There is one really bothersome problem I have noticed a great deal in this new world of publishing we all live in. Writers and some publishers blindly follow someone without ever thinking. They hear a piece of advice, whether it is from this blog, from Konrath’s blog, from a Kindle board, from Publisher’s Marketplace, and they don’t question it. They just follow it blindly, without investigating the truth behind the claim or advice.
I make every effort to not set down rules here, and when I give my opinion, I do my best to back it up with business logic. Sometimes I don’t do a good enough job, I will admit, and sometimes my opinions are so strong they come across as a form of rules. But usually by that point, to be honest, I’m fighting an upstream battle and feel like I have to shout to be heard.
One example of my shouting opinions at the top of my voice is the topic of “agents as publishers.” I believe that in a business sense and legal sense and moral sense an agent turning into a publisher is so damn wrong, I just shout to writers, “Run away!”
That might be a little too over-the-top, but you get the idea. It sounds like a rule, but in reality it’s just my opinion. Every writer is different and if you have figured out a way to make it work with your agent, if you know how your agent will manage to do all the work, if you know how you are going to get paid, then don’t listen to my opinion on the topic. It’s your career. It’s your money.
Some basic beliefs of mine.
— In maybe a hundred different blogs over the years I have stated that there are no rules in this business. And when a person tries to put a rule on you, question it.
— In maybe a hundred different blogs over the years I have stated that every writer is different. But being different doesn’t mean you should just ignore simple, logical business practice.
— In maybe a hundred different blogs over the years I have begged writers to think for themselves, to not follow some trend or another, to step out of the myths and learn business.
For example, I held my opinion for a long time about the Kindle Select because I wanted to investigate the business aspects of it. I have, in my opinion, come to think it’s a horrid deal for writers in 99.9% of the cases. If it wasn’t exclusive, we would be talking another matter.
Another example: Over the past two years I have laughed and snorted and just shaken my head at information coming off the Kindle Boards. There seems to be no way for anyone active on those boards to see the real world beyond the little pool. Yet so many writers see something there and take it as truth and then defend it like their lives depended on it. They make a post by a beginning writer into a rule and then try to live by it.
I’ve been publishing since 1975 and been a publisher, editor and writer all that time. Trust me, never take anything I say as a rule and live by it. All writers are different. Learn to think for yourself, question everything, find your own path. And learn basic business. This is called the “publishing business” for a reason.
But that all said, anyone who has followed this blog for more than a few installments know I can really tilt at a windmill between trying to give practical advice like the Pen Name post or the Think Like a Publisher posts.
Some of my favorite windmills
— Pricing your book into the discount bin. (We’ve had a ton of discussion on that topic and I have another blog coming on pricing that will just start that all over again. Stay tuned.)
— Agent as publisher. (Just too stupid for words in my opinion.)
— Giving your agent all your money and the paperwork for that money before you see any of it. (Just ask yourself if you would do that in the real world with a perfect stranger and you get the idea of how wrong that practice is. And how much it needs to be changed as something common for writers to do with agents.)
— Writers signing contracts that allow a publisher to keep their book for the life of the copyright. (Author can get it back in 35 years, but see my next windmill on that topic.)
— Writers who claim to want to sell their fiction not knowing copyright, thus not even understanding what they are selling. (Actually, you don’t sell copyright, you license it, but most writers don’t even understand that basic a fact. And won’t even bother to spend a few hundred for a IP attorney to look at the contract for them.)
One Last Windmill
I have one last windmill I’m going to add into the mix before the next blog post where I go back to tilting at some more standard windmills and myths by talking about pricing.
Simply put, that windmill is “following blindly.”
Question everything, folks. If it doesn’t feel right, even though your English teacher told you to do it, question it. If someone told you that you have to do thirty drafts and it’s boring you to tears, question that process. Some of us only do one draft and do just fine. Other professionals have figured out ways to write with three or four drafts. Ask what a draft is. Ask how long second and third drafts take a writer. And so on. Question.
If you are still sending manuscripts to agents because of guidelines that say, “No unagented submissions,” you really need to question how the system works. And learn it. Editors at publishes buy books and publish them. That’s their job. Give them a chance to see a submission package on your book.
If you think you have to spend a ton of money to indie publish a book, start asking questions. Most of us can electronically publish a book for under $10.00 and if we take it into paper editions, the cost goes up another $25.00. If you think it costs large amounts of money to be an indie publisher, start questioning because you have heard the wrong information.
And so on and so on and so on. Question everything. Stop following and look around and get lots of opinions and learn business and copyright and think for yourself.
A Perfect Illustration
Watch this very, very short, 30 second video a few times and then, when you stop laughing or being insulted, make a resolution to be the person standing on the sidelines laughing instead of in the line.
Enjoy.
(Thanks, Lee, for the pointer.)
I approach writing & business by reading up on all the different ideas out there and then picking what resonates with me, leaving others to decide what works for them.
Did I decide to get my books out there as soon as possible?
No – because I knew I would have very little free time and I wanted to be able to get them up to shape. I also wanted to wait until the start of the financial year (this April as I’m in the UK) to publish – because this is a long term career for me (and starting then will make the accounts much easier.)
Do I want to price at 99 cents to shift lots of copies or to move my price up and down to create a surge or to experiment and find out what works best? Nope – because I want a clear pricing structure that makes sense to readers – and I don’t want them to feel that they might buy it at one price and then see it on sale for a fraction of that (or for free). I’ve been reading about the experiences others have had at various prices and have decided what I want to go with.
Do I want to be in Select?
No. I want to be widely available to help deter piracy. Also, even if I only wind up making 10% of my sales through other outlets (which seems to be the average figure people were quoting when it was being discussed) – that’s 10% that would still be coming in if Amazon bugged out and temporarily removed my book/s from sale due to a glitch.
Am I going to register a website for every pseudonym I ever come up with?
Nope – I think the registration/hosting costs would outweigh the returns in the case of names that only had one or two short stories to them. I’m going to register one for my publishing company instead and have sections for each author. (I’ve already registered the one for my own name.)
Am I going to stop posting at Kindleboards because you say they’re rubbish or stop reading this blog because someone there says you’re wrong about something?
Nope! By the time I publish, I’ll have spent about a year and a half researching self publishing (reading up on it in the five minutes or so at a time that I can squeeze in while watching my son). I’ve found Kindleboards, this site, Kristine’s site and Passive Guy’s blog to be high on the list when it comes to great information/advice.
In support of Kindleboards – I’ll say that they can be really helpful for new authors. As long as you aren’t someone who drifts with the wind and as long as you can think for yourself, then they can be great.
Want to know if KDP is playing up for everyone or just you? If payments have been sent out/received yet? What results other people have had when trying price points/advertising/review sites? Which editors, cover designers, stock image sites other people would recommend – or warn against? They’re helpful for all those things (once you account for bias and different circumstances of course!)
Plus – importantly for a stay at home mum such as myself, they provide a sense of community and help keep me motivated to work on my writing. The time I spend there encourages me to spend more time on my writing. So, for me, it’s a good thing.
