Just when you thought it was safe...

It was a sequel to Jaws, the not entirely originally titled Jaws 2, but it had the tag "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water..." A classic line from Peter Benchley.

After sifting through the Bowker review of publishing trends, 2010 to 2015 and seeing the hit the Vanity press had taken, a hit so hard that Penguin Random House ditched Author Solutions at the beginning of 2016, and the declining numbers of authors buying their product I should have known there would be something lurking around the corner. Just when you thought...

I had that feeling when I clicked on David Gaughran's blog and started reading, he is running through the latest money scamming idea from the dodgy end of publishing, Vanity Publishers pretending to be legitimate trade publishers and hiding their true colours until the author has taken the hook, been played on the line and finally reeled in.

Just go to David's blog and read it here.

I'll let David tell the story, my job tonight is merely to pass it on, at David's request!

Something in the air?

Behind the front page of this blog is a list of blogs I follow, one particular favourite is the Passive Voice, that  puts out something to chew over on an almost daily basis. Running through the recent posts I came across Self Publishing is Completely Corrupt.

That's a pretty blunt statement and had to be explored further. The article originally on GoodEReader (posted 5 August 2015) starts well, explaining the benefits of trade publishing and the advantages offered by the army of people involved in moving the book from the writer's imagination to the bookshelves, all valid and worthwhile points but then the tenor changes and the character assassination of self-publishing comes into play.

He cites Tracy Hickman's experience of going to the other side,  published by Penguin and joint creator of the DragonLance series, New York Times bestseller and having enjoyed the experience of people queueing around the block for his work. He chose to self publish and now his books are no longer in the bookstores, he laments, "I have a 6 million following, and they don't remember me!" (The Dragonlance Chronicles are available at Amazon).

The writer comments, if a bestseller cannot make it in self-publishing, how can anyone?

He starts the way we all do, learning the craft of self-publishing. The army of invested people employed by the trade publisher aren't there anymore! We all have the same tools, it's how we use them that makes the difference!

The argument is postulated that the self-published author knows nothing of the system, fails to do proper marketing and spam social media with #hashtags #buymybook and even, shock, horror,  buy friends and likes on social media; the same social media used by the trade to promote their books!

Indie writers are apparently lazy, not even bothered to fork out the price of an ISBN number so their books can be found and spend their time whinging about research and how the data is skewed by not accounting for indie books. Is a level playing field asking too much?

Okay, so an opinion is valid, but behind the opinion, what about the reasoning, why does the speaker believe that self-publishing is completely corrupt. Consider it, the phrase is unambiguous, not hedging its bets, but saying it straight out!

How much of the animosity is really petulance: and I was foolishly beginning to think the attitude towards the self-published was beginning to a bit more adult and less of the petulant child. Here it comes across very strangely, on the one hand they complain that what is being self-published is rubbish, unutterable drivel, and -  you can probably recall a whole list of other adjectives that fit the scenario - and then complain that we are not using the system.

We are told self-Published authors are trying to game the system, to work out the easy advantage, but who doesn't look for a way ahead, especially when the odds are stacked?

Fake and paid for reviews are dragged out and added to the supposed mire of self-publishing; yes, there is a problem and the self-published author is generally aware of it and the policy of eBook distributors toward such things. We work with the situation; but asking your friend to tell the world what they think of your book, is that really corrupt? Have you ever seen a trade review where the reviewer thinks the work is garbage?

The image I see is Ivory tower myopia, and the villains are at the gate.

A baying sweaty mob hammering at the portals? No, a long  line of pissed off writers who have had that same portal repeatedly slammed in their faces, because the inmates considered them unworthy of making a profit for their company!

The bottom line is profit, every time, the system is geared to maintaining the hold of the trade publisher, and rightly so, it's their system and it keeps them going, but remember, slam the door too often and an alternative will be found.

We know that not every book is rejected because it is bad; some are not considered commercial enough for the publisher to invest in. The bottom line again. The article quotes Andrew Franklin at a recent London International Book Fair talking about the quality of self-published books, the link to the page was broken when I tried it but I did stumble across an earlier interview with Mr Franklin, quoting Stanley Unwin, the original publisher of Tolkien, "The first duty of a publisher to the author is to remain solvent."

