Self Publish are we really all wrong!

I have read a load of blurb about self publishing authors and i find myself asking the question "are we really that bad"
Ok we have gone down the Self Publishing route, so what?, surely if everybody waited to get noticed first there would be so much talent out there that would not bother with there own books.
If we want to blow our own trumpets straight away with no real fuss then SP is ideal, OK the chances are slim that we will become the next best seller but for some of us the sheer thrill of knowing when we are long dead and buried our names will still be out there in writing is reward enough.
Is it only myself or do a lot of us still have a dream? i personally do not write books thinking oh well i may sell a hundred if im lucky, i have a dream that one day my books will be turned into a film, but if they don't i will not know because i will be still be writing until the day i die, so you see my dream will stay with me:)
PS. A dream a day keeps the demons away:)

Paul, my advice, for what it is worth, is to pay more attention to what you own instinct tells you, and forget the flack. You know your work; you know your situation. Do what you think is best for you.

Ann

Though some few self-published books have done well; the ones who send me theirs to review are often too long for what they had to say and lack creative edits. They tell more than they show, they tell it too many times, and they like their own words too much to let any of them hit the cutting floor.

If a person is going to self-publish, they need to have a ruthless editor to cut through the beautiful words and keep the main story.

I don't have a lot to add to what Ann and DK have already said. If it seems right for you do it, but at the very least have an unbiased edit done before releasing it and take any criticism to heart.

How do you find a good editor though... and what are the going rates?

I'd suggest asking people on this forum to send you a private email to recommend editors they know.

I choose to use a small press instead of self-publishing for the benefits of a good editor and a graphic artist for the covers.

I'm one of those that uses too many words, tells instead of shows, and thinks every word is a selected treasure. I need a vicious editor.

I like vicious... you should see how the printed version of Stacy Black looks right about now... I have changed the tense of it... and there is more lead on each page than ink.

I would love for another vicious person to go over it....once my assault on it is over.

For the cover I have hired a freelance artist... but with an editor I would be more selective.

What are some of the going rates... I have no clue... if anybody knows... toss me a mail in the inbox... ballpark figures... I am not looking for anybody to divulge guarded secrets.

Huggles,
Katja

I do know rates vary from how clean the manuscript starts.

That would make sense, since less clean means more work for the editor.

My writing always starts out VERY rough. I free write everything and then I fine comb over it to the best of my ability... and after that I go over it again.

Just out of curiosity, how often do you read over a work once you have it in your computer?

Huggles,
Katja

Not really sure too sure how this thread went from "why self published books have got such a bad image, to "Use a good editor" ? , this happens regardless of Self Publishing or not, bizarre! or am i missing something? i am assuming even SP authors will get the books edited before published.
Just goes to show writing is like a text, easy to misunderstand what someone is trying to say

I have a work history as an editor, and I tend to edit as I go (from my perspective). After the work is complete, I go through it in print and I read it out loud. I make corrections and view it in the computer and then print again, read again aloud, make changes and send it on.

I just finished a 700 word news article that I wrote four times in four different ways - and after I sent it in, found an error. Our brain wants to believe we are perfect and reads perfection where imperfection exists.

I believe its a major contribution to road safety

@ Paul
I have never published anything, but my Kindle and Nook are in constant use.

I am sure that there are a lot of SP authors who do not use editors, because I have downloaded quiet a few books that were worst than my own writing.

With that being said.... I think editing fits nicely in your post. Besides, your post did not die (yet) does that not warrant a yuhuuuuuuuu
Just a little early-morning humor

Huggles,
Katja

@DK

Your reply is very helpful. I thought I was slightly OCD, reading over my stuff over and over again, playing with the tense and shifting things around numerous times.

Huggles,
Katja

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MarketPlace beta!

AuthorsDen Marketplace > Book Editing
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Professional, affordable editing - $.02 per word
Book Editing - $5.00 per page

This is copied from Authorsden.com with some prices for edits. Just an FYI

@ DK

You are a DOLL for posting that over. Wow.... $5 a page that is a steep!
I will check Authorsden.com and see what else I can find.
Tons of thanks for the link.

