One of the first things you learn from working around creatives is that we’re passionate folk.
We kind of have to be, since the main demand of our job is maintaining the conviction that our artistic vision is worth charging people money for.
That is to say we tend to be opinionated. Because you can’t stand in front of an audience and deliver if you don’t think you have the goods.
And not everybody’s vision is the same, so when conflicts within the scene arise, they’re likely to be match-thrown-on-powder keg scenarios.
But one of my guiding principles is to always have one hand reaching up for the next rung of the ladder and the other reaching down to help the next guy up.
Having studied the situation from multiple angles, I think the best way to help is to offer some objectivity.
The hope is, that will provide some clarity – and charity.
For context, here are the tweets that kicked off the latest controversy. Because of course it happened on Twitter:
Because it’s sure to get mentioned in the comments, yes, other people are involved in the current eDrama.
But the purpose of this post isn’t to provide another venue to prosecute a flame war.
Nor is it to smooth things over.
Nobody died and made me King Solomon. And besides, we’re all adults who can manage our own online relationships.
If people want to keep beefing, that’s their business. I just have no interest in it.
What I am interested in is helping to rebuild the culture through parallel institutions and neopatronage models.
And that means arming my fellow creatives with the information they need to maximize their success.
I’m not in competition with anybody in newpub – or even oldpub.
If a reader buys someone else’s book, it doesn’t mean he won’t buy mine. Even more so since the digital revolution means everyone can own unlimited books.
The bones I have to pick are with common misconceptions, erroneous mental models, and mas delusions.
Those priorities carry over from my theology background. And among the most important theological guidelines is the principle of charity.
It’s pretty simple. If you want to understand your own position, you have to understand the other guy’s. And that means interpreting his claim in the most charitable terms.
For example, I’ve encouraged people to employ the same principle to mainstream reporting on the hierarchy.
So, “Newpub is simple” vs “newpub authors are sloppy naĂŻfs in rose-colored glasses …”
What happens when we apply the charity principle to this debate?
Let’s examine both propositions in turn:
Newpub Is Simple
Yes, if you can write a book to conclusion, you can publish it yourself with a minimum of fuss. Word processing, formatting, and even cover design can all be done with free software, which means you can also publish a book with zero production costs. Any monetary investment can be made up for with time.
It’s no exaggeration to say that Amazon KDP has made self-publishing easier than it’s ever been in all of recorded history. So point to JD and JMW.
Newpub Is Harder Than You Think
Yes, if all you do is pour your heart out onto the page, get a hastily drawn cover from a first-year art student, and throw it on Amazon, you may as well play the Powerball.
Publishing a book is one thing. Making money from your writing is another story entirely. In large part because anyone can publish now.
When there’s no barrier to entry, it’s easy for diamonds to get lost among the coal.
Given a fair hearing on their own terms, both of the above positions are true. Yet they’ve become fodder for online conflict.
Which is a red flag that the cause of the controversy isn’t the facts. It’s different people’s perception of and value investment in certain of those facts, which some view as mutually exclusive.
So here’s what everybody’s missing:
Pros and Amateurs
The battle thus far has been waged between authors.
We have authors sensing a problem, but they need help identifying it with clarity.
This looks like a job for an editor.
In my years as a working editor, hundreds of projects have crossed my desk.
To succeed at any occupation, you have to know why your field exists, i.e., what your customers’ needs are.
In the editor’s case, his author clients have trouble seeing problems with their writing because they’re too close to it.
The problem these authors are having right now is they’re coming at the situation from two different perspectives: pro and amateur.
That’s not to say that all of the authors saying “Newpub is easy” are amateurs, and all of the authors saying “Newpub is hard” are pros. I’m talking about mindsets anyone can have.
As some on Twitter have rightly pointed out, you can name more than one author who’s written a highly personal book for pure self-expression that resonated and hit the bigtime.
Yet it can’t be denied that those are black swan events with too many variables for anyone to replicate on purpose.
So what do professional authors who want to write for a living do? They study the market, build platforms and brands, and stay current with proven advertising techniques to maximize their odds of success.
That kind of effort takes a certain level of focus which can lead to tunnel vision. I should know the temptation, since I’m a professional author.
The missing element here is the understanding that folks with a pro mindset see someone saying, “Newpub is simple! Just throw a manuscript and cover together and hit publish,” but they know from the data that such a book has a near-zero chance of earning a profit, so they perceive the whole initial premise as immediately disqualifying.
Their sales-focused tunnel vision blinds them to the amateur viewpoint, which sees that a pure passion project is unlikely to make money and says, “So what?”
