# Most self-published authors are unconsciously incompetent. Your thoughts?



## Guest (Feb 6, 2014)

Suw Charman-Anderson asserts "...if the quality of self-published books is anything to go by, most self-publishers are at stage 1."

She's referring to the Dunning and Kruger Effect, which states at stage 1:
"The individual does not understand or know how to do something and does not necessarily recognize the deficit. They may deny the usefulness of the skill..."

Agree, disagree?

http://bit.ly/1btn1ic


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

My thoughts are that there have been entirely too many "discussions" here lately consisting of a link to a controversial blog post.  I'd prefer to see some thoughtful discussion that originates here that maybe people in other forums will link to because of the useful information it contains.  

Y'all are writers.  Doesn't anyone have any thoughts of their own to share?

Betsy
KBo Mod


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## lynnfromthesouth (Jun 21, 2012)

That hasn't been my personal experience. I also think many of these people who write stuff like this are mainly trying to validate themselves. I liked the comment by Maria:



> Maria (BearMountainBooks)
> Lots of these articles discuss the problem as "Quality" when really I think they are more bothered by "Competition."
> 
> I am not denying that there is garbage out there, but I don't really think that is what bothers many writers. I think what bothers them most is that readers might buy it and/or read it INSTEAD of buying the "other" stuff, which is generally defined as "better quality" by the people writing the articles. (Not denying that the editing may in fact be better. However, it is still very hard to compete with free.)
> ...


My personal experience from industry pros is that people expect my work to be bad, then are flummoxed when it's not. I had a well-known agent read my work, clearly expecting to have a lot of comments, and then all he had to say was "This is... pretty good. I think you could work on this line here... and maybe this one... but..." and that was it. He seemed rather speechless. They have a belief set up that is so firm that it completely throws them when it's not. They want to believe so bad that self published authors are on a lower level that they generalize and make up all sorts of logical irrationalities to refute it.


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## JaroldWilliams (Jan 9, 2014)

She is quite wrong. I am highly aware of my incompetence!

Of course, I AM trying to resolve that issue.


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## Sean Sweeney (Apr 17, 2010)

I'll let the readers decide whether or not I'm incompetent. I'll also let the readers validate my work.


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## Quentin Clarkson (Feb 2, 2014)

It may be true, but I have to wonder who would actually notice one way or the other. The objectively bad ones are usually pretty obvious, so if you find yourself reading a lot of them you may have some unconscious incompetence issues of your own to deal with.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

What's shocking is all these people invoking the Dunning Kruger effect never consider that their evaluation skills might actually be subject to it.

Yeah, there's crap out there. It sinks to the bottom pretty quickly. It may piss us off when they get switched around to our detriment, but the algorithms seem to be pretty effective and screening out things.


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## beccaprice (Oct 1, 2011)

I'm too busy editing the Snarls and trying to get it ready for release tomorrow, and being frantic about getting Heart of Rock in shape to have published by the end of April to have any thoughts of my own.

Besides that, isn't that what professional editors are for, so we can learn to recognize our weaknesses and learn to overcome them?

For the first time, I invested in a professional editor for Heart of Rock - her rates were reasonable, and she asked the one question none of my beta readers asked that was a potential source of confusion. All it took were a couple of sentences here and there, a word changed in a few places, to clear it up - well worth her fee. Makes me regret that I haven't used her for my other books. I certainly will in the future!


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## Guest (Feb 6, 2014)

The external editors thing is a key factor to these discussions. The trend, and it very much is an on-message trend coming from grad-publishing, is to denigrate the quality of the indies so that readers will eschew indie in favour of trad. This on-message argument doesn't factor in that most indies seek editors and thus aren't judging their own works entirely through their own eyes. 

I think there's an argument for the Dunning Kruger Effect, but it extends not just to writers, and self-published ones, but also agents, commissioning editors, marketers, cover artists, and managers. Even readers. 

To cherry pick one segment of an industry and apply it to the DKE is disingenuous and paints a biased picture. However, I do think there is a certain amount to be said for the KDE, and as a tool, helps us seek professionals and feedback to ensure we're not being unconsciously incompetent.


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

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Y'all are writers. Doesn't anyone have any thoughts of their own to share?
> 
> Betsy
> KBo Mod


My own thought is that if I see anymore of these crap threads I'll just pass on by and look for something worth reading.


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## scottmarlowe (Apr 22, 2010)

Posts like these will continue to proliferate as long as indies don't take their craft and products seriously enough. I know there are many who do, are willing to admit they don't know everything, and make themselves better for it. But there are just as many who think they don't need outside help or aren't willing to spend the money on it for different reasons, and, IMO, that's reflected in the final product. This is a business. It requires an upfront investment of time and money. That's just how it is.

As the poster says, there's nothing to be done about the ever-growing crap pile. The barrier to entry for publishing is so low now, literally anyone who can upload a Word doc can become a published author. The lack of gatekeepers is a two-way street. Readers have to deal with it. I know many who say they won't read indie published titles b/c they've either experienced the crap firsthand or are buying into the perception (real or not). It's up to us to keep the bar high and, one reader at a time, pull them back in or keep them in the first place.


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Y'all are writers. Doesn't anyone have any thoughts of their own to share?
> 
> Betsy
> KBo Mod


I do, but you'd just delete them. Anyway, I'm with Jarold, I'm quite aware of my incompetence. If I wasn't, I'd have six books out already.


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## Sarah M (Apr 6, 2013)

*shrug* The only incompetence I'm concerned about is my own.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

vrabinec said:


> I do, but you'd just delete them.


Well, really, that goes without saying. 

Betsy


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## Guest (Feb 6, 2014)

markecooper said:


> My own thought is that if I see anymore of these crap threads I'll just pass on by and look for something worth reading.


Thanks for contributing your thoughts to the discussion, Mark. Though your time might have been better off passing on and looking for something worth reading.


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## books_mb (Oct 29, 2013)

Katie Elle said:


> What's shocking is all these people invoking the Dunning Kruger effect never consider that their evaluation skills might actually be subject to it.


Yeah, that was the first thing that came to my mind when reading the post. For example, he says that "if the quality of self-published books is anything to go by, most self-publishers are at stage 1". Where's the data to back that up? After all, he did break up quality, so where's the analysis that led him to conclude that? Did he take random samples? Can he quote someone who did? You either make a firm statement and present the proof or note that it's an assumption.

For all we know, this supposed shit volcano might only exist in the head of some bloggers. I have yet to see proof. "I noticed that soandso" is not legitimate proof. Yes, I also noticed that there are some self-published books of terrible quality. But two minutes of sunshine don't make a sunny day and some outliers don't make a volcano.


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## CEMartin2 (May 26, 2012)

Being a nitpicker at heart, I'd have to answer that NO ONE knows the quality of "most" indie authors as there's simply too many of us for anyone to read 51% to make the "most" classification, and that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Even if one reviewer read enough indie work to definitively declare most of it bad, that'd be just one person's opinion.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

I didn't click the link, but my thoughts on what this person asserted are these:

1) The "Dunning-Kruger Effect" is exactly as much byllshyt (to borrow a term I saw on TPV) as the Bechdel test. There are people out there who are good and who know they're good. There are people out there who suck and know they suck. And there is everything in between. There is no "one size fits all" of human experience or human knowledge, and I strongly suspect that those who try to live by or judge others by made-up armchair psychology like the Dunning-Kruger Effect are intimidated by the people who are good and know it, and so try to find some "scientific" way to bring them down a peg. Get over yourselves, world.

2) She hasn't read most self-published books, so how the hell does she know whether most of them are good or bad?

3) I'd venture a guess that most books of any kind are written by noobish writers with minimal skill. The difference is that USUALLY (certainly not always) the majority of those books get weeded out of the system when looking at the traditional publishing model, whereas virtually none of those books get weeded out of the system with the self-publishing model. So it's not a majority of self-published writers who suck, but rather a majority of _all writers_.

4) The problem with the traditional publishing model is that while it typically does weed out most of the really awful dreck, it also weeds out a lot of the really good stuff because it's not commercial enough to fit the current market. That is a huge flaw in the system. The strength of the self-publishing model is that nothing gets weeded out before it reaches readers, so while there's more crap to find in self-publishing, there's also way, way more gold. More variety, more risk-taking, more genuine vision, more art.

So the person who wrote this article, and every other person who will write a similar article in the coming months as more screeching and flailing happens across the internet due to the continued crumbling of tradpub dominance and the forced change of the way the whole world must look at the art of writing, can chupa me huevos.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

LynnBlackmar said:


> My personal experience from industry pros is that people expect my work to be bad, then are flummoxed when it's not. I had a well-known agent read my work, clearly expecting to have a lot of comments, and then all he had to say was "This is... pretty good. I think you could work on this line here... and maybe this one... but..." and that was it. He seemed rather speechless. They have a belief set up that is so firm that it completely throws them when it's not. They want to believe so bad that self published authors are on a lower level that they generalize and make up all sorts of logical irrationalities to refute it.


Yeah. One of my former agents posted a really insulting blog post not too long about about how terrible all self-published stuff was, and how people could use certain "clues" to avoid "accidentally" buying self-published books, and so you could know for sure you were buying a Genuine Vetted for Quality Ebook.

It gave me unspeakable pleasure to post a comment on that blog post pointing out to her that I had self-published the book she had represented, the very same one she had deemed good enough to go on submission to all the major publishers, the very same book she had told me she had "nothing but the highest expectations for." Not one sentence changed. Watching her backpedal publicly and try to un-say what she had just declared as if she was some kind of authority on the obvious and glaring distinction between Books That are Good Enough to Publish and all that self-published Obviously-Crap was pretty epic.


