My bookshelf – a glorious mish-mash
The newspaper I’ve read since I was able to choose for myself is The Guardian. We share a roughly similar world view, their standard of journalism is high and they tackle controversial issues. Best of all, I love their books section, book passion and literary mindset. I could spend all day browsing their features and reviews.
They were one of the first broadsheets to get behind self-publishing as a serious literary phenomenon and I couldn’t have been prouder to appear in their pages as a Reader Recommended indie book last year.
Now they’ve launched a prize for Best Self-Published Book, which runs monthly. Hooray!
Or… not?
(Note: As a non-UK resident, I am ineligible to enter. This is not a ‘How Dare They Overlook My Genius’ hissy fit, but a general concern.)
It’s early days, but the first two winning books have been selected and duly reviewed. Two very different winners; a comic romp and the story of a suffragette.
Much to admire in Tom Moran’s Dinosaurs and Prime Numbers, but the reviewer says this:
But it is surprisingly easy to forget that Dinosaurs and Prime Numbers is self-published – that it hasn’t been through the editing, streamlining, stringent process of a publishing house. Spelling, grammar, the rest of it, are all spot-on, and Moran’s story hangs together neatly, pleasingly, and open-endedly ready for a follow-up.
… a slice of (sometimes) comic fantasy which deserves comparison to the likes of Robert Rankin – another author who isn’t afraid to pile on the quips, and who nonetheless enjoys a home at a mainstream publisher. There’s talent, here, if you can trample through the jokes to find it.
The reviewer of The Right of the Subjects, by Jude Starling, makes her judgement in the headline. A closely researched and passionately told story of suffragism, this novel could have been greatly improved by a conventional publisher.
… They [editors] may remind you that people don’t describe themselves as going somewhere with “our eyes shining”. They’ll mention that The Right of the Subjects might not be the most alluring title. They won’t let you use the word “tut” three times on one page, or the same formula each time you describe someone’s physical appearance, or have a character called Annie appearing alongside a character called Amie. They’ll tell you when your book is, say, 25% (30,000 words or so, in this case) too long.
Rather makes me glad I’m not eligible if this is my reward. A pat on the head for a ‘nice try’?
I have several issues with this.
If you are awarding a prize for the Best Self-Published Novel, why not choose one you can rave about? I’m a regular reviewer for Bookmuse, never differentiating between indie, trad or small press (unless I feel it deserves a mention, such as with A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing). I’ve read literary fiction, horror, in translation, YA, thriller and general fiction from a range of sources, and won’t review if I can’t recommend. Not one self-published novel on the site merited such half-hearted enthusiasm as these prize winners. If I were Mr Moran or Ms Starling, I’d find this chalice not quite poisoned, but certainly corked.
Example indie books I’ve loved: I Stopped Time by Jane Davis, The Flesh Market by Richard Wright, String Bridge by Jessica Bell
Traditional/conventional/mainstream/trade publishing is not always better. Top indie authors use professional editors, copy editors and proofreaders. They work with expert designers and typesetters. They work hard on their marketing just the same as any midlist author with a trad press must, and are often more creative and flexible in reaching readers.
Example of trade press publication editing: (author unnamed as I see this as publisher failure).
p.21 – A. was explaining something to S., elaborately gesticulating. He liked to use them a lot while talking, just like an Italian. p. 42 – Wrong character name p. 68 – Wrong character name p. 77 – For a few seconds, she lost balance, the creaking tyres leaving a long black mark behind. p. 81 – C smiled afflicted. p. 89 – Truly awful metaphor p. 90 – …there was something grander then the trivial petty misery p. 90 – A fomer boyfriend p. 109 – The spheric sound of Goldfrap p. 129 – “Take me under you microscope” p. 132 – …as she watched him filetting that turbot p. 138 – Mother and daugther. p. 157 – C. and her friends are a rangle of mid-thirties character without…
The assessment of what ‘the best’ is always going to be subjective. Is that a polished package with its own branding? Or something that makes news because it sells? Or a brilliantly imaginative experiment in a tacky cover with a nasty font? Or a multimedia set of discoverables for readers to assemble and interpret? Or ‘almost as good as something the Big Five might put out’?
