Kindle ruins English literature with crazy new plan to publish the slush heap

As an ardent fan of the brilliant Susan Hill, I have to agree whole heartedly with her when she says that Shakespeare would be turning in his grave with all the horse kaka which is being published ad nausea today.

Time was when, in order to publish a book real skill, expertise and dedication were required. Now all you need is a voice activated laptop and a couple of hours off work and bob's your uncle, you're an author.

Video killed the radio star and now amazon killed the author.

IF you have any doubts about what I'm saying check out these piles of trash
Life... With No Breaks

The Diary of a Toiletgoer

All His Own Hair - A Romantic Comedy

mathomask, what is so brilliant about Susan Hill? Her most famous book is The Woman In Black which is very feeble when you compare it to Henry James's 'The Turn of the Screw'. As so many others she tried to emulate the Master, and failed.

Also would Shakespeare be turning in his grave? His plays albeit brilliant were ultimately published by his friends after his death. There have always been bad as well as good literature, and like the vast majority of us I read from high literature to pulp. And don't forget sometimes you look at books by big publishing firms and have to wonder whether they employ editors and proof readers.

No, I think Mathomask and Susan Hill are pretty much on the money. And I'll take a pale imitation of Henry James over any self-published book I've ever read - even my own.

I'm so tired of this argument about real books sometimes having the odd error. I have never read a self-published book that was produced to the same standards as a even the cheapest professionally published book. And, I suspect, neither have you. It's profoundly disrespectful not just to the editors and proof readers, but also to the typesetters, the printers, the designers, illustrators and everyone else involved in producing books to the highest professional standard, to find one typo on page 68 and pretend that this somehow legitimises the tidal wave of dross that's choking Amazon's free book lists.

And yes, I am saying this as an 'indie' author myself. The absolute lack of quality control that we're seeing here threatens to overrun literature with freely-punctuated tales of forbidden vampire love, and it's a real worry.

Mathomask and Andrew Lawston- totally agree with you both. Having sampled Spalding's 'Life..' thing and similar drivel, I'd rather read the classified ads- except illiteracy is so widespread,they're full of typos too. Fifty Shades of Grey whatever is a prime example of this awful self-publishing trend. Absolute purple, derivative porn. It's appalling and what does its success say about those who buy into this crap? I'm not against the freedom the Internet brings for writers to experiment and get their work in front of the public- just the complete lack of self-awareness some of these 'authors' have about the sheer awfulness of their scribings. It's 'Britain's Got (NO) Talent' literature. Upset reader

Have to agree with you and the OP, as both a reader and independent author. To answer the earlier question what does this say about... well, I'm also a retired teacher of English. Recent trends in education in the UK might be playing a part in the apparent collapse of critical judgement in both 'writers' and readers; it isn't just that we no longer study demanding texts in schools, we don't even study whole texts much any more. You can get A* in English Lit by knowing what to write about half a dozen poems and extracts from something as straightforward as 'Of Mice and Men'. The argument that there has always been poor 'literature' is true to some extent but we have to remember that Shakespeare's audiences included commoners as well as Kings and Queens, and that Dickens was read and enjoyed by many working class people in his own time. Yet both are now perceived as 'difficult', and if you promote them you will labelled elitist. I speak from personal experience here.

On a couple of writers' forums, in my early days, I called into question what people were classifying as 'literary fiction' and was astonished at the venomous responses! This is a sensitive subject indeed - but I suspect that more people know how much of what is being published is rubbish than are prepared to say so.

I don't know how this will be resolved. Server space isn't infinite; presumably lots of 'authors' will get bored when they don't get rich and do something else; platforms might in the end attempt quality control or just start deleting books that don't sell a certain number - which will probably include a disproportionate number of really good ones! Back to square one?

I really cannot see the difference between a bad novel sitting in a drawer or published as kdp. Nobody is obliged to read everything published on amazon, let alone count it as literature.
For adventurous writers the advantage of kindle is that it frees us from format. Such rules as "a novel is 70,000 words long" and "nobody publishes short stories" were not set by any Academy of Immortals, they were arbitrarily imposed by a print centred industry.

