Day 18: Writing – Is self-publishing a good idea?

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts Write something about writing

Day 18: Writing – Is self-publishing a good idea?

Writers are notorious procrastinators. When an idea for a novel is shiny and new they are filled with enthusiasm and scribble (or type) with fire in their hearts and in their fingers, but as time marches on and chapters fail to materialize they’ll use any excuse not to write.

It’s too cold, it’s too hot, they’re tired from working all day, the house needs cleaning, the lawn needs mowing ... you name it and they’ll use it.

Some of them, with every intention to write, sit down and fire up their computer only to stare at the screen or keyboard. From there they’re just minutes away of getting up to make a cup of tea, take the dog for a walk, play with the cat, or do something else that for one reason or another can’t wait.

Me, I’ve given up on novel writing. I wrote and self-published three novels and two children’s books and while I have a forth novel in the making, it’s gathering dust. I just don’t have the motivation anymore to continue writing.

I tried reading a few self-published works and they were bad. Not just bad, they were awful and I thought ... is my work as bad as theirs? No wonder self-publishing has such a bad reputation. So, if and when I decide to continue to write on my fourth novel, I will try to find a literary agent and if I fail, I will shelf the project. If they don’t think it’s good enough, if nobody wants it, then it obviously isn’t good enough for publication.

Every day I see self-published writers promoting their work, tooting their horn about how good, unique or interesting their book is. And I wonder ... did these people even try to find an agent/publisher? If they spend half as much time trying to get published mainstream as they do trying to convince readers to buy their book, maybe, just maybe their work might have been picked up by an agent.

Other than the content of those self-published books, the covers bother me equally. All too often I see book covers with half naked men, showing off their pecks, muscled arms and iron board flat stomachs. Is this what is supposed to make me buy a book? Do these self-published writers think that because some guy is on the cover I’m going to like the story they’ve written?

Other books sport such a plain and boring cover that I don’t even give them a second look. I’m sure you’re familiar with the saying ‘You can’t judge a book by its cover’ ... but this is total baloney. If this saying was true, then why do not all books have white covers with black lettering or black covers with white lettering?

Fact of the matter is, book covers are important, they are very important. You should see how publishers agonize over the right cover for a book. The picture, the colors, the title, the font of the lettering ... idea after idea is presented and rejected until the right combination is found.

While I understand that writers are proud of their work, I don’t like them bragging about it or announcing how many copies they’ve sold or their Amazon rank.

In comparison, I’m reading ‘The Alchemist’ now and what I liked about this author right away is that he was honest enough to state in his foreword that when ‘The Alchemist’ was first published it was a flop. The book didn’t sell, and his publisher canceled his contract. By sheer coincidence the book found another publisher and this time it was a success.

Something that always strikes me when I read a book is that the author has several people to thank. People who helped them in their research, people who supported them and pushed them to keep going, people who read the first draft of a manuscript and suggested changes, and most noteworthy of all, they thank their editor.

A good editor is worth his weight in gold. He will take an ordinary story and make it good, he will a good story and make it brilliant. This and the above mentioned is precisely what self-published writers lack ... they don’t have someone to read their manuscript and give them honest feedback. Writers invariably have fragile feelings and don’t take well to criticism. In turn, family and friends often don’t dare to voice their true opinion.

While there are undoubtedly good self-published books out there, the majority of those I have tried to read should never have seen the light of day.

Feel free to comment. I’d love to hear from you.

www.connymanero.weebly.com

The good, the bad and the OMG

In the world of literature, there are famous authors, published writers, self-published works and people who have completed a manuscript or want to write a story, but are too afraid to publish.

It’s hardly surprising.  Writers who tried to publish their work tell horror stories of contacting literary agent after literary agent, only to receive a polite letter of rejection.  One writers admitted that he received so many rejections, that he wallpapered his office with them.

Being an avid reader and book buyer, I have a favorite set of authors.  Whenever I go to the book store, I scan the shelves for their names first, looking if they’ve come out with something new.  I just know if I buy from them I’m guaranteed a good story.

