Kindle Publishing

Since hearing about the unbelievable success of Amanda Hocking‘s self-published novels, I’ve been eagerly researching this crazy new trend that’s built up since Kindle launched.

Don’t worry – I’m not planning to self-publish on the Kindle. But I am highly interested in such an awesome success story, especially since traditional publishers rejected her manuscripts time and time again. After taking matters into her own hands and selling them herself on Kindle and Smashwords as ebooks, they became bestsellers. She wrote 17 novels that got nowhere traditionally, and now she’s a millionaire.

Makes you sick, right? Of course. It’s like winning the friggin’ lottery. If you wanna know more about her story, or indeed her stories, Google her. There’s a load of news articles about it.

Anyway, my intrigue led me to sampling some of her stories and visiting the Kindle boards to check out how many other self-publishing “authors” there are flogging their shizz on Kindle. Turns out there’s fucking loads of them. So, after checking those out too, on the nifty little “search inside” feature, what do I think?

I think we need traditional publishers.

Look, no offence Amanda – the sample to My Blood Approves, apart from that being a crummy title, was OK. As YA goes I guess it was pretty good, at least in that fast-paced kind of way. I wouldn’t say it was original or particularly well written, but whatever. Other people clearly loved it.

I also tried reading Hocking’s Hollowland because it was free on Kindle, and the writing really, really lacked substance. There was no detail, the characters were two dimensional (so 2d that I can’t remember their names or even imagine their personality) and the plot, setting and story itself was a Zombie break-out cliché.

But you know what? It’s not even that which I have the biggest problem with. It’s the fact that there are spelling errors and faults everywhere, never mind the other stuff. That, in a book people supposedly have paid for, isn’t right at all. Hopefully it’ll stay free to buy from now on, though I’ve read that they’re becoming graphic novels – perhaps a wiser platform for that kind of story.

As for the Trylle series, the books that are making it big right now, I couldn’t say. The story doesn’t appeal to me at all because that kind of series usually doesn’t, not unless I happen upon the books by chance and they become a guilty pleasure (or an on-toilet book) But still, it appears that she finally wrote something deserving of being published, even if the publishers didn’t see it at the time. Good for her, really – she should be proud.

I understand how hard it is to proof-read an entire novel, I do. I really do. But that’s what we have editors for, isn’t it? But even if you paid an editor (because you aren’t going traditional) you still can’t buy a rich, organic, realist story, can you? Of course you can’t.

The cover art was typically YA with the girl on front with lots of shiny hair, and looked very professional, yes. But what was inside didn’t match up to the packaging – not one bit. That’s the problem with these brilliant freelance artists – they need to make money too.

This is why we need publishers.  It’s about quality control. It’s not just about spelling and grammar, but about the books themselves, if you can call them that.

Did you know some people are buying quality covers, and charging full novel prices for a piece that’s less than 10k in length? Christ, even for a 50k novel, that’s ridiculous – especially when the reason these manuscripts were rejected (assuming they even tried) was probably because they were sub-standard, nevermind the rest.

The fact that anyone even bothers to read them is a charitable deed to you, the writer, surely? Why charge full price for a sub-standard novel, or novella? You can’t slap a pretty picture on it to hide the words. Have you forgotten what a novel actually consists of at its core? Words, dude, words.

I understand their reasons. I’ve thought of it myself: what am I going to do if the book I spent all my energy on over a long period of time is deemed worthless? The answer, and the final option, is rather alluring – take it into your own hands and put it up as an ebook. I don’t blame anyone for wanting to do this – even rubbish books take a lot of time, effort and love to write. That’s just how it is.

Anyway, back to the Kindle boards. I clicked signatures and was taken to their “novels” and, my God, they were awful. I wasn’t impressed. Even the ones with professional looking covers were crap inside. Is it fair that this stuff clogs up the Kindle book store? Is it fair that I search the store on my lovely little Kindle, look at a book, and get disheartened when I see that it’s a self-published jobby with a load of fake 5* reviews?

No, it bloody isn’t. Us readers rely on publishers to take only the best to print, and even if a book or a particular genre is not to our liking, we can at least rest assured that it’s been picked for some basic saleability reasons – some basic quality reasons.

There are always exceptions, I know that. There are some high-selling self-published books that genuinely deserve the recognition they got -and I’m sure people like Amanda Hocking belong in this category in their own special way. There are also some terrible books out there, published and agented by the best of the best, which have no business being on those shelves.

But the fact still remains that 90% of this stuff is going to be rubbish, and it’s stuffing up the Kindle store. If there’s some button I can press to filter this stuff out, I’d be grateful if someone could tell me.

Anyway, I’ve had my experience of that…World now, and I’m no longer envious of all these people who are bypassing/avoiding the sheer agony of  receiving rejection after rejection from agents and publishers.

I can see now that I would rather learn from the experience and move on to write something else -however heartbreaking that is- than let people pay good money for something that just isn’t good enough for them.

After all, if it’s not good enough for your audience, then why the heck is it good enough for you? Where’s the pride in that?

