How many people really read ebooks from digital cover to digital cover?
How many of you reading this article have read a self-published ebook? How far in did you get? Did you finish it, or give up before the end?
I’m taking the definition of ’self-published’ to be a novel which has bypassed traditional publishing routes (literary agent - publisher - book stores) and been uploaded directly to an ebook website or retailer, usually for free, and with a token purchase price to the reader.
I read my first self-published ebook this week, cover to cover.
Self-published novels are important, because they end up on the same digital shelves of book retailers such as Amazon, Waterstones and Barnes & Noble.
It’s a crucial time for ebooks, as the traditional publishing industry is at a crossroads. Amazon reports that by next year it will sell (or - more likely - give away) more ebooks than paperback novels. Amazon has already reported ebooks are outpacing hardbacks (figures here).
So the self-published market and the traditional publisher’s digital offerings overlap. If you buy an ereader and search through Amazon’s digital book market, alongside Dan Brown and Stephenie Meyer, you will come across a vast collection of free, or cheap, self-published novels.
With a well-designed cover, there’s no reason a reader browsing the site would notice the difference between a professionally published novel and a self-published one.
That’s a good thing - until you read the book.
I’ve written top five reasons why an aspiring author shouldn’t self-publish their hard work (not least until they have exhausted the traditional publishing route). The conclusion was this: Traditional publishing is a necessary commercial evil if we want well-written and professionally-edited books in the market.
The self-published ebook I read this week was professional, well-designed, and written by a (former) traditionally published author. As I understand from the author, the book was rejected by a few publishers for commercial reasons relating to its unusual subject (conspiracy theory and science-metafiction in LA), and so the author self-published.
It’s a strong book, and I have recommended it for people inquisitive of the American conspiracy genre. I just think it needs polishing, as there are words missing and, because of its metafictional nature, the plot shifts often. Perhaps a professional editor would have made these changes if there was a commercial risk attached to its publication.
As it is, self-published novels have no commercial risks, and speaking generally, that can make the writing sloppy.
It’s a difficult thing for a writer to sit down at the manuscript that may have taken months or years to write, and to delete and change vast parts of it. Or scrap the whole thing.
Much easier to send it out into the ebook market and see if it gets picked up by readers. If it doesn’t, there’s no loss to the writer. An underground movement of readers might build it up and push it to the top of the bestseller’s list.
It could happen, but it’s not likely given the sheer number of self-published books flooding the market.
One of the things we are trying to do at Jungla.co.uk is explain a book in 40 words, for a reader to make a judgement on whether they want to read it or not. The traditional publishing industry does a similar thing.
It tells a story through its marketing to urge you to pick the book up, turn it around and read the blurb, and then buy it. Self-published novelists can’t tell that story in their marketing, so it comes down to sheer chance whether a reader stumbles across it on Amazon.
The probability of success without strong marketing is something to think about if you are walking down the self-publishing root.
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“Traditional publishing is a necessary commercial evil if we want well-written and professionally-edited books in the market.”
Are you saying all traditionally published books are well-written? They’re not. Most are painfully bad. There’s a difference between that and editing. I’ll grant that my book has some missing words here/there, but nothing that should overwhelm the scope of the book. And if an agent said, “We want you to change this b/c it makes it an easier sell” that’s a conversation I no longer want to have.
You also seem to be making the claim that you only get editing with a traditional publisher. Not really the case – an editor can be hired by anyone. As I did with my novel. I’ll grant too that it was uneven in tone for some of it, but some people don’t mind it. Who’s right?
Basically, I think you have too much faith in traditional publishing having their artist’s needs at stake, and not the bottom line. A “commercial risk” is a bad thing, not something that will improve the book. More often than not, it leads to publishers taking things out that make a book interesting. Just because in the end the book might be able to sell more doesn’t mean that the publisher has done a good job.