“Continual exposure over time results in sales.” Yes, and I think authors have to realize that visibility has to come first. It might be a slower process to build sales, but building a lasting audience should be the ultimate goal.

The self-publishing industry is not new, just cheaper and more immediate as you say and thus ever more dangerous. Still, going the route of a trade publisher or even an independent or small publisher is tough. But the pay off is that getting a publisher is going to force you to distance yourself from your work and that will improve it exponentially once the heart and soul are in place.

The first time I read “Flirting in Spanish” it was a self-published eBook. As a publisher, I cringed at the typos, formatting issues and inconsistencies. Yet, the story was so strong that once I started I could not stop reading it. And that should be the only job of the author…to get the story right…the characters, setting, plot and organization need to be in place, be utterly demanding of attention and ultimately shout: everyone needs to read this book. That’s what a publisher wants to hear upon reading a synopsis, pitch, or the first 25 pages.

I strongly believe the author needs a publisher. They need a publisher to ensure that it is copy edited and line edited. They need a publisher to design an attractive presentation, to define its audience (for promotion and sales) and maybe more importantly DISTRIBUTE IT! Self publishing fails on almost all those levels. Sure, we’ve heard about the handful of self-published titles that got lucky, made it big, found a trade publisher, or even earned movie rights, but that is the exception, not the rule.

At Antaeus, we believe that compelling stories and serious authors deserve the services of a publisher. Though we certainly do not publish all the manuscripts that cross our threshold, for many reasons the least of which include genre or marketability, when a story is worth telling, we want to give it a fighting chance!

Carry on, Susan. You are an interesting artist and I can’t wait to see what’s up next for you!

I agree wholeheartedly with your post. All anyone has to do is to subscribe to BookDaily.com and let their system send you random chapters. You’ll get some self-published chapters and some published chapters.

If I had a dollar for every opening paragraph I’ve read, and immediately known that the work was self-published, I’d be rich.

Writing is both art and craft, but to let the art shine, you should know the craft as well. I cannot understand why so many self-published authors don’t realize that their ignorance is showing from the get-go. The ability to self-publish is a wonderful freedom, but every freedom comes with correlative responsibilities: to society and to oneself. If you have something important to say or an important story to tell, surely you owe it to yourself and to the public to say or tell it in the best way possible. (That said, I know some excellent self-published works.)

And I definitely agree with your comment about self-publishing authors banding together to cross-promote their books, sometimes without even having read the works they’re cross-promoting. Surely they must realize that you are known by the company you keep, and if you keep company with poor writing, you will be tarred with the same brush.

Something you didn’t mention, but I have no doubt you’re aware of this, most of the self-published authors I know, I don’t know, i.e., I know nothing about them, but I sure as heck know everything about their book and the steps they’re taking to promote it. I’ve unfriended many of them on Facebook because they help only each other to promote, and really don’t add much value to my interactions with people there. I’m tired of being spammed all the time. They seem to have no idea that other writers are not their audiences. Yes, writers read (or ought to, as you said), and writers do buy books, but we can’t buy every book out there simply because we “know” the author. These people should focus more on building relationships (assuming they’ve written a good book, of course) with their readers than on constant promotion.

With over 3,000,000 books flooding the market last year, due, in large part, to the ability to self-publish, it becomes even more difficult for good books to be noticed. I worry about the potential “dumbing down” of public taste, to the point that good writing becomes simply a niche market.

Self-pub writers do sometimes fall into that hype-yourself-with-fake-reviews trap–I have resisted such tactics–but most of those in my contact circles do not, replying on mere reminders to their eBooks buyers to ‘like’ and tweet and comment.

In my opinion, getting “top” authors to contribute to the Kindle Store is not going to make that big an impact. Consumers will only accept so much change, branding tactics and price gouging before they seek other means of literary gratification. Best-selling books are downloaded from 4shared (and other file-sharing sites) at a rate that would make any author shake in their proverbial boots, and the number of free novels available online makes any newbie self-pubber think twice (and thrice again) before even trying to join the eBook race.