Thriller writer hits it big in the Kindle Store

onesecondglance

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Hi Hugh,

interesting article. What do you think? Have you had similar experiences in publishing? Do you agree with the conclusions?
 

stormie

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It can happen, but it's rare.

One thing, though, about self-publishing that I've noticed more times than not*: the books aren't ready for prime-time. In fact, one book I'm reading now was self-pubbed through CreateSpace and has 6,000+ reviews, mostly four and five star. The book seriously needs not just line editing for grammatical and spelling errors, but a bit of an overhaul. It's more of a "he said, she said," telling-and-not-showing memoir. The one and two star reviews even address this. Somehow, though, the author garnered 63% five star reviews. How, I don't know.

ETA: *there are self-pubbed books that are well-written. Just wanted to clarify.
 
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Hi onesecond and Hugh. I had a very supportive small publisher with the first one but still had to step up and do a lot myself. It really all depends on a touch of luck, getting the right person to read your book, it also take a heck of a lot of work to make that one person find the book in the first place.

A year after Distortion came out, the right person read it. They wrote that they were putting it on their email list. so my publisher put it on .99 special and that's how we hit the top 10. Like the guy in the article, I wasn't ready with another book so two years later will hope to build on it, fingers crossed.

I think it takes a lot of creativity and luck to get noticed. It has very little to do with the quality of the book—until this right person reads it. Then it does. My conclusion: work really hard to write a great book, then work really hard on promoting. No shortcuts.

The article does have a lot of great ideas. Thanks for posting.

Lucie
 

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Hi Hugh,

interesting article. What do you think? Have you had similar experiences in publishing? Do you agree with the conclusions?

I've had no experiences with publishing as of yet, I'll actually have to finish something worthwhile before I enter the publishing phase.

I pretty much agree with what was said about self-pubbing, but what was not said (because it is impolite to say it) is that a writer needs to be honest with him or herself and ask if what they have is really publishable material. A writer can't just hack out a story, upload it to a book selling website and declare themselves published. I could do that myself and try not to look embarrassed when someone pats me on the head and tell me what a brave "indie" author I am.
 

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I pretty much agree with what was said about self-pubbing, but what was not said (because it is impolite to say it) is that a writer needs to be honest with him or herself and ask if what they have is really publishable material. A writer can't just hack out a story, upload it to a book selling website and declare themselves published. I could do that myself and try not to look embarrassed when someone pats me on the head and tell me what a brave "indie" author I am.
Yes. This is what bothers me. Too many people are jumping on the self-pub bandwagon and saying they're authors, yet the writing needs polishing.

I'm having trouble with the books that are getting rave reviews by many (so I know it's not just relatives and close friends doing the reviewing), yet the characters are one-dimensional, the spelling and grammar beg for the red pen, and the few who do call out the problems that are glaring, are, again, the few. Perhaps most readers today don't see the inconsistencies, the errors, or the lack of good storytelling? Is it because we, as a society are so used to texting?

Okay. I'm off my soapbox. :)
 

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Yes. This is what bothers me. Too many people are jumping on the self-pub bandwagon and saying they're authors, yet the writing needs polishing.
The authors may or may not be aware that their writing needs polishing. If we look back at our work from several years ago, we may cringe. We keep writing, we keep improving, but we often can't see where those improvements need to be made when we've just finished writing and polishing. At that point, it's as good as we can make it and that is, of course, awesome. And that's where self-publishing can become a too-tempting option. I'm a big proponent of "let it sit" for a good long while. Everyone's got their own measuring stick.

Perhaps most readers today don't see the inconsistencies, the errors, or the lack of good storytelling? Is it because we, as a society are so used to texting?
I think that many readers are less critical (I hope it's not because of texting!), and as writers we expect certain things from the books we read. But it could also speak to the story rising above those inconsistencies and errors for the majority of those who reviewed the book.

As the article notes, it's difficult to break through the noise of the crowd and start building a dedicated following with consistent, and growing, sales when you self-publish. It's great to see stories of those who've made a success of it.
 

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I'm having trouble with the books that are getting rave reviews by many (so I know it's not just relatives and close friends doing the reviewing), yet the characters are one-dimensional, the spelling and grammar beg for the red pen ...

