# Book logo that guarantees high quality storytelling



## AbbyBabble (Mar 16, 2013)

One of the biggest challenges that self-published authors face is the lack of quality control.  Readers are bombarded with ads for self-published books, and the numbers grow daily.  

If you're concerned about getting noticed (I know I am), it might help to have a logo that demarcates high quality ... a logo that readers can trust.  Do you remember the days when Tor Books was a trustworthy brand?  Or DAW Books?  It would be nice to have something like that, a logo that readers can easily associate with guaranteed quality. 

I've been trying to think how to pull this off.  I can design a brand logo--that's part of my day job.  I like to think that I recognize high quality storytelling.  But if I'm the sole arbiter, that puts me in an uncomfortable position, because I'd hurt the feelings of authors whose work I don't feel is high enough quality.  And I don't have time to read endless amounts of books.  I'm only one person.

So I'd like to see if anyone here is interested in this idea.  Are you a mega-reader, or do you know a mega-reader whose taste is trustworthy, who might be interested in giving a seal of quality without having to write reviews?  

And I'd like to put forth a tentative proposal: 

I'm able to work while listening to audiobooks, which makes them my #1 preferred type of entertainment.  I loved Podiobooks.com when it came out.  That site is where I discovered Scott Sigler and a brief generation of self-published authors whose work I admire.  I eventually stopped going to Podiobooks because the quality was so hit-or-miss.  Sometimes I'd discover a great new author, and sometimes I'd waste several hours listening to utter crap.  It was frustrating.  I searched in vain for neutral review sites, but even if I found one, I'd have to dig through the reviews, and they rarely covered the new stuff.  It would be sooooooooooooo much better if the best audiobooks had a logo.  That way, I could quickly identify which ones were worth trying. 

So, if you happen to have a self-published audiobook that's recently out, or forthcoming, would you be amenable to sending it to me?  I wouldn't write a review--but if I think the novel warrants a mass audience, I would give you the special logo to stick on your book cover or book's website.

I'd only be able to do this for audiobooks that are within my preferred reading genres:  Mainstream fiction, SFF, YA, epic, mystery/detective, or historical.  No romance, no erotica, no Christian/spiritual, no self-help.  And again, I'd have to conclude that the book's quality warrants the special logo.

I'm open to comments, criticism, or suggestions.  That's why I'm sounding the idea out here, instead of leaping ahead and doing it!


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## elalond (May 11, 2011)

People have already tried this: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,102672.0.html, http://www.kboards.com/index.php?topic=159565.0, it wasn't nice, so I wouldn't go there if I were you.
If you are looking for good stories, I suggest you search for a blogger (or blogers) who is a voracious reader and has similar taste.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

I love the idea. I can't think of any way to make it work.

I don't know that readers will benefit as much as the writing community might suffer. There would be a lot of hard feelings, especially if writers or a writing community had any part in the gatekeeping aspects.

One idea would be the formation of an editorial collective. If a hundred or so freelance editors, thoroughly vetted by experience and what projects they've worked on, got together, they could pull this off. Let's call their group "Gold Star Editorial." If you hire a freelance editor who is a member of the group (maybe they provide some matchmaking services as well), and this editor gives the work their approval at the end of the process, then they put the logo on the book (as in, provide the logo to your designer and give you permission to use it).

The star is just a signal to the reader that this work has been professionally edited, which means the same number of typos and mistakes as they would expect to find in a Big 5 book. Perhaps part of the standard is also to use an approved freelance ebook formatter (more matchmaking).

There are still some problems here, but I think making this an editorial issue rather than a reader-approved stamp, would be what readers are looking for and get rid of as many claims of subjectivism (error-free is much easier to judge than aesthetically pleasing).


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## Nicholas Andrews (Sep 8, 2011)

The reason Tor and DAW have that trust is because they have a reputation they've built up over the course of decades. Even then, they've published some real stinkers (Long Price Quartet comes to mind). But like any publishing company, their basis for business for choosing books is what they feel they can sell, not as some arbiters of quality. More often than not, their picks were in line with what their audience liked, so their reputation evolved organically from that.

I don't see readers making purchases based on some mark of quality from a person or entity they've never heard of before. For it to be effective, you would have to earn your reputation to a wide audience of readers as someone who is good at picking out quality work. I'm not sure you realize just how much work and time that would take.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

elalond said:


> People have already tried this: http://www.kboards.com/index.php?topic=159565.0, it wasn't nice, so I wouldn't go there if I were you.
> If you are looking for good stories, I suggest you search for a blogger who is a voracious reader and has a similar taste.


This.

Also, the service is already being provided by meta blogs such as Pixel of Ink, Ereader News Today, and Bookbub.


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## Amanda Brice (Feb 16, 2011)

NicholasAndrews said:


> The reason Tor and DAW have that trust is because they have a reputation they've built up over the course of decades.