For others the boards might just be a distraction from writing. For me, I usually need more than five minutes at a time to get some writing done – and being able to spend those brief gaps between times spent being mummy on something writing related – well, it’s very handy.
So yes – you talk a lot of sense – but I happily reserve my right to wilfully ignore it when my instincts tell me something else is better for me. :p
Reminds me of the scene in Life of Brian, where Brian is telling the crowd they don’t need to follow him, they need to think for themselves, they’re all different. And of course they keep blindly repeating every word he says with great enthusiasm.
You’ve kinda stuck yourself with the Messiah role, though. There are *very* few people who have the level of background and experience in the industry that you and Kris have, who freely share the benefits of that experience via their blogs, and who have a good grasp of the current state of affairs.
There are a lot of us n00bs who really do listen to your advice, take it for what it is, and quietly go about the business of writing and publishing what we write without blogging about it or tweeting about it or discussing it on the Kindle boards. You may not hear a lot from us, and we may not always take your advice, but you’d better believe that we’re here listening when you give it.
In truth, the video I was expecting at the end was an excerpt from Life of Brian, the scene with “Yes, we are all individuals! Yes, we’ve got to work it out for ourselves! Tell us more!”
But yeah, as a new author, I have found the opinions spread around the blogosphere to be a chaotic mix of hold-the-fort traditionalists and guzzle-the-coolaid self-publishers. Threading the correct path for myself through all that noise has been difficult but worthwhile.
So, good post, and I promise not to follow it to the letter.
I follow your advice (and Kris’) because, honestly, it’s what feels right for me.
For example, I know from my own writing history I work best with a single draft (except for spelling and grammar fixes), and one that isn’t very well planned at that. In high school and college, with the exception of one term paper (which taught me my writing turns to crap if I plan and outline too much) I wrote like that, and did quite well.
So, when you write about rewrites and critique groups, it really hits home for me. This leads me to believe that your advice in, well, everything else might be right for me too.
Might being the operative word. I’m a very fitting Libra, I like to research both sides before making any decisions, but it helps in tipping the scales to know you write and think very much like I do.
That video is too perfect. Sheep really are that stupid. Suddenly the metaphor is shiny and new again.
Most human beings are followers. That’s been true throughout history. All you have to do is throw your weight around a bit and people will take you for a leader. Most of them will even follow you off a cliff. You’re fighting a losing battle if you’re trying to get people to think for themselves. That’s one place most of them *won’t* follow you.
ROFL – Love the video. Yet another reason I named my company Angry Sheep Publishing.
I admit I do preach one rule to people who ask for my opinion – Publishing is a business, and you need to treat it like one.
I’ve said it before in comments on your blog: the most important trait a person can have is the ability to say “I might be wrong.” Once someone can say that, the corollary, “this other person might be wrong,” is pretty easy.
Great post, Dean.
I wholeheartedly agree. And the best thing, once you start to stand on your own and question the status quo, a burden lifts. Suddenly you can see things for how they are instead of second guessing the same regurgitated views over and over. I’m sure many of us are guilty of it, especially writers early in their career like me.
I made a resolution/goal this year to be more independent, and to test things for myself, to ignore following advice blindly, and it feels good. I have now got a clear idea of where I’m going. Whether it works is another matter, but at least I’ll be doing something instead of being stuck in the same spot, whirling around and around not knowing which direction to go in because of all the rules and myths that float about.
Keep up the great work, Dean.
LOL!!! That video is hilarious!
Thanks for the breath of sanity, Dean. I used to spend time on the Kindle Boards just to be part of the community, but I noticed the same trends you bring up here and decided to limit my involvement just because I’m too much of a beginner to always tell the good advice from the bad.
And I’d tell you which of your advice I’m following and which I’m taking with a grain of salt, but that would be rude.
For most of the windmills listed here, though, I think you’re spot on.
New Pen Name: Dean Wesley Quixote
Todd
P.S. As for me, don’t worry, my own pen name could be Doubting Toddmas!
Dean, yes I followed others right into Kindle Select with all nine of my books, and I wish I hadn’t. I was tempted by the idea of offering certain books for free for up to five days to increase sales. Well, you know what? It did increase my sales—for a few days, but then the sales came right back down.
I guess I was longing for the glory days last Spring when I sold 18,000 copies of one book at $0.99. It stayed on the main Kindle bestseller list for 29 days. But that was pure luck. A fluke that will probably never happen again.
At some point, if I keep giving away my books or selling anything other than short stories at $0.99, I’m going to go broke. I need to write more. I need more patience. I need to quit checking my sales stats every ten minutes.
Thanks for what you’re saying here. Many of us need a good kick in the head.
If you actually knew me, you would find that I am too stubborn and questioning for words.
I don’t even take my husband at his word, which is one of those things that does cause some friction.
I don’t follow blindly. I stopped doing that when I left my childhood church. So thanks for the help – it has been enlightening. And I agree with most of it.
Keep writing.
Cyn
Sheep by themselves individually are suprisingly smart. It’s when they gather in a flock that they turn utterly, utterly stupid.
By themselves, outside a flock, sheep are amazingly able to break out of pens, and able to decide the optimal direction to flee, thank you very much. (Grew up on a ranch, btw, and spent many a hot summer day chasing smart sheep.)
Once jammed into a flock, however, sheep leave the decision of which way to run and frolic to the “bellweather” sheep (a sheep that for some reason has a bit of resistance to “flock group-think” and can strike out on its own somewhat; not a lot of resistance to flock-think, just the most in the flock.) Path of least resistance: the bellweather sets out and all the rest of the flock follows mindlessly, nose to rump, cheek to jowl, belly to belly.
Connie Willis wrote a book on about the phenomenon: BELLWEATHER.
It’s a survival trait. Sheep have almost no defense against predators (like coyotes) as individuals; their only hope, Obi-Wan Kanobi, is to jam themselves against the sheep next to them and hope the coyote peels off their neighbor, not them. Safety in numbers.
In this video, it’s pretty clear what happened:
The car, trying to drive through the regularly mulling-around flock of sheep must have startled a non-Bellweather somewhere in the “front” into individual survival mode for just a second or two. It started sprinting around the car out of the way. The sheep’s flock-think kicked back in then and it desperately tried to run to the back of the flock behind the car.
Unfortunately for this reluctant trailblazer, a good portion of the flock suddenly started following this accidental non-leader. By the time the “leader” managed nose-to-rump with someone in the back of the flock, that rump was a never-ending chain of circling sheep noses following HIS rump!
Nobody was leading, they were all following.
(P.S. There’s a point in the video where the circle almost breaks up. Watch how desperately some of them scramble to get back into formation!)
It’s tough sometimes when you find someone who’s been down the road and has tons of experience–experience you simply don’t have yet. I value both yours and Kris’ insights and knowledge greatly, but I do agree that if I want to make a serious go at indie publishing and being a writer then I need to make sure I take a grain of salt and add it in once in a while. I definitely understand that all writers are different and even in the context of building an indie writing empire there will be some fine tuning and tweaking that will have to be done in individual cases. It’s not one size fits all.
