Last year, a blog post of mine about the sales statistics of vanity-published books sparked a lot of attention (I’ll have to quote Victoria Strauss more often). First, Publishers’ Marketplace linked to the piece and a few hundred extra visitors found their way here as a result; then literary agent extraordinaire Janet Reid linked to it too, and sent me a few hundred more visitors.
Both my post and Janet’s attracted the attention of a blogger who was clearly aggrieved by our comments. He felt that by focusing on sales numbers we were ignoring the potential quality of the books concerned. He wrote an article for the Self Publishing Review (that’s not my blog of the same name, by the way, which predates the other site of the same name) titled Self-Published Sales Figures Don’t Matter in which he, too, linked to me. His stance was that with self-published books it’s the quality of the book that matters, not the quantity of copies that they sell; and that the point of self-publishing is to reach out to new readers who wouldn’t get to read a book that never left your hard-drive.
I have to agree with him that quality is what matters with books: this is why most submissions are rejected by mainstream publishers—they just aren’t good enough. And while “good enough” can be a little difficult to define, “not good enough” is very easy to spot: almost every single one of the self-published books I’ve been sent for my self publishing review blog has slotted into this category, some far more easily than others (and bear in mind that I’ve got a backlog of book reviews waiting to be scheduled for publication, and most of them didn’t make the grade). In my direct experience, there is a desperate lack of quality in most self-published books.
The issue of sales has to be looked at, too. The suggestion that it’s more important for the self-published writer to reach out to readers than to sell lots of copies is illogical: because no matter whether books are self-published or published through more mainstream channels, those books are going to have to reach their potential readers in order to be read: but if the books don’t sell, how will the readers be able to read them?
As an unpublished writer I’d love to make a case for self-publishing, but I can’t. The fact is if I can’t get my ms past an agent or publisher, I’m probably not good enough.
Yet.
It’s a vetting process. It’s the rejection that sends us back to studying. I need someone to tell me I suck, or I’ll never un-suck.
As for sales numbers, what good is a book if no one’s reading it? Of course sales numbers matter. And even if they don’t matter to authors, you can bet the house they matter to agents and publishers.
I went and had a look at the blog post claiming sales don’t matter. The writer seems to have made a fundamental mistake. He mentions self publishing is worthwhile if you can build a ‘rabid fan base’. This is completely correct – anything is worth doing if there is a rabid fan base.
That’s because something that appeals to a rabid fan base is what’s called in marketing a ‘niche’ product. To qualify as a niche product, you need to be offering something that a specific group are absolutely devoted to. The group is guaranteed not only to buy the product, but to buy multiples of it and to latch on to anything associated with it. Not only that, but they often know each other and recommend finds to one another, so you multiply your sales.
Niche products – and niche books – are for this reason well worth doing. Niche buyers are a very, very profitable and loyal group, even if there are less of them.
However, if you’re not making sales, and your readers are not eagerly awaiting sequels, and buying extra copies to press on to family and friends, then not only do you NOT have a ‘rabid fan base’, but you don’t have a niche product at all. You have a ‘small’ product. This means a product that has little market appeal to ANYONE – and it’s probably what the writer of the blog post is actually offering.
Lots of people confuse ‘niche’ and ‘small’. Small products in general, and small books in particular, are rarely worth doing – and here’s the crucial point – EVEN IF the quality is high. (Which it often isn’t, but let’s assume for the sake of argument it can be.) Frankly, it’s a waste of time, money and energy producing something that nobody wants. It’s also soul destroying. Who wants to put their time and efforts into something that’s going to sink without trace?
So the writer’s conclusion should not have been ‘it’s hard to sell self published books’, but ‘it’s hard to sell something nobody wants’. Which is why publishers won’t touch these books. When self published books are successful, publishers are usually very interested.
Hey Jane! By now you know my opinions, but I’ll give them again because I’m sick in bed all day today.
Self-publishing does best for niche projects. There are projects out there that aren’t meant to be best sellers or don’t fit the format of the traditional market. Those need to be self-published.
i.e. Last year, I attended a conference with a self-published author who suffered from extreme shyness. He took up stand up comedy to help him. And, then, he wrote a book about it and self-published.
I am working on a small ebook for authors who are struggling with their blogs. It’s about as niche as it comes. I’ll be self-publishing it (sensibly, with lots of people hired to assist with the editing, revision, clean up, etc). I don’t expect to make any money off it. I just think it would help people.
Now…I also want to have my bulk of my fiction traditionally published. I want that extra boost to assist my sales.