What would this seal mean? "Abby liked my book!" That's awesome, but unless readers know who Abby is and has been following Abby's reviews, they're not going to recognize that the logo stands for quality.

There are a number of blogs out there that already essentially do this that are much more established.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

By all means write or record reviews of books you've read or listened to and post those reviews on Amazon, goodreads, etc. I believe that's going to be the best way to help the good stuff rise to the top. Word of mouth and personal recommendations; the hand-selling of the internet as it were.

Slapping some sticker on a book is as meaningless as it ever has been. And in this day and age of photoshop and like programs, it would take very little effort to take anyone's seal of approval and stick it on any cover image.


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## Zoe York (May 12, 2013)

The other reality is that on the thumbnail, which is how many of us browse for books, "stickers" just get in the way.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Let's not forget the proud lowbrow folks who see the sticker as a literary award and hit the eject button.


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## DarkScribe (Aug 30, 2012)

AbbyBabble said:


> One of the biggest challenges that self-published authors face is the lack of quality control. Readers are bombarded with ads for self-published books, and the numbers grow daily.
> 
> If you're concerned about getting noticed (I know I am), it might help to have a logo that demarcates high quality ... a logo that readers can trust. Do you remember the days when Tor Books was a trustworthy brand? Or DAW Books? It would be nice to have something like that, a logo that readers can easily associate with guaranteed quality.
> 
> ...


What real difference would exist between adding a logo from an unknown source and saying "Hey, my Mother-in-Law loved this book"?

I can't see this working unless the source of the logo was a highly recognisable and well respected "authority" in publishing.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Just. Don't. Go. There.

The market will decide what's worth buying. It may not be what the literati like. Anyone who thinks that there is some sort of measurable standard that must be met before a book is "good" is kidding themselves. If you are too vocal about this (aside from grammar, punctuation and formatting, which are measurable) you risk ending up sounding like an arrogant dick. Believe me, I've tried, and so have many others. It doesn't work. Let the market decide.


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## Lexi Revellian (May 31, 2010)

Why would any indie want to create our own gatekeepers? Let readers decide. They are perfectly capable.

"Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you any stinkin' badges!"


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Yeah, I'm with Patty. This is a terrible idea. One, I wouldn't trust anything like that on a book if I even noticed it was there. Two, why would I trust someone else to make my decisions for me at all? I'm a voracious reader and never have any problems finding good books to read because I can easily tell from things like the description, cover, and sample if I want to read a particular book. I rarely (if ever) get burned (I can think of twice in the last 600 or so books I read).

Also, no, I don't remember when Tor or DAW was a trustworthy brand because I have never paid attention to who published what. Well, until I became a writer. Then I did so I would know where to send manuscripts, not because I looked before I bought.


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## GearPress Steve (Feb 4, 2012)

I think the idea is admirable, but I also feel like the days of an imprint being important to sales are nearing an end. More than anything else, word of mouth is the most important promotional tool for selling more books. Readers don't care what imprint it was published under, the books are now the brand, not the imprint.

Old folks like me (51 years old) might give some weight to a specific imprint because at one time that was important, but my daughters who are in their 20's certainly wouldn't.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

AbbyBabble said:


> One of the biggest challenges that self-published authors face is the lack of quality control. Readers are bombarded with ads for self-published books, and the numbers grow daily.
> 
> If you're concerned about getting noticed (I know I am), it might help to have a logo that demarcates high quality ... a logo that readers can trust. Do you remember the days when Tor Books was a trustworthy brand? Or DAW Books? It would be nice to have something like that, a logo that readers can easily associate with guaranteed quality.
> 
> I've been trying to think how to pull this off. I can design a brand logo--that's part of my day job. I like to think that I recognize high quality storytelling. But if I'm the sole arbiter, that puts me in an uncomfortable position, because I'd hurt the feelings of authors whose work I don't feel is high enough quality. And I don't have time to read endless amounts of books. I'm only one person...


Nothing personal, Abby, but this is old-school, gatekeeper sort of thinking, not the grassroots movement of "let the readers decide, not the gatekeepers" that made the recent Indie Author resurgence what it is in the eBook age.

Designing a logo, in and of itself, means nothing if it's given out to anyone who wants it, naturally.

And means nothing until it's been around 5-10 years to build up a rep that points to a track record of quality.

You suggest that you can recognize "quality."

If all that means is "breeze through and make sure there's no obvious typos," that means nothing. The barest of minimum standards.

Also, it would mean you would see a flood of, at least, 100s if not 1000s of titles per month, seeking your "badge of quality."

Eventually, that would mean soliciting help... but how do you guarantee that help has YOUR eye for quality? You can't. And eventually, those volunteers would want some form of compensation for their time. Meaning you'd need a source of income off this venture, to pay them.