There are some really great self-pub authors with good books that deserve great reviews. There are alśo a lot of authors who trade reviews. They're usually four or five star.

But not to pick on them, large publishers often pay for reviews. They wrap a lovely package and great editing around awful, story-less books all the time.

And ditto what Namatu said. I'm just happy to see ANY fresh face break through the crowd. I don't care how or who publishes them, I don't care whether it's a first book or fifth, I just love seeing fresh names on the NYTBS list
 
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This is what bothers me. Too many people are jumping on the self-pub bandwagon and saying they're authors.

I remember five years ago when this was the main complaint of nearly every traditionally published author out there.


Kinda funny how things... shift.
 

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" Dawson is pumping $370 a day into
Facebook advertising and he’s receiving
double that in return on investment."

interesting , I also like how it covered his past mistakes. and good to see him do well after all his hard work.
 

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I'm both. I still feel the same as I did five years ago.

I was referring to the "traditionally published" authors who publish with major publishers (Big 5) more than small/micro press and indie authors who embraced self publishing. They were the ones who looked down their noses at self published writers and complained about them uploading half baked, sloppily edited manuscripts to Amazon and then calling themselves authors and pretending they were on the same level as their traditionally published peers. The traditionally published authors complaint being that they struggled for years to get their work published, and then Amazon introduced KDP and made is so anyone with an internet connection could do the same.

I used to agree with them, but after a couple years it just became obvious that it didn't matter. The romantic image I had of being a published author was no longer a reality. These days you can assume everyone who reads is a writer, too. Thanks to Amazon removing all barriers to "publication", there's very little pride or sense of achievement in being a published novelist anymore. Now it seems that the only thing to hang your hat on is sales or major awards. That benchmark seems to be the line that separates the contenders from the pretenders these days... Sell a couple hundred thousand copies of a book (one book) or win a Hugo or an Edgar, etc, and then you have something to brag about.

It's all so silly.
 
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stormie

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But even though I'm only pubbed by small publishers (still can be referred to, though, as a "traditional" publisher, Jackx)), and have self-pubbed also, I still feel that way about many self-published books. So in my case, it doesn't matter that you were only referring to those who are with major publishers.

A good friend of mine is in NYC right now for the Edgar awards. He's won twice in the past and is now nominated again. He's been a mystery writer since 1975 when his first book was published. He's had two agents through the years. He, too, has tried self-publishing and has helped others with their books. As he has said to me, there is a need for some sort of "gate keeper" to weed out the books that aren't ready for prime time yet are thrown up on Amazon or Smashwords (mostly as ebooks).
 
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Jackx

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But even though I'm only pubbed by small publishers (still can be referred to, though, as a "traditional" publisher, Jackx)), and have self-pubbed also, I still feel that way about many self-published books. So in my case, it doesn't matter that you were only referring to those who are with major publishers.

But it matters to the point I was making which is that the original comment about self published books used to come mainly from career authors publishing with major publishers, and I found it interesting that now the same comments are also coming from people who self publish about other self published books.

It was a throw away observation on the changes in how self publishing is perceived. That's all… Nothing to see here.
 

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But not to pick on them, large publishers often pay for reviews. They wrap a lovely package and great editing around awful, story-less books all the time.

Trade publishers don't pay for reviews. I've never seen a good publisher pay for a review in all the time I've worked in publishing.

And why would a trade publisher do all that for an "awful, story-less book" when they get so many excellent books submitted to them every day? It doesn't make sense.
 

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Hack, I first thought your note was tongue-in-cheek. What about Bethanne Patrick's #FridayReads, the whole Leapfrogging scandal brought out by Jeff Trachtenberg at WSJ—and reviews were only a small part of it, buying NY Times bestseller slots was the focus.

Perhaps we should each bring to mind our own major book disappointment but here's one from an NPR reviewerA Movie...and A Book. My own was the second by a NY Times bestselling author. (I liked his first.) Luckily it was a review copy and I didn't pay $25 for it. Awesome location but the characters were totally cardboard. One of the equally-weak subplots: A woman's entire family is butchered in front of her at her wedding—including the groom—she's taken as a sex slave, and just pages later, she's falling in love with the enslaver. Thinks he's gentle and good-looking. Seriously? And the cover's gorgeous. Thanks Knopf Doubleday.