For the longest time I believed this to be true, but now I’m not so sure anymore.

The latest novel of one of my favorite authors was a total let down.  The first chapter dragged on, I thought the story would improve but it didn’t, if anything it got worse.  The story was uninteresting, the characters unsympathetic and the setting as dull as dishwater.  I gave up at page 106.

How was it possible that this writer, whose previous book was an absolute masterpiece of imagination could produce something so bad?  

When I needed something else to read, and couldn’t find anything of my favorites, I took a chance on the debut novel of a new author.  Part of me was interested in the story (having read the synopsis) and another part wanted to find out what it was that had captured a literary agent’s attention to take a chance on the writer.  What made the story unique?

The story was unique alright, unique in crappiness.  With that book I only made it to page 27, before I tossed it aside thinking “How could this have found a publisher?”  Was this what agents were looking for?  Stories so over the top in their ridiculousness that they became laughable?

I wonder how many other people got fooled and bought the book?  I wonder how many will do the same as me and return the book to the store?

I really think there are a lot of self-published authors out there who deserve the attention of the respected publishing houses and I also think that a lot of mainstream authors need to rethink what they’re writing.

It’s not because they’re published by Orion that they’re good; it’s not because someone is self-published that they’re work is inferior.

Selling books

I noticed a post on Facebook today that stated that for a literary agent to show an interest in a self-published book, the author should be able to present sales figures of around 20,000 copies.

I have news for that literary agent … if I can sell 20,000 copies of my books, I don’t need her services. 

Let’s face it, some books fly off the shelves, because of the name of the author while others gather dust because the author is a nobody.  Does that make the books of the big name authors any better … I doubt it.  I’m sure there are excellent self-published novels, while some stories of name authors never should have been printed.

Take J.K. Rowling latest effort for instance.  To say that it gets mixed reviews is putting it mildly.  Some critics rave about her writing abilities, others are less than enthused.  Fact is, A Casual Vacancy was a best seller before it was even available.  Proof that readers care about a name, not a story.

Personally I don’t put much stock in what critics have to say, I’d like to see for myself. 

On the one hand A Casual Vacancy is brilliantly written.  Rowling paints the picture of a cute little town and strips away all the veneer to show its inhabitants in all their disgusting glory.  The question is … do readers want to be confronted with such reality?

The story holds an “interesting” variety of characters, but there’s nothing likeable about them.  I don’t know about you, but if I don’t like certain characters I don’t care about  them, and if I don’t care about them why would I want to know what happens to them?  Why would I 

care about:

A heroin addict

A teenage town whore

Two perverted boys

A man who is abusive to his wife and children

A wife who is a doormat

In my opinion, if a nobody had written A Casual Vacancy, nobody would have shown any interest.  But because the book is of the hand of the great J.K. Rowling it turns into a bestseller. 

But back to self-published books.  What they mainly lack is good P.R.  If nobody knows about the book, how is it ever going to sell?  Robin mentions a few interesting strategies in her blog post http://robintidwell.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/selling-books/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook

  

Meetups, writers’ groups, book clubs, volunteer organizations. All of these are places to meet people, talk to people, and mention your book.

Good advice Robin, but who has that kind of time?  Most people have jobs and when they come home there cooking and cleaning to be done.

Send a review copy to your local stores. If they see it, in their hands, and look at it, they might take a chance on you.

Another good idea, but here’s the thing.  I did that and was greeted with a lot of enthusiasm, until the store owner found out that my book was self-published and suddenly I was cold product.

In suburbs where book stores are privately owned a self-published author might have a chance, but where I live (Toronto) the book industry is monopolized by Chapters Indigo and they won’t touch a self-published author with a ten foot pole.

Organizing book signings is a tricky situation.  Let’s say that an author does manage to get a signing, he needs to invest in a certain quantity of his work.  That requires not only financial resources but a car.  Have you ever tried to lug around + 50 books?  If they sell, great, if not you’re a few hundred dollars out of pocket.