People seem afraid to say that they want to make money. I don’t know why. It’s okay to want to pay your bills. I want to pay my bills with my writing proceeds. So, I work towards that goal every day. Maybe one day I’ll pay for a nice vacation with my writing proceeds. who knows?
At the risk of repeating myself, people need to pay attention, research, and make choices that are a) best for them and, just as important, b) best for their particular project.
Check the ego at the door.
The most important word here is Corey’s “Yet”.
So many writers self-publish work which, frustratingly, is so clearly still “in progress”, or is that difficult early attempt at a novel – the ones we all wrote at the age of 17, about atomic war and a beautiful, remote girl who didn’t fancy you. (OK, that was just me. But I’m sure other people wrote something similar.)
The point is that my juvenile first effort at a “proper novel”, “Nuclear Winter Roses” (oh, the shame – I cringe just writing the title) was unpublishable in 1987 because it was rubbish. Well, it wasn’t complete rubbish. It had some good bits in, actually. But you can tell it’s written by an inexperienced writer who is still learning his craft. A 17-year-old who is obsessed with death, Kate Bush and nuclear war and is just starting out on Martin Amis. God help us if I had ever got that “published”. I’d never have been able to look a reader in the eye again.
But the point is that I got better – thanks to writing that book. And thanks to writing my next effort, and my next one after that, I got better still. After numerous editors rejecting my work because they were quite right to do so, I was finally published in 1993, when I deserved to be.
Krista’s absolutely right, and Jane has said it too, many times before – self-publishing is totally right for some projects. My dad self-published a book on the history of his local church – he not only broke even on it but made a small profit. But it is rarely, if ever, the right thing for fiction. The danger is that people don’t allow themselves to fail, and learn, outside the medium of print first.
I will say that it was the right choice for my short story, The Amazing Transformation of Wicca Dog. I raked up a lot of personal rejections from SF&F magazines for it. All of the comments were the same theme: I laughed, I love it, can’t published it, too lighthearted.
I decided to self-publish it. I don’t plan to make money off it (even though I have made a bit, purely by accident, however). In fact, I am often handing out free coupons for it because I love the story and I want people to read it. And, I have an obsession with giving away things. It’s a quirky thing I have.
Would I ever self-publish a novel? Hmm I don’t know. I don’t think so, but then again, I might. I leave it open because you never know.
That’s a very good point you make about sales being a direct indication of how many readers you have reached out to, and if your aim is to reach out to new people, then clearly the more sales, the more you will reach.
Also I’d agree that the massive problem with self-publishing is that these are all books which have been rejected by mainstream publishing, which of course will mean they’re mostly a bit pants.
But (you could tell there was a but coming, right?)… I’ve just self-published, and I think I have a valid reason for trying not to care about sales figures. Having spent years tying myself in knots trying to get published, and half-succeeding (my book was published by a major publisher, but only in a foreign language), I finally accepted that a UK deal would never happen. I also switched careers, because I found the stress of constantly-trying-and-failing was ruining the pleasure of writing, not to mention my bank balance. So I switched careers, but self-published the book for (a) the selfish pleasure of seeing it in print, and (b) the, er, selfish pleasure of allowing friends and family to own/read it. But I don’t have the time or resources to market/promote it widely, so – again, for the sake of my sanity – I had to keep my expectations low. There was no point in pretending it would hit the big time, and the whole process was more pleasurable if I accepted I would make a loss and only sell small numbers. The point of this was for my own satisfaction, not fame or fortune. Of course it’s a shame that the world at large won’t get to read my book, but hey. I think the world will cope.
So. There you go. In some circumstances the sales figures for self-published books don’t, and shouldn’t, matter. But only when you accept that “failure” in these circumstances is a given… and that self-publishing is (almost certainly) not a route to success or recognition as a writer.
Also, off on a tangent slightly… you say this: “I’ve got a backlog of book reviews waiting to be scheduled for publication, and most of them didn’t make the grade”… does that mean…
(a) You sometimes write reviews which don’t make the grade and are never published on your blog (because their subjects are too awful?),
or
(b)You have written several not-yet-published reviews, for which the books themselves were not of good quality?
(OK, yes, I have a vested interest in the reply to this last – sorry, couldn’t resist asking).
Hey Michael…
I can’t resist responding to this:
“Small products in general, and small books in particular, are rarely worth doing – and here’s the crucial point – EVEN IF the quality is high. … Frankly, it’s a waste of time, money and energy producing something that nobody wants. It’s also soul destroying.”
