With eBooks, why is there not an "indie writer" renaissance going on?
46 replies, posted
This motivated me to write a ebook.
Its a newer technology, give it some time. And books aren't a dieing art. This is a more digital age. In 10 or so years it won't be so uncommon to have an e-book reader. The only reason why e-books haven't taken off like a car with nitroglycerin under it is the fact that its easy to pirate an e-book or for authors to completely cut out publishers. So publishers are more reluctant to make a digital version where its pretty much going to lose money from the fact that if they don't rent the book out your going to have it as long as you live. Unlike paper books which burn, rot, and get ruined from water.
My good friend from Ireland is currently writing a book as we speak; to be published and to be on an ebook :)
Part of the reason is because anybody can write a load of old shit and publish it online.
Case in point is the ebooks by Chet Denbeck, which tarnish the reputation of ebooks and make people unwilling to purchase good quality ones. (As noted from the comments on his books, which he often deletes to avoid critical comments.)
[QUOTE=catbarf;32163472]
Indie games exist because they give you less, [/QUOTE]
you're crusin' for a bruisin'
Good article. I can see the points of both sides, but I've honestly never thought of self-publishing. Always an option of no one takes my stories. And, hell, think about the market for independent editors! All those errors to correct... I'll stop before drooling on my already abused laptop, but the concept of being an editor for an indie writer is really appealing.
Writing a book is a long and arduous process, and very few people truly understand that. Everybody wants to write a book, but nobody wants to actually put words on paper. There seems to be a misunderstanding in the world, that a book writes itself, and that all you have to do is [i]announce[/i] that it's on the way, and because of this misunderstanding people act surprised when they stare at the blinking cursor on their word processor and wonder, "Where the hell's my novel?" Hell, I've thought this myself before, but as somebody who's actually had some experience with the process, I can safely say that nearly everybody underestimates writing a book. I watched my dad slave through two novels, and both of them took no less than two years to write. At times, he says, it was truly grueling. There were nights where he wanted nothing more than to just go to bed, when his mind felt so exhausted from such constant outpouring of thought and imagination that he felt physically weary, but he was at his computer until the early hours of the morning every night for those years, pounding away at the keyboard in bursts. Each story saw rewrite after rewrite as he thought of better ways to tell it, as I read through and suggested alternatives and clarifications on certain points. When they were finally done, after he declared them finished, he sent them to agents all around the country only to discover that they weren't [i]actually[/i] done. No agents were looking for new writers, and so he determined to start again. That's the world of writing. Constant practice. You keep doing it again and again until you finally win, and at times, when it feels like you'll [i]never[/i] win, you just have to learn how to shut that thought off and keep writing anyway.
The reason why indie writing isn't more popular is because most people, once they fully realize exactly how much work is needed to tell a [b]good[/b] story, give up, and a disappointingly large percentage of the people who actually do tell their stories try to take shortcuts, skip crucial steps, plan it poorly, and generally approach the entire process from the wrong perspective. Then, once they've declared it "finished," truly [i]mean it[/i]. Even a successful writer, one who's published and famous, should be able to open up one of his old stories at any time and find a dozen ways to improve it. The result of a half-assed story is a poorly-told story.
I [b]strongly encourage[/b] people to write as often as possible, [i]especially[/i] if you ever want to be an actual, published author! I know the things I'm saying may not seem inspirational, but that only depends on your perspective. If you are somebody who shies away from hard work, who hates the idea that they will actually have to [i]practice[/i], and that [i]not everything they write will be great (or even GOOD)[/i], then you're simply not cut out to be a writer. However, if you read this and think, "Writing is truly a craft that rewards hard work, and I'm willing to put in as much work as necessary to become great at it."
Those who understand that you get out of writing what you put into it are those who have the potential to dominate the field.
This is why there is a shortage of independent books, and why what independent books [i]are[/i] available are rarely taken seriously.
[QUOTE=MakoSkyDub;32164743]Hohoho, :deluded:[/QUOTE]
The indie games market is driven entirely by games with a limited scope or limited content, because it's a simple fact that one guy can't create the same amount of content as a dedicated team of dozens of professionals with enormous amounts of funding. Whether you find the indie games more fun or not is irrelevant, it is an indisputable [b]fact[/b] that they contain less 'stuff' (whether it's gameplay, campaign, graphics depth, it doesn't matter) and are priced accordingly. The surest proof is that the number of indie games that clock in at over 10GB can be counted on one hand.
In most cases it's hard to confuse an indie game and AAA title- the only recent exceptions to this I can think of off the top of my head are Section 8, Lead & Gold, and Shattered Horizon, and all three, despite looking very nice, are somewhat lacking in content (poor SP, few maps, and L&G and SH have only a handful of weapons/classes).
On the flip side, most of the games with enormous amounts of gameplay content, or dynamically (read: randomly) generated content, tend to be more graphically simplistic, often 2D titles. This category includes AI War, Frozen Synapse, Terraria, Minecraft, Defcon, Uplink, Darwinia, and others. They're not bad by any means, and I'm not saying the latest CoD is inherently better just because it has a higher price tag, but none of those games would likely sell well at $40.
There's nothing wrong with indie titles, but believing that somehow one guy in his spare time can do everything an 80-man professional team can do and that the old adage 'you get what you pay for' doesn't apply is just wishful thinking.