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## AngryGames (Jul 28, 2013)

I'm the reason blog posts such as this are written almost daily. In fact, I'm so incompetent, I've been accused of being a badly programmed android (or one that was purposely programmed to be foolish, ignorant, incompetent, and useless). 

Oh, and ElHawk is my newbestfriend at Kboards. She doesn't want this distinction, but her posts lately are the best. 

Call the police now. 

While you still can.


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## Rob Lopez (Jun 19, 2012)

Incompetent people don't know they're incompetent? Heh. I believe I read Spike Milligan saying the same thing; "It is a fact that an idiot does not know he is an idiot." He was describing auditions for a forces concert in Italy in 1944, so he was talking about the entertainment industry, really.

The thing is, readers don't always recognise incompetence either. I watched the rise of one self-published book from last year. Several reviews complained about the typos, bad grammar (some very embarrassing mistakes, actually) and characters doing unbelievable things. My own take on it was that, while it breezed along nicely, the whole tone of the plot and character interactions just seemed childlike and simplistic.

So imagine my surprise when, months later, it had garnered over 400 reviews and was ranking high, with the author on their blog talking about over a hundred sales a day. The negative reviews remained, but they were overshadowed by the positive ones. There were even readers who pointed out the errors and declared that they still liked it and gave it five stars. This book is a hit now.

On another forum, I once mentioned to an author that I would be reading their self-published work, and they asked me to let them know what I thought. I read the book, then told the author that, while the book started okay, and while I liked the characters, the story itself seemed to unravel about halfway, with the author seeming to run out of ideas and finishing it too hastily. Plus it had a ton of typos. I told him that I couldn't rate it any higher than three stars, and as I didn't want to ruin his reputation, I wouldn't actually put out a review. I also told him it needed a bit more work. The writer thanked me, defended his work and carried on regardless.

I felt pretty stupid then when that book, in a fairly niche part of a genre, went on to do really well, far better than any of mine, with enquiring fans queuing at his door wanting to know when the next one was out. He's selling pretty well now. Shows how much I know, really.

There may well be a self-publishing volcano of crap, but in that case, the slopes appear to be crowded with readers eager to have it rain on them. From this, I can only assume that, actually, there are readers who _like_ simplistic prose and childlike characters (and I'm not talking about children's or YA fiction here either) and grammatical errors. I think there are, in fact, readers who don't like works that read too professional or complex. I don't know how much of the market these kinds of readers make up, but I don't think it's an insignificant percentage.

Who's to judge that these readers shouldn't get what they want? The market is a complex thing - professionals in publishing have known this for decades.

Unconsciously incompetent? Or unrecognised competents? How about: _Not great, but good enough for some._

As writers struggling with our craft, I think we overlook what some people want. I think this has been true with professionals in the traditional publishing industries who largely only see readers as other versions of themselves. We have our eyes on the summit, hoping that we're leading the way, while behind us, members of the tour party are wandering off, noticing trails that we missed, exploring them and finding them just fine.

Boils down to the same old question. Who defines the right way to go? Who defines competence? An incompetent builder builds a house that falls apart. An incompetent writer gets flak, but gains a following anyway. There's more to this than meets the eye. When it comes to a stratified market consisting of many layers, the whole question of 'quality', when seen from only one perspective, is moot. We're not really talking quality - we're talking cultures. Reader cultures. So many of them that we can't actually keep track.


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## Guest (Feb 6, 2014)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> My thoughts are that there have been entirely too many "discussions" here lately consisting of a link to a controversial blog post. I'd prefer to see some thoughtful discussion that originates here that maybe people in other forums will link to because of the useful information it contains.
> 
> Y'all are writers. Doesn't anyone have any thoughts of their own to share?
> 
> ...


I believe that's what's happening (thoughtful discussion). My post was just a starting point. I didn't link to it because it was controversial. I linked to it because it brought up an interesting idea on evaluation that I thought was worth exploring. When I look at all the threads on the first few pages alone, threads linking to other blogs are in the small minority. There's many different types of discussions to suit all preferences IMHO.

Is there are number for threads that link to posts we should stay under?


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

AngryGames said:


> Oh, and ElHawk is my newbestfriend at Kboards. She doesn't want this distinction, but her posts lately are the best.


The hell I don't. High five.


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## Guest (Feb 6, 2014)

Rob Lopez said:


> Who's to judge that these readers shouldn't get what they want? The market is a complex thing - professionals in publishing have known this for decades.
> 
> Unconsciously incompetent? Or unrecognised competents? How about: _Not great, but good enough for some._
> 
> ... We're not really talking quality - we're talking cultures. Reader cultures. So many of them that we can't actually keep track.


That there is some great points that often get left out of similar discussions. It seems those who are the loudest at the moment about the volcano or crap are trying to retrofit their opinion to a culture that exist mostly within traditional publishing. With the advent of kindle and easy to find books that people want, we're seeing entirely new, or at least previously underrepresented, cultures given a great deal of content and choice.

I too have looked at books doing well and think 'who the hell is buying this stuff?' It's easy to think: Gah! The world is being drowned with drek we must keep authors within their cages and set an objective bar of quality (i.e Gatekeepers), but in reality, it should be an exciting revelation that almost any book up to a baseline of readability has an audience waiting for it.

If I were a publisher, I'd embrace this, give the people what they want. For the first time anyone can go online and see what readers want. It just seems to me, that many pro-trad authors and other industry staff still want to be in the position where they dictate what people read.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

ColinFBarnes said:


> If I were a publisher, I'd embrace this, give the people what they want. For the first time anyone can go online and see what readers want. It just seems to me, that many pro-trad authors and other industry staff still want to be in the position where they dictate to what people read.


Did you see Donald Maas' recent (honest, if obnoxious) commentary on the current state of the publishing industry? He was right about publisher behavior: why would publishers find NEW stuff that readers want when they can just "cull the cattle from the herd" (metaphor fail) and capitalize on authors who have already given readers what they want, and who have done all the hard work of building a following? Publishers will continue to do what they've been doing in ever-increasing numbers over the past few years: embrace those authors who sell best on their own, but only once all the risk has been taken by the author. (or they'll try to, anyway...hopefully authors will get smarter and reject their one-sided deals and demand fair negotiations)


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## AngryGames (Jul 28, 2013)

> The hell I don't. High five.












Flip a coin to see who gets to be Bill S. Preston, Esquire and who gets to be Ted "Theodore" Logan?

(as you can see, there's room for two more newbestfriends in my life!)


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## Guest (Feb 6, 2014)

ElHawk said:


> Did you see Donald Maas' recent (honest, if obnoxious) commentary on the current state of the publishing industry? He was right about publisher behavior: why would publishers find NEW stuff that readers want when they can just "cull the cattle from the herd" (metaphor fail) and capitalize on authors who have already given readers what they want, and who have done all the hard work of building a following? Publishers will continue to do what they've been doing in ever-increasing numbers over the past few years: embrace those authors who sell best on their own, but only once all the risk has been taken by the author. (or they'll try to, anyway...hopefully authors will get smarter and reject their one-sided deals and demand fair negotiations)


Aye, just finished reading it myself. They certainly do this to an extent. If you look at Publisher's Marketplace, most of these cherry-picked titles end up selling to Amazon's imprints. Though Penguin and Headline have done a few also, but it takes up a small amount of their catalogue. And yeah, I've seen a number of offers given to authors lately, some are absolutely horrendous, and others pretty good. You're right in that comes down to risk for the publisher. This is an area where I can see both sides of the publishing coin coexisting. I would happily sell to a publisher if the deal was beneficial to both parties.

If it's true that the book industry is made up of 70% print (and we know that's nonsense), then why aren't more publishers offering successful indies print only deals? If print is their thing, then surely they'd still make a lot of money. This brings me back to the point that the DKE applies to those working in the trad industry as much as it does the indies.


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## EC (Aug 20, 2013)

Everyone in the self-publishing game is incompetent, just as everyone in the trad-pub game is incompetent.  This is why we have KBoards, beta readers, editors and cover professionals to assist us in overcoming our latent incompetencies.It's also why we turn to fiverr for formatting and other things. 

The truly wise man knows he doesn't know everything, and turns to others for help. 

Next.


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## Guest (Feb 6, 2014)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> My thoughts are that there have been entirely too many "discussions" here lately consisting of a link to a controversial blog post. I'd prefer to see some thoughtful discussion that originates here that maybe people in other forums will link to because of the useful information it contains.
> 
> Y'all are writers. Doesn't anyone have any thoughts of their own to share?
> 
> ...


Thanks, Betsy! I confess that I'm drawn in by the controversial and provocative subject lines, but then I realize that, *for me,* spending time with such topics is a waste.


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

theblether said:


> The truly wise man knows he doesn't know everything, and turns to others for help.


I met him once. He's a bothersome leech.


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## paulfsilva (Jan 20, 2014)

What alternate universe am I living in? When has there not been mounds of garbage being written every year? I don't get it.

Just because people can self-publish now and find some success, everything a publisher touches is gold?


Here's the truth:
Most of what gets self-published is garbage. Most of what gets published the traditional way is garbage. Maybe the self-published pit is deeper, but it's all still mostly garbage. That's just how it is.


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

paulfsilva said:


> What alternate universe am I living in? When has there not been mounds of garbage being written every year? I don't get it.
> 
> Just because people can self-publish now and find some success, everything a publisher touches is gold?
> 
> ...


