Self-Publishing = Ralph Nader

I'm going to put it bluntly: I think self-publishing is a bad thing, at least in its current incarnation. There's a reason (or there used to be) that editors and publishers exist - to save the rest of us the trouble of finding out what's good and what's not. Things might have changed once the book industry became more about profit than quality, but the notion of publishing a good book, and not a book that will necessarily sell well, must remain with some publishers.

Yet self-publishing, by skipping the traditional selection and editing process of publishing, has the potentiality of over-saturating an already bloated marketplace with...well, crap. I'm not talking about people who make books for family or as business cards, but writers who want to get their stuff out there to the public. I don't share Epstein's optimism when it comes to the public's ability to separate the good from the bad - no sir, not when novels as poorly written as The DaVinci Code and The Fountainhead exist. Editors help maintain the literary standard, and in many cases, help make better writers. Rejection, I think, is a key part of honing one's skill. A writer needs someone to tell him what his weaknesses are, or at least point him in the right direction. Why can't this be friends or family? Because, unless they are professional editors, friends and family have neither the same discerning eye nor the same knowledge of current literary/publication trends that editors do. The DaVinci Code and The Fountainhead were published after having suffered the editorial process, yes, but The Fountainhead was rejected 12 times before publication and The DaVinci Code was...well I can't explain that one, other than mentioning that Brown had previously published 3 novels - none of which sold well.

I don't mean to generalize all self-published books as crap, but I think that there are many, many more bad writers out there than there are even modestly good ones. If self-publishing gains popularity and we start seeing more successes from unscreened writers, then there shall exist a dangerous message to bad writers: you can get published and be successful, too! For example: I used to write for the website Lit.org - which published essentially anything that you submitted. It was all divided into categories from fiction to nonfiction, and for a long time there was a small stream of really good writing. I noticed, though, that as the word spread about the website and submissions gained in volume, the quality declined. Being in 7th grade when I started writing there, I can say for sure that I played a part in that decline, but I can also say that I remember reading several pieces that stuck with me, even effected my writing. Now, Lit.org is a repository of poems written in all capital letters and short stories about angsty vampire high schoolers. I can only see Authonomy, and self-publishing, suffering the same fate. While self-publishing may filter out the true hacks due to the costs, someone who is truly dedicated to their crap writing will shell out whatever they can. Ed Wood's career is a great example of this in the film industry. It will only be a matter of time before the good self-published books are lost in a sea of "Spammer"-quality garbage.

That's not to say that self-publishing doesn't at least raise some critical issues about the nature of the publishing industry. Epstein makes it clear in his book that things have gone awry; the series of depressing articles we have all been privy to on this blog all but confirm that the industry is suffering for more reasons than just the recession. Things have to change, but self-publishing is not the answer. Look at it this way: self-publishing is like Ralph Nader (or Ross Perot, if you prefer. Or the Bull-Moose Party if you want to go really old school). Third party candidates have the right idea in providing an alternative to and pointing out the faults of our two-party system, but their platforms are often the source of a different kind of problem. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the publishing industry just needs its own Barack Obama.

Self Publishing

Browsing through the New York Times, I read an article called “Self-Publishers Flourish as Writers Pay the Tab” by Motoko Rich. Rich points that self-publishing companies are growing rapidly whereas many mainstream publishers are losing ground. Author Solutions, based in Bloomington, Indiana, is known to be the largest self publishing company that operates self publishers like Author House, iUniverse, and more. According to the article, Author Solutions represented 19,000 titles in 2008, nearly six times more than Random House. The income, however, is still a fraction of the wider publishing industry; Brown sold more copies of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight than the total copies Author Solutions sold in the year 2008, which is 2.5 million.

As Rich states, self publishing seems to flourish for a variety of reasons: “The trend is also driven by professionals who want to use a book as an enhanced business card as well as by people who are creating books as gifts for family and friends.” The fact that I can publish a book just to give to a friend as a present atonishes me. For as little as $3, the article suggests, I can upload a manuscript to be ordered for a printed book within an hour. For beginning authors in particular, self publishing is a faster method to put their books in the market. Although the chances of being discovered by a mainstream publishing house are rare, it is a much faster way to get into the market than through traditional publishers. Well, at least one can avoid being rejected by a number of agents. The negative aspects of self publishing are that there are no advance payments and they have “diminished access to the vast bookstore distribution pipeline that big publishers can provide.” There are fortunate authors like Lisa Genova who self published Still Alice through the iUniverse, which eventually sold copies to numerous bookstores.

There are opposing views on self publishing. Louise Burke, publisher of Pocket Books, said that “publishers now trawl for new material by looking at reader comments about self-published books sold online.” On the other hand, Cathy Langer, lead buyer for the Tattered Cover bookstores in Denver, gave a more pessimistic impression by saying, “People think that just because they’ve written something, there’s a market for it. It’s not true.”

If I were to publish a book, I’m not quite sure whether to go through the traditional publishers or to get into the market fast by self publishing. There are pros and cons in self publishing but what appears to be evident is that the self publishing companies are flourishing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/books/28selfpub.html?_r=2&partner=rss

Make that three steps

From the New York Times, an article called "Self-Publishers Flourish as Writers Pay the Tab." The lede:

The point may soon come when there are more people who want to write books than there are people who want to read them.

A bit later:

Meanwhile, there is one segment of the industry that is actually flourishing: capitalizing on the dream of would-be authors to see their work between covers, companies that charge writers and photographers to publish are growing rapidly at a time when many mainstream publishers are losing ground. (Emphasis added)

The whole article is worth reading.

Authonomy as a Model for Tomorrow's Publishing Contracts?

I read in Jane Friedman's blog There are no Rules (at Writer's Digest) that HarperCollins has signed three authors to contracts who submitted their work on the HarperCollins site Authonomy. One of these authors had already self-published, and one used Authonomy to get an agent, but one was simply highly rated by the Authonomy community.

This is a fascinating development suggesting that social networking on the web has the power to transform traditional publishing. Recall that Epstein's Book Business was written before Amazon had started to make money, and in the book Epstein can't figure out how Amazon would ever turn a profit. It retrospect, his pessimism seems wildly off the mark. But who could have predicted how the social networking tools of Amazon (such as user ratings) and the use of Google-like algorithms to recommend books for individuals based on their browsing and purchasing history, would have such an impact? Authonomy seems to be relying on the same sort of thing: submitted works get bumped up in the ratings, and a kind of sorting takes place by the small crowd of users. Now, will this be successful as a model? Who can tell? If it makes more people partcipate in Authonomy, that is likely to be good, because a larger, more diverse group will resemble more closely the total reading public.