Saturday Book Discussion: Self-publishing (again) - but this time, bring RECOMMENDATIONS
This is a two-part post. The first part is a book review of a self-published book. In the second part, I talk about self-publishing more broadly, look at a few other self-published efforts that may or may not be worth your time, and invite you to pimp any self-published books you think are worth reading (including your own).
Michael Everett prides himself on making sense of the absurd and the arbitrary, and he'll be the first person to tell you so. He creates meaning where none exists; he writes. But daring to make himself the author of his own life carries a risk that he never imagined when he pens an anonymous poem to a girl he doesn't even know.
That one impulse decision drives him down a blind path of dangerous secrets, and nothing can prepare him for a journey that plunges him to the bottom of his own fractured psyche, and back to the beginning of his own story. To the one place that he could never escape.
Before he can find the light, he will confront the darkness.
First, a disclaimer: I only read this book because anthonyjfuchs is a LJ friend of mine, and a fan of my fan fiction. So when he announced he'd finished a book and was self-publishing it, and for a little while it was available for free, I went ahead and downloaded it, but I took my time before getting around to reading it, because frankly, I didn't expect I was going to like it much.
I'll give you my one-line summary up-front: The Danger of Being Me is not bad. It's hard for me to really judge its worthiness of being published because it's not my type of book, so even with professional editing and publication, I'd still probably only have been lukewarm about it. However, it's definitely better than most other self-published books I've read/skimmed, and I think it's entirely possible that if Anthony had gone the traditional publishing route, he might have found a regular publisher, and still could if he continues working on his writing. (Whether or not he wants to is an issue I'll address later.)
That said - the book is not bad, but it's got some flaws that would make me, personally (being neither an agent nor a publisher nor a published author) judge it "almost-but-not-quite-there-yet" in terms of being ready to be published. Since I am a writer myself and do a lot of beta-reading, writing circles, and the like, it was hard for me to read this book as a book reviewer and not as a beta-reader. (The former is only concerned with his own reaction to the book and what he wants other people to know about it; the latter is of course looking for ways to improve it for the benefit of the author.)
The Danger of Being Me is about Michael Everett, an intelligent, introspective high school senior with a conflicted relationship with his mother, an absent father, general adolescent dissatisfaction with society, and a need to work his shit out. He undertakes a journey that's half-conviction, half-impulse in his quest to find himself.
Are you thinking Catcher in the Rye? Because I sure was, and in his author's notes, Anthony talks about how reading Catcher in the Rye halfway through the writing of this book affected him. Rather than searching for authenticity, like Holden Caulfield, Michael Everett is searching for "truth," something he belabors almost like a mantra repeatedly throughout the book.
The idea was purest nonsense, and I had no doubt that it was the truth. My truth. Her truth. Our truth.
The plot events are interesting enough signposts along the somewhat meandering course of the novel: Michael and his friends are all literary/journalism geeks. Early in the book, Michael is struck by lightning. He recovers from being knocked unconscious and his friends take him home, somehow nobody thinking maybe it would be a good idea to mention his accident or take him to the hospital, until he wakes up in the middle of the night unable to breathe because, yup, a very large dose of electricity can do bad things to your lungs.
Michael has been sending unsigned love letters to random girls as a prank, causing a bit of a stir at his school. Eventually he winds up dating a girl named Amber, whose family is quite wealthy, making Michael the boy from "the other side of the tracks." Amber has been done badly by a heartless jerk named Hank whom Michael overhears her berating over the phone. After the death of a friend, and a late-night confrontation with his drunken mother, Michael ends up going on a quest to find Hank and return something he took from Amber. This part of the story really constitutes the climax of the novel, but it's not so much his encounter with Hank but Michael's self-examination that seems to be meant as the end-goal.
Being a work of contemporary fiction in the literary mold, the characters and dialog are what I paid the most attention to. There is a lot of pretty good dialog, though I frequently found Michael and his friends to be far too well-read and well-spoken for high school students. Although some of the characters struck me as archetypes, they mostly stayed just this side of being cliches, and they were all rendered in three dimensions and plenty of detail. Even Hank, who we only hear in brief phone conversations and see in glimpses as Michael drives by, hints at a whole person underneath what little Michael knows about him.