Get off the money, but how can we?

What is the real basis for this animosity, is it truly about quality, or driven by the sales figures. Every successful self-publisher says it can be done, and how do you stop a self-publishing success story, buy it out!

The argument then moves, what is self-publishing, the article mentions two recent phenomena, E L James and Cassandra Clare, whose writing began in fan fiction (Miss Clare deleted her fan fiction from the Internet shortly before the first volume of her Mortal Instruments series was published by a trade publisher) and moved into trade/commercial publication once they had established a fan base! Fan fiction is written and published (posted on the site) by the author, there are purists who don't consider this self-publishing?

The twist in the tale here is the offer of a way forward. The aspiring self-pub sees the trend. Do it for yourself and generate a solid fan base and the trade will come looking for you. (It may be the new mythology of authorship, but in every myth there is a truth,) or even set up a portal where they can monitor your work and sign you up; Harper Collins and Authonomy, virtually a trade in-house self-publishing facility.

Here we drift towards the ultimate blurring, the scenario that undermines trade publishing's claim to any form of high ground, moral or otherwise, the labyrinthine connections (and not always hidden) with known vanity publishers. To stand there and declare self-publishing corrupt while nurturing the most exploitative form of publishing within their own bosom! How do you do that!

Shades of Kettle and Black?

What am I seeing, an industry going through a series of changes over which they have little or no control and using a form of social manipulation to reinforce and enhance their position - you are not a proper writer unless we say so and give you our approval, (until we publish you)!

So who says so? Simon Pegg has a discussion with a self appointed authority in the closing minutes of "The World"s End" demanding of the alien presence "Who put you in charge?"

So who really is in charge, the publisher or the public?

Ultimately, why we write and who for determines the path we take, it isn't about the right or wrong way, it is a choice.  Hammer at the gates of Trade, sign up for Authonomy or something similar, weave your magic on Wattpad, strew dollar bills and pound notes along the corridors of vanity or go it alone; self publish!

I self publish, but I'm not alone, there are thousands, hundreds of thousands self-publishing their own work on a daily basis and revealing one self-evident truth. Readers who enjoy and love the written word don't just love reading it, we love writing it!

Independent Means

Self publishing; a straightforward enough phrase, not complicated, and yet the very words generate confusion. I tried to explore what it means in my last post, along with definitions of Traditional, Hybrid,Vanity and a couple of other types of publisher.

The Passive Voice posts a blog post from The Creative Penn on Happiness and the Self Published Author, and the comments generated an interesting level of discussion around the meaning of self publishing and the continued blurring of the distance between vanity and true self publishing.

Looking on the bright side

A lot of the chatter lately has been about the pitfalls facing independent self publishers, but what about the positive aspects of the challenge. How do I get my book out to the world, and I may have briefly touched on this in earlier blog posts.

No apologies for going back to it, whatever the pitfalls and snare that lay in wait for the unwary, the mission remains the same, to transfer the manuscript from the dusty shelf on the bookcase to the reader somewhere in the world, everywhere in the world.

A time worn piece of advice to writers slides along the lines of write about what you know, I'm not gainsaying the advice but letting the imagination run riot and extrapolating beyond what you know can be useful - research helps to spread the story base a bit further.

I'm working more on what happens after the story is written, and as mentioned earlier, the negative stories are rampant across the Internet, and bloggers like myself spread the doom and gloom. Ostensibly to pass on the wisdom of others, but honestly, there is always a feeling of there but for the grace of God...

I have so far escaped the clutches of the predators for a very simple reason. I haven't the money to chuck at the situation and I say so far deliberately. I am not immune to the wiles and machinations of the predatory characters out there.

My money is as good as anyone else's and just as vulnerable; and cold calling, hard selling and
mis-selling are the stumbling blocks in my way as much as any other writer, and it doesn't take long to stretch the bank balance beyond its limits.

A colourful statement may look pretty but there are some things, and my bank statements is one that ideally should be black and white.

I'm doing it again, slipping down the slope of negativity,

The book is done, editing and proofreading are sorted and the cover image is ready to proclaim your work to the world, so where do we go from here... the road to publication starts, actually, scrub that, the road heads off in a new direction.

