Yesterday I blogged about re-thinking my decision to go with self-publishing and cease beating my head against a wall of traditional publishers and their gatekeeper infrastructure. I suppose I’m not really rethinking that decision, but rather re-stating it and expanding on the reasons why I made it.

I actually wrote that post some time the day before that and scheduled it to post later. Since then, several other posts to TWV2 have been made. One writer who is under consideration for a contract with a traditional publisher for a Bible study said she received an e-mail from the publisher, saying what they are expecting of her for a platform: so many Facebook followers by a fixed date; so many speaking engagements by a fixed date. More on platform later.

Another writer, who has been at it full time for close to thirty years, told how he has seen the pub house editing function change over the years. Once they had multiple editors assigned to a project. An editor for proof-reading, and editor for checking quotes, a general editor, etc. Five or six different editors touched and tweaked the contents of a book before it went out. But that changed, this writer said:

About 20 years ago I saw a drastic change: Publishers eliminated many of those positions, citing smaller profits. Today the responsibility is on writers. The most I get from a CBA or ABA publisher is what I call a broad-brush editor, who makes a general edit. After I respond, I receive the copyedited manuscript. Sometimes that version is the print proofs, but usually, I receive one final time to catch typos and punctuation errors-and there are always a few.

So again, I ask myself, and the traditional publishers in the world: What is the advantage to the writer to go with you? If you aren’t even going to edit our books, not even proof-read them, we might as well publish them ourselves.

The debate rages in the blogosphere about traditional publishing (or, as some call it, legacy publishing) and self-publishing. This debate has always raged, waning and waxing according to what new self-publishing company is ripping off how many writers, but technology has brought it once more to the forefront. Electronic self-publishing, or eSP as I call it, along with affordable print-on-demand printing processes, have changed the game. The cost to self-publish, especially to eSP, has gone way down. The playing field between traditional and self-publishing is much closer to level.

I’ve blogged about this before, but want to again. Rachelle Gardner, Christian literary agent, wrote a post in defense of traditional publishing and asked readers to say why they intended to publish traditionally. I want to say that Rachelle is very fair and even-handed about the two methods. She doesn’t overstate the advantages of traditional nor trump up the detriments of self-. I found the 200+ comments to be quite interesting, and wanted to discuss the reasons people give for wanting to embrace traditional publishing or avoid self-publishing. Those are not the same thing.

The first issue is one of quality. Self-published books are poorly done, the commenters said. The writing is poor, the editing is poor (or non-existent), the printing is poor, the binding is cheap, and the covers are amateurish. You look at a self-published book, you can tell right away that it was self-published, and then shy away from it.

That might have been true at one time, but I think the quality gap is closing. At least it is closing for the best produced self-published books and the average pub house’s book. Again, this is partly a technology thing. POD is now so inexpensive to set up any computer literate person can do it—provided it isn’t an illustrated book. Computer art technology makes excellent cover production inexpensive, and again can perhaps be done by the writer with only a modest learning curve to climb. Binding and paper quality are also overcome in the POD process, so I’m told. So you can have POD self-published books that are as good in physical quality as a traditionally published book.

What about the editing? On The Writers View 2, the current question is what would you like to ask an editor. One member said she wanted to ask an editor at a major Christian pub house why their books are so full of errors: typos and grammar. She marks the books, she says, and reports them to the pub house, which invariably then asks her to send them the needed edits, a request she declines to fulfill without payment. An editor who is on TWV2 panel responded this way:
Wow! I just watched an earth-moving machine, maybe a D-7 dozer (a big one), take a huge swipe out of the playing field. If pub houses are no longer going to guarantee their books to be as error-free as they can possibly make them, then how are they better than self-published books? Content editing, copy editing, line editing, and proof-reading have always been touted as a reason why traditionally published books are better. As Inspector Clouseau would say, “Not any more.”

Other issues in Rachelle’s blog, including quality of the writing, will have to wait for another post.

…the rising incidence of typos is inevitable as revenues and time allotted for the final proofing stage decline, I’m afraid. The final proof is usually the last in a long line of missed deadlines, and all involved often have their hands tied. Those with responsibility for quality control before print often have their hands tied because of scheduling, lack of competent freelance proofers, or even incomplete collating of those proof edits in-house (if there were an uncommonly high number, some always get missed).

