A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland

Because All The Roads Are Being Re-Built (Maybe)

Assessing Books

This is Part 4 of a series:
Part 1:Romanceland Meltdown
Part 2: Finding Books – Part 1
Part 3: Finding Books – Part 2
Part 4: Assessing Books
Part 5: Contributing To Word-of-Mouth

(Series based upon a guest post at The Bookish Snob)

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By now, if you have set up your Google Alerts; mined the depths of Amazon, romance-related websites, blogs and news sites; plus the various RSS feeds and newsletters you have temporarily subscribed to; along with any romance-related groups you may have joined, you should have built up a satisfyingly long list of potential romance titles to investigate.

The titles you placed on your list you should know very little about, except that for some small reason, they appealed to you, and they’re in your preferred reading niche(s).  The authors, publishers, and general quality of the books could (and should) be a complete mystery to you.

Now, you get to assess those titles and find out if they’re worth buying.

The breakup and fracturing of Romanceland is bringing a flood of new titles onto the market.  There are new e-publishers springing up every day.  They edit their books, yes, but how good are those editors?

There’s no guarantee that just because a book comes from a New York publisher, its quality is guaranteed, either.  Recently, an e-book published by a New York publisher garnered so many complaints about formatting problems, editing and spelling errors in the text and more, that the publisher was forced to withdraw the book from sale and issue refunds.

Too, indie authors’ books have long suffered the reputation of being poorly edited and badly written.  Sometimes this is true.  Often, it isn’t — indie authors are increasingly becoming more savvy about their work; they hire professional editors, and book formatters to build their e-books for them, plus professional cover designers (I do, for instance).  The product indie authors put on the virtual shelves can be indistinguishable from New York books.

There is nothing stopping indie authors from publishing whatever they want, whenever they want.  Titles are hitting the market every day.

The flurry of new e-publishers means those publishers are also pumping out new titles every week, too.

And New York is gamely trying to keep up its output, as well.

The fact is that with the fracturing and breakup of Romanceland, there will be hundreds more exciting, different and interesting romances flooding the market.

The price for all that innovation and creativity is that some of the books are going to suck.  Romanceland is turning into a free market, where anyone can publish anything — and will.  And some of what will be published will be fabulous.  The flip side of getting all that fabulous stuff is that you also get the stinky stuff.

You have to learn how to recognize the stinky stuff before you put your money down.

Relying on other people to tell you what is good is no longer going to work.

No single review site can keep up with the deluge.  They haven’t been able to do that for a while now.  Most review sites run anywhere up to six months behind release dates — or more.  I’ve had reviews of my books emerge up to a year after the book was released.  The lag can only get worse as the number of romance titles released per week rises.

There is no single best-seller list that incorporates every single romance title for sale.  There never has been.  The New York Times Best Seller list, for instance, never included Harlequin/Silhouette category romances, which regularly outsold the #1 best-seller.  The NYT list only started included e-books in mid-2011.  It still doesn’t include indie titles.

There are only two ways you can find out if a book sucks, or if it is worth reading.  One way is to read it.  But that gets expensive, especially if you keep hitting sucky books.

The other way to find out if a book sucks or not is to tap into word-of-mouth sources.  Consult other readers.

There’s a number of ways to do that.  If you use a combination of these tools and resources in a systematic way, then you’ll get a pretty good idea, very quickly, if the book you’re considering is a dud, or not.

Amazon

Amazon is the best place to start, because something like 99% of every romance book ever published is there, and because 99% of every review for the books on there are reader reviews.

In addition, you get reader ratings — the five star rating that is an average of every readers’ rating.

There will also be the odd professional review, too.

Read through all the reviews, both the good and the bad.  Reader reviews are usually not very specific about why a book doesn’t work for them, but see if you can determine why the book failed to please the readers who didn’t like it.  If it is for reasons that won’t affect you (they don’t like European settings, say), then you can safely discount the negative reviews.

If the book gets consistently bad reviews, you may need to cross it off your list.  Put a question mark next to it for now.

If the book is part of the “Look Inside” program, you can even read an excerpt and see if it intrigues you.

Professional Reviews

Hunt down some professional reviews for the book.  Using Google, or your favourite search engine, put in the book title, the author’s name and “review”.

Amongst a few negative results, you will get a listing of links to reviews of the book.  Check them out for overall impressions on the quality of the book.

If the book received crushing reader reviews and ratings on Amazon, and the professional reviews support the bad rap, then it’s probably time to knock the book off your list.

