# Profile Books' Andrew Franklin says self-publishing "deeply corrupt"



## Paul StJohn Mackintosh (May 22, 2013)

As reported in the UK Guardian, Profile Books' founding MD Andrew Franklin had this to say:

"The overwhelming majority [of self-published books] are terrible - unutterable rubbish ... They don't enhance anything in the world."

"now unmeasurable numbers" of books being self-published. "These books come out and are met with a deathly silence, so the principle experience of self-publishing is one of disappointment,"

"I was very shocked to learn you can buy Facebook friends and likes on social media. That is what passes for affirmation in what I think is the deeply corrupt world of self-publishing."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jun/11/self-published-ebooks-20-per-cent-genre

Anyone have any thoughts on this, and on Franklin himself?


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## heavycat (Feb 14, 2011)

He was shocked to learn Facebook likes can be bought? 

Really?


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

> "I was very shocked to learn you can buy Facebook friends and likes on social media. That is what passes for affirmation in what I think is the deeply corrupt world of self-publishing."


No, what passes for affirmation is comments from readers and the fact they're buying our books.

It may be true that the majority of self-published books are bad, but it's the well-written minority that's cutting into his profit margin.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

The article overall was just statistics, with this bit from what seems to be some small press owner -- I'm too lazy to research the guy -- freaking out over something that's taking away his sales. Boo hoo.

Oh, you can buy likes, reviews, and anything else that puts your book up in the rankings? What's new about that? Snore.



> Those who bought self-published ebooks were also more likely to be heavy readers, with the statistics from Bowker showing that 61% of buyers of self-published ebooks said they read daily, compared to 37% of buyers of books as a whole.


I liked this part.  Find a niche and fill it, self-publishing does. (Read that in a certain jedi-master's voice, umkay?)


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Paul StJohn Mackintosh said:


> As reported in the UK Guardian, Profile Books' founding MD Andrew Franklin had this to say:
> 
> "The overwhelming majority [of self-published books] are terrible - unutterable rubbish ... They don't enhance anything in the world."
> 
> ...


Well, I don't care to comment on Franklin himself. That's personal. To me, that ought to be out of bounds.

As to his views, they seem self-contradictory and the same old clap-trap all these folks who are out to disparage indies are always saying. Nothing new here. Yawn.


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## Guest (Jun 12, 2013)

Paul StJohn Mackintosh said:


> "The overwhelming majority [of self-published books] are terrible - unutterable rubbish ... They don't enhance anything in the world."


Is Franklin saying that he has read the majority of self published books? If the tallying the numbers of self published books are 'unmeasurable' by his analysis, I'd hardly think he has the credentials to offer blanket criticism of their contents.


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## 41419 (Apr 4, 2011)

Yawn


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## smallblondehippy (Jan 20, 2012)

Most self-published books are terrible? Really?

This is not my experience at all. I have read a LOT of indie books and not a single one has been rubbish. Most are as good/better than traditionally published books. Have I just been lucky? Have you all come across 'terrible' indie books?

I'm confused that this myth seems to persist. I'd be interested to know just exactly how many indie books he's read. I bet its not that many.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

I really don't know why I follow these links. I'm ashamed of myself. 

So Franklin thinks self-publishing is about hitting a "jackpot" and that most self-publishers will be met with a "deathly silence." And yet the headline (based on statistics presented by someone else) says 20% of genre books sold in the UK are self-published. Are those all people who hit the "jackpot," or are some of them the sort of indie Hugh has pointed out-- people making a living, or enough to pay their bills, but not earning millions of dollars? If this guy thinks only a few people are selling all those books, does he have facts to back that idea up, or is he just tossing out thoughts with no support? Or was Franklin perhaps unaware of these figures until Steve Bohme tossed them out at this conference? Bohme's comments were about statistics, but the quotes from Franklin don't seem to be based on anything other than a visceral dislike of self-publishing (though admittedly we have no idea of the full contents of what he said).

Of course there is plenty of "unutterable rubbish" out there. There are also lots of good, professional indie authors who take pride in what they do. And if it's a surprise to anyone that people on the internet sometimes cheat-- well, welcome to the 21st century. Also, the fact that you can buy Facebook likes doesn't prove self-publishing is "corrupt"-- if indies are buying them, it's highly likely that small press and traditional authors resort to the same sort of behavior as well.


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## RJ Locksley (Oct 21, 2011)

I've met Andrew Franklin - his Profile Books is a respected independent publisher in the UK and he was invited to speak during my publishing degree. Not that that makes him an expert on self-publishing, but he does know trade publishing.


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## brendajcarlton (Sep 29, 2012)

self-publishing "deeply corrupt" -- to which I say, and traditional publishing isn't?


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

RJ Locksley said:


> I've met Andrew Franklin - his Profile Books is a respected independent publisher in the UK and he was invited to speak during my publishing degree. Not that that makes him an expert on self-publishing, but he does know trade publishing.


But he clearly hasn't read many indie novels.


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## Shane Murray (Aug 1, 2012)

swolf said:


> No, what passes for affirmation is comments from readers and the fact they're buying our books.
> 
> It may be true that the majority of self-published books are bad, but it's the well-written minority that's cutting into his profit margin.


+1

And a yawn for good measure


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## Caddy (Sep 13, 2011)

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ


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## Karl Fields (Jan 24, 2011)

So let's see, price fixing, reprehensible contract terms, Author Solutions...and yet it's self-publishing that's deeply corrupt. I have no doubt indies are buying Facebook likes or whatever, but weren't there several trad-pubbed writers caught up in the sock puppet nonsense last year? These types of comments remind me of the scene in "Moneyball," where John Henry, owner of the Red Sox, is encouraging Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) to continue his non-traditional approach:

_" I know you're taking it in the teeth, but the first guy through the wall... he always gets bloody... always. This is threatening not just a way of doing business... but in their minds, it's threatening the game. Really what it's threatening is their livelihood, their jobs. It's threatening the way they do things... and every time that happens, whether it's the government, a way of doing business, whatever, the people who are holding the reins - they have their hands on the switch - they go batsh*t crazy."_

And Imma go ahead and throw in a jaw-breaking yawn as well.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

smallblondehippy said:


> Most self-published books are terrible? Really?
> 
> This is not my experience at all. I have read a LOT of indie books and not a single one has been rubbish. Most are as good/better than traditionally published books. Have I just been lucky? Have you all come across 'terrible' indie books?
> 
> I'm confused that this myth seems to persist. I'd be interested to know just exactly how many indie books he's read. I bet its not that many.


Well, but, one would suppose that you do some due diligence before buying/downloading a book. I do rather suspect that if you chose a set of self-published books in a random, statistically valid way, more than half would not be worth your time. Can't prove that, 'cause I haven't done it, but there you go.

Before I learned to be more discriminating (I've been buying kindle books since 2008 and, realistically, I rarely bought self published work before that) I definitely ended up with a higher than expected number of real dogs. After a half dozen self pub works (which I basically learned about here) which were really Not Good, and another half dozen that were mediocre, I figured out that I had to be much more careful and not just get 'em because they were cheap or free. (Yes, I also found some great stuff, but early on that was much rarer.)

I would concede that the climate, here, at least, has changed since then, and I would guess at least a super majority of members here are publishing work that is well written and definitely good to excellent quality. And the more you buy good stuff on Amazon, the more you're recommended other good stuff. Also, I don't just browse randomly much on Amazon but generally go there with something in mind from some 'curated' type recommendation source. So most of what I see is at least decent, if not always to my taste.

But if you want to, it's not really hard to find books that are mind-bogglingly bad. And it is also probably true that the mind-bogglingly-bad ones are more likely to have been self published.

Which is NOT to say that all traditionally published work is superior.


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## AshMP (Dec 30, 2009)

Please no daggers ... but, in many respects, he's correct.

I remember about two years ago (maybe longer) a man contacted me via my blog for a book review.  I wasn't even published at the time but he was looking to generate some honest buzz.  The book wasn't bad, the writing was tight but the subject just didn't keep me and I couldn't finish the book.  I still check on that novel now and then on Amazon and he still has zero reviews.  It makes me sad because the book was good, just not my genre.  But that's the cold truth of self-publishing.  We here have an advantage being members of a board that works specifically towards the betterment of business rather then crafty-threads.  Our peers read and review our books (mostly without being asked) ... we share tips on generating buzz and hum around our books ... we know the good sites to query and the good spots to spend our advertising dollars. Many self-published writers don't know the things we do and so their books sit quietly on a virtual shelf.  

So yeah, that guy is right.  There is some drivel that's published ... and there are books that languish on the shelf ... and there are authors who really, probably shouldn't be.  But all things considered, I'd think it's worse to keep people from publishing rather then opening the gates and make it a free for all because some AMAZING authors have emerged and some fantastic books have been written.  

In all, these articles always make me laugh.  Generally it's either how self-publishing is a losing sport and sucks and sucks and sucks ... or how it's the greatest thing since sliced bread when the true truth is, most of the time, it's a middle of the road kinda thing and hard work and lots of luck and good writing.


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## Rusty Bigfoot (Jul 6, 2011)

Not having read the majority of self-pubbed books, I can't comment on how good they are. Anyone who says they're mostly bad is being intellectually dishonest unless they're read them all or at least looked through them. And everything he says could just as easily be applied to the trad pubbed books.

So, what was the point again? To tell the world we're making him nervous?


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## oooranje (Apr 20, 2013)

Classic sound byte from a guardian of the old industry who doesn't like that he's being made redundant. 

The reality is that there is more content out there than established editors like him can edit, and that there's a lot that sells that the established distributors don't know how to market (look at e.g. 50 Shades, or even Wool). I do agree that there is quite a lot of bad material out there, but guess what, the difference between a book that sells 3 copies to friends and family and one that sells 300 (or 3,000, or a million) in self-publishing is often a third (or fourth). In the traditional publishing model, that rewrite process is hidden from the market, but it's also expensive to keep editors on staff, particularly story editors that make structural / plot changes (as opposed to copy editors).

I don't understand throwing the baby out with the bathwater, especially not in an industry that is in many ways just coming to maturity. I think if you're willing to put in the time and effort to write 50k+ words and call it a novel, go ahead and see what the market thinks. Most authors will then either have the humility to accept negative reviews and improve their content (which is something I've done and continue to do), or figure out that self-publishing is not kinder or more lucrative than the traditional route, just cheaper to distribute.

As for the old guardians of the industry, well, their dismissive condescension doesn't change the fact that they're being made less and less relevant.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> Anyone who says they're mostly bad is being intellectually dishonest unless they're read them all or at least looked through them. And everything he says could just as easily be applied to the trad pubbed books.


I have no idea what percentage of self-published books are bad (there is no way of telling, as "bad" is a subjective term anyway). But I will say that the big difference is that when self-published books are bad, they can be really, really bad. I've read self-pubbed stuff in which the author does not know how to break dialogue into separate paragraphs, or the author cannot spell (presumably Amazon's spellchecker will help with this a bit), or the author writes like a fourth-grader (and again that's a subjective determination, but really, you know it when you see it). The _reallyreallyreallybad _stuff doesn't tend to make it in traditional publishing. But the _reallyreallyreallybad_ indie stuff doesn't usually get purchased in large quantities either. It's just there, and no one pays a lot of attention to it unless they're on a mission to "prove" that self-published books suck.


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## Joe_Nobody (Oct 23, 2012)

How seriously can you take any article written by a British academic or mogul-of-commerce that doesn't include the word "bloody" at least three times?


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## Adam Pepper (May 28, 2011)

Someone should ask him how many self published books he's actually read.

Also, if this statement is true:

"I think there is a process of the professional making of books which does make a real difference to the reader and the writer."

Then he has nothing to worry about and he shouldn't need to be on a PR campaign trying to convince the rest of the world that.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Looks like I've finally found some inspiration to write another Bookrant column for The Seattle Vine.  I know what I'll be doing tonight!

Of COURSE the majority of self-published books are unutterable trash.  I agree that it's silly for him to say so without qualifying the statement, since he hasn't read the majority of SP books.  But it's silly for him to rail against this fact.  The majority are unutterable trash because the slush pile is migrating off the desks of agents and editors and into the public.  Now it's readers who sort through it and determine what rises to the top and what gets rejected.  The slush pile is migrating into the hands of readers, readers are doing a great job of sorting the wheat from the chaff, and he no doubt knows that this is is the first chime of the death knell of The Old Way.  No, I don't think traditional publishing is going anywhere in my lifetime, but it is being forced to change VERY QUICKLY into something it's never been before.  People like Franklin evidently find that scary, while people like me see it as a good opportunity.

