Self-Publishing: The Best of Times, and the Worst

This week, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about self-publishing.

No, no. I’m not thinking about self-publishing my novel, just thinking about the phenomenon in general. At least partly because a number of the writers in my county who won NaNoWrimo have asked about it. And partly because I recently purchased two self-pubbed novels by mistake (more on that in a minute). And partly because Time magazine included a long article about it in the Feb. 2 issue.

In publishing, these are the best of times, and these are the worst of times. Worst because it’s harder than ever to get a novel published through a traditional, brick-and-mortar house. And best because there is another option, an option that really didn’t exist even 10 years ago: self-publication.

True, vanity presses have existed for years, publishers who would print any book if the author paid for it (with traditional publishers, they pay the author, and reap their benefits only if and when the book sells to readers). But vanity presses weren’t opportunities for authors to get noticed by traditional houses, just bonfires on which to throw one’s money.

With modern self-publication, things have changed, and books like The Lace Reader (a bestseller originally self-pubbed but picked up by a traditional house for more than $2 million) seem to be a carrot dangling in front of authors, promising a short cut to literary stardom.

But there are two problems (at least) with planning a writing career via self-publication. The first is marketing. The self-pubbed version of The Lace Reader was already a commercial success for Brunonia Barry because she hired a publicist and heavily promoted the book via regional media and book clubs. Unless you have the money to invest in marketing and/or know what you’re doing yourself and/or have the sales personality to move books, your odds of repeating Brunonia Barry’s success probably aren’t much higher than winning the lottery.

The other problem is quality. With a traditional publisher, books go through a series of gatekeepers (in fact, that’s one of the things people hate about it) that weed out the drek. Then the writing goes through a series of professional editors that clean up what’s left.

With self-pubbing, it’s all over the map. Some self-published authors have professional-level skills, and others hire editors, so those books may be on a par or above traditionally published books. But a lot more authors don’t, so you never know what you’re getting.

The article in Time Magazine begins with this statement by an author who self-published: ”I did what you’re supposed to do,” she says. “I queried literary agents. I went to writers’ conferences and tried to network. I e-mailed editors. Nobody wanted it.” 

Here’s my point: she “did what you’re supposed to do,” she says, but she doesn’t say one word about learning the craft of writing. In my opinion, learning to write well is what “you’re supposed to do,” not querying and networking and emailing editors. Now, I haven’t read her book (I hadn’t heard of it until I read the article), and it sold to a brick-and-mortar house for half a million dollars and is now a bestseller. So I imagine it’s pretty good.

I’d love to know how many rejection slips she collected from agents before she gave up and self-published though. Joshilyn Jackson, the author of three bestselling novels, told a former writers group of mine that she had submitted more than 150 queries before she finally signed an agent. And he couldn’t sell the book. Nor the next book. But the third book she sent him was Gods in Alabama, and it did very well indeed.

I suspect the author quoted in Time Magazine sent out 10 queries — or maybe even 50 — and then gave up. But if the writing is good enough, odds are you’ll find the right agent if you keep sending queries.

Unfortunately with her statement about doing “what you’re supposed to,” the author quoted in Time perpetuates the myth: you don’t have to be a good writer to be a bestseller. But it’s a myth! Unless you’re Britney (who is currently in talks with publishers for her yet-to-be-written memoir), you DO have to be a good writer to have a bestseller. You can self-pub all the drek you like, but it won’t be picked up by a big house.

Two weeks ago, doing my homework for Buzz Your Book, I did a search on Amazon for dark humor geared toward women. There isn’t much. There’s a lot of dark humor, but it’s mostly aimed toward men. And there’s a lot of humorous women’s fiction, but it tends to be Chick Lit or its various spin offs: Hen Lit, Lady Lit, Mommy Lit, etc. Lighthearted and … well, certainly not dark.

I did find a few books. I’d count Gods in Alabama in that camp, and The First Wives’ Club by Olivia Goldsmith (hilarious book, thankfully back in print). But I’d already read both of those.

I found two others that sounded fabulous: darkly funny women’s fiction much like my novel, East of Jesus. I’d never heard of them, but they looked wonderful and got great reviews. So I emailed my local bookseller to ask him to order them for me.

