Are publishers really interested in good writing?

You talked about editors and cover artists. That's cost. The primary cost of a book isn't the paper.

No one is going to trust a paid reviewer. If you're just referring to the existing review capability on Amazon, I don't trust that.

Let's imagine that you published a book with Amazon, and it happened to be a big hit, and you were offered a movie deal.

Would you assume that whatever shrinkwrap license that Amazon had offered you would totally protect your interests?

Would you be simply delighted that you had not had the aid and advice of an agent before agreeing to that license?

 

I know of quite a few review sites that used to review self-published books. Not exclusively, but at least accepted them for the review queue. Now, most of those sites will only accept self-published books from authors they know. Why? Because they had bad experiences with self-published authors reacting completely inappropriately (hysterics, social-media witch-hunts, threats of violence, threats of lawsuits, etc.) to well-deserved negative reviews.

It's a tragedy of the commons situation. There are some people who want to self-publish responsibly, but there are a hell of a lot of other people who just want to throw whatever crap they come up with onto Amazon and then go apeshit when someone points out the quality issues.

I have no idea what the solution is.



On another note: One of the complications with conversations like this is that we've accepted some pretty imprecise terminology. "Self-publishing" can be a bit foggy (does it include vanity presses, does it mean the author has to do everything herself or can she hire out certain aspects?) but putting all other publishing under the heading of either "Trade" or "Traditional" is really, really confusing.

There are some small "Traditional" publishers that are shady as fuck and give loads of ammunition to people looking to criticize the industry. (Just as there are horrible self-publishers who give ammunition to people looking to criticize that approach). There are reputable, professional small publishers who work closely with authors and are e-first or e-only and who may or may not be more flexible regarding what types of writing they'll accept. And there are the big guys, whether Big Five or Harlequin or whomever, with dramatically different business models. Lumping them all together and trying to make any kind of generalization about "Trade" publishing will almost certainly result in inaccuracies.

 

Magazines and newspapers have a staff of paid reviewers. (For all sorts of things: restaurants, movies, plays ...and books.) This system has been in existence a long time. People trust these reviewers BECAUSE they are paid by the magazine/paper, and not by an author. These payments are not bribes. And they appear with reviews every time a review issue comes out.

What is particularly good about this system is that these staff members know how to write a review. And they know what makes a decent book. (They don't review 'awful' books, as a general rule. They just ignore them.) The purpose isn't to put people off buying bad books. It's to bring good books to public attention.

As I said at the start of this discussion, I buy lots of books and have discovered many new authors whom I like, simply by reading these reviews as they come up. These are authors and traditionally published books I wouldn't have heard of otherwise.

I see no reason why this system couldn't be adapted for self-pubbed books.

There is no downside to this idea. It won't provide perfection—in that not all good books would get a review—and it would take some thought to implement, but it would certainly help to get more good books noticed—and bought. And that's the objective.

 

Sorry-I should have said that no one is going to trust a reviewer who is paid by the producers of the product that is under review. And I don't see a situation where anyone but the producers of self-published books are going to pay the reviewer of those self-published books.

It's a circular problem; as long as those books don't sell well, they won't be interesting enough to review, and as long as they aren't intersting enough to review, they won't sell.

 

Aye, but it's in Amazon's best interests to sell books. According to common belief, the self-pubbed ones are languishing with (somebody here quoted an average sales level of 14 or 15 books) very few sales. Amazon takes a cut of every sale, so why wouldn't they want to sell more?

Increasing the visibility of books is the key to sales. Quality isn't the issue I'm addressing. It's visibility. Nobody is promoting these books effectively. There are lots of extremely good self-pubbed books out there (I've been reading them.) What hurts their sales is the fact that nobody knows they're out there, unless the reader knows the author, or has stumbled across the book by accident.

 

I feel every book should have to be held the same as the first
when in comes to traditional publishing. That way there is
no comfort level between the author or the publisher, and
more incentive to write consistently or improve. If looking at
some of the big names, this is often not the case, as their work
seems to not be as good as the first 1 or 2 books.

Me and what I know about going the traditional route is that
there really isn't a place for my kind of story, at least not on
that platform. So I had to seek alternative option.

But to those who want to have the best chance at getting traditionally
pubbed the first time around, an agent seems to be the best way to
get the proverbial foot in the door for most.

I have read good books that have never been traditionally published,
and probably never will. Though I don't think that traditionally published
books could say the same, seeing as all of them have been put into digital
format for consumption.