Meaning eventually, application fees of some sort would be required to even apply for this "badge of quality."

And what happens when a few authors who apply for a badge of quality get turned down? You get people grousing about their service-experience with you. Not a good thing.

And what benefit is there to you? Or to the author? If all you're doing is providing access to a logo?

No, eventually you'd need more control over it than that. So you're then on the path to becoming a publisher.

And if you become a publisher, you're going to want, eventually, to have more control over the final products you endorse than just glancing over the manuscript fast to ensure there's not a lot of typos.

Which means reading each manuscript. And editing it. And having the author agree to the editorial changes.

Welcome to being a traditional publisher.

And that's not what the indie author movement wants... we don't want to toss over old trad-pubs to simply be replaced by new trad-pubs.

Indie authors want to be responsible for their own quality control and let readers decide.

Some of us NEED trad-pub help to provide typo-free, quality reads. Others, usually the more experienced, don't. For example, I believe Blake Crouch is currently indie, and his books are consistently of high quality. But he's been at this a while.

And people like Blake, because they can do this and readers already KNOW they can do this, do you think for even one second they'd WANT that badge of quality? Nope.

So results will vary because readers CAN tell the difference.

And frankly, "quality" is an aspect of any book that goes far deeper than "typo-checks."

Quality means, among other things, does the story flow well? Does the plot make sense by the end of the book? Do plot developments jump the shark or flow from character? Are there elements of the story that break the sense of narrative flow because they're too unforeseen?

These and many other considerations are what guarantee "quality." In any work.

For example, only in absurdist humor could one be telling a hardboiled detective fiction tale, and suddenly have a bad guy stepped on by a dinosaur as a way to save a character from a "written into a corner" plot development. Unless you previously establish that this is a world where dinosaurs exist.

And yet, inexperienced writers come up with similarly absurd plot developments all the time. Does that equal a "quality" experience, even if there are no typos?

Your heart's in the right place. The only way to pull it off, though, is to establish yourself as a small traditional publisher, which is really where all this would lead.

Otherwise, the logo is just a logo.


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## Greg Banks (May 2, 2009)

Hugh Howey said:


> There are still some problems here, but I think making this an editorial issue rather than a reader-approved stamp, would be what readers are looking for and get rid of as many claims of subjectivism (error-free is much easier to judge than aesthetically pleasing).


I've seen this same idea proposed time and again for the whole ten years I've been involved in publishing/self publishing, and I've always been vehemently against it, only because it always involves the one x-factor that will inevitably force the idea to fail...trusting someone, or some group, to be totally unbiased and fair. It's just another way to try to screen books and brand the ones that don't prove "worthy" with a Scarlet Letter (that may not be the initial intent, but in order for the logo to mean anything, obviously books without it would have to be branded as inferior). Just like Hugh says above, the only thing one can fairly judge is the quality of the editing, and not the aesthetics of the content, and honestly, what if ee cummings were to submit content to such a group? I've seen too many times when an editor's advice was given not understanding which things were done intentionally.

And who's to judge the judgers? Who gets to certify the fairness of who gets to certify others? I live in a world where I'm free to spend my money to publish my own book if I so choose. Why should you or anyone else get to judge my book and tell everyone else whether or not it's worthy? A reviewer can do that because it's merely an opinion. But if you are certifying a book with a logo, then you're going a whole lot further than that. The buyer should decide. But with a system like yours, you're planting seeds of bias that very well would put others at a severe disadvantage.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Cherise Kelley said:


> Also, the service is already being provided by meta blogs such as Pixel of Ink, Ereader News Today, and Bookbub.


Oh, you mean the services whose only "proof of quality" is amassing a minimum number of 4-star and 5-star reviews, and a minimum average review score, on Amazon, which can easily be defeated by unprincipled writers willing to buy loads of positive reviews on Fivvr.com and other such services?

Yeah. That guarantees quality, LOL...


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Also, and I say this as gently as I can, there is a serious amount of ego involved in saying "I can decide what is quality and my name alone will be enough" which is really off-putting.  At best, it comes off as naive.  

If you have trouble finding good audiobooks to listen to, maybe you need to revise how you buy books and what criteria you use. I'm not sure I'd trust the taste of someone who can't even find good things they like without relying on the judgement of others they consider worthy enough to make those decisions for them.


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## katherinef (Dec 13, 2012)

And what exactly is quality? Someone's subjective opinion?   I can make a logo too and slap it on whatever book I want. If anyone can claim they know what quality is, so can I.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

katherinef said:


> And what exactly is quality? Someone's subjective opinion?  I can make a logo too and slap it on whatever book I want. If anyone can claim they know what quality is, so can I.