We had a sheep that walked between two huge rocks in one of the fields. It couldn’t get through because the gap narrowed. The sheep, from what I could tell, tried to turn around, but the gap was too narrow for that, too. Instead of backing up, it died. Sheep are not smart individually, either. They have a single-mindedness when it comes to getting food (we had one ewe who gave birth to triplets in one of the lower fields and then, placenta still hanging out, came up to the barn for breakfast, abandoning her lambs. I had to go hunt them down following a blood trail over many acres), but they are stupid stupid stupid. Never mistake base instinct for intelligence.
Thanks for that video.
I lurk on multiple forums for information, but do my own experiments. What works for one writer or one book might not work for another. Better to assimilate information and then see what actually applies to you, in my mind.
This is a valuable piece of advice: to question everything, even your advice. In the beginning, when I first discovered your blog, I took it all a lot more – you might say religiously – because I knew of no one else who was saying the things you were. Now that I have researched and studied and experimented and have been doing it for myself for some time, I can see more clearly what advice fits into my own plan and what I need to go my own way on. But I still haven’t found anyone around who can give such great practical business advice like you and Kris. Keep it up.
I’m new to this blog but have been looking around at different sites to get an idea of how I can self publish. In the spirit of a different post here, I want to be a writer and not an author!
Money is a large concern. I’m asking questions now about the cost of self-publishing. I can do the formatting myself, am reasonably good at art and Photoshop, but editing is where I get stuck. The cost of self-pubbing at $10 seems to me that there’s no editing costs, which is where the largest expense is. I’ve had quotes at over $2K for a book of 110K words. I could never afford to publish more than one book a year at that price. But I’ve got another finished and another half-way done.
I assume the idea behind publishing for $10 cost is for experienced authors who probably can get by with some friends looking over the manuscript and fixing typos. Otherwise, editing fees will drive the cost way up. Am I missing something?
Jerry, exactly. Just friends or other writers in a network. Have them read your manuscript in exchange for you reading their manuscript. So it does cost time. And be clear on what kind of read you want. You need to tell the person reading to only look for typos and other small mistakes. You don’t want them telling you how to rewrite.
Actually, for us, we have a wonderful woman who is fantastically sharp at details and she loves to read and is not a writer. So she charges around $200 I think, maybe less, per major novel, to read and find and fix details and spelling mistakes. But we don’t bother her with the short fiction or short novels. So 90% of the stuff we put up is under 10.00.
Cheers
Dean
Proving that there’s always someone who’s offended by something, the video has been removed. This message is in its place:
“This video has been removed as a violation of YouTube’s policy on depiction of harmful activities.”
Oh, please.
Fortunately, the Brits are obviously not obsessed with political correctness… they still have the video available:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/9054677/Driver-surrounded-by-sheep-cyclone-becomes-an-online-hit.html
Thanks, Randy. I have now updated the front page with the new link. Sorry folks that you have to listen to a 10 second ad first now. (grin) But worth it.
Jerry – There’s no reason to pay a ridiculous amount for basic copyediting/proofreading. I’m not the only editor who offers those services at reasonable rates to indie writers (click over to my website for details).
And if cost is still an issue, even at reasonable rates, use the barter method and trade editing services with another writer. If there’s no one around that you trust or who has the time, enlist a solid first-reader who will *honestly* point out your typos and logic flaws (like when the villain shoots the hero with the gun they actually left hidden in the couch cushions back in chapter 11), without trying to rewrite your book for you.
Good luck!
People do tend to resemble a “sheep cyclone,” it’s true, but I also think they’re more independent than they let on. I disagree with popular bloggers all the time, but I don’t go out of my way to put my opinions online…especially when there are fifty people before me saying, “Yes! You’re exactly right!” Dissenting is hard. I have no problem with disagreeing with people or them disagreeing with me, but it never stops at a simple let’s-shake-hands-and-go-our-separate-ways. Even when I feel perfectly safe, surrounded by perfectly intelligent individuals, it always seems to devolve into, “Oh yeah? Well, you’re stupid!” as soon as I hit the “submit comment” button.
There are probably a lot of lurkers like me, who have made the mistake before of saying they dislike Smashwords or think editing services are a waste of money or whatever rocks the boat of that particular crowd, and they just don’t want to get caught in a sheep stampede. The only people who comment are the ones who agree, or at least agree for the most part and keep their reservations to themselves. The result: we look like we’re a bunch of sheep, even if we think and act differently from how we portray ourselves in an effort to get along.
Now the question is, am I agreeing or disagreeing with you now?
Honestly, T. K., commenting or not, I’m just happy when people think for themselves. I love good discussions here. I tend to cut short discussions (and get snippy) that are just being parroted back from something someone has heard from the herd, but a good discussion on points that are though through I love, and I can be proved wrong, and often am by a good discussion. I have zero ego issue about being right or wrong. Just trying to get out information.
So please, everyone, disagree here if you do. But be ready to defend your points with some facts. That’s all I ask. I want to learn as well.
And just to be clear, I spent my time in that sheep line in my early years of writing. I bought completely into the rewriting myth. I bought completely into the myth that all books are perfect. I bought completely into the myth that books had to be written from front to back in the order the reader will read it. I bought completely into the myth that no one could make a living as a fiction writer. And so on and so on. And I had an agent for 17 years and two others for two years before finally catching a clue on that side of things. And that’s after doing years of editing and laughing at agents, as a writer I still had one. Talk about being clueless. I watched agent after agent screw up things for writers from the editing side, yet let my agent just take my writing. Why? Because I believed in the myth and figured “My agent was different. My agent was the good one.”
You know, like we all do with those idiots in Congress. Our representative is the good one, not causing all the problems. Right? (And no political discussions allowed here, remember. (grin))
>Sheep by themselves individually are suprisingly smart. It’s when they gather in a flock that they turn utterly, utterly stupid.
Which is true of people, too! ; )
Spot on, Lee! I still fail to see why someone found the video “harmful”. I thought it was hilarious. (bg)
Dean, right on. Before I saw the videos, I thought of the lemmings game, and of the classic “if everyone were jumping off a cliff, would you?” question. …aaand now I feel old. (g)
I was in the sheep circle of writer myths myself for almost ten long, underproductive years, and only when I stopped treating writing as its own universe with its exclusion from normal business rules and common sense did I have fun writing again, like I’d done before I got sucked into the industry’s myths.
Looking back, hindsight tells me that it was a pretty miserable case of cognitive dissonance, cured only by looking at what the facts were telling me, discarding the old theory (myths), and forming a new theory that was more than a little bit more in touch with reality.
I have you and Kris and many others to thank for it.
Thank you for taking the fire for speaking common sense, too, as there have been too many times where I stumble across something in my industry reading and make myself click away instead of responding, because I don’t want to make the time for the argument sure to follow, and yet you guys do. Many of us lurkers are cheering you from behind the scenes. (bg)
Great post ,Dean.
The best piece of advice that I DID follow recently was the guest post on Konrath’s blog by Elle Lothlorien (think thats right but I’m on an iPad and can’t look it up and comment at the same time). Author of The Frog Prince. She laid out the pricing issue really well and convinced me that if you are working with a good product, pricing it like it’s good will attract the readers you want. Excellent and timely for me. I followed her lead and haven’t looked back. In short, she’s right.
