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Jodi Picoult made headlines last week for her views on self-publishing, expressed in an interview with the Daily Beast (from Page 2):
What advice would you give to an aspiring author?
Take a workshop course. You need to learn to give and get criticism and to write on demand. And DO NOT SELF PUBLISH.
The (outdated) blanket warning to avoid self-publishing generated a lot of reaction in the comments of that piece and anywhere else it was reprinted. I won’t rehash all that, only to note that, by contrast, Ms. Picoult thinks it’s a fine idea to sign with an agent who has no clients and zero experience.
Jodi Picoult got an opportunity to explain her position in a little more detail to the Huffington Post the following day.
My current advice is to not self-publish. It’s still too hard for people to separate the wheat from the chaff, and what you miss out on is the marketability that is afforded to you by a brick and mortar publisher. There’s a lot of crap out there, and one day we may find a way to segregate well written self published fiction from that stuff which anyone can throw on Amazon, but I just don’t think we’re there yet. Let me put it to you this way. The anomalies of self published fiction, the Amanda Hockings of this world – what did they do with their next book? Do they self publish it? No – they make sure they get a publisher.I won’t spend much time discussing the obvious error at the end, only to point out that Amanda Hocking had self-published numerous titles before she signed on with an agent, released more afterward, and, when she finally agreed a deal with a publisher, she only signed away some of her books, and the rest of her self-published work is still on the market (and she has stated on numerous occasions that she will continue to self-publish).
It must also be noted that before Amanda Hocking self-published, she had failed to attract the interest of an agent or publisher in those very same titles. The success of her self-publishing endeavors, however, bagged her a $2m advance. Needless to say, Hocking would be in a very different position today if she had followed Jodi Picoult’s advice.
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The Myth of the Segregated Marketplace
Jodi Picoult is urging writers not to self-publish as it’s “still too hard for people to separate the wheat from the chaff” because there is “a lot of crap out there.”
Newsflash: there is no segregated marketplace. All those e-books from publishers and self-publishers jostle for attention in the same retailers, side-by-side on the virtual bookshelves. Self-published titles aren’t ghettoized, and they don’t carry a warning label.
In other words, an author published by Random House faces the same discoverability challenges as a self-publisher. We’re all trying to climb out of the same primordial ranking soup. Having a publisher’s imprint name in your product description offers zero assistance with that task.
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The “Amount of Crap” Myth
I’ll assume the basic assumption is correct, that there is a lot of crap available. I’ll also ignore the provenance of this crap – whether that’s content farm crap, scraped Wikipedia crap, genuine self-published crap, or crap books from big publishers – and I’ll just agree: there is a lot of crap.
However, and this is the key point, the crap is invisible. Nobody sees a book that’s #700,000 in the Amazon rankings. They don’t appear on any bestseller lists. They aren’t recommended in Also Boughts. Readers don’t see them.
Those who believe the amount of crap is an issue must think that visibility on Amazon is distributed equally. Rather, it’s a form of meritocracy where books that are purchased more often are displayed to readers more often. Crap books that aren’t being bought will not be recommended at all.
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Books live or die on word-of-mouth. Unless an author is in the rare position of having a significant built-in audience, and merely has to announce a book’s release to catapult it to the upper reaches of the charts, they will depend on readers who discover (and enjoy) the book sharing that opinion with others, whether that’s through online reviews, social media, email, reader sites, or plain old conversation.
Crap books are invisible. Crap books will not be recommended by one reader to another. The amount of crap doesn’t matter because crap books are irrelevant. There could be 100 million crap books on Amazon, and it wouldn’t matter one bit.
Crap books aren’t the reason why discoverability is a challenge for most writers. Good books are.
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If all the crap historical novels disappeared tomorrow, my sales would be unaffected. However, if a decent chunk of the good historical novels disappeared, I would benefit from increased visibility on genre bestseller lists (etc.) and my sales would rise.
Indeed, one could make the argument that self-publishing is more prudent as you will get your novel out now, rather than in a year or two (or longer, factoring in the time to find an agent, go on submission, and land a deal) when all the large publisher backlists will be digitized and there will be even more great books vying for readers’ attention.
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Read the entire article at Let's Get Digital
I think David Gaughran hit the nail on the head. What do you think?
I read that article and was appalled that Jodi Picoult would make such a statement. It's apparent she's a literary snob.
ReplyDeleteWhen I started out, I wrote like a fiend and queried like mad. I could only stand so much disappointment and heartbreak when agents said, they loved my writing but couldn't fit it in the marketplace.
I figured, why bother with an agent when there were so many options out there. Now, three years and so many books and short stories later, I'm managing a small but successful career. So Poo on Miss Picoult.
In my opinion, self publishing is the only way to go.
Oh my goodness. Jodi needs to open her eyes a bit...
ReplyDeleteIt's all about competition and leveling the playing field. Feeling threatened? Oh well...
ReplyDeleteGreat post. Thanks for sharing.
I agree! Well said :)
ReplyDeleteGreat post! And hey, there's a lot of crap that's been published by traditional means so... who's separating the chaff from the wheat?
ReplyDeleteVery well said. I've read some trad. pubbed books that were incredibly awful, and some quite decent self-pubbed. That "gatekeeper" model is really a mixed bag. Some quality work is consistently passed over by publishers for--often enough--failing to fit a current trend, or some trend publishers think *might* emerge.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE what he said about crummy stuff usually ending up being ignored, no matter who published it.
Hi Elle!
ReplyDeleteThank you for sifting through the information. I love hearing everybody's opinion on the subject! The world is changing, for sure. Good story is still, I think, the most important factor. (duh)...
P.S. Your Easter menu sounded so good!
Awesome post! I wholeheartedly agree with your first commenter, Anne Gallagher. There are so many people who say no for so many reasons that one is not even aware of. Great example about Amanda Hocking. I say go for it!
ReplyDeleteGiven there are more success stories out there beyond Amanda Hocking, well, self-publishing holds its own. Traditional publishing is, to me, the traditional route, not the ultimate route to getting only the "wheat" to the printers. Because it is a sad fact that some crap has a Big 6 imprint running along the spine. So thankfully, this Jodi person sounds like an individual of opinion, and like opinions, everyone's entitled to them. I'm just glad that I've had the chance to read some AWESOME works by people who were prudent enough to follow their dream, self-published their works and made it available to a reader like me with enough brains to pick MY fave bits of wheat from the chaff...that's that ol' thinker working up there :-)
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