End of the day you have to decide if you think someone in the publishing
industry will want to sell your book, and you can find them.
Us in the 'raw nerve' section will just have to settle that no one is shopping
for what we are writing. And believe me there are some sick bastards out
there that make mine look like a day at Disney land in comparison.
(If you have to ask, chances are you don't want to know.)
And I don't care how well you wrap it up pretty in a query, it won't change
the content of the story.

 

But that's the problem--Amazon isn't an independent reviewer. So I certainly wouldn't trust them.

And if they choose some tiny percentage of self-published books to promote, they're going to see a huge backlash from the authors of the countless other self-published books.

Sure, Amazon wants to sell books. But I don't see that they care whether they're selling traditionally published or self-published books. I don't see them as the champion of the self publisher.

For self published books, quality is inextricably tangled with visibility. You need the tiny percentage of good self-published books to be visible in the sea of bad ones. So there needs to be a way of identifying them. And that means, to me, that the core issue is indeed quality. The fact that it's an issue of finding it, rather than producing it, doesn't change that fact.

 

Problem with quality in theory is that we each have our own
definition for what we find good and bad. It takes time and
hunting around to find something that suits your particular
version of quality.

If quality means that a 100 people buy a particular book and
say it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Then you come
along and read it, and think it is the worst thing you have read
that month. Then where is the quality control. Books are not like
goods that can be demonstrably tested and proven for the
highest standard of ratings, before being put on the shelves.
It is all guess work. While a publisher is the authority on what
they consider quality, I am sure you have had times where you
disagreed with the material they decided was superior at a given
point in time. It is all subjective, and not ground in any hard
evidence to really back it up.
The more stringent you are, the more you narrow your reading
when it comes to finding new books. The more you narrow that
into one or two genres, and you really are singular in taste.
Most likely to only read those that are written by well known
authors, while missing all the hidden gems you simply regarded
as poor quality.
Easier to demonstrate possible behavior based on observation
of ones reading habits and book selections.

The quality in and of itself is the variable determined by the observer.
Not unlike art.

 

No, the core issue is not quality, but visibility. People who trawl the Amazon site looking for books often aren't even aware which ones are self-published, and which are not. They are just looking for books they think they'd like to read.

Even if every single self-pubbed book was well-written, wonderful to read (however quirky, long, or 'old fashioned,' or 'not a good fit') there still needs to be a way to promote it, even—dare I say it—outwith Amazon as well as within. Otherwise nobody knows it is there.

Self-pubbed authors tie themselves in knots trying to get their books noticed. Not loved, but NOTICED. Noticed comes before reading the book, and before deciding whether it was any good or not.

Should authors like me just sit and girn about how bad so many self-pubbed books are, moan about how we can't possibly compete with the huge flood of these atrocities, and just give up trying to sell ours? Or spend all our remaining days doing personal blogs, tours, etc, hoping the book gets noticed by somebody? Boo hoo? I don't think that's the appropriate response to the problem.

It's a practical problem. I believe we can find a solution, if we put our minds to it.

 

We may just end up disagreeing permanently here. I don't think that the problem is visibility. I know that lots of self-published books are out there. I see them on Amazon all the time. And I never buy them--not because they're invisible, but because my past experiences with self-published books lead me to believe that it's wildly unlikely that the quality will be any good.

 

I'd advise you to read @Lew 's book The Eagle and the Dragon. Or Karen McIntyre's Parham's Mill. Or JE Loddon's two sci-fi entries currently available. These are good, well-written and well-produced books. They certainly deserve to be read by people who enjoy the style and subject matter.

But we shouldn't bother trying to promote them, because other books are bad?

It's that gap I'm trying to close.

 

Where did I say that they shouldn't be promoted? The question is, HOW are they going to be promoted? More importantly, how are they going to be selected for promotion?

Certainly the authors can try to promote them, and I assume that they do. But how does it benefit Amazon to spend a great deal of money--because I'm confident that it would be a great deal of money--to identify the tiny, tiny percentage of self-published books that are good, and then spend more money to promote them?

Sure, Amazon makes some money when those books sell, but they make money when traditionally published books sell, and the publishers of those books pay the promotion expenses.

And if Amazon does read and evaluate and select a limited number of self-published books to promote...aren't we right back to the publisher gatekeeping?