I follow your advice alot too (its great and thank you). But the best thing I’ve done that goes counter to what you’ve said… Select. In a nutshell, I agree that it would make no sense for an established author with multiple titles to go exclusive, but for someone with only one book it MIGHT be a good path to take. It has been for me, anyway.
If you’re interested, I blogged about why this is. It has a lot to do with effectively branding individual books.
Absolutely hilarious was that video. In regards to following, I do agree. At the same time, however, I try to operate on whatever limited knowledge I have and on my gut feeling. When I come to information that resonates as truth, I tend to go with it while doing some homework on it as well. (though I do admit to often taking many things you and Kris say without question)
When a person speaks from experience, it is easy to contrast that with someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about and just spewing heresay. There’s so much of people spewing things that just don’t make sense, that it’s easy to recognize when someone knows what they’re talking about. And if I feel I need to make sure I’m comfortable with it, a little homework on the subject goes a long way for knowledge and piece of mind.
A good rule to follow in life in general is always to trust your instincts and form your own opinions, but always be open to change. Some of the comments I’ve read on Konrath’s blog suggest that there are people who are pathologically dependent on what he says and will not make a publishing-related move without first getting his opinion. He wears it well, but it’s a heavy responsibility, and one he didn’t ask for. Like you, he only shares his thoughts.
I’m grateful for both of you, and the other professionals who have shared on indie publishing as well.
Jerry, I also use a talented proofreader, who points out inconsistencies, timeline errors, plot holes, and many other things besides just missing punctuation and too-long sentences and charges under $200 for clients she accepts. Her name is Kim, and she’s at editor @ bunderfulbooks.com (no spaces).
Oh, Dean, I absolutely agree there is no “one size fits all” for the “right” way to handle our paths and our writing careers. You’re absolutely correct that new writers should read and absorb many perspectives and decide what they really want.
I have hopeful writers asking me for “pointers” all the time, normally on how to become published, and I have no idea what to even say anymore. There are so many different possibilities.
I honestly think that people should look inward and decide what they really want out of this, what’s going to make them happy. To me, the whole point of life is to be happy. JC and I decided a long time ago that we’d keep doing this as long as it was fun–and that we’d switch gears if it stopped being fun.
I do think your rather enthusiastic warnings against agents as publishers are necessary. I strongly counsel people against this too. I get frustrated when I talk to agents who think they can be both a publisher and an agent, and then they staunchly pretend there is no conflict of interest. On some level, they must know. Ugh.
Barb Hendee said, “I honestly think that people should look inward and decide what they really want out of this, what’s going to make them happy.”
Barb, I couldn’t agree more. I think that should be at the top of the list, actually. I’m fairly certain I would be gone from publishing once again now if indie publishing had not come along when it did two years plus ago. I was getting bored and sick of the stupidity of the traditional route, the slowness of it all, how it was forcing great new writers into myths of agents and other crap. It wasn’t fun anymore. JA Konrath has said this a number of times in different ways as well. Traditional publishing is so broken, it’s just not fun for writers to work there. And honestly, I never held a job long that I didn’t find challenging and fun. And writing would be no exception.
Thank heaven’s for indie publishing. JA Konrath in a comment on a blog the other day said something I have to agree with. Of any established professional, meaning someone who had made it in traditional publishing, I do not know of any who have had success in indie publishing and are thinking of going back to traditional beyond short fiction. And to be honest, even though I have not personally, with my little short stories and a few collections, had much success selling under this name, I’m thinking of not going back as well. Just thinking. And I am a whore when it comes to writing. You offer me enough money and I can be bought.
But no amount of money will force me to write a project I think I will hate and not have fun with. And thus back to Barb’s point. There is no point if it’s not fun.
For the last… gosh… 15 years or so, I’ve been in a holding pattern with my writing because of the gauntlet of difficulties an Unknown has getting recognized by traditional publishing.
During that time I’ve read mountains (including books on how to improve one’s writing/chances of getting published) and attended a few panels on writing (which have included my all time favorite author, writers of varying levels, and editors) – along with other activities that count towards actual writing practice.
Interesting thing about the books and writing panels at conventions – they never seemed to really quite agree. Oh, sure – a good number espoused the power of having good syntax or a “personal voice” or being prepared to “kill [your] babies”. And it was also made quite clear once self-publishing started coming up as a plausible option that no serious author ever did that and no one would ever take you seriously again if you ever went that way. But, other than that? The advice ranged from “yes, but that’s common sense, surely?” to “that doesn’t even sound like it applies to what’s going on today…” to “…if I’m understanding correctly, their advice is to be very lucky like they were? Is ‘be lucky’ advice?”
So, no. Though finding Konrath’s blog about two weeks ago (and through his blog and the comments left in there, another handful of blogs that give advice and news on indie publishing that seemed to make sense to me overall) has freed me from feeling like traditional publishing was the only way to go and it would be an uphill fight where I lived forever on a poor college kid’s budget only to maybe expect eventual moderate success… I’m not following anyone’s advice blindly.
For example, some of the advice you offer I find exceptionally sound. But some of the ideas you offer doesn’t seem to make sense to me in my current mindset and with my current amount of professional experience (though as I gain professional experience, there are some ideas that I find intriguing, just not currently feasible). I approach all advice given in these blogs the same way, reading through the comment trees on a good number of the articles I’m interested in or uncertain on. Though there’s a lot of sheeple in the comments, they are often balanced by feather-rufflers, devil’s advocates, and those with experience posting to say where their experiences did and did not match.
I’ve been learning a lot these last few weeks just off the information found in a few blogs. It’s confirmed some of the things I was thinking of doing even before stumbling upon these blogs. It’s shattered the shackles I felt towards the traditional publishing industry and lifted the crushing weight of doubt of ever being able to even make minimum wage type money off my dream job. It’s made my goal much, much closer. Reachable this year – before this summer, even! – rather than years away as I’d been thinking when I sat down in the last months of 2011 and decided I was Ready To Start Seriously Pursuing My Dream.
But I’m not willing to take one person’s word for anything in publishing. I’m not even willing to take a few peoples’ word as law. And I appreciate that the blogs I’ve found even seem to offer a voice to those that disagree with the main blogger’s viewpoints – like guest articles that say what their experiences have been by going in a different direction with their work than the host blogger.
The only thing I feel I’m lacking is insight from the (presumably semi-rare) writer/illustrator indie type and what they’ve learned. Most of the types I know of who have self-published their works and are writer/illustrators are actually into comics, so their experiences won’t really work the same way as what I’m intending. They won’t be able to tell me their thoughts on formatting their books with their own illustrations and how (for an example) ePub site A has different methods from ePub site B in handling the images and what problems they ran across adding chapter graphics or deciding for or against an illuminated letter at the start of a new chapter. That’s something it seems like I’m either going to have to learn via trial and error or by doing a lot of looking around trying to find those authors. In the case that I’ll be flailing around in the dark, the only help I’ll have is any “format your book for ___” tutorials they have, assuming they cover inserting images. And I have just enough experience with HTML and other web formatting for images and text to have at least a clue about whether or not to follow the advice given there!