Leah And Her Twelve Brothers

@ Billy Hawk: My thoughts precisely! Literature is such a varied and wide-scoping topic that freedom of choice is surely the only sensible option to exercise here. Thanks to Amazon, many unheard and unread stories now have the potential to be distributed to thousands of people worldwide; given the long-winded and costly process of trying to get a book published in the traditional style, this gives everyone a greater chance to unearth some real hidden gems. Why should one person in a publishing house get to decide the fate of a written work when he/she is obviously going to have preferences in writing style and therefore is unable to offer a completely unbiased view? Let the people decide for themselves! I've got books on my Kindle that were downloaded for free and are streets ahead of anything I've ever bought in a bookshop.

I won't deny that bad grammar and punctuation is a real put-off; I've deleted several books for that reason alone. But not everyone with an active imagination and flair for writing can afford professional proof-readers to edit their books; if a storyline is good enough, that will carry it past the odd error - anyone who has read 'Three Men In A Boat' by Jerome K. Jerome in Kindle format will know that the layout is appalling in places, yet the story is so captivating you tend to concentrate on the words instead.

All books aren't brilliantly written and error-free - this is absolute fact. If people want to criticise poor literature then they need to look further afield than the amateur who now has at least a chance of some success and cast their eyes upward to the big leagues of major production houses and even movies where some of the dialogue is senseless drivel. As a hobby for aspiring writers everywhere (including me), Amazon have provided a fantastic platform to let previously unknown authors shine. The second sentence of Billy Hawk's comment says it all.

"Nobody is obliged to read everything published on amazon"

No, it's finding the good stuff among all the rest that's hard!

"arbitrarily imposed by a print centred industry"

If they thought short stories would make money I'm sure publishers would have printed them and I enjoy well-written shorts. Trouble is they're hard to come by.

"For adventurous writers the advantage of kindle is that it frees us from format."

I see that as the main advantage for readers (opposed to writers), when author experimentation works.

Nobody is obliged to read everything, yet self-published authors spam the fora, begging readers to read what they've published. They all publish to be read.

Writing comedy, by the way, if by far one of the most difficult genres. Don't know about the other two, but Nick has actually signed a contract for three books with an imprint of Hodder & Stroughton.

I agree that, on the whole, self-publishing is in dire need of improving.

To my mind, there is a difference between a bad novel in a drawer and a bad novel published on KDP. If you have a terrible singing voice but only ever perform in the privacy of your own bathroom, no-one will be offended and you can warble away to your heart's content. Once you start singing in public, you will start offending people, if only for the few seconds that it takes them to get out of range. By publishing, you are going public and must expect criticism, especially if you are asking for money as well.

The question of technical accuracy doesn't matter equally to all readers but it does matter. Who wants to be operated on by the surgeon who gets most stitches right some of the time? There are now hundreds of thousands of stories on the web which, by any normal, secondary school standards, are virtually the work of illiterate people. I have no problem with such individuals and have spent many years trying improve their lives - but the last thing they should be doing is publishing novels until such time as they have the basics under control. Please note - I do not say that they shouldn't WRITE novels, such activities being good practice as well as highly therapeutic!

Amazon is a sales organisation. If people simply want to write experimental fiction, randomly punctuated and creatively spelled, and then have their work read and commented upon, there are plenty of sites which will welcome them and users can read it for free. By publishing on KDP, writers are asking for money, not just opinions, and that is a different ball game.

" If you have a terrible singing voice but only ever perform in the privacy of your own bathroom, no-one will be offended and you can warble away to your heart's content."

Try living with my downstairs neighbours. Love them to bits, but the guy really should turn it down three notches in the shower. My ears bleed every single time. :-)

Agree with you, though. Said it already elsewhere. I'm sure there are pretty great self-published books out there, but they never get the attention, for they're buried under the pile of rubbish. I've not found one yet that had me gripped from page one to the last page, one I couldn't put down and that made me feel like I'm able to forget everything around me.