 

I was thinking about if Amazon had something like a special readers program where certain members would sign up and be given a free copy of a random, self published eBook with the stipulation that they write a review for it based on things like plot, character, spelling, grammar and whether or not the author used Comic Sans. Authors could opt out of these, so their hearts don't get broken, and aside from setting up the program, Amazon would have minimal expenses. They wouldn't have to staff anyone and giving someone an eBook would cost them basically nothing. It would be like that thing real publishers do when they give out free copies of traditionally published books to reviewers to boost it's awareness. It would be kind of a win on all fronts. It would be kind of a win on all fronts. Minimal outlay from the company, boosted sales for good authors, less pain finding good books for readers, and free books for reviewers.

 

You didn't say that, and I didn't say you did—if you read how I worded my response. However, I do feel that's the overall philosophy I'm picking up here on this thread.

I keep talking about ways to promote good self-pubbed books, and I'm getting back an awful lot about how many bad books and crazy self-pubbed authors there are out there and that nobody wants to read self pubbed books because so many of them are bad, yadda yadda yadda.

It's how to break out of that rut that interests me.

I have no control over other people's writing. Many of them will write bad books. That's not the issue.

I've not got a huge problem with 'gatekeepers' IF—and it's a big IF—they remain openminded and focus ONLY on quality. Not 'saleability' or 'length' or 'the next big thing,' or whatever motivates traditional publishing gatekeepers to reject books. I see professional reviews that focus only on quality as a way to use 'gatekeepers' in a positive, less restrictive way. And a way to get a wider range of books noticed by a wider range of readers.

It might not work, but I think it's certainly worth a try.

 

But what motivates professional reviewers to do those reviews? Amazon is going to want sales, so quality is not going to be their overriding concern--just as the traditional publishers focus on what sells, Amazon will as well. So if Amazon pays some reviewers, they're going to focus on the genres and books that seem most likely to sell, irrespective of quality.

The idea of professional reviewers who care entirely about what's a good book, and not at all about likely sales of that book, is interesting, but I absolutely don't see Amazon as the entity that is going to be paying them. Amazon's in it for the money; I would argue that they're in it for the money to a greater, not lesser, degree, than the traditional publishers.

 

I said a while ago that Amazon might not be interested in doing this, although I think it's feasible, and I think it's in their best interests to attempt to sell the merchandise they carry. However, this won't work if the reviews are seen to be biased. I accept that.

But ...what motivates any professional reviewer to do a review? Movie reviews, restaurant reviews, etc? Money. The reviewers get paid by a publication to do the reviews. BUT the publication that pays them carries a review section because people want to read good, unbiased reviews. These publications aren't trying to sell a particular movie, restaurant or book because of some kickback they get. They sell their publications because people want to read about what's new out there, and to be able to trust the reviewers. This actually does happen. It's not a fairy tale proposition.

It's that principle I'd like to see applied to self-pubbed books. If we assume we can't make it happen, it won't happen. Which, I feel, is rather defeatist. I'd like to find a way to make it work.

 

But I think that you're demanding that it happen in a way that requires that self-published books already have the market clout of traditionally published books. Movie reviewers, for example, tend to review the widely released films. They may sometimes review a limited-release art film. But they're unlikely to review an undistributed film student's film, even if that film student is brilliant and even if he happens to be perfectly willing to burn that film to DVD for a price. Similarly, professional reviewers are unlikely to review a totally unknown book by an unknown author and an unknown publisher--especially if they have to read a few dozen or hundred books even to identify the one worth reviewing.

So I think that you need a different model, one that is not based on the current industry. Now that I mention film students, I find myself imagining a film festival model, where people submit their books to an organization that selects and promotes a small subset of those books.

But where is the money made there? An effort to get self published books reviewed and the good ones identified, so that someone can promote them if they wish, is going to have to require either money, or a strong charitable goal, or both. People don't do things unless they get either money or satisfaction, and I don't yet see a scheme that produces much of either one.

I still think that my amateur review scheme offers more hope.

 

An amateur review scheme is an excellent idea. Again, the reviews themselves would need to be very well written and impartial. Not just the standard I love it I hate it votes you often see on Amazon's present system. (And please, dispense with star ratings! Just review the book.) Folks would need to trust that the reviewer isn't plugging a family member's book, just because it's a family member. This could be done if the reviewers are the same few people each time, but are people who like a wide range of books and are willing to give new writers a fair go. (They don't need to be identified by their real names so trolls can get at them, but simply write under the same nickname each time?)

If that could be set up to work fairly, I'd be all in favour of it, actually. Someplace online, maybe, where potential readers could go to look at a list of the latest self-published books—hopefully with jacket cover display and maybe even a few pages to read. Separated by genre, perhaps. And maybe read a few informative reviews of good ones?

