The Word Cloud

In York, the main topic of debate was what impact ebooks would have on the industry. Everyone is scrabbling round to keep up and no one knows what the future holds. The technology is seen simultaneously as a threat and an opportunity. We were also told that the US is way ahead of the UK in terms of attempting to adapt.

Cloudies may be interested in this very long interview with an American author. I couldn't plough through it all because I can't read that much on a screen (huh!). But the author has decided to turn down a large advance and to self-publish his own ebooks instead. Some interesting stuff in there.
http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2011/03/ebooks-and-self-publishing-dialog.html

I've only managed to skim through the blog (got to get breakfast ready!), but his daughter has a point. "Why don't you self publish?" is a valid question. Is it because self publishing has had a bad rap in the past? The perception of shoddy works not 'deserving' of a publishing deal or not being 'good enough' to do it 'properly is so ingrained, but in this day and age, is that really fair? Or is it because we've all been led to believe that we need that veneer of respectability that comes with doing it 'properly'? Or maybe, it's our British stiff-upper lipness - it just isn't cricket to promote oneself, after all - how vulgar to think oneself as good enough to publish without the validation of a arbitrary peer set?

My husband (who has no interest in writing, but a massive interest in technology - he's an electronics / computer engineer) actually asked me the same thing the other day: 'why are you agonising about getting an agent when you could stick your first book on Kindle? See how it goes? Why do you even need an agent any way? Seems like a waste of money to me...' He argued that epublishing is definitely the way of the future, and that despite the doom and gloom around Napster and the like, that hasn't killed the music industry - why should it kill the book trade. Note that he didn't use the phrase 'the publishing trade', because my counter argument was about the publishing trade not being able to support itself and not having the money to take risks etc... to which he said 'who gives a stuff about the publishing trade? Forget the publishers - you wrote the damn thing, you should be the one getting the pie, not the publisher, and definitely not some middle man. This whole set up seems to designed to make sure the one who put the hard graft in gets the bum end of the deal'.

Now, like I said, he's an outsider looking in. He knows even less about publishing than I do, and he was being candid. But despite his naiveté, he did make me think. Maybe he does have a point. Whether we like it or not, things are changing - are the concerns we hear about genuine, or are they the last puffed out gasps of a self-important, over-blown anachronistic regime that can't possibly hope to keep up and is now in a panic as it loses its stranglehold (rather like the record labels did when people started releasing music on the internet)?

I've said before that whilst I am not that brave soul to try it out (I R a coward!!), I see this Kindle thing as win/win. Why wade through the slush pile when you can wade through the Kindle pile? See who is causing a Kindle buzz and pick them up that way? Surely the publisher / agent can only win in this situation - there is a built in audience there already, so the risk of loss is minimised (the book has already proven it can sell!), the writer already has a bit of a name, there is no 'leap into the unknown' so to speak... that's good, isn't it? Or maybe I am just being hugely naive about the whole situation...

There can be no doubt that everyone - writers, agents, publishers - need to engage with the new technology and that it will certainly shake things up.

Thing is, this was a published author with an established fanbase and high profile. For people just starting out, the main problems are promotion and distribution. How are you going to let the world know your book is out there? That's even before you get to things like translations etc and other subsidiary rights, all things that agents and publishers handle. And because the whole point is that 'anyone can do it' there's no filter and that's always going to be a problem. How would you get your book reviewed if there are thousands of self-published ebooks jostling for attention? How will you persuade bookshops to stock them etc etc. I know an author who got an ebook only deal. Her book did go through a full editing process etc and she did as much promo as she could via blogs, Facebook etc. She sold about 70 copies in a year.

There are exceptions where previously unpublished authors have been more successful than this, but they're few and far between. What's different with this guy is that he has a choice and yet he turned down a large advance and decided to self-publish.

... and everything you've said there, Debi, is why I am still going to chase a traditional publishing deal like a bat out of hell!

It's going to take time for the world of books to 'catch up' - not just the publishers, but the readers, too. The funny thing is, I posted up a novel's worth of writing (the story, which is a currently unfinished hobbyist D&D novel (180,000 crappy, amateur words and counting) that I write entirely for the fun of it) and so far I think I have over 8,000 hits on it (although how many of them are repeat-readers, I don't know. I might just have 20 people who just really like to read it!). I don't advertise it, yet people still find it, read it and comment / email me about it (usually 'when are you going to carry on with this'...). Same with my art work (I have about 76,000 hits for my DeviantART page), and I haven't been there in over a year, so there's been no promotion at all! Maybe it's more to do with where you are? Both examples here are on big websites that people know about - but, conversely, that means it is really, really hard to stand out. Now, I don't stand out at all in the great scheme of things, but neither am I totally lost in the fog. Maybe people are more willing to invest if it's free? I just don't know!

Still, I do think it takes balls the size of Africa and the consistency of titanium to gamble on self publishing right now (whereas mine are about the size of the Isle of Wight and resemble marshmallow half the time); needless to say, I will be lining up with everyone else to do things 'properly'. This guy had the luxury of choice, in a way - if he can afford to gamble on turning down a large advance, then more power to him. Maybe if more like him take this route, then the stigma will drop from the industry? Or maybe it might just encourage more people who think writing is easy to churn out even more crap... :-/

I suppose, in a way, people are always going to look for the path of least resistance, and on the surface, self publishing is a lot 'easier' than traditional publishing (your tale of that poor woman who waiting 10 years to hear from a publisher just reinforces the stereotype) - but the lesson is that there is no 'easy' way. Bit like most things in life, really... all the good stuff is hard to come by!! XD

Hey Debi, I read all of that apart from the majority of the comments and have to say that they do make a salient point or two. That said, one of them is a NYT best seller and the other is, apparently, a marketing genius so us mere mortals may struggle somewhat...