It all comes down to money.  If you have money you can enlist the help of a P.R. firm, you can stock your own books and you can devote all your time to blowing your own horn.  If you don’t have money … well, you’re pretty much on your own.

Still, I’ll take some of your advice and I’ll let you know what happens.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/sep/27/jk-rowling-the-casual-vacancy-review-roundup

When is it time to give up

It has been said that everyone has a story in them.  Some have nodded and thought “That’s possible”, while the more intrepid souls reached for pen and paper, or fired up their computer, and started writing. 

After the first paragraph or the first page, some came to the conclusion that telling their life story was more challenging than expected and gave up.  Others diligently wrote page after page until they had created a novella or a whole novel.  It had taken weeks, months or in some cases even years to complete their life’s work.  Now what?

Now that the manuscript is finished they want to share their story with the world.  After all, what good is writing something if nobody gets to read it?

They grew ambitious and contacted a few publishers only to be disappointed by the message “No unsolicited manuscripts accepted”.  Research told them that in order to get a manuscript published a writer needs a literary agent.  This, however, is easier said than done.  Even though there are hundreds of literary agents, getting the attention of one is as difficult as climbing Mount Everest.  It can be done, but only a few succeed.

When the first rejection arrives, the writer is disappointed but not discouraged.  After all, everyone gets rejections, right?  From what he heard even now famous authors had a few rejections in their time.  He remembers the saying “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again”.  So he does, again and again and again.

But when he receives rejection after rejection after rejection until he can wallpaper his office with the negative feedback, when does he start thinking of giving up?

Perhaps in that moment he remembers the cartoon of a frog being stuck in the beak of a stork, the frog’s front paws around the stork’s neck and the caption “Never give up!”  It’s funny and in a way encouraging, but how true is it?  Should we never give up, or is there a time that we should put down our pens, switch off our computers, burn the manuscript and think “Enough is enough”.

Is what's good for the goose really good for the gander?

Tonight I followed a conversation about whether or not to offer constructive criticism on a manuscript.  Some recommended being brutally honest.

I tend to disagree.  Everybody has different tastes and as such a different opinion.  You may like a sweet and sappy story, someone else may hate it.  You may like a murder mystery and think ‘the bloodier the better’, someone else might prefer something a little more subtle.  So criticizing someone’s work should always be done with extreme caution.

Take into account that this person has worked on his manuscript for weeks, maybe even months.  It started with an idea, through bouts of inspiration it took shape, with hard work and perseverance it was finished. 

Since finding a literary agent or publisher is extremely difficult, the author then proceeded to self-publish, because he’s proud of his work and feels he has something to share. 

Having read hundreds of books and followed several critiques, I can honestly say that I put no stock whatsoever into what a critic has to say.  What he gives is his opinion of the book, which may or may not be the opinion of the general public. 

The same with movies and plays.  How often have you read a raving review about a movie and were thoroughly disappointed when you saw it yourself?  By the same token, how often have you seen a movie the critics slammed, and loved it?  There is simply no accounting for taste.

Keep in mind that even J.K. Rowling had to take a certain amount of criticism and rejection when she approached literary agents and publishers with the first Harry Potter book.  Whether you like or dislike the Harry Potter series … today J.K. Rowling is richer than the queen of England.  Can you say as much?

Other than that, authors are only as good as their editors.  Open any book and read the acknowledgements, each and every author will thank her editor(s).  They are the ones who read the original work, slashed unnecessary details and advised what should be expanded upon. 

But even with an editor’s help, a book sometimes is not all that it could or should be.  Take “Duma Key” from Stephen King for instance.  In general people rave about Stephen King.  I only read 35 pages on “Duma Key” and tossed it.  In those 35 pages the main character did nothing but swearing and shouting.  Okay, so he was angry.  Mr. King didn’t have to devote 35 pages to that emotion, I understood the man anger in one or two pages.  Couldn’t King’s editor have advised him to slash 33 pages?

In the end it’s all about personal choice.  What’s good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander.  If you have to offer criticism, think before you speak.  How would you like to hear someone trash your work?