Then again, I don’t think a success like Amanda Hocking really has to care about that particular dilemma anymore. She doesn’t even have to listen to this kind of debate anymore – not now she has coins in her ears. (No but seriously, to Amanda Hocking: good on you. You’ve achieved your dream and made a lot of people regret not publishing you first.)

This article by Anthony Horowitz has been circling Facebook, and I agree with pretty much everything he has to say. I think the point I’m trying to make is one that’s pretty much universally agreed upon, unless you’re the one who self-published, and it’s debated about all the time within the industry. It’s kind of a no-brainer.

But the real point for me, I think, is that I needed to dispel that burning desire I had to get something of mine out there, the likes of which lured me over to the dark side of poor quality, very, very crappy novels.

It’s not like I genuinely considered it, but it did make me jealous of these people. It is a brave thing to do on one hand, and very cowardly on the other. I think I just had to look under the bought and paid for cover art to see the cheap reality of it for myself.

Thoughts

When I look at how far I’ve come, I realise I should be proud of myself.

I’m a successful third year, published, with my first novel eagerly awaiting feedback.

Sometimes I look at the little small-press places where my work’s been featured, and I think: Christ, Ash, is that the best you could do? But I’m forgetting that I’m turning 21 in a month, and I started sending out my work when I was 17 – 18. I got my first acceptance pretty young – and coming from an indie place or not, that’s impressive. A lot of people work hard and never find that kind of encouragement – they never get that first acceptance that makes them think: “Hey, maybe I can do this after all.”

Not to mention what I’m now capable of, of course. I’ve written and edited my first book. I couldn’t have even contemplated that at one point, and when I first started to, I produced work which isn’t even a 10th of the quality my work is at now. That’s not to say I’ve written something ground-breaking, of course – my beta readers and experiences with sending out to agents will answer that question, let’s face it. But it does mean I’ve improved immensley over the last few years, and I can’t keep ignoring that.

I can’t keep re-reading old lines and mocking them just to make myself feel better. I can’t keep acting like I’ve no right to start small, and to be proud of those small acheivements. It’s not fair on myself, is it?

It’s OK, though. I know every writer goes through this – even when they’re best sellers. It’s a good thing. If a day ever comes when you don’t believe you should be trying harder, aiming higher – then my friend, that’s the day you well and truly suck. We’re our own worst critics, but those critics are necessary.

I hope one day I get to look back at my first stories and laugh. But equally, I hope I can look back on all the work I’ve done since, just like a timeline, and beam with pride at my improvements and achievements since, and recognise how those silly first stories were the beginning of the most important journey of my life.

Still…Thank God I used a pen name.

“Drinkipoos” with Quercus

So last night I arrived at a packed bar in Shoreditch Highstreet with Matt feeling kind of nervous. He’d received an invite to a writers and bloggers shindig organised by Quercus Books and I, who have actually done a placement with them before, was coming along as his +1.

You can imagine what was going through my mind. I won’t bore you with the details, but it was along the lines of: “Oh fuck nobody will remember me and we’ll be trying to sneak out unnoticed within 10 minutes of arriving”. Well, I needn’t have worried! As soon as we walked in we were greeted by the lovely Kathryn from the rights department (who actually had me packing books up on my first day) and was soon joined by the equally lovely Nicolla, assistant editor for Jo Fletcher. It turns out that they certainly hadn’t forgotten me and, amazingly, they’d known Matt and I were a couple and were counting on us coming together.

How lovely is that? All my fears were just blown away. I realised I was in for a lovely evening of chit-chat with some really lovely people – nothing more sinister than that. When Kathryn said she’d been reading our blogs, though, my heart did do a little leap. You see, this was a party for bloggers, right? Well Matt’s blog actually has a vague point to it, where as mine is full of rambling rubbish like this. Well, thank God i’d earned my place by being one of their work experience peeps!

We spent the evening chatting to Tom Fletcher, Mark from My Favourite Books, and of course the Quercus team. There was a free bar, nibbles and even a big goody-bag of books for Matt to take away. Given that Nicola had given me lots of freebies on my placement I had no right to be jealous of that, but, damnit…I kinda was. There were some awesome looking books in that bag!

As usual Quercus were so generous that every little detail made it a really delightful evening. Oh, and I may have dropped a few massive hints that I’d love to be put forward for their internship scheme whenever they think about launching it. You can bet I’ll definitely be in touch about that!

Student Magazine Project – REMINDER – I need your stuff!

My name is Ashleigh, and I’m organising a student project for my final year at Middlesex University, studying Creative and Media Writing. I plan on putting together a mock-up of a horror fiction magazine with an urban theme, where stories will undergo a selection process and my editing.
In order to present my editing abilities in this project, I need about 5 stories to demonstrate my tastes as an editor.
The final item will be produced in about 10-15 copies. I’m unable to pay, but will provide contributors with a free copy of the finished item in the mail.

Email me at Urbanlimbo@live.co.uk with your submissions/queries and I’ll get back to you asap.

I also need other content, such as film/book reviews, and details of this can be found in the post BELOW. Thanks!