I find it depressing that the first two reviews of Best Self-Published Books in The Guardian/Legend Prize contain such reactionary observations and still hold up the trade model as ideal.
Self-publishing’s grown up.
Time reviewers caught up.
jjmarsh 
July 2, 2014 at 16:55
I didn’t read the article about the first award, but did read the second one. I just found it really quite odd. Effectively, they’re giving an award to a book that they evidently don’t think is good enough to earn the award.
It read like the article author was using the prize to show that self-published books aren’t very good. I really hope that isn’t what is happening, especially since a while ago, the Guardian ran a series of articles about good self-published books.
July 2, 2014 at 17:10
Well said. The blatant snobbery and double standard in both these reviews demonstrate either very narrow reading experience or a serious case of Emperor’s New Clothes syndrome.
July 2, 2014 at 18:15
Hi Russell, hello Joni. Yes, it does seem to scupper the exact achievement it promotes. I’m scooting around for great books to counter this, and have a Santa-sackful already, but if you have any really outstanding recommendations, I’d love to hear them.
July 3, 2014 at 07:11
Honestly, the most difficult part about answering this question is working out which ones are self-published
I don’t pay much attention to who the publisher is.
However, The Red Effect by Harvey Black and The Losing Role by Steve Anderson are both excellent, and I happen to know they’re both self-published.
July 3, 2014 at 21:08
Thanks Russell, I’ll go exploring. Appreciate the recommendations.
July 2, 2014 at 21:11
Never trust a newspaper. They have one interest, to keep the mainstream alive and well, and sell rags. (From childhood, newspapers were for Dad to tut over at the breakfast table, and to line the bottom of the Budgie’s cage… the second being their primary purpose). The first review is an insult. As though only the big publishers can edit (and I have plenty of examples that prove beyond any possible doubt that they cannot edit… or spell). The second is a confused mishmash that suggests that the reviewer didn’t actually read the book. I write for entertainment, and the hope that the people who want to buy my books are entertained by my scribblings. I have absolutely no interest in prizes. Horribly redolent of the nightmare of my childhood, the school prize day… in which I never won anything but was forced to waste an ENTIRE Saturday, in the boring pursuit of showing my parents around the school… as if they hadn’t seen every square inch of it the first three hundred times! Yikes.
July 3, 2014 at 21:15
Thanks SJ. So true that prize-giving is subjective, and frequently painfully prejudiced. But don’t you think the reporter on school sports day might celebrate the kids who won on their own merits, rather than comparing them to Usain Bolt / Lance Armstrong and finding them lacking?
July 4, 2014 at 10:29
Hi jilljmarsh!
I do feel it’s necessary to point out that your “Example of trade press publication editing” is not an example of poor “editing”; it’s an example of poor proofreading – and proofreading is certainly one thing that self-publishers can very easily get done as well as traditional publishers – or even better than if their funds are unlimited and their conscientiousness high.
Neither of the reviews in the “self-published book of the month” series have been criticising a lack of proofreading. They have talked about a very different sort of editing, and have pointed out that both books would have been improved by a firm developmental/structural edit from an editor with some serious leverage over the author – something the author would probably not have enjoyed one bit, but which would have made the books far more enjoyable for most readers.
Also, the reviewer did not “make her judgement in the headline”. Journalists don’t write their own headlines.
It is worth keeping this kind of thing in mind.
All that said, I did go through the “look inside” for this month’s winner, and I was rather surprised that they hadn’t found something a little more striking (I’ve not read more than the sample of the first one yet either, but from what I saw I felt that that one did have a lot more distinctiveness and, dare I say, innate quality). Perhaps they’re taking an approach of trying to choose a very different kind of book each month, to highlight the range of self-publishing, and to give attention to books unlikely to naturally “rise to the top” – impressively researched serious historical fiction, for example.
July 4, 2014 at 11:55
Hello Tim and thanks for your comment.
Agreed, the errors I indicate are largely proofreading which is different to structural or copy editing.
However the remark ” Spelling, grammar, the rest of it, are all spot-on” rankled rather.