There’s a very good reason the self-publishing process for me has been anything but soul-destroying. On the contrary, it’s been life-affirming and has resurrected my faith in myself as a writer. Because there is a small number of people who know who I am, who read my first novel, and who are eager for more. They have responded enthusiastically to my dedication to producing a quality product, and have meant that I could sell out a tiny first print run of 100 books. I don’t think that makes me niche. I think you need higher numbers of devotees to claim that title. But it does mean that it was very worthwhile for me to produce a quality product, despite the fact that sales have been, and were expected to be, pathetically small by industry standards. Because SOMEBODY did want it, it’s just that it was a very small number of somebodies.
Actually the question of numbers is one I find very interesting. 100 copies is off the radar for anyone in this industry, and that includes the small presses. It’s such a low number that it may as well be none… to anyone except me. To me it’s, like, 100 people! Wow! 100 people would fill my house! 100 people is a really big party!
I think it’s a shame that in order to feel like we are successful, we have to have our books read by thousands of people we will never know, will never meet, will never receive feedback from. As long as you are not trying to make a living from writing (and let’s face it, it’s a difficult and mostly unrealistic aim), why should you need thousands of strangers to read your work? I’ve swapped (positive, enthusiastic) emails with nearly every one of those 100 people. I mostly know them personally. The reader-writer relationship here is intimate and satisfying, and I have enjoyed this experience as much as I enjoyed being published by a proper publisher and selling a thousand books (I freely admit that I have never been a publishing success).
So… I absolutely agree that self-publishing is not a substitute or shortcut to mainstream publishing, to a writing career, or to wide recognition or success. BUT that’s not to say it can’t fulfil a worthwhile purpose, as long as you have your eyes wide open.
I should have stated, by the way: My self-published book is a novel.
Why is it that I keep thinking that this self-publishing lark is not worth the effort? Even publishing something in the mainstream is a lot of effort – just look at the effort Nicola Morgan put into Wasted – a special blog, school visits, talks etc. (I use that as an example because I believe a lot of people on this blog follow that blog too.)
)
If I am going to go to all that work then I want to see something for it. I do not want to lose money over it! (I would also like to be stroked gently and reassuringly by a human!
I ended up self-publishing my book Life… With No Breaks because it’s such an odd little idea for a book that I knew it wouldn’t be of interest to any publishers and that it probably wouldn’t get a huge amount of people interested in buying it.
I absolutely think that if a writer goes into self-publishing with the right attitude – get your book read, sell a few copies, get some feedback, have a good time – then they’ll have a good time.
By the way – this is my first comment on the blog so just wanted to say how much I enjoy it and how useful some of the information on here is
I agree with almost everything Henry says – until he tries to make the jump and say that sales figures don’t matter to a publisher looking to pick-up a self-published book. Which kind of undermines the whole post. “Sales figures don’t matterfor self-published books because many self-published books are hard niche sells that sit happily in their small niche” yes fine, but “so publishers won’t mind the low sales because they’ll understand these books are a hard sell”? Eh, what? because it’s obvious publishers are looking for a hard sell, isn’t it?
Dan B makes a superb point about trying and failing outside of print. A self-publisher should bear that in mind too. I self-published a book too soon, I think I am now happy to admit, but there’s still no way I’d let my earlier pieces of whatever they were see the light of day. A serious self-publisher should be prepared to serve as much of an apprenticeship as someone who wants to go the mainstream way, but it’s so tempting “just to have a go and see” with self-publishing – a bit like trying to ween oneself off chocolate when there’s a Thornton’s around the corner. And that is one of the very best arguments that can be put for new writers to be encouraged to go the traditional route.
Cat – thanks for the mention but I didn’t put any special effort into Wasted! School visits and events are what i do year-round – at publication time we call them launch events but they’re just the same. And the special blog – hey, I didn’t get off my chair! This is all normal. (Which probably makes your point even more strongly!)
Nick, you say “I absolutely think that if a writer goes into self-publishing with the right attitude – get your book read, sell a few copies, get some feedback, have a good time – then they’ll have a good time.” Thing is, I think most self-published authors, like most published ones, aren’t in it for a “good time” – we want/need to sell books. Which is the same as saying we want readers. If we don’t want readers, I’m afraid I don’t quite get the point. I write because I want to be read. (This is not meant to sound snarky and is NOT aimed against you, honestly. I just think we all have to be realistic: we need readers and the sooner we think of them much more, the better.)
Nicola Morgan wrote:
What she said. Thanks, Mrs Morgan.
‘Small products in general, and small books in particular, are rarely worth doing – and here’s the crucial point – EVEN IF the quality is high… Frankly, it’s a waste of time, money and energy producing something that nobody wants.’