I'll be cooking this rant up all day at work.  Can't wait to get it written.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Karl Fields said:


> _" I know you're taking it in the teeth, but the first guy through the wall... he always gets bloody... always. This is threatening not just a way of doing business... but in their minds, it's threatening the game. Really what it's threatening is their livelihood, their jobs. It's threatening the way they do things... and every time that happens, whether it's the government, a way of doing business, whatever, the people who are holding the reins - they have their hands on the switch - they go batsh*t crazy."_


I haven't seen the movie, but great point. That's exactly how I feel about all the backlash from traditional publishers and agents against SP lately.

And it's not like the traditional route doesn't produce unutterable trash. Have you read Wild? Holy crap, it's been a really long time since I read a book so bad it actually made me goggle at my Kindle in disbelief, but that one did it. It was so bad I felt angry I'd spent money on it. So bad I thought about ways I could make an app for the Kindle that would delete a book by simulating burning it. Just awful. And it was the darling of the TP industry all last year. The mind boggles.


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## Guest (Jun 12, 2013)

Yes, the majority of self published books ARE bad. And while I have not read a million indie books this year to provide a statistic, I AM a judge for the Ben Franklin awards and get to see first hand how bad things can be outside the little ecosystem of KB. As a judge, I have been subjected to books published in the Carolina font (the ENTIRE book&#8230;my poor eyes). I have been subjected to books with light grey text on dark gray backgrounds. I've been subjected to books where, the author, thought, it was proper, to use, a comma, whenever his, character, too a, breath.

But where the "corruption" is, however, is not in the existence of these books. The corruption is in the refusal to acknowledge their existence and the pretense that all books are created equal and nobody should judge anyone. Instead of insulting or attacking people like Franklin who are merely saying out loud what is commonly said in the actual Amazon forums (those of you who dare to hang out there, how many times have you seen threads from people asking "how do I avoid self published books" or something like that because the person just got their Kindle and downloaded a rash of stinkers?).

Self-publishing outside of KB tends to pull everything down to the lowest common denominator instead of holding up the best of the best to aspire to. It is hard to see if your primary contact with self-publishers is here on KB, because KB has a high level of professional authors here. But if you are actually exposed to a lot of it on a day to day basis, you realize that the very worst trade published book is still 100x better than the worst self published book. And there are far more bad self published books in that regard.

*I think if you're willing to put in the time and effort to write 50k+ words and call it a novel, go ahead and see what the market thinks.*

And this is really the root of the problem. A blind monkey can churn out 50,000 words if given a typewriter. This is the root problem with the self-publishing community. The existence of words on a page is enough to justify publishing and asking for money. Just encourage the creation of a glut of dreck, and then get mad when people complain there is a lot of dreck in self publishing. We reward mediocrity and just showing up. Everyone gets a blue ribbon because "OMG CONGRATULATIONS YOU FIGURED OUT HOW TO ATTACH A FILE AND UPLOAD IT!!!!!!!!!!!!"

But this is the thing, instead of making blanket defenses of all self publishing, our efforts would be better spent elevating what is really GOOD in self publishing. Instead of trying to force this false believe that all self published books are equally valid and constantly banging out heads against the wall in regards to these discussions, we should spend more time elevating the stuff that is really good.

*Instead of doing review swaps, just review indie books that you think are good.

*Instead of exchanging follows on FB and Twitter to boost your own rankings, just follow authors who you sincerely appreciate.

*Instead of swapping guest blog posts, why not just talk about a great indie book you just read BECAUSE IT IS A GREAT BOOK and not because you expect the author to return the favor?

In short, how about we remove the entire quid pro quo mentality where we only promote each other's books when the other person is willing to return the favor (regardless of quality) and just talk about great indie books because they are great indie books?

This is where the corruption is. We promote indie books because the other person will promote ours. Or because we "like" a person and want to help them despite the fact that we don't actually like the book. Or because so-and-so said he bought my book so now I have to buy his. It's incestuous.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

"Deeply corrupt." Don't make me laugh. As if the trade publishing industry with its "tricks" isn't corrupt. Buying reviews, trading favours, price fixing... they're not corrupt?


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> But where the "corruption" is, however, is not in the existence of these books. The corruption is in the refusal to acknowledge their existence and the pretense that all books are created equal and nobody should judge anyone.
> ...
> But this is the thing, instead of making blanket defenses of all self publishing, our efforts would be better spent elevating what is really GOOD in self publishing. Instead of trying to force this false believe that all self published books are equally valid and constantly banging out heads against the wall in regards to these discussions, we should spend more time elevating the stuff that is really good.
> 
> ...


I AGREE.

I have never participated in the things you mentioned above, and whenever other SP authors ask me for advice I tell them not to do it, too. I don't know how many listen to me. I want all of the reviews for my books, all my follows, all my mailing list sign-ups, to be genuine, from people who actually read and enjoyed my books. And every review I write is my honest opinion of a book, not a DECEPTION to try to gain a little deception for my own book's sake.

Have some integrity, people. In the end, your word is all you've got. Use it honestly and the whole SP world will improve.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Ann in Arlington said:


> Well, but, one would suppose that you do some due diligence before buying/downloading a book. I do rather suspect that if you chose a set of self-published books in a random, statistically valid way, more than half would not be worth your time. Can't prove that, 'cause I haven't done it, but there you go.
> 
> Before I learned to be more discriminating (I've been buying kindle books since 2008 and, realistically, I rarely bought self published work before that) I definitely ended up with a higher than expected number of real dogs. After a half dozen self pub works (which I basically learned about here) which were really Not Good, and another half dozen that were mediocre, I figured out that I had to be much more careful and not just get 'em because they were cheap or free. (Yes, I also found some great stuff, but early on that was much rarer.)
> 
> ...


Yes, this. There is a lot of really really bad SP stuff out there. Really bad. Maybe it depends more on the genres, I don't know. Imagine a person that has never seen or heard of kboards. Shudders. 
But as the quality sp books have gone up, so has the sheer number of bad. So for me it has actually gotten worse again. I mean worse in finding the good stuff within the self published stuff. I have been burned again more.


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## Amanda Brice (Feb 16, 2011)

smallblondehippy said:


> Most self-published books are terrible? Really?
> 
> This is not my experience at all. I have read a LOT of indie books and not a single one has been rubbish. Most are as good/better than traditionally published books. Have I just been lucky? *Have you all come across 'terrible' indie books?*


Unfortunately, yes. And I'm sad to say that it's actually the majority of the self-published books on my Kindle. This weekend I was in the mood to read something indie specifically (I normally just read whatever strikes my fancy that day, regardless of the source -- whether Big Six, small press, digital-first, or indie) and I wanted it to be a new-to-me author, so I paged through my Kindle's bookshelf to find something that wasn't published by a publisher or written by an author I'd read before.

Turns out I had hundreds of such books on there (many downloaded for free), so it shouldn't be too hard to find something, right?

Sad to say, but I started and discarded no less than 10 books before I finally found something to read. (Happily, the 11th book I tried was a winner, and I'd place it up there with the Top 5 books I've read all year, so yay! I have a new author on my autobuy list now!)

Are all self-published books rubbish? Absolutely not. But there are literally thousands of self-published authors out there who are not part of forums, writers' groups, etc. They don't have access to workshops, critique groups (or maybe they do, but they don't avail themselves of it). They don't use beta readers. They don't hire editors. They feel it's good enough to bang out a first draft and call it a day.

Kindleboards is NOT the full universe of self-published authors.


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## Desmond X. Torres (Mar 16, 2013)

As a writer, I know that my I’m only half way there to being really good. I say that looking at my first m/s through squinted eyes afraid to actually read it, and what the final run through for submission on the fifth novel I’ve worked on today. All told, about 500K words. I’ll be ‘good-er’ I think when I hit the 1M mark. 

I’ve gone full time into writing as a second job. The sales aren’t there yet by a long shot, but my craft is improving steadily. To the point where I can see what sucks now on a re-read! My final drafts are pretty good now (hence submission). 

Self pubbing is such an example of the two edged sword. I got some good news and bad news- it’s pretty damn easy to do now. A market exists that I can enter, and the infrastructure that’s here makes it relatively a snap. I’m as guilty as any, ANY newbie writer for pubbing too soon. But not, not anymore by a long shot. 

I agree with Ann in Arlington. The quality of what’s coming out is improving. I’ve noticed that in just the last six months, let alone five years.  And each increase in overall quality by people like us will defiantly hurt the bottom lines of some publishers somewhat. Now since my hangouts are here on Kb and over at the Watercooler, I was surprised at the statements that there's more crap out here than ever. My personal experience is different, but maybe that's just me. 

I think the fellow mentioned in the OP has a point that’s somewhat valid. I also think that the criticisms of the trad pub model are just as valid. The synthesis of these two opposing models has yet to be worked out in any global sense. Trad pub is no more an evil empire than we indie writers are a collection of talentless hacks.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> There is a lot of really really bad SP stuff out there. Really bad. Maybe it depends more on the genres, I don't know.


Yes, this is the problem. Bad traditionally published stuff at least usually has gone through minimal editing for spelling and style. Self-published books can range from something so brilliant it ought to win the Nobel Prize for literature to awful, awful tripe that is absolutely unreadable. If you come across enough of the latter, it will tend to put you off the former. My feeling is that the really awful stuff is usually pretty obvious due to half-arsed covers and poorly written blurbs, but I could certainly be wrong.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

This thread should be good for about another 3 pages of:

"CORRUPT?? The big six are corrupt!"
"Rubbish? How can he say most? Has he read most?"
"Just another old gatekeeper who's afraid of the future."
"My xx,xxx sales tell me that he's wrong and readers love self-pubbers"

type posts.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

NathanWrann said:


> This thread should be good for about another 3 pages of:
> 
> "CORRUPT?? The big six are corrupt!"
> "Rubbish? How can he say most? Has he read most?"
> ...


Thank you for that insight, sir.


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## Desmond X. Torres (Mar 16, 2013)

ElHawk said:


> Thank you for that insight, sir.


He's right, but not for nothing, YOU promised a full rant here later!


I'll be watching. 
PS- you and Her Sithiness oughta go bowling or something- killer posts here.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

MegHarris said:


> Yes, this is the problem. Bad traditionally published stuff at least usually has gone through minimal editing for spelling and style. Self-published books can range from something so brilliant it ought to win the Nobel Prize for literature to awful, awful tripe that is absolutely unreadable. If you come across enough of the latter, it will tend to put you off the former. My feeling is that the really awful stuff is usually pretty obvious due to half-arsed covers and poorly written blurbs, but I could certainly be wrong.


Yes, covers can give it away, but not always. I have come across back list titles that I have been waiting on for years, especially in historical romance and I find them and the covers are so embarrassingly bad I feel so awful about the whole thing. Because I know that book is a gem from years ago and the author will never sell anything because of the atrocious cover. 
Or you can have a nice looking cover and then I look at the blurb, or the sample and its either a 5 page flyer unrelated to the genre and cover, or just so horribly bad I think they should have given that cover to the backlist author instead. 
It has gotten so bad in the genres I like that browsing has become useless. I used to love spend a while once or week or so and check out the new releases for the week. That is how I catch sometimes back list stuff. But in recent months, there is so much dreck that is now getting stuck in the genres I look at, it took all the fun out for me.
Bestsellers are also not a save choice anymore. I have read stuff I got based on the raving gazillion reviews and how high in ranking they have been. Can't be bad right? Cream goes to the top right? Some of the worse I have read. And yes, I am talking about SP's here. Or former SP as some have been picked up. Hope those editors have a bottle of Schnapps ready. 

So as much as some indy authors complain about the evils of "gatekeeping" of the TP, its incredibly useful to the reader. It doesn't mean I am missing out on anything, it means I can just enjoy reading.


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## ER Pierce (Jun 4, 2013)

Are there horrid Self Published books? Yep. Are there horrid Traditionally Published books? Yep. 

*yawn* 

Old news.


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## Amanda Brice (Feb 16, 2011)

MegHarris said:


> My feeling is that the really awful stuff is usually pretty obvious due to half-arsed covers and poorly written blurbs, but I could certainly be wrong.