Sorry for the ramble. xD I didn’t sit down to do my nightly writing because I got too caught up in some ePub studying and it seems like your blog caught the majority of my daily word count!
I love your blog, Dean, and agree with much of what you post. I did, however, decide to try the KDP Select program for myself and signed up in Dec. Lemming? No–and BTW, the lemming thing is a myth. But here was my reasoning:
1) I was selling 1-2 books a month on BN; nothing from the other outlets. For now, there would be nothing for me to lose on that end.
2) Select runs in 90 cycles. I felt it was worth an experiment as long as I knew I could pull out w/ very little loss of sales time, in the big scheme of things.
3) I only have one book up so far. I wanted to try this out while I had very little to lose. I’m working hard on getting the 2nd in the series up and the 3rd is ready to go. (Back asswards, I know, but whatever.)
I had also decided to NOT do any marketing of the promo and just see how it developed, if at all, on its own power. Like I said, this was just purely for experimental purposes.
So I tried it. My book, The Enemy We Know, had 24,950 copies downloaded in two days, moved to #5 in ranks on the Free list. Whoa. That told me if I had other books up, I might see some cross-over results. As an experiment I called that a success.
I expected that as soon as it reverted to its usual price I would see a drop, and briefly, I did. Then it picked up. Over the next four days, I sold over 2200 books, saw a huge increase in KOLL loans, and rose to #67 on the Paid rankings.
Color me happy.
After a week, there was an abrupt drop. Instead of 35/hour, I was down to 35/day. Well, boo hoo, that’s still 1000% more than the 30/month I used to hope for. (Did I do that math right? Prob not.)
So maybe I’m in that 99% group that you mentioned, Dean. That said, when I do finally get more books up, I’m not sure I’ll place all of them in the KDP-S. Maybe I’ll rotate them. Don’t know yet.
But for me, KDP-S rocked!
Donna, got you down in the positive column (without names) as to your experience on Kindle Select. Kris and I with WMG Publishing are mulling over an experiment ourselves. I will report in if we decide to do it. Again, MY OPINION is that for 99% of all books, it’s not worth it.
This post is *really* timely for me…you have no idea, lol. I’ve just spent more than two weeks having to literally turn off my internet to keep from typing what I think in some of these more conformity-demanding groups.
I have to watch it a little, because I think I’m going through a reaction phase from a number of years of being in environments where it was literally career suicide to disagree with the wrong person…whether publicly or privately. I’ve come across some of that in the indie publishing world, too. Like you are instantly “out” of this or that group, just from asking the wrong question, or making a point about the wrong thing…much less questioning the dignity or the integrity of some of the practices of these promotional “gurus.”
Like someone on here said, there’s this real opening for the wrong people to take on that guru status in the newbie/indie realm right now. I’m not talking about people like you or Kris or JA Konrath or any other long-time pro. I’m talking about the people who have written one book and spent the next 10-12 months studying the kindle algorithms and twitter and facebook in an attempt to “game” the system. Often these people have written one book, maybe even as many as five. When these people start “telling me how it is,” I admit, I have to bite my lip at times to keep from lashing out, partly because, like I said, I was muzzled for about four years, and I’m a pretty opinionated person generally (and one with serious issues with authority and/or bullies, but that’s a whole other issue, lol). But partly also because I can’t believe that some of them think they know what it takes to make a long-term career work, when they’re even newer at this biz than I am. Hell, most haven’t even got enough faith in their own writing to charge more than 99 cents for it.
So for me, I’ve actually made it an exercise for myself this month to experiment with a number of these “truisms” for indie publishing, to try them for myself to see what I think from the inside. It’s taken all of my willpower to be a good sport about this at times, and follow the “rules” this or that guru has laid out as the “only way” to make it as an indie…but I’ve done the best I could. I’ve *never* been good at faking the “rah-rah” stuff, and some of the over-the-top freakouts over being on a free list for 10 hours (or less), etc., is tough to stomach, but other than that, I’ve done okay. I’ve even gotten some good tips about packaging and blurbs and so on.
Still, I had to think long and hard about why it bothered me so much, and why I’d get SO angry (I mean, what do I care what other people get all geeked up over? I get geeked up about stupid things too). I’m not normally an angry person, not at all actually, but something about the meme in these groups really hit my hot buttons. After a few weeks of this, I finally realized it was EXACTLY what you’re talking about…the seeming inability of a lot of these new writers to think for themselves. There’s this “niceness” meme on a lot of these forums that is completely passive aggressive…and that, combined with the sheer sheep nature of the comments and feedback was what was making me nuts. I mean, if you’re on a forum where you can’t even ask a *question* about the dogma, then you have to question whether you’re on the right forum at all. I couldn’t help wondering what the hell I was doing there…it felt like a kind of hell, honestly, of high school bullies yelling about how you have to do this and that, and the non-bullies sucking up and flattering and refusing to think objectively about what these shallow “victories” even meant for their long-term careers.
But the bottom line is this…I’m basically finding that most of my instincts were right about these things. I won’t go into details here, because this is way too long already, lol…but the short and sweet of it is, I’m kind of relieved. The last thing I wanted to do by moving to full-time writing was recreate the hell of the conformist culture of the corporate environment I left…and I feel like, now that I’ve tried a few of these things and assessed the results for myself, I can leave them behind without a second thought.
It’s also really making me appreciate how many great people are out there in this business, too…willing to share their knowledge and NOT taking on the guru role, even when it’s offered them wholesale . Both you and Kris have spoken out against people taking your advice full stop, and stridently too, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that. There are a ton of great indies out there too, many of whom are also extremely generous about what they’ve learned so far on their journeys…as well as being both humble and realistic about where they are in that journey. So yes, it’s absolutely possible to sidestep the crazies, lol. I think it’s incredibly liberating, too.
Long time lurker, first time commenter, future indie noob. Dean, I have found your posts very helpful. However, I think the editing cost info that has popped up in the comments here could use more discussion.
There seems to be at least two schools of thought on indie e-book editing costs: pay a pro (about $2,000-5,000 per book), or amateur/bartered editing. The latter seems better suited to long-practicing authors like Dean, but may not be for us noobs.
Dean points out that bartered editing has time costs which means a writer puts up much less content each year. If a big content push serves as your main marketing strategy then bartered editing also undermines the marketing as well. Outsourcing the editing allows you to publish more items per year, but you pay for it.
Editing is a subjective area in many respects, but if pro editors put in the time practicing editing that writers do writing, then the qualitative difference should be stark and directly affect sales, hence the cost. Or is this another publishing Myth? You can see why folks like Jerry and I are chasing our tails on this one.
However, if I learn enough from an initial pro-editing experience that I need less editing in later novels (and I expect the first will be a financial loss, a learning experience), then this cost is more of a start-up cost. Or is it a noob mistake to be avoided?
