Are you going for mainstream or self-publishing?

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Orchestra

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I don't really read anything self-published, mostly because it never gets on my radar. There is way too much excellent stuff coming out from big, medium and small publishers for me to go looking for self-published works. I have little need to take chances on books that haven't gone through the vetting and quality control procedures publishers offer to us readers. So far I haven't been very interested in self-publishing but for some books and some audiences it might be the best way to go.
 

dpaterso

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Yeah I'd prefer to go the traditional publishing route (if that's what "mainstream" refers to).

I've got a whole bunch of finished stories and novels I could upload, but why inflict them upon an unsuspecting world? No one deserves such an awful fate.

-Derek
 

Archerbird

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If I ever write anything publishable, traditional. It's what I read.
 

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I don't think it's being "behind the times" to acknowledge that many really bad books are self-published, or that many books are self-published because they couldn't find a home with any trade publishers.

It's very behind the times. Music started out being controlled by a small few and is now universally accessible. Indie Comics and Indie Film are not far behind. Indie Pubbing is.

How is it behind the times to recognise the quality issues inherent in self-publising?

Do you deny that bad books have been self-published? If so, how many have self-published books have you read, and do you think they represent a fair cross-section of what's out there?

If you think all this is true, then you have a very poor understanding of the processes involved in trade publishing and a naive and inflated belief in the design capabilities of your average writer, and a very skewed understanding of copyright law.

I stated an easy and cheap alternative that doesn't rely on the writer to make their own cover or advertisements. Most covers are garbage though. They're a boring photograph with simple filters, a cheesy symbolic representation or words with no image. There are few that strike me as genuine, on it's own art. This isn't true for every book, no, but it's true for most.

That was actually a typo, I meant contracts, not copyrights. Mah bad.

This is what you stated, and what I was replying to in my quote above:

You pay a lot of people who don't do anything to help your story that you can't do yourself. Most novels have lousy cover art. You can go on deviantart and find a good artist or you can make your own cover art (if you're artistic enough) and go punk rock DIY style. No paying an agent, no paying a publishing house, no paying lawyers for their retainer, no confusing copyrights.
Writers who are published by trade publishers don't pay anyone anything. They are paid by their publishers. And their publishers do a huge amount to "help their story" and all sorts of other things besides--much of which writers can't do for themselves, at least, not easily or cheaply. If it were as easy as you seem to think, more self-published writers would have been more successful by now.

I disagree with you that "Most novels have lousy cover art"; I don't think most writers can "make [their] own cover art" if they want a compelling, professional jacket design, even if they're "artistic enough"; and once again, authors don't pay their agents or publishers.

As for your confusing contracts and copyrights--that's a big issue, you know.

A rapper I did artwork for a few years ago was once signed to a major label ... Then, the label canned him. Said they were going to sit on his project. Because his project wasn't making money, he had to pay them back the advance ....

Obviously, this is a different situation than what a writer would face but corporations, especially the biggest ones, are essentially out for nothing more than the bottom line and will screw you over.

It's so different to publishing that it's not a useful analogy. The only time writers have to pay back their advances is when they fail to fulfill the terms of their contracts. If the books fail to sell then the publisher takes the hit. And while publishers are businesses, and therefore are out to make a profit, that doesn't mean that they aim to exploit writers. Publishers want good writers to want to work with them and will often put a lot of effort into keeping them sweet. It doesn't happen all the time: but it does happen.

Selling your book through a main stream publisher might be the right thing for YOU but it isn't right for everybody and anybody who belittles the choices other writers make are the ones with narrow, naive views on publishing.

I agree with you here.
 

Layla Nahar

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Mainstream. Would live to get into the big 6, but a decent small SF publisher would suit me fine, too.
 

LittleKiwi

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I want respect, fame, and money.

So.. you know. Big 6 or Bust.

Lol. This.

I suppose I swing from one extreme to another. If I wasn't able to sell to a Big 6 publisher but still knew it was a good book I think I'd try it on my own. I like the idea of self-publishing, but I'd prefer to have the advance and support network of a commercial publisher.
 

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I'm aiming for the traditional way of becoming published, but as time goes on I'm no longer afraid or embarrassed by the idea of self publishing.