Unfortunately, not always. I've downloaded some books just on the strength of the blurb and cover alone, only to start reading and discover it's a real stinker. It doesn't take writing talent to purchase a cover or workshop your blurb on a forum (just post a blurb in here and people come right out and rewrite it for you).

Likewise, have you SEEN some of the covers that some backlist titles have gotten? (Usually when the author has their agent self-publish it for them)

Case in point:

Loretta Chase's Captives of the Night (http://dearauthor.com/features/industry-news/thursday-midday-links-open-letter-to-loretta-chase/)
until they wised up and replaced that craptastic cover with something much more professional (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00502AYRC).


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> And this is really the root of the problem. A blind monkey can churn out 50,000 words if given a typewriter. This is the root problem with the self-publishing community. The existence of words on a page is enough to justify publishing and asking for money. Just encourage the creation of a glut of dreck, and then get mad when people complain there is a lot of dreck in self publishing. We reward mediocrity and just showing up. Everyone gets a blue ribbon because "OMG CONGRATULATIONS YOU FIGURED OUT HOW TO ATTACH A FILE AND UPLOAD IT!!!!!!!!!!!!"
> 
> But this is the thing, instead of making blanket defenses of all self publishing, our efforts would be better spent elevating what is really GOOD in self publishing. Instead of trying to force this false believe that all self published books are equally valid and constantly banging out heads against the wall in regards to these discussions, we should spend more time elevating the stuff that is really good.
> 
> ...


That's just silly. No, the root of the 'problem' isn't people here encouraging other indie authors without verifying somehow that they're good enough. If everyone here took your advice, it wouldn't change one single thing. We're a small drop in a large ocean, and the ocean is here regardless of what we do.

And I don't even consider this a problem. Self-publishing allows anyone to publish. By its very nature and definition, that's going to result in a lot of bad stuff out there. And there's nothing we can do to change that. Nor should we want to. Why would we want some kind of gatekeeper mentality when we just got rid of the old one?

Yes, we should all strive to make our books the best they can be. But our motivation for doing that will always be our own self-interest, not for the benefit of 'all indie writers'. It just doesn't work that way, and you can preach from your little soapbox here all day about it, but it's not going to change a thing.

What we're experiencing is freedom, and it's wonderful. I'm free to publish my masterpiece, just like my neighbor is free to publish his crap. (And I'm sure he feels the same way.) But it's working, because readers are also free to decide which books they want to buy. Yeah, it's tough to find the books they enjoy, but they seem to be figuring it out. So much so, the trad publishers are beginning to panic.

But the crux of the matter is, what's the alternative to the current self-publishing situation? How do you propose the 'bad stuff' be eliminated? And no, putting an end to review swaps isn't going to do it. Neither will all of us refraining from saying 'Congratulations' when a new indie author announces they've pressed the button for the first time.

The simple truth is, in a self-publishing world, the guy who spent a week writing an 80k novel and sent it out into the world with no editing has just as much right to do that as someone who took a year, and spent thousands cleaning it up. Because in the end, it's the readers who decide what they want to read, not any of us.

And that's a good thing.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Amanda Brice said:


> Unfortunately, not always. I've downloaded some books just on the strength of the blurb and cover alone, only to start reading and discover it's a real stinker. It doesn't take writing talent to purchase a cover or workshop your blurb on a forum (just post a blurb in here and people come right out and rewrite it for you).


I agree. I like to cruise the free lists, and I'll download anything that piques my interest without paying too much attention to the cover. Then I'll read through them, tossing out the bad ones.

The next time through, I'll see one of the books I tossed out, and think, Wow, that's a nice cover, too bad the book wasn't that good.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> Likewise, have you SEEN some of the covers that some backlist titles have gotten? (Usually when the author has their agent self-publish it for them)


Yeah, I remember that Loretta Chase cover. That was when some agents were just beginning to think, "Gee, we could make lots of money off our clients' backlists" and started producing ebooks without any clue what they were doing. Hopefully the public mocking did some good, because that one was just ghastly.


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## Annette_g (Nov 27, 2012)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> *Instead of doing review swaps, just review indie books that you think are good.
> 
> *Instead of exchanging follows on FB and Twitter to boost your own rankings, just follow authors who you sincerely appreciate.
> 
> *Instead of swapping guest blog posts, why not just talk about a great indie book you just read BECAUSE IT IS A GREAT BOOK and not because you expect the author to return the favor?


Been doing that for years on my blog  I promote other indie authors because I think they deserve a chance at some promotion, I am not expecting anything in return from them, whether reviews, guest blogs or whatever . (And no, there is no charge for it and I don't take paid for ads.)


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## Redbloon (Mar 27, 2013)

I think we do have 'gatekeepers'. They are the readers. If they hate something, they say and the author either improves as a result or languishes.


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## Janet Michelson (Jun 20, 2012)

NathanWrann said:


> This thread should be good for about another 3 pages of:
> 
> "CORRUPT?? The big six are corrupt!"
> "Rubbish? How can he say most? Has he read most?"
> ...


Best laugh of the day so far! You've got me cackling, Nathan! We are so predictable.


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## zandermarks (May 20, 2013)

Paul StJohn Mackintosh said:


> "The overwhelming majority [of self-published books] are terrible - unutterable rubbish ... They don't enhance anything in the world."
> 
> "now unmeasurable numbers" of books being self-published. "These books come out and are met with a deathly silence, so the principle experience of self-publishing is one of disappointment,"


My thoughts:

1) There is probably some validity to the first statement--but that's just because self-publishing exposes the "slush pile" along with the good stuff. But the incorrect assumption is that the "unutterable rubbish" will drown out the good stuff. It won't because self-publishing works more on the word-of-mouth principle and there is a crowd-sourcing effect. It does mean that the good stuff will need to find its legs and audience more organically (and it may be a slower process). But since the model allows that better than the traditional publishing/distribution model does, that's not such a terrible thing.

2) As to the second statement, I would say that self-publishing does not hold a monopoly on disappointment. And as long as one enters it with a clear understanding of the new dynamic at play, some amount of patience, and a realistic view of how the whole thing works, it need not be disappointing at all.

And one more thing:



Paul StJohn Mackintosh said:


> "They don't enhance anything in the world."


Since when did literary agents ever approach publishers with the following pitch: "You need to publish this book. It won't sell any copies, and you'll lose money on it--all the copies will be returned by the bookstores, but you need to publish it anyway because it will _enhance the world_."?


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## Guest (Jun 12, 2013)

swolf said:


> And I don't even consider this a problem. Self-publishing allows anyone to publish. By its very nature and definition, that's going to result in a lot of bad stuff out there. And there's nothing we can do to change that.


Really? How is it the indie music scene doesn't have this problem? Why is it the indie film scene doesn't have this problem? How is it that the indie art scene seems to function without a problem? Why is indie publishing somehow immune against the ability of the community to work toward celebrating the good and not celebrating mediocrity?

Nobody said to institute gatekeepers. Nobody said to stop people from publishing. Nobody said those things. But other indie communities have figured out how to celebrate the people doing it right without being dragged down to the lowest common denominator in the eyes of the public. If indie musicians and indie filmmakers and indie artists can figure it out, I would HOPE indie publishers are smart enough to do that as well.

Or, we can just sit around and complain about how the mean old trade people hate us/are afraid of us/are trying to keep us down while the rest of the indie art universe actually has healthy relationships with their counterparts and the public.


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## oooranje (Apr 20, 2013)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Really? How is it the indie music scene doesn't have this problem? Why is it the indie film scene doesn't have this problem? How is it that the indie art scene seems to function without a problem? Why is indie publishing somehow immune against the ability of the community to work toward celebrating the good and not celebrating mediocrity?


The indie music and film scenes DO have this problem, there is a LOT of crap out there with those as well. The difference there is that a) music is farther down the road with online (look at the 1,000 loyal fans idea as well as bandpages as mature online market responses), so they've worked through some of the kinks, and b) there's LESS film because film is more expensive to make (in terms of up-front financing).

The other difference of course is that songs are 3-5 minutes long and you can tell from a film trailer if it's good or not (or at least if you're interested enough to pay), whereas with books you kinda have to read them to find out. But that applies to traditional publishing just as much as indie, and of course we've all had bad experiences buying books we ended up not liking.

I'm not sure, to be honest, that the indie book scene isn't functioning - I do think there are some people taking advantage of an immature industry at present, but that happens. Pages like KBoards are how the scene becomes self-aware and starts advancing. I don't see how a traditional publisher dismissing an industry trend towards self-publishing as corrupt advances anything for anyone, but that's just me.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Really? How is it the indie music scene doesn't have this problem? Why is it the indie film scene doesn't have this problem? How is it that the indie art scene seems to function without a problem? Why is indie publishing somehow immune against the ability of the community to work toward celebrating the good and not celebrating mediocrity?
> 
> Nobody said to institute gatekeepers. Nobody said to stop people from publishing. Nobody said those things. But other indie communities have figured out how to celebrate the people doing it right without being dragged down to the lowest common denominator in the eyes of the public. If indie musicians and indie filmmakers and indie artists can figure it out, I would HOPE indie publishers are smart enough to do that as well.
> 
> Or, we can just sit around and complain about how the mean old trade people hate us/are afraid of us/are trying to keep us down while the rest of the indie art universe actually has healthy relationships with their counterparts and the public.


Those other indie media don't have the distribution outlets made available to them that indie writers have been provided in the past few years. There's always been indie writers, just like there's always been indie musicians, artists, and film makers. But what has changed is the ability of indie writers to get their work in front of millions of potential customers, just by writing and uploading a file. Which, of course, has attracted more people to become indie writers.

It's not the indie communities 'celebrating the people doing it right' and ignoring the others that keep out the 'lowest common denominator'. It's because they have no mechanism in place for selling to a lot of people.

It's fanciful to think 'celebrating the people doing it right' is going to get rid of the 'bad' self-published books out there.

And the trad people are afraid of us. For good reason.


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## Guest (Jun 12, 2013)

oooranje said:


> The indie music and film scenes DO have this problem, there is a LOT of crap out there with those as well. The difference there is that a) music is farther down the road with online (look at the 1,000 loyal fans idea as well as bandpages as mature online market responses), so they've worked through some of the kinks, and b) there's LESS film because film is more expensive to make (in terms of up-front financing).


That's my point. I didn't say there was no crap. I said these industries have figured out a way to work around the crap and not feel obligated to celebrate it. We don't see articles on studio execs or musicians with corporate contracts complaining about the amount of bad indie music. We don't see comments from movie fans on social media asking "How do I avoid indie films?" Actors and musicians effortlessly move between indie projects and corporate projects. Indie and corporate music and film co-exist side-by-side without animousity. How did they do it? Why can't we? Why a decade later are we still having these conversations?


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## Joshua Dalzelle (Jun 12, 2013)

Calling the Facebook thing "corruption" is a little melodramatic. Buying likes or twitter followers or whatever could simply be called promotion. Useless, in my opinion, because a FB like doesn't lead to a sold book, but hardly corruption. Now paying for sock-puppet reviews... different story.

This article has the same stench of many others I've read in the last couple of years; traditional publishing has failed to keep up and is now flailing about and insulting not only its readers but potential clients as well. The simple fact is that if indie publishing was so horrible the market wouldn't support it. When a book like WOOL becomes a phenomenon the publishing industry should have used it as a teachable moment; readers are tired of the same old over-priced drivel from the same few authors by the Big 6. And they STILL haven't caught on...

All Amazon did was level the playing field in a realistic way and let the consumer community decide what was good and what wasn't. Would my (and your) books benefit from a professional team of graphic artists, editors, and beta readers? Maybe. Probably. But, there's also something to be said for being able to control all aspects of your vision. I firmly believe you can't create inspiration in a committee and will gladly overlook an occasional typo in exchange for a breath of fresh air by a new author with a new, unique point of view. I don't think I'm alone in this either as indie books are consistently in the Top10 for most genres.


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

Jeebuz. Do we have to do this for all 196 countries?

B.


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## Just Browsing (Sep 26, 2012)

On that Loretta Chase cover... I clicked on the first one and found this comment:

"Your cover is poorly designed and it made Sarah wonder if it is was, well, self published.  A reader emailed you to make sure that this was a book sold legitimately."

Lolz. Are we publishing--'well'--illegitimately?


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> That's my point. I didn't say there was no crap. I said these industries have figured out a way to work around the crap and not feel obligated to celebrate it. We don't see articles on studio execs or musicians with corporate contracts complaining about the amount of bad indie music. We don't see comments from movie fans on social media asking "How do I avoid indie films?" Actors and musicians effortlessly move between indie projects and corporate projects. Indie and corporate music and film co-exist side-by-side without animousity. How did they do it? Why can't we? Why a decade later are we still having these conversations?