However, if the reviews are all glowing, or even just generally positive, you can move onto the next step, if you are still uncertain about whether you want to buy the book or not.  If you’re already convinced you want the book and are comfortable enough to buy it, then you don’t have to search for further word-of-mouth.

While you are browsing the review sites, if you find that there is a particular reviewer whose voice you like, bookmark the site, or subscribe to their feed.  This is a reviewer who reviews romances in the niche you read.  They may review a romance you will like in the future.  It could pay to keep up with their reviews.

Goodreads

Goodreads and other social reading networks will provide you with one more average reader rating on the book you’re researching — if it has been listed on that network.

There may also be the odd reader review (more like short comments).

The feedback you get from these reader networks usually isn’t comprehensive, but it will provide confirmation and back-up for whatever you’ve already learned about a title.

Reader Groups

If you belong to a reader group, this is the perfect place to actively ask for information.  Put the question to your group:  “What did you think of xxxx?”

If the group has archives or a database of titles you can access, even better.  You can check out members’ reviews of the title for yourself.

Too Little Information

It sometimes happens that a title is too new to have gathered enough information to help you make a decision about its quality.  There won’t be any, or too few, reader reviews on Amazon to reassure you.  If a title is very new, there likely won’t be any professional reviews for it, either.  If it is an indie title, professional reviews are even harder to acquire as many review houses refuse to review indie authors at all.

In this case, what you can do is:

1)   Read an excerpt of the book and check the quality that way.  If the excerpt reads okay, and you don’t notice any obvious grammar and spelling mistakes, typos or other formatting flaws, then the rest of the book should be of similar quality.

2)   Go to the author’s website.  If there are any reviews or positive feedback at all, there’s a good bet the author will have them listed there for the title. (But keep in mind that the author won’t report bad reviews!)

3)   Research one of the author’s other, older titles, in the same or a similar niche as the one you’re interested in.  If that other title got glowing reviews and high ratings, then you’re probably on safe ground with the new book.  Check several of the author’s books, if you really want to be sure.  If they’re all high ratings and good reviews, you’ll feel that much more certain about the new book — and you’ll have more titles on your to-buy list, too!

Sometimes you’ll hit a book where there’s little information and no other titles by the author.  (Every author has a first or second book).  Ultimately, you’ll have to make a decision about whether to buy, or not, based on your gut feeling.

If it’s an indie author, the chances are the price will be very low, so taking a chance on the book won’t be such a big deal.

For New York titles, where the price isn’t so reasonable, you may decide to wait a few days or weeks until the book has gathered reviews and ratings…or not.

For any title where the blurb and excerpt have really grabbed you by the throat and you decide to risk it; go for it.  Why not?  Sometimes you just have to jump in with both feet and see where it takes you.  And sometimes that jump will pay off with the most unexpectedly delightful story you’ve read in ages.

That’s the bonus of a free Romanceland market.  You get to be surprised and delighted every now and again, when you reach out and try something new.

Enjoy your hunting.

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Next:  Contributing to Word-of-Mouth

Related posts:

1. A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland – Part III A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland Because All The Roads Are Being Re-Built (Maybe) Finding Books – Part 2 This is Part 3 of a...
2. A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland – Part 1 A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland Because All The Roads Are Being Re-Built (Maybe) Romanceland Meltdown This is Part 1 of a series: Part 1:Romanceland...
3. A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland – Part II A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland Because All The Roads Are Being Re-Built (Maybe) Finding Books – Part 1 This is Part 2 of a...
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This is the fourth post in a series.
Part 1: Are Print Publishers Really Doomed?
Part 2: Are Print Books Really Doomed?
Part 3: Do I HAVE To Read E-Books?
Part 4: Do I Have to Buy Indie Books?
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Even if you’ve braved the new frontiers and you’re the proud owner of your very own e-book reader, you’ve got yet another hurdle to face.  Possibly, you’re not even aware of this one yet.

Do you, or do you not, buy indie published novels?

If you’re wondering what indie published means, or why it’s even a question, then it’s possible you’ve already bought one or two indie authors and not realized it.

Or possibly, you’re at the other end of the spectrum:  Rabidly against ever buying anything that isn’t published by one of the big five New York publishers.

Period.

End of Discussion.

Just in case you’re new to the e-book world, or the whole indie authors/indie publishing discussion, I’ll do a quick summary for you, although it really deserves a whole post, or series of posts, for itself.

