I've been reading a lot about self-publishing lately, as well as talking to friends who have gone the self-publishing route with their own books, and am intrigued by some of the differences between this form of publishing and more "traditional" publishing. A lot has been shared by authors about the advantages and disadvantages of self-publishing in terms of artistic and editorial control, responsibility for marketing and social media etc. But less has been written about the relationship between the authors and their readers in terms of self-published authors versus traditionally published authors. I've become aware that as a reader I have a different relationship with an author who self-publishes than one who is traditionally published. While I can enjoy the works and write reviews to share my thoughts either way, I've noticed that self-published authors will often re-brand (change cover designs etc and even change the text of a book) without my realizing it so I become more easily confused about whether they have a new book out or it's a repackaging of an existing book. It's hard to keep on top of this unless I avidly follow the author's Facebook page or Twitter feed. The Eden series by Keary Taylor is a good example here. Eden was originally a stand-alone dystopian YA book which I loved. It has recently been re-released (and re-written) as The Bane, the first in a trilogy. I had to do some detective work on Keary Taylor's website to work out whether I needed to purchase and read The Bane to follow the next in the series i.e. I didn't know whether it was simply a repackaging of Eden or it had been rewritten. On perusing the first chapter of the new version, it looked exactly the same as the first chapter of the original book. (BTW, it has been rewritten for anyone interested and I have yet to read the new version.)
Part of the problem here for self-published authors is that they don't have the marketing dollars and platforms of traditionally published authors available to them. It's hard for me to work out when new releases by these authors are coming out at all if I don't subscribe to their Twitter feeds and even then I miss a lot if I'm not following religiously. Amazon isn't much help because it seems to be hit and miss whether they pick up that you bought a self-published author's first book when they make recommendations on what you might like to read next.
I suppose these are kinks in a newish system and readers who are devoted to particular self-published authors will make it a point to seek out their new works and know when they are repackaging old works. But it is definitely more work for the reader to follow a self-published author than a traditionally published author whose new book will appear on library shelves and on the bookstores' new release shelves more automatically. So this is yet one more challenge for self-published authors - and their fans - in the digital publishing era.
Part of the problem here for self-published authors is that they don't have the marketing dollars and platforms of traditionally published authors available to them. It's hard for me to work out when new releases by these authors are coming out at all if I don't subscribe to their Twitter feeds and even then I miss a lot if I'm not following religiously. Amazon isn't much help because it seems to be hit and miss whether they pick up that you bought a self-published author's first book when they make recommendations on what you might like to read next.
I suppose these are kinks in a newish system and readers who are devoted to particular self-published authors will make it a point to seek out their new works and know when they are repackaging old works. But it is definitely more work for the reader to follow a self-published author than a traditionally published author whose new book will appear on library shelves and on the bookstores' new release shelves more automatically. So this is yet one more challenge for self-published authors - and their fans - in the digital publishing era.
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