Swolf, indie musicians and indie filmmakers can put their work for sale on Amazon just like we can, and there is plenty of bad indie music and indie films available on Amazon (and iTunes and other venues). With that said, Julie is correct, despite the loads of bad indie films and music there isn't the backlash as there is against self-pubbed books (such as book blogger reviewers with big bold lettering that state "No Self-Pubbed").

How did they do it? One key point, in regards to indie films is that an "indie film" is typically a lower-budget, potentially more thought provoking, envelope pushing film that speaks to a segment that studio blockbuster films don't speak to. Because of this, "indie film" in and of itself could be considered a genre. There is no such thing as a "low budget" book, therefore all books start out on the same playing field. Which is probably why Trad publishing (and readers) have animosity. Hollywood isn't afraid of indie film, because indie film is a different product than a Hollywood blockbuster. I suppose the same could be said for indie music and the major labels. And the major labels use the indie music scene as their feeder pool. A self-pubbed thriller competes directly with a James Patterson thriller. Same product.

Why isn't the indie film and indie music scene drowning in poorly made products? Because they (the indie scenes) have a hierarchy. Great indie films rise to the top because they play festivals and garner awards (based on responses to my awards question in the other thread, indie writers have NO desire for awards because "awards don't pay the bills") award winning films rise to the top. And films don't need to win the top awards to rise. There are hundreds of festivals that all have different criteria and different tastes. If a film gets accepted to a festival and/or wins an award, it's a stamp of approval that indie film audiences look for. No stamp, move on, no need to wade through dozens of bad films before finding a gem. Overall, the self-pub scene seems to reject any kind of stamp or qualifying mark to indicate that something is a work of quality. This puts all self-pubs on equal ground so it's easy to paint them with the "all self-pubbed books suck" brush. Keep in mind, trad pubbed books have a stamp of approval (the publisher's logo). And trad pubbed books that win awards have a stamp that goes even higher. I found it interesting in another thread that Phoenix mentioned that she works for women who are award winners _and_ sell millions of copies. Maybe there's something there.


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## ElisaBlaisdell (Jun 3, 2012)

1001nightspress said:


> On that Loretta Chase cover... I clicked on the first one and found this comment:
> 
> "Your cover is poorly designed and it made Sarah wonder if it is was, well, self published. A reader emailed you to make sure that this was a book sold legitimately."
> 
> Lolz. Are we publishing--'well'--illegitimately?


I assume that the reader was concerned that the book had been pirated.


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## AriaS (May 6, 2013)

In all honesty, I just arrived at the writing scene. I had a major roadblock - my cover and blurb didn't make a good job. What did I do? I'm bettering it. I'm making a new cover, I reworked the blurb (didn't put it up yet, though), I did what I could to have a better book. Will it be perfect? Of course not. But even from the Big Six comes books that aren't that great. Yeah, they might have a team of designers, to make it look awesome, and sometimes even ghostwriters behind it.
But the ones who really matter are the readers. Right now they're telling me my book is not working, and for more followers that I have on Twitter, this won't change. I don't dabble much on Facebook (don't really enjoy it), but even if I bought thousands of likes, it wouldn't change a thing - because readers simply don't want to read my book.
Will I take my book down, if no one buys it? Of course not. I'll keep on writing, keep on trying to get better, and maybe someday I'll get there. And the book that no one buys now, perhaps someday someone will buy it, and have a nice day because of it, and that alone makes me happy.
As for the other writers? I'm not my brother's keeper. If they don't strive to improve, all they shall amass is failure. One should strive to be a better person, and not throw stones, because, you know, we all have houses with ceilings of glass.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

NathanWrann said:


> Why isn't the indie film and indie music scene drowning in poorly made products? Because they (the indie scenes) have a hierarchy.


No, it's because it's a higher bar to produce indie films or music.

Especially with films. You can be the most creative indie director that ever lived, but you're not going to create a film on a limited budget that looks anything like what Hollywood can produce.

With books, it's possible for an author sitting home alone to create something that is just as good as what James Patterson or Stephen King puts out. And that's why so many people attempt to do it. And also why the trad publishers are upset about it. Hollywood is under no such threat from a guy with a Sony video camera.


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## JenniferHarlow (Jun 8, 2013)

Indie publishing is still in it's infancy. It takes time for people to embrace anything new. Four years ago how many of us had a Kindle? There was an established order of things for hundreds of years because the process of producing and distributing a book was more involved. The tech revolution has made us all want everything immediately. Not a bad thing by any means but it takes time to turn around the Titanic. We are creatures of habit and really, really don't like change. Someday indies will be considered just as good as traditional by the majority but it will take time, just as if did for indie filmmakers. 
As for corruption, with any revolution there are going to be problems. Throw in billions of dollars and the human condition, and you can damn well guarantee corruption. No system is perfect. I've heard democracy called the best of the bad choices. All you can do is adapt within the system, do your damnest to keep your integrity, and attempt to change things if you're brave enough.


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## Desmond X. Torres (Mar 16, 2013)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Really? How is it the indie music scene doesn't have this problem? Why is it the indie film scene doesn't have this problem? How is it that the indie art scene seems to function without a problem? Why is indie publishing somehow immune against the ability of the community to work toward celebrating the good and not celebrating mediocrity?
> 
> Nobody said to institute gatekeepers. Nobody said to stop people from publishing. Nobody said those things. But other indie communities have figured out how to celebrate the people doing it right without being dragged down to the lowest common denominator in the eyes of the public. If indie musicians and indie filmmakers and indie artists can figure it out, I would HOPE indie publishers are smart enough to do that as well.
> 
> Or, we can just sit around and complain about how the mean old trade people hate us/are afraid of us/are trying to keep us down while the rest of the indie art universe actually has healthy relationships with their counterparts and the public.


I'm getting a whiff of that synthesis I mentioned above...


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

swolf said:


> No, it's because it's a higher bar to produce indie films or music.


This has no bearing on the second part of your post, which I pasted below. There are plenty of really, really bad indie films being made, but they don't make it to the level of visibility of a Sundance winner or even a Boise Idaho Film Festival award winner. Those award winning films (the hierarchy. The mark of quality.) rise to the top and the rest don't clutter it up. Last time I checked, there was somewhere around 20,000 films on Netflix and probably more on Amazon instant streaming. There are plenty of bad movies in those 20,000, but they don't make it to my queue unless they have some indication of quality. That can be a director's filmography, an actor's choice to be in the film (not always a good barometer) or if it's an award winner. The award winner is always at the top of the indie film hierarchy. The hierarchy (and marks of quality) benefits the audience (and reviewers). Doesn't matter if it's 20,000 films or 1 million films.



swolf said:


> Especially with films. You can be the most creative indie director that ever lived, but you're not going to create a film on a limited budget that looks anything like what Hollywood can produce.
> 
> With books, it's possible for an author sitting home alone to create something that is just as good as what James Patterson or Stephen King puts out. And that's why so many people attempt to do it. And also why the trad publishers are upset about it. Hollywood is under no such threat from a guy with a Sony video camera.


This doesn't have anything to do with the indie scene drowning in poorly made product. This has to do with Trad pubs animosity toward self-pubs. Which I addressed in my previous post:



NathanWrann said:


> How did they do it? One key point, in regards to indie films is that an "indie film" is typically a lower-budget, potentially more thought provoking, envelope pushing film that speaks to a segment that studio blockbuster films don't speak to. Because of this, "indie film" in and of itself could be considered a genre. *There is no such thing as a "low budget" book, therefore all books start out on the same playing field. Which is probably why Trad publishing (and readers) have animosity. Hollywood isn't afraid of indie film, because indie film is a different product than a Hollywood blockbuster. I suppose the same could be said for indie music and the major labels. And the major labels use the indie music scene as their feeder pool. A self-pubbed thriller competes directly with a James Patterson thriller. Same product.
> *


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

JenniferHarlow said:


> Someday indies will be considered just as good as traditional by the majority but it will take time, just as if did for indie filmmakers.


I don't think it will ever reach that point. I think most people will realize that the quality of indie writers varies much more from writer to writer than traditional published writers, but that, yes, some are just as good (or better).


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

NathanWrann said:


> This has no bearing on the second part of your post, which I pasted below.
> 
> This doesn't have anything to do with the indie scene drowning in poorly made product. This has to do with Trad pubs animosity toward self-pubs. Which I addressed in my previous post:


It has everything to do with it. The reason the book market is being flooded with indie books, many of them bad, is because people are deciding, "I can do that. And not only can I do it, there's a place to sell it."

No such parallel exists in the indie film world. The average person doesn't look at Hollywood movies and think they can do that.


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

The indie film industry's hyperfocus on awards is driven by its near total dependence on third party distribution. The proper comparison to indie publishing would be those movie makers that bypass the traditional distribution channels and go with direct streaming and or DVD sales.

The indie music scene is a far better comparison, as the traditional distribution system has eroded to a point that a career trajectory like Skrillex's can exist. His rabid fan base came first. The awards and traditional-ish record deals came second.

B.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

This article is very encouraging. Let's accept his assertions about the quality of independent books. That would be a conservative approach and a worst case scenario.

If 20% of eBook sales in those genres are independent AND most independent books are trash, THEN it's reasonable to speculate that consumers have figured out how to pull the good books from the trash bin. Those who harp on the trash are being ignored by consumers. They can continue to point at the trash, but consumers are looking at the good stuff. 

Twenty percent of any market is a big deal. I'd be interested in the corresponding percentage from any one single publisher. If we consider independents as a single publisher, is it possible they are now the dominant player?

Looking into the future, if all eBooks continue to take an increasing market share, and print declines, it's also reasonable to say the independent share of all books will continue to increase.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

swolf said:


> It has everything to do with it. The reason the book market is being flooded with indie books, many of them bad, is because people are deciding, "I can do that. And not only can I do it, there's a place to sell it."
> 
> No such parallel exists in the indie film world. The average person doesn't look at Hollywood movies and think they can do that.


You're missing my point, which is that there are thousands upon thousands of bad independent films made. These films (thanks to technology) are put into the market. They're put into Netflix. They're put into Amazon instant streaming. And they're put into every other venue for watching movies. There are more bad independent films being made than good independent films or Hollywood studio movies. Why? Because all it takes is a $500 camera (or an iPhone), some friends, and iMovie to make a movie. These movies are out there. If you look for them, you will find them. But you won't accidentally watch one (well you might if, like me, your choice in film is horror) because there is an easily discernible hierarchy of indie film, that doesn't exist for indie books. So the market is flooded, but it is easy to navigate. The fact that you don't think it's flooded, proves the point.

Bottom line: it is EASY to avoid putting a bad indie film in your Netflix queue, not because they don't exist, but because there are marks of quality on the good ones. It is NOT EASY to avoid putting a bad indie book in your kindle because there is no mark of quality among indie books.

(by Bad/Good I mean watchable/unwatchable or readable/unreadable.)


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Twenty percent of any market is a big deal. I'd be interested in the corresponding percentage from any one single publisher. If we consider independents as a single publisher, is it possible they are now the dominant player?


It is estimated that Random Penguin will have a market share of 25%-27%.

An executive at B&N has stated that independent books compromise 25% of Nook's total sales.

Amazon is being a coy lass as usual, but if the indie share on Kindle is < 35%, I'll shave my head.

B.


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

NathanWrann said:


> Bottom line: it is EASY to avoid putting a bad indie film in your Netflix queue, not because they don't exist, but because there are marks of quality on the good ones. It is NOT EASY to avoid putting a bad indie book in your kindle because there is no mark of quality among indie books.


I assume you're not a fan of star ratings and/or book review websites?

B.


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## J. Tanner (Aug 22, 2011)

smallblondehippy said:


> Most self-published books are terrible? Really?
> 
> This is not my experience at all. I have read a LOT of indie books and not a single one has been rubbish. Most are as good/better than traditionally published books. Have I just been lucky? Have you all come across 'terrible' indie books?
> 
> I'm confused that this myth seems to persist. I'd be interested to know just exactly how many indie books he's read. I bet its not that many.


Yes, in my experience they're pretty terrible on the whole. Or more precisely, technically incompetent. You don't need to read past the first page to see it. Like looking at a house for 10 seconds and seeing that the front door won't close because the frame is crooked, and the roof has a hole in it. You don't need to take the full tour to know the builder was technically incompetent.

