Self-publishing in a different world

Posted on July 2, 2010 by James Ashman

Well, a couple posts at Kidlit on self-publishing have got me thinking. And so here we go, and questions about why gatekeepers of today insist on their value:

If traditional publishers are just gatekeepers and editorial control, then why don’t they fully embrace the self-publishing model, stop all contract based work, and offer their services as a purely validation unit, saying: this book is good, we would have published it if we were still printing books.

Oh, then I guess the only way they could make a profit is by having authors pay for editorial and reviewing services.

But they wouldn’t have to pay advances! They wouldn’t have production costs! They could just sit back and armchair validate by reading books all day!

Since ebooks can be edited after being put online, they could even suggest editoral changes. Isn’t it all great?

So, again, what do publishers offer in today’s world? If it’s distribution, the net is replacing it. If it’s reviews, amazon reviews and a million blogs are replacing that. If it’s editing, there are plenty of editors in the world. They’d just need to offer thier services as individuals instead of companies.

I mean, why not? Authors would have higher royalties (technically, they’d be sales now, not traditional royalties).

Right now publisher claim to have the right to prevent you from publishing a book. For various reasons, it could be ANY (some of which are valid). But they are ultimately just looking to sell for themselves. But to try and retain that right, there are various agents, editors, and companies claiming the value they add as publishers and gatekeepers warrants their existence as publishers.

So change to only giving the value you add. Only offer editorial advice, since an author can retain all their rights. By self-publishing. Allow Capitalism to work by saying it’s possible for people to publish independently, and add your value by judging the work, editing the work, AFTER the fact. Or condemn it and try to prevent the author from selling their work. But lose the right to tell people what to publish. It’s obsolete in the digital age. If publishers are now ONLY gatekeepers to keep out the slush, then they need to change their business model to judge whether something already published is slush or not. Not before the fact, based on whether they can market it themselves.

Would it work? Imagine this: The beginning of life itself starts with a fully advanced society where publishers don’t exist, but the internet is in every single person’s home. John writes a book. He takes it to Jack, and Jack is the best editor in the world, and everyone knows it. Jack provides advice, for a fee, which vastly improves John’s work. John then goes to Daisy, who is the best cover designer in the world, and everyone knows it. She makes an awesome cover for John, for a fee. Now John goes to Arnold, who is the best book reviewer in the world. Arnold reads the book, says it’s a 8/10 (a rather high rating from Arnold, and the world knows it!). John then takes his book online, where anyone can download it for a fee, or can print it on demand, etc. He has a great review by a respected “gatekeeper”, editorial input from a great “gatekeeper”, and a great cover from a great “gatekeeper”. He paid flat fees to each of them for the service offered, and pays a distribution cost per unit sold online, based on actual prices. He ends up keeping %80 of each sale, overall.

Now we have a capitalist creation. Without traditional publishers. Where John is technically self-published, in exactly the same way that several modern people ARE doing it. The gatekeepers, what purpose do they serve today? Will they serve that purpose tomorrow? In light of the above scenario, John has self-published with every benefit that current traditional publishers claim they offer, but retains all his creative control (he doesn’t have to listen to Arnold or Jack, but he does, as it’s his CHOICE), distribution, and method of profit. And if his book was slush, Arnold would have said it’s slush, said it publicly, and therefor nobody would have bought the book anyways!

And why not? There is an enormous amount of risk involved. But all the risk is on John. He is solely responsible. Right now, traditional publishers are the ones that take the risk. That’s why they decide what to publish or not. But I don’t want them taking control in the face of risk. Capitalism rewards individuals who take risks with large rewards. They may fail, but it’s on them. Additionally, a person could, in the above scenario, never go to Jack, Arnold, or Daisy, and do it themselves completely. And still succeed by being good. That’s self-publishing – succeeding under one’s own power. The big issues that people seem to raise is that with the rise of Self-publishing, slush will start appearing en masse. Books will be hard to sort through, and good stuff will be hard to find.

Oh please. How many books can you read in your lifetime? Lets say one a week for 60 years. Around 3000 books. Guess what: Google Books is supposed to have somewhere around 100 million books in it. There is already a huge amount of literature. 3000 is a small, small pittance of whats really available and 5-star work available TODAY. There already is far to much to ever sort through. That argument doesn’t hold water.