And it's the same with books: Published authors versus mediocre fanfiction. The key difference is that while gamers are interested in a cheaper alternative to $40+ titles that aren't worth it if you don't sink 20+ hours into them, there's not much of a market for cheaper books when a $10 paperback can easily last 20+ hours on its own. If I'm going to put more than ten hours into reading a book, I'm willing to pay a couple bucks to get better quality than what I could find for free online. With gaming, there are a lot of people willing to try a $10 game as opposed to a $50 game, as there is the very real possibility that they'll end up getting the same enjoyment for $40 less. With hypothetical 'indie books' at budget prices, the gap is smaller, and so cheaper books have less appeal.
brb writing a book
I generally take pride in my writing, but I'm not self-centered enough to think that anyone would ever want to [I]pay[/I] for anything I write, except for maybe a manual of some type. Then again, I'm the sort of person who thinks paying for a book (or really, any sort of artistic medium) pretty much defeats the purpose of the art.
Considering most of the people I went to school with complained about minimum word counts and five paragraph essays, I'm really not that surprised that people aren't creating entire books with a rich plot and defined and detailed characters. Too much work for them, and the time involved would get in the way of work that lets them afford to live and eat, so it would likely remain a hobby at best for years.
[QUOTE=catbarf;32175427]The indie games market is driven entirely by games with a limited scope or limited content, because it's a simple fact that one guy can't create the same amount of content as a dedicated team of dozens of professionals with enormous amounts of funding. Whether you find the indie games more fun or not is irrelevant, it is an indisputable [b]fact[/b] that they contain less 'stuff' (whether it's gameplay, campaign, graphics depth, it doesn't matter) and are priced accordingly. The surest proof is that the number of indie games that clock in at over 10GB can be counted on one hand.
In most cases it's hard to confuse an indie game and AAA title- the only recent exceptions to this I can think of off the top of my head are Section 8, Lead & Gold, and Shattered Horizon, and all three, despite looking very nice, are somewhat lacking in content (poor SP, few maps, and L&G and SH have only a handful of weapons/classes).
On the flip side, most of the games with enormous amounts of gameplay content, or dynamically (read: randomly) generated content, tend to be more graphically simplistic, often 2D titles. This category includes AI War, Frozen Synapse, Terraria, Minecraft, Defcon, Uplink, Darwinia, and others. They're not bad by any means, and I'm not saying the latest CoD is inherently better just because it has a higher price tag, but none of those games would likely sell well at $40.
There's nothing wrong with indie titles, but believing that somehow one guy in his spare time can do everything an 80-man professional team can do and that the old adage 'you get what you pay for' doesn't apply is just wishful thinking.
And it's the same with books: Published authors versus mediocre fanfiction. The key difference is that while gamers are interested in a cheaper alternative to $40+ titles that aren't worth it if you don't sink 20+ hours into them, there's not much of a market for cheaper books when a $10 paperback can easily last 20+ hours on its own. If I'm going to put more than ten hours into reading a book, I'm willing to pay a couple bucks to get better quality than what I could find for free online. With gaming, there are a lot of people willing to try a $10 game as opposed to a $50 game, as there is the very real possibility that they'll end up getting the same enjoyment for $40 less. With hypothetical 'indie books' at budget prices, the gap is smaller, and so cheaper books have less appeal.[/QUOTE]
You seem to be under the impression that all unpublished authors write fanfiction and all indie developers are one person
"Hey, I'm James Frictional!"
At the same time, look at Johnathan Blow; I don''t think you'll find anyone who'll tell you he makes the gaming equivilant of mediocre fanfic. Less "stuff" could mean as little as a game being 2D instead of 3D. You don't pay for games per megabyte. Besides, you appear to have shifted your argument now to the question of "fun" where before you where straight-up talking about overall game quality.
All the indie label is is a notification that the game in question is not being funded by any publishers; there's nothing to stop an 80-man team from developing an indie game, if they wanted to.
There is actually - money in most cases.
[QUOTE=MakoSkyDub;32178803]You seem to be under the impression that all unpublished authors write fanfiction and all indie developers are one person[/QUOTE]
Unpublished authors with skills and accreditation aren't going to sell their books for a dollar apiece- their pricing would be much closer to that of published authors. With developers, it's to distinguish between full teams that self-publish and what people typically think of as indie gaming.
[QUOTE=MakoSkyDub;32178803]At the same time, look at Johnathan Blow; I don''t think you'll find anyone who'll tell you he makes the gaming equivilant of mediocre fanfic. Less "stuff" could mean as little as a game being 2D instead of 3D. You don't pay for games per megabyte. Besides, you appear to have shifted your argument now to the question of "fun" where before you where straight-up talking about overall game quality.[/QUOTE]
I never talked about quality with games, since it's a much more subjective thing than with books. With games, you pay less, you get less content. With books, you pay less, you (usually) get lower quality.
[QUOTE=MakoSkyDub;32178803]All the indie label is is a notification that the game in question is not being funded by any publishers; there's nothing to stop an 80-man team from developing an indie game, if they wanted to.[/QUOTE]
Which is why I used the 'one person' comparison, since games created by large teams do not have the same low-budget indie pricing, and are AAA titles for all intents and purposes. Red Orchestra 2 is an example of this, it's not $10, and there's a good reason for that.
I'm going to start writing a book so that I can show you exactly why there is no indie writer renaissance going on.
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