KB has survivor bias. The regulars here are the technically competent. If you stick with the regulars, you'll tend to find only self-pub books of reasonable quality. It's effectively a form of vetting.

Start looking at the stragglers. Start doing some random Amazon searches and looking for self pub books with no reviews. Look at the funnel of new books in your favorite genre being uploaded to Smashwords each day. In my experience, it's a horror show.

But the bad doesn't really matter in the grander scheme. It's not a reason to piss and moan and dismiss the whole. The good is what's important and no matter how much some people grouse about self-pub being a mountain of crap it's not all that hard to find the peak.


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## Guest (Jun 12, 2013)

Joshua Dalzelle said:


> Calling the Facebook thing "corruption" is a little melodramatic. Buying likes or twitter followers or whatever could simply be called promotion.


Some of us would call it a desperate attempt to pretend that you are more popular than you really are to create an artificial illusion of success. But hey, call it promotion if you want to.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> "Why is indie publishing somehow immune against the ability of the community to work toward celebrating the good and not celebrating mediocrity?"


What community? I hear about this community a lot. I'd say a community is a voluntary association of people bound together for some common cause. I sure don't see it.

I do see a very diverse segment of book producers who have clicked the KDP upload button, but that doesn't constitute a community.


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## Mark McGuinness (Jul 16, 2012)

Paul StJohn Mackintosh said:


> "The overwhelming majority [of self-published books] are terrible - unutterable rubbish."


"90% of _everything_ is crap."

Sturgeon'sLaw


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## Guest (Jun 12, 2013)

JenniferHarlow said:


> Indie publishing is still in it's infancy.


But it's not. I started self publishing in 2004. Self publishing existed before the Kindle. Amazon did not invent self publishing. Fictionwise was selling ebooks in 2000 and at one point was the biggest seller of ebooks. The technology has gotten better and been more widely adopted. But self publishing has existed for decades.

The problem is that, in the indie world, we are stuck in the perpetual infancy mindset. It is much better here on KB (I can't stress than enough.) But out in the general community you have way too many people who run around with chips on their shoulders daring people to knock them off and acting like a toddler that need a nap. My only point was that we need to get out of the infancy mindset and start acting like a mature community. We have to stop leaning on this "Oh, it's all new and shiny" meme because it is not true and it serves as only an excuse.


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## Joshua Dalzelle (Jun 12, 2013)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Some of us would call it a desperate attempt to pretend that you are more popular than you really are to create an artificial illusion of success. But hey, call it promotion if you want to.


Again... so what? How is that "corruption?" I have never bought a book based on the number of followers on facebook or any other social media. Even if it made me check the book out on amazon I would still be deterred by negative reviews, low ranking, and/or sloppy cover and blurb. Corruption indicates that it's an institutional problem that is robbing other publishers of huge amounts of sales. Like I said; it's pointless but hardly a reason as to why the big publishing houses are losing market share to the indie community.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> "Your cover is poorly designed and it made Sarah wonder if it is was, well, self published. A reader emailed you to make sure that this was a book sold legitimately."
> 
> Lolz. Are we publishing--'well'--illegitimately?


I recall some of the discussion about that cover (I think I even wrote a blog post about it), and I don't think the implication there was intended to be "self pubbed=illegitimate." Rather, I think that first cover was soooo bad that people were wondering if Ms. Chase actually was selling it herself, or if some enterprising pirate/reader had scanned it and added the lousy cover. Alas for her, it really was being sold by her agent that way. How embarrassing *shudders*.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Nathan,

I'm not up on my indie movie scene, but I don't think any Tom, Dick or Harry can get their movie on Netlfix or iTunes in the same they can get their book on Amazon. Distribution is throttled. Or am I mistaken?


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

B. Justin Shier said:


> I assume you're not a fan of star ratings and/or book review websites?
> 
> B.


A great many book review websites won't go anywhere near any self-published books (for an example, see this thread here: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,154063.0.html), primarily because there is no external mark of quality.

also, book review websites don't help if I'm browsing on my kindle looking for a book. If I have to flip back and forth to read reviews (which I don't like because of the possibility of spoilers) it adds another speed bump to discoverability. So, if it's the choice between a blurb, right there that says: "BlahBlah award winner" or "Reputable Independent Publisher Organization Mark of Quality" and having to search for an external website that says the book might be good, I'll take the former. The latter, which is the current system, makes discoverability of quality independent work difficult at best.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

Monique said:


> Nathan,
> 
> I'm not up on my indie movie scene, but I don't think any Tom, Dick or Harry can get their movie on Netlfix or iTunes in the same they can get their book on Amazon. Distribution is throttled. Or am I mistaken?


My name isn't Tom, Dick or Harry, but my movie is available on Amazon: http://amzn.com/B003MHMU88 (linked for example purposes only, not as a means for promotion or sales.) If you have the wherewithal to make a movie, you have the wherewithal to get it out there.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)




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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

NathanWrann said:


> A great many book review websites won't go anywhere near any self-published books (for an example, see this thread here: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,154063.0.html), primarily because there is no external mark of quality.


Some are not all. I've had no trouble finding quality sites that also review indies, and this is where the majority of my planned purchases come from. It's too bad you've had difficulty. We need to work harder to promote the great websites that do.



NathanWrann said:


> also, book review websites don't help if I'm browsing on my kindle looking for a book.


That's why I asked about the star system. I use that in conjunction with sampling and haven't had more fun reading since I first stumbled upon "urban" fantasy in a bookstore.

I love the indie movie scene, but I've found few of my relative or friends are willing to endure 30 minutes of one. This is probably because I resemble those who vote while they do not. (I spent my childhood as a theater bum, prefer subtitles, studied film in college, helped run a movie theater, and find _Solaris (1972)_ utterly captivating.) And yet I'm happy that in the next century, the films that make it to the public won't be bound by the tastes of people like me. I'm reminded by this every time I'm forced to endure a dubbed version of a foreign classic. : )

B.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

NathanWrann said:


> My name isn't Tom, Dick or Harry, but my movie is available on Amazon: http://amzn.com/B003MHMU88 (linked for example purposes only, not as a means for promotion or sales.) If you have the wherewithal to make a movie, you have the wherewithal to get it out there.


I get the sense that you were insulted by "Tom, Dick or Harry" that was not my intention. Just a shorthand for "anyone". Certainly anyone with enough gumption get get just about anything done. I was simply observing that the barriers to entry/the wherewithal needed to publish a book isn't quite comparable to either making a movie (it's harder, imho - I went to film school, btw) or finding large distribution channels.


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## Amanda Brice (Feb 16, 2011)

ElisaBlaisdell said:


> I assume that the reader was concerned that the book had been pirated.


This. Clearly the reader recognized the Loretta Chase book as one that she'd already read or at least had heard of, so when she saw it as an ebook with a horrendous cover, she probably wondered whether someone had pirated it and uploaded it to Amazon without Loretta's consent.


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## David Thayer (Sep 7, 2012)

I was okay with "deeply corrupt" since I assumed that Mr. Franklin is simply pissed off that independents are learning to compete with the Big Publishers ( eventually, for instance, an ad on Book Bub will cost $250,000 and Harper Collins will dump 170 years worth of backlist on BB in exchange). Co-op is still their sword and shield.

The word that astonished me was "disappointment." Indie publishing will only lead to disappointment. As writers all know, "disappointment" is the primary byproduct of the publishing biz and the very feedstock of the rejection letter culture ( we are terribly sorry, but your work is unworthy. Actually, we're not really sorry, we're sort of glad because it reaffirms our word view that only we understand quality work.)  

Maybe he was pulling our leg.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

Monique said:


> I get the sense that you were insulted by "Tom, Dick or Harry" that was not my intention. Just a shorthand for "anyone". Certainly anyone with enough gumption get get just about anything done. I was simply observing that the barriers to entry/the wherewithal needed to publish a book isn't quite comparable to either making a movie (it's harder, imho - I went to film school, btw) or finding large distribution channels.


No, not insulted at all (strangely, I think it is impossible for me to take offense or be insulted. I attribute it to the same personality traits that make my wife claim that I have no soul). I was actually trying to be playful. I guess I should have added one of these:  on the end, or something. I agree with you (and swolf), the barriers are higher to make a movie, but that doesn't mean that bad movies don't get made or distributed or thrown into the market. It actually means that it's harder to make a good movie.


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## karamina (May 5, 2013)

I attended the London Book Fair this spring, and got the impression that there's quite a bit of catching up to do in the publishing world with regard to the whole social media thing. They move ve-e-e-ry slowly. I think it's just sunk in that Twitter and Facebook aren't going away, and now they're having to adjust to the fact that maybe self publishing won't, either. I wrote a bit about it on my blog. http://rachaellucas.com/the-deeply-corrupt-world-of-self-publishing-can-we-play-nicely-please/


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Rusty Bigfoot said:


> So, what was the point again? To tell the world we're making him nervous?


I think that about sums it up.


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## TiffanyTurner (Jun 8, 2009)

David Thayer said:


> I was okay with "deeply corrupt" since I assumed that Mr. Franklin is simply p*ssed off that independents are learning to compete with the Big Publishers ( eventually, for instance, an ad on Book Bub will cost $250,000 and Harper Collins will dump 170 years worth of backlist on BB in exchange). Co-op is still their sword and shield.
> 
> The word that astonished me was "disappointment." Indie publishing will only lead to disappointment. As writers all know, "disappointment" is the primary byproduct of the publishing biz and the very feedstock of the rejection letter culture ( we are terribly sorry, but your work is unworthy. Actually, we're not really sorry, we're sort of glad because it reaffirms our word view that only we understand quality work.)


I keep seeing a lot this with the "self-publishing" is "bad" articles. You will be disappointed. Seriously, I was disappointed with rejections, and it wasn't because things were bad. You had to get someone to notice or work with you too. Rejection is part of writing. But I think they're leaving out the part about "hard work".

We always talk about writing a good book. What I really wanted to know when I started writing was how to write a good book and get published. It happened to turn into the self published route when I heard what another writer did for his book. Now, it's a way to get your work out there, build a readership and following, and I'm hoping to eventually make more money. Granted, children's books are a bit harder to sell, and less of the ebook market right now.

As quoted from the article:
"Only 3% of children's ebooks, by contrast, were self-published."

What does that mean? There isn't a market for children's books on ebooks. The gatekeepers are still in place. But really, most of the selling comes from word of mouth. Marketing is only 50%, and the rest is word of mouth. I've seen so much on how everyone, traditional/hybrid/Indie are desperately trying to build word of mouth. Even if you get picked up by a traditional publisher, how much will they promote you? Unless you've got things established and already working for you, you're still small fry.

Maybe Indie is think smarter. I had to relearn my idea of being a writer, which was not letting the publisher do everything for me. Really, I heard a traditional published author say during Q and A at a conference, "I go where my publisher sends me." That was almost too big brother for me. At least being an Indie, I have the freedom to try new things and see if it works. Taking a chance on no one but myself.

The freedom of being Indie is golden.  Really, the name calling in all of these articles can be countermanded by what we go out and do to create a better Indie community. Maybe we just need to continue to build one. I think the Indie Author associations are helping, like IndieRecon. Just got to get out there and do more.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

NathanWrann said:


> You're missing my point, which is that there are thousands upon thousands of bad independent films made. These films (thanks to technology) are put into the market. They're put into Netflix. They're put into Amazon instant streaming. And they're put into every other venue for watching movies. There are more bad independent films being made than good independent films or Hollywood studio movies. Why? Because all it takes is a $500 camera (or an iPhone), some friends, and iMovie to make a movie. These movies are out there. If you look for them, you will find them. But you won't accidentally watch one (well you might if, like me, your choice in film is horror) because there is an easily discernible hierarchy of indie film, that doesn't exist for indie books. So the market is flooded, but it is easy to navigate. The fact that you don't think it's flooded, proves the point.
> 
> Bottom line: it is EASY to avoid putting a bad indie film in your Netflix queue, not because they don't exist, but because there are marks of quality on the good ones. It is NOT EASY to avoid putting a bad indie book in your kindle because there is no mark of quality among indie books.
> 
> (by Bad/Good I mean watchable/unwatchable or readable/unreadable.)


No, you're missing my point. There are many more indie books being released than indie films. And there isn't a large market for those films, so it's not motivating the average person to become a filmmaker.