I want people to read my stuff. I won't be satisfied until they do.
 

quicklime

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Indie publishing is not self-publishing.


I so wanted to be the one to point this tiny little elephant in the room out.....

this sub-discussion reminds me of the creationists who argue against evolution with a kind of smug self-assurance, but where after thirty seconds of listening it is obvious they don't actually understand evolutionary theory in the first place. Wait, fruit flies have more chromosomes than people; this disproves evolution...(whoops, chromosomes are the "packing units" DNA sorts into, and have nothing to do with actual number of functional genes or complexity of the organism, neither of which actually have anything to do with evolution anyway.....nevermind the bad science coupled with the straw man, please)

*headdesk
 

Amadan

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I don't understand why the literary world is so behind the times with indie publishing

Dinosaurs fairy dust INDIE!1!! etc. etc.


BINGO! What's my prize?

Self-publishers are nothing like indie musicians. Indie musicians do a lot of work, marketing, touring, producing their albums, etc.

Self-publishers mostly throw their barely edited NaNoWriMo-manuscripts online and hope they'll be the next Amanda Hocking.

The pile of crap in which to search for gold is sizeable in mainstream media, pretty high in indie music, and Everest-sized in self-publishing.
 

bearilou

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All of the above. I have some projects that I have my eye set on the big guys in publishing first, other projects are more niche and I'll probably go with smaller presses first. A couple in the pipeline that I may try my hand at self publishing.

I think it's a very exciting time in the world of being an author, with so many options available to us. However, it behooves us to be aware of the pros and cons of each option and not rely on what other people are saying is the next best thing since sliced bread. To know how to separate the wheat from the chaff and make the best decision for their own needs.

It takes a great deal of self-introspection and personal honesty in our abilities (all of them, not just the writing part) to make those decisions.
 

HoneyBadger

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Self-publishers :: people who record their music into Audacity and burn a CD, then expect other people to pay for it.

Indie publishers :: small record labels

Trade publishers :: major labels (but publishing has WAY less anti-creativeness and artist fuckery than the music industry)
 

Fallen

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I'm just aiming to get paid (outside of my poetry).

I love the epublishing companies, Samhaim, LooseId, etc. With covers and readups like ScarletP's, Idiot's... bloody gorgeous. The one I work for has talent on there that has completely floored me. I'd love to join those ranks (only not with the one I work for, that'd just feel too weird).

But that's just me.
 

Devil Ledbetter

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I was reading Lionel Shriver's account of how her novel, We Need To Talk About Kevin, was rejected by her agent ("I can't sell this unless you take out the climax" basically) and subsequently rejected by 39 more agents.

Thirty-nine agents picked up a book I could not put down, read the first several pages or more, and said "Nah .... I can't possibly sell this."

Shriver never did find an agent for it. She lobbed it over the transom to an editor, it got published, won the Orange prize for fiction in 2005 and is now a major motion picture.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know this is rare and I know it's due more than anything to the reality that Shriver is an excellent writer and storyteller.

But still, for me it hardly engenders confidence in the agenting process, and gives lie to the oft repeated refrain that the gatekeepers (agents) maintain the quality of mainstream publishing, and that any book that can't get agented is probably shit.

I was already losing my religion in that regard; Lionel Shriver sealed the deal for me.

I don't know what, if anything, I'm going to do about it. But I find it really hard to pray to gods I can no longer believe in.
 

bearilou

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I was already losing my religion in that regard; Lionel Shriver sealed the deal for me.

I don't know what, if anything, I'm going to do about it. But I find it really hard to pray to gods I can no longer believe in.

ahyup. When I first came to AW, I was firmly in the 'never self-publish' camp.

Now? :Shrug: Seriously considering it as an option which is why I'm curious enough to try it with a project or two of my own.

I'm not at the point I'm giving up because I haven't gotten that far with my own writing efforts. I do believe that it is worth consideration, though. Like I said, it's actually an exciting time to be a writer. At least for me.
 

LJD

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traditional publishing (for women's fiction).
I've also written some contemporary romance. I think I'll try the e-pub route for that.

I would never self-publish.
 

HoneyBadger

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Thirty-nine agents picked up a book I could not put down, read the first several pages or more, and said "Nah .... I can't possibly sell this."