Dean, can I suggest that you write a future post about your editing costs? You covered expected costs in Think Like a Publisher, but you didn’t mention your own. Us noobs can come away from reading a pro’s experience like yours thinking that you have no editing costs in time or money other than fixing typos (e.g. every word of his and Harlan Ellison’s must be golden!).
It would also be great if anyone could point to data out there comparing sales of pro-edited and nonpro-edited indie novels, perhaps broken out by those who have ever legacy published versus those who have not. Empirical data like that I would follow like a sheep.
Mark,
I’ll do that. Sometime this next week or so I’ll do a post on costs. And my costs. Thanks for suggesting it.
As far as editing, I’m afraid there lies the problem. When we all start out, we all think, me included, that books in print need to be perfect. And (AS READERS) we approach any book in print that way and never really notice the mistakes and typos unless they smack us in the face. Then we start thinking about writing our own and write some, and the focus of all early writers is ON THE WORDS. Not the story. Thus all early writers become like really bad English teachers, focused only on perfect grammar and all that crap. And all early writers see is the words, thus when early writers now move into indie publishing, they are focused on the words. And trying to make a book perfect, and thus think they need to hire a professional “editor” for thousands and thousands to make their book “perfect.”
Honestly, it won’t much matter because a book written focused on the words will just suck in story and author voice and everything else. So who cares if the words are perfect, no one is going to read that pretty sentence on page fifty.
Long term writers, or long-practicing writers as you put it, (which I like better) haven’t learned so much to make manuscripts perfect. We have learned to tell better stories and thus not focus on the words. That’s the only difference.
Any person can spell-check a manuscript. Any simple reader can find the wrong word spelled right in 80% of the cases. Any good reader can find sentences left half-finished or sections dropped in the story or things like that. Beyond that, what do you really need???????????
I have been pounding on writers over and over and over to trust their own voice and not let anyone tamper with that voice and your own style. But new writers don’t understand that the boring parts to them in their story is often their own voice. Because NONE OF US can hear our own voice. So you let some proposed expensive editor into your fairly clean manuscript and to make their money, they are going to start changing your voice and style and kill your writing. Why let that happen??
So I will do a cost blog shortly. But it will entail more than just costs. (grin)
At the risk of sounding heritical: Everyone knows of the economic crisis here in Greece. We can hardly pay our bills and are falling behind. Be that as it may…. (Sigh.) But right now and since I started indie publishing paying an editor has been out of the question. And I don’t know any other writers with whom I can swap services. But I am very good at the English language – I teach English as a second language. So I have become my own first reader. When I finish something I set it aside for at least a few weeks – sometimes longer – until I can look at it from fresh eyes, as a reader. And then I go over it for spelling, grammar, logic or factual mistakes and so on. It works to my satisfaction. Then I just go ahead and publish it. What am I going to do – quit? Not an option, sorry. One does the best one can. So the expense to publish a short story? Two or three bucks to license the cover from Dreamstime. And the cost of a book? An additional twenty-five bucks when I put it up on CreateSpace, as I do with all my books. I love to see it on paper. I’m fortunate to have a relative in the trade who helps with professional-standard covers for the books. I do the short story covers myself. If I had to even think of hundred or even thousands of dollars in publishing costs I would not be able to do it. Write the stories. Send them to traditional markets or publish them. End of story.
I agree that the results of KDP-S are very varied. Who knows if I would get the same results if/when I try it next time. At any rate, I agree wholeheartedly with the idea that new writers need to take in all sides of an issue, form our own opinions, and practice due diligence as we move forward in this field. I think way too many writers (authors, perhaps?) read one or two articles and decide they’ve discovered the next get-rich-quick scheme.
Loved the video, BTW. I don’t think I mentioned that earlier.
Looking forward to your results.
Dean, now you’ve got me wondering. And since it’s late Saturday night and I’m feeling mellow, I’m going to ramble around a bit before I get back to what you wrote.
I am by no means a pro writer yet; but I have had two pro sales, as well as a Finalist, Semi-Finalist, and two Honorable Mentions in Writers of the Future. Four times entered, four times landing in the top reaches. I’m fairly pleased with that.
But I’ve wondered how I’ve done it. I am by nature very egotistical. It’s something I really have to rein in. So I’m prone to falling into The Talent Myth, but I really know better intellectually. And I haven’t really written my half million or million words of crap yet. Yes, I know that’s merely a metaphor for “write a lot of bad stuff and get practice and get better”, not a literal word count. But after some 30 years distracted by real life, I only started seriously writing fiction again two years ago. So honestly, I felt almost like I had cheated to get the meager successes I’ve had. (And conversely, in the back of my head that old Talent Myth was calling me…)
Now one important factor — and I freely give credit here — was you, pounding away on Heinlein’s Rules and on just having the courage to submit and take a chance. I read you arguing this in October 2010, and I decided I had nothing to lose by trying. So my very next story went to my First Readers for approval, then went to Asimov’s — first draft plus typo cleanup. When it came back from them a month later, instead of giving up, I followed Heinlein’s Rule 5: it went straight to WotF, and it became a Finalist. That wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t made your case so strongly. Thanks! (I’ll try not to be a Follower; but after your advice turned out so well, I can understand the urge to Follow.)
But reading your comments here, I wonder if I’ve found another factor. While I only started writing fiction again last year, I’ve written a lot of course material for software design; and I’ve also written one 500 page software design book. In the course of that project, I sorta learned Heinlein’s Rules (which I first read back in the 80s) the hard way. I wasted a whole lot of time rewriting chapter 1. Eventually I realized that I wasn’t making it better, only different. So in order to ever finish the thing, I had to learn to write and move on, never looking back any more than necessary to tie the book together.
And on top of that, my editor had two major comments. First, she had never had a book with so few typos and grammar errors to clean up. (I can’t remember every last detail of high school grammar, but I’m pretty well grounded in the basics.) But more important, she said my book had a very strong voice. Being new to the publishing world, I didn’t really understand exactly what she meant, but I knew it was a compliment. I just knew that I had tried to write the text more or less how I taught my class on the same subject, including many of the same examples and jokes. I’ve never been a fan of the academic or technical style of writing, and I think it makes a subject much harder to learn. So I just tried to write the book more as a conversation than a lecture. And friends who have read it tell me what she said, though not using the term “voice”: they say that when they read it, they can “hear” me talking to them.
So I don’t know if non-fiction technical work is usually counted in the half-million words of crap; but in my case, I think it helped more than I expected. If voice is as important as you say, maybe I got lucky and accidentally practiced a valuable skill before I knew it was valuable.
Of course, next I have to work on multiple voices. I wish I had time in my work schedule for your character voice workshop, but I don’t think I can squeeze it in right now. I think I’m doing OK at forming different voices for different stories. I can “hear” the main character in my head and write to match that tone. But when other characters come into the story, I don’t do as well at distinguishing them. That’s an area where I need practice.