Maybe a subscription of a couple of pounds (dollars) a year would be enough to pay reviewers? (And keep trolls away?) Of course there will be people unwilling to fork over any money at all, but it's a start. People buy conventional papers and magazines, and these reviews aren't 'free' to the public.

I do worry about the work of maintaining the site and writing reviews being left to volunteers, beyond getting the site up and running. (Amateurs are fine, as long as they are paid for their reviews. By amateurs, I am referring to people like you and me who love books and can write about them. This doesn't mean I think we shouldn't be paid. We just won't be able to demand freelance writer's fees.)

Volunteers can so easily get swamped and feel their work is thankless and unappreciated. I think the reviewers should be paid, and the site managers shouldn't be out of pocket either. Getting paid would make the job worth their while, and go some way to maintaining a high standard.

 

Last time we had this conversation, I mentioned that Amazon owns Goodreads.

Not a professional review site, but certainly one that allows readers to find and follow reviewers whose reviews seem valuable/in-synch with the readers' tastes.

@jannert, have you checked it out? Have you found reviewers there to follow?

 

I checked it out a while back, but should do so again. Do they focus on self-pubbed, do you know?

 

No, they focus on books people read.

I'm not sure why you want to focus on self-published books. I don't think most readers do... I think more readers try to avoid them than seek them out, but for most readers, I think, the publication method is unimportant. They just want a good read.

So if your ideal review program would include only self-published books, I for one would not use it. Even if I weren't biased against self-published books, I certainly wouldn't be biased in favour of them... and I don't think most others would be, either.

If the review program is going to appeal to a mass audience, I think it needs to review the best books, period, not the best self-published books.

 

Yes, I get that, but it's missing the point. Good self pubbed books won't get read if nobody knows they're there. That's my focus. They don't sell because nobody reads them is kind of a circular situation, if the reason nobody reads them is because they aren't visible.

My point isn't whether or not we should be reading self-pubbed books. My point is that if you want to read self-pubbed books, you're going to have to learn about them via osmosis.

For example, Lew's book The Eagle and the Dragon can be found on Goodreads ...I just checked. However, it's not coming up on any of the browse searches at all, and his specific category isn't even listed. "Roman Britain" is a sub-category under historical fiction, but not "Rome." I have to put his exact title into the search facility to find it. Which means I already need to know it exists.

This is the problem.

There are lots of other books I've never heard of by authors I've never heard of that pop up on these browse sites. But I suspect they're not self-pubbed. At least the ones I checked are not self-pubbed.

I'll keep looking into the situation, but unless self-pubbed books are given exposure, same as the others, this site isn't really the answer to the problem.

 

I think it depends what the "problem" is.

As readers, I think Goodreads can be a solution to the problem of sorting through the chaff and finding good books. There are more good books out there than I can ever hope to read, so it's no big deal to me, as a reader, if I miss out on some good books that are self-published.

As a writer, or as a writer of self-published books, I think Goodreads takes some work to use effectively. The site is run by volunteer "librarians" who can move books around and tidy things up, change classifications, etc. When I signed up every author was automatically made a librarian for her own books; I'm not sure if that's still the case, but if it isn't there are librarians on call who can do the work at an author's request. And many of the list (all of them?) are on Listopia, which is also community-based. Any Goodreads user can add books to the lists, upvote favourite books, etc.

So the site is based on volunteers and community--it's a bottom-up review site, rather than the top-down style that you seem to be advocating. But I think bottom-up is more in keeping with the general self-publishing ethos, right? Self-publishers are trying to avoid gate-keepers, so adding a set of top-down reviewers seems too gate-keeper-esque to fit the self-publishing model. Remember that for the system to be any use, there will have to be books that get bad reviews, are rejected from the program, or are otherwise kept outside the gates. Given the general quality of the mass of self-published books, I assume most books would be excluded. So we're back to the same gate-keeper issues we have with traditional publishing.

It kind of feels like you want gate keepers, but you want different gate keepers, ones that let books like yours in while keeping other people's books out. I expect other self-publishers would like the same thing, but they'd want their books to get through while keeping books like yours out...

 

Fair enough. I guess those of us who want to self-publish will need to put our heads together and solve this problem ourselves, or it will continue to exist. I can't see any way to determine quality (by quality I mean a lack of SPAG errors and sloppy presentation, not choice of subject matter or length of the piece) other than to have a few gatekeepers. Called unbiased reviewers. But there you go.

You've done a good job articulating the problem we self-pubbers face. And we do face problems, no doubt about it.

Anyway, thanks for the very helpful insight—and getting me to revisit Goodreads. I may join up!