So, if you really liked Catcher in the Rye, this may be the kind of book for you. It may also be the kind of book for you if you like contemporary litfic but hated Catcher in the Rye.
That said, I would be remiss as a reviewer and pulling my punches if I didn't comment on the flaws.
Although I'm tempted to say the pacing had problems, I don't think that's really the case. This isn't a fast-paced book, and things move along pretty well considering that the author makes a few deliberate circles and detours. However, there were a lot of scenes of the characters sitting around playing trivial pursuit, showing off how much they know about books and pop culture. Dialogs that serve little purpose but to sketch out the relationships between characters and their personalities. And lots and lots of name-dropping of the author's favorite authors, musicians, and cars, which is supposed to give the story a vibrant, contemporary feel but at times seemed forced. (Though yes, Anthony, I did appreciate the shout-out with the cat named "Galen". ;) )
Technically, Anthony's craft is up to publishing standards. For a self-published and (as far as I know) self-edited book, I found it very readable, and while there were a few typos here and there, they were not much more frequent than I've seen in some published novels. The spelling, punctuation, and grammar had no more errors than could have been cleaned up with a round of professional proofreading.
The prose was somewhat more of a mixed bag.
My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: if it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
- Elmore Leonard
Anthony might have done well to take Elmore Leonard's advice. He has writing skillz and there were many passages that I thought were evocative, passionate, tranquil, or clever. But there were also many passages that I thought were a writer trying to prove he could write, and boy did they sound writerly.
I blink. Soft breath warms the side of my neck. Her body curls against my side, her head on my shoulder, her gentle russet curls brushing against my cheek. Her bouquet of spearmint and lime floods my lungs, and makes me feel tipsy. I smile.
Because I know what it feels like to be her derivative.
I glide my hand along her side, tracing the gentle curve of her hip, marveling at my staggering fortune. That she should be here, with me, after all this time and all the impossible miles.
She wakes then as my fingertips trail across her waist. She tilts her head, and the sunlight catches the breathtaking honey-gold of her eyes. I know her, though I do not know her.
"You had that dream again," she says. Her lips curl into a beauteous smile. She knows me so much better than I will ever know myself. I nod, and smile back at her, and press my mouth to hers. The electric flavor of her lips sets my blood on fire.
She laughs against my mouth. Then she climbs out of bed and crosses the room to the master bathroom. I lie back into my pillows, and try to remember the dream. Elusive images trickle through the cracks in my mind like freezing seawater through my fingers. Regina, and Ben, and Phil. The soapstone boulders on Prophet's Point. An operating room. Lightning.
And in a couple of seconds, even that is gone.
With some polish, this could be pretty nice, but there are a lot of scenes like this (which consist of many non-linear, sometimes meta-fictional internal monologues by the narrator commenting on past, present, future, or a dream) that need a ruthless editor to take the adverbs and adjectives out back and shoot them, and then make Anthony sit down and rewrite without the color purple.
There are also a lot of phrases reused over and over and over.
(I'm sorry, Anthony, I had to do this...)
"(Three o'clock) came and went, and no one mourned its passing." (6)
"what it feels like to be her derivative" (3)
"(my) infinite will" (14)
"complicated and unfathomable smile/smirk/grin" (7)
"brushed-chrome eyes" (22) (!!!)
And this line alone is almost unforgivable:
I shot him a complicated, unknowable smirk.
Now, I suspect that some of that repetition was intentional. As I alluded to above, there are parts of the story that enter a metafictional realm, where the narrator is dreaming about other scenes in the book, or reading a fictional story by his dead friend about his earlier encounter with his dead friend's ghost, and so I think Anthony was trying to create a sort of resonance between these scenes by repeating certain phrases. But even to the degree that it may have been intentional, it was way, way overdone.
And "brushed-chrome eyes" and "complicated, unknowable smirk"? Come on now.
Verdict: What is the take-away from this book? It's a journey of self-discovery for the adolescent narrator, and like most precocious teenagers, Michael Everett is sometimes endearing, sometimes far too wise and perceptive for his years, and sometimes an annoying black hole of self-absorbtion. The writing is ambitious, often intelligent and poetic, frequently overreaching. Judge it solely by the themes and storyline I have outlined, and if it sounds like the kind of book that you like, then I think The Danger of Being Me is worth reading. It's far from perfect, but in my opinion, with some hard-core editing and a little polish, Anthony Fuchs could turn this into something that might grace a bookstore's shelves.