C.R. Reaves–
For illustrated non-comic book ebooks, you want to talk to Abigail Hilton. She’s not an illustrator herself, but her major series is illustrated to the point of bursting by a pen-and-ink artist she works with. She occasionally blogs about the technical details of the process, and is a class act in general. You can find her here: http://www.abigailhilton.net/
Mark Sarney–
The barter style editing does not only work for well-established authors. Finding beta readers can be remarkably easy. My first I found at a convention, sitting next to her at a very contentious panel. She was a heckler that got heavily involved on a point of politics. Afterward, I handed her my card and said “I agree with absolutely nothing you said, but you are so articulate that it’s a pleasure to disagree with you. Call me up if you want a friendly fight now and again.” In the years since, we’ve done beta-read swaps on numerous novels.
Aside from her and my partner-in-crime, all my beta readers are fans who sent in letters complaining. Finding my contact info on my “about the author” page, they sent in emails with a list of typos, or continuity errors, or points about technical issues that I got just wrong enough to create plot or plausibility problems. They all enjoyed the stories enough to give a damn, and none of them are inclined to monkey with anything outside their domain of expertise.
So, I wound up in very short order with a stable of eight, and I use two or three on any given project, according to what they’re good at. I’ve got a couple who are great at catching typos and cut-and-paste problems, a couple others who have an eagle eye for unintentional redundancy (a tick I have as a writer–sometimes I forget I’ve explained something, then explain it again three paragraphs later because it’s fresh on my mind), and the remaining four are domain-specific experts on police procedure, space travel, espionage + military strategy, and physics. It works because they see things I am incapable of seeing in my own writing without putting a book in a drawer for a year and then reading it as a critic (which I’ve got the training for, but it’s a real drag).
Each of them sticks to their patch, in exchange for their spot in the acknowledgments and getting to see the next book in their favorite series before anyone else.
The stable isn’t static–occasionally I bump somebody out and then bring someone new in. This happens when the party in questions starts leaving opinions about the story in the margins, or bitches too much about something I don’t care about/am uninterested in changing (such as one who complained endlessly about the car chases in a series where precision driving is a job requirement and major hobby of the main character).
When this kind of thing starts happening, the relationship isn’t mutually satisfying: it costs me time and irritation when trying to get a book to market, and eventually it makes the beta miserable (either because they aren’t able to influence the story or because they’re truly getting driven around the bend by things they can’t change).
Fortunately, the people involved–both past and present–have all been excellent folks, and the bumped betas don’t seem to mind in the least. I warn them up front about my policies, and make it clear that I don’t want them doing it out of obligation. So far, the system works well and greatly reduces my time-to-market. (It’s also worth pointing out that I do NOT use this system on short stories–they go only through my partner-in-crime to make sure I haven’t laid a steaming cow pattie, then they go out to market or into the submissons churn, depending).
—
I have also used a professional editor on a couple projects where my goals were commensurate with having one (both very literary in nature, with lots of intertextuality and other stuff that I find hard to do without being utterly self-indulgent). The experience both times was *excellent.* However, being pros, they were both very expensive–worth every penny, but my wallet still hurts, and definitely not suitable for every project.
The other thing, though, that I got from working with them is a sense of what an editor should and should not do–an important lesson for me after having spent too much time in and around the film industry. When the job started, they said “I won’t touch it until you tell me why you want me here and what you want me to do.” I had to create a narrow scope of work (in both cases, I wanted help with pacing, structure, and in cutting back on the self-indulgence). Then they did what I asked, no fuss. They refused to handhold me, didn’t cater to my insecurities, and only gave me the negatives (and only in the areas I was asking about).
In one of the two cases–a very early project–I wound up putting the thing in a drawer and taking it out years later to attack as a redraft.
In the other, it turned out that most of my concerns were based on insecurity left over from days when I’d had far less practice, and at the end of the job the editor handed me a list of about six basic problems I’m prone to (the ones I mentioned above were right at the top) and told me that what I really needed were a couple trusted readers who wouldn’t try to hijack me. Without her it might have taken me a much longer time to figure out that I needed to build and stock a stable.
— —
In building my stable, I’ve had to formulate a couple basic rules for myself to keep myself from falling into the endless-rewrites and self-second-guessing trap. In case they help you, here they are:
1) Don’t use unnecessary beta readers (ex: if the story is about police work but doesn’t depend on getting the details of it right, don’t send the mss to the retired cop).
2) Only fix problems (basic logic, continuity errors, repeated words, cut-and-paste errors that render something nonsensical, etc.). Don’t cater to beta reader tastes.
3) For technical errors about a point of science or procedure or culture, only fix them if they create logic or plausibility problems.
4) If, for some reason, an entire section of the book is wrecked by a story-logic problem (doesn’t happen often, but once in a while) and it can’t be fixed without major revision, throw the section out and write something new to put in its place, from scratch.
5) Ignore any comment that is technically correct if fixing it would not enhance the story or readability. It’s okay to leave some things broken. (this has so far only come up for science/tech/procedure/culture issues). I also use unreliable narrators, so they have latitude to get things wrong, and that’s what I tell readers if they complain at conventions
I daresay without these rules, I would find the whole beta reader process a hindrance rather than a help.
— —
So, FWIW, from my experience it is dead easy to get what most people call “editing” without 1) dropping a lot of cash, and 2) turning your book over to someone who will badger you into rewriting. Your mileage may vary
(Apologies to Dean if this post gives you fits because of two many eyes on one mss)
-Dan
Another spot-on post. However, I would have to say that finding information on something as new and fast-changing as the current publishing business could be considered a little to hard, and in the end gut-instinct will be a large part of what matters.
My own point(s): since it seems that most people who post about kindle select seem to be the ‘winners’ .In the sense that those who don’t’ gain much from it might be more likely to shy away, while those who gain something from it will say something (and why not? I think doing well also allows said person to be reinforced with their action and thus feel that it can be applicable to everyone else, when it cannot be so)thus skewing any ‘random’ sample of kdp discussions out there. I know that’s what I followed.
It did not work out for me. Certainly the promotion gained me downloads, 200, around the world, but as soon as they were done, they went down to 0 (they were 0 to begin with). Given this was a short story, but add that to the pile of did not work.
Hope to add to, or find better data on this matter.
cheers
@J. Daniel Sawyer – Thank you kindly for both the link to Abigale Hilton and also the rest of your post that followed, which I found extremely interesting and in some ways reassuring. :3
I think in the past, when I left comments, I came off as a bit of a sheep in regards to this blog.
I find myself with so little time to do much outside of my own writing and editing that I have a hard time convincing myself to do “fun” things (my friends don’t understand me wanting to write instead of play games), so I find looking for a lot of varied opinions on the internet a waste of time. That’s why I like your entries and why I branched over into reading Kris’, too.
Maybe it’s the mentality of finding someone who agrees with my own sentiments, but when I can look at a post that reasonably says “don’t spend all your time advertising, spend your time writing” and when it says “don’t limit yourself to one outlet for your books,” it gives me a smile and a bit of confidence because I’m not alone.
In that sense, yeah, bit of a sheep. I find your blogs informative and thought provoking, though if I said I agreed with everything, I’d be lying.
Still, I like to come look because I know I’ll find a part I agree with. I’ll be entertained. I’ll be challenged. I’ll get thinking.