Tut-tut, mathomask. Are you jealous?

There are a couple of things you've overlooked. These books appear to sell. Surprisingly, selling books is what the publishing industry does. Given the choice the public choose to buy these books - get over it.

When people put up links I often have a quick look. I've looked at "Life. . . With No Breaks" and "The Diary of a Toiletgoer". I certainly wouldn't purchase either of them. Having said that they stood out from most of the SP books plugged on these forums. When reading through the opening you could sense the 'natural' confidence of the writer, and you'd no doubt they knew what they were doing.

Lets face it Susan Hill raised a point but some say she is right, others disagree. Dickens was self published. He owned the magazines which most of his works were originally published in, making it the ultimate vanity publishing. Yet we would all agree that Dickens' work are classics. J K Rowling was turned down by many a publisher before being picked up, and we all know what a phenomenon her books became. One major publisher puts out those dire Fifty Shade of Grey books, and now every major publisher seems to have got their own similar series.

Destry Rides Again (Leisure Western) is hardly the world's greatest book, yet it has been filmed twice and has never been out of print. Sometimes people get a bit too snobbish about literature, look at all those authors jealous of Lee Childs, personally I am not a fan myself, but he sells well. Especially in this economic climate big publishing houses are only really interested in books that they think will hit the bestseller lists, nothing else. After all they have to make a profit for their shareholders. We all know there is dross on here with self-published books, but you only have to look at some of the titles the big publishing houses are putting out and you can say the same. Earlier this year there was an author who was on one of the discussions. She had sold her first book, and good luck to her. However she had to keep submitting re-writes to the publishers as they wanted it sexed up. A traditional type romance thus had to be made into erotica to get published. Ironically she put the original version on the kindle format - and it sold better. Some authors have started off self publishing only to be snapped up due to word of mouth. Lets face it there will always be bad books, but there are also some great ones as well, and that goes for being self published, or being snapped up by some publishing firm.

I have noticed a few books coming up which are translations put out independently. The market for foreign fiction may have to go this way to a certain extent. Lets face it it has been known for years that both here and in the US these books only get noticed if they are huge bestsellers throughout Europe for example. The advantage to all of us here with these is that we can pick them up for a couple of quid, instead of three times that amount if they were published in the traditional way. Even Amazon themselves have noticed this niche in the market, publishing some of these titles with their own press.

Yeats was also self published and Stephen Crane. The point is, if you are after academy revered fiction then find your way to literary journals and suppliments rather than internet forums.

Two points that some people are now addressing here are a) not being able to find a good book, and b) the fact that the writers have the seeming audacity to charge for their work. So, what makes someone buy a book? I'm sure they don't just walk into a bookshop and pick something off the shelf at random, hoping all the while it'll be a satisfactory read. By the same token, you don't go into the Kindle store and just buy anything; it is the job of the author to sell the book in the few lines devoted to the product description - this is the equivalent of the back cover that everyone turns to when picking a paperback off the shelf. Any good author will use those few words to convince a reader that their book is exactly what they want to read; they have to start building a reputation somewhere and trying to get a book into print is never going to be the way.

As for cost, this goes hand in hand with the so-called back cover; if you don't like the synopsis, you don't buy the book - simple. If I think a book is overpriced (as many are), then I move on to find another title I might like. But the author is entitled to claim some sort of reward for their endeavour just as a big-time novelist or screenwriter would duly expect, and I'm not going to lose sleep over a poorly-written book if it's cost me less than a couple of pounds. If you want to read without any risk at all, join a library. Otherwise, anyone who has taken the time to at least try and write a book - no matter how bad - should be afforded some kind of respect. If they're good enough, reputations will grow and they will flourish. Personally, I'm not going to have a go at anyone who is willing to put themselves out there on the firing line for criticism - far better to do that then hold back and wonder what could have been.

For those who enjoy reading something original and a little different, try 'Somewhat Damaged' by David Rogers; I got it on free download and Mr. Rogers is an English teacher who writes for the sheer enjoyment. Not many people publishing on here are expecting to become rich and famous.

