I’ve picked up a handful of self-published books over the years, not many, and I have to say, I have noticed a distinct lack of polish in the writing in most of them. Even the one I liked the best had two scenes that made me want to phone the author and say, “Hey. Really?”
There seem to be two distinct splits where people have trouble: either the writing is terrible but the story and characters are interesting, or the writing is good but the story and characters are either not interesting or totally unbelievable.
I’ve been reading a lot about how there is this general opinion that self-published books are crap, and I have found myself nodding along at this and worrying.
Hold up, there.
On my list of some of the worst books I’ve ever had the mispleasure of not finishing are a ton of traditionally published books. And at least one of those fell prey to both problems — not only was the writing awful, the characters were complete phonies and the story was a snore-fest. That was a Bantam book, I believe.
Thing is, when I read a self-published book that’s not all that good, I just kind of set it down and go, huh, oh well. When I read a traditionally published book that doesn’t hack it, I think, wow, why didn’t someone along the way catch this? The agent? The editor? The intern who pulled it out of the slush pile? It seems like traditionally published books have fewer excuses for not standing up.
I haven’t yet had the pleasure of reading a self-published book that didn’t make me shake my head at least a couple times. But then, I’ll be ashamedly honest here, I’ve only ever read about ten in my whole life. I’ve been exposed to hundreds of trad-pubbed books over the years, and a LOT of them have lost my interest in seconds. Read the previous post where I almost stopped reading entirely as a child because of all the bad books I had encountered.
So, I’m here to give myself a bit of a shake and maybe you as well: Self-published books are all bad? Well, a hefty ton of traditionally published books are bad. And I really don’t have the numbers to judge whether all self-published books are bad. Quite frankly, I’m willing to bet the percentages are about the same.
And I’ll tell you what — there’s nothing like a really bad book to clue you in on some things you want to avoid in your own writing.
I think that self-publishers do need to make an effort to provide a well written product. Even if you pay 99 cents, you’ve paid, and you deserve a product that isn’t riddled with typos.
As for believability – I don’t know. One person’s crap is another person’s favorite book. I love fantasy and sci-fi, but other people think those genres are garbage. There are people who love romances, I’ve seen very few romance novels I’d be interested in. So, I don’t know, authors have to make choices as to where their characters go, should we harangue them just because they sent those characters on a path we didn’t care for?
But then I do get your point. There are some plots that defy all powers of comprehension. The worst example to come to my mind is the final episode of Dexter.
Excellent point. I’ve had more than one book recommended to me by friends as their “favorite book ever!” only to be really sorely disappointed. Just because I don’t like it doesn’t mean no one does or that it’s not good. I think it’s not good, that doesn’t mean it’s totally not.
As for quality in self-publishing: Yes! Yes! Yes! A typo or two I can forgive. When someone spells the same word wrong over and over and over or says “would of” instead of “would’ve” or refuses to use contractions, that just cries for editing. When I don’t like a character or story, that’s my taste. My book even got a four star rating from someone who said they didn’t like the characters, but enjoyed the story and would recommend it. My characters are modeled after myself and some of my best friends. I want to call this person and say, “what didn’t you like? How could I fix it? Why did you still give it four stars?” But I know it’s just taste, and I can’t fix that. At least there have been no complaints about typos!
I love how frank you are 🙂 I’ve been putting a lot of books down lately, of both publishing types. The only self-published books I read are freebies. And there are some out there that I’ve given 4 stars to. If I’m slogging through something, I know it’s not the right book for me. I guess it depends on the agent/editor who picked it up and their tastes. Ours are all different. I think I am getting more and more cynical and less forgiving with age…
Right? The more I learn about writing, and the more I edit my own work, and the older I get and less time I have to read in, the more fussy I get. And I’m glad my frankness is enjoyable to at least one person — sometimes I worry I’m shoving my foot down my own throat. o’.’o