The moment I picked them up, I could tell they were self-published, though there was no hint on Amazon. Self-pubbed books are printed with a different, cheaper technology, and I can feel the difference when I hold and open a book. I did a little research on the web, though, and sure enough, they were self-pubbed. One was printed by a self-publisher I wasn’t familiar with. The other was printed by a publisher that only carries one book, and has a very amateur website.

I read the one I was most interested in, and I can see why the author was unable to sell it. It was very funny, and had elements of brilliance. But the author needed to learn the craft of writing. It doesn’t have a strong enough conflict, and there’s no evidence of a story arc. It was almost there, almost ready for publication, but the author apparently couldn’t wait and decided to self-pub instead.

I like, very much, that the option is there for self-publication. Under certain circumstances, it’s the best option. It’s perfect for an author on the speech circuit, who already has a platform. It’s ideal for non-fiction aimed at a small, niche audience. It’s a great option for someone who just wants to pass copies of her book around to friends and family, or who wants to preserve family heritage for posterity but isn’t interested in sales.

And it’s a last-resort chance for brilliant books traditional publishers are afraid to tackle because they’re just too different. One has to wonder whether John Kennedy Toole might have survived to write more fabulous books if he’d had the option of self-publishing A Confederacy of Dunces – which, btw, IS a comic genius.

But the vast majority of books self-published aren’t geniuses of any kind, and I resent that Amazon doesn’t distinguish between them. In the past, I’ll be very cautious about ordering books I know nothing about except what Amazon tells me.

I went back and analyzed the Amazon listings, to find a way to see if a book is self-published. They tend to be a little more expensive, but in many cases, the retail price is only a couple of dollars more than a comparable trade paperback and less than a brick of a book like A Thousand Splendid Suns.

If you’re familar with the publisher, of course, it’s obvious. But there are many imprints and small, independent publishers, and I don’t know them all.

I did find one thing interesting though. The book I read? All of the “customer” reviews gave it five stars. Granted, there were only six reviews, but how likely is it that six readers, at random, all felt it was worth Amazon’s highest rating?

So one by one, I clicked on each reviewer’s link that said “See All My Reviews.” Turns out five of the six reviewers (83 percent) had only reviewed that book. Wanna place bets on the percentage of those five that are personal friends or relatives of the author?

To check my theory, I did the same thing with the other self-published book, the book I haven’t read yet. It had gotten 28 reviews, and 22 of them were five star reviews (the lowest rating it received was three stars, and there was only one of those). Of the 22 that gave it the highest rating, sixteen (73 percent) had written only the one review.

For comparison, I picked up a recent humorous book for women that I knew was not self-published: Unpredictable by Eileen Cook. Unpredictable received 29 reviews, seventeen of which were five stars. Of those seventeen, all but three reviewers had posted multiple reviews. 

Here’s the tally. Among five star reviewers, the self-pubbed books had 82 and 72 percent reviewers who only reviewed that book. By comparison, among the five-star reviewers of my control book, published by a brick-and-mortar publisher, only 18 percent had written only one review.

There are two lessons to be learned here:

1. For Readers: if you want to see whether a book was self-published, check how many five star reviews it got, and how many of those reviewers reviewed only that book.

2. For Authors: come on, you guys! If you ask your best friend, your mother, and your Aunt Winifred to go on Amazon and write reviews for you, it just makes you look desperate and pathetic.

I’m not against self-pubbed books. In fact, I recommended one last month. But I’d read the author’s work before, so I knew it was probably good.

My To-Be-Read shelf is already five shelves tall, and double stacked in places. I already don’t have time to read all the wonderful books I want to read. I don’t want to spend my precious book time reading the slush pile in the hopes of finding a nugget in my pan, and I resent being tricked to do so.

I’m all for gatekeepers, but I don’t care who they are as long as they work. Agents and editors at traditional houses work, but they often like books I don’t enjoy at all. My friends work better for me — when they recommend a book, I usually love it (I just read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peeling Pie Society on the recommendation of Jamie Ford‘s wife; she’d heard people who liked his book would like it, and she was right).

I’m also OK with everyday readers being gatekeepers: as the best of self-pubbed books gain legs and buzz, I’ll hear about them, and I’ll read them then. Or maybe they’ll be picked up by brick-and-mortar houses, and I’ll read them then.

But until the booksellers find a way to sort the slush from the gold, I’m going to be a lot less likely to order anything I haven’t held in my hands or which didn’t come recommended from someone I trust.