There is data, the comparison is just imperfect. You brought up a good point about including all the authors the publishers turned down, for example. While we don't know the actual numbers, we have heard about slush piles and agents and publishers that might be looking at many hundreds of queries a day. Given some of those are queries from one author going to multiple publishers, we can drop the number down some but we know it's a larger number by far from those books that are published. So while the number is fuzzy, it's not blank.
Yeah, I was referring only to the data about how many people try the traditional route but never get a contract. I agree we can make some guesses about it, but if we had the actual figures we could say more about a new writer trying to decide between two paths.
Nonsense. Pick up a random book at the bookstore and see if you think it's good, because I've seen many that are poorly written and definitely uninteresting or with plots that are so tropey as to be laughable.
Destroy the market? I know arguing with you is a waste of time, but for others reading the thread, I've said it before, marketing is not an accident. There are different things one can do to get their book noticed. From there, the quality of the book takes over.
Ginger, Please don't take this as an insult...it is not meant to be: Those who do not treat writing as a business are missing the mark. Those who do not treat it as a business, and just want to get their writing before people, fall into the group of Vanity Writers. People are making money from those who can't get published by standard-publishers by telling them they can be an author by self publishing. These scammers don't care if a writer sells only one book...they make $1.00 from the sale, and the writer has tossed his book to the wind, and made nothing, just to be able to say, "I am an author." The sad part is, some of these writer have good books that just need a few re-writes by a pro. The publishing Industry does not view self published writers as authors...like I have said before: I could ink my dogs paws, put the print on paper, and self publish it...would my dog be an author? That is about what a vanity published author is. You can cut cheese any way you want, but cheese is still cheese.
I've read some really bad traditionally-published books (or part of them, until I threw them in the trash). I've read some self/indie-published stuff that is better than a lot of what is on the shelves. On the whole, though, I'd say the level of writing in traditionally-published books is at least competent (which is an adjective I used to describe Twilight, to the dismay of some). Some self-published stuff I've seen is well below "competent."
I don't take it as an insult. I take it as a judgmental rant from someone who thinks I should have his values and POV and I simply don't.
Your thinking has always been clear to me. I think I will use your way of thinking as a character in a new book I'm writing..."Earth, the Insane Asylum of the Universe.” I may even give that character the lead part.
Yes, "at least competent" means the trash was left out, and in self-publishing it isn't. Considering the complaint above that it's hard to get noticed when your book sits in with the trash says to me, some people don't recognize that getting noticed is not going to happen if you put your book out there and wait for it without doing anything else. There are things you can do to get noticed. Publishers do certain things, indie writers do different things to get noticed. Both are viable options for a writer.
I don't think any of the numbers we've seen so far have really been any use. We can tell that both self-pubbed and trad-pubbed authors can make a ton of money if they're at the top end of the curve, and in both cases most will make very little. We can't infer anything about what's better for the 'average' author, and even if we could, that'd still be useless because every individual person's situation is different. If we could find some data that broke things down by genre, that might be a bit more use. Damned if I know where to find that, though. Dom, we've made it 11 pages without getting particularly bitchy. Don't go ruining that record, kthx?
I understand your concern with vanity writing but it is a problem the market is going to overcome if it is to overcome traditional publishing. And I believe we are headed in that direction. It will become clearer as more and more best sellers come out of the rut pile but If we compare this phenomenon to other markets (i.e. Video Game & Graphic Novel Industries.) then we can say that it is difficult for influential marketing companies to keep the hold of the audience . It is coming down more to the viewers being their own makers which is what it aways should have been; what would be for the best. Cutting out these middlemen who we so arrogantly called the 'Gatekeepers' was a workable mistake, but as usual, it can't keep up with the changing times.
If you want the data to tell you how to make a million in book sales, of course it cannot do that. But it can tell you by genre whether indie or published is stronger. It can tell you whether print or ePub is stronger by each genre. There were some breakdowns by genre in the links I cited earlier. Try Googling for some data in the genre you're writing. What genre is it? The usefulness of the data depends on what you are looking for it to tell you. For me, the data tells me that if I don't get a publisher interested all is not lost. It tells me that indie publishing is an increasing market. It tells me readers are not looking at just publisher promo sources. From there the next question is, how are indie publishers reaching their markets? It's not the grocery store shelves for sure. But some of them are reaching readers. EL James did it with a fan fiction site. GoodReads has reviewers with a growing following. Those are both online sources of marketing one's book.
I agree with you. If the computer is to take over the brick, and mortar means of selling books, there has to be something to stop the junk books from flooding that avenue. Good books just get lost in the mess.
You have no basis for that conclusion other than there is a lot of junk online. But that doesn't mean the good stuff is lost in it or even competing with it.
Ginger, Just get your book out there, make money...and show the world I don't know what I'm talking about. If you think you can beat the system, do it. Show, don't tell. Prove what you say by doing it. You are like a broken record. Stop talking, and show me.
