So, there's a dirty little secret in indie publishing a lot of people won't tell you, and if you aren't aware of it, self-publishing feels even scarier than it actually is.
There's a subset of self-published indie authors who write a ludicrous number of books a year, we're talking double digit releases of full novels, and these folks make a lot of money telling you how you can do the same thing. A lot of them feature in breathless puff pieces about how "competitive" self-publishing is as an industry now.
A lot of these authors aren't being completely honest with you, though. They'll give you secrets for time management and plotting and outlining and marketing and what have you. But the way they're able to write, edit, and publish 10+ books a year, by and large, is that they're hiring ghostwriters.
They're using upwork or fiverr to find people to outline, draft, edit, and market their books. Most of them, presumably, do write some of their own stuff! But many "prolific" indie writers are absolutely using ghostwriters to speed up their process, get higher Amazon best-seller ratings, and, bluntly, make more money faster.
When you see some godawful puff piece floating around about how some indie writer is thinking about having to start using AI to "stay competitive in self-publishing", the part the journalist isn't telling you is that the 'indie writer' in question is planning to use AI instead of paying some guy on Upwork to do the drafting.
If you are writing your books the old fashioned way and are trying to build a readerbase who cares about your work, you don't need to use AI to 'stay competitive', because you're not competing with these people. You're playing an entirely different game.
I've been mulling this post over since I reblogged it this morning, and if Malcolm doesn't mind, I'm going to clarify for a few people who might be wondering: If these people aren't playing the same game as us other indie authors, what game are they playing?
The answer is that they're playing the algorithm.
It'd be so easy to drop this at Amazon's door, but quite frankly, all book retailers reward this behavior. If you are pumping out work regularly, the sales algorithm will reward you because it keeps you relevant. I'm not talking about authors who produce one book a year or even two or the few people who are genuinely that prolific.
I'm talking about the above people, who, let's face it, treat indie publishing as a form of content farming.
I have zero issues with authors who use ghostwriters, especially when they're honest about it. (James Patterson is a notable example.)
But the people who hide it or attribute it to their "hustle game" while claiming we're all in competition with each other are not competing with writers; they're competing with other Algorithm Gamers because they've realized that no matter the quality of their work, as long as they have something in the New Release category, they're making money.
They're competing to stay relevant in terms of quantity, not quality because they don't actually have anything to say.
It's all just clicks to them -- and I'm willing to bet they make more money from getting people to click their (usually undisclosed) affiliate links than they do their actual books.
So take heart, dear writer. You are not competing with these people.
The vast majority of us don't view the rest of our community as competition. We're just trying to get our own work out the door while also supporting our friends as best we can.
Work at your own pace. Make the art you want. Support other writers. It'll be worth it. I promise.
As a reader, how can we identify this mass-produced word-slurry and filter it out of our searches? It has been increasingly difficult to find the needles of well-crafted fiction within the haystack of self-published work that barely rivals the schmutz turned out by Kevin J. Anderson. And now with these "prolific writers" churning out "content" by the fastest means possible, the haystack is getting bigger.
What can readers do to support authors writing "the old fashioned way?"
How can we more easily FIND well-crafted work?
Talk to your writer friends.
Indie writers tend to be friends with indie writers. Most indie writers are itching for a chance to promote, not only their own new stuff, but also the stuff their friends write. If you're looking for new work, and you've read all your writer friends' stuff, ask them if they have any friends whose work they think you'd like.
If you don't have writer friends, depending on what you're looking for, cruising hashtags on social media that writers use tends to turn up things Written By Humans.
On tumblr specifically, I'd recommend #ownvoices and #book recs as tags that aren't over-saturated with botshit and 3deep5me 'quotations'. #writeblr , #writers on tumblr, and #writing community are occasionally also good places to look, but they can be overrun with botshit very easily. In general, on tumblr, you want to avoid any tag that people also use on instagram or xitter-- people who use something like postybirb to post their botshit to a lot of websites at once will use those tags, and so you get botshit in them on Tumblr too.
I'd also recommend following indie writers on social media- @thebibliosphere , @natalieironside, @renthony , and of course @drchucktingle are all very popular round these parts for a reason.
I'd also recommend @caffeinewitchcraft, @dycefic, @focsle , @fierceawakening , @whatmannerofman , @thesylverlining , and of course me @malcolmschmitz ;)
The algorithm is going to feed you botshit, because botshit is designed to be tasty to the algorithm. If you want things written for and by humans, you're going to have to ask humans.