No amount of us 'celebrating the good' is going to change the number of indie books available on Amazon.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

swolf said:


> No amount of us 'celebrating the good' is going to change the number of indie books available on Amazon.


But it will, potentially, help readers find the "good" and change the prejudice that exists against "all" self-pubbed books.

If the independent author/publishers are going to refer to themselves as a community and look at stats like "20% of genre books purchased are independent" as representative of them, then that "community" if it wants to survive should probably consider some form of quality control and/or recognition of quality. Otherwise, whether self-publishers like it or want it, they will all be lumped into one big pool of "Self Publishers" and right now it isn't hard to throw a stone and hit someone who thinks "all self-publishers suck".

(NOTE: I know that there will probably be responses like "I don't want to be part of a community" or "there's no indie book community" and that's fine, you can think that, as an insider. But as soon as your book is identified as self-published, you are considered part of the default self-publishing community, just the same way that you would be considered part of a neighborhood community just because you live in a house on the street. And that means that the external perception of that community applies to you too.)


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## Guest (Jun 12, 2013)

Joshua Dalzelle said:


> Again... so what? How is that "corruption?" I have never bought a book based on the number of followers on facebook or any other social media. Even if it made me check the book out on amazon I would still be deterred by negative reviews, low ranking, and/or sloppy cover and blurb. Corruption indicates that it's an institutional problem that is robbing other publishers of huge amounts of sales. Like I said; it's pointless but hardly a reason as to why the big publishing houses are losing market share to the indie community.


The success or failure of the corruption does not validate or nuetralize the attempt at corruption. If I shoot a gun at you and the gun jams, I still tried to kill you. I can't say since you are still alive and the bullet never left the gun that it is no big deal. I still pulled the trigger and made the attempt. I would think you would still be upset at me...


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## Guest (Jun 12, 2013)

DDark said:


> So what if someone gets a bunch of people to like their page that they don't even know? Corruption is having or showing a willingness to act dishonestly in return for money or personal gain. If we're going to say the personal gain here is the illusion of fans, then let's just call every kid in high school corrupt for having people sign their yearbook that they didn't even know.


If you don't see the fundamental difference between:

A. Paying for fake fans in order to create an illusion in the marketplace that your product is more popular than it is, thus attempting to trick consumers into spending their money on your product

and

B. A kid in high school who wants to get as many signatures in his personal yearbook to have for posterity

then that is in fact part of the problem.

And no, I don't see that behavior as unique to indies, either. Read the book _Doublespeak_ for an eye opening look at the unethical tactics uses in business in general.


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## Mike Dennis (Apr 26, 2010)

DDark said:


> Facebook: It's called networking. Tradpubbed authors are all over it too. Maybe the bitterness is that Indies are succeeding in not only producing good books, but engaging with their fans in ways that tradpubbed authors rarely do and creating a rabid fan base.


DDark--you are 100% right! Way too many trad-pubbed writers are all going, "Facebook? Oh, I don't understand all that stuff. I'd rather just write. Besides, I have someone who takes care of all that social media stuff for me."

I mean, can you get any more detached from reality?

And as for this guy Franklin, he sounds exactly like what he is: just another elitist trad-pubbed writer who's terrified by the sound of barbarians at the gates.

And speaking of "gates", the "gatekeepers" he so fondly refers to, those who are steadfastly committed to maintaining the highest literary quality, are the same ones who turned down most of the mega-selling indie writers, while hurriedly allowing entrance to celebrity-penned "novels", where the movie star's name is larger than the title.

Oh, and of course, we can't forget Snooki.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

NathanWrann said:


> But it will, potentially, help readers find the "good" and change the prejudice that exists against "all" self-pubbed books.


It will help a little, and some of us do our part by giving positive reviews to fellow indies (when they deserve it.) But it's still a little drop in a big ocean.



NathanWrann said:


> If the independent author/publishers are going to refer to themselves as a community and look at stats like "20% of genre books purchased are independent" as representative of them, then that "community" if it wants to survive should probably consider some form of quality control and/or recognition of quality. Otherwise, whether self-publishers like it or want it, they will all be lumped into one big pool of "Self Publishers" and right now it isn't hard to throw a stone and hit someone who thinks "all self-publishers suck".
> 
> (NOTE: I know that there will probably be responses like "I don't want to be part of a community" or "there's no indie book community" and that's fine, you can think that, as an insider. But as soon as your book is identified as self-published, you are considered part of the default self-publishing community, just the same way that you would be considered part of a neighborhood community just because you live in a house on the street. And the means that the external perception of that community applies to you too.)


Jan started a thread on this subject two and a half years ago, and I suggest some independent third-party company that would check books for proper formatting, spelling, etc., and provide a benchmark that would become familiar to readers. I was roundly ridiculed, and it got so heated the thread was locked.

http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,45346.0.html


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

TiffanyTurner said:


> As quoted from the article:
> "Only 3% of children's ebooks, by contrast, were self-published."
> 
> What does that mean?


It means 82% of parents make up stories to get their kids to go to sleep, rather than reading them books.

I think.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

Mike Dennis said:


> He sounds exactly like what he is: just another elitist trad-pubbed writer who's terrified by the sound of barbarians at the gates.


Not sure that's an accurate description of an independent, publisher that puts out 100 books a year and has embraced e-books (after early reluctance and criticism) and social media (http://www.profilebooks.com/free-winning-without-losing-ebook-pay-with-a-tweet/), but whatever.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

swolf said:


> It will help a little, and some of us do our part by giving positive reviews to fellow indies (when they deserve it.) But it's still a little drop in a big ocean.
> 
> Jan started a thread on this subject two and a half years ago, and I suggest some independent third-party company that would check books for proper formatting, spelling, etc., and provide a benchmark that would become familiar to readers. I was roundly ridiculed, and it got so heated the thread was locked.
> 
> http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,45346.0.html


Maybe it's time to revive that conversation. And if Kboard$ members really are the cream of the self-pubbing crop, then maybe it starts here.


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## oooranje (Apr 20, 2013)

swolf said:


> No, you're missing my point. There are many more indie books being released than indie films. And there isn't a large market for those films, so it's not motivating the average person to become a filmmaker.
> 
> No amount of us 'celebrating the good' is going to change the number of indie books available on Amazon.


Bottom line (to me) is this: to make a film, you need access to equipment (including expensive editing software, a decent camera), actors, and other people - there are a lot of people involved in the process who can try to guide / improve the product. To release a song, yes, you can do it all on garageband, but generally speaking, people will hear that within the first five seconds (unless you're really talented, in which case you have nothing to worry about). To write a book, all you need is your thoughts and word. And most people (at least in the western world) have those two things.

So I don't know that we should hate on indie books just because the barriers to entry are low. And I also don't think that any one person can predict with 100% accuracy what will sell. As others have pointed out, there are terrible traditionally published books as well (not talking about percentages, just saying they existed). Further, there are a lot of people who don't think eg. 50 shades is particularly well-written, and we all know how that story ends.

So, bottom line, you're talking about an immature industry with low barriers to entry with extremely subjective standards of quality (or, if we want to be truly objective here, marketability or saleability). I don't know who we're blaming about it but I wouldn't run off and call it deeply corrupt. Is there bad content? Yes. But by doing what some have suggested above, i.e. genuinely read content unsolicited and provide objective feedback without expectation of compensation, we make it better, or at least we allow the cream to rise.

Certainly I am making an effort to read other indie stuff, partially because I'm interested in what other voices are out there, and partially because I'd like to contribute by helping others find works I thought were genuinely good.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

Ann in Arlington said:


> I do rather suspect that if you chose a set of self-published books in a random, statistically valid way, more than half would not be worth your time. Can't prove that, 'cause I haven't done it, but there you go.


Oh, I have done it. I concluded that "indie books are twice as often good as Sturgeon's prediction [that "'90% of everything is crap']. I don't know why the indies are so defensive." See the four articles that start at:  Slush pile 1: From vanity publishers to independents. The more excitable indies are warned to read all the way to the end of all four articles before they start foaming at the mouth.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

BREAKING NEWS:

Andrew Franklin has just signed an exclusive contract with the Fox television network to be the host and main judge of _America's Got Literary Talent!_

...developing...


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Andre Jute said:


> The more excitable indies are warned to read all the way to the end of all four articles before they start foaming at the mouth.


I don't see anyone in this thread foaming at the mouth trying to defend the quality of all self-published books. One person thought 'most are as good/better than traditionally published books', but admitted she might have just been lucky in her choices.

As a matter of fact, most posters in this thread are agreeing that the majority of self-published books have problems.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

NathanWrann said:


> And if Kboard$ members really are the cream of the self-pubbing crop, then maybe it starts here.


The snide dollar sign makes its appearance, popularized by the legions of Linux fans who can't stand 'Micro$oft'.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

swolf said:


> The snide dollar sign makes its appearance, popularized by the legions of Linux fans who can't stand 'Micro$oft'.


lol

ETA: and here I thought it was made popular by Ke$ha.


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## Christopher Bunn (Oct 26, 2010)

swolf said:


> No, you're missing my point. There are many more indie books being released than indie films. And there isn't a large market for those films, so it's not motivating the average person to become a filmmaker.


It is much, much more difficult to create a film than a book, even a mediocre film. On the one hand, the cost of equipment and editing software has dropped dramatically over the last ten years, allowing anyone with a few bucks to get in the game. On the other hand, the art of film-making has not changed and will not change. You have to understand a great many things in order to make a film: actor motivation, lighting, visual movement, editing rhythm and cues, spoken vs written dialogue, etc, let alone the complexities of running a crew.

All that to say, it's much easier to write a mediocre book than it is to shoot a mediocre film. There's almost no comparison. Having worked in television for quite a few years, I know how freakishly tedious that medium is. There is a legitimately large market--I'll take exception to you there, wolf--but it's still too difficult for the average creative, even though there's good money to be made. Writing a book? That's easy. Whether it's a good book or not, that's a different question.


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## Rykymus (Dec 3, 2011)

I haven't read the entire thread, just the first few pages. I just want to make a comment:

There is lots of garbage in the self-pub pool. There is lots of garbage in the trad-pool. (Admittedly, maybe not as much.) But just as in the trad-pub pool, in the self-pub pool the good swimmers swim and the bad ones drown. The overriding advantage is that in the self-pub pool, EVERYONE gets an EQUAL chance to swim. No group of self-appointed potentates gets to pick and choose who is worthy of the public pool.

Alas, I am not saying anything new.

Try this: Go to a private swim club and see how many jerks you meet. Then go to a public pool and see how diverse and interesting that group of swimmers are.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

Christopher Bunn said:


> It is much, much more difficult to create a film than a book, even a mediocre film. On the one hand, the cost of equipment and editing software has dropped dramatically over the last ten years, allowing anyone with a few bucks to get in the game. On the other hand, the art of film-making has not changed and will not change. You have to understand a great many things in order to make a film: actor motivation, lighting, visual movement, editing rhythm and cues, spoken vs written dialogue, etc, let alone the complexities of running a crew.
> 
> All that to say, it's much easier to write a mediocre book than it is to shoot a mediocre film. There's almost no comparison. Having worked in television for quite a few years, I know how freakishly tedious that medium is. There is a legitimately large market--I'll take exception to you there, wolf--but it's still too difficult for the average creative, even though there's good money to be made. Writing a book? That's easy. Whether it's a good book or not, that's a different question.


Let's say I write 5,000 words a day. It'll take me 10 days to write a 50,000 word book. I know, from experience, and from reading about a lot of filmmakers that a film can be made, start to finish, in 10 days. So I'd say, that it is no more difficult (in fact, it might actually be easier) to make a bad movie, than it is to write a bad book.

I think that the "ok" level is where there's a separation. As in it's much harder to make an ok movie than it is to write an "ok" book. Then they come back together at the "great" level. Where it's just as hard to make a great movie as it is to write a great book.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> "(NOTE: I know that there will probably be responses like "I don't want to be part of a community" or "there's no indie book community" and that's fine, you can think that, as an insider. But as soon as your book is identified as self-published, you are considered part of the default self-publishing community, just the same way that you would be considered part of a neighborhood community just because you live in a house on the street. And that means that the external perception of that community applies to you too.)"


That's a market segment, not a community. Membership in the segment is defined by clicking the KDP upload button. The difference is that communities can often engage in focused, cooperative effort. Segments are composed of competitors who are all looking for the consumer's dollars.