Which brings me to part two...
I am a writer. I have written fan fiction, and I'm currently trying to sell a science fiction novel. (Okay, actually I am sending it through endless rounds of critiquing before I bite the bullet and start sending out query letters. Yeah, analysis paralysis.)
So, I totally understand the temptation to self-publish. As self-publishing becomes more and more common, I feel it. Why go through the pain of trying to craft that "perfect" query letter that's supposed to snag an agent skimming your 250-word hook on her smartphone while she makes a Starbucks run? Why go through the long, long wait times and the heartache and disappointment of submitting, waiting, getting rejected (or ignored), revising again, querying again, never knowing if you just suck or you just haven't yet hit the right agent or editor?
It used to be, writers expected that their first (and second, and maybe third and fourth and fifth) novels just wouldn't be good enough to be published. They'd keep writing, keep trying, keep polishing their craft, and eventually someone would say "Yes." Then maybe once they got to be a big name, they might dust off their old trunk novels, revise them, and get them published too. Or not.
But now? Tried querying, but no one would bite? None of the publishing houses want to buy your novel? There seems to be little downside to putting it online and seeing if anyone will buy it. Sure, your sales will probably be in the single digits, but I've seen authors thrilled that just one person (who wasn't a friend or family member) bought their book, much less left a review.
While this is no longer shooting yourself in the foot in terms of getting an eventual publishing contract the way it used to be, I think it still does the developing writer a disservice. If no agent or publisher wants your book, then it's probably not good enough. You aren't good enough - yet. You should do what authors used to do, and keep writing and keep submitting until you are good enough.
But that's a hard truth to hear, and a lot of people prefer instead to believe that those latte-sipping dummies who call themselves agents just don't recognize their genius, or that Traditional Publishing won't publish anything new and interesting and edgy.
Or they skip querying altogether and go straight for self-publishing. Because $$$! Higher royalties, no agent fees, "control" over your career...
Except you'll notice that writers like Hugh Howey and Amanda Hocking who launched their careers in self-publishing grabbed a publishing contract as soon as they could, because those "dinosaurs" in publishing houses do things that most authors don't actually want to do, like cover design and editing and typesetting and marketing and accounting and so on. There are some authors who do all that for themselves, and relentlessly promote themselves, and do pretty well. But make no mistake, it's a lot of work. You're making self-publishing your job.
I sure don't want to do all that. But I do want people to read my book. So, hypothetically speaking, if I send my SF novel out to a hundred agents, and no one bites, what will I do? Well, first contemplate the possibility that I suck and I'm just not good enough to be published. Then try writing another book. But in the meantime, what to do with my unpublished novel? Trunk it, or self-publish it?
I don't know yet. But I am hoping anthonyjfuchs will comment about his own decision to self-publish, rather than seeking trade publication.
Anyone who's seen me take my knives to the self-published authors who occasionally spam bookish knows that I'm not a big fan of the self-publishing bubble. Since I have talked about this subject before, here and on my LJ, I'm actually not trying to reopen the self-publishing debate. Instead, I invite you, dear reader, to talk about self-published books you actually think are good.
To warm up, a random review of some self-publishing success stories (or not) that I am familiar with.
Phenomenal One Press
This is self-published author L.M. Preston's platform. I reviewed her novel The Pack and found it to be appallingly bad on every level. Yet apparently L.M. Preston continues to crank out the books and has speaking engagements and a career. And a bunch of 5-star reviews on Amazon.
Hugh Howey
Hugh Howey hit it big with his Wool series. I haven't read it, but I did skim his earlier book, Molly Fyde and the Parsona Rescue. And thought it was... pretty bad. Mediocre prose, a stupid plot, and cliched characters. Nothing I'd ever have considered publishable. Yet again, it's got mostly 5-star reviews on Amazon. What do I know?
Genji Press
Serdar Yegulalp was self-publishing before self-publishing was cool. On his site, Genji Press, he comments that most of his sales are physical hardcopies that he takes to conventions. He seems pretty behind the curve when it comes to ebooks.
I reviewed one of his books, Summerworld, and thought that, like Anthony Fuchs, Yegulalp has the makings of a pro author, if he were to become disciplined enough to do what it takes to publish professionally.