Good point. One person's definition of 'quality' is another person's definition of 'crap'.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Doomed Muse said:


> Also, and I say this as gently as I can, there is a serious amount of ego involved in saying "I can decide what is quality and my name alone will be enough" which is really off-putting. At best, it comes off as naive.


Yup.

I usually stay as far away as possible from discussions about "quality writing". Just the thought that someone has the notion that they can decide for all other readers what is quality and what isn't rubs me up the wrong way.

Seriously, let the market decide. For your own books, work quietly on things you can control and try to find people who already have respect of readers in your genre to champion your books. Warning: this will likely take a long time.

Every now and then (or maybe more "now" than "then"), a bestseller hit will pop up and you'll look at it and go "WTF is this dreck?" If that happens, go to the kitchen, make yourself a coffee, grab a piece of chocolate and shut your browser and all other channels of communication until the urge to rant about it is gone.

Life is too short to worry about fiction that gives you indigestion.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Well-intentioned, I'm sure, but smells too much like










Besides, a "seal of approval" really only means anything if the entity providing it already has built up a reputation and is well regarded. Tor's brand was just that, a brand of its own products. What you're offering is more like an "Angie's List" of books. Isn't that what reviewers already provide to a large extent?


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## Just Browsing (Sep 26, 2012)

Why not just write a favorable review?

I mean ... you've just said you won't even consider anything I write. So, seeing a sticker from you on someone's book would UN-recommend it to me, in a way. "Oh, that person who won't read my writing liked that book. Maybe I wouldn't, then." But if you just write a positive review explaining why you liked something, that would be helpful to those books.

The only stickers that impress me much are ones that say "Man Booker" or "Newberry" or something like that. You need a lot of weight behind you to make those kinds of claims.

Just my opinion, though. I do see all kinds of contests and awards and stickers and seals out there, certainly.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Logos are a neat idea, but all we indies will have is our name, plus maybe a "Bestseller" title or two. Even that doesn't count for much.


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## GearPress Steve (Feb 4, 2012)

Write quality.
Build a following.
Write more quality.

Lather.
Rinse.
Repeat.


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## 71089 (Jul 12, 2013)

Lexi Revellian said:


> "Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you any stinkin' badges!"


Did someone say badger






Oh, wait ... I guess I imagined that R.


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## Christopher Bunn (Oct 26, 2010)

Why don't we leave it all up to Leonard? The Leonard Seal of Approval would probably make a lot of readers more comfortable about trusting unknown authors.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

As a reader, a logo like that would make me pass on the book.   I don't know you nor do I know what you like.
We might have totally opposite tastes.    Though here is the thing I learned during the Konrath challenge, it is hard to keep up when you get like 100 books (luckily all shorts) thrown at you to review.    Yes I offered, yes I had fun with it but in the end, it was work especially on the reviews coming up with different words.    I still love my authors though.   The catch to reading some authors is I might like Book A by them but Book C left something to be desired.   How could I put a logo on one and not the other?
Reviews are much easier.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Folks, at this point, it seems like pretty much piling on.  I think you've all made your point, in some cases, not too gently.

Let's move on.  I think the OP has after this barrage.

Betsy


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## AbbyBabble (Mar 16, 2013)

Thanks, everyone!  I appreciate your reactions, even the huffy ones.  Some of you have good points about the amount of work it would take to establish reader trust.  Too much work.  Not gonna do it.  However, I sincerely hope that someone in the future (preferably a consumer group that consists of fiction fans) will do something like this.

To clarify a few points in my defense: 

- I am aware that it would take several years (at minimum) for the brand to gain any sort of reader trust.  I never expected that readers would automagically trust a random logo they've never seen before.  This would have been a slow build-up project. 

- I do believe there is such a thing as quality storytelling.  If you're a mega-reader, you know that it can be hard to find really great books that stand out from the crowd.  The logo would have gone on books that blow the reader's mind.  If it's trite, mediocre, boring, or if it lacks a satisfying ending ... it doesn't earn the logo.  If you believe that great books are completely subjective, then we will have to agree to disagree.  There is some measure of taste involved--for instance, no one should trust my taste on what makes good erotica or romance.  For those genres, I would get another reader who loves those types of books.  But if you read a ton in a particular genre, you begin to get a sense of what stands out and what's been done to death.  YMMV.  

Speaking purely as a reader, I used to trust the Tor Books and DAW Books logos, back in the 1990s.  That is no longer the case.  I would appreciate a replacement--with a focus on self-published books, since some of them are really stand out.  