Hence my pointing out a book (published by Legend Press) which fails to live up to the above.
I’m yet to read even a sample of the winners, but will do so now.
Perhaps you’re right regarding the range the paper is aiming for, but knowing how many outstanding indie books are available, I’m surprised and disappointed by the tone of both reviews.
My concern is that the old, wearying message is being reinforced, sending authors towards the shelter of publishing/assisted publishing houses as the only safe option.
But to address your point about editor/author relationships. Whilst there will be a very different relationship between a freelancer paid for one job, and a developmental relationship over the author’s career (did you read the piece on Gottlieb in The Paris Review? http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1760/the-art-of-editing-no-1-robert-gottlieb
Don’t make ’em like that any more), it is possible for a self-published author to get far closer to the second ideal.
I’m a founder member of Triskele Books, an author collective who work as a team of structural, developmental, copy and proof editors (amongst other things) for each other’s work. We have seen each other change and mature over years, and so far published fifteen books.
It’s true that the author may not enjoy it one bit – in fact it’s often painful to the point of tears and tantrums (that’ll be me) – but the input of the team makes all our work better. We care about our output as a *shudders* brand, and hold quality of writing as one of three USPs.
As for the headline – no, perhaps not the author. But someone made the decision to highlight that comment in a review of the Best Self-Published Book. Which seems to defeat the object, wouldn’t you say?
July 4, 2014 at 15:14
I have been part of the Triskele Author Collective for two years and worked cooperatively with the Triskele authors and others for several years previously, editing my two books. I can confirm what Jill says, that we have developed close relationships of trust that enable us to give and receive what is often painful editorial comments. To cite just one aspect of the impact on my own writing – after many rewrites, what I fondly imagined was the final draft of my novel, Ghost Town, was 160k words long. The version I published, on the other hand, was 125k words.
But we don’t just rely on one another. I used that invaluable writers’ resource, DPlyleMD to check medical details, and I brought in an appropriately qualified editor to check cultural and linguistic aspects for some non-English characters. And as a final safety net, our professional proofreader, Perry Iles, can also be relied on to spot details like dates that don’t add up or models of car being driven before they were in production.
July 4, 2014 at 17:01
Hi Jill, Hi Catriona!
Just as there’s a tendency for some of the more casual self-publishing haters to glibly dismiss all self-publishing as unedited drafts uploaded directly to the KDP, there’s an equivalent tendency for people coming from the other side to assume that all self-publishing sceptics actually do believe that no self-publishers are capable of being conscientious and taking a professional approach to the editing process. But I don’t think anyone who takes a serious, if sceptical, interest in the subject really does think that. I certainly don’t, and the kind of professional, conscientious approach you apparently take at Triskele is absolutely the right way for self-publishers to go.
But there’s still something missing in even the most forthright and professionally-minded “collective”, and that’s the autocrat with a big stick, no precious manuscript of their own being critiqued in another corner, and no need to serve up praise sandwiches. And the fact of the matter is, without those big-stick-wielders, very few of the books you’ve read since childhood would have been as presentable and readable as they were. Don’t get me wrong: they would still have been good, very good, just not as good. And almost all of them would have been overlong. (I do have to say, for example, that a big-stick-wielding editor presented with a 160K-word manuscript, unless it was a certain kind of genre-fiction, would almost certainly say, “Stuff your 35K chop; that thing has to be cut by a full 50%, no ifs no buts, or you won’t see it in print and we’ll have our advance back” – and whatever you might think about creative freedom, from a reader’s perspective they’d almost certainly be right.)
There’s also a certain innate weakness in “collectives”. They can have a tendency to be of great benefit to the people in the middle ranks. But the minority of people with real talent and potential may actually be held back by that middle-majority (and, of course, by those passengers who should never have been let near a keyboard). I’ve seen this in happening in crit groups and writers’ circles.