Flight of the Vajra does look interesting, and I've still kinda got a crush on space opera even though it keeps treating me badly, so it may be a self-published novel I will actually buy and review.
G. Norman Lippert
Most famous as the author of the James Potter fan fiction series, I wrote here on G. Norman Lippert's attempts to convert his fanfiction fans into paying customers for his self-published novels. He's a perfect example of what I said about most self-published authors, even with an allegedly enthusiastic audience, not making much money: at least as of 2011, his book Ruins of Camelot had only sold in the double digits, despite his fanfiction having possibly hundreds of thousands of fans.
As much as I enjoyed James Potter and the Hall of Elder' Crossing, Lippert also seems like a writer who's not quite there yet in terms of being publishable, but another writer who I think could be if he were persistent enough in assaulting the gates of publishing.
One
Oh, superhero novels. You do me almost as badly as space opera, and yet I love you too.
I find Leigh Ann Kopans's book and her venture to self-publish it intriguing, even though it has all kinds of alarm bells ringing that tell me it's probably not for me. (YA! Romance! Girly!) And yet... superheroes!
And given that it is a book that was actually shopped around by a professional agent, and just couldn't find a home at a publisher, it is presumably written at a professional level.
So, I'll probably check it out.
M.C.A. Hogarth
Better known on LJ as haikujaguar. I know of Hogarth and her original fiction (and her fan fiction as well), but have never read any of it.
Once upon a time, I actually owned the Other Suns RPG. I admit that I am torn between mild aversion and amused fascination with furry space opera. But Hogarth is one of the few self-publishers who seems to have been professionally self-publishing for quite a while (she even has audiobooks on Audible.com), so I have promised to try one of her books sooner or later.
Now, with that minimal survey of my own minimal forays into self-publishing concluded, I invite you all to bring forth those self-published novels you think worthy of consideration. Yes, even you self-published authors who want to pimp your own books. I promise that this once, you can do so without fear of mockery. (Well, from me. I can't make promises for anyone else. :P) So if you've got a book up on Amazon or Createspace or Lulu or Smashwords or wherever, or you know of a self-published author you think we should check out, let's hear your recs.
Poll Another self-publishing poll
Previous Saturday Book Discussions.
Michael Everett prides himself on making sense of the absurd and the arbitrary, and he'll be the first person to tell you so. He creates meaning where none exists; he writes. But daring to make himself the author of his own life carries a risk that he never imagined when he pens an anonymous poem to a girl he doesn't even know.
That one impulse decision drives him down a blind path of dangerous secrets, and nothing can prepare him for a journey that plunges him to the bottom of his own fractured psyche, and back to the beginning of his own story. To the one place that he could never escape.
Before he can find the light, he will confront the darkness.
First, a disclaimer: I only read this book because anthonyjfuchs is a LJ friend of mine, and a fan of my fan fiction. So when he announced he'd finished a book and was self-publishing it, and for a little while it was available for free, I went ahead and downloaded it, but I took my time before getting around to reading it, because frankly, I didn't expect I was going to like it much.
I'll give you my one-line summary up-front: The Danger of Being Me is not bad. It's hard for me to really judge its worthiness of being published because it's not my type of book, so even with professional editing and publication, I'd still probably only have been lukewarm about it. However, it's definitely better than most other self-published books I've read/skimmed, and I think it's entirely possible that if Anthony had gone the traditional publishing route, he might have found a regular publisher, and still could if he continues working on his writing. (Whether or not he wants to is an issue I'll address later.)
That said - the book is not bad, but it's got some flaws that would make me, personally (being neither an agent nor a publisher nor a published author) judge it "almost-but-not-quite-there-yet" in terms of being ready to be published. Since I am a writer myself and do a lot of beta-reading, writing circles, and the like, it was hard for me to read this book as a book reviewer and not as a beta-reader. (The former is only concerned with his own reaction to the book and what he wants other people to know about it; the latter is of course looking for ways to improve it for the benefit of the author.)
The Danger of Being Me is about Michael Everett, an intelligent, introspective high school senior with a conflicted relationship with his mother, an absent father, general adolescent dissatisfaction with society, and a need to work his shit out. He undertakes a journey that's half-conviction, half-impulse in his quest to find himself.