Word of mouth hasn't worked for me, as a reader.  Most of my peer group consists of writers, and they enjoy pretentious stuff that's ... well ... not entertaining.  I like books that are fun to read.  Since I read 50-70 books per year, I go through the page-turners ones quickly, and then I'm left sampling stuff that's questionable.  Sometimes I stumble upon a gem.  More often, I get frustrated from wasting my time on a book that turned out to suck.  And when I speak to other readers--not writers--they're likewise fed up.  Reading a novel is a time investment.  Even if you just read the first 100 pages before realizing that it's mediocre, that's several hours.  No one wants to go through that again and again and again.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

> automagically


If this is a typo, it's the typo of the day!

The function you'd want is fulfilled by book bloggers. Also, the look inside or other sample features are very useful.

A seal of approval would be cool in theory, but I don't know that it won't set a lot of people off on the wrong foot. A trustworthy reputation will take a long time to build, and if you want to write awesome books and hold down a full-time job, there won't be enough hours in the day to do all this stuff.


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## Greg Banks (May 2, 2009)

AbbyBabble said:


> Speaking purely as a reader, I used to trust the Tor Books and DAW Books logos, back in the 1990s. That is no longer the case. I would appreciate a replacement--with a focus on self-published books, since some of them are really stand out.


They are a publisher. They have a brand. You trusted their particular brand. They were not aggregators or representative of all books, which is essentially what you were proposing with the logo idea. It's just not the same thing.


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## GearPress Steve (Feb 4, 2012)

Boyd said:


> One of my favorite all time Indie authors is TJ Reeder. Admittingly, he says up front that his spelling and grammar may suffer from his lack of education, but oh boy can he tell a story
> 
> I have found so many gems from indie authors, who because of subject matter or lack of education, would never have been published traditionally.


I wonder if Jane Austen would have to go the indie route if she were writing today...

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/lit-expert-jane-austen-couldnt-spell/


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

I read 350-450 books a year. So I guess I'm a super mega-reader by your standards (50-70 books is like an awesome  month for me, frankly).  I don't often encounter books I don't like, because at this point I have a good system for myself of finding books I want to read (and I wish I could a thousand books a year, but I have to eat and write and see friends on occasion I suppose).  I find too many good books.  

Is there something that can be held up as "quality" un-subjectively? I don't know. You seem convinced there is, Abby, but I've never seen evidence that what you think is "quality" isn't just your subjective opinion that you are trying to treat as fact. Is 50 Shades of Grey a horrible book? You'd probably think so. Millions of other people would disagree. Who should one listen to? You? Or millions? Or perhaps we should look at the book and make up our own minds as to whether that book is something we would enjoy reading or not?  I like the last option, personally, because it works for me every single day. 

As I said before, perhaps if you are having trouble finding good things to read, the problem isn't the books, it's something about how you go about finding them?

I'm with syrimne13- I wish we'd move away from worrying about what other writers are doing and having to label books as good and crap. If you enjoy reading something, great. Write a review or recommend it. If you don't, also great, write a review or don't recommend it. Make a note to yourself why you didn't like the book, why you bought it in the first place, and revise how you search for books in the future so you don't end up with something you didn't like.
Just don't expect to be able to tell other people what they should enjoy or how they should think, because that will never go well. Ever.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

I have discovered some sort of quality control.  Limit yourself to authors you find at KBWC.  Now I am back to reading.


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## Robert Brumm (Jul 17, 2012)

This is sort of the idea behind DeadPixel Publications when I started it six months ago. Not a logo to stamp on a book per say, but a "you can't go wrong with a DPP book" idea never the less. On our way to hopefully building a brand that really means something some day.

http://www.deadpixelpublications.com/


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Christopher Bunn said:


> Why don't we leave it all up to Leonard? The Leonard Seal of Approval would probably make a lot of readers more comfortable about trusting unknown authors.


I'm down with Leonard (Bill Cosby), but that series jumped the shark with Leonard, Part 6.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

AbbyBabble said:


> - I do believe there is such a thing as quality storytelling. If you're a mega-reader, you know that it can be hard to find really great books that stand out from the crowd. The logo would have gone on books that blow the reader's mind.


Sure, and understood. However, what blows one reader's mind might be trite to another.

As an example (and I tend to use movies as examples), I once knew a person who honestly had not seen or heard of The Sixth Sense before I shared it with him one night.

About a half hour in or so, he said, "Wait a second. Bruce is a ghost. That kid's the only one talking to him. I hope there's more to this movie than this."

He said this BEFORE the "I see dead people" scene.

Kinda freaked me out, since I hadn't seen that coming the first time I saw it. He consistently claimed it was the first time he'd seen it and no one had spoiled it for him. I pretty much never believed him about that, but it goes to show.... one person's treasure is another person's trash.

Point being: many aspects of quality are subjective.



AbbyBabble said:


> If it's trite, mediocre, boring, or if it lacks a satisfying ending ... it doesn't earn the logo. If you believe that great books are completely subjective, then we will have to agree to disagree.


