Lately I’ve been thinking a lot more about quality in the books that I release for today’s market. I’ve started downloading eBooks here and there to my Kindle App and the variety of writing is truly all over the map. Some Authors have taken their time to write a compelling story, edit that story (perhaps even send their MS to a professional) several times, and release it with a clear goal of making the world a better place to read.
I try to be like that too. I have spent the past three straight months sweating and bleeding over my computer on a daily basis to get my current manuscript pulled into shape as a well-crafted story with no plot holes and as few grammar/spelling issues as possible. And friends have still told me I pulled it together very fast! I’ve discussed the ‘Quick and the (Brain)dead’ theory over on my personal blog so read the post if you’re interested in learning more.
My three months seemed like years due to the hours I put in. But I felt that the time spent was required in order to pull my novella together in a meaningful way. So don’t mind me if I start to cringe a little bit when I review the Goodreads forums over coffee and come across things like this:
“I'm in the market for an editor for my self published novella/novelettes. They are sci-fi/fantasy, and I've been publishing about one a month (I have a day job. I do not have a life)
I need somebody willing to catch my sentence fragments, point out my comma splices and call me on my bullsh*t, (IE Wind Resistance Does Not Work This Way) The work would be as clean as I can possibly get it on my own. They would be relatively short, about 25-30K per book, but there would be one of them a month. I'd be especially interested in a long term relationship with an editor.
I'd also like some form of flexible payment plan regarding rates.
Please either PM me or contact me at [redacted].”
I’m sorry, did you just say you can complete a 30,000 word document and edit it to the best of your own ability, with a day job, in only one month? Um…
These are the things that make me cry. I don’t know this Author, I don’t read sci-fi/fantasy genres nor do I write them. They could have any ranking high or low and I’d never be in direct competition with this person for sales or likes in the digital world of books. But regardless that we’d never be in each other’s ‘You might also like…’ lists, we are in competition. We’re both Indie Authors. We both self-publish our work. We both want to sell as much of that work as possible so we can pay our bills and put socks on our feet by the time winter rolls around.
And the truth of the matter is that unless you have product out there to peddle, you aren’t selling much. I think a two book a year schedule is insane but I’m trying to do it anyway just to stay in the mainstream consciousness. Then I come across this. I cannot compete with a twelve book a year Author. Nor will I even try.
If I were to try to pump out 360,000 words in a single year, then format all those words into separate titles, not only would I lose my damn mind but I’d be broke! Let’s just do some rough & dirty, quick math shall we?
Ten ISBNs from Bowker are $250, additional will be sold at $125 each. You’re up to $500 already.
Maybe you sell eBook only so the upfront cost to produce is low (no barcodes required and you can upload for free in some cases). But if you’re concerned with protecting yourself and your intellectual property you’re at least shipping the manuscript off to the Library of Congress for copyright protection. Right? At $35 a pop that’s $420 total.
Then let’s consider Blog Book tours to promote your work. Figure each one is about $100. Now you’re at $2120 and you haven’t even hired that editor you mention.
And I won’t even begin to estimate what that would run (Editing comes in many shapes and sizes and it sounds like this Author needs a content edit, line edit and proofread. Good luck getting all that for under $250 per MS.).
Nor will I try to imagine how many hours you’re going to have to spend on marketing and promoting these books every month because there’s no way with your request for a payment plan that you can afford to hire a PR firm or Social Media Marketing Manager.
Please explain to me then how and where you find the time to actually write anything? Because I just don’t believe you’re real. I don’t believe, if you give a crap at all about producing work you can honestly feel pride in releasing to the world, that you are an actual person. You have to be a figment of imagination because no one can have it both ways.
Twelve quality manuscripts complete, edited, and released each year?
Remove even one word from the sentence above and I might get closer to being on board with the Author’s mission. Let’s start by removing the word ‘quality’ because it will be the first thing to suffer. Editor or not.
Perhaps I sound snarky with my obvious disdain for this person’s attempt at flooding the market and that’s because I am. There are real Authors out here in the trenches, people trying to write books and stories that the general public can enjoy. And those of us trying to do it the old way suffer under the Amazon ranking of these people?
Yeah, I guess you could say it pisses me off to know this is who I’ll be competing with. But you know what? At least I can sleep at night knowing full well that I actually worked for my product. That I put the time and effort needed to create a quality piece of writing. That there is no chance in hell I’d even want to try to release one book a month if it was going to mean my work was frowned upon as crap in the long run.
Because I don’t need to win a Pulitzer for my work but you better be damn sure I’m going to be proud of the two books I release every year because they will be well crafted pieces of fiction.