After my (so far) great experience with odesk... I am debating to put a job posting for the edit on there- after all- if I do not like any of the applicants, I do not have to hire ...
I still have some time to debate this- since I am still doing my own editing. I have found some issues with the storyline after reading it over carefully.

Huggles,
Katja

My thread has turned into a full blown advert for editors now lol i want commission

I think it really depends on what your goals are. I want to make a career of writing novels, so self-publishing isn't for me. It's rare that self-published books become even mid-list sellers. I tend not to read them for the same reasons cited by some of the previous posters.

But some people are happy just getting their work out there and selling a few hundred copies. Self-publishing works for them.

There is nothing wrong with that.

I have a close friend who is twice published by one of the big houses as a middle-grade author, but she has an adult novel she wrote more than a decade ago and couldn't even get an agent to consider. I read it. It's good, but it's not great. I can understand why agents passed it over. She decided to self-publish it just because it had sentimental value and she didn't want to see it go to waste.

I hear what you are saying. I have had similar thoughts; however, with the changing technology and the publisher greed, self-publishing is looking better all the time if we can just police our own quality. Reviewers who once would not touch a self-published book are now reviewing them. Times are changing.

The self-publishers that have done the best are those who already have a platform from which to sell their books - speaking engagements, a special expertise, etc. They charge a fee for their talk and include their book. Really, no one bothers to see who published it. As a teacher, I went to many in-service activities that were run like that. Some educator got an idea he could sell to staff development and sold hundreds of his self-published books along with it. I felt the same about those - most had good themes - but many had an amateur quality in spite of the useful content.

Another place I have seen editors advertised is the booktown.ning.com (I think that's it - )

I still advertise that I will edit, but I found the manuscripts submitted and the amount of edits needed were often a difference of opinion between the author and me. I just couldn't take their money and only change what they saw as needed.

I practically ghost wrote one book - that was the end!

@ DK

Am in a bit of a rush and thought I would just check by before I head out- and realized that my reply to you got lost.

Thanks loads for the info and I will try to track down where in the world I have posted my reply... sigh...

Huggles,
Katja

Hope is always a good thing


FAMOUS SELF-PUBLISHED BOOKS:

Remembrance of things Past, by Marcel Proust

Ulysses, by James Joyce

The Adventures of Peter Rabbit, by Beatrix Potter

The Wealthy Barber, by David Chilton

The Bridges of Madison County

What Color is Your Parachute

In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters

The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield

The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. (and his student E. B. White)

The Joy of Cooking

When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple

Life’s Little Instruction Book

Robert’s Rules of Order

OTHER FAMOUS AUTHORS WHO SELF-PUBLISHED

Deepak Chopra

Gertrude Stein

Zane Grey

Upton Sinclair

Carl Sandburg

Ezra Pound

Mark Twain

Edgar Rice Burroughs

Stephen Crane

Bernard Shaw

Anais Nin

Thomas Paine

Virginia Wolff

e.e. Cummings

Edgar Allen Poe

Rudyard Kipling

Henry David Thoreau

Benjamin Franklin

Walt Whitman

Alexandre Dumas

William E.B. DuBois

Beatrix Potter


REJECTED BY PUBLISHERS

Kathryn Sockett - The Help - 60 times

Pearl S. Buck - The Good Earth - 14 times

Norman Mailer - The Naked and the Dead - 12 times

Patrick Dennis- Auntie Mame - 15 times
George Orwell - Animal Farm

Richard Bach - Jonathan Livingston Seagull - 20 times

Joseph Heller - Catch-22 - 22 times (!)

Mary Higgins Clark - first short story - 40 times

Alex Haley - before Roots - 200 rejections

Robert Persig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - 121 times

John Grisham - A Time to Kill - 15 publishers and 30 agents (he ended up publishing it himself)

Chicken Soup for the Soul - 33 times

Dr. Seuss - 24 times

Louis L'Amour - 200 rejections

Jack London - 600 before his first story

John Creasy - 774 rejections before selling his first story. He went on to write 564 books, using fourteen names.

Jerzy Kosinski - 13 agents and 14 publishers rejected his best-selling novel when he submitted it under a different name, including Random House, which had originally published it.
Diary of Anne Frank

During his entire lifetime, Herman Melville's timeless classic, Moby Dick, sold only 3,715 copies.