Research is the key, always, check the details, follow your hunch and never, never disregard that feeling in the pit of your stomach. You know the one, it goes flip-flop and gurgles embarrassingly at quiet moments.

The choice is becoming wider, the traditional road is always there, via an agent or direct to the publisher,

 
Follow the submission guidelines and go for it, The Vanities (still awaiting the bonfire that will commit them and their charlatan ways to history) remain to snare the unwary, and the myriad variations of Assisted, Hybrid, and Supported publisher are waiting in the wings, and beyond them is the independent self-publisher.

Hugh Howey and Amanda Hocking have been instrumental in changing the perspective, the established view that the self-published author is the lost, lonely desperate soul with book sales that reach out to friends, workmates and whatever surviving generations of the family remain, or digitally as a free download are hoovered off the web in their hundreds (but do the downloaders ever read them?)

The Internet has definitely thrust the power of publishing into the hands of the people,The argument against the democratisation of publishing was that a torrent of badly produced rubbish would swamp the literary world and it is true, up to a point, 

There is also spirit, courage and sheer bloody minded determination. To write off all the self-published as unworthy is itself unworthy. The tradition of self-publishing has its own luminaries among the greats of literature (and who the put the naysayers in charge anyway?)

The Self published author is in illustrious company, the epitome of the DIY publisher is the poet William Blake, who self-published some of his best known works, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell; Songs of innocence, Songs of experience. He wrote the text, designed the illustrations and engraved them on to copper plates for printing. Jane Austen suffered rejection by publishers and after reworking Sense and Sensibility went the vanity route and paid Thomas Egerton to publish the book.

They are not alone; Mark Twain, Marcel Proust, Bernard Shaw, Edgar Allen Poe, Anais Nin,   Beatrix Potter self-published the Adventures of Peter Rabbit, Joyce Joyce did the same with Ulysses. Charles Dickens followed suit with A Christmas Carol, after a dispute with his traditional publisher over the sales of Martin Chuzzlewit

Virginia Woolf, and her husband, Leonard Woolf solved the problem by becoming their own publishers and established the Hogarth Press, a road followed by some of their contemporaries.

There is always dross around the gold, and the idea that the traditional publishing has a monopoly on the gold is ridiculous. They have no more guarantee the material they publish is gold than the rest of us. I always find Mark Coker's analogy of throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks, a useful image. The stacks of remaindered books, and bookshops is a testimony to the unpredictability of the literary world.

There is a strange alchemy involved in a successful book, and sometimes the missing ingredient is time, giving the book time to reach out and make contact. An advantage the eBook has over the traditional print format, and the hybrid, the print book that survives the frequent purges of the book shop shelves. Print on Demand.

Traditional print requires an immediate reaction, if the marketing fails to hit the sweet spot and the copies are not flying off the shelves as fast as the books are stacked up then the slide to oblivion can begin within weeks of publication, shelf space is so tight.

Print on Demand requires no shelf space, the storage is counted in Kb or Mb, not inches or centimetres. There is no limit to shelf life, so the book remains permanently available. For the independent the marketing can be an ongoing process, tweaked and adjusted to suit the current circumstances.

We are not restricted by the physical shelf life of the bookshop, where the current best-seller is always on the point of being nudged out of the way by the next best thing. We have time; to build our platform and develop our strategies.

Saint or Skimmer, 2 - Black Hat White Hat!

Times change, the days when the good guy wore a pristine white hat are gone, today's hero is likely to be grey, muddy, washed out, and tired.

The last few weeks have seen Indies Unlimited exploring the experience of authors at the hands of the Vanity Presses, and the same familiar names crop up with an unnerving frequency. Part of the explanation is revealed in the list of subsidiary imprints under the umbrella of Author Solutions(see Saints and Skimmers). If any company has donned the black hat and cape of the villain of the piece it is this one.

One degree more...

I briefly touched on the labyrinthine links between vanity presses and the publishing houses dotted around the world and the Internet in Come into my parlour...  and this last week has seen Writer's Digest break their connection with Author Solutions and their own imprint Abbott Press. David Gaughran who has spent considerable blogging time and energy on the Author Solutions situation comments on recent developments. Both sides are being cagey, but as David describes in his blog website links have already been taken down.

A small step in the right direction and veering away by degrees, rather than closing in. There is still a long way to go.