Self publishing gets a bad rap. There are good self ‘pubbed’ authors.
I guess partly I don’t understand until I go looking for self published material – out of curiosity – and to learn about my competition. I want to be doing IT better. And I’m talking about truly self made books. Covers done by the creator, story done by the same individual, although editing, I’ll give a pass.
Some of us have some skilled backgrounds.
I helped design newsletters at an early age and wrote a lot of ‘books’. Self publishing really wasn’t a phenomenon. I took a great deal of art, in school and in private lessons. Even from a museum class once. I taught myself web design and then went to a cutting edge school to get a dumb piece of paper stating I was a Web Designer. I ended up on a redesign of the nursing program’s site, then had to present it to the head of the program. I was video taped by the media students. I received Dean’s Honors twice.
I should mention I hate school. But I love learning. I left this cutting edge school and got a job with some blue chip companies in the Bay Area. Then I got a job with Intel. I can’t talk about it for fear of men in black uniforms and big weapons dragging me away.
I went to work for myself. Freelance web design. Photography. Content design. Technical writing. I got sick of development. I liked front end design better. My computer was loaded up with latest versions of Photoshop, Flash, InDesign, just about anything put out by Adobe and Macromedia (what a fabulous company). I had Painter – another fantabulous design program.
Ooh, so I wrote a book. Then another. I got bad reviews. But nobody is saying it’s because I don’t know how to put a book together. Or that my cover sucks. Or that my images are poor. I think my reviews sucked on my zombie books because I have a strange sense of humor and these zombie-enthusiasts take it VERY seriously. Also….my upstairs neighbor is something so foul I won’t say here…and he is out to get me. Yep. It’s possible.
Self publishing is a bad phrase.
Spelling mistakes. Lame pictures. Ridiculous covers. A story that goes nowhere. Run-on sentences. Violations of the rules of writing. People don’t do enough reading before they try their hand at writing. Let’s remove the “self” from publishing and view books in terms of a polished, total package instead of whether it’s self published or professionally published.
But this isn’t a saga about the negatives of self publishing.
Here is why you should read a self published book:
- Maybe the writer/illustrator, etc. is a single mom and is trying to make a living working at home.
- Maybe the writer/illustrator/author is a single mom trying to make a living working at home with a special needs child.
- Maybe the writer/illustrator,….okay, let’s just say CREATOR, is a single mom (or dad) trying to make a living working at home with a special needs child and has two dogs that have terrible anxiety when left alone.
- Maybe the book-creator is compelled by a force of nature. Meaning: people dripping with creativity may have very poor marketing skills but very strong urges to make something. Just because they failed at branding or cover design doesn’t mean the main body of work sucks.
- Maybe you will be pleasantly surprised. Maybe this self published book was overlooked by traditional publishing companies, which, by the way, only look at books in terms of profit value instead of quality, story and originality.
- Maybe you will be privy to some amazing romance, self help, travel, non-fiction or crime tale that is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.
- Maybe you are witnessing the start of an very intriguing series. If the author doesn’t get some positive strokes, maybe they will never move on to writing the sequel. Give them some feedback. It’s the equivalent to donating to a charity you want to see thrive. Okay, bad reference but you understand.
- Maybe we are tired of the same old drab, predictable, formulated stories and books that end up in the landfill. Encourage a rogue self published author…..
- Because maybe that self published author is only in the RAW. They need time and marination to develop skills that might be a bit rough but unlocking them might be a stellar event unknown to this planet. And if you supported their work, with constructive criticism, then everyone wins.
McKenzie Devlin 