Over the last few days I have been thinking about the platform that amazon and the kindle have given to independent authors like me. They have basically removed all of the publishing obstacles that used to be in the way.
Before the kindle, well written books with a solid story would never see the light of day because somebody at a publishing house didn't think that there was a market for it, or the market was too small to be worth bothering with. Thankfully, this doesn't happen as much any more as the author can now self-publish their work and by promoting it themselves can help it to find a market, no matter how small.
This is obviously great for the author and great for the readers of niche genres.
This whole process cuts out the publishing middle-man which in-turn pushes the costs of books down and potentially makes them better value. Which again is great for the author and for the reader.
Lots of people would say that the cheaper a product is, the better the value of the product. And in some cases this maybe true. But with literature this is not always the case and the self-publishing world highlights this point magnificently.
A fair proportion of self-published works are of a very high standard and can stand shoulder to shoulder with traditionally published titles. They have been professionally edited and proof-read and this scrutiny can exponentially increase the quality of the book.
The problem with lots of self-published works are that they are done on a budget and getting your book edited and proof-read is an expensive business. This means that lots of authors don't do it and this often leads to real quality issues.
I dislike reading a bad story, but what I find more annoying is reading something that could be good but is littered with numerous spelling and grammatical errors throughout it. Self-published books essentially get published without another set of eyes looking at them.
Now for me, whether I pay £10 or £1 for a book, I expect the basics to be spot on and at both price points I would say that a book littered with errors is poor value.
Now for the record my own novel, Dead South, was professionally edited and proof-read. It was not cheap, but was worth every penny. I used a book editing company called BubbleCow, they gave me the tools to turn my story into a novel.
Dead South is a million times better thanks to BubbleCow's contribution.
You can't guarantee that all errors will be picked up, but to make your story as good as it can be, you must give it a try. And I would recommend that all independent authors do the same.
So, how as a reader are you expected to be able to find well written, good quality self-published titles that are also great value?
The first way is to check out the reviews of the book:
1. Amazon reviewers are on the whole very fair and can give you a good idea of the calibre of the book.
2. You can also follow niche or specific genre book clubs on twitter and facebook. They tweet about good titles all day, everyday.
3. Another way is to join an email list like Buck Books. They essentially take on the heavy lifting for you and seek out good quality titles on kindle for a dollar or less. And if your British this is currently 66p or less. They will send one email a day and from what I have seen over the last week, they pick good quality works.
I hope this helps!
Have a great Sunday.
David
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