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Slightly aside, but slightly relevant. Life with no breaks and its ilk have earned Nick Spalding a big six deal, with Hodder and Stoughton. He's sold 400,000 e-books since about 2010. I've followed his career, vaguely, because he started at the same time I started writing and we had our books on the same crit site for a while.

C McNish I absolutely agree with what you say about buying books. I go into a book shop, I look round, I pick up something that interests me and read the blurb, if it still looks interesting, I flick through the pages and read some random passages (ie, look inside). If I'm still interested I buy it. This selection process doesn't usually fail me on line or in a shop. If it does, I just chalk it up to experience. I don't rail against the author for having the temerity to write a book I don't like.

As a result, I find it difficult to understand why so many e-book readers seem determined to project their inability to pick a book they'll get on with on the author. I really believe that the simple difference is perception. If it's big six, it's just a book they didn't enjoy. If the author has published it themselves there is an undercurrent that people feel the author has ripped them off, deliberately, deviously; setting out only to separate them from their money. Trust me. Writing a book is very difficult. People self publish because they want their work to be read. That's why authors write books; because they want to tell stories.

Nobody, and I mean this, NOBODY would do it as some kind of scam. Not fiction. Because it's sodding difficult.

Yes, there is a lot of self published dross, that's absolutely true but here's the amazing thing. Nobody who doesn't want to has to read it. If some vague numb-nuts like me can pick a book I like, surely smart people can do it.

The whole, shocked outrage at self published dross thing is... a bit mad really. It's like someone buying the Sun every day and whinging on that they'd rather be reading the Times and then continuing to buy the Sun or the Mail instead of buying the kind of paper they want. The cover of the Sun is a pretty big clue as to what kind of newspaper it is. A quick flick through gives a good idea of the tone... Same with books. I read quite a lot of them. I have varied and eclectic taste. Most of the books I pick, I enjoy. If a book takes my fancy I approach it with an open mind. Sometimes it's not as good as I hoped but usually I'll get something out of it. Very few would earn five stars from me but a lot get four.

Some folks are going to approach a self published book with an open mind at about the same time Richard Dawkins finds god. I guess it's just one of those things.

Cheers

MTM

PS will check out somewhat damaged.

I think Kindle is a brilliant outlet for new writers. The printed publishing industry has become wholly focused on celebrity biographies, cookery books and children's books to sell in Tesco and Asda at the expense of genuinely imaginative literary fiction, thus making it ridiculously hard for new authors to breakthrough. Kindle self-publishing bypasses the short-sighted literary agents and publishers who are just too lazy and too busy chasing short-term cash of the above rather than seeking out and investing long-term in new talent. Exactly the same as what has happened in the music industry.
I frankly can't believe how snobbish some of the comments on this forum are! Sure, a lot of what's on Kindle is absolute cack but consider this - if it gets people into reading and writing it's no bad thing as those who genuinely want to pursue it will. I'd much rather read a book full of good ideas and bad punctuation than a well edited, brilliantly proof read vapid tome that a load of middle-aged, middle-class, Oxbridge mates have decided everyone should be reading.
Nobody has to buy anything and if something is terrible it won't sell. Simple.

This largely phoney argument was conducted on the American forums over a year ago - phoney because nobody is imposing self-published books on readers. Assuming you're a reader with a taste for the classics and a kindle, you can download most of these from the Internet Archive. If you're looking for high-end, traditionally published literary fiction, read the book reviews and make your choices accordingly. And if you can't navigate your way around Amazon, go into a conventional bookshop, browse around until you see something you like, then download it onto your kindle when you get home.

The thing that a lot of people don't seem to have got the hang of is that with the kindle you can download a sample, so you can read that and then decide if you want the book or not. The great advantage here is that if you find that a book isn't your cup of tea and a waste of time or what have you, you haven't paid for it. With any book, whether self-published or put out by the big publishers, it is a great boon, because you read 10% of it without having to buy it. Remember, try before you buy.