Communities can form within the segment if a subset of segment members join together in some form. There can be multiple communities in the segment pursuing opposing ends.

With a community, action can be planned in advance and executed. There is organization to a community. With a segment, we say it did something, but that is simply the aggregate of individual actions.

For consumers who care, I'd agree that being identified as an independent means one is seen as part of the independent market segment. I have little reason to think many care. But to be identified as a member of a community, consumers need to know about more than the KDP upload button.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

NathanWrann said:


> Let's say I write 5,000 words a day. It'll take me 10 days to write a 50,000 word book. I know, from experience, and from reading about a lot of filmmakers that a film can be made, start to finish, in 10 days. So I'd say, that it is no more difficult (in fact, it might actually be easier) to make a bad movie, than it is to write a bad book.


Maybe if your film is about trees. But if you're dealing with actors, and other people, that adds a whole level of complexity that isn't there with just typing a book into a keyboard.

If it was as easy as you say, and profitable, people would be doing it in droves, like they are with writing books.

If someone would write a software application that allowed people to create Hollywood-quality movies with digitized actors as easy as they could write a book, you'd see a goldrush in that direction too.


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## Christopher Bunn (Oct 26, 2010)

NathanWrann said:


> Let's say I write 5,000 words a day. It'll take me 10 days to write a 50,000 word book. I know, from experience, and from reading about a lot of filmmakers that a film can be made, start to finish, in 10 days. So I'd say, that it is no more difficult (in fact, it might actually be easier) to make a bad movie, than it is to write a bad book.
> 
> I think that the "ok" level is where there's a separation. As in it's much harder to make an ok movie than it is to write an "ok" book. Then they come back together at the "great" level. Where it's just as hard to make a great movie as it is to write a great book.


You're somehow yoking length of time and level of difficulty together. Yeah, you can shoot something in 10 days (though, that conveniently ignores the amount of time spent in writing the script, pre-production and post-production), but you still have to address the issue of the skill-sets required for those 10 days. The level of knowledge and skill needed to satisfactorily pull off that 10-day shoot (heck, even to pull it off at a mediocre level) is way more complex and difficult than what you need to write a book. It's like comparing making tuna casserole vs a 10-course meal a la Emeril Lagasse.

I agree: it's easier to make a really bad movie as opposed to writing a really bad book. That's because film-making is so much more difficult.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Christopher Bunn said:


> You're somehow yoking length of time and level of difficulty together. Yeah, you can shoot something in 10 days (though, that conveniently ignores the amount of time spent in writing the script, pre-production and post-production), but you still have to address the issue of the skill-sets required for those 10 days. The level of knowledge and skill needed to satisfactorily pull off that 10-day shoot (heck, even to pull it off at a mediocre level) is way more complex and difficult than what you need to write a book. It's like comparing making tuna casserole vs a 10-course meal a la Emeril Lagasse.
> 
> I agree: it's easier to make a really bad movie as opposed to writing a really bad book. That's because film-making is so much more difficult.


I sincerely hope you didn't mean that. You honestly think that books are like some bland tuna casserole requiring no skill or talent to create?

Yikes. I have no response to that except horror.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

JRTomlin said:


> I sincerely hope you didn't mean that. You honestly think that books are like some bland tuna casserole requiring no skill or talent to create?
> 
> Yikes. I have no response to that except horror.





Christopher Bunn said:


> I agree: it's easier to make a really bad movie as opposed to writing a *really bad book*. That's because film-making is so much more difficult.


In case you missed it.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

The SWolf Report.com 2013

BREAKING NEWS

Independent author and international heartthrob SWolf announced today that "traditional publishing is deeply corrupt," "most traditionally published books are unutterable crap," and that Andrew Frankin of Profile Books is "a gray-haired geezer who'll be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.*"

...DEVELOPING...



> *Many thanks to Douglas Adams for that "revolution" turn of phrase.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Umm... JR Tomlin, did someone mention horror?

Look for Traditional Publishing's latest Stephen King release! Preorder your copy today!


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

swolf said:


> Maybe if your film is about trees. But if you're dealing with actors, and other people, that adds a whole level of complexity that isn't there with just typing a book into a keyboard.
> 
> If it was as easy as you say, and profitable, people would be doing it in droves, like they are with writing books.
> 
> If someone would write a software application that allowed people to create Hollywood-quality movies with digitized actors as easy as they could write a book, you'd see a goldrush in that direction too.





Christopher Bunn said:


> You're somehow yoking length of time and level of difficulty together. Yeah, you can shoot something in 10 days (though, that conveniently ignores the amount of time spent in writing the script, pre-production and post-production), but you still have to address the issue of the skill-sets required for those 10 days. The level of knowledge and skill needed to satisfactorily pull off that 10-day shoot (heck, even to pull it off at a mediocre level) is way more complex and difficult than what you need to write a book. It's like comparing making tuna casserole vs a 10-course meal a la Emeril Lagasse.
> 
> I agree: it's easier to make a really bad movie as opposed to writing a really bad book. That's because film-making is so much more difficult.


Like I said. It's easier to make a bad movie than to make a bad book. That's what this discussion is about (or turned into), right? The amount of bad (unreadable) books flowing into the marketplace compared to the amount of bad (unwatchable) movies (ETA: and the comparative difficulty that it takes to make either).

Let me lay it out for you: 
I want to make a 90 minute movie about a guy that sits on his couch and waxes philosophic with his twin brother. I take a day to jot some ideas down on paper. It's gonna be mumblecore so I don't really need a script, I'll improvise based on some of the philosophicalish ideas I've jotted down. Day 2, I set up my iPhone and put it on video mode, oops it was in portrait, let change it to landscape (widescreen), point it at one half of the couch, maybe even give it an interesting angle. I press record. Jump on the couch and start talking. Spouting lines. Ranting. One half of the conversation. Then I stop the "camera", and while the footage is uploading I change "costumes". The footage is done uploading, I set up the camera to catch the other angle. Mess my hair up. press record and jump into frame and rattle off the other end of the conversation. I do this for one or two hours per day for 5, 6, 7 days, then sit down with my free video editing software and start putting it together over the next two days. Or I could have edited in my downtime when not shooting footage and on the 7th day I rest. Grab a still shot from the footage, turn it into a "cover" or "poster" and upload it everywhere that allows full length feature uploads. For places that don't, like Youtube I'll upload it in 10 minute "serial" versions. Heck, I'll even upload it to the torrents and probably give away hundreds of thousands of downloads. 9 Days and my movie is done and available for viewing. Where's the guy writing the bad book about a pair of twins sitting on a couch and waxing philosophic? He's still on word 40,000, sweating away, at minimum, 5 hours per day.

Was it easy? yup. Will it be profitable? Never said it would be, but who knows, probably not, but if I'm really philosophic and eloquent and say some really profound stuff, maybe, if it gets found, goes viral. But if it gets accepted to some festivals, wins some awards, people might find it among all the other bad indie films that are made. Without those stamps of approval? Unlikely. Was the book easy? Maybe depends on the definition of easy. Will it be profitable? Don't know, maybe if someone finds it, but since there was really no time for it to go through any kind of editing process it's probably unreadable dreck, thrown into a sea of other unreadable dreck.

Is it close to Hollywood standards? Hell no, never said it would be. As a matter of fact, from the beginning I said that Indie Film and Hollywood films are two different products. All I said was that it was as easy to make a bad film as it is to make a bad book. and in my example, as long as the audio is okay, it's likely that the movie is more watchable than the book was readable.

What this whole part of this conversation was about. Why doesn't the independent film industry have the same negative perception that the self-publishing industry has (in certain circles)? Because bad independent films have a hierarchy that keeps them from being accidentally watched, (most of the time). Indie films are a certain "genre", people that watch them, watch them because they want to watch those types of movies. And they can easily ("easily" is the key here) find the cream of the crop. Self published books don't have that separation, either from trad published or from unreadable self-published books.



Terrence OBrien said:


> That's a market segment, not a community. Membership in the segment is defined by clicking the KDP upload button. The difference is that communities can often engage in focused, cooperative effort. Segments are composed of competitors who are all looking for the consumer's dollars.
> 
> Communities can form within the segment if a subset of segment members join together in some form. There can be multiple communities in the segment pursuing opposing ends.
> 
> ...


Someone doesn't know anything about "self-published" or "trad published" books and buys an unreadable book, then another unreadable book, then another and wonder's what's happening to all the books ("they ain't the way they used to be"), then asks a friend about it and that friend says, "Oh yeah, those books were self-published, stay away from them." That's it. That is a reader that is now educated on how to identify self-published books (price, publisher on the amazon page, etc) and will probably never buy another one again, no matter how professional it looks. What's the opposite that could happen? They buy a self-published book and it was great. Then another one and it's really good too. They don't know it's self-published, they just know it's a book like all the other ones they grew up reading. Then they hit that unreadable book. Then another unreadable book. Then they talk to their friend. Another potential customer gone. What do they say? When a customer has a bad experience they tell 12 of their friends? Something like that. Well there's a lot of unreadable books out there that are identified as self-published that are giving people bad experiences. And it's not an experience that's identifiable by brand (author/publisher) it's an experience that's identifiable by breed. And if you're self-published, your breed is being hurt by all those unreadable self-published books out there. Like Julie said, just go to some other message boards, there's a lot more than 12 people being told when something goes bad.

Call it a market segment, or a community or a breed or whatever you want. The term "Self-published" is an identifier and customers (that aren't as business-lingo savvy as you) will lump them all in together.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

CraigInTwinCities said:


> Umm... JR Tomlin, did someone mention horror?
> 
> Look for Traditional Publishing's latest Stephen King release! Preorder your copy today!


That IS my fault. I do recognize that fact.


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

NathanWrann said:


> Someone doesn't know anything about "self-published" or "trad published" books and buys an unreadable book, then another unreadable book, then another and wonder's what's happening to all the books ("they ain't the way they used to be"), then asks a friend about it and that friend says, "Oh yeah, those books were self-published, stay away from them." That's it. That is a reader that is now educated on how to identify self-published books (price, publisher on the amazon page, etc) and will probably never buy another one again, no matter how professional it looks. What's the opposite that could happen? They buy a self-published book and it was great. Then another one and it's really good too. They don't know it's self-published, they just know it's a book like all the other ones they grew up reading. Then they hit that unreadable book. Then another unreadable book. Then they talk to their friend. Another potential customer gone. What do they say? When a customer has a bad experience they tell 12 of their friends? Something like that. Well there's a lot of unreadable books out there that are identified as self-published that are giving people bad experiences. And it's not an experience that's identifiable by brand (author/publisher) it's an experience that's identifiable by breed. And if you're self-published, your breed is being hurt by all those unreadable self-published books out there. Like Julie said, just go to some other message boards, there's a lot more than 12 people being told when something goes bad.
> 
> Call it a market segment, or a community or a breed or whatever you want. The term "Self-published" is an identifier and customers (that aren't as business-lingo savvy as you) will lump them all in together.


You need to take this theory to its logical conclusion. Then it can be tested.

What should be happening to indie publishing's market share?

B.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

swolf said:


> In case you missed it.





> The level of knowledge and skill needed to satisfactorily pull off that 10-day shoot (heck, even to pull it off at a mediocre level) is _way more complex and difficult than what you need to write a book._ It's like comparing making tuna casserole vs a 10-course meal a la Emeril Lagasse.


He says to write "a book" not a really bad one. I stand by my comment IF he meant what he said. That is a truly appalling comment. I will give you that making a movie must be a complex business but anyone who is gone through the process of writing and editing a novel knows that it isn't a "tuna casserole" if you are trying to do a good job or even a mediocre job.

A later quote doesn't change what he just said.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> "Someone doesn't know anything about "self-published" or "trad published" books and buys an unreadable book, then another unreadable book, then another and wonder's what's happening to all the books ("they ain't the way they used to be"), then asks a friend about it and that friend says, "Oh yeah, those books were self-published, stay away from them." That's it. That is a reader that is now educated on how to identify self-published books (price, publisher on the amazon page, etc) and will probably never buy another one again, no matter how professional it looks. What's the opposite that could happen? They buy a self-published book and it was great. Then another one and it's really good too. They don't know it's self-published, they just know it's a book like all the other ones they grew up reading. Then they hit that unreadable book. Then another unreadable book. Then they talk to their friend. Another potential customer gone. What do they say? When a customer has a bad experience they tell 12 of their friends? Something like that. Well there's a lot of unreadable books out there that are identified as self-published that are giving people bad experiences. And it's not an experience that's identifiable by brand (author/publisher) it's an experience that's identifiable by breed. And if you're self-published, your breed is being hurt by all those unreadable self-published books out there. Like Julie said, just go to some other message boards, there's a lot more than 12 people being told when something goes bad.
> 
> Call it a market segment, or a community or a breed or whatever you want. The term "Self-published" is an identifier and customers (that aren't as business-lingo savvy as you) will lump them all in together."


