publishing what I have on Amazon or some other comparable site. But I have as yet, despite the imp of impatience constantly gnawing at me and occasionally jumping up and down on my head, not taken the plunge....maybe given your story I may well do it.

 

...I love that.

Thank you all for your comments.

Peace, out.

 

The OP says he's not a good writer, yet he receives four positive reviews on Amazon, which must be encouraging.

 

You have good reviews already. The story concept is intriguing.

The writing isn't bad, you have good dialect voice as far as I read.

You should be fine with it, you shouldn't be embarassed or anything. But I think you would have been well served to have hired a copy editor. I noticed right away you're inconsistent with quotation marks. Your narrator speaks but is it narration or dialogue ? Easy enough to read over but it was hard to follow who was speaking.

I think you would have benefitted from some critique or a good beta reader. But I don't think it was some huge mistake to self-publish anyway.

Now that you have experience, write a book and see if you can get an agent.