Should Indies be regulated?
This week's topic promises to be, I'm certain, a little controversial. Let me state right off the top that I don't have an answer to the question. It's just one that came up on a discussion thread a few weeks back and I found interesting. So let's get into it shall we?
If we can remember just 20 years ago there was really only one way to be published and that was with the Big Four Publishing Companies. You'd write your book, get an agent interested enough to take you on, and then they'd sell it to the publisher on your behalf.
Now if you were lucky enough to get that far, then your book would go through an editing process to clean up minor and major errors and generally make it more suitable to what the Big Four felt readers wanted to read.
Of course I don't want to discount independent publishing back then; it did exist, just not in any form we'd recognize today. Back then to publish independently meant you as the author, had to front the costs of printing your book and if it didn't sell...well it didn't matter to the publisher. Because the costs of entry were so high, many authors stuck to the road travelled by the Big Four and had their masterpieces end up in mountainous slush piles.
Fast forward to today and it's all different. The arrival of the ebook meant that those barriers to entry vanished. Now, it costs next to nothing to publish your book online. Amazon, maybe the largest online publisher, charges nothing to the author to get their book published. And unlike years ago, if it doesn't sell, the author is not out a small fortune.
Print on demand models have also removed the barriers to getting your words physically in a reader's hands. All of this sounds like great news to every Indie author out there, including myself.
The question though becomes...is it great news?
If you'll allow me a parallel for a moment. When regulations (or standards of quality) were removed from our financial systems everything was great for a time but calamity eventually came home to roost in 2008. By removing the barriers to entry into the publishing world, did we not create a similar calamity?
While it was exceedingly frustrating for an author to have their book wither away on a slush pile, such piles did protect the reader from poor quality writing. Once removed, and an author could just publish their own book, that aforementioned step regarding an editing process, was also removed.
The market was wide open and flooded with books of varying quality. Many of which, to be honest, represented very poor writing.
As an Indie myself, I believe indie books can be of the same caliber as the Big Four puts out; no question. Unfortunately though, without a formal editing process in place, they can also be suspect. And this hurts us all.
Over the past 20 years a stigma has arisen in the mind of many readers; if the independent novel was really good it wouldn't need to be independently published. Every Indie has heard that at least once in their career.
As much as I would like to say this viewpoint is unfair; it's not without some merit. Indie's flooded the market themselves with books that readers took a chance on and were burned by.
So back to the original point; should we as Indie authors succumb to a regulated editing process? I've no doubt the capitalist system would provide us with companies to fill this need. Perhaps it could be a seal of approval that we could place on our covers; stating they've been professionally edited. In that way, we might regain some faith from the wary reader.
Now, this would mean cost to us of course. These companies are not likely to provide their services for free and nor should they. Some barriers to entry could help us all.
But then again, the rating agencies seal of approval on wall street stocks didn't exactly help that calamity so who knows if regulated editing would help us.
I've enjoyed the freedom that's come from this independent revolution but at the end of the day, publishing is only half the story. You still gotta sell the books. Perceived higher standards may or may not help with that. As I said at the start, I don't know the answer.
Do you?
If we can remember just 20 years ago there was really only one way to be published and that was with the Big Four Publishing Companies. You'd write your book, get an agent interested enough to take you on, and then they'd sell it to the publisher on your behalf.
Now if you were lucky enough to get that far, then your book would go through an editing process to clean up minor and major errors and generally make it more suitable to what the Big Four felt readers wanted to read.
Of course I don't want to discount independent publishing back then; it did exist, just not in any form we'd recognize today. Back then to publish independently meant you as the author, had to front the costs of printing your book and if it didn't sell...well it didn't matter to the publisher. Because the costs of entry were so high, many authors stuck to the road travelled by the Big Four and had their masterpieces end up in mountainous slush piles.
Fast forward to today and it's all different. The arrival of the ebook meant that those barriers to entry vanished. Now, it costs next to nothing to publish your book online. Amazon, maybe the largest online publisher, charges nothing to the author to get their book published. And unlike years ago, if it doesn't sell, the author is not out a small fortune.
Print on demand models have also removed the barriers to getting your words physically in a reader's hands. All of this sounds like great news to every Indie author out there, including myself.
The question though becomes...is it great news?
If you'll allow me a parallel for a moment. When regulations (or standards of quality) were removed from our financial systems everything was great for a time but calamity eventually came home to roost in 2008. By removing the barriers to entry into the publishing world, did we not create a similar calamity?
While it was exceedingly frustrating for an author to have their book wither away on a slush pile, such piles did protect the reader from poor quality writing. Once removed, and an author could just publish their own book, that aforementioned step regarding an editing process, was also removed.
The market was wide open and flooded with books of varying quality. Many of which, to be honest, represented very poor writing.
As an Indie myself, I believe indie books can be of the same caliber as the Big Four puts out; no question. Unfortunately though, without a formal editing process in place, they can also be suspect. And this hurts us all.
Over the past 20 years a stigma has arisen in the mind of many readers; if the independent novel was really good it wouldn't need to be independently published. Every Indie has heard that at least once in their career.
As much as I would like to say this viewpoint is unfair; it's not without some merit. Indie's flooded the market themselves with books that readers took a chance on and were burned by.
So back to the original point; should we as Indie authors succumb to a regulated editing process? I've no doubt the capitalist system would provide us with companies to fill this need. Perhaps it could be a seal of approval that we could place on our covers; stating they've been professionally edited. In that way, we might regain some faith from the wary reader.
Now, this would mean cost to us of course. These companies are not likely to provide their services for free and nor should they. Some barriers to entry could help us all.
But then again, the rating agencies seal of approval on wall street stocks didn't exactly help that calamity so who knows if regulated editing would help us.
I've enjoyed the freedom that's come from this independent revolution but at the end of the day, publishing is only half the story. You still gotta sell the books. Perceived higher standards may or may not help with that. As I said at the start, I don't know the answer.
Do you?
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