Are you thinking Catcher in the Rye? Because I sure was, and in his author's notes, Anthony talks about how reading Catcher in the Rye halfway through the writing of this book affected him. Rather than searching for authenticity, like Holden Caulfield, Michael Everett is searching for "truth," something he belabors almost like a mantra repeatedly throughout the book.
The idea was purest nonsense, and I had no doubt that it was the truth. My truth. Her truth. Our truth.
The plot events are interesting enough signposts along the somewhat meandering course of the novel: Michael and his friends are all literary/journalism geeks. Early in the book, Michael is struck by lightning. He recovers from being knocked unconscious and his friends take him home, somehow nobody thinking maybe it would be a good idea to mention his accident or take him to the hospital, until he wakes up in the middle of the night unable to breathe because, yup, a very large dose of electricity can do bad things to your lungs.
Michael has been sending unsigned love letters to random girls as a prank, causing a bit of a stir at his school. Eventually he winds up dating a girl named Amber, whose family is quite wealthy, making Michael the boy from "the other side of the tracks." Amber has been done badly by a heartless jerk named Hank whom Michael overhears her berating over the phone. After the death of a friend, and a late-night confrontation with his drunken mother, Michael ends up going on a quest to find Hank and return something he took from Amber. This part of the story really constitutes the climax of the novel, but it's not so much his encounter with Hank but Michael's self-examination that seems to be meant as the end-goal.
Being a work of contemporary fiction in the literary mold, the characters and dialog are what I paid the most attention to. There is a lot of pretty good dialog, though I frequently found Michael and his friends to be far too well-read and well-spoken for high school students. Although some of the characters struck me as archetypes, they mostly stayed just this side of being cliches, and they were all rendered in three dimensions and plenty of detail. Even Hank, who we only hear in brief phone conversations and see in glimpses as Michael drives by, hints at a whole person underneath what little Michael knows about him.
So, if you really liked Catcher in the Rye, this may be the kind of book for you. It may also be the kind of book for you if you like contemporary litfic but hated Catcher in the Rye.
That said, I would be remiss as a reviewer and pulling my punches if I didn't comment on the flaws.
Although I'm tempted to say the pacing had problems, I don't think that's really the case. This isn't a fast-paced book, and things move along pretty well considering that the author makes a few deliberate circles and detours. However, there were a lot of scenes of the characters sitting around playing trivial pursuit, showing off how much they know about books and pop culture. Dialogs that serve little purpose but to sketch out the relationships between characters and their personalities. And lots and lots of name-dropping of the author's favorite authors, musicians, and cars, which is supposed to give the story a vibrant, contemporary feel but at times seemed forced. (Though yes, Anthony, I did appreciate the shout-out with the cat named "Galen". ;) )
Technically, Anthony's craft is up to publishing standards. For a self-published and (as far as I know) self-edited book, I found it very readable, and while there were a few typos here and there, they were not much more frequent than I've seen in some published novels. The spelling, punctuation, and grammar had no more errors than could have been cleaned up with a round of professional proofreading.
The prose was somewhat more of a mixed bag.
My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: if it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
- Elmore Leonard
Anthony might have done well to take Elmore Leonard's advice. He has writing skillz and there were many passages that I thought were evocative, passionate, tranquil, or clever. But there were also many passages that I thought were a writer trying to prove he could write, and boy did they sound writerly.
I blink. Soft breath warms the side of my neck. Her body curls against my side, her head on my shoulder, her gentle russet curls brushing against my cheek. Her bouquet of spearmint and lime floods my lungs, and makes me feel tipsy. I smile.
Because I know what it feels like to be her derivative.
I glide my hand along her side, tracing the gentle curve of her hip, marveling at my staggering fortune. That she should be here, with me, after all this time and all the impossible miles.
She wakes then as my fingertips trail across her waist. She tilts her head, and the sunlight catches the breathtaking honey-gold of her eyes. I know her, though I do not know her.
"You had that dream again," she says. Her lips curl into a beauteous smile. She knows me so much better than I will ever know myself. I nod, and smile back at her, and press my mouth to hers. The electric flavor of her lips sets my blood on fire.
