Self-publishing or traditional publishing?

Ready? Fight!

Agents to the left; writers to the right. Everyone with an opinion in the middle. No, it is not a horrible spoof of Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter IV, this question is becoming increasingly more important to up and coming authors. The advent of simple, readily-accessible ebook creation software/websites has placed even more power in these authors’ hands.

Simply put, nothing stops an author from publishing. Nothing at all. Money is not a factor unless you are a best seller. Most publishers seem to be reluctant to help newbie authors get established. One author I spoke with indicated that publishers only give new authors a month to turn a profit before dropping them. Let us think in terms of a small (or even many large) business. I have seen statistics about many new businesses operating in the red for the first two to five years. If a business cannot turn a profit in five years, how can a new author with no support turn a profit in a month? Yes, any agents reading this are yelling (mentally or physically) at their monitor saying that the work should sell itself.

I read Nathan Bransford’s post about this week in publishing, and one of the key points I picked out is that several other companies are coming out with ebook readers! How awesome is that in terms of self publishing your ebook? I invited Nathan to visit, and he linked me to another post he made about whether or not authors will even need publishers.

Then there is this post from Joe Konrath. For those unwilling to click, Konrath details his actual financial information with relation to his traditional and self-published novels. I am submitting this as evidence of a success story for self-publishing, but it should be noted that he had a real publisher first. That means there could be some name recognition that aided his own publishing attempts.

Laura Eno has self published, and while she did not share specifics about her financial gains, she was the one that told me about the one month factoid. She also provided the link to Joe Konrath and this link about Lisa Genova. Genova originally self-published her book, and later, a real publisher picked it up and it was on the best seller list. This story gets told a lot, usually by people trying to take advantage of new, frustrated authors, but it bears repeating as it is a potential and plausible scenario for the new author.

And then there is this post from Publishers Weekly about Cory Doctorow’s rather unique methodology. He has a regular publisher, but he also releases each of his books electronically for free on the same day as his printed book. This strikes me as particularly counter-intuitive, but if it works for someone, it is worth mentioning in what I hope will become an awesome discussion.

What really strikes me though, is that agents and publishers have not caught on to this fact. If an author can produce their own works, publish it, sell it, and move books without them, then why are agents not embracing this new outlet (which Nathan touches on)? After difficulties with a few agents, an author might be tempted to skip the agent/publisher route. If an author believes strongly in his or her work, then what is really to stop them from quite literally cutting out the middle man?

All of these articles serve to provide insight into a variety of possibilities for the new author. Self-publishing is more feasible now than ever before. The Era of Ebook Readers has opened whole new doors to author entrepreneurs. Self publishing is a lot of hard work and dedication on the part of the author. Traditional publishing still provides the author with some very different avenues that would ordinarily not be available to them. Name recognition is a fairly potent seller of books, and most new authors will not be capable of gathering that kind of platform.

To be fair though, I would love for some agents/publishers/editors to come over here and give some feedback. I invited Maria Schneider from Editor Unleashed to have a little discussion on this. Perhaps if there were some questions here, she would be so kind as to provide the answer or her own insight into the matter. Let them rip, and disclaimer to all new authors: this post is not advising anyone to a singular course of action, and each author must come to a decision individually.

While I did not pick this story out based on the same experimental guidelines as the previous book, I figure this is as good a place to expound on its virtues and vices. Before I left California to return to live in Oklahoma, I picked up a few books: a pair of Shadowrun books, Magic Bites, and Swordmage. Since I already had the books, I figured I would check to see if I would have bought them using the experiment method. It turns out that I would not have bought Swordmage based on the first line. I brought Swordmage with me to work on Thursday night, intending to read it. I am sad to say that that plan was halted in its tracks completely by a single line in the third paragraph.

Now, to be fair, I do not know Richard Baker. I have not emailed him to ask about posting a review of his book (published in 2008 through Wizards of the Coast as part of the Forgotten Realms books for Dungeons and Dragons). I do not suspect he would want to link back to what I am about to say either, so I figure I have saved myself the time.

I am an advocate of a prologue, so I do not immediately get a sour look on my face when I read the word. I know that I am being presented with some back story that may have far-reaching effects on the actual portion of the story. I appreciate Nathan Bransford’s view that this can also force the reader to start the story twice effectively. Still, if your reader does not make it to Chapter One, your prologue fails.

I do believe I have learned an important lesson in the “Show, don’t tell” philosophies, most recently expressed by Maria Schneider on Editor Unleashed. In that article, she explains that there is a currency of interest that an author accumulates that can be cashed in on small doses of telling instead of showing. She also explains that this form of telling should be less direct than straight narrative, instead using dialogue and a scene to tell the reader what they need to know.

Unfortunately, in a prologue, you have no such interest currency. I, as a reader, owe you nothing on page two. That is why the first lines are so important. It gives you a tiny deposit of interest currency that you can use LATER. This is not meant to be an immediate exchange.

So what line in paragraph three could have turned me off so badly to this book that I had already paid for? In my time gaming online in text-based environments, a universal rule for describing your character was to not include leading phrases or adjectives. Words like “beautiful” and “pretty” and “ugly” were frowned upon, as were phrases were so cliche as to be down right appalling. When my eyes came across the sentence, “She was beautiful beyond comparison,” I literally threw the book onto the desk and gagged.

Is that really so bad? Yes, yes it really is. Especially when Baker’s best-selling status is right on the front cover. Am I better than Baker? Probably not, as at least he has been published (albeit by a different beast than most authors wish to deal with). Have I made mistakes like that? Definitely, but I’m not a best selling author either. Will I be trying to correct my own mistakes like that? You bet your golden spectacles of reading +1, I will!

I am sure in 375 pages that Baker can tell a very nice story, so I will certainly try to get past paragraph three in the near future. In terms of the One-Liner Experiment though, it definitely failed. If it redeems itself in the other pages, I will certainly share.

Writers: whether you agree with me or not, take away from this that readers can be turned off at the drop of a hat. Not just me. Make sure you have enough interest currency to cash some in on a line like “She was beautiful beyond comparison” about half-way into the book, because in paragraph three is not where it belongs.

Baker: If you do happen to read this, please understand that I like D&D, and I will still try to give your book a fair shake by reading it all the way through. If I come across as unnecessarily harsh, it is because I expect more from a best-selling author.