I’ve got to second that, Michael. I don’t know why so many writers – actually, not just writers – don’t get that. It’s almost as if they think they should be awarded a living wage for trying. It’s frustrating to see so many people doomed to disappointment and disillusionment (although the intervening stage appears to be vociferous protest…).
I have a foot in both camps – I am mainstream and self publish (although my self published books are classed as Indie Mainstream – but published by a small S.P.company)
I SO agree with most of what has been said. What’s that saying? ‘Never mind the quality feel the width.’ Too many S.P,. books don’t have width or quality.
I have been involved with S.P. for a while now. A minority of \wannabe\ writers take on board advice – if you want to produce a book do it properly, that includes having it professionally fully edited, not just a copy edit. Novice writers do not understand that it is not just the grammar & punctuation that needs tidying up; they do not realise the structure needed to create a readable book.
Experienced writers, editors and agents do – that is why they can glance at a single page and know instantly if it is worth reading or not. (compare this with buying a house. The wallpaper, paintwork and carpets may be perfect, but any one with a pinch of sense can see that it will not be a good purchase if the roof sags, the doors don’t fit and the windows are crooked.)
I enjoy helping the minority of writers who want to write seriously. I point out the \errors\ and they go away & rewrite, find themselves a goof freelance editor and, usually, end up with a cracking good read. Sadly most are not picked up by mainstream – as this article says, while the books are a cracking good read, they are not going to make huge sales. Most writers would love to become bestsellers, but many of us are content with moderate, steady sales. That view does not suit publishing houses, however.
Unfortunately far too many S.P. writers blame their lack of being accepted on blind or stupid agents and publishers. Very rarely do you come across a new writer who has been time and again rejected taking an objective look at their work. Too often it’s the \they wouldn’t know a good book if it bit them on the bum\ rather than \OK, this is my nth rejection. What is wrong with my book? How can I find out where and why it needs polishing?\
One writer I gave advice to shocked me to the core. I pointed out that the continuity was a bit out of phase. The author answered \what does it matter? No one will notice.\ Gulp.
I was asked to give an honest opinion about a book. I gave an honest opinion. \Too many characters and the pudding is over-egged.\ the response? I didn’t know what I was talking about.
OK, maybe I didn’t, but both authors wondered why rejection slip after rejection slip dropped through the letterbox.
There is a 3rd reason why some authors self publish though -
my reason. I was mainstream published here in the UK. Poor to non existent marketing and a disinterested agent led to poor sales (having only books 2 & 3 of a trilogy in print did not exactly help either) A disagreement with said agent then led to my backlist being dropped by the publisher and my agent ditching me on the same day. At the time I was gutted. No other agent or publisher was going to be interested in a \has been\. So I decided to get my copyright, get the files and self publish my entire backlist. Best thing I could have done! I am in control of my books, they are good books – they are now doing very well mainstream in the US and sales are doing OK – if moderate here in the UK as well (mainly due to being with a small company marketing is difficult and getting books into stores even harder. The weight of marketing behin me in the US is awesome!)
To sum up, don’t knock self publishing – knock the self published writers who do not bother to produce their work professionally. This means editing by a professional editor – not Aunt Flo.
I think the message is starting to get across. If you want your book to be taken seriously, then write and produce it seriously.
I agree with pretty much all that Helen and Diane wrote, but have just two little quibbles:
Helen Hollick wrote:
I’m sorry to pick holes in an otherwise very good comment: but I think you mean “get your rights reverted”. Copyright’s a different thing. I wouldn’t usually pick someone up for this but (a) I know you can cope with me in full pedant mode and (b) I hate to think of someone coming along and reading this and thinking that publishers take copyrights as a matter of course.
I almost disagree with you here. Not on the editing front, but on the “knock self published writers who don’t bother…” bit. I’d suggest that we don’t knock anyone (sorry to be such a goody-goody) but instead, do what we can to stop the more evangelical self publishers from spreading their “publishing is broken and the sky is falling down!” nonsense; and to stop predatory vanity publishers from persuading naive writers that theirs is the Brave New World of publication.
“stop the more evangelical self publishers from spreading their “publishing is broken and the sky is falling down!” nonsense”
This is a good point. My novel was published in Germany, but not in England, and some of the reasons given by UK publishers were “too quirky” and “not mainstream enough”. This has caused some of my readers to shout loudly about the state of British publishing, and the fact that nobody will take a risk on something “quirky”. But to be fair, those publishers had other reasons for rejecting me as well. One of the publishers who rejected me – albeit with regrets – was Canongate, who are renowned for their quirky list. Plenty of publishers will take risks with their books. But the reason many don’t is that their readers don’t. People like to buy books within their comfort zone – books with predictable effects. And publishers are businesses, so have to be sure of sales, profits etc before committing to publication.