See, I tend to think that most of what gets published has something good about it. I've done well over a thousand critiques on various sites, and rarely does a piece not have something of interest in it. And most of the people I critique are working on their first second or third book. Essentially newbies. People are interesting. It's just a matter of honing how that interesting stuff is presented.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Yes. Yes we're incompetent.

But it isn't because of the Dunning-Kreuger Effect because for that to come into play, one would have to have some level of basic _confidence_ before it can start effecting our _competence_.

No, we are incompetent because of THIS. This self-sabotage, this twisting of the knife into already wounded egos, this obsession with cultivating our own freaking inferiority complex.

We are incompetent because we can't move on from this pig's wallow of self-hate we mire ourselves in.

Do you know what a 'crab bucket' is? It's the tendency for communities to prevent their members from excelling (leaving the bucket) by pulling them back in whenever they start to rise. These kind of thread are the claws of our own, personal crab bucket. Whenever someone does well--whenever our corner of the industry does well--someone has to extend that claw out into cyberspace and find a blog post where someone with an agenda is trying to tear us down *AND HELP THEM DO IT*.

It's literally everyday now. Are you sure you don't suck? Hey, maybe you don't deserve whatever amount of success you've had. Hey, listen--DO YOU HATE YOURSELF ENOUGH YET? NO? THEN LET ME HELP YOU WITH THAT.

Rip and tear. Inch by inch, we are doing our level best to do as much damage to ourselves as we possibly can. And then we click links like that just to make sure we reward the people instigating it.

It's not about ignoring our flaws, it's about not doing everything we can to exacerbate them and demotivate people from trying to get better.


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## Michael Kingswood (Feb 18, 2011)

*yawn*

Whatevers.


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

Vaalingrade said:


> Do you know what a 'crab bucket' is? It's the tendency for communities to prevent their members from excelling (leaving the bucket) by pulling them back in whenever they start to rise. These kind of thread are the claws of our own, personal crab bucket. Whenever someone does well--whenever our corner of the industry does well--someone has to extend that claw out into cyberspace and find a blog post where someone with an agenda is trying to tear us down *AND HELP THEM DO IT*.


  Love this term. Haven't heard it in years. Yup.


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## RJ Kennett (Jul 31, 2013)

You know those pre-packaged cherry pies you can buy at the corner store? That's trad-pub.

Your Grandma's home-made cherry pie? That's indie.

Grandma could be a good cook; she could be a bad cook. But to say her pie is no good because it isn't pre-packaged and sold at the corner store is downright ignorant.


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## SawyerPentecost (Jul 11, 2013)

I try to stay away from any posts of the "culling the herd" variety. It is present here too, just to a much lesser extent. Once I get a title out, and officially have my big boy britches on, I will be able to contribute to threads like that. For now, they just seem like psychological bait intended to discredit the producing author in the minds of readers, introduce self-doubt in the minds of the working self-publishers, as well as to dampen the ambitions of those who have not yet produced. I don't hear a win for me in any of that! That said, I don't mind the posts...they allow me to learn about my fellow Kboarders.


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## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

On the topic of links to controversial blogs: I sometimes enjoy these discussions but I tend to get the gist of them here, rather than clicking through to the original blog and giving them traffic. I'm really more interested in what KBers have to say about the blog topics, than in reading the blogs themselves. We've got plenty of smart people here who are usually more in touch with the realities of indie publishing than the bloggers writing the opinion pieces. Because that's what most of these things are, in my mind -- opinions like belly buttons and all that. If I'm in the mood to get riled, I read them and if I'm not, I pass them by. Either way, it doesn't bother me if others want to discuss them.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

ColinFBarnes said:


> I believe that's what's happening (thoughtful discussion). My post was just a starting point. I didn't link to it because it was controversial. I linked to it because it brought up an interesting idea on evaluation that I thought was worth exploring. When I look at all the threads on the first few pages alone, threads linking to other blogs are in the small minority. There's many different types of discussions to suit all preferences IMHO.
> 
> Is there are number for threads that link to posts we should stay under?


There's been a trend lately of people posting links to controversial blogposts which have resulted in threads tearing down the blogger instead of discussing the post, which is not the kind of discussion we want here on KBoards.

And yes, there is thoughtful discussion happening in this thread; hopefully it will continue.  Your initial post, though, consisting of basically the link and none of your own thoughts on the subject, looked like someone only posting to incite, which, as I say, has been happening too often.

I was very glad to see that you did post your own impressions of the link content a couple of posts later--my preference would have been for you to include that in your initial post, so that people could respond to that if they chose without having to go offsite.

Thanks,

Betsy
KB Mod

Edit to add: On a personal note, I don't really understand the fascination with linking to, and discussing, bloggers who write negatively about your field (unless they truly are experts in the field). It seems to me more like poking a sore tooth--it accomplishes nothing but causes a lot of pain. There are a lot of traditional vs art quilt arguments that go on. I ignore them as they have nothing to do with me. I understand keeping current in one's field, but wallowing in negativity? *shrug* Carry on....


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## DashaGLogan (Jan 30, 2014)

There are so many people out there looking for entertainment in their lives and how they get it is their own decision and their money to spend.
Many many people have no enjoyment whatsoever in reading Proust, Roth or Wolfe, they want to read vampire porn an as much of it as they can. 
I find this belittleling of the readers the most annoying, as if they were all Zombies who eat whatever they get served.
I can't tell you how many times I have stood in a major bookshop howling in desperation at the lack of variety and the old same same books!
The quality is often only marked by no typos.
Of course there are people who write less poetically but of you don't want to read it, you don't have to.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

Has anyone else noticed that the vast majority of complaints about the "poor quality of indie publishers" come from publishers, writers, and pundits; but almost never come from readers and consumers?

The system works. The good stuff is finding its way to the top. The bad stuff is finding its way to the bottom. I have a Prime subscription and the free book is always an indie because those are the ones eligible for KDP Select. I've never read a bad book. Yes, most of them are pulp zombie or romance novels. I don't think any of them are going to be art for the ages, but so what? I get what I'm looking for: an entertaining read.

Here's a basic reality: Amazon sells everything. _Everything._ Yes. They sell crap computers. They sell crap books. They sell crap music. They sell crap sporting goods. They sell crap clothing. They also sell great computers, great books, great music, great sporting goods, and great clothing. _They sell everything. Good or bad. _They give you tools to figure out the **** from shinola that are so good that even though my job doesn't purchase through Amazon, I go to them for reviews and ratings.


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Edit to add: On a personal note, I don't really understand the fascination with linking to, and discussing, bloggers who write negatively about your field (unless they truly are experts in the field). It seems to me more like poking a sore tooth--it accomplishes nothing but causes a lot of pain. There are a lot of traditional vs art quilt arguments that go on. I ignore them as they have nothing to do with me. I understand keeping current in one's field, but wallowing in negativity? *shrug* Carry on....


It's motivation. Like a football coach telling his team, "They think you're weak! They think you're losers! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? No! Now go out there and show them they're wrong! Who's with me?"


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

vrabinec said:


> It's motivation. Like a football coach telling his team, "They think you're weak! They think you're losers! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? No! Now go out there and show them they're wrong! Who's with me?"


The Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? When?

 

Betsy


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## DashaGLogan (Jan 30, 2014)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> The Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? When?
> 
> 
> 
> Betsy


Igsaktly


----------



## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> The Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? When?
> 
> 
> 
> Betsy


You guys lead a sheltered life. That's a line from one of the greatest motivational speaches of our generation:


----------



## DashaGLogan (Jan 30, 2014)

Hey - I knew that! I was being ironic!!


----------



## DashaGLogan (Jan 30, 2014)

In Germany the publishing houses are ahead of times, there is a platform called http://www.neobooks.com which is like lulu but owned by Droemer Knaur, which is something like Schuster and Schuster.
They hopp on the train and provide quite a service, i think it is only for german books but they want their share of the indie buzz.

My next german language book will be done with them.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Ahhhh...  Never saw it.  Don't watch many comedies.  Not usually enough blood and violence for me. 

Betsy


----------



## Sonya Bateman (Feb 3, 2013)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Don't watch many comedies. Not usually enough blood and violence for me.
> 
> Betsy


I like you. Be my friend?


----------



## Ty Johnston (Jun 19, 2009)

DashaGLogan said:


> In Germany the publishing houses are ahead of times, there is a platform called http://www.neobooks.com which is like lulu but owned by Droemer Knaur, which is something like Schuster and Schuster.


This. This right here, or something akin to it.

The first Big 5 publisher that sets aside its prejudices against indies, that stops trying to feed writers awful contract terms, that stops trying to tear down Amazon, that starts to realize there are readers beyond the shrinking shelves of BN, that doesn't expect every single author to be a bestseller with book one, etc., will be the last one standing. Because everybody else will be dead in the water.

And when that happens ... and I'm convinced it will, though it might yet be years away ... only then will we stop seeing these silly, stupid, delusional, self-indulgent, territorial rantings. Until then, I refuse to click.

Besides, I can catch the gist over at Konrath's blog.


----------



## Deke (May 18, 2013)

There's probably some truth in what she's saying.  There are so many self pub'd books how could there not be some deluded folks? Writers in general are pretty internal folks and quick to convince themselves their work will revolutionize the literary world when in fact it's incomprehensible. Beta-reads and editing are crucial to fix this, so is the willingness to listen to those editors.

