Steven Orlowski's Blog: Steve O's "So What?" Blog - Posts Tagged "fantasy"

Well, I'm a winner. Finally. It's not that life hasn't been good to me, but I can't recall winning something as random as a raffle before.

I must admit, it feels pretty good. I won signed copies of the five stories that make up Hugh Howey's bestselling book "Wool".

You see, I started following Hugh because he is extremely successful as an independent author.

He self-published Wool and the rest of his Silo series to great success. Actually, I knew of Hugh for months before getting down to reading his book.

I thought there must be some marketing magic that Hugh was performing to become so successful. But there isn't...

The truth is Wool is a great book. I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to reading the rest of the series.

And I'll gladly add Hugh's signed books to my small collection of autographed editions.

But more importantly for me, and for other aspiring self-publishing success stories, I've learned that the secret to success isn't social media or marketing, it's writing the best book you can.

Good books will always find their audience. And success will come to those that earn it by writing well.

So thanks Hugh. I look forward to receiving the books. And I as I write my next book I will keep you in mind. If I manage to achieve even a fraction of the success you have I will be satisfied knowing that it's the story that counts.

Over the past few years the publishing business has been altered radically. A handful of very successful independently published authors have trail-blazed a different and better way of writing for a living.

Not only have they proven that some authors do not need an agent or a publisher to sell a lot of books, but they have also changed the way indie authors do business with mainstream publishers and agents.

A few authors have been able to sign publishing deals for hardcover and paperback book rights while keeping the ebook rights all to themselves. This was unheard of a few years ago. Hell, when I finished the first draft of my novel six years ago the standard advice was to not self publish. If the book didn't sell well, and even if it did I was told, a mainstream agent or publisher would not touch you or the book.

So the success of these indie authors is great news for all authors, some of whom are relinquishing their traditional publishing contracts in exchange for the control and freedom to publish their entire catalogs in perpetuity.

But what I find interesting, if not a little disturbing, is the focus on marketing, not writing.

I read a lot of blogs, websites, newsletters and watch videos published by indie authors. I want to know what works so I can market my books effectively. It is a necessary evil. But we all need to know how to do it.

I also read a lot of books. I download a lot of samples to my Kindle before I buy. Many indie authors are writing and publishing a lot of books. Some seem to believe the secret to success is to publish a lot of books as fast as possible.

Some of them are selling their books too. More books than I am in many cases. But when I read them, often just the sample, I am amazed at how poorly written so many of them are.

But when an industry changes as fast as the publishing industry has this kind of phenomenon is anticipated. It is not new, nor is it relegated to the book publishing industry. Frankly it can be witnessed throughout history.

The pendulum effect I speak of is this un-tethering of an industry from long held practices which opens the door, the prior "barrier to entry" as in the query letter process, to any and everyone who ever thought they might someday want to write a book.

So I am conflicted when I think about it, and I am as I write this post. As an author I am ecstatic that things have changed thus. When I finished Pilgrimage I sent out dozens of query letters. I got not one indication of interest.

I put Pilgrimage in the proverbial drawer (I just didn't open the Word document) for more than four years. It wasn't until I began reading about the breakout success of authors like John Locke, Colleen Hoover and Hugh Howey that I started thinking seriously that maybe I should self-publish also.

The problem I see is the tremendous amount of poorly written books. Now I haven't read John Locke or Colleen Hoover, but I have Mr. Howey, and I thought at first that Hugh was a great marketer so I watched him from afar to learn his secrets for months without reading anything he had written.

Eventually I did read the original Wool story, because I got it for free, and after which I paid for and read the whole Wool Omnibus. But that purchase only occurred because Hugh writes well. I'm not saying he is the next Hemingway, nor am I, but he cares about writing well.

But too many samples I download, by authors with decent rankings and seemingly genuine reviews, are quite poorly written.

And that is where the pendulum comes in. I suspect this publishing industry transformation is near the peak of the "writer as marketer" emphasis. I mean, I have watched podcasts and read interviews where the writers talk nothing about writing and all about giveaways and social media and other stuff. Yes, we all need to understand how to market our selves and our books but it should be secondary to the craft of storytelling.

I think the general reading public, not those of us who are both readers and writers, will begin to tire of low quality offerings and more and more book sales will begin to concentrate around the indie authors who have established a reputation for quality, not just quantity or effective marketing skills

The appeal of getting a book for free is fantastic. But if I have to spend hours of my life reading something that sucks the cost to me is far greater. I'd rather spend $10.00 for a great book than $3.00 for a mediocre one or $0.00 for a piece of garbage.

Speaking of $3.00 books, over the last month I've experienced a large increase in sales. For me that means selling books every day where in the past I could go weeks without a single sale.

Part of the influence is, I hope, the result of my book's reviews. I don't have many but they are all good, mostly 5 star, and all real.

I think, however, this recent increase in sales can be traced back almost to the day that I changed the cover for the third time.

One of my recent reviews was by a fellow Goodreads author who liked the book but hated the cover. He said the cover was boring and wasn't indicative of the story inside.

I already suspected that but his words motivated me to take action and change the cover again. I do all my own cover work, and it takes time, but I got a cover together and I am happy with it. And I think it has made a difference.

I am curious to hear from other authors who have had similar experience. Has the cover been that influential to your success? And what about quality versus quantity in indie publishing? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Steve

Stephen King is one of my favorite authors. He has also written what may be my favorite book in any genre, On Writing.

It's a great look into the mind of a great writer. And it is more autobiography than it is reference material for wannabe writers.

Writing is a creative endeavor. And Mr. King leaves much of the technical writing considerations to the vast amount of other books on writing. He provides a more meaningful insight into the life of one of the greats of American letters.

So I hacked his book's title for this blog post. That's because I have recently come to recognize the need for authors to have editors.

My best friend was reading my novel Pilgrimage recently. When we got together last weekend he glibly pointed out several errors in the book. I don't mean to suggest he was happy there were errors; just that he was happy he found them.

The errors were nothing terrible, just basic oversights like misspelled words and misplaced punctuation. But that meant I had to go back through the manuscript once again. So as I work on completing my next book I am back to reediting Pilgrimage.

It's a bummer, but it needs to be done. I don't want readers to avoid future books of mine because of sloppy editing in the version of Pilgrimage they read (earlier versions had more errors. Unfortunately, as far as I can determine, Amazon does not automatically update the books on your Kindle with the most recent, revised edition. I hear that is coming, however).

Which brings me to professional editing. I think authors, being the creative minds that I presume we all are, tend to get lost in the story even when editing. It is too hard for us to look at the manuscript objectively, and therefore are prone to missing things that need correction.

But it is expensive to hire an editor. And I'm sure it is a challenge to qualify one unless the editor has been referred to you.

So for now I'll be reediting Pilgrimage myself. But it must be nice to have an editor like Stephen King does. To know that someone will be checking the manuscript for you before publication eliminates much of the worry and presumably allows the writer to focus exclusively on the story.

Someday. Someday.