This will be a short post. The universal complaint about self-published books is that they are poorly edited. They need a content editor, line editor, and proof-reader. In my book The Candy Store Generation a fried read it after publishing and found four or five errors (in 196 pages). At some point I’ll fix those and re-publish.

Today I was looking at Doctor Luke’s Assistant on Amazon, specifically at the “Customers who bought this book also bought…” section. I clicked on one of those. I won’t say what the book was. It has 13 reviews to my 12 for DLA, but a significantly lower rating mix. As I usually do I checked the lower ratings, and they contained the “lots of errors” complaint. Sine the book has a “Look Inside” feature, I went inside. The book opens like this:

On the 29th of Sivan, in the year 2449, between the Wilderness of Paran and the Wilderness of Tzin, west of Egypt and south of Canaan, in a remote desert location known as Kadesh-Barnea or Ein-Mishpat, there were fourteen hours, four minutes and forty seconds of light in a day.

I stopped there. Kadesh-Barnea is on the Sinai Peninsula, the first watering hole south of Israel/Canaan and EAST of Egypt, not WEST.

A minor detail, perhaps, but important enough that someone who knows a smidgen of geography will be turned off and not buy the book. I’d like to contact the author and advise him to fix it, but not sure that I should.

I hope I hope I hope that, in my books, I haven’t mixed up east and west anywhere.

I played around with my spreadsheet some today, and created a table of sales. Let’s see how this pulls in.

My preview indicates the table should pull in okay, so I’ll publish. This might be a little clearer for some readers than the graph is.

Forgive my absence, please. After trips to Chicago and Oklahoma City during Christmas and New Year’s, I came home sick, possibly picked up from sick grandchildren in OKC. After fighting it for several days at home, I went to the doc and learned it was flu. So I’m on antibiotics and strong cough medicine. Finally today I was well enough to go to work. The good news is I’ve lost 12 pounds through all of this. Now if I can just keep it off and lose 30 or 40 more in 2013.

I compiled my December book sales today, once I had access to the spreadsheet on my computer at work. Here’s the totals and the graph.

• “Mom’s Letter” – 1
• Documenting America – Homeschool Edition – 1
• In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People – 1
• “Whiskey, Zebra, Tango” – 3

In short, my sales have flatlined for the last five months (8, 12, 8, 7, 7) after the bump that Doctor Luke’s Assistant gave them in June and July.

I’m working on a table of book sales for the year, and will provide that in another post, either today or tomorrow.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I should have posted October book sales results several days ago. Of course, sharing bad news isn’t a pleasant thing. Perhaps that was in the back of my mind.

In October I had only eight book sales. Seven of those were on Kindle, and one was a hard copy of The Candy Store Generation that I sold at work. I actually had one more sale, at Smashwords, but the reader returned it. So I’m not counting that as a sale. Here are the numbers for October, and the totals since the items were published.

Mom’s Letter – 0 in October/23 overall

Documenting America – 0/34

Too Old To Play – 0/3

Doctor Luke’s Assistant – 3/93

The Candy Store Generation – 1/13

Documenting America, Homeschool Edition – 1/1

In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People – 1/3

Whiskey, Zebra, Tango – 2/6

The Gutter Chronicles – 0/0

8 in October/177 overall

The sales graph looks like this. Clearly I have a long way to go to having a viable writing career. Click on the graph below if you want to see it in its un-distorted condition.

Here are my book sales for August 2012, along with totals since publishing. Pretty dismal. I don’t have my spreadsheet here at home. I’ll have to add the chart from that on Tuesday when I return to the office. Numbers are August Sales/Total Sales.

“Mom’s Letter” 0/22
Documenting America 0/35
“Too Old To Play” 0/3
Doctor Luke’s Assistant 7/84
Documenting America – Homeschool Edition 0/0
The Candy Store Generation 0/12
In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People 1/1

Editing on 9/5/2012 to add a new graph in three different sizes.

I’m mostly out of energy today. I’m not sure why, since it’s raining (the remnants of the hurricane) and rain usually perks me up and energizes me. I assume it’s because my diet lately hasn’t been so good. Maybe I’ll eat right this weekend and, with the extra day of rest, will come into the office suitably energized on Tuesday.

I recently left the Yahoo group The Writers View 2 (TWV2) over comments being made, by one individual in particular but echoed by others, concerning how those who opt to self-publish are lazy. They are lazy because they don’t want to go through the process that writer did. Before he left the ministry and went full-time as a writer in 1984, he apparently went through a lengthy break-in period. He wrote magazine articles. He wrote other short pieces, he was a ghost writer or collaborator. He wrote under more than one name. And finally he published some books of his own, and his income rose to the point where he could go full-time. Of course, for many years he supplemented his income by teaching at writers conferences and mentoring other writers for a fee.

At some point about two months ago (unfortunately I didn’t save the e-mail) he said that those who opt to self-publish are lazy, that they don’t want to take the time to learn the art and craft of writing or the business of publishing, i.e. trade publishing. This, however, requires translation: Those who self-publish are trying to short-circuit the route I took, which because I took it that is the only legitimate route to being published.

Then, a couple of weeks ago he wrote this in an e-mail to the group:

if you can’t take criticism–and some people can’t–forget what I said, don’t take advantage of learning opportunities, and spend your money on self-publishing your books. Let your readers tell you how badly you write.

This also requires translation: Those who are self-published can’t take criticism. That’s why they self-publish: so that they don’t have to have editors critique their work. The don’t learn. Their readers will be the ones to critique their work.

Sorry, Mr. Experienced Full-Time Writer. I’m not lazy. Nor have I decided to short-circuit the route to being published. It’s just another route, as legitimate as the one you took. And I can take critique as well as anyone can, I’m sure as well as you can.

I chose to self-publish when it became clear to me that many publishable works were being turned down simply because of a shortage of slots at publishers; that the decision on which 1 or 2 of 10 or 20 publishable works to publish was made on sequential gatekeepers whose criteria was a guesstimate of which book would sell best, and that their track record in making these choices was abysmal.

I chose to self-publish in part because you wrote that you didn’t feel your publishers gave you much in the way of editorial services, which was a change from when you broke in. Several others agreed, and most publishing professionals (writers, agents, editors) now advise that the person who wants to break into trade publishing should hire a freelance editor to go over their manuscript before they submit to an agent or editor. These same insiders advise the writer considering self-publishing to do the same. So what’s the difference?

Anyhow, having been called lazy, having been accused of not being able to take criticism, having been accused of not being willing to learn, I left TWV2. If I want to be abused, better it come from someone who bought my book and left a 1 star review than by a bunch of out of touch publishing insiders. At least I would have a sale.

Today the monthly newsletter of Mr. Experienced Full-Time Writer arrived in my e-inbox. I forgot I was subscribed to it. Another bridge burned, though silently as this writer’s un-subscription service doesn’t ask you for a reason for unsubscribing.

I think I’ll enjoy this holiday weekend.