Is there is any meta-data available on indie-published books that deal with editorial quality? I believe there are stats on genre and perhaps even length, but not that elusive "quality" aspect.


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## elalond (May 11, 2011)

ElHawk said:


> Did you see Donald Maas' recent (honest, if obnoxious) commentary on the current state of the publishing industry? He was right about publisher behavior: why would publishers find NEW stuff that readers want when they can just "cull the cattle from the herd" (metaphor fail) and capitalize on authors who have already given readers what they want, and who have done all the hard work of building a following? Publishers will continue to do what they've been doing in ever-increasing numbers over the past few years: embrace those authors who sell best on their own, but only once all the risk has been taken by the author. (or they'll try to, anyway...hopefully authors will get smarter and reject their one-sided deals and demand fair negotiations)


I think when people claim that publishers "can just "cull the cattle from the herd" (metaphor fail) and capitalize on authors who have already given readers what they want, and who have done all the hard work of building a following," forget that in most cases publishers who sign a self-publisher on the base of already proven success, that costs them more than it would if they signed on a debut author. Not just in advance, but in loss of many secondary rights (didn't Sullivan sell his audio right before hand so that the publisher couldn't get them?) and the contract of savvy self-publisher also has a time limit, and there is no nasty clauses with which publishers could control writer's career. In my opinion, even cashing in on proven successes is not as profitable for publishers as it used to be.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

AngryGames said:


> In fact, I'm so incompetent, I've been accused of being a badly programmed android (or one that was purposely programmed to be foolish, ignorant, incompetent, and useless).


You are my phone?


----------



## DashaGLogan (Jan 30, 2014)

Ty Johnston said:


> This. This right here, or something akin to it.
> 
> The first Big 5 publisher that sets aside its prejudices against indies, that stops trying to feed writers awful contract terms, that stops trying to tear down Amazon, that starts to realize there are readers beyond the shrinking shelves of BN, that doesn't expect every single author to be a bestseller with book one, etc., will be the last one standing. Because everybody else will be dead in the water.
> 
> ...


Oh and these guys are so clever, they have a competition to "win" a print deal with their big pub house.


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## redacted (Dec 16, 2013)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> My thoughts are that there have been entirely too many "discussions" here lately consisting of a link to a controversial blog post. I'd prefer to see some thoughtful discussion that originates here that maybe people in other forums will link to because of the useful information it contains.
> 
> Y'all are writers. Doesn't anyone have any thoughts of their own to share?
> 
> ...


THIS.

Stop worrying so much about what Establishment Types think of you, guys. This is why you self-published in the first place, remember? To NOT have to adhere to these "rules."

(Or at least, that's why I self-published...)


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## Error404 (Sep 6, 2012)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Ahhhh... Never saw it. Don't watch many comedies. Not usually enough blood and violence for me.
> 
> Betsy


This might explain why mods sometimes can't take jokes


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

DashaGLogan said:


> In Germany the publishing houses are ahead of times, there is a platform called http://www.neobooks.com which is like lulu but owned by Droemer Knaur, which is something like Schuster and Schuster.
> They hopp on the train and provide quite a service, i think it is only for german books but they want their share of the indie buzz.
> 
> My next german language book will be done with them.


There's also epubli, a similar German indie platform operated by Verlagsgruppe Holtzbrinck, which is the parent company of Pan Macmillan and therefore a Big Five publisher.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

I glanced at the blog post, but I didn't read it all. It was more of the same. What I'd like to know is why this sudden rash of self-publishing rants? I mean, there's been like three or four in the last week. Maybe one rant begets another rant, and so on, but it almost seems like a coordinated effort.


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## Guest (Feb 7, 2014)

When I started last January I didn't know anything.  I made every mistake there was, and surely didn't know it.  Sometimes you think, well, it'll be alright but then later you shake your head at your own silliness.

It takes awhile to learn all this stuff.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> My thoughts are that there have been entirely too many "discussions" here lately consisting of a link to a controversial blog post. I'd prefer to see some thoughtful discussion that originates here that maybe people in other forums will link to because of the useful information it contains.
> 
> Y'all are writers. Doesn't anyone have any thoughts of their own to share?
> 
> ...


I love this idea in theory, and it used to work pretty well, but the number of posts has gone up dramatically, resulting in this spewing volcano of new threads, so it's hard for those of us with brilliant, witty things to say to be discovered. Our wisdom is shoved down to the third page, and who looks there? So many of us have given up. There's nothing left to do, really, but rant.

What we need is an approval process. We all submit our thread ideas to Harvey, and only the best ones get published. Then things would get back to normal around here.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

MaryMcDonald said:


> I glanced at the blog post, but I didn't read it all. It was more of the same. What I'd like to know is why this sudden rash of self-publishing rants? I mean, there's been like three or four in the last week. Maybe one rant begets another rant, and so on, but it almost seems like a coordinated effort.


I wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly what it is.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

Hugh Howey said:


> I love this idea in theory, and it used to work pretty well, but the number of posts has gone up dramatically, resulting in this spewing volcano of new threads, so it's hard for those of us with brilliant, witty things to say to be discovered. Our wisdom is shoved down to the third page, and who looks there? So many of us have given up. There's nothing left to do, really, but rant.
> 
> What we need is an approval process. We all submit our thread ideas to Harvey, and only the best ones get published. Then things would get back to normal around here.


 Nice! lol.

Maybe Betsy or Harvey can write a book on how to get threads to stay on the front page. And then offer to sell it to us when they send us rejections on our thread suggestions.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Drew Gideon said:


> These people are working hard to convince *your* readers that since you're an indie, you're crap. You don't want to get blindsided by that. In fact, it would be a good move to be proactive about it. (I'm planning on writing my own blog post about it, aimed at the readers. I hope more folks here do the same.)


Okay. What reader where is reading these blogs by random industry insiders and freaking _agents_? This bullcrap isn't aimed at readers, it's aimed at two groups:

1) nascent writers who are coming up and are going to be picking between self-pub or trads. They want to perpetuate the idea that being trad pubbed is the major leagues and scare them off from ever self-pubbing.

2) the crab bucket. It's a psych-out with the hope to discourage people and distract them. Even if it doesn't run people off of self-pubbing, it plays off of our heron-like addiction to negative BS to pump up their web traffic.



> When you're going into a game, you watch films of the opposing team to see what they're doing. When you're preparing for war, you get as much intel as possible and look at their troop movements. When you compete against another person (even in a friendly way), you evaluate what they're doing right and try to learn from it.


What game? What war? This is an industry with no time slot or theater space restrictions. There is no actual competition on our level. The competition on tradpub's end is over talent, not market share.



> You don't sit in the corner and tell everyone to stop doing these things because it might get you depressed and make you quit.*


Oh look, a straw man! Excellent job arguing on the internet!



> We know that the publishing industry has established talking points and is making a coordinated effort to discredit indies. Sitting back and allowing them to continue unchallenged is not a good idea.


Talking points with whom? We're the idiots who keep spreading and internalizing this crap. No one else is even aware of this 'war' until a bunch of dramaloving indies spread the links around, blog about it and puke it up all over twitter.

This is like fighting the flu with open-mouthed kisses and immuno-supressants.


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## gonedark (May 30, 2013)

Content removed due to TOS Change of 2018. I do not agree to the terms.


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## jjfoxe (Apr 24, 2013)

vrabinec said:


> You guys lead a sheltered life. That's a line from one of the greatest motivational speaches of our generation:


Ha ha - I got it as soon as I saw it. Watched that movie a bunch of times back in the day.

We should get back on topic before Betsy puts us on double secret probation


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## Abalone (Jan 31, 2014)

Not a writer, but let me give you my opinion.

As a professional who works in computer engineering and software development, we're open to "indie" or self-developers unlike how our brother fields do it, such as big 5 publishers. It's a strange comparison, but stick with me here. The beauty of self-publishing in any field is if you're bad, you're not going to get anywhere. What are Mr. King's famous words? You're an accomplished writer when you can feed yourself or pay the electricity bill. Nothing to take to heart, but I'm more inclined to listen to an author than I am a publishing house or an agent/editor. Far too much time is spent on the next lucrative book. It's quite sad how much I can compare literature to my field in that regard. It shouldn't be like that. 

If you're making thousands a month writing hot, steamy erotica, good for you and keep it up! If you've written a brilliant *insert anything* novel or series and seeing the sales come in day in and day out, good for you and keep it up! Pay no heed to corporate drones. 

I can name plenty of big time and medium time traditionally published authors who have no business writing books. They've been published simply because the house and Hollywood know they can make millions upon millions of dollars. Besides, these so called agents and editors ought to invest personal time investigating DKE before spouting it off because they heard it on some daytime radio show. Their exact vehement opposition is the dictionary definition of DKE, not to mention confirmation bias.


I wish I could write well. I write like your typical engineer; like a textbook.


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## AngryGames (Jul 28, 2013)

here's something semi-constructive. Maybe. Probably not.

The more Hugh Howies (heh) and Elle Casies (sorry!) and Russell Blakesies (hiss! it hurts the preciousssss!) we have, the more the the needle swings toward us.

I don't care what some guy in a trad-pub house thinks about what I (or 'we') do.

The lines are already blurred, and hybrids are emerging, with more on the way as new self-pubs find success.

As long as we remember where we came from should we find success, the tone of 'blog posts' about our industry will be much louder (and believable) by far, without any of us having to crow about how great we've done as a group of literary outcasts.