I wouldn’t say publishing is broken. But what I do think is that writers can sometimes be too much in thrall to the industry. Which brings me to my second point…
“most self-published authors, like most published ones, aren’t in it for a “good time” – we want/need to sell books. Which is the same as saying we want readers. If we don’t want readers, I’m afraid I don’t quite get the point.”
This is a really interesting one. Obviously we need readers. But why do we need thousands, or even tens of thousands, of readers? Why isn’t it enough to have a hundred? Why the constant rush for more, more, more?
The main reason to need that many is because you are trying to make a living from writing. But most published writers do NOT make a living from it, or not one that’s very useful. Quoted figures vary, but the average annual writer’s income is somewhere between 5k and 10k, and that takes the unusually-high earners into account. Even successful writers rarely make a living from royalties and advances alone. The attempt to make a living from writing is exhausting, stressful, disheartening and can suck the fun and the creativity from the writing… which begs the question, WHY?
It’s very difficult to make a living from anything creative (writing, singing, acting, dancing, poetry, music-making, etc) and the business of doing it often has an impact on the creative output.
My decision was to categorise my writing as a hobby, and the self-publishing is an extension of that. And suddenly it’s enjoyable again.
It’s a difficult line I’m treading here, because I totally understand why Jane wants to warn people against the nonsense promised by vanity publishers, and defend the very good legitimate publishers there are who are doing a difficult job. I don’t want to present self-publishing as the only way of doing things, or even the best way of doing things, and I believe (maybe erronesouly, I don’t know) that my situation is a bit different because (a) my book was already published in another country, and was therefore of publishable quality, and (b) I always assumed I would lose money.
But I would like to suggest that sometimes the chase for publication can make writers very unhappy, and maybe we don’t all need it as much as we think we do.
@ Alice Turing:
Thank you for your comment, as an author considering self-publishing, it’s refreshing to find someone with a similar outlook on life and success.
A billion words can’t be wrong… (just ill-chosen… in the wrong order… a bit mis-spelled… and too many adverbs… and…)
In a couple of weeks time, http://www.smashwords.com will have published over ONE BILLION (1000,000,000) electronic words by self-publishing authors (fiction and non-fiction). I’m guessing most of the titles won’t attract more than 50 paid downloads.
I don’t see a problem with this.
It certainly won’t affect sales of mainstream books, it costs their authors nothing to “e-publish” across many platforms (Kindle, Apple, Sony etc) and it gives readers a chance to hunt for new authors who haven’t made it into Mainstream yet.
Actually, that last bit about hunting for new authors might be a problem – a billion words from one source alone is a lot to wade through but then there is a comprehensive system of genre and length etc filtering and sorting by most downloaded, best review scores etc. Free downloads of the first X% to try out also helps. (I know I’m focussing on e-books here but I think the principle’s the same for print with Amazon’s and Google etc giving readers the opportunity to preview books.)
So readers have to devote their time to do the searching through a lot of drivel before they find something they want to read (not what an agent/editor thinks they want to read). Isn’t it better to have masses of titles to search through instead of them sitting – untouchable – on slush piles?
Besides, review sites eg http://www.goodreads.com and the likes of http://www.authonomy.com and http://www.youwriteon.com can help good books (defined as “books that lots of people enjoy” perhaps) bubble up for easy spotting.
Besides, besides… if they only want to select from competently written, professionally edited titles that are judged appealing to the current market they can stick to mainstream output – no harm done.
So my point is…? Let’s celebrate both mainstream and self publishing regardless of sales figures – they each address some of the shortfalls of the other.
Gareth Mottram wrote:
Better for whom? The readers? No, I don’t think so: when I go into a bookshop I want to find books that are interesting and challenging and entertaining, not books that are dull and confusing and plodding and flawed–which is what most books in the slush pile are like. If the book shop became an unfiltered slush pile then it would take me three or five times as long to find books that I wanted to read; and I wouldn’t want to pay good money for them if I couldn’t be certain that they were good to the end. I like the current system because it does give me certain guarantees (not foolproof ones, I’ll agree) about the books I buy.
As a writer, I am very cautious about self-publishing too. I think it’s a fabulous route for the right author and the right book; but it’s far too easy to get a book published, only to regret it later. Bad early books can put people off buying better later ones, and the long-term cost can be high. So no: I don’t think the idea of publishing anything and everything is good for writers either.
Absolutely: celebrate them both. But let’s not deny the shortfalls that exist in either option, or pretend that either side is the bee’s knees when it’s not; because that won’t help writers or readers.