All that said, though, I definitely think the kind of approach you guys are apparently taking at Triskele is admirable, and the only right thing to do – if, that is, you really feel that self-publishing is the right thing for you. And from a reader’s perspective, it’s from “brands” (no need to shudder!) of that kind that meaningful “reachability” can potentially arise. And if that “brand” really does work, then I like to think that at some point soon you and the other collective members might find yourself looking objectively at submissions from people wanting to be part of your brand, and – occasionally at first, and then more and more often as you grow in scale and stature – deciding that actually, no amount of critiquing and professional editing is ever, ever going to raise this one to the requisite standard, so the answer will have to be no. At that point, of course, you’ll have simply become a new form of something old, and the person who you said “no” to will hate you just as much as they hate the traditional “gatekeepers” today. But readers will love you!
Back to the Guardian SPBOTM Award, do remember that the reviewers – or certainly this month’s reviewer, and presumably those in future months – had absolutely no connection with the judging process, and that the key figure in the process (TChalmers) is a proper champion of self-publishing himself. I know it’s not what you guys were saying yourselves, but the “It’s a conspiracy to make self-publishing look bad” responses aren’t likely ever to win over the sceptics. As I said, I was a little puzzled by the rather lacklustre winner this month (honestly, having read the sample I suspect that the reviewer was pulling her punches – I’m not by any means saying the thing didn’t have real potential, but I think an editor with a big stick would have done extreme violence to it, right from the second sentence onwards). But I do think that the organisers probably are trying to highlight the offbeat, the worthy and the specialised, rather than simply highlighting the “best”. Given that one of the problems with self-publishing is that its notionally democratic nature doesn’t serve minority literary interests well, I’d say that’s a great approach.
July 4, 2014 at 21:31
Yes, the blanket dismissal of SP as vanity is frustrating. But the current ‘taking sides’ I see as similarly fruitless. Thanks for your positive take on Triskele’s approach.
Autocrat with big stick? The editor? The marketing department? The team of individuals who know our reputation rests on every single book?
A collective as a team of five (plus associates) doesn’t really have middle ranks. At Triskele, we’re extremely aware, possibly to the point of obsession, of maintaining the quality writing / professional presentation / sense of place tripod.
Thus becoming gatekeepers. We’ve said no. I hope those people – authors we refused due to inappropriate fit, lack of quality or reluctance to do the work required – don’t hate us. I think the ones who chose to roll up their sleeves and really slug it out probably hate us more. But those books… oh my!
Totally agree about indie publishing as an opportunity to serve minority or experimental literature. In the main, it doesn’t. Poor erotica and less-than-fantastic fantasy flourish like a fungal infection. Yet offbeat adventurers are thriving. I’d point any curious reader in the direction of Dan Holloway and The New Libertines.
At the end of the day (I shall finish this post now because I’ve started talking like a football manager) I’m really chuffed there’s a Self Pub Prize in the Guardian. I merely hope it reflects the whole rainbow of standards, experimentation, skill, class and breathtaking diamonds in the ash.
July 23, 2014 at 12:26
[…] Firstly, we’d like to invite you to a special ALLi discussion with Tom Chalmers of IPR License, and Legend Press. We’ll be taking a bit of time to check in on the always important topic of rights, and how IPR Licence can help you to sell yours. But the seminar will also address the rumbles of discontent around one of the most important writing awards for indie authors, The Guardian Self Publishing Book of the Month award (see this background from ALLi member JJ Marsh). […]
July 23, 2014 at 14:19
If you count books that have been translated into another language, the error rate is even higher. My favourite must be the Swedish translation of the first Harry Potter book. Not only is “sherbet lemons” taken to mean “lemon sorbet”, meaning Dumbledore is fond of lemon ice lollies, “a kind of Muggle candy” that he can carry around in his pocket without them melting, but the timeline is completely confusing. The TV declares “Walpurgisnacht isn’t until next week” in chapter one when people are celebrating the banishment of Voldemort, and a few chapters later, Hagrid explains that Harry’s parents were killed on Halloween. They were killed twice, six months apart??? (It might be that a later edition corrected these translation errors, I haven’t checked.)
Anyway, I just came to give you a thumbs up for a well-written article on an interesting topic. 🙂
September 11, 2014 at 20:35
[…] wading through the controversy surrounding the Guardian’s first two Self-Published Novel of the Month awards, how can readers discover the very best in independent […]