A long time ago almost everyone believed the Earth was the center of the universe (and it was flat!). These days, they are kind of on the 'extinct' side of things. A long time ago almost everyone believed sickness (whether physical, mental, or emotional) was a sign of demonic possession. These days, the few remaining types like this make the majority of us cringe when they announce such beliefs.

What was once considered practically gospel (trad pubs = best pubs! everyone else = losersssss!) is slowly but surely moving toward the opposite end of the spectrum.

Self-pubs, whether us nobodies, rising stars like that "Wool" guy, or big-timers like Lawrence Block and others, will be talked about as the ones who bring in fresh new ideas, stories, talent, characters, universes, business plans, marketing techniques, reader reaches, prices, etc.

Because that's what we do. We're innovators. We're recruiters. We're mentors (sometimes). We're a very large community of vastly different (and constantly clashing) personalities and beliefs that have a common goal, and our collective voice, especially when combined with reader voices that cry out for MORE of whatever we are writing, is louder than few remaining gatekeepers and the 'nobles' that they protect. We don't even need to storm the castle walls and depose anyone. We just pretend they don't exist for the most part, because readers don't listen to them, and neither do authors.

Let them be King of Nothing. No one listens to the King of Nothing. No one respects the King of Nothing. Eventually the King of Nothing is just a laughable memory. We'll all laugh at how the King of Nothing would sometimes stand on the castle wall and scream down at us how ignorant and foolish we all were. We'd laugh about how we pelted the stupid king with tomatoes and dirty diapers, and we'd laugh even harder about how sometimes it would make good ol' King of Nothing enraged even further.

Sometimes it just takes the rest of the world a little time to catch up and realize their old prejudices and outmoded ideas were foolish. Some will never be convinced. They'll eventually die of old age, but the world, including technology, will keep going forward. I imagine there will be a day in the future when paper books are so rare as to be considered extreme luxury items, or quaint, archaic items to foster conversation. Unless we blow each other up, then books will be rare because everyone will be burning them to survive the nuclear winters. But in the event we don't, self-publishing will eventually overtake traditional publishing by a large margin.

Unless the trad pubs finally figure out what is going on. But I'm truly convinced that they'll be less of a conversation piece other than how each behemoth fell or merged until there was only one or two, toothless old dogs who are only hanging on to life because of their hold on their big-name authors who still sell a lot of books. But when the day comes, and it might not be for another 50 years, or maybe it will be within another 10, who knows, but when the day comes that print books are too expensive to print at a profit in a cutthroat industry, who thinks the thud they'll hear is anything but a dinosaur falling over into the dirt.

Actually, no one will hear them other than the other dinosaurs and the parasites that live off the dinosaurs. Readers and authors will have already connected to the point their relationship blocks out the sound of old species dying off. Readers will ask, "Did you hear that?" and the authors will say, "Sounded like a dinosaur dying and crashing into the turf" and readers will say, "huh, I thought dinosaurs had gone extinct sixty-five million years ago" and the author will chuckle and say, "hah! You'd think, right?"

But what do I know? I'm some dude's defective phone. Which means I'm probably a Windows phone.

PS I MUST be a some dude's broken phone. Did you know that if you google Russell Blake, the little box to the right shows "Blake Russell" and the blurb tells how *she* is an American long-distance runner (Olympian!). And she's kind of ugly. She looks EXACTLY like Russell Blake, the dude-author. It's so creepy that I'm wondering if I ate from the wrong pan of brownies.

PSS he's also a soccer player? Wtf...I thought he was a writer. It doesn't say in the author notes of any of his books that he's a female Olympian.


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## Guest (Feb 7, 2014)

Good post, AngryGames!


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## William Stacey (Jul 7, 2012)

ElHawk said:


> I didn't click the link, but my thoughts on what this person asserted are these:
> 
> 1) The "Dunning-Kruger Effect" is exactly as much byllshyt (to borrow a term I saw on TPV) as the Bechdel test. There are people out there who are good and who know they're good. There are people out there who suck and know they suck. And there is everything in between. There is no "one size fits all" of human experience or human knowledge, and I strongly suspect that those who try to live by or judge others by made-up armchair psychology like the Dunning-Kruger Effect are intimidated by the people who are good and know it, and so try to find some "scientific" way to bring them down a peg. Get over yourselves, world.
> 
> ...


 I don't know what "chupa me huevos" means, but it sounds awesome; great post.


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## chele (Jun 5, 2013)

Unfortunately, as with everything, for every person who puts effort and skill into their work, there will be ten others who don't. This is true of Self-Publishing, same as it's true for X-Factor/American Idol. You'll always have those people who swan in and expect to make it big even though they haven't practiced/don't know the words/etc or simply have no talent. As soon as you take away the gate between the person producing the content, and those buying it, you'll get this.

On the other hand, taking away the gate also opens readers up to a whole new wealth of content. It might not be for everyone, but it will be for someone, and that might be the story they pass to their children as their favourite. 

The surge is the price we pay. Yes, some writers are unconsciously incompetent, but to tar every person who decides to self-publish with the same brush is consciously ignorant. (I say consciously, because I am sure these people know they're throwing the baby out with the bathwater.)

The other problem, which I've picked up through this discussion, is that while some of the big publishing houses are accepting that self-publishing is here to stay, and are recognising that some do it to extreme success through enormous talent and hard work, they still consider themselves the 'grand prize'. Through the 'culling the herd' mentality, they seem to be under the assumption that we are only self-publishing until they come along and hand us a golden ticket. We are all those people buying chocolate bars, hoping to meet Willy Wonka. 

We are not! I buy chocolate because I like chocolate, not because I want the chance to be turned into a blueberry or win a chocolate factory. 

The other way I always look at the publishing model, is like shops. You have the big 5, which are your superstores, they sell everything under the sun. You have the indie presses, who are like chain clothes shops. They generally sell one type of item (Like Romance,) but they have a wide selection of that item. Then you have skilled and talented Indie authors, who are those awesome shops you stumble on. They don't have a massive selection, but what they have is so well made and fantastic that it quickly becomes one of your favourite shops. Even if the stuff is not your type of thing, you can still be overwhelmed with how well crafted it is. Of course, then you also have the people selling stuff on the street corner, but that's a different matter. 

My point of all that is... The big five assume we all want to be in a superstore. They assume that being part of their chain is the end game, the grand prize. It isn't. Sometimes, we want to be our own awesome store. We have a loyal customer base, we know the names of the people owning the shops around us, we help each other out and we do a damn good job of selling our product to the people who want it.

Authors like Hugh Howey have already proved that the big five is not the end game. - Yes, we will fill their shelf space if they want us to, and give us a good reason to strike a deal, but we won't all simple abandon our awesome little shops just to be given one shelf in the middle of their monster aisle. 

To me, this isn't about the Big Five admitting we exist, and that we sometimes do good things. It's about them seeing that we are valid businesses, not that we are not all hoping they will 'cull the herd' enough to select us to fill their shelf space.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

MaryMcDonald said:


> Nice! lol.
> 
> Maybe Betsy or Harvey can write a book on how to get threads to stay on the front page. And then offer to sell it to us when they send us rejections on our thread suggestions.


Only if it gets trade published, of course, and passes the approval process.


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## m.a. petterson (Sep 11, 2013)

I generally pay no attention to the crap out there.

EXCEPT when I log onto my Smashwords dashboard and am exposed to the latest just-released tomes...

"Dr Pharto's Mexican Bean Diet" or "Naughty Faeries Loving Dinosaurs: Vol. XVII".

I will be so glad when the perceived gold rush is over and the unconsciously incompetent return to politics.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> My thoughts are that there have been entirely too many "discussions" here lately consisting of a link to a controversial blog post. I'd prefer to see some thoughtful discussion that originates here that maybe people in other forums will link to because of the useful information it contains.
> 
> Y'all are writers. Doesn't anyone have any thoughts of their own to share?
> 
> ...


+1


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## John Blackport (Jul 18, 2011)

elalond said:


> I think when people claim that publishers "can just "cull the cattle from the herd" (metaphor fail) and capitalize on authors who have already given readers what they want, and who have done all the hard work of building a following," forget that in most cases publishers who sign a self-publisher on the base of already proven success, that costs them more than it would if they signed on a debut author.


Wow --- that's BRILLIANT! So it's like --- only investing in stocks who have just gone UP at least 100 points in the last couple weeks! In other words --- Buy HIGH! Sell even HIGHER!!

Because, after all . . . everybody knows that _past success_ is a reliable indicator of _future results!!_

I guess it takes real genius to see that "Buy Low, Sell High" is a crock. I wonder how that's working out!



AngryGames said:


> Flip a coin to see who gets to be Bill S. Preston, Esquire and who gets to be Ted "Theodore" Logan?
> 
> (as you can see, there's room for two more newbestfriends in my life!)


Hmm . . . do we get to meet "historical babes" . . . ?


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

> So the person who wrote this article, and every other person who will write a similar article in the coming months as more screeching and flailing happens across the internet due to the continued crumbling of tradpub dominance and the forced change of the way the whole world must look at the art of writing, can chupa me huevos.


My feelings exactly, El.

As to the books of dubious quality that do well, my thinking -- after many years on the Internet, especially -- is that the majority of people have little reading experience, a simple vocabulary, don't write well themselves, and feel more comfortable with books at a lower reader level. They aren't going to get too upset at homonym misuse, comma errors, apostrophes in the wrong place, etc.