A couple of other points, a lot of books nowadays if you buy treebooks have sound bites on the back cover from other authors. If you look around you start to notice a pattern, they are either published by the same company, or you find that certain authors do it for each other, an 'appreciation society' if you like. Also Lionel Shriver commented about reviews on websites such as this being useless, she seemed to forget that she gets paid for hers, we all do it for free. Perhaps Susan Hill's comments say more about her than about the state of self publishing. She is lets face it an average writer, she isn't high literature - but perhaps she thinks she is. We have had rants like this on the tv before, with certain authors claiming that their books are being cheapened by being sold as part of three for two offers in Waterstones. What they seemed not to realise is that they were probably selling more of their titles as people just picked them up to make three books. : )

Self publishing and the offerings it provides may not be everyone's cup of tea but let's face it, if I go into Waterstones not every book there is my cup of tea either. There are plenty of books that have been 'critically acclaimed' and won various prizes that I've struggled to get through and would describe pretty unfavourably.
The fact that the Fifty Shades triology has sold something like 65 million copies worldwide surely means that while it would never be described as quality literature it is something that people want to read, the author clearly met a need for people which other books hadn't to the same degree. Just because it's not something you want to read or don't enjoy reading it's still valid for it to exist.
If there is an influx of self published books here, it may make it harder to find quality books by new authors but there will still be ways to find the things that are what you'll want to read.
And considering there are a huge number of 'mainstream' authors who have had their works rejected (multiple times) by the major publishers, self-publication may allow talented authors to get their works read.
To say that this will ruin literature seems slightly extreme to me.

One genre where it is best to go the self published route is for Westerns. The largest market for them is of course the US, but they seem very unwilling to publish titles by non-Americans. There are publishers outside the US who do publish these novels, but they are few and far between. And who knows what will ultimately be the books published now that will still be with us in a hundred years time? A certain novel (Moby Dick) was published in 1851 and flopped. Come the 1920s and it is recognised as a masterpiece. The ultimate thing is that you enjoy the book you are reading. It can be high literature, or a piece of pulp, but if someone enjoys reading it then who really cares what it is?

[Deleted by Amazon on 29 Dec 2012 02:28:02 GMT]

"It can be high literature, or a piece of pulp, but if someone enjoys reading it then who really cares what it is?"

The justification you use here is an interesting one. Presumably, some people 'enjoy' the very worst kinds of pornography available on the web - but does that then act as a justification for such material? I guess the answer to the question that you pose is, people who have certain standards will care and try to do something about it. 'Standards' is, of course, a highly subjective concept but it is a central part of what we mean by being human, I think. Other creatures do not seem to have 'standards' but we do, and they matter to us.

I agree with much of what is said in this forum about the liberating effect of epublishing. I was not being published before it and doubt if I ever would have been. But, as ever in the grown up world, with freedom comes responsibility, and I think that this new freedom is being used irresponsibly if 'writers' are putting out badly written, poorly crafted and inaccurate work just because they can. Is a little restraint too much to ask?

The argument that not everyone can afford professional services is not an excuse for poor work - you would not accept it from the mechanic servicing your car: "I would have fixed you brakes, guv, if I could have afforded that bit of kit." Join a group of like-minded writers and check each other's work - all these things exist already but you must be determined to produce the very best of which you are capable or you are devaluing the very thing that is giving you the opportunity in the first place. Sites like Authonomy (and there are many others) allow one to publish and receive feedback BEFORE publication on sales platforms.

This is, I believe, an important discussion, and I'm glad that it is being carried out in such a civilised way.Literature will not be ruined, I agree, but we do need to educate each other about how best to use this new medium for it.

"The argument that not everyone can afford professional services is not an excuse for poor work - you would not accept it from the mechanic servicing your car"

From a reader's perspective I totally agree.
I think the writer's viewpoint can be different though, since part of the attraction of self-publishing is being independent and getting away from traditional "standards."
Not selling their work doesn't seem to put some authors off, they can get their books online rightaway and that's all that matters to them. I don't see that changing.