Last night they said we would have snow showers today, with no mention of accumulation. So I assumed that meant a dusting, with no accumulation. This morning that was changed to a winter weather advisory, with 1 to 3 inches expected. Right now it’s snowing heavily, and has been snowing since 10 AM, sometimes light, sometimes heavy. It’s pretty out there, but not exactly what I’d call “snow showers”. Oh, well, I don’t suppose the weather dudes can get it right every time. They did really well the last time.

So this noon hour I spent time researching the Kindle publishing process. Talk about confused! I have so much to learn. Somewhere I read that you basically create a Word document, don’t use footers or a few other features, upload it to Kindle, add page breaks, and publish. But today in the FAQ, or somewhere on the Kindle pages for would-be self-publishers, I saw all kinds of talk about html. I don’t know html, and despite some attempt to learn it I have failed. If I have to learn html to eSP, I’m done before I start. Surely I’m confused as to what it will take.

I finally managed to get to the Kindle Forums, and will start browsing. I have always found the forums, wherever I go online, as a good place to start and to get information. Perhaps browsing the forums will be the cure to my confusion.

So, the activities to further my writing career are going on these lines. First, complete works to eSP. I’ve mentioned these in previous posts. Second, learn the mechanics of eSP. This may take longer than I’d like, and may end up being more a case of doing than of learning. Third, I’ll continue with my freelancing work. Suite101 and Buildipedia are my two main outlets for this. I’m not actively chasing any other freelance gigs. The one for Safe Highway Matters came to me without any marketing on my part.

I guess that’s a pretty good game plan. It’s certainly enough for the moment. Later there will be more works, and more learning, and promotion of eSP works. I can’t really think that far ahead. In fact, it’s now after 5 PM. My thoughts have turned to the drive home, with a stop at Wal-Mart on the way to pick up the urgently needed things so we don’t have to go out tomorrow. For the next 90 minutes I’ll be able to work without confusion, on the mundane tasks of life, concentrating on the shopping and the roads.

Over at Joe Konrath’s blog, the discussion about e-self-publishing goes on and on. Joe is a big proponent of it, and lately he’s had a series of guest blogs (with plenty of his thoughts added) from writers who have successfully ESP-ed. Some of them have a prior print publishing background; some don’t. Monday’s post by Blake Crouch is a good example. As always, the discussion that follows these guest posts is both informative and entertaining. Here are some examples.

by Blake: To be paid monthly to write exactly what you want to write and have absolute control over the presentation is an amazing thing. …to me, the best thing about the ebook revolution isn’t the money. It’s the unlimited creative potential. No more asking permission to write the book you’re dying to write. No more constraints on form.

by Joe: Self-publishing is a guarantee it will find some readers, while pursuing a traditional publishing contract is still a long shot.

by Michael: I can’t emphasize too strongly that this is an age of STAGGERING opportunity for writers. …To be free to write any length you want, in any genre, without some [expletive deleted] editor telling you how to do it, is pleasure enough in itself. But to be able to publish so easily, so quickly, and stand at least some change of making money—hard to believe.

I’ve been trying to think of a metaphor that describes what is happening to the publishing industry as the e-reader/e-book revolution comes storming on. I’ve heard that before an avalanche there is a “cracking” sound, then the snow comes down. Maybe that’s a good analogy. The publishing snow is cracking, the avalanche of e-book sales is about to start, and the traditional publishers are not listening. I read in several books about prisoners of war who escaped from prisoner-of-war camps via tunneling that the sand also does this cracking sound right before a cave in. Perhaps either metaphor applies.

Yet, in those cases there is no falling sand or sliding snow before the deluge. In the publishing industry, e-book sales are 11 percent of total book sales, although this data may be several months old. So there’s something visible and measurable going on. It’s not just a cracking sound. Maybe it’s more like either a flash flood or a gradually rising flood. The water is there, making enough sound that the person not paying attention to what is coming from upstream doesn’t realize a flood is coming. This seems an apt metaphor to the situation.

When Gutenberg invented movable type, the copyist industry fairly quickly went out of business. Now digital devices are slowly driving print out of business. Oh, print books will never disappear completely. e-books won’t even command a majority of market share for some time, maybe a decade. But it’s going to go up from 11 percent. The flood is coming.