There's a site that lets you plug in part of your writing, and it will give you a grade level. My stuff comes in at grade eight, or close to it, but it seems I should be aspiring to more like a high sixth to low seventh. I don't think I can do it, though. In the sixth grade, I was reading beyond college level. I read dictionaries and encyclopedias for fun. I'm beyond all hope.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

elalond said:


> I think when people claim that publishers "can just "cull the cattle from the herd" (metaphor fail) and capitalize on authors who have already given readers what they want, and who have done all the hard work of building a following," forget that in most cases publishers who sign a self-publisher on the base of already proven success, that costs them more than it would if they signed on a debut author.


But far, far less in risk, which is a much more difficult aspect of business to predict and control than budgeted expenses like average advances.



> Not just in advance, but in loss of many secondary rights (didn't Sullivan sell his audio right before hand so that the publisher couldn't get them?) and the contract of savvy self-publisher also has a time limit, and there is no nasty clauses with which publishers could control writer's career. In my opinion, even cashing in on proven successes is not as profitable for publishers as it used to be.


Most authors who go from indie to tradpub are taking boilerplate contracts (god knows why), so the publishers are still getting all the rights.

I'm sure cashing in on indie success is not as profitable as it used to be, but it's still got to be far more profitable, and, maybe more importantly for a company that's looking at its prospects shrinking, far less risky than signing an "unknown." Or even a known mid-lister. If they weren't seeing satisfactory returns on chasing proven successes, they wouldn't be doing it so often, and it wouldn't have become such "a thing" in the industry that Donald Maas would blog about how it's the obvious wave of the future.


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

I think authors at the WC pay way too much attention to nit-pik bloggers and are too thin skinned. "Oh read what so-so blogged." Who cares? Let them blog what they will and you just keep writing your stories. 

Honestly, if you want to get some hits on your blog just plug in the bad books post and...you can just ignore them and write.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

> I think authors at the WC pay way too much attention to nit-pik bloggers and are too thin skinned. "Oh read what so-so blogged." Who cares? Let them blog what they will and you just keep writing your stories.


No, we just need something to enable our procrastination. Or to do during our day jobs.


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## Guest (Feb 7, 2014)

scottmarlowe said:


> Posts like these will continue to proliferate as long as indies don't take their craft and products seriously enough.


No they will continue to proliferate as long as indies keep responding every time some C-list wannabe employs link bait to generate page views to a blog.

Pavlov's Dog comes to mind.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> No they will continue to proliferate as long as indies keep responding every time some C-list wannabe employs link bait to generate page views to a blog.


They will proliferate as long as traditional publishing continues to lose market share to independents. Zacharuius, Maass, Patterson, Schatzkin, and Gottleib are not C-Llist wannabe employees.


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## zandermarks (May 20, 2013)

I am self-published, and I stand behind the quality of my work. Just because there's a lot of poor-quality stuff out there (and yes, there is--and it's perfectly okay for us to say it. It's an inevitable effect of moving the editor's slush pile into the Amazon store) is no reflection on the quality of what I write. I'll gladly put my book up against a traditionally published urban fantasy any day of the week.

So I make no apologies for being self-published. And just because people choose to wail about the slush-pile effect from time to time, I have no fear that it reflects on my book, because when people fall in love with a book, they fall in love with the _book_. And they almost never remember who published it.

The aggregate reputation of self-publishing isn't what matters. It's the reputation of _our_ self-publishing that matters.


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## JohnHindmarsh (Jun 3, 2011)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> My thoughts are that there have been entirely too many "discussions" here lately consisting of a link to a controversial blog post. I'd prefer to see some thoughtful discussion that originates here that maybe people in other forums will link to because of the useful information it contains.
> 
> Y'all are writers. Doesn't anyone have any thoughts of their own to share?
> 
> ...


Best post so far this year - thanks, Betsy.

It does get a bit wearing.


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## Guest (Feb 7, 2014)

JohnHindmarsh said:


> Best post so far this year - thanks, Betsy.
> 
> It does get a bit wearing.


So, you know, don't bother reading them? There's a ton of other threads you can peruse.

I just wanted to say that this is my last post on the kboards. I'm sorry that many of you didn't think my thread(s) are/were of interest or value. It seems it's easier to knock people down here now than engage in discussion. Anyways, thanks to everyone who shared their success stories and thanks to those who were encouraging and responsive to questions. I appreciated it.


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## Guest (Feb 7, 2014)

ColinFBarnes said:


> So, you know, don't bother reading them? There's a ton of other threads you can peruse.
> 
> I just wanted to say that this is my last post on the kboards. I'm sorry that many of you didn't think my thread(s) are/were of interest or value. It seems it's easier to knock people down here now than engage in discussion. Anyways, thanks to everyone who shared their success stories and thanks to those who were encouraging and responsive to questions. I appreciated it.


If you want to talk your ball and go home, that's fine. But the only thing more annoying than link-bait is faux martyrdom.

All these sort of threads do is give power to the negativity. These people who make these comments on their blogs or sites? They ONLY have power over you if you give it to them. And every time someone posts another "Oh My God! See what this person said!" link, it just gives them more power. How many times are we expected to frenzy whenever some trade pubbed person decides to chum the water?

Nobody who matters is reading their posts!

My readers don't troll the internet looking for blog posts from trade pubbed people slamming indies. The only people who care about these posts are other people who already agree with them and indies who get worked up about them.

Let them have their little dark corner of the internet and spew their nonsense. Why after all of these years are we still expected to care what they say?


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Since I've been quoted several times, I thought I should probably clarify my point of view...

I've spent much of the last couple weeks dealing with the the aftermath of threads that linked to blogposts that were perceived as dumping on indie authors, resulting in personal attacks on the blogger, other members here, wars between posters to the blog and posters here and general tension.  This is not fun for me and the rest of the moderation staff, nor the kind of tone we want here.  So I was a bit sensitive to yet another thread of that nature, and was hoping to encourage people to do more than just complain about another blog post or blogger. 

Fortunately, and in no small part due to Colin's subsequent posts to the thread he started, this thread has stayed very civil, and some interesting points have indeed been made.

Anyway, as you were.  Getting ready to head out for a picnic lunch...

Betsy


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## elalond (May 11, 2011)

ElHawk said:


> But far, far less in risk, which is a much more difficult aspect of business to predict and control than budgeted expenses like average advances.
> 
> Most authors who go from indie to tradpub are taking boilerplate contracts (god knows why), so the publishers are still getting all the rights.
> 
> I'm sure cashing in on indie success is not as profitable as it used to be, but it's still got to be far more profitable, and, maybe more importantly for a company that's looking at its prospects shrinking, far less risky than signing an "unknown." Or even a known mid-lister. If they weren't seeing satisfactory returns on chasing proven successes, they wouldn't be doing it so often, and it wouldn't have become such "a thing" in the industry that Donald Maas would blog about how it's the obvious wave of the future.


Yes, there's far, far less risk, I agree. I seem to be living in the bubble, lurking mostly on PG's blog and KB must be the reason for that, because I got the feeling that self-publishers who are sighing with publishers are smart enough to negotiate the boilerplate contract. If you are right and that most authors don't... I just don't understand it. But in that case, all the rattle that is in this past months coming from trade-publishers and their supporters could be seen in another light. It could be that they are not rattling in fear, but as a precaution, reminding the writers that self-publishing is only the first step, (the lowest step, the one for which writers should blush in shame) which can lead only to one goal, to signing a contract with a trade-publisher. So when a publishers comes knocking, you sign with it without hesitation.

ETA: I would also like to add, that in the case most authors are singing boilerplate contracts giving publishers all right and everything, why the rattle? They should be grateful to Amazon and other retailers, and that the readers are now the ones who have to browse through the slush pile to find gems so they don't have to. Now they can just scoop up the sure thing, and, vola, make sure money.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> Let them have their little dark corner of the internet and spew their nonsense. Why after all of these years are we still expected to care what they say?


I don't know. Who is expecting anyone to care?


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## Guest (Feb 7, 2014)

jackz4000 said:


> I think authors at the WC pay way too much attention to nit-pik bloggers and are too thin skinned. "Oh read what so-so blogged." Who cares? Let them blog what they will and you just keep writing your stories.
> 
> Honestly, if you want to get some hits on your blog just plug in the bad books post and...you can just ignore them and write.


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> If you want to talk your ball and go home, that's fine. But the only thing more annoying than link-bait is faux martyrdom.


It's more than fine. I talk my balls all the time. It's GREAT.

Not sure about the martyrdom thing. I kinda though this thread was interesting, and that the discussion about the negativism was of a philosophical nature. I actually like the links to the blog posts that rip us. Gets my dander up (a little too much now and then), and gets me more focused and working even harder to prove them wrong. I think they're a constant reminder that, as long as there are indies out there putting out sloppy work, they're gonna get reamed, and spoken to in the most condescending way imaginable. They have two choices, eat the shame or get pissed and make their stuff so good nobody can say that kind of crap about them. It's a case-by-case basis, and those who DO put out a good product are gonna get ticked, but it makes it more fun for me. Kinda like a game. We're behind, but we're gonna win.


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## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> My thoughts are that there have been entirely too many "discussions" here lately consisting of a link to a controversial blog post. I'd prefer to see some thoughtful discussion that originates here that maybe people in other forums will link to because of the useful information it contains.
> 
> Y'all are writers. Doesn't anyone have any thoughts of their own to share?
> 
> ...


Love this!

It's link bait. And it works so darn well that they keep churning out the self published authors are incompetent type posts because of the traffic it brings to their website. I agree with Betsy, lets start and keep discussions here so Harvey (who has always been supportive) keeps the traffic versus siphoning it off to someone else. Why should they get the traffic benefit generated from this discussion board?