So stop condemning the thing that will affect a business model that might become outdated, and figure out what services your company should offer to remain in existence. Even if it’s smaller one.

955 words I could have used in a novel.

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Word docs

Posted on July 1, 2010 by James Ashman

Got into a little discussion on Twitter, when someone stated that the stigma of self-publishing is enforced “when the book cover and design looks like it was done in MS Word.”

I don’t design covers in word. But I do design the text inside with word. I lay out the text, make sure it fits, and looks good. I’m confident that the contents of my books look like the contents of most traditionally published books.

So it felt a little overbearing to relate MS Word as a joke to say something is terrible quality and self-published. I defended word once, and was told that no, MS word isn’t to be used for publishing. I wouldn’t use it for publishing either. Just layout. And finally, we come to the main point that the person was thinking: the junk data contained in MS word docs.

And then I got it. MS Word docs are horrendous at times for one simple reason: they track your changes, and save all that data inside the document. In other words, my story might only be 5k words, but it could be the size of an 80k novel in the background due to the doc saving all your changes. This also has given me grief when converting files for Smashwords or Amazon’s Kindle. It’s a great feature for writers and editors, but terrible for the people that end up getting the doc and have to print it. That doesn’t apply to me, but it does apply to others.

So, when working with Word docs, always disable markup and tracking. I go a step farther and copy all text in a new document that has always had the tracking disabled once I’ve finished the draft, though that isn’t always needed. This is an important point to working with word documents.

I love MS Word for my novels. I don’t usually write the novels themselves in it (Scrivner, the only reason I have a mac, period), but now that I know how to use it well, I can appreciate it’s usefulness to the self-publisher who doesn’t have access to anything better.

359 words I could have used in a novel.

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It’s alright to make a profit

Posted on June 30, 2010 by James Ashman

The “starving artist” cliché has been used to describe those in the creative fields for quite a while. It has been part of history that artists of the past were never appreciated until they were dead, crazy, and usually some combination of both. Pieces of art that are worth millions now didn’t make their artists rich while they lived. History doesn’t bode well for what I’m about to talk about. Now, we come to authors.
Writing a novel, painting, sculpting, music, designing, are all creative works, subject to other individuals appreciation of them. They don’t serve the same kind of utility that an ultra-sharp kitchen knife does. They are entirely subjective. Because of that, there is a persistent mindset that if someone wishes to engage in a creative (also known as selfish) endeavor, they are doing it for themselves, and not to make money. And many have the non-existent bank statements to prove it. Where I worry is that an author may think they aren’t going to make a living with their work, ever, because they are an artist. A mindset in the artist’s mind that tells them they won’t make a dime off their work, and they accept it. They believe that unless they are a huge hit that goes viral, get picked up by a major publisher, or are the next rocking thing in the genre industry, they are to stick with their day-jobs for the next 50 years.
It’s wrong and needs to change. The mindset that art does not equal a living needs to disappear. And the first place to start that is with the authors themselves. The rest of the world can think what they want for now, but do not let that influence your work and goals. I’ve said it before: Everyone deserves to make a living doing what they love to do. Writing isn’t charity work. Yes, it is what we love to do, and only want to do. This makes it more feasible overall.
Please don’t misunderstand: this doesn’t mean you or I would ever stop if we didn’t make a cent. This isn’t about that. But even if I went 20 years without a single book sale, that would not mean I’d either stop writing or expect to never make a living off my work. They aren’t mutually exclusive. My perception and outlook is unchanged. I write because I love to, and that’s the reason I write. Which has nothing to do with money.
I have a business mentor/guru/etc., who tells his clients something special: “I give you permission to …” – he’s giving them a push to do what they want to do, because now someone has told them they should. He talks a lot about how people often aren’t as adventurous as they want to be because they have no one telling them to do what they want. And that’s a big part of the whole making money as an artist dilemma. If everyone is saying that an artist must starve, than the artist believes that they must starve in order to do what they love. No one has given them permission to be paid for what they do.
We’re in an age and in a field that is seeing various types of progress. I read in Inc that there are 20 million entrepreneurs in the USA. 20 million people that are their own bosses. 20 million that don’t accept the industrial mindset that you must work for a corporation in order to live. People taking hold of their own dreams and ambitions and distilling them into a service or product not simply out of love for their jobs, but to make a living. A self-published author needs to recognize they are an entrepreneur, and have the desire to join the massive number of people doing what they want and living off its proceeds.
This isn’t about making lots of money. This isn’t about pushing aside your artistic vision in order to try and eke out a profit. I’m not trying to say that the money made off your work has anything to do with how good the book is, because there are several great works that probably have nil for sales. This is utterly idealistic stuff that should be true, even when the rest of the world doesn’t think so. This is about simple acknowledgement, one that many in self-publishing have taken, but others haven’t realized they need to take: It’s all right to make a profit with your writing. The first step is to acknowledge it yourself.