Traditional publishers (also known as royalty-paying publishers, or legacy publishers) are the type of publisher you find in New York.  For years, I’ve lumped them together as “New York” publishers, regardless of where they’re actually located, although these days, I’m leaning towards calling them legacy publishers because that seems to be becoming the industry adopted term for them.

These publishers followed the original publishing model of agreeing to publish an author’s manuscript, taking all profits, and paying the author an agreed-upon portion of those profits — royalties.

Indie Authors are the “new” style of publishing that is sweeping the publishing industry.  They eschew legacy publishers, and instead publish their books themselves, using publishing platforms offered by Amazon, Smashwords, and a dozen other retail outlets.  They publish in e-book format, and often also in print.

Indie authors are self-publishers, but self-publishing has lost any trace of the dishonour it used to have only a decade ago.  Indie Authors are earning small and large fortunes, landing on best seller lists, and making names for themselves.

But all is not rosy in Indie Publishing.

Indie Authors and their books have troubles getting reviews, and when they do get reviews, the reviews are often blatantly biased against the author and their book because of the indie status.

There is a perception that because the book was “self-published” it can’t be any good.  And there are terrible indie titles out there, no argument.  Indie publishing lets any author publish anything.  So an author with little skill and no self-editing abilities can put their self-admired clunker up on Amazon inside an hour, for the world to puke over.

But that’s what makes indie publishing the perfect business model for the fiction world.

Yep , you heard me right.

I have a post coming up that will go into this a lot deeper, but basically, the legacy publishing model has a handful of editors sitting in New York who decide for the rest of the world what you will — and will not – get to read.  And when.

As these same editors are only publishing x number of titles a month, there was a small mountain of damn good authors and brilliant books that never got to see the light of day.  There was also a very large mountain’s worth of crappy books, too.  But the editors were holding it all back.

The indie publishing model doesn’t hold anything back.  You get to choose, instead.

So yeah, there are going to be more clunkers, and so-so novels out there, and you’ll have to learn how to spot them at fifteen paces, and before you put your money down.

But as the average indie novel is worth about $2, even if you end up buying a clunker you’re not going to be out by the $12 most legacy publishers are squeezing you for these days.

There are some frankly brilliant novels being published independantly.  They never got past the NY gatekeepers because they were just a little bit different, and couldn’t be slotted into a generic fiction shelf.  Editors got nervous because they couldn’t figure out how to market the novel…so they said no.

There are niche novels, that appeal to subsets of subsets of genre fiction readers that editors said no too because they couldn’t see a profit in it…but an indie author makes money from their first sale onwards.

And there are dozens and dozens of novels that are out of print, or been discarded from NY houses as “no longer profitable” that authors are tweaking, polishing and publishing themselves, so their readers can have access to them once again.

Every day there are more and more authors moving over to the indie model of publishing.  They look at the profits involved, and the 100% freedom and total control of their own careers, and make the leap.  Sometimes they’ll try it with just one book.  And one book is all it takes.

If someone like New York Times best-selling author Barry Eisler can walk away from a six-figure NY deal, and indie publish instead, you know it’s not a passing fad.

Indie publishing is making legacy publishers very, very nervous.  There is a flood of hyperbole and vitriole about the evils of indie publishing, indie authors and their products.  If you trace the more vehement reports back to their source, you nearly always find it originates from someone with interests in legacy publishing.

Authors who have been successfully publishing with the royalty model for decades and are entrenched in the system are also resisting change like mad — of course they are.  They’re afraid:  Afraid to change, afraid of losing income, status, of simply having to change the way they’ve been doing things for years…and perhaps failing.

If you listen and absorb all the negativity pouring forth about indie novels, you will be hypnotized into never daring buy one, ever.

So…you can stick your nose in the air and say no to buying indie novels.

But you’ll lose out on a vast sea of wonderful fiction.

(This is the last post of the series)

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Related posts:

1. Are Print Publishers Really Doomed? This is the first post in a series. Part 1: Are Print Publishers Really Doomed? Part 2: Are Print Books Really Doomed? Part 3: Do...
2. Do I HAVE To Read E-Books? This is the third post in a series. Part 1: Are Print Publishers Really Doomed? Part 2: Are Print Books Really Doomed? Part 3: Do...
3. Are Print Books Really Doomed? This is the second post in a series. Part 1: Are Print Publishers Really Doomed? Part 2: Are Print Books Really Doomed? Part 3: Do...
4. Electronic Books –Overlooked, And Shouldn’t Be When I was discussing publishing models and POD terminology the other day, one of the models I didn’t include was electronic publishing. The more interesting thing...