She laughs against my mouth. Then she climbs out of bed and crosses the room to the master bathroom. I lie back into my pillows, and try to remember the dream. Elusive images trickle through the cracks in my mind like freezing seawater through my fingers. Regina, and Ben, and Phil. The soapstone boulders on Prophet's Point. An operating room. Lightning.
And in a couple of seconds, even that is gone.
With some polish, this could be pretty nice, but there are a lot of scenes like this (which consist of many non-linear, sometimes meta-fictional internal monologues by the narrator commenting on past, present, future, or a dream) that need a ruthless editor to take the adverbs and adjectives out back and shoot them, and then make Anthony sit down and rewrite without the color purple.
There are also a lot of phrases reused over and over and over.
(I'm sorry, Anthony, I had to do this...)
"(Three o'clock) came and went, and no one mourned its passing." (6)
"what it feels like to be her derivative" (3)
"(my) infinite will" (14)
"complicated and unfathomable smile/smirk/grin" (7)
"brushed-chrome eyes" (22) (!!!)
And this line alone is almost unforgivable:
I shot him a complicated, unknowable smirk.
Now, I suspect that some of that repetition was intentional. As I alluded to above, there are parts of the story that enter a metafictional realm, where the narrator is dreaming about other scenes in the book, or reading a fictional story by his dead friend about his earlier encounter with his dead friend's ghost, and so I think Anthony was trying to create a sort of resonance between these scenes by repeating certain phrases. But even to the degree that it may have been intentional, it was way, way overdone.
And "brushed-chrome eyes" and "complicated, unknowable smirk"? Come on now.
Verdict: What is the take-away from this book? It's a journey of self-discovery for the adolescent narrator, and like most precocious teenagers, Michael Everett is sometimes endearing, sometimes far too wise and perceptive for his years, and sometimes an annoying black hole of self-absorbtion. The writing is ambitious, often intelligent and poetic, frequently overreaching. Judge it solely by the themes and storyline I have outlined, and if it sounds like the kind of book that you like, then I think The Danger of Being Me is worth reading. It's far from perfect, but in my opinion, with some hard-core editing and a little polish, Anthony Fuchs could turn this into something that might grace a bookstore's shelves.
Which brings me to part two...
I am a writer. I have written fan fiction, and I'm currently trying to sell a science fiction novel. (Okay, actually I am sending it through endless rounds of critiquing before I bite the bullet and start sending out query letters. Yeah, analysis paralysis.)
So, I totally understand the temptation to self-publish. As self-publishing becomes more and more common, I feel it. Why go through the pain of trying to craft that "perfect" query letter that's supposed to snag an agent skimming your 250-word hook on her smartphone while she makes a Starbucks run? Why go through the long, long wait times and the heartache and disappointment of submitting, waiting, getting rejected (or ignored), revising again, querying again, never knowing if you just suck or you just haven't yet hit the right agent or editor?
It used to be, writers expected that their first (and second, and maybe third and fourth and fifth) novels just wouldn't be good enough to be published. They'd keep writing, keep trying, keep polishing their craft, and eventually someone would say "Yes." Then maybe once they got to be a big name, they might dust off their old trunk novels, revise them, and get them published too. Or not.
But now? Tried querying, but no one would bite? None of the publishing houses want to buy your novel? There seems to be little downside to putting it online and seeing if anyone will buy it. Sure, your sales will probably be in the single digits, but I've seen authors thrilled that just one person (who wasn't a friend or family member) bought their book, much less left a review.
While this is no longer shooting yourself in the foot in terms of getting an eventual publishing contract the way it used to be, I think it still does the developing writer a disservice. If no agent or publisher wants your book, then it's probably not good enough. You aren't good enough - yet. You should do what authors used to do, and keep writing and keep submitting until you are good enough.
But that's a hard truth to hear, and a lot of people prefer instead to believe that those latte-sipping dummies who call themselves agents just don't recognize their genius, or that Traditional Publishing won't publish anything new and interesting and edgy.
Or they skip querying altogether and go straight for self-publishing. Because $$$! Higher royalties, no agent fees, "control" over your career...
Except you'll notice that writers like Hugh Howey and Amanda Hocking who launched their careers in self-publishing grabbed a publishing contract as soon as they could, because those "dinosaurs" in publishing houses do things that most authors don't actually want to do, like cover design and editing and typesetting and marketing and accounting and so on. There are some authors who do all that for themselves, and relentlessly promote themselves, and do pretty well. But make no mistake, it's a lot of work. You're making self-publishing your job.