762 words I could have used in a novel.

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I use normal copyright, even though it could probably use reform.

Posted on June 26, 2010 by James Ashman

Yes, I do only use a standard copyright, and not a creative commons license. I do endorse the free distribution of certain works, like Dangerous Rainbows, however that doesn’t mean I’m going to give up the power of a standard copyright, just in case. Until there is a truly powerful copyright that allows works to be freely distributed while authors still have clear power over their works, I’m retaining the one that protects me from not just possible piracy (which isn’t an issue with Dangerous Rainbows, since it’s free), but from other entities modifying my work without permission. Standard copyright is good for “just in case” scenarios. There is an excellent discussion on the Self Publishing Review in one of their posts. Also, though it isn’t as flexible, a standard copyright is up to the rights-holder to enforce. For example, I want Dangerous Rainbows everywhere. But I don’t want someone creating a audio-book version of it without my permission. Note that CC does have provisions to disallow that. But since there are several parts to the CC licenses, and several versions of them, it’s simpler to have a standard copyright. Yes, at times it appears copyright needs to be reformed. It probably does. But until it is, it can serve a self-published author very well. I have discretion. I can exercise noblesse oblige and see where I can let others copy my work in certain areas, and restrict it in others.

Much about self-publishing is having complete creative control over your own work. This is just another part of maintaining appropriate control.

269 words I could have used in a novel.

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What happened to quality?

Posted on June 25, 2010 by James Ashman

It seems like more and more things are being done without quality. See the gulf. See the iPhone4 antenna (a notable exception to an otherwise great record). See every major production corporation that’s more interested in getting out units than making sure they work right. Toys that are still, in this day and age, being recalled due to toxic paints (isn’t this a 40 year old issue at this point?) I still see men leave the bathroom without washing their hands, even though it’s obvious that it shouldn’t be done. Quality of living issue, there.

And the world gets faster, and faster. The next things comes, and then the next, and we push for something new, something better, something faster. More people, more hands, more mouths. And quality drops.

Music? Haven’t listened to anything on the top40 in ages. Millions of others do. Books? Haven’t read any of the bestsellers, though I have heard some are good. TV? Stopped watching almost all American TV years ago, and have watched a lot of Anime from Japan, until recently.

What I’m currently reading: Books written over 30 years ago. They are spectacular.
What I’m currently watching: Anime before the days of CGI. The stories are fun and original. I’ve dropped multiple current series that were far too generic or simply terrible.
What I’m listening to: Pandora internet radio. The Beetles, J. Cash, The Decemberists (if you don’t know who they are, look them up, NOW!), tons of irish rock, etc. Most of which is over 10 years old, at the least.
What I write: Stories placed somewhere other than the modern world. Past or Future places. Not a bit of what’s going on today, because today it seems like the artificial world has crept over everything in existence.
What I work at: Striving to do my best in both writing and my day-job, giving quality.

Why I self-publish, reason # 55,003: I can decide exactly what form of quality I want to use. I can write it well either way, but I can decide if I want to write a fun and fast story, or a deep and thoughtful one. I get to publish both and not worry about numbers. I get to influence the end-quality, the exact way words appear and their context.

One of the reasons why I decided to start writing seriously was because none of what was available to me that had been created recently appealed to me. My favorite works are all over twice my age!

I see hope for the future in other self-publishers who want to create something up to their standards of quality, and will create something of value. Not of monetary value (although it would be nice to make a real living at it, see a prior post), but of intangible worth.

I fault no one for liking what they like. I like stuff void of quality at times as well. I enjoy mindless games or shows without a point at times. But when there is so much of it, and it is the things forced upon us by the powers that be, a little rebellion is in order.

528 words I could have used in a novel.

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