Nah, we don't completely disagree, but here's something to consider in addition to your statement:

Trite, mediocre, boring and lacks a satisfying ending describe about half of Stephen King's output if you believe his critics... some of which I quite enjoyed... if you believe the critics, though, I should have poked my eyes out rather than read some of those titles.

And yet, all of King's work is well-written, well-told, well-crafted.

But for a Faithful Reader like myself? He did a number of books that centered around a theme of spousal abuse/domestic violence. Including (but maybe not limited to):

The Shining
Delores Claiborne
Rose Madder
Gerald's Game
Insomnia
The Tommyknockers, and several other titles to a lesser degree...

I read all of those, but after a while it got REALLY wearing. But just because I was tired out by King writing about spousal abuse by the time he got to Insomnia, does that mean it Rose Madder was an inferior or trite book? Not necessarily. It says more about my patience with King repeating his pet themes.

(He also did many books in a cluster about "the writer's life," but while most people loved MISERY, does that automatically mean that his fourth go-round on the theme, which I believe was THE DARK HALF, was automatically a lesser work? Sure, it had worn on me by then, but had I read THE DARK HALF first among all his "the writer's life" books, maybe I'd feel differently. Hard to say. Impossible to answer.



AbbyBabble said:


> Speaking purely as a reader, I used to trust the Tor Books and DAW Books logos, back in the 1990s. That is no longer the case. I would appreciate a replacement--with a focus on self-published books, since some of them are really stand out.


Well, I may be a writer, but I can share my viewpoint as a reader, because I was a reader long before I published my first novel (age 44) or even my first short story (age 14).

Personally, I never looked to labels for quality. I looked to writers. It's just how I was built, even at an early age.

For example, when I discovered i liked Beverly Cleary as a youngster, I read everything out by her at that time. Not just the boy books, like Henry and Ribsy, but everything... including Ramona the Pest and Ramona and Beezus.

When I discovered I liked Judy Blume, I devoured everything she wrote.

I did the same, later in life, with John Irving (until he got too aggressively political) and Stephen King (still to this day, though I've taken breaks when I burned out on him).

I mean, I was aware of labels. When I was growing up, and starting to dream of being a writer myself, I wanted to be published by Viking Press.

Why? Two reasons:

1) It made sense because I was from Minnesota and our football team was called the Vikings
2) And more importantly, they published King, my favorite writer.

But did I pick up just any old author published by Viking Press? Not even a thought that entered my head! Because that's just not how I was built. I respond to writers, not publishing labels.

But all that means is we come 'round to our favorite books in different ways. Neither is right or wrong.



AbbyBabble said:


> Most of my peer group consists of writers, and they enjoy pretentious stuff that's ... well ... not entertaining. I like books that are fun to read. Since I read 50-70 books per year ... Reading a novel is a time investment. Even if you just read the first 100 pages before realizing that it's mediocre, that's several hours.


Well, keeping my reader's hat on, you're giving more books far more time to impress you than I generally do.

When I pick up something by a new author, I need something to grab me... whether it's plot, clever dialogue, a unique voice or something else doesn't matter, so long as there's SOMETHING.... or I move on.

If I'm not sure, I'll finish the chapter, maybe, and then decide. But generally, I just read the first page. I can glean enough from that to know if I'm gonna keep reading.

So try that: it's a potential time-saver for you.


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## 54706 (Dec 19, 2011)

I think it's a bad idea because one person's awesome storyteller is another person's hack.  Reading is too subjective for one person or entity to decide for the masses what should be read.  It's just another gatekeeper.  Publishers and agents have already shown us that despite a massive amount of experience and insider information, it's still impossible to consistently pick a winner.

It could effectively steer people away from good books.  I like how it works now: bloggers or readers who review regularly do their thing, people find these reviewers with similar tastes and follow their reviews for recommendations.


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## leep (Aug 25, 2011)

Even if something like this were feasible, I'm not sure readers would care.

We do need something like curation though, but I think we're more likely to end up with people/blogs that we follow who either have similar tastes, or stick to a genre we enjoy.

This isn't a million miles away from the Oprah/Richard and Judy book clubs, just infinitely more varied to counter for markets outside their core.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

> Sometimes I stumble upon a gem. More often, I get frustrated from wasting my time on a book that turned out to suck.


Well, this is pretty much how it is with all readers. Judicious use of blurbs and samples can help avoid a lot of wasted reading time, and since I read about three books a week on average, I don't have a lot of time to waste.



> Reading a novel is a time investment. Even if you just read the first 100 pages before realizing that it's mediocre, that's several hours. No one wants to go through that again and again and again.


I'm not sure why it should take 100 pages to see a book isn't working for you. If I make it past the blurb and reviews to the sample, the first few pages given there will almost always tell me whether the book is worth downloading.