Now, when pro authors do acknowledge the amateur mindset, there’s a lurking temptation to disdain amateurs as starry-eyed posers.
But that doesn’t do anyone justice.
Because the truth is that people have always indulged in every art form with no other motive than self-expression.
And that’s 100% fine. Great, even.
If you’ve got a personal story champing at the bit to burst out of your head and into the world, go for it. Technology has put all the tools you need to publish your passion project right at your fingertips.
And once again drawing on my editorial experience, the stereotype that all amateur writers just vomit whatever pops into their heads onto KDP with no concern for quality just isn’t true.
In fact, I’ve been hired to edit a number of passion projects whose authors are happy to go the extra mile to make sure their books meet reader standards.
Whether your reason for writing is self-expression or a profit motive, the vital step far too many authors skip is deciding why they’re writing.
Because one thing the pros have right is that pro and amateur are mutually exclusive mindsets. And they call for different approaches from the beginning.
To succeed at any writing project, you need to understand both options, pick one before you start the book, and stick with it.
Whichever you decide, know that I’m cheering you on.
And that I’m here to help. Just like I’ve helped newpub and tradpub authors go from 3-star to 5-star writing.
So if you’re ready to write your dream project or future best seller, reach out.
Youre a scholar and a gentleman Brian. A good man and a good friend, and your sober voice of reason was what we needed in this sea of screaming past each other
Thank you, but I am the chief of sinners.
Give the glory to God!
I appreciate the balanced take. Since the entire mess sprang out of something I said, I can’t exactly make a clear assessment of the situation. It is also good to see a take that doesn’t put words in my mouth.
It’s always the innocuous tweets that blow up in odd ways.
#AmEditing
Wise words. I heavily doubt that I have the chops to be a full time author, but I’ve enjoyed writing for stuff like RPG campaigns, or collaborative stories, or just for the fun of it. I’ve often been complimented on my characters, though I honestly mostly just mildly remix common tropes. It’s fun!
Brian,
Some of the best Authors that I follow are so called “Amateurs” on Patreon. Others, have some excellent fan published material that I enjoy more than the Professionals.
Many of those “Amateurs” and Fanfiction Authors spend a lot of time developa voice and style that builds a fanbase. It’s not easy and they have my respect. So much so, that when they self publish or the even fewer who manae to Old publish find me supporting them.
I care about quality and great stories. The fan base will come overtime if the work is good.
Sincerely,
Corery Ashcraft
Thank you for bringing up Patreon, which ties into the neopatronage concept I touched on briefly. And it highlights another big blind spot of pros fretting about all the literary shovelware cluttering Amazon.
The reality is, the wild west days of KDP are over and have been over for half a decade now. Amazon has matured from a volatile blockbuster-or-flop gamble into a stable long-tail market.
I speak from experience. The majority of my writing revenue comes from sources other than KDP.
Shouldn’t we be wary of Patreon in particular?
I know they’ve been guilty of outright banning people for insufficient wokery in the past.
I had a Subscribestar for a few years, with no sign-ons at all, despite linking from Minds and an arty crowd in the UK (which includes pros an amateurs). I’m thinking patronage sites might not be the best vehicle for books and poetry, though maybe being a black hole of an introvert might not help.
This conflict is even more ridiculous on the academic publishing side.
There’s lots of people who have realized that when you do extensive notes for a course, you’ve written over half a textbook already. So now you can just finish it up, do some editing, and put it on KDP or wherever. Your primary goal is to have a textbook available for your students but now other people can use it too.
Many, many, graduate textbooks have been written for basically the same reason for decades now. But the difference is that with self publishing you can just get your book out there when it is done, rather than being gatekept by an academic publisher.
And yet there are a lot of people who don’t consider doing this through the self publishing route as “really” having written a textbook, despite the quality being the same or better on average there. They want the prestige, not to make anything useful. What makes the situation different is that in academic publishing most people are aware that making a massive profit is unlikely, unless you can get your book adopted as a required text for large freshmen courses at multiple universities. So the only real questions left are “is your book useful” and “does it bring you prestige.”
Academic publishing has long been a scam, though a highly profitable scam.
Textbook publishers colluding with college bookstores, offering books only in shrinkwrapped sets when a professor just needs one volume, and making tiny changes in the margin notes as a pretext for issuing all-new editions are just some of their grifts.
If politicians gave a damn about kids, they’d send in regulators to bust up this racket. But like the even more reprobate student loan business, the feds benefit from the book scam, so they turn a blind eye to the corruption.
Not sure how “I have no interest in the eDrama” was hard to grasp.