Have you ever read a really good self-published novel?

MartinD said:

I haven't. This month, I finished two self-published books (one by an AW'er) and I'm unimpressed.

I keep books I want to read. In the last two years, I've read ten self-published novels and I gave them all away. I bought most of the books at book signings because, if I ever have a signing, I'd like someone to buy my novel. I'm still waiting on a keeper. For the most part, characterization has been poor, spelling has been hit-or-miss, and three of the novels gave up on plot quickly.

Only three of the novels had a professional-looking cover. Most of them felt too heavy for their page count (I don't know why) and several of them had pages that seemed artificially white (I don't know why). I know this post sounds negative, and is, but this has been my experience.

I'm getting depressed about self-published novels so, if anyone here has read a really good self-pub, let me know. Please don't include the books you wrote or those books written by your family member/loved ones/that kind of thing.

Click to expand...

Martin,

I've never read one and don't expect to. I was a literary agent for many years; I'm way too familiar with what unedited, unagented work looks like. But I think it's really kind of you to buy self-published books at signings.

Barbara

brainstorm77 said:

. . . how would the book be classified?. . . .

Click to expand...

Subsidy published. If the author does not own the ISBN, the book is not self-published. See link in my sig block, below, for a discussion of the terminology. (Not everyone shares my definitions, but at least I made them explicit.)

--Ken

Equating self-published works with unedited, unagented work is very presumptuous.

Why would an agented work be different from an unagented work?

Just because it's agented doesn't mean it will be professionally edited.

A professionally edited work may never be agented if the author decides to self-publish.

Cryptozoica was represented by two agents and neither one of them did any editing on it.

Frankly, my experience with Cryptozoica has been so positive, I seriously doubt I'll go the "traditional" route again...mainly because by the time I'm ready to release another book, what passes for "traditional" publishing will be something entirely different than we understand it to be now.

In my opinion, anyhow...and not that it matters but so far, virtually everything I predicted about the publishing industry back in December of 2008 in the wake of Black Wednesday has come to pass.

Go figure.

Axler said:

Equating self-published works with unedited, unagented work is very presumptuous. . . . .

Click to expand...

Some of my self-publishing friends and acquaintances pay good money for professional editing, book design, and typesetting. Some have rejected commercial publication and even buy-outs by commercial publishers.

--Ken

ResearchGuy said:

Subsidy published. If the author does not own the ISBN, the book is not self-published. See link in my sig block, below, for a discussion of the terminology. (Not everyone shares my definitions, but at least I made them explicit.)

--Ken

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info on the ISBN. It's something that never crossed my mind, but makes perfect sense.

Yes, The Bible.

ResearchGuy said:

Some of my self-publishing friends and acquaintances pay good money for professional editing, book design, and typesetting. Some have rejected commercial publication and even buy-outs by commercial publishers.

--Ken

Click to expand...

Indeed. But the stereotype is based on a general correlation that is rather strong. When using a method that does not require good editing and design, most people will not bother. The best self-publishered books are excellent, the majority--I think it really is quite fair to say--are not.

It may not be "fair" to make these kind of statements about the general body of self-published work, but it is also not unreasonable. The reader of self-published books has to be rather careful in what they acquire--yes, even more so than the reader of commercial mass market paperbacks.

veinglory said:

, , , the majority--I think it really is quite fair to say--are not . . .

Click to expand...

Quite true. And of course many range from mediocre to awful. I just like to head off the misperception that all self-publishers are too inattentive (shall we say) to take care that their products be good ones, or that it is not possible to to the job to high standards.

--Ken

Granted that it's not unreasonable to make that assumption...but you could argue that it's not unreasonable to assume that majority of paranormal romances are formula-driven hackwork that feature the heroine having an affair with some dead guy.

Axler said:

Granted that it's not unreasonable to make that assumption...but you could argue that it's not unreasonable to assume that majority of paranormal romances are formula-driven hackwork that feature the heroine having an affair with some dead guy.

Click to expand...

as i said...

Isn't 'hackwork' another way of saying 'wrote it for money'?

As in...'didn't have to pay someone else to publish it'?

Hackwork means it was written according to a formula, with standard issue characters and situations and the writer didn't extend him or herself to come up with any new or novel ideas...i.e., the book was "hacked" out.

Money has nothing to do with it.

Axler said:

Granted that it's not unreasonable to make that assumption...but you could argue that it's not unreasonable to assume that majority of paranormal romances are formula-driven hackwork that feature the heroine having an affair with some dead guy.

Click to expand...

Actually I would not and could not make such as argument and do not see the parallel.