Some books make it past the sample test, and it later turns out I don't like them. I used to never quit reading a book, finished everything I started, but as I gotten older I've learned to just let go of books that don't interest me, or whatever. I only have so much free time.

I think you mean well with your idea, but it's just too big of a task to start with, and too subjective to be much use. There are so many books being published, you'd never get to a fraction of them, anyway.


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## Kathy Clark Author (Dec 18, 2012)

Publishing over the past five years has gone the opposite direction from most every other industry in the world.  It has become more diverse.  

Diminished is the role of the publishers because technology has allowed literally millions of authors to become their own publisher.  And as the major marketers like Amazon, Walmart, Google, Barnes & Noble and others fight it out to gain market share the needs of the readers and the authors go largely ignored. 

I think the free market approach would be best served to find a way to consolidate the reader reviews into a single online source. I'm not suggesting Yelp, Goodreads or Angie's List.  I trust readers to vote with their credit/debit cards to buy what looks good to them based on genre, author name, blurb and other reader  feedback.  All of this attainable pretty easily except the broad reader feedback.  It is just too hard to find them all.

Someone would make good money if they could just assemble all the existing feedback into one spot.  Forget the gatekeeper idea.  Trust people to make their own decisions but give them the ability to take in information and opinions.  As soon as you put a "logo" on it the corruption, game playing and waste starts.


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## John Twipnook (Jan 10, 2011)

Abby, I think what you're really talking about is starting a publishing company with its own imprint.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that in principle. Phoenix Sullivan et al established an imprint that's benefited both the company and their authors.

So if somebody wanted to start up a publishing outfit that focuses on SF/Fantasy, like Phoenix's focuses on romance... why not?

Phoenix, if she'd be willing, could probably offer some insight into the realities of such a startup, and whether a collective approach to it may or may not be a good business model. But I don't think there's anything morally or ethically wrong with it at all--again, in principle.


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## Nancy Beck (Jul 1, 2011)

Patty Jansen said:


> Just. Don't. Go. There.
> 
> The market will decide what's worth buying. It may not be what the literati like. Anyone who thinks that there is some sort of measurable standard that must be met before a book is "good" is kidding themselves. If you are too vocal about this (aside from grammar, punctuation and formatting, which are measurable) you risk ending up sounding like an arrogant dick. Believe me, I've tried, and so have many others. It doesn't work. Let the market decide.


What Patty said. Let the readers decide...which IMHO is where it should have always been.


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## lmroth12 (Nov 15, 2012)

AbbyBabble said:


> - I do believe there is such a thing as quality storytelling.


There _is_ such a thing as great storytelling but not all great storytellers use perfect grammar and punctuation. Take Mark Twain for example, who used a lot of slang deliberately to reflect the personalities of his characters. If you eliminate a writer because of what you perceive as typos, then you eliminate Mark Twain from your list.



AbbyBabble said:


> If you're a mega-reader, you know that it can be hard to find really great books that stand out from the crowd. The logo would have gone on books that blow the reader's mind. If it's trite, mediocre, boring, or if it lacks a satisfying ending ... it doesn't earn the logo.


I have always found *Moby Dick * so boring that I could never make it through a third of the book, yet it is considered a masterpiece by many. If I were one of your readers using "boring" as a guideline, then I would by your definition eliminate a book that is widely regarded as a literary classic. And I am someone who devours classics, yet I don't like *Moby Dick*. I don't think using "readers" therefore would necessarily work very well for you if you leave it up to them to decide whether a book is worthy of your logo.



AbbyBabble said:


> If you believe that great books are completely subjective, then we will have to agree to disagree. There is some measure of taste involved--for instance, no one should trust my taste on what makes good erotica or romance. For those genres, I would get another reader who loves those types of books.


I do question whether your statement about great books not being completely subjective rings true, as I personally (see above) rejected *Moby Dick * although I have read many, many great classics by American, British, French, Greek, and Russian authors and should have been able to discern by my "taste" that this is a great book. I also love classic adventure stories such as those written by Alexandre Dumas and for me *Moby Dick * did not measure up to that standard, so again, I have read many books in that genre which should have made me more discerning and able to see that* Moby Dick * is a great classic if we use your criteria for granting that book the logo.



AbbyBabble said:


> But if you read a ton in a particular genre, you begin to get a sense of what stands out and what's been done to death.


*Harry Potter* was rejected by more than 30 publishers before J. K. Rowling was able to sell it. And yet the premise of a boy wizard was fairly new so your statement about "getting a sense of what stands out and what has been done to death if you read a ton in a particular genre" clearly doesn't work in this particular case. And if you are using "taste" as a criteria it would be wise to remember that over 30 publishers rejected Harry Potter but the readers disagreed. I am not saying it's a great book, but publishers and readers clearly disagreed on this one.

