"Stories that just generally drip crap out of every electronic orifice"

[inverarity]

Interesting post and discussion from author Lee Goldberg about self-published authors. In the comments is a lot of back and forth between Goldberg and Joe Konrath, a professional author who’s gone the self-published route.

(Note that Goldberg is one of those authors who views fan fiction as intellectual piracy, so don’t be upset if you browse his blog and find him trashing fan fiction. At least he’s not batshit crazy about it like Robin Hobb, Diana Gabaldon or Anne Rice.)

For you lazy bums who can’t be bothered to click the link and read the article (Goldberg -- and the title of my post -- is actually referring to another blogger's post), here’s the short version: thanks to sites like Smashwords, Lulu, and Scribd, everyone with a computer and an Internet connection can now write a book and sell it on Amazon. Consequently, the list of self-published titles on Amazon is starting to look a lot like fanfiction.net: a huge and ever-growing list of mostly unreadable crap. This is causing fear and loathing among some professional writers, who have noticed that there are a growing number of people buying crappy $0.99 ebooks.

I can see both sides of this argument. On the one hand, I’m in favor of anything that gives people more freedom. Let anyone upload anything they damn well please (within certain legal limits, obviously). If you can get someone to pay money for it, congratulations.

On the other hand, I do not think they are entirely wrong in saying that this undercuts professional writers. Do "amateur" writers have an obligation to not compete with professionals? Does Amazon have an obligation to act as a gatekeeper? No. But there are a lot of people who are just desperate to be published, to get the validation that comes from someone buying their book. They don’t really care how much money they make, they just want to be a "published author." Which is why so many publishers and magazines can get away with paying writers so little; there are writers who will literally take pennies just to have a publishing credit.

Self-published authors (and their close cousins, ebook-only published authors) are thick on writers’ forums and publishing lists, and how they howl if you point out that most ebook-only publishers are shoestring operations with little or no quality control, and that these authors are almost all people who aren’t good enough to be published professionally. Oh, they’ll talk about how "traditional publishers are dinosaurs" and "the establishment is afraid of change" and of course, they eschewed traditional publishing because their books are just too specialized, too niche, too unconventional, too literary, agents and publishers all turned down their Great American Novel because it’s not Twilight, etc. Everyone has a story of some agent telling them, "This is a great book, but I just don’t see a market for it." (Note for aspiring writers: this is what agents say in lieu of "Your writing is unsellable, but I don’t want to crush your dreams.")

There are exceptions; some books really are too niche to find a publisher, especially in non-fiction. And I understand that epublishing is becoming big in the romance/erotica genres. But if your science fiction or literary novel is only available as an ebook, it’s probably because you're either too lazy or too unskilled to get published traditionally.

Is there anything wrong with authors deciding they don't want to jump through the hoops of the traditional publishing game and face rejection after rejection, and would rather just release their baby on Smashwords for a nominal price and be thrilled with (maybe) a few dozen readers? No. But I think this really does represent a threat to professional writers. I don't think the online slush pile is ever going to completely replace the publishing industry, but it's already a hard economy for publishing, and everyone knows that trying to make a living as a writer is a tough gig. Anything that takes even a small slice out of book sales is going to hurt.

Of course, the same argument could be made against fan fiction. Any reading time you spend on fan fiction is time not spent reading a book you might have paid for.

This is also where the argument fails. Obviously, every fan fiction or self-published novel read by someone looking for cheap entertainment is not a lost sale for a professional writer. Also, people who read fan fiction are usually readers in general and probably buy more books than the average person.

So ultimately, I am on the "pro-crap" side of the argument. But let's at least recognize the crap for what it is.

Comments

[ebilgatoloco.livejournal.com]

This is interesting. I'll have to think about it.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I am entirely on the "pro-crap" side, with one proviso: that reviewers and commentators are allowed to say what they like, with no howls of protest or attempts at comeback by incensed authors. This is not aimed at you (of course) and not intended to mean that an author should not be naturally annoyed by negative reviews; but they must be taken in a spirit of fairness, in the sense of "I can print anything I like within the limits of the law - and so can they, even if they honk me off".

Don't think this is a meaningless proviso. Cyber-libel, cyber-defamation, cyber-mobbing and cyber-lynching are well practiced and developed techniques in this lawless Wild West of fibreoptics cables, and a bad writer with a high sense of self-regard is just the kind of person to set them off. It was bed enough in pre-electronic fandom; in a world where anyone in Pago Pago or Ulanbaatar can access a page set up exactly to slander an unknowing third party, fairness becomes an absolute necessity.

some books really are too niche to find a publisher, especially in non-fiction... Tell me about it. http://www.facesofarthur.org.uk/fabio/contents.htm I am still keeping, God knows why, a sheaf of letters from some sixty publishers, repeating in a melodious chorus the exact same statement: Your contention is interesting and scholarly (one guy even praised my Latin, which is rather funny), but 500,000 words and nine volumes are simply too expensive for us to publish. What frustrates the Hell out of me is that virtually every year sees the publication of some moronic and thoroughly unscholarly tome on King Arthur (whose historical figure is at the centre of my research in this book) whose only reason to be printed seems to be that it suits the format requirements. The result is positively degrading to Dark Age British studies; no wonder that the prevailing school right now is the ultra-skeptical one of David Dumville of Cambridge, who specializes in tearing down any theory without building any of his own.

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

Well, you can't stop authors from howling in protest or attempting a comeback, but that always goes badly for the author.

I can see why a nine-volume non-fiction series would be a tough sell. Why haven't you considered Scribd or Smashwords?

[(Anonymous)]

It was years ago, and I'm not sure that that sort of publisher even existed back then. The thing however is that Arthurian hypothetical hystory books are among the safest sellers in the non-fiction field (although some of them strain the definition of non-fiction pretty heavily). I can understand a small publisher with a few dozen employees could not afford such a risk, but when I have subsidiaries of Macmillan or Viking Penguin telling me the same story, I have to ask them whether their marketing and publicity departments are for show only. But what the heck. It was only I who thought the damn book was any good, and I was probably deluding myself anyway.

I think you underrate the potential for retaliation on unwelcome critics. The amount of damaging lies that can be told online against someone, virtually without retribution and often without the victim even knowing, is immense; the internet is one enormous invitation to scheming, vindictive paranoiacs.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

That was me. For some reason, I wasn't logged in.

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

An author is as likely to be harrassed by an insane critic as a critic is likely to be harrassed by an indignant author. Dealing with crazies online is just part of being online; I don't know what sort of insulation from such retaliation you'd propose.

You still have your manuscript, right? You've posted it online? What stops you from turning it into an ebook and publishing it on Smashwords or CreateSpace or Scribd? Your audience would be small, but you probably would find an audience, with a chance of actually getting noticed if your work really has academic merit.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

The Internet polices itself. It is not a perfect way, but it is the only way. I simply say that it should become a basic assumption and a shared value that anyone is entitled to say anything that is not criminal or false, even if you don't like it. What I would like to see is the majority of people standing up for the principle. What bothers me is quite simply the amount of people who will think that anyone who is angry or indignant must have some reason to be indignant. No, sorry, sometimes they are just self-regarding buttheads.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I forgot: Anne Rice is not just batshit crazy "about it" - "it" meaning fanfic. She is batshit crazy, period; not to mention an attention seeker of Paris Hilton proportions.