How does one measure success in self-publishing?
Here's something I posted today, in a discussion with someone over how one measures success for an author who isn't professionally published. We were specifically talking about fan fiction writers, but I broadened the discussion to include self-published online original fiction authors. We didn't address the issue of self-published authors who sell their works, because I've done very little of that, and because fanfic writers can't sell their writings. Rather, we were trying to figure out what sort of measurements indicate that one is successful at one's trade if one self-publishes free works. Are there any holes in my argument? You published folks would be the ones to know. * * * Let's start off with comparisons. As far as fiction is concerned, I'm exclusively an online author (except for one e-zine that's not online). So the best comparison would be with e-published authors of m/m stories. The figures that are being compiled currently by the Erotic Romance E-Publisher Comparison Site (which has a strong focus on m/m publishing) shows that the average romance e-book sells about 350 copies, with about 100 copies being sold in the first month. A couple of years ago, Torquere Press, which was at that time the leading publisher of m/m romance, announced that its best-sellers had sold roughly 400 copies. I used to track reviews of professional m/m novels (mainly romances) for my marketing report The Slash Skinny, and the highest number of professional reviews that any book there got was four reviews. This includes R. W. Day's "A Strong and Sudden Thaw," which was published, not as an e-book, but in print, and which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards. Now, here's me. I've never been published professionally as a fiction writer (as opposed to as a nonfiction writer). My stories have only appeared online or in a CD e-zine that had very limited distribution. I confine my story announcements to online fiction communities, including the fan fiction community. I have a total of roughly 350 members of my fiction blogs and lists (it's hard to know the exact number because there's some overlap). I get about a gigabyte and a half of traffic at my Websites each month (including my nonfiction Websites). Most of those visitors (my domain stats tell me) are coming from the fan fiction community or other online fiction communities. I wish I had some solid reader stats to offer you; the most I can offer is the figures for the number of people who visited a story I announced at LiveJournal, during the first five days after the announcement: 455. I continue to get visits to old stories for months afterwards, because some of the communities I post at are static. As for reviews, they're nearly always in the form of reader reviews, and they usually run from two to six reviews. For one of my longer series, I've gotten dozens of letters. New York publishers would look down their noses at the above figures. :) And of course the vitally important missing factor is what the really knowledgeable editors and reviewers would think of my work. But I think that, in terms of reaching readers, I'm doing well in comparison to my e-published peers.

I'd say you were doing great. It seems to me that getting published on line in any form--self-published or e-published through an e-pubber--and getting noticed for it requires persistence and more persistence. You pretty much have to stick around long enough.

I am having a strange flashback to the time when teachers in NZ were going for a radical wage increase by comparison with other equivlent professions, a key one was zoo-keeping ;) It looks like a rough kind of equivlence to me, definitely. But so many things also vary between the examples. One thing I am curious about is the membership at MM subscription websites (free and fee-charging). Of course ebooks require money, but then they have a smoother delivery and assurance process. So I figure it would more or less even out. Others might think otherwise.

"a key one was zoo-keeping" :). Yes, and one thing I didn't say before is that I agree with Cory Doctorow that the right comparison isn't between someone who looks at an online work and someone who buys it - rather, the right comparison is going to be between someone who looks at an online work and someone who glances at it in the bookstore. The number of people who glance at a book without buying it are going to be much higher than the number who buy it. Karen, you came up in the conversation. I cited you-- Well, actually, I've cited you quite a lot. I keep meeting people who say that of *course* you're not going to get edited as well by a volunteer as you would be by a pro editor. So I tell them how you got snatched up by two presses, and I lost my best beta reader ever (*sniff*).

Aw. Thank you for the compliment, and sorry to have become unavailable. I'm swamp these days. I'm actually a bit burned out right now. I want to sleep, but I can't seem to sleep, so I'm goofing around on the net. The thing with FB/WCP, they took a chance on me. I had no "usual" accepted credentials (like a degree in literature, previous print publishing with a traditional publisher). I just told them I worked my butt of self-editing my own stuff and said I was willing to learn. I had a small -*test*-('") to see if I had a clue and that was it, I was on board. So I think it's a case of what I said before: persisting. If FB/WCP had said no, I'd have bided my time and tried again somewhere else. But I'm happy they said yes. To be blunt, it's the load of not well edited self-pubbed material out there that gets in the way of success the most. A good story kinda gets lost in the shuffle. So we're back to persistence again. Like I said, I think you're doing well. People know you, and that's the first step.

Oh, but my misfortune is your new authors' good fortune. I meant to tell you, though: I've been planning to go back to your betas to try to glean from them what you did there, so I could try to do it myself; likewise, I've been reading your LJ entries about the elements of editing. And now you've got that recent (well-deserved) success with your editor's creed post. Have you considered writing a series of articles on editing matters, and then perhaps publishing them? I'm sure plenty of authors would thank you. "it's the load of not well edited self-pubbed material out there that gets in the way of success the most." Indeed. And part of the problem is that writers are used to having book editors take care of this, and so the critique groups haven't yet developed a system to deal with authors who will be going straight into print, without a middleman. They should take a hint from the fan fiction world. :) "I had a small -*test*-('") to see if I had a clue" And I'll bet that's the point at which they screamed, "Hire her! Quick! Before a New York press gets her!"

I do have a web site devoted to advice that's seperate from my book site, but two pages are old advice and one is the creed. The rest will just be stuff I already posted on the blog but need to find quickly for my authors. It saves a lot of time not to have to repeat the same lesson. I have to get my butt in gear and finish creating the new pages. Faith, the managing editor, has a book on Wild Child about writing advice. She pretty much says what I would say. I may have more advice on Blogger about editing than on LJ. I'm not sure. And this last year has been a huge leap in how much I know about putting words together. I can't write the same as I did five years ago. Pretty much impossible. But I'm still a POV rebel. I still don't mind omniscient, still don't mind saidisms shoved in for speech tags (so long as the saidism works) and still hate that realism in a story, even a fantasy story, is cramped by modern opinions on sexuality. But I toe the line when I edit a book for FB/WCP, lol. Reading your stories was fun and I really got into the characters. I don't know how many writers could pull off characters like yours. It's pretty amazing.