Survey Results - Part 3 of Indie Author Survey

In January of 2013, Suckers Guild conducted a survey of Independent Authors. The original survey can be found here: What Indie Writers Need Survey.  The first two parts of the survey results can be found here:

Survey Results – Part 1 of Indie Author Survey

Survey Results – Part 2 of Indie Author Survey

The last two questions on the survey were short answer questions.

What I Like Least About Being an Indie Writer

The results for this question were varied. However, there were two basic trends.

1. Being Responsible for All Marketing

Here are a few examples of statements made in the survey:

• Spending all my time trying to market and not having any time to write outside of my technical writing business.
• The endless search for information that will be relevant and perhaps critical to the successful marketing of my books. I learn something new every day and am constantly saying “I wish I had known that 6 months ago”. The learning curve is steep.
• Difficult to get the word out. Marketing.
• Marketing takes away from writing
• Having to do all the promotion myself

Without the support of the marketing team of a major publisher, independent authors are responsible for doing all their own marketing.  However, even authors published through one of the big six are often responsible for their own marketing today.

See these articles for more information on how all authors are responsible for their own promotion:

                Six Common Misconceptions About Being a Published Author

                Do Publishers Expect Authors to Market Themselves?

                Publishers Must Change the Way Authors Get Paid

One of the goals of the Suckers Guild is to ease the burden of doing all your own marketing.  We help members formulate smart marketing strategies to ensure the biggest impact for the least amount of work.

Several others commented on how expensive marketing can be.  Thanks to the Internet and social media, it is possible to do very effective marketing campaigns for little to no money. 

2. Indie Writers Have a Bad Image

Examples of statements made in the survey:

• I think indie writers are often unfairly grouped together. If a reader discovers a few badly formatted books that have terrible grammar and have clearly not been proofread, they assume all indie books are like that.
• The stereotyping that all Indie books are of a low quality.
• Being lost in a sea of others and told you are lazy or no good because you chose to not do traditional pub.
• People assume that I have no editor and dismiss my work out of hand without even looking.
• The old ways still hold sway, even though the 21st century promises to displace it. The general opinion seems to still place much emphasis on traditional publishing houses.

Undeservedly, there is an impression that indie writers are independent because they could not get a publisher or agent. The truth is many writers are choosing to stay independent because they get to keep more of the money from their sales.

However, in the marketing world we learn that image equals reality. If the world believes something about you it is, in essence, true.  We have to fix that impression. 

So why is this happening?  I think the following statement from one survey respondent is the most accurate:

Some people release work that is not ready out of ignorance; they don't realize how unfinished their work really is.  Other people put out work that is not ready because they can’t afford to hire a professional editor.

If you have the money, hiring a professional editor is an amazing experience. If you have more time than money, becoming part of a writers group may be a better offer. You gain someone who will edit your book for free and you “pay” for it by editing theirs.  One of the benefits of this is you become better at self-editing as well. Seeing the mistakes others make is a wonderful way to learn what NOT to do.

Just because you can publish a piece does not mean you should.  In the past, publishers acted as “gatekeepers”. They decided what got out into the public.  Today the gatekeepers are on holiday. Anything can get out into the hands of a reader no matter how good or bad it is.

One of the goals of the Suckers Guild is to self-police our members. We will be the gatekeepers helping to make sure only quality products are released.

The last section of the survey results will be released tomorrow.