Ok. The people you speculate about are identifying a market segment, not a community. It's an important distinction since it's not reasonable to expect coordinated and focused quality assurance efforts from a market segment with so many individual, competing members.

We could elevate the speculation to a hypothesis and test to see if declining independent market share contributes to the validity of the hypothesis. A lot of things folks have reasoned to here are contradicted by reality. For the last few years we have heard various theories on how crappy books will destroy the independent market. Still waiting and watching market share increase.

[And I acknowledge Justin got there first on this one.]


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

JRTomlin said:


> He says to write "a book" not a really bad one. I stand by my comment IF he meant what he said. That is a truly appalling comment. I will give you that making a movie must be a complex business but anyone who is gone through the process of writing and editing a novel knows that it isn't a "tuna casserole" if you are trying to do a good job or even a mediocre job.
> 
> A later quote doesn't change what he just said.


I understood Christopher's comment to mean that film making requires mastery of more skill sets than book making does. You (or your crew) need to be competent in writing, directing, acting, shot composition, pacing, lighting, gaffing, sound mixing, editing, etc, etc, etc. Each task is hard, and the need to successfully executing all these hard tasks makes film making harder.

Or, to view it another way, there are countless examples of quality screenplays that have been twisted into 



.

B.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

B. Justin Shier said:


> I understood Christopher's comment to mean that film making requires mastery of more skill sets than book making does. You (or your crew) need to be competent in writing, directing, acting, shot composition, pacing, lighting, gaffing, sound mixing, editing, etc, etc, etc. Each task is hard, and the need to successfully executing all these hard tasks makes film making harder.
> 
> Or, to view it another way, there are countless examples of quality screenplays that have been twisted into
> 
> ...


I hope that was what he meant. Certainly filmmaking has a lot of complications that writing books doesn't have--like having to deal with actors.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Do film makers still use film that has to be developed?


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## Josie Gerard (May 20, 2013)

AshMP said:


> "rather then crafty-threads" "rather then opening the gates"


A grammar correction: You mean "than," not "then."


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## Josie Gerard (May 20, 2013)

"These books come out and are met with a deathly silence, so the principle experience of self-publishing is one of disappointment,"  Really  It seems that this "rubbish" are met with dollars, and lots of them, so the principle experience of SP is one of enrichment.

I agree with Rykmysm (sp?). The ability to SP is all about democracy. The cream will rise to the top.


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## Christopher Bunn (Oct 26, 2010)

JRTomlin said:


> I sincerely hope you didn't mean that. You honestly think that books are like some bland tuna casserole requiring no skill or talent to create?
> 
> Yikes. I have no response to that except horror.


Yep, I said that.

However, I don't think you're correctly interpreting what I wrote. Making a film (and I'm presupposing a good film) requires a much more complex and wide skill set than writing a book (and I'm also presupposing a good book). I view the difference in complexity as being equivalent to the difference between cooking a tuna casserole versus an Emeril Lagasse meal. Both require skill. One is much more difficult than the other. There are plenty of good writers of books. There are not that many good film directors. There's a reason for that.

I happen to love a good tuna casserole (I don't consider them bland, so please don't assign that qualifier to me). And I love a good five course meal in a hushed establishment with waiters who know not to be chatty. There's a time and place for both kinds of meals.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Josie Gerard said:


> A grammar correction: You mean "than," not "then."


We don't do this here.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Desmond X. Torres said:


> He's right, but not for nothing, YOU promised a full rant here later!
> 
> 
> I'll be watching.
> PS- you and Her Sithiness oughta go bowling or something- killer posts here.


No, I promised a full rant on The Seattle Vine.  And it will take me a while to compose. I've got so much on my plate right now...but before the week's out, I'll have it done. Skipping writer's group meeting tomorrow to rant.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

NathanWrann said:


> Like I said. It's easier to make a bad movie than to make a bad book. That's what this discussion is about (or turned into), right? The amount of bad (unreadable) books flowing into the marketplace compared to the amount of bad (unwatchable) movies (ETA: and the comparative difficulty that it takes to make either).
> 
> Let me lay it out for you:
> I want to make a 90 minute movie about a guy that sits on his couch and waxes philosophic with his twin brother. I take a day to jot some ideas down on paper. It's gonna be mumblecore so I don't really need a script, I'll improvise based on some of the philosophicalish ideas I've jotted down. Day 2, I set up my iPhone and put it on video mode, oops it was in portrait, let change it to landscape (widescreen), point it at one half of the couch, maybe even give it an interesting angle. I press record. Jump on the couch and start talking. Spouting lines. Ranting. One half of the conversation. Then I stop the "camera", and while the footage is uploading I change "costumes". The footage is done uploading, I set up the camera to catch the other angle. Mess my hair up. press record and jump into frame and rattle off the other end of the conversation. I do this for one or two hours per day for 5, 6, 7 days, then sit down with my free video editing software and start putting it together over the next two days. Or I could have edited in my downtime when not shooting footage and on the 7th day I rest. Grab a still shot from the footage, turn it into a "cover" or "poster" and upload it everywhere that allows full length feature uploads. For places that don't, like Youtube I'll upload it in 10 minute "serial" versions. Heck, I'll even upload it to the torrents and probably give away hundreds of thousands of downloads. 9 Days and my movie is done and available for viewing. Where's the guy writing the bad book about a pair of twins sitting on a couch and waxing philosophic? He's still on word 40,000, sweating away, at minimum, 5 hours per day.


And I want to make a bad book. I spend five minutes typing in some crap and uploading it.

I win.

I can't even believe I'm wasting my time with this. The two markets aren't even close to being comparable. If you want to ignore the obvious and blather on for paragraphs, feel free, but I'm not going to waste my time reading it.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

So many opinions from people who haven't done it, arguing for the sake of hearing their own voices. Making a ten second commercial is more complicated than writing a novel. Anyone who's ever done it knows that much. Anyone who takes the trouble to ask how many people are involved in each activity, instead of spouting contentless opinions, can work that out. Of all the fiction formats, the novel is the easiest to work in, because there's space to spread out, the writer is in sole charge, and the technicalities are few and boringly simple.

The presumption that a tuna casserole is necessarily bland is just silly, besides being untrue. Anyone who's ever cooked and eaten freshly caught bluefin tuna (a large and dangerous fighting fish) knows at least that much. You cook it with shallots and wine, and it tastes anything but bland. Even tuna out of a tin has excellent taste if you take care about selecting the tin, and know enough about cooking to bring out the flavor. Of course, if you do it resentfully, wanting the food to be grim, any fool can spoil a dish. Tomorrow I'll be cooking a melange of fish, tuna, salmon and smoked mackerel (mackerel is another member of the tuna family...) that simply doesn't taste the same if one leaves out the tuna. Since I like cooking so much, in my next life I shall return as a housewife.

Operating a keyboard doesn't make anyone a writer; finding the record button on a camera doesn't make anyone a filmmaker. Those beliefs are malicious street corner gossip in indieland. Lip service to them is one of the errors which has brought us to the present impasse discussed in this thread.

***
Hey, Christopher, your remark about the tedious procedures of making television and films rang a loud bell with me. I once built an entire faux Taj Mahal because it was cheaper -- and faster -- than paying bribes to Indian uncivil servants; it featured for 4s in my commercial but I brought the project in on time, and voted myself a fat bonus. My assistant once said, "Everyone, feel sorry for Nico, he's so poor, he has to make documentaries for Auntie [the BBC]." Remind me sometime to tell you about my mate Bill V., who drew short straw on the assignment to stop Orson Welles making a runner with Auntie's money without doing the work he was paid for; Bill named his ulcer "Rosebud".


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

B. Justin Shier said:


> You need to take this theory to its logical conclusion. Then it can be tested.
> 
> What should be happening to indie publishing's market share?
> 
> B.





Terrence OBrien said:


> Ok. The people you speculate about are identifying a market segment, not a community. It's an important distinction since it's not reasonable to expect coordinated and focused quality assurance efforts from a market segment with so many individual, competing members.
> 
> We could elevate the speculation to a hypothesis and test to see if declining independent market share contributes to the validity of the hypothesis. A lot of things folks have reasoned to here are contradicted by reality. For the last few years we have heard various theories on how crappy books will destroy the independent market. Still waiting and watching market share increase.
> 
> [And I acknowledge Justin got there first on this one.]


I hope that you're both correct and that the market share grows organically because people are buying and enjoying more self-published books and not that market share is growing simply because there are more self published books in the market (Self-published books made up 43% of the new books released in the US in 2011 (probably a bigger % in 2012), but only make up 12% of the sales (in the UK, we'll have to see if US numbers match). You see, I am a self-publisher and I want the market segment to succeed and not have a bad rap, and not turn customers off simply because of the way it got to market.

But I also don't believe that because things look to be going up (depending on how one looks at the numbers and a million different factors that can influence them) that it can't turn around on a dime. Just ask any trad publisher how fast the market can change. There's a lot of different things that can change the trajectory of the market, an identified market segment that is half full (or more) of bad product is just one of them.

Yes, people have been saying that crappy books will destroy the independent market and Konrath always rebuffs them with "well, people know how to find good books", but I, personally, don't feel like the bad reputation that the Self-Published business segment has (in certain corners) is a good thing. That's my opinion: The fact that there are tons of unreadable self-published books out there is a bad thing for self-publishers to be generally identified with.


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## Gone To Croatan (Jun 24, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Do film makers still use film that has to be developed?


Sometimes.

In a way, that reminds me of the trade vs indie conflict today. Back in the 90s, you'd see established film cinematographers scoff and talk about how they 'shoot silver, not rust' when someone suggested shooting a movie digitally (on tape, at the time) just as many trade-published writers dismiss indie writers. Now most of those cinematographers who didn't come around to shooting movies the sane way don't shoot anything any more.


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## Christopher Bunn (Oct 26, 2010)

swolf said:


> And I want to make a bad book. I spend five minutes typing in some crap and uploading it.
> 
> I win.


Heh. Yeah. The Franklin Commemorative Medal.

Andre, I've been on some shoots that were so flipping boring, I was ready to commit myself. Anyone who thinks making films is glamorous needs their head examined. Ahh... I'll have to get your tuna casserole recipe.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Mix three eggs, one can tuna, one banana, and a handful of raisins into a slurry. Microwave for 5-7 minutes.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Mix three eggs, one can tuna, one banana, and a handful of raisins into a slurry. Microwave for 5-7 minutes.


Thank you, Terrence, for lifting the conversation onto a new level.

Have you yet tried Marmite and banana?


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Andre Jute said:


> Thank you, Terrence, for lifting the conversation onto a new level.
> 
> Have you yet tried Marmite and banana?


You're welcome. And the Marmite? Just now learned what it is. I'll try it.


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## TiffanyTurner (Jun 8, 2009)

Hugh Howey said:


> It means 82% of parents make up stories to get their kids to go to sleep, rather than reading them books.
> 
> I think.


Ok. So it might mean there are a lot of creative parents out there. We might be all out of jobs. But most likely, children's books are still mostly hardcover or softcover. The hand me down process of old gadgets will take awhile. I have a feeling it could go up. Maybe 6% next year, 12% after. Tablets might change everything. But I did ask an editor at a writing conference on how children's publishing might be thinking in terms of ebooks. She answered, no plans. So, if you're an Indie children's author with a plan, you're already ahead.


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## journeymama (May 30, 2011)

It's not logical to lump self publishers together. Each one is an individual publisher, responsible for the quality of her own books. A traditional publisher is responsible for the books it puts into production. It doesn't really make sense to compare them- "Self publishers.... and trad publishers..." I think on kboards you see a lot of people who are very interested and careful with the image and books they produce, they take their business seriously. 

The idea of books languishing on the shelf is the reason the most important thing for self-publishers to work on (after excellent craft) is cultivation of their own readers. Newsletters, blogs. You are publishing to your audience. Hopefully more people in the world join your audience... I know I want that, but I need to be good to my current audience, they are the ones keeping me from being unheard in the desert wilderness.


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