I’ve come across a lot of free book giveaways by indie authors in the last few years, but I’ve been hesitant to download them for fear of disappointment.
That’s not to suggest that rejection by the major publishers is an indicator of quality, or that bypassing publishers isn’t.
But how does a writer make that call?
Curiosity piqued, I finally downloaded a bunch of indie books and tried three at random – authors I didn’t know.
The first was H.E.R.O. –Metamorphosis, by Kevin Gerald Rau. He is clearly promoting the book in the hopes of selling the sequels. I thoroughly enjoyed it, even checking out the five sample chapters that followed.
Despite that, I’m fairly sure a major publisher would reject it, but not by much – Kevin has an easy style and his prose is polished. He drew me in, and that’s what really matters.
The next two books needed some industrial-strength red pens. On a scale of one to five, both would struggle to reach one.
The first was so wordy and bloated I barely made it through a full three chapters, and only succeeded by skipping chunks.
The second was a struggle in an entirely different way – it began with a prologue that did nothing but summarise the story’s world-building and history (classic newbie mistake), and it didn’t get any better after that. I gave up.
My question is, could self-publishing be doing more harm than good by exposing authors to readers before their skills are up to the job?
There are certainly pros and cons to both sides.
What do you think?
If you like this post, you might like to browse through The Craft of Writing.