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2014-02-07 Home Front: Culture Wars

The Sh*t Volcano From An Indie Author's Perspective

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Posted by badanov 2014-02-07 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11134 views ] Top

#1 This makes me wonder if editors will start to free lance the way authors have obviously started to do. Link the two together & this puzzle just might be solved.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2014-02-07 01:16|| 2014-02-07 01:16|| Front Page Top

#2 I do the best I can with the resources I do have

I was raised on an axiom from the depression days.
"Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without"

Chris your attitude is the only way that a free, individualistic society can prosper. All too often the prevailing mood is that of rent seeking greed heads, from crack hos, to Fortune 500 CEOs it's all about what the gov't. will give you or take from others.

Posted by AlanC 2014-02-07 08:09|| 2014-02-07 08:09|| Front Page Top

#3 *clears throat gently* Why, yes, as a matter of fact, AH - editors are free-lancing their services. The woman who founded the Tiny Bidness that she is retiring and handing over to me earned a very nice living as a free-lance editor ... and in fact, the Tiny Bidness does editing as a sideline, and for a heck of a lot less than $5,000. The last edit-only job that we had, we did a substantive and a line edit for $1,600. (The reviews of the book are very positive, and yes, I think we did a good job of nudging the plot development into something tight and orderly.)
No, indy publishing is not going away, and although quite a lot of the products (especially the e-books) are pretty awful, there is too darned much good stuff that would have been consigned to a slush pile at an establishment press and never seen the light of day otherwise.
Some books - especially non-fiction - are intended for a specific and small audience.
The figures for the sale of an average book (everything from the mega-huge best seller to the little memoir which only sells to family members) is estimated somewhere around 2-300 copies. Sell more than that, you're ahead of the game, even if you're not in Harry Potter territory.
As one of the commenters on the rant linked to, Amazon would just as soon have a cut of a million books selling one copy each, as they would a cut of a million copies of a single book. Amazon also has a self-publishing house of their own, so I honestly can't see them dropping the ban-hammer on indy authors any time.

Posted by Sgt. Mom 2014-02-07 09:06|| http://www.celiahayes.com 2014-02-07 09:06|| Front Page Top

#4 My new-ish hobby is finding and reading indie e-books. Much of it is drek, but even in those there's a gem or two (like the imagery of five overweight Boston golfers "warming up' in the club parking lot to disco music.) At the worst, I'm out a couple of bucks and maybe thirty minutes of my time.

This is all in its infancy, or rather, a rebirth of what it was like back in the 18th century. The support infrastructure will grow to meet the need provided, as you said, that the elites don't try to kill it off.

Posted by Pappy 2014-02-07 12:18|| 2014-02-07 12:18|| Front Page Top

#5 That bloviated word muncher would have all cooking done away with which wasn't done at a name brand restaurant.

Or imagine a college basketball scout going to a high school game and demanding that only players 6'5" and taller be able to play. Same as football; Russell Williams - too small for the NFL, no need to check him out. SIT volcano indeed, but from that keyboard pounder, "Don't follow your dreams because it interferes with my search of what might be trendy and I won't be able to say read it first."

I have an original board game, and two variations on a popular established board game where their variations do not even come close to. This star sniffer is saying that because Wallyworld isn't interested I should be banned from attempting to sell my games.

Eat my knuckles asshole, because this is the very point of America.

Posted by swksvolFF 2014-02-07 12:19|| 2014-02-07 12:19|| Front Page Top

#6 Problem with publishers is they hate the fact an indie author can sell for $1 to give folks a taste. Yes it might be a foul taste but then you've only lost a $1. Publishers can't afford to do that, they work on the other end of paying mass cash to advertise the big tent pole books hoping to subsidize the losses they make on everything else. Sooner or later they will end the everything else line and just try to buy out successful indies to be tent poles but ... and here is the thing, a number of successful writers have decided to go indie now that they have name recognition they can also have control and all of the profits.

Normal publishing is nearly dead and they know it.

Posted by rjschwarz 2014-02-07 14:57|| 2014-02-07 14:57|| Front Page Top

#7 Sarah Hoyt --- who has the experience, has quite a few things to say on the subject

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2014-02-07 16:54|| 2014-02-07 16:54|| Front Page Top

#8 Oh, yes - Sarah Hoyt has heaps to say regarding The State of Mainstream Publishing Today.
Just for jollies, I went and read some of the linked essay and some of the ones linked it it ... sigh, yes, I'd guess that 90% of the indy/self/published books are cr*p. So are 90% of the mainstream pubbed - I mean, Snookie? For real?

The nicest thing that Amazon did for readers was to enable the 'look inside' feature. Yes, dear people - you can actually look at the first chapter or two of a print or e-book, and decide yourself if it is a book that you want to read. There is no one pointing a gun at your head forcing you to buy the book and read the whole darned thing. The numbskull demanding that Amazon do something about the so-called sh*t volcano strikes me as a lazy sod demanding that Amazon do his book selection for him.

Posted by Sgt. Mom 2014-02-07 17:49|| http://www.celiahayes.com 2014-02-07 17:49|| Front Page Top

#9 #8 Sgt. Mom - Amazon also allows customers to borrow a book (1 per month, IIRC), and the author still gets paid. You have to sign up for this, and there are some other requirements, but I actually get a little more for a loaned book than a sold book. (How much depends on the money pool Amazon has for that month to pay authors for loaned books.)

I signed up at first just to get the book "out there," but I'm still signed up since they're paying me. ;-p

Posted by Barbara 2014-02-07 18:45|| 2014-02-07 18:45|| Front Page Top

#10 What a lovely sequence of rants.

Inspired by this thread, my next book of poetry will be entitled, Sturm und Drek.

I will edit it myself.

Posted by rammer 2014-02-07 23:48|| 2014-02-07 23:48|| Front Page Top

23:48 rammer
23:02 OldSpook
22:55 OldSpook
22:50 Anguper Hupomosing9418
22:39 Anguper Hupomosing9418
22:36 Anguper Hupomosing9418
22:06 Pappy
21:51 Creating Brown2157
21:24 Creating Brown2157
20:43 Zenobia Floger6220
20:12 JosephMendiola
19:45 newc
19:27 tipper
19:26 tipper
19:20 Procopius2k
19:17 SteveS
19:09 swksvolFF
18:52 Deacon Blues
18:45 JosephMendiola
18:45 Barbara
18:40 JosephMendiola
18:24 NoMoreBS
18:10 Iblis
17:49 Sgt. Mom