Self-publishing, E-books, and Legitimacy: Part 2 of a series
Editor’s note: Slightly edited, here is Part Two of Luke Bergeron’s series from his blog mispeled. Three more parts are on the way. – Paul Biba
How can self-published e-books become a “legitimate” way to publish? In particular, what if you want to list your self-published e-books on your resume?
The options below all have their pros and cons. I’ve listed them to be as complete as possible, not to advocate them all.
Several people in the publishing industry commented on these ideas; and ahead, with permission, I’ll reproduce remarks from Cory Doctorow, the author and blogger. He has successfully used free e-books to promote his traditionally printed works.
Publishing Web sites
Similar to the current publishing model, a Web site could be created with editors that read submissions and only “published” books on the Web site that met certain standards. On the surface this looks very similar to traditional publishing. But there is one key difference: resources are only limited by labor hours, not limited printing budget.
Currently a small publishing house only has enough resources to publish a limited number of books per year, even if the house would like to publish more. This is limited by editor hours and printing costs. If the cost of “publishing” an e-book on a Web site costs nothing, there are less limits to how many books can be published a year. No longer will good books suffer because the publishing house has already published its maximum quota for the year.
This method filters out craptent and allows the legitimacy of real publishing. However, there is still a significant overhead (the Web site must be hosted and editors must be paid), so content would still have to be monetized somehow, via a subscription or some other method. In order to charge for content a Web site like this would have to offer a great variety of content, as well as great accessibility: each book would have to support multiple types of e-reader formats, at least until the e-publishing format is standardized, which will probably be awhile.
An indie company willing to live on peanuts could probably still do something like the paid content site, apply standards and all that, but still give content away for free. As long as the site has a reputation for only publishing quality work, eventually their word will add legitimacy to their selections.
Obviously, the biggest downsides to this method are cost, monetization, and the risk that the editors will become the same type of gatekeepers as traditional publishing, which is something that must be avoided. Because of these risks, this probably isn’t a feasible option.
Popularity numbers
“The answer is another indeterminate, I’m afraid. Depends on the publisher, and on the online reception… Say you put it online and no one cared, and the publisher loved it but was freaked about CC. Show him that you’ve have all of seven downloads, it’ll put his mind at ease.
On the other hand, say it was a raging success — 50,000,000 downloads, talk of the town. You could probably parlay *that* into a publishing deal, on the strength of the demonstrated market for the work.
So: depends on the work, the publisher, and the reception.” – Cory Doctorow
When a record sells a million copies, it “goes platinum.” A million is pretty high, but along the same idea, perhaps a target number could be set for a self-published e-book that, when reached, established “legitimacy.” This isn’t a bad method, since it shows that the work is popular.
However, a system like this would be extremely difficult to track unless there was a standard site these downloads had to occur. For instance, my free books are offered on my blog, on scribd.com, and mentioned on a few other random free e-book websites around the web. Do I just add up the total of downloads and claim that number? What stops me from spoofing downloads myself? The difficulty of regulating (or “proving”) something like this makes it an unattractive option.
Financial Records
“A book that made a lot of money would absolutely get a lot of respect in the professional world.” – Cory Doctorow
Although authors probably don’t write for the money (most are barking up the wrong tree if they are), it’s nice to get paid for creative work. If a self-published e-book was popular enough to drum up some sales, financial records could be a way of legitimizing work. However, with a solid financial record, traditional print publishing is much easier to obtain, so I don’t know why an author with demonstrated e-book sales wouldn’t just jump into a traditional publishing contract. Still, for an author interesting in proving herself legitimate, actually selling books is a solid way to go.
The main difficulties, of course, stem from trying to sell an e-book that has no corresponding print version. You’d have to ask Scribd.com (or some other publishing site), but I’d imagine the majority of the monetized self-published stuff on that site doesn’t get touched.
Reviews
A self-published e-book could be legitimized through reviews in journals and on blogs. If a book gets enough voices talking about it and praising it, surely it becomes legitimate publishing. Granted, finding reviews for a self-published e-book has to be a very difficult task, almost as difficult as the traditional publishing model, which might make the whole thing moot. But sympathetic bloggers could take chances and review self-published e-books, so although this method could be as awful as finding a traditional publisher, pounding the virtual pavement is still an option.
Critical mass and Internet notoriety
“Put another way: it’s hard to monetize fame, but it’s even harder to monetize obscurity.” – Cory Doctorow
This is probably the most attractive option, the most likely, and it combines aspects of most of the above options. Building a good standing on the internet is the same as building a good standing anywhere else. It takes work, a lasting presence, a reputation for quality content, and time. Sound familiar? It should. It’s almost the same damn thing as trying to get published through traditional publishing methods.
However, there is one (very critical) difference between traditional publishing and self-publishing on the internet, and that is the barrier to entry.
However, because the barrier to entry is lower, the barrier to “success” is higher. It might be easier to put something up on the internet, but once it’s up, getting people to pay attention is pretty tough. It means the same type of shopping around as traditional publishing. However, the feedback is faster, and that, if nothing else, is the best part about the net over those six-month snail-mail wait times.
On the negative side, a traditional “substantial publishing record” takes more time to get started, but is probably still worth more once it’s done.
Either way, I’d just like to see critical mass and internet notoriety as an acceptable option, as far as the ivory tower is concerned. Most of the time, it means enough for the rest of the world.
I don’t see tracking or spoofing as big issues. For self-publishers, the number has to be very big (that’s the nature of free), and there are only a handful of sites that can generate big numbers. Once the number on one or more of these sites is “big enough”, publishers will take notice. For example, on Wattpad (disclaimer: I am a co-founder) there are some self-publishers whose works were generating hundred of thousands of downloads within days, and now their books are being published by traditional publishers. Sure, a “platinum”-like standard similar to that of the music industry does not hurt but I don’t think we need that type of accuracy/standard at this point. By the same token, because the numbers need to much higher than traditional measures, it is pretty hard to spoof.