I am not saying quality control is lower with self-published books because I have a prejudice against that type of book. I am saying it because I have read a pretty good sample of them and despite having no such prejudice, that is what I observed. Specifically the tendency to have multiple spelling errors, improper formatting such as a lack of justification etc.... Technical error are noticeably more common in the books I have been sent for review by self-publishers. Exceptions and fine work is common (about 10% of what I buy and 20% of what I am sent to review) but the norm is still there.

Whereas calling most paranormal romance hack work is a subjective value judgement. It suggests a model of writing romance that, if is exists at all, is not the norm. I have read about as many romances as self-published book and with similar enthusiasm. The number of romances I would call hackwork would be less than 1% not more than 50%. So I think you are calling my objective observation a value judgement, and it is not.

But if you have read a large sample of both and can draw the parallel based on objective qualities of each types of book, do tell.

veinglory said:

. . . I am not saying quality control is lower with self-published books because I have a prejudice against that type of book. I am saying it because I have read a pretty good sample of them and despite having no such prejudice, that is what I observed. . . . .

Click to expand...

As a supporter of self-publishing (done right by those for whom it is a good choice), and as someone who has examined a fair number of self-published books (and has read thousands of commercially published books), I have to say, you are entirely correct, veinglory. The plain fact of the matter is that few self-publishers whose work I have seen have taken the care that would be taken for a commercially published book. (It is too damned expensive and they don't realize how essential it is to have other well-qualified eyes on the manuscript and able hands formatting it.) And some who think they have taken such care have, in some cases I know, nonetheless produced books laden with errors. Granted, I'm working from a modest and non-random sample. But those (like yours) are observations, not assumptions.

FWIW.

--Ken

Two self pubbed books. One by an AW'er (Arcadia Snips and the Steamworks Consortium) and one I ran into at a local Costco.
I absolutely loved Arcadia Snips, and recommend it regularly. I reviewed it on my blog, and it was one of our monthly choices on my Facebook Steampunk Book Club.
The other, sadly, I had to put down. It was horrible.
Im not talking about editing. Im talking about the quality of the novel. The one I could not read, was quite frankly, horribly written. The prose was heavy and trying to hard to be poetic.
Sometimes, a good book simply cant bet published any other way, there simply are not enough openings with the big publishers.
Other times, a self-pubbed book did not get picked up for a reason.
Unfortunately, there is not easy way to tell the difference. You have to pick it up and read it. Or follow recommendations by friends or bloggers you respect.

veinglory said:

But if you have read a large sample of both and can draw the parallel based on objective qualities of each types of book, do tell.

Click to expand...

I probably could, but the point is not whether all paranormal romances are hackwork or all self-published books are crap--it's all a matter of drawing conclusions based on subjective experiences (value judgements/observations) which are essentially ancedotal.

There's no real objective perceptions in this. What I might consider sheer formulaic hackwork could seem like brilliantly fresh ideas to someone else.

I've seen horribly designed and edited "traditionally" published books, but other people who don't have that touchstone aren't going to notice what I do.

It's like the hoopla over Inception...yeah, it's a good movie, but it's not mind-blowing and perception-staggering to people like me who have been reading and writing SF professionally for decades.

It really doesn't matter anyway. As far as I can see, self-publishing is going to become the norm, even among professional writers.

Axler said:

Equating self-published works with unedited, unagented work is very presumptuous.

Why would an agented work be different from an unagented work?

Just because it's agented doesn't mean it will be professionally edited.

A professionally edited work may never be agented if the author decides to self-publish.

Cryptozoica was represented by two agents and neither one of them did any editing on it.

Frankly, my experience with Cryptozoica has been so positive, I seriously doubt I'll go the "traditional" route again...mainly because by the time I'm ready to release another book, what passes for "traditional" publishing will be something entirely different than we understand it to be now.

Click to expand...

I'm sorry you think it's presumptuous, but I stand by what I said. Of course there are exceptions; some writers do get their work professionally edited before publishing it themselves, though most just have a friend look it over at best. Not all agents edit, though some do; but once they sell the work to a commercial publisher, it typically goes through at least two levels of editing before it's published, and that can make all the difference. Even the best writer can only see what she can see, while a good editor can see the stuff the writer doesn't (most of which seems obvious once pointed out.)

There are niche applications for which self-publishing works well and makes sense, and I'm all in favor of the Authors Guild's new "Back in print" program. But for the vast majority of books, there are huge advantages to having one's work published by a commercial (as opposed to vanity or subsidy or diy) publisher: reviews, distribution, subsidiary rights sales, including translation, professional props, promotion, advertising if you're lucky, and of course sales. Bestsellers almost never spring forth spontaneously; they're manufactured and positioned for success months before publication. When a major house gets behind a book, it's huge.

The whole process of seeking an agent and submitting is agonizingly prolonged and frustrating, but it serves a purpose. Of course there are a lot of bad novels published, but the contents of an agent's slush pile are of a different order of badness, and those are generally the books that go on to be self-published.