It also bothers me that they're using a bit.ly link so they can track the traffic being tapped from here, so I didn't click. Copy and paste the post here. Don't feel right doing that, ask the author if you can copy/paste article here.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

vrabinec said:


> It's more than fine. I talk my balls all the time. It's GREAT.


Please. No.


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Please. No.


Hey, SHE started it!


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## fallswriter (Sep 11, 2012)

Once again, as in so many threads, vrabinec wins! I bow to your wit, sir!


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Please don't encourage him.

Betsy


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## Guest (Feb 7, 2014)

vrabinec said:


> and gets me more focused and working even harder to prove them wrong.


But herein is the problem: _they don't care if they are proven wrong_. At this point the entire thing has become like arguing politics and religion. Neither side actually cares about facts or proof. Any proof presented is just chalked up as an outlier. So even if your book is the next Great American Novel, all they will say is "Well, think how much better you might have done with a real publisher" or "you are the exception that proves the rule."

Worse still, the average reader doesn't care if you prove them wrong, either. Because the average reader doesn't spend time reading these blogs.

It goes back to a sociological concept called the Principle of Least Interest. He who has the LEAST interest in a relationship has the most power. It was originally used to discuss romantic relationships, but is often applied to other types of relationships as well. When indies expend time and energy engaging these people in conversation, they give them power because the indie has the most interest in the relationship (i.e. the need to prove the other side wrong). But the other side doesn't care whether or not they are right or wrong. They have your attention, and they are getting you to jump through hoops and do the dance for their benefit (like linking to their blogs and sending them traffic).

The most effective way to deal with them is through detachment. Stop engaging them. Stop linking to their blogs. Heck, stop bothering to READ their blogs! Stop sending them traffic. Stop allowing them to be the external force that motivates you. Become internally motivated. Starve them.


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## Gennita Low (Dec 13, 2012)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> But herein is the problem: _they don't care if they are proven wrong_. At this point the entire thing has become like arguing politics and religion. Neither side actually cares about facts or proof. Any proof presented is just chalked up as an outlier. So even if your book is the next Great American Novel, all they will say is "Well, think how much better you might have done with a real publisher" or "you are the exception that proves the rule."
> 
> Worse still, the average reader doesn't care if you prove them wrong, either. Because the average reader doesn't spend time reading these blogs.
> 
> ...


What Julie said +1000%.

Be unconscious.


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> But herein is the problem: _they don't care if they are proven wrong_. At this point the entire thing has become like arguing politics and religion. Neither side actually cares about facts or proof. Any proof presented is just chalked up as an outlier. So even if your book is the next Great American Novel, all they will say is "Well, think how much better you might have done with a real publisher" or "you are the exception that proves the rule."
> 
> Worse still, the average reader doesn't care if you prove them wrong, either. Because the average reader doesn't spend time reading these blogs.
> 
> ...


That's just crazy talk.

You're right, it IS like politics. And nobody is ever interested in political arguments, except the people arguing. And nobody ever changes their mind. But, I like arguing. This has nothing to do with readers. It's my burning desire to stick a finger in their face and say, "See, you were wrong. I was right." Wanting to please the readers is the primary motivation, but this is just a little icing. It's something to do when I'm at work and can't write and the other threads lose my interest. I don't want to "deal" with them, I want them to speak their dusty minds so I can reply. It's a guy thing, maybe.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> If you want to talk your ball and go home, that's fine. But the only thing more annoying than link-bait is faux martyrdom.
> 
> All these sort of threads do is give power to the negativity. These people who make these comments on their blogs or sites? They ONLY have power over you if you give it to them. And every time someone posts another "Oh My God! See what this person said!" link, it just gives them more power. How many times are we expected to frenzy whenever some trade pubbed person decides to chum the water?
> 
> ...


I've been kind of thinking the same thing and blogged about it today. I made a point of not even mentioning names or providing links to those sites. Why give them more traffic? And my blog post is just my personal thoughts on the matter, nothing huge or controversial.In a year or two, I'll look back at it and wonder who I was talking about. lol


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

MaryMcDonald said:


> I've been kind of thinking the same thing and blogged about it today. I made a point of not even mentioning names or providing links to those sites. Why give them more traffic? And my blog post is just my personal thoughts on the matter, nothing huge or controversial.In a year or two, I'll look back at it and wonder who I was talking about. lol


Yeah, see, and that's how women fight, they give you the cold shoulder. Hmm, wait, women usually win fights, don't they? Rethinking.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

vrabinec said:


> Yeah, see, and that's how women fight, they give you the cold shoulder. Hmm, wait, women usually win fights, don't they? Rethinking.


   I can do the cold shoulder very well.


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## A.A (Mar 30, 2012)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> But herein is the problem: _they don't care if they are proven wrong_. At this point the entire thing has become like arguing politics and religion. Neither side actually cares about facts or proof. Any proof presented is just chalked up as an outlier. So even if your book is the next Great American Novel, all they will say is "Well, think how much better you might have done with a real publisher" or "you are the exception that proves the rule."
> 
> Worse still, the average reader doesn't care if you prove them wrong, either. Because the average reader doesn't spend time reading these blogs.
> 
> ...


Yes.


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## Kat Lilynette (Oct 12, 2013)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> But herein is the problem: _they don't care if they are proven wrong_. At this point the entire thing has become like arguing politics and religion. Neither side actually cares about facts or proof. Any proof presented is just chalked up as an outlier. So even if your book is the next Great American Novel, all they will say is "Well, think how much better you might have done with a real publisher" or "you are the exception that proves the rule."
> 
> Worse still, the average reader doesn't care if you prove them wrong, either. Because the average reader doesn't spend time reading these blogs.
> 
> ...


Amazing post. Hard to say it any better than that.

If you take the word counts of just the threads related to this subject on the front page, you'd probably have a few books ready to publish. Just think about all that wasted energy and passion.

That's one of the most beautiful things about the publishing market right now. No matter how bad you may suck, no matter how lame your stories may be, no matter what your cover looks like, you can publish your book and have it available to millions. What anyone says on the matter (aside from the platforms you're publishing on) can be 100% ignored without any detriment to you. This is the best time in the history of mankind to be a novelist. Get back to work people.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> But herein is the problem: they don't care if they are proven wrong.


God Bless those who speak up, for it lets the rest remain silent.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

While I agree with Julie and her Don't-Engage policy, I also think it pays to keep a finger on the pulse, and follow up on what is happening outside our little nest. If only out of academic interest.

I read a few of these blogs, ever more cursorily since they tend to get repetitive.
It seems they're getting more screechy with every new installment.
Only last year the sheer ignorance and myside bias would have angered me. These days… meh.
They're fighting a losing battle, and they know it.


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

MaryMcDonald said:


> I can do the cold shoulder very well.


 

I really do think someone needs to respond though. Let's use this board as a microcosm. Let's say some publishers thought Julie was drawing too much attention away from their books, and they decided to send people here to attack her with [false] claims. Nobody refutes the claim. The people here don't believe it at first, but eventually, they wonder if there's something to it. Her friends don't stick up for her. New people come in and assume it's true. That's what these people are doing. They're telling our customers that our books are not worth sifting through to find the good ones. They're saying, "Don't worry about it, we'll find the good ones for you eventually. Be patient. What happens in the meantime? People stay away from our books. No, someone has to get in their face.

_Cousin V, your analogy went a little far. I fixed it. No need to have an internet search connect Julie and a specific false claim. Thanks. --Betsy_


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Uncle Vrabinec needs to be given his bottle and put down for his nap.


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

M. Prawnypants said:


> Uncle Vrabinec needs to be given his bottle and put down for his nap.


Too late, I'm already there.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

vrabinec said:


> I really do think someone needs to respond though. Let's use this board as a microcosm. Let's say some publishers thought Julie was drawing too much attention away from their books, and they decided to send people here to attack her with [false] claims. Nobody refutes the claim. The people here don't believe it at first, but eventually, they wonder if there's something to it. Her friends don't stick up for her. New people come in and assume it's true. That's what these people are doing. They're telling our customers that our books are not worth sifting through to find the good ones. They're saying, "Don't worry about it, we'll find the good ones for you eventually. Be patient. What happens in the meantime? People stay away from our books. No, someone has to get in their face.


That's true, and why I appreciate the big names who refute them. Konrath, Howey, Eisler, etc, who call these people out on their shenanigans. I post now and then in comments, but I have no clout and most of my comments are ignored anyway.  It seems rather useless to keep spitting in the wind.


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## Guest (Feb 8, 2014)

vrabinec said:


> I really do think someone needs to respond though. Let's use this board as a microcosm. Let's say some publishers thought ***** was drawing too much attention away from their books, and they decided to send people here to attack her with [false] claims.


The day I get big enough that some publisher is actually worried about me is the day I will welcome their stalkerish behavior.  

In all seriousness, a week doesn't go by that someone DOESN'T attack me. When you have a...how do we put it?...a strong personality  people sometimes get their panties in a knot over things you say. Whether it is some nut case who decides to one star one of my books because of a review I wrote or some author who decides to post my rejection letter on her blog for her friends to insult me (AFTER, of course, she specifically requested a critique if the story was rejected) or some dude who (in 2014) still can't wrap his little brain around the concept of a female game designer. There are all sorts of corners of the internet where you can find tiny little people squeaking their "I hate *****" rants into the darkness.  But by just ignoring them, they STAY in the darkness. My readers don't see them. My peers don't see them. My rep in the industry is still good. Nobody takes them seriously because nobody is paying attention to them.

