Last week BBC Radio 2’s midday programme, presented by Jeremy Vine, discussed self-publishing in the UK. The programme featured Kim Cross, MD of Grosvenor House Publishing (POD Index – 244.16), a UK author solutions service, and Simon Crump, a mainstream published author, as well as a host of phone callers.
Crump was one of the few lone voices not in support of self-publishing, believing that the process of mainstream publishing produced better books and better authors, and admitted he had not considered self-publishing as part of his writing career. Crump’s input to the programme came at the very beginning of what was approximately just under a thirty minute segment of Vine’s two-hour slot from midday till 2pm. Much of what Crump had to say, I can’t disagree with, and he pointed out that ‘vanity publishers’ engaged in raised expectations for an author’s book.
Kim Cross had much of the speaking floor, buoyed by several authors who phoned in to the programme to share their experiences of having their books published, but for me, never seemed to convincing sell the self-publishing argument. If anything, his radio host, Jeremy Vine, did a far better job. We were never told that Graham P Taylor, affiliated to Grosvenor House Publishing and a marketing mascot for them, self-published his book Shadowmancer by owning his ISBN, imprint and printed the books by normal offset means, and not POD. In fact, it would have made a great deal more sense if Grosvenor House Publishing had actually sent Taylor in to do the interview segment instead. Cross explained that ‘no, we don’t read the manuscripts’ and ‘no advice is given’, we ‘publish a book for an author’. Cross seemed to have a narrower definition for what is meant by ‘publishing’ than Simon Crump had earlier in the programme.
While we did hear from self-published authors who phoned in and some of them spoke about selling thousands of books, the programme made no mention of William P. Young, Jeremy Robinson or the more recent success of J.A. Konrath. Where Cross really exposed his lack of knowledge on other author solutions services and literary agents was when he incorrectly stated that Lulu had all their books printed in the USA. More glaringly, was his claim that 50 to 60% of manuscripts were not read by literary agents – citing his own experience. Broadly, Cross viewed the publishing landscape as bleak for new authors, believing the chances of landing a mainstream publisher or literary agent as almost ‘impossible’. Clearly Cross does not look through the pages of The Bookseller or Publishers Marketplace, week to week.
This should have been an ideal platform for a light to be shone upon self-publishing and its merits, as well as the challenges facing authors who follow this tricky path. Instead, it became another trapdoor for naive authors. It was an equal pity for Grosvenor House Publishing, one of the better and more established author solutions services in the UK – but by no means the best. This programme potentially through its lack of real discussion and delivery of misleading information, simply provided more author cannon fodder for unscrupulous vanity publishers.
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Mick, this programme was a wasted opportunity in all sorts of ways.
It could have been so easily improved: as it was, it lacked balance, objectivity and truth. What a shame.
I entirely agree, Jane. The impression I got was that Jeremy Vine knew as much about ‘self publishing’ as Kim Cross did, and the fact that Graham P Taylor has been on the programme a number of times made me wonder if that was the reason GHP were chosen as a representation of a self-publishing services provider.
I don’t have anything against GHP or Kim Cross, but I don’t think it did anything to help selp-publishing (or argue the good and bad of it) or really touched on the reasons why publishing is changing and authors are choosing different routes to publishing their books.
Hardly anything was said of ebooks and the fact that the Amazon Kindle store in the UK had opened that week. I think my own publisher who runs an academic and business imprint as well as a self-publishing imprint for authors would have made a better fist of presenting balance. I’d like to have seen someone like Lynn, maybe, from Pen Press turn up on the programme.
But yes, all in all, a wasted opportunity.
Do you know, I thought Lulu did print all their books in the US! That was certainly the case a couple of years ago when my daughter and a friend used the service for a slim volume of poetry – and as a consequence, the shipping costs were astronomical.
Can you tell me more?
I listened too and also thought that it was a real shame that the programme focused on the more traditional forms of self-publishing that GHP offer, rather than having a more comprehensive view of the new opportunities for authors.
It would have been good to have some other points to illustrate the different models of self-publishing available and, like you mention, the fact that eBook publishing is getting easier thanks to new Kindle services etc.
I was pleased that there were some success stories and it did present a fairly positive view of self-publishing, but definitely a pity that it still felt quite ‘old school’!