I'm glad you had a good experience self-publishing, and I don't want to rain on anyone's parade. If it works for you, great. But I think that there are still great advantages to commercial publication.

Barbara R. said:

But I think that there are still great advantages to commercial publication.

Click to expand...

Of course there are...my books were commercially published for fifteen years.

What I resist is the either/or attitude...the presumption that books that weren't picked up by a commercial house just flat-out weren't good enough to be published period and should be trashed.

As far as editors at commercial publishers go, so many of them now are basically pitch-men...an editor likes a manuscript, pitches it to the sales department, has it turned down because they think it would be too hard to sell it (for whatever reason), then the editor sends it back to the writer (or the agent), perhaps with a sympathetic note, perhaps not.

In that case, should the writer just toss the manuscript because of what a salesman said who based his rejection on a one sentence high-concept description provided by an editor?

Nah...not in my opinion.

They should explore all the other options, which are gaining ground every day.

I understand that why some people in publishing who have a vested interest in maintaining at least the general perception of the status at quo want to retreat into denial mode.

Commercial publishing has been undergoing massive changes for the last 18 months and once something is done, it can't be undone.

There's no going back to the way things were.

Paul said:

Yes, The Bible.

Click to expand...

Touche. Thanks for laugh. Made my day!

Sean

Axler said:

Of course there are...my books were commercially published for fifteen years.



I understand that why some people in publishing who have a vested interest in maintaining at least the general perception of the status at quo want to retreat into denial mode.

Commercial publishing has been undergoing massive changes for the last 18 months and once something is done, it can't be undone.

There's no going back to the way things were.

Click to expand...

Now that's presumptuous. If I disagree with you, I'm a Luddite with vested interests?

Of course publishing is evolving. The surge in ebook sales alone is game-changing. I don't know how things are going to shake out, but the industry will be very different. I suspect, though, that major publishers will still exist and still matter. I mean, can you imagine a brick-and-mortar bookstore given over to self-published/vanity books? No one in his right minds would shop there. Of course, it's possible that such stores will go the way of brick-and-mortar music stores, which will be a sad thing for those of us who like to paw the books we buy.

Midlist writers whose work is dropped by their regular publishing houses are in a very tough position these days, very often through no fault of their own. I don't blame anyone for exploring other options. But for most people, not all, self-publishing is still vanity publishing. If the idea is to be read, not just "published," they're likely to be disappointed.

Axler said:

I probably could, but the point is not whether all paranormal romances are hackwork or all self-published books are crap--it's all a matter of drawing conclusions based on subjective experiences (value judgements/observations) which are essentially ancedotal.

Click to expand...

Well, as I have said, have have read about 100 self-published books. I have writtten reviews for about half for them for POD people. You can consider that I am either lying or delusional when I say that is a clear different in quality of presentation between these books and the commersial books I have read. But is is my experience and it is based on concrete technical errors, not judgements on the artictic or genre quality of the content.

If you like I could pull a sample of the shelf, count the typos and scan the pages for you to check, but there is already another blog that does this.

If you really think a method of publishing with no barriers has identical average quality to commerical publishing that is fine. But you seem to be implying my subjective expeience is based on an a prior disdain of self-publishing, and that would be wrong.

But there are still ways to judge anecdotal evidence, let us try it:

I would still ask, just how many self-published books written by people unknown to you have you read? (Me: about 100)

What biasses do you have? (Me: I have toyed with self-publishing a book for about 5 years but not done it yet. I am an enthusiastic, money-spending consuder of self-pubished books. So i kind of like them but derive no income from them.).

How good are you generally at being objective? (Me: I am a full time scientist and trained psychologist--so I have some idea how the insidious mechanism of the human mind works, and I am doing my best to be objective).

So, my experience is reasonably extensive, while recognising the flaws of most self-published books I still like them and buy one about once a month, and I am about as good at being a reliable self-reporter as anyone.

Also I would aks you, is the fashion on Etsy on average of the same quality as what you would get from a clothing store in terms of the stitching (not the style), is the speed of the joggers in your neighborhood the same as for a professional athlete? In a few cases the answer is yes, oin most it is no. Self-publishers are mostly ameteurs who most neither abide by nor particularly care about professional norma. the exceptions to this rule are all the more admirable for being driven, skilled... and rare.

Further up this thread I gave a long list of self-published books I consider great to excellent (8 to 10/10). My rating is more meaningful, I think, because I rate the average self-published book approximately a 6. I don't give them all a 10 just for trying.

As for a vested interest. I am an amateur who makes a few thousand publishing erotic ebooks. If you think that makes me part of the great commercial publishing machine then a sense of perspective is called for. I have never submitted fiction to an agent of large commercial publisher--I probably never will.

