A Book's a Book for A' That: Musings on Indie Authorship

veryone knows that I am a great proponent of independent publishing, that recently amplified industry formerly known as self publishing or less complimentary terms. I have had reason lately to look at indie authorship through more experienced eyes as I read commercially published novels that seem to lack the right to the stamp of automatic superior quality and indie books that match or exceed them in quality. Might we be seeing a real move to populist publishing?

And everyone knows my position on why indie publishing is important. With the economy troubled and the changing nature of the commercial publishing industry into a risk adverse industry, good books are no longer necessarily the product this industry seeks. More and more the role of the editor in making the choice as to what gets published is being ceded to the marketing department. This is for a reason. The highly leveraged publishing corporations no longer can take a chance on new authors. They must go with the tried and true moneymaker. Unfortunately what sells is being defined by said marketing department. You might say, "Well, they just go by sales, right?" Yes, but conclusions drawn from the numbers can be wrong. I am constantly hearing that "publishers won't accept" this topic or theme or character. Some examples in historical fiction are eras other than Tudor England, countries other than England, first person narratives by men, and gay or lesbian protagonists.

What I want to know is, where do they get this? For it to be experience, they must have taken a chance on books with characteristics they deem unpopular. I have not myself seen evidence of this. Perhaps they do research on consumer preferences. Now, I ask you, is there not a big difference between what you think you will buy based on the question, "Would you buy a book about a lesbian?" and what you might actually read if you heard about a novel others have read and enjoyed? Do the publishing companies choose what books they accept rather on their own assessments of why a book did or did not sell that are based on their own prejudices or simple misapprehension?

OK, the fact is that this is how the publishing world works. It is not likely to change, no matter the eloquence of my minstrelsy. Now let's look at independently published books. Yes, there is some real crap out there, but more and more I am finding that just because a book was published by a big publisher is no guarantee that it is all that good. Again, they publish what sells or what they perceive will sell. On the other hand, I have read some top flight novels of late where the author chose to go the indie route. A stellar example is The Afflicted Girls by Suzy Witten. A novel I am reading now, The Amber Treasure by Richard Denning is shaping up to be another. Both these novels would be tossed out labeled as crap by some bookstores, certainly overlooked by "reputable" review publications and most certainly overlooked by libraries. Yet they are some of the better novels I have read in some time.

So what are you saying, Nan? How can authors manage without that corporate stamp of approval? I don't know yet. My ever wise husband Jim says that the independent book will inevitably come into its own. The big corporate publishers are like the dinosaurs, just too big to survive the scarcity of the resource they feed on, that being money. He believes that in particular the growing ebook industry will be the new adaptable species that thrives in the new climate. And it will ultimately be the consumer, the reader, who makes this happen.

Power to the People Who Buy Books. May they find what they wish to read, not what a marketing department thinks they do.

I subtitled this essay "Musings on Indie Authorship". By doing that I meant to focus on two things: the quality of books coming out of the indie publishing industry and the choice each author has to make about how to proceed. I have established that indie does not equal low quality, no matter the common wisdom, but I can't tell any author whether to go with a commercial publlisher or stay independent. The fact is this is the transition time. It will be years before the vaunted critical mass will visibly lean to the indie side assuming it is going to do that. I expect that necessity will rule in this matter, for the author I mean. You can stoutly declare that you won't surrender and publish on your own, but if that means your novel will never be published, you might change your tune. Given the way the econom y is going, that is even the more likely outcome. I am as stuck between this proverbial rock and hard place as you are. I know what I want to do with my latest manuscript, but what I will eventually do is quite another thing.

Patience. We can do our bit to help support indie authors by buying their books and publicly praising those we value. Ultimately I suspect the movers will be the ebook companies that are growing rapidly to fill niche desires in reading. That is as it should be, as the books that should be published are the ones that people want to read. It is encouraging to see companies like Smashwords moving into a larger market share -- they are now supplying ebooks for Amazon.com -- as their consumer base is broader and their appeal as well.

We have no choice really but to wait and see and do what our individual judgment directs us to choose for our beloved creations. A book's a book for a' that. Let's just hope and do what we can to see to it readers are served well and generously.

Learn more about indie publishing, whether you are an author or a reader, at Independent Authors Guild.

Nan HawthorneAuthor, An Involuntary King: A Tale of Anglo Sacxn England
http://www.nanhawthorne.com