My genre is flash-fiction, so I'm self-pubbing all the way. And, in fact, have. It was brilliant, I'd do it again in a heartbeat. But what we've been talking about is what the best route is for the Platonic new author, and how or if it's possible to tell. I don't see any numbers here that help them make the decision 'am I more likely to be successful if I self-publish or submit'. That said, I've clearly missed the genre specific links - where were those? I can't find them looking back. I believe the most successful ones cultivate their own followings. Advertise the blog rather than the book, and do everything possible to capture e-mail addresses. When new books get released, you've then got an audience ready to give you a burst of sales and (hopefully) reviews to push you up the Amazon charts. There's also author groups popping up who all cross-promote each other's stuff - you mail for my book and I'll mail for yours.
Audience building would appear to me to be the biggest incentive to attempt the traditional publishing route. This surely has to be even more in favour of the traditional publishers than financial incentives because you seem to get a higher percentage of the money per reader if you self publish. It makes sense because a good publisher opens marketing and distribution avenues up that wouldn't be available otherwise. If you're traditionally published you still have all the social media options and the like. If you've not got an audience the more angles you have in trying to get one the better. If you already have an audience then the decision seems trickier. The audience could be from books you've written or from some super succesful blog or YouTube channel or something else. Hence why you get traditionally published authors going hybrid. Another reason to self publish is if you've written something which doesn't meet the traditional publishers criteria for some other reason than not being good enough. The wrong word count seems the most obvious. Maybe also some unfashionable genres. If you're writing the sort of projects that traditional publishers like and you don't have an audience yet then it makes sense to me to work as hard as you can to go the traditional route. That's my take on the decision anyway.
@GingerCoffee: Thanks for pulling those out. I still don't think that helps any individual author trying to work out if they'll be better off self-publishing, though, because as you mentioned earlier there's no denominators. 66% of Romance e-book earnings from Amazon go to indie-published authors. Great. But how many indie published authors are there, how much do they spend on marketing, what effect does it have if we include the advances that at least some of the trad-published authors presumably got? There's just too much missing to draw any kind of meaningful conclusion. I mean, there's loads of good reasons for self-publishing. I don't even particularly buy the 'you'll use up your first rights' thing - I'm pretty certain if a publisher thinks they've got good odds of making a profit on your book, they'll snap it up whatever. But I don't think anything that's come up in this thread can point to one of those reasons being 'you'll make more money'.
Here's a very thorough paper on eBook publishing industry. (It's a large .pdf for anyone that matters to.) Global eBook Report on Market Trends and Developments Starting on page 107 there is an extensive discussion of the data that is out there on self publishing including the criticisms of the data. There is a wealth of data on ePublishing by country. There's a bit on the piracy problem near the end and a list of all eBook publishers. The summary is on page 155 and ends with what we all know:
Let's try this. How about listing some things that would actually be helpful for an author in deciding which route might work best for them (ie, no cheerleading or rants)? I'll put up a couple to start with: 1. You understand, at least at a workable level, what publishing a book actually entails. Therefore, you understand what a trade publisher will do for you, and what you will have to do for yourself if you self-publish. You are/are not willing and able to do those things. (This is probably the Big Decision Point.) 2. Your book would/would not be considered a 'niche' book (ie, it would/would not attract a broad audience). Niche books are hard to get accepted by trade publishers, but can do very well self-published. 3. You have/have not already trade published successfully (ie, your book didn't tank). Authors who have already built a following through trade publishing tend to do better when self-publishing. Next?
4.) Which are the publishers that are most likely to be looking for the genre you've written in? 5.) Where do the readers of your genre get their book recommendations from?
I agree with one and three, but even two is a bit controversial, because it depends on the niche. Niche books aren't likely to be picked up by Big 5 publishers, for sure, but there are some small publishers who serve certain niches really well. It might almost depend on Amazon search terms - is there a category that will serve your niche well and make your books easily discoverable by people who are looking for books in your niche? 4. You have adequate funds to pay the up-front costs associated with self-publishing well. (I'd estimate minimum $1K, and that's assuming you're either getting your book edited at a serious discount or are designing your own cover or are otherwise cutting corners) 5. You have good reason to believe your book is of publishable quality. (This one's tough, of course, but important. The assessment shouldn't come from friends or family or English teachers or even MFA instructors... and it sure as hell shouldn't come from anyone you're paying to assess or improve your novel. I'm not sure how someone can really determine this, absent industry experience or the traditional gatekeepers - anyone else know?) 6. You're willing to accept that you may lose money on the book. (This is where risk comes into it, I guess. With trade publishing, you pay nothing and usually get an advance. With self-publishing you start in the hole, and may never make enough to climb out of it.) 7. You value independence over access to expertise. (This sounds value-laden, the way I'm phrasing it, but I'm not sure how to rephrase. And it's obviously a bit tied in to point 1, but I think it's separate enough to be useful. Some people don't want anyone else to tell them the best ways to edit/cover design/interior design/market/promote - they want to decide that for themselves. But obviously one person, probably without much experience, can't actually be better than a large group of people who've spent their professional lives developing expertise in these fields. The individual may be able to think outside the box, devote more time and energy, etc., so I'm calling that "independence" - maybe there's a better word?) Others?