I don't mean to give you a hard time, but you have all kinds of pitfalls you need to watch for if you are serious about pursuing this venture.


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## Claudia King (Oct 27, 2012)

Hugh Howey said:


> I love the idea. I can't think of any way to make it work.


Mhm. 

There's always an inherent problem with making any kind of regulatory body the arbiters of "good taste" when it comes to any artistic medium.
Even the critics that I respect and agree with the most still have radically different opinions to me on certain books/movies/whatevers, and when you put someone in charge of a system like this a lot of titles are going to fall through the cracks.

I'm a firm believer in storytelling having certain critical standards that it can be held to, but it's still a medium with immeasurable wiggle room when it comes to personal taste.

The best system in my opinion is always going to be looking at critique from trusted sources to inform your decisions on media purchases. It's definitely hard, especially with indie books, but there's no quick and easy solution that doesn't come with a whole plethora of pitfalls.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

This comment has nothing to do with being a reflection on the OP, but:

I think this is the tendency whenever a system of gatekeepers is overthrown.

In the pre-eBook boom era, there were clearly top writers who never reached further than the midlist because they weren't King or Patterson or whoever. And there were people who didn't get published at all who were good enough to be read, but were lost in the over-the-transom shuffle.

And so along comes the eBook boom era, and a bunch of former mid-listers sell huge because they become big fish in a smaller pond (initially). And those with the skills to write well but lost in the shuffle became the new mid-listers, because the gatekeepers weren't around to prevent it.

But then all the not-up-to-snuff writers, or the "get-rich-quick-but-screw-writing-well" folks jump on... the pond isn't as small anymore and there's a lot of algae on the water.

So inevitably, someone comes along and acts like the children of Israel wandering in the desert, saying, "Oh man, this stinks, life as a slave in Egypt was better than this!"

In other words, they forget how bad it was before.

And it's not the top-flight folks who are bugged, usually. Its the good-but-overlooked folks who can't get past mid-lister because so much sub-par stuff is out there. And they think that sub-par stuff is what's stopping them from advancing (when actually, they're just in the early stages of establishing their voice, their audience, and their brand... the lean years that precede "overnight success.")

Or it's the disillusioned "get-rich-quick"sters who bring up the idea, because they can't even reach midlist status and want to point fingers at anyone but themselves..

So yeah, people start wishing there were gatekeepers again. People who would put crowns, presumably, on THEIR heads but not on all the "unwashed masses" that are holding them back from greater success.

(But one person's uncrowned superstar is someone else's unwashed mass.)

There's nothing wrong with trad-pubs. Small presses are fine, too. Those sorts of companies have to reinvent themselves a bit, to adjust to this new age we've entered and are just all now starting to figure out.

But to replace one set of gatekeepers with another set of gatekeepers (who obviously will recognize OUR unique genius but filter out someone else's, which only changes who gets filtered out) was never the point of the indie author movement in the eBook era.

It was a democratization of the creative process... really letting readers decide who's good enough to read and who isn't.

It's riskier. It's a different ballgame. And we're all still adjusting.

But either one trusts readers to recognize if they're entertained or not, or they don't really trust readers and long for a different set of gatekeepers.

If one only wants to keep replacing gatekeepers until they find gatekeepers that favor them and hold others out, that's not opposition to the gatekeeper function at all... that's just self-serving elitism.

If one really trusts readers, they'll trust them to filter out whatever they don't like and doesn't measure up, while still embracing anything they come across that really satisfies them.

It's kinda-sorta a 99% vs. the upper 1% thing. If you simply want gatekeepers that let you in but not others, you're just seeking to maintain Upper 1% dominance of the marketplace.

If you trust people to know what they like and what they don't... then you live with the new challenges in winning yourself an audience, sure... but that's when you're really an indie author. When you trust readers more than elitist gatekeepers.

P.S. That's not to say elitist gatekeepers (e.g., submission editors and other editorial types) are bad folk. Some of them are excellent at what they do! But one can oppose the idea of a select few deciding for everyone what should be read and what shouldn't. The indie mentality is and always has been, "Let the readers decide."


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## psychotick (Jan 26, 2012)

Hi,

I've thought about this before and like most others found that the practicalities would make it next to impossible for anyone save a few like the big six (five) to do.

I'm sure this is coming. But it can't really be writers who do it. That's sort of like putting the foxes in charge of the hen house. And while indipendent bodies like various writer's guilds probably could do it, I don't see most of them having the resources. As for publishers, well most of us self pub so they wouldn't be interested - and worse if they put out some sort of vetting service which you'de presumably have to pay for, how would you trust them not to favour their own books?

As I see it the only body that could would be Amazon, an not only do I doubt they have the time or the inclination, it could also be seen by their legal eagles as endorsing a product - and I'm sure they don't want to do that.

Cheers, Greg.


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