I sure don't want to do all that. But I do want people to read my book. So, hypothetically speaking, if I send my SF novel out to a hundred agents, and no one bites, what will I do? Well, first contemplate the possibility that I suck and I'm just not good enough to be published. Then try writing another book. But in the meantime, what to do with my unpublished novel? Trunk it, or self-publish it?
I don't know yet. But I am hoping anthonyjfuchs will comment about his own decision to self-publish, rather than seeking trade publication.
Anyone who's seen me take my knives to the self-published authors who occasionally spam bookish knows that I'm not a big fan of the self-publishing bubble. Since I have talked about this subject before, here and on my LJ, I'm actually not trying to reopen the self-publishing debate. Instead, I invite you, dear reader, to talk about self-published books you actually think are good.
To warm up, a random review of some self-publishing success stories (or not) that I am familiar with.
Phenomenal One Press
This is self-published author L.M. Preston's platform. I reviewed her novel The Pack and found it to be appallingly bad on every level. Yet apparently L.M. Preston continues to crank out the books and has speaking engagements and a career. And a bunch of 5-star reviews on Amazon.
Hugh Howey
Hugh Howey hit it big with his Wool series. I haven't read it, but I did skim his earlier book, Molly Fyde and the Parsona Rescue. And thought it was... pretty bad. Mediocre prose, a stupid plot, and cliched characters. Nothing I'd ever have considered publishable. Yet again, it's got mostly 5-star reviews on Amazon. What do I know?
Genji Press
Serdar Yegulalp was self-publishing before self-publishing was cool. On his site, Genji Press, he comments that most of his sales are physical hardcopies that he takes to conventions. He seems pretty behind the curve when it comes to ebooks.
I reviewed one of his books, Summerworld, and thought that, like Anthony Fuchs, Yegulalp has the makings of a pro author, if he were to become disciplined enough to do what it takes to publish professionally.
Flight of the Vajra does look interesting, and I've still kinda got a crush on space opera even though it keeps treating me badly, so it may be a self-published novel I will actually buy and review.
G. Norman Lippert
Most famous as the author of the James Potter fan fiction series, I wrote here on G. Norman Lippert's attempts to convert his fanfiction fans into paying customers for his self-published novels. He's a perfect example of what I said about most self-published authors, even with an allegedly enthusiastic audience, not making much money: at least as of 2011, his book Ruins of Camelot had only sold in the double digits, despite his fanfiction having possibly hundreds of thousands of fans.
As much as I enjoyed James Potter and the Hall of Elder' Crossing, Lippert also seems like a writer who's not quite there yet in terms of being publishable, but another writer who I think could be if he were persistent enough in assaulting the gates of publishing.
One
Oh, superhero novels. You do me almost as badly as space opera, and yet I love you too.
I find Leigh Ann Kopans's book and her venture to self-publish it intriguing, even though it has all kinds of alarm bells ringing that tell me it's probably not for me. (YA! Romance! Girly!) And yet... superheroes!
And given that it is a book that was actually shopped around by a professional agent, and just couldn't find a home at a publisher, it is presumably written at a professional level.
So, I'll probably check it out.
M.C.A. Hogarth
Better known on LJ as haikujaguar. I know of Hogarth and her original fiction (and her fan fiction as well), but have never read any of it.
Once upon a time, I actually owned the Other Suns RPG. I admit that I am torn between mild aversion and amused fascination with furry space opera. But Hogarth is one of the few self-publishers who seems to have been professionally self-publishing for quite a while (she even has audiobooks on Audible.com), so I have promised to try one of her books sooner or later.
Now, with that minimal survey of my own minimal forays into self-publishing concluded, I invite you all to bring forth those self-published novels you think worthy of consideration. Yes, even you self-published authors who want to pimp your own books. I promise that this once, you can do so without fear of mockery. (Well, from me. I can't make promises for anyone else. :P) So if you've got a book up on Amazon or Createspace or Lulu or Smashwords or wherever, or you know of a self-published author you think we should check out, let's hear your recs.
Poll Another self-publishing poll
Previous Saturday Book Discussions.