I don't think I have a problem with this. Chuck Palahniuk had already published Fight Club (which he pitched, like Lionel, right to the publisher) before he landed an agent. The confidence in one's ability to successfully sell a book is, imo, unrelated to how good a book is.

And 39 agent rejections is a pretty low number I think.

Agents can only sell books they have the contacts for, no matter how brilliant it is. I'm not rationalizing AT ALL because my novel is one of those "harder-to-place" books or anything... Clearly I'm not. ;)
 

Devil Ledbetter

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ahyup. When I first came to AW, I was firmly in the 'never self-publish' camp.

Now? :Shrug: Seriously considering it as an option which is why I'm curious enough to try it with a project or two of my own.

I'm not at the point I'm giving up because I haven't gotten that far with my own writing efforts. I do believe that it is worth consideration, though. Like I said, it's actually an exciting time to be a writer. At least for me.
Thank you. I'm glad I'm not the only one.

To be clear, Shriver didn't self publish. What she did was give up on the whole game of Mother May I with agents and go directly to an editor. I'm sure it didn't hurt that she was already a published author and had been represented by agents in the past. I don't kid myself about that.

It's mainly the bald fact that dozens of agents looked at We Need To Talk About Kevin and deemed it unsaleable and unworthy of their time. Tell me this, and tell me how agents really know good literature and good literature can always get agented, then piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.
 

Devil Ledbetter

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The confidence in one's ability to successfully sell a book is, imo, unrelated to how good a book is.
I get that. It's all about whether an agent thinks she can sell a book given her contacts and what she thinks the market is looking for. I have read agent blogs where they say they've passed up great books because for whatever reason, they didn't believe they could sell it. And they should turn those books down, too. The last thing anyone wants is to be agented by someone who can't sell their book, have it shopped all over and then it's dead in the water.

However, none of that bolsters my confidence in the agent/big 6 game. Nor does it leave me agreeing with the assertion that a non-agented book is automatically unworthy.

ETA: Agent whizdumb about WNTTAK was that the book was too critical of the US of A, and since it was post 9/11 no one would stomach it. They were wrong. So what? They're human. I get it, I get it, I get it. But as I've said, I find it harder and harder to have faith in the traditional publishing process.
 

GFanthome

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For my most recent novel, I am sticking hard and fast to chasing down publishers and going the mainstream route until I find one who'll accept it. I know it's a damned fine piece, so I'm willing to be patient and wait for a publisher to wake up and realize this.

For my previous novel, I tried the mainstream route in the past but it's not a subject that will have wide appeal, so I've decided to take the small sum my grandmother left me in her will and use it to self-publish that novel.

I figure this way, I'll have experience in both realms and can decide for myself which route works better for me.
 

Amadan

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It's mainly the bald fact that dozens of agents looked at We Need To Talk About Kevin and deemed it unsaleable and unworthy of their time. Tell me this, and tell me how agents really know good literature and good literature can always get agented, then piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.


You use a lot of the same absolutist rhetoric the more virulent anti-trade-publishing folks do, talking about working with the publishing industry in terms of "faith" and a belief that agents are literary gods who "always" know what sells.

39 agents said "I can't sell this." Yet an editor decided it could sell. A novel that's good enough will sell. There is certainly a degree of luck involved in whether it will sell with the first two or three agents you sub it to, or whether it takes several dozen rejections before you find a publisher. There probably are other books that could have been published, but the author gave up after 30 rejections and self-published.

Let me ask you this: suppose Lionel Shriver had given up after that 39th agent and decided to self-publish her book. What do you think the odds are that as a self-published book, it would have become a best-seller, an Orange prize winner, and a motion picture?
 

dawinsor

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My major doubts about self-publishing come from reading what gets posted directly by writers with no gatekeeping. If you've ever looked at the first pages posted in an agent's contest, or at crit sites, or at fanfic, it doesn't take long before your eyes glaze over. There's good stuff in there, but it's very hard to find it.

I have a friend who self-publishes and she hires a professional editor and artist, so clearly she's careful and the work shows it. As I say, there's good stuff in the self-published torrent of words, but as a reader, I'm not willing to wade through the bad stuff to get to it.
 
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