Is your own perspective as quasi-objective. How about answering the same questions I did in this post and letting people judge for themselves?

My comment on this is Sturgeon's Law--"90% of everything is crap"--and Sullivan's Corollary--"Sturgeon was an optimist."

One reason it is harder to find excellent self-published fiction than it is to find excellent self-published non-fiction is that self-publication is, in the current marketplace, a better idea on the whole for non-fiction than for fiction.

The reason for this is that self-published non-fiction that targets niche interests or markets may be sold quite successfully through the author's existing platforms--a mailing list or blog about the niche interest, or a local historical society/veteran's group/professional organization that represents the niche market.

Self-published fiction, on the other hand, is awfully hard to promote and distribute, so many of the most market-savvy fiction authors pursue commercial publication.

Another reason why it is easier to find excellent self-published non-fiction than it is to find excellent self-published fiction is the structure of the publishing industry. Someone might write an incredibly detailed, well-researched, brilliantly written book on a topic of interest to 800 or 1,000 people, which would make it hard for them to find placement with a commercial publisher.

Brilliantly written fiction, on the other hand, tends to be possible to sell to a commercial publisher. Not always--genres and styles go in and out of fashion, and there are examples like John Kennedy Toole's Confederacy of Dunces and Barbara Pym's late novels, which were published after decades of rejection to great critical acclaim and strong sales--but on the whole, if you have written an excellent, polished novel, you can generally find some commercial publisher (perhaps a small press, but still) to take it on. (Cf. John Grisham's first book with Wildwood Press, or Tom Clancy's first book with the Naval Institute Press.)

So the supply of excellent fiction in the self-publishing stream is getting there from a smaller group of folks: the folks who choose self-publishing for the autonomy, the folks whose particular genre/subgenre is currently hard to sell despite the excellence of the work, and the folks who are excellent writers but not all that savvy about how the market works.

This group of people, who certainly exist, are swamped in numbers by the people who are not all that savvy about how the market works and ALSO not all that savvy about how to write novels well. So the chaff to wheat ratio is much higher in the self-published fiction world than in the self-published non-fiction world.

Will this change over time? Maybe. And yes, there are people who choose self-publication for some works and commercial publication for others (Brian Keene, for instance) and their work is at the same standard of professionalism regardless of path to publication.

Axler, I wish you all the best with your book, and hope that self-publishing turns out to be a fantastic choice for you. I mean that sincerely. But bashing other people's writing, or indeed the world's best-selling fiction genre as a whole, is not a good way to exhibit professionalism as a writer or as a publisher.

IceCreamEmpress said:

My comment on this is . . . .

Click to expand...

Lucid and thoughtful.

--Ken

IceCreamEmpress said:

My comment on this is Sturgeon's Law--"90% of everything is crap".

Click to expand...

Damn...you beat me to it.

I'm not going to get into the debate over whether there are any decent self-published books out there, because it's a purely subjective thing - when it comes to story telling anyway.

On the spelling, formatting and grammar front though, in my experience there's a lot of writers who don't put enough work into this. They might have a cracking idea for a novel, but if it's awash with adverbs, modifiers and 'their, they're and there' confusions, then it's going to be classed as crap pretty quickly - and deservedly so.

I've tried my absolute hardest to eradicate typos and errors from the book I've self-published - and think I've done a good job. I work as a copywriter for a living, so I better had. I'm sure some have slipped through the cracks though.

Try as hard as I might to explain, some people just won't have it that a book MUST be edited by a professional. Having a buddy give it the once over - or several buddies for that matter - just won't cut it.

Problem is, a lot of indie authors are touchy, and will see a criticism about typos as a crticism of their talent - which of course it isn't. All authors make errors in their writing, that's why editors exist.

...oh to hell with it, I will comment on the quality of the story-telling:

Of the self-pubbed books I've looked at in the past four months since publishing my book, maybe four have been of a good enough quality to continue reading IMO.

JoNightshade said:

I believe The Shack was self published originally. (I could be wrong.) I read that. Lots of people liked it. I did not like it, but lots of people did.

Click to expand...

You're right, The Shack was originally self published. I feel it's an outstanding book, but its subject matter may have been one that agents and/or publishers did not feel would sell. I don't know. All I know is I would love to read more of this author's books.

This type of self publishing story for a novelist, however, is very rare.

I have not read any self published books I enjoy--which are few.

Nothing at all wrong with self publishing, as it is a personal choice. However, you have to make your work the best it can be under any publishing circumstance.

Need to add: self-published nonfiction has more of a chance of being picked up by a publisher. I have known some writers who have gone through this experience. Jeff Yeager, author of The Ultimate Cheapskate, is one example. He's been very successful and now has a second book out.