That book has loads of great reviews on Amazon but was so maligned on Goodreads that the author went and gave himself a 5-star. "I'm the author but..."

Fake reviews are a scourge on every corner of this industry but they at least are becoming meaningless. When I see a book with like 20 5-star reviews, and pick it up, there's a 50-50 chance it's crap. Like most readers, I know that.
 

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Hack, I first thought your note was tongue-in-cheek. What about Bethanne Patrick's #FridayReads, the whole Leapfrogging scandal brought out by Jeff Trachtenberg at WSJ—and reviews were only a small part of it, buying NY Times bestseller slots was the focus.

I said that trade publishers don't pay for reviews. I stand by that statement.

#FridayReads wasn't a review service. It was a Twitter hashtag promoted by The Book Maven. It began as a free discussion. After a while the people involved were offered money in return for promoting books on that discussion: at this point they made it clear in the FAQs on their site that they occasionally took part in paid-for promotions.

The Leapfrogging issue again wasn't publishers buying reviews: the author of the book hired publicists who bought up stocks of the book in order to get the book onto a best-seller list, and then returned them the following week. I do not see a publisher paying for reviews here.

Perhaps we should each bring to mind our own major book disappointment but here's one from an NPR reviewerA Movie...and A Book. My own was the second by a NY Times bestselling author. (I liked his first.) Luckily it was a review copy and I didn't pay $25 for it. Awesome location but the characters were totally cardboard. One of the equally-weak subplots: A woman's entire family is butchered in front of her at her wedding—including the groom—she's taken as a sex slave, and just pages later, she's falling in love with the enslaver. Thinks he's gentle and good-looking. Seriously? And the cover's gorgeous. Thanks Knopf Doubleday.

That book has loads of great reviews on Amazon but was so maligned on Goodreads that the author went and gave himself a 5-star. "I'm the author but..."

You didn't like the book. That's fine. But that doesn't mean that it's an "awful, story-less book". It just means you don't like it.

Fake reviews are a scourge on every corner of this industry but they at least are becoming meaningless. When I see a book with like 20 5-star reviews, and pick it up, there's a 50-50 chance it's crap. Like most readers, I know that.

I agree with you here. Fake reviews are a bad thing. But they do not proliferate in trade publishing, and it's neither fair nor accurate to claim that they do.
 

Laura S

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I agree with you here. Fake reviews are a bad thing. But they do not proliferate in trade publishing, and it's neither fair nor accurate to claim that they do.

Fake reviews occur no matter what the publishing route. Yes, indie authors will talk to family, friends, and the folks on their writing group lists, asking for positive reviews and thumbs ups and 5 stars. However, I've seen just as many small-press-published and Big 5 published authors do the same exact thing. I don't think it's limited to or predominantly in any specific publishing group. As it becomes more and more critical for authors to be able to say, "XYZ Book has more than 2000 5-star reviews on Amazon," we're going to see this not only continue but become more and more likely. I'm on a couple of group lists for writers, and it's not uncommon to see an author say, "My book just went on sale at Amazon, can everyone please go give it a review?" Suddenly that book has dozens of 5-stars from folks who never read the book. Can I say I blame these authors for this? Not really. They're scrambling to claw their way up the sales numbers chain, and reviews puts them closer to that goal.

As for the comments about poor grammar and punctuation being littered through a lot of books with tons of good reviews, I think the above mentioned issue is part of the cause. However, many in the younger generations are becoming less and less demanding that a book be cleanly written. A very dear friend, a retired English teacher, and I have discussed the fact that her early-twenties daughter can read a book with massive amounts of grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors, and not be fazed by it. She'll still LOVE the book. My friend, on the other hand, cringes to the point she cannot finish the book.

With high-school English classes focusing less and less on proper writing techniques and more and more on projects such as "For this book, create a song list and a CD cover as if you were making it into a movie," (and yes that was actually one of my son's assigned projects in an honors English class in tenth grade) we'll continue to see the degradation of expectation regarding the mechanics of writing.