I think I mentioned before seeing your challenges and making one of my own. I didn’t do submissions or a certain amount a year (I’m not a short story writer, I’ve found), but I said, “why not a story posted on a blog and updated every day? That’s not impossible.”
So that’s what I did. Not necessarily the most original idea, either, but I tied it into the idea of letting my writing speak for itself–people can read it and see some of what I can do. Two things that came from reading your posts but with, I hope, my own spin on them. I came up with a theory a while back… That there’s no new ideas anymore, just new takes on old ones. This can either be done really well or horribly badly, but that’s where skill comes in.
I find the new world articles helpful, and I think a certain amount of agreement is necessary or I wouldn’t have come back to read more (but then, that’s me. I don’t seek confrontation like some people do. I’m a firm believer in “don’t like, don’t read, and don’t try and force your opinion on me if you didn’t like it.”)
I never wanted to get an agent. I never wanted to give away rights to my stories (particularly movie rights because of the horrible way some are made.) All of your posts on that made me feel like my fears concerning these things were justified, and I’m looking forward to the windmill on the copyright issue.
I didn’t like the idea of Kindle Select from the moment they pitched it to me. The idea of cutting myself off from all other outlets bothered me a lot, though I have considered doing it with one book to see how well it might assist sales. I wasn’t about to try it until I had more of them out there, though.
I am also looking forward to seeing your new thoughts on pricing because I’d like to take them into consideration with a book I’m hoping to have ready to publish very soon (it was supposed to be this weekend, but I ended up writing on new stuff instead of editing and doing the summary, oops
) and the others as well, especially the editing one because it’s been on my mind a lot and may well have been only my own fears holding me back from publishing my new stuff instead of a real need for someone else’s edits.
On the subject of sheep… I wonder if the old “counting sheep” myth isn’t just because of boredom that’s supposed to lull a person to sleep, but also because of this flocking behavior. It could explain the popularity of the term, at least.
Okay, that video was hilarious!
And smart post: I agree; writers – and anyone else for the matter – shouldn’t always blindly follow anyone, no matter what the topic.
Encouraging people to think for themselves is always a good thing.
Hi, Dean,
This actually clears up a few problems I’ve had with various groups and couldn’t quite figure out what was wrong. Blind following in any forum bothers me.
As for the video, yep, that’s a good one. BUt as a writer, I want to be like the ping pong playing toddler I saw in another video on the same page. He/she doesn’t care whether she hits it or not, she just keeps swinging. Eventually, she will care, but until then, swinging is the only way she’ll get better.
Take care,
Karen
Here’s another datapoint on free promotions.
http://www.sourcebooks.com/next-ebooks/1950-the-question-of-free.html
Livia, thanks for posting that link. I had seen it and read it and am hearing the 46 times number quoted now around different places to justify an author putting up his or her story for free. But what I find interesting is a paragraph Dominique (publisher of Sourcebooks) said in her short blog about this topic.
She said, “We obviously use this tactic sparingly and as part of pretty wide arsenal of marketing and publicity tactics. We’re testing a lot of different ways to drive sales and discovery. And while we are interested in driving sales and marketing results, we are unwilling to do that at the cost of the value of our authors’ work. So again, there’s both analysis and discussion around when different tactics work best.”
That’s my point exactly. Sparingly. And as a publisher, they VALUE their author’s work, clearly more than many indie authors value their own work, which is just damn sad.
@Jerry – I don’t know if anyone else in the comments has brought it up, but I use Serenity Software’s Editor. (I am not a shill; I don’t get any money from them whatsoever.)
Their website:
http://www.serenity-software.com/
I’ve used the software for all of the (scads and scads) of books I have out there. (I’m being sarcastic, in case you didn’t notice.
) I know of at least one other self pubber who has used it, and there are probably more.
They have a regular version and a Word version (or maybe it’s an add in? I don’t know because I got the regular version, since I use LibreOffice). Just be aware that because of the size of your story, you’re going to get a truckload of changes/revisions back at you. What I’ve done is to just have the software go over one or two chapters at a time – waaaay more manageable.
It has saved my butt a few times, in that it’s found some typos/mistakes that I swear never came from my fingers. (I swear!) But be aware that while it does goes well beyond spell check, it also goes a little too far in taking your voice out of it, so be judicious when deciding if the advice makes sense for your story or is just donkey dust.
Good luck!
@Jerry – Something quick: Editor is not good for any sort of continuinty errors – for instance, if Marsha has a pink blouse on page 1 and then a green blouse on page 2, this software won’t pick that up.
But listen upstream about bartering services or going on the installment plan. I contracted with a cover artist, and she readily agreed to being paid in a series of installments.
So it’s worth asking first before assuming anything.
Hi, Dean,
I’ve been lurking since Octoberish, so these questions are a synthesis of everything I’ve read here so far rather than anything specific to this particular post.
1) I find that I’m philosophically opposed to letting Amazon (or any distributor) have 65% of the proceeds on my work. Would I be shooting myself in any necessary appendage if I didn’t do the $.99 short story thing and focused on story packs and novels at $2.99 and up? I think I’d rather do a temporary freebie and/or send readers to my website for $.99 downloads than give Amazon two-third of my pie. Any comments?
2) WRT novels, after reading your website, it looks like I’d be daft to even *consider* sending a novel to an agent or a New York publisher. Unless said novel was going to get the big bestseller push, it looks like throwing time and money straight down the toilet (and even then I’m unconvinced). Have I got that right? So try the pro markets first with short stories, but take novels into direct distribution ASAP?
Many thanks!!
Kary
Kary,
Well, Kris and I have over 100 short stories up right now in the 99 cent range, although we are increasing our prices slowly. Trust me, 35% of something is better than 100% of nothing. So I see nothing wrong with putting short stories up as stand-alone books. And just because it’s up as a stand-alone, there is no reason it also can’t be in story collections for above $2.99. Kris and I do both all the time.
As for selling to traditional publishing, that’s a personal choice, to be honest, with a thousand factors that are all different from author to author. The key with traditional publishing is go that direction FOR THE RIGHT REASONS for you. If you are following that way blindly, or following to indie publishing blindly, then neither are good. But traditional publishing is in flux and if you have a book they want, then you can negotiate the terms. But you won’t know if they want it unless you send it to them.
With short fiction, you can’t go indie and traditional at the same time. You must try the magazines first, then if they buy it or if they don’t, you put it up indie publishing.
But with novels, you can put it up indie published AND send it for submission to New York. Then, if they make you an offer, you know your sales and what you need.
The reason short fiction and novels are very, very different on this is the rights that the publishers buy. Copyright.
Hope that helps.
“I don’t know if anyone else in the comments has brought it up, but I use Serenity Software’s Editor.”
I’ve been thinking of buying that; I ran the demo over my novel and it picked up a lot of minor problems. However, it produced huge amounts of output so I spent about half the time separating the messages that mattered from those that didn’t.
That said, most of those problems were things I did multiple times and have tried not to do since, so hopefully future stories will be much cleaner. I would guess that after writing half a dozen novels and curing the majority of bad habits it would only be useful as a basic sanity check.