And in the unlikely event someone with name recognition decided to come after me, I trust MY fans are smart. Their first thought is going to be "Why the heck is WoTC going after *****?" or "Why would someone from Simon and Schuster be worried about Bards and Sages?" Truthfully, the day I get big enough that a major publisher feels the need to attack me, _it's already too late for them to actually hurt me_.

So unless someone is actually making libelous statements and engaging in criminal behavior, why give them the time of day? Sometimes the very act of acknowledging the nonsense gives the nonsense credence.


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## DashaGLogan (Jan 30, 2014)

Why readers love b*tches. The Rules for finding your foothold in the publishing world.
By Julie. 
Girls know what you are talking 'bout.
Works everytime.


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## MatthewAlanThyer (Jan 13, 2014)

Thoughts? Le sigh ...


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Drew Gideon said:


> These people are working hard to convince *your* readers that since you're an indie, you're crap.
> 
> When you're going into a game, you watch films of the opposing team to see what they're doing. When you're preparing for war, you get as much intel as possible and look at their troop movements. When you compete against another person (even in a friendly way), you evaluate what they're doing right and try to learn from it.
> 
> ...


That is an awesome post by David Gaughran, who by the way is a member here. Thank you for sharing it!

To most of us, this is old hat, but yeah, all the newbies do need to know this stuff.

I can't wait for the new forum format to come, with suggestions for existing threads a poster might add to, rather than start a new thread. I think dredging up an old thread can be useful in cases like this, for perspective. I bet if all the 1001 threads about trade publishing insiders bashing indie publishers were rolled into one long thread, then it would be the longest thread on KBoards.


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> The day I get big enough that some publisher is actually worried about me is the day I will welcome their stalkerish behavior.
> 
> In all seriousness, a week doesn't go by that someone DOESN'T attack me. When you have a...how do we put it?...a strong personality  people sometimes get their panties in a knot over things you say. Whether it is some nut case who decides to one star one of my books because of a review I wrote or some author who decides to post my rejection letter on her blog for her friends to insult me (AFTER, of course, she specifically requested a critique if the story was rejected) or some dude who (in 2014) still can't wrap his little brain around the concept of a female game designer. There are all sorts of corners of the internet where you can find tiny little people squeaking their "I hate Julie" rants into the darkness.  But by just ignoring them, they STAY in the darkness. My readers don't see them. My peers don't see them. My rep in the industry is still good. Nobody takes them seriously because nobody is paying attention to them.
> 
> ...


Yeah, but these people have the microphone. We certainly don't. Ignoring them and hoping nobody notices, thus relegating them to the darkness feels like burying your head in the sand. I think it'll be different some day, but right now, we're the little local paper, and they're the NY Times with all the media that encompasses. The Times has spoken and they say we suck. What do we do, hope nobody notices?


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Alan Petersen said:


> Copy and paste the post here. Don't feel right doing that, ask the author if you can copy/paste article here.


No one should feel right about doing this unless it is their own post. Copy and pasting someone else's blog post or article (here or anywhere) is a violation of the post writer's copyright. Only the creator of a post has the right to copy it.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Cherise Kelley said:


> No one should feel right about doing this unless it is their own post. Copy and pasting someone else's blog post or article (here or anywhere) is a violation of the post writer's copyright. Only the creator of a post has the right to copy it.


Thank you, I was just coming to say the same thing.

We do prefer that whoever posts a link say enough about the linked material so that people can choose to discuss without clicking on the link if they don't want to.

Betsy


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

I think that I've decided to take a break from being outraged.

That's why I love my job. I don't have to deal with anybody I don't want to talk to, or listen to anything I don't want to hear. 

(All right, I still read the newspaper and so forth. But I think I'm going to try to avoid stirring the pot myself, or reacting to the pot being stirred, if I possibly can.)


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## Kat Lilynette (Oct 12, 2013)

Drew Gideon said:


> Exactly.
> When these people speak, other big people listen - like media outlets.
> And while they're nice enough to let an indie author publish an article now and then, they'll jump to tear him down just two weeks later. (Like last year, with Salon and Hugh.)
> If enough of these industry leaders start using the same phraseology, someone, like Salon or HuffPo or Slate, will notice. And they'll do a story on it - because if Zacharius *and* Maass *and* Gottlieb say so, then it must be true.
> ...


I see what you're getting at, but as self-published authors, I really don't see how what the "haters" say will have any effect on our publishing platforms. Namely: Amazon, B&N, iTunes, etc.

If you think these guys are going to change their business (multi-million a year businesses) based off the biased hate speech of trad publisher companies or authors, you're sooorely mistaken. These companies have helped pioneer self-publishing - hell, they started it! - and you can bet, even though they keep a silent voice, that they will protect it until it's unprofitable to do so. And as it is, it's EXTREMELY profitable for _all_ of them. As such, what some random hoo-ha says on their blog has absolutely zero influence on whether or not you can self-publish your next book on Amazon. It has zero affect on whether or not you can put your book up for sale on platforms that service MILLIONS.

Amazon and similar companies will only ever follow the numbers, that's just business 101. (An article by HuffPo or Slate isn't going to change that) They could really not care less that Joe Blow trad published author and his backer think that self-publishing is "not worthy" and "dirty and cheap." I mean, really, Bezos isn't looking at these blogs, his share holders couldn't care less about what they're crying about, and, most importantly, neither do the majority of your potential readers who simply hit the digital best sellers lists, buy, and get to reading.

The day the self-publishing hate brigade actually starts affecting your ability to submit and get published on the platforms that allow you to reach millions of readers (platforms that are continuously developing and improving hardware by the quarter to make it easier for their customers to buy your stuff), then you should worry. Until then... work on your next WIP. Everything else is just bs. Just my opinion.


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## elalond (May 11, 2011)

On general, I agree with Julie. She put worded it so well, but she always does. (I'm sorry to hear about the nuisance with which you have to deal daily, that must be such an energy drainer. I would send you hugs, but Her Royal Sithiness doesn't need hugs, and I'm sending a virtual, imaginary light sabre instead). But I also agree with vrabinec and Drew Gideon . Somebody has to present the other side, because sometimes things do get wild, just remember the Kobo's débâcles and how it started.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

"Success is the best revenge."

You have little to no control over what other writers -- newbie or not -- believe, say or do. All you have control of is you. So it's up to each of us to learn, practice, improve. Be a good example, and mentor when/if we can. 

Will people continue to throw up first draft work (or worse), with crappy covers and horrendous blurbs? Sure they will. Some people don't know any better, and are easily swayed by all those books/videos/sites that gush about making easy money off "Kindle books". Some people truly think their writing is fine. I might shake my head at it, but who am I to judge?

What traditional publishing says or thinks is also beyond our control We can blog ourselves, comment on message boards, or ignore it. Personal choice.


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## Catchy (Mar 3, 2012)

Well, just out of curiosity I grabbed random books written by people on this thread and read the "look inside" first few pages where available. I'm on book four and have yet to find one that does not have multiple (more than three) typos in the first three pages.

Editors are essential.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> So unless someone is actually making libelous statements and engaging in criminal behavior, why give them the time of day? Sometimes the very act of acknowledging the nonsense gives the nonsense credence.


The reason is because there are ongoing public conversation about various topics, and they can shape social attitudes. One such conversation deals with publishing and the respective place of traditional and independent actors.

These conversations affect general social attitudes and perceptions of people who are not directly involved in publishing. Those attitudes can shape behavior at some future time when they are making a decision. When only one side of an issue is available in the various media outlets, that is the side that shapes social attitudes.

I choose to take part in the larger conversation.



> The day the self-publishing hate brigade actually starts affecting your ability to submit and get published on the platforms that allow you to reach millions of readers (platforms that are continuously developing and improving hardware by the quarter to make it easier for their customers to buy your stuff), then you should worry.


When that day comes, we will have already lost. Platforms react to demand. Demand is a social aggregate. It is affected by social attitudes.

There is another conversation taking place that has the potential to affect us all. This is the one about freedom of the press. One side says it applies only to institutions. The other says it applies to use of the technology.

Under the institutional scheme, bloggers are not covered since they don't work for larger institutions. Independent authors would not be covered since they also do not work for institutions. Bills have been introduced in some state legislatures making legal distinctions between institutional actors and independent actors.

The conversation has been alive for at least forty years, and many have participated even if they were not personally affected. Those who champion freedom of the press applying to the use of technology have countered the attempts to limit who is covered by freedom of press.

There is nothing wrong with choosing to refrain from some larger conversation. But lots of these issues affect us, and I reject the idea that we all should surrender the field to the opposition. That is how we all lose.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

For some reason, every time I see the title of this thread at the top of the list, the Sawyer Brown lyrics keep popping into my head:

"Well, I ain't first class, but I ain't white trash, 
I'm wild and a little crazy, too.
Some girls don't like boys like me,
Ahh, but some girls do."

That's me! (Well, I'm not a boy, but otherwise.)


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## Bluebonnet (Dec 15, 2013)

Catchy said:


> Well, just out of curiosity I grabbed random books written by people on this thread and read the "look inside" first few pages where available. I'm on book four and have yet to find one that does not have multiple (more than three) typos in the first three pages.
> 
> Editors are essential.


I haven't checked out any of the KBoard posters' books, but I agree about the importance of editing. If a book has a lot of errors, trying to read it is like riding in a car with bad shocks. You get jolted so much that you can't enjoy the ride.


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