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Mrenda posted:Is everyone in this thread purely working a writing assembly line to make money? Yeah, pretty much. I clock in, get to my station and take my seat. The whir of the cogs overhead vibrate through the massive litfactorium, and the conveyor in front of my station brings a new piece of paper into view. My fingers descend onto the keys. They're the only keys in front of me. They're the only ones I need. S-L-I-T I hear the whir again, and my page is gone, send off to the next drone in the line. A new piece of paper stops in front of me. I sigh, my fingers begin their four step dance...
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May 27, 2015 22:32
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I really hate the fact that my boss only allows me to write the sex scene, but one day I'll work my way up to cliffhangers or maybe even management.
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May 27, 2015 22:33
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EngineerSean posted:I really hate the fact that my boss only allows me to write the sex scene, but one day I'll work my way up to cliffhangers or maybe even management. You're braver than me. I can write everything up to the sex scene so they put me in continuity. In, out, in, the champagne flute is stage left. Stage left!
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May 27, 2015 23:05
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Headboard is all sticky. Drawers on the kitchen ceiling fan. Who has a ceiling fan in their billionaire bedroom? ffs
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May 27, 2015 23:07
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Jalumibnkrayal posted:Yeah, pretty much. I clock in, get to my station and take my seat. The whir of the cogs overhead vibrate through the massive litfactorium, and the conveyor in front of my station brings a new piece of paper into view. My fingers descend onto the keys. They're the only keys in front of me. They're the only ones I need.  Seriously though, no. We write all sorts of poo poo and love writing it. That being said, this is a thread dedicated to making money off of writing, so our topics end up being a little different from the other fiction thread. I love every second of the writing, and if it was an assembly line nightmare, I'd not be quitting my day job soon.
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May 27, 2015 23:44
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Assembly lines are tough- the union has been trying to negotiate a raise in price-per-E-key for months, but thus far no dice. Seriously though, what do you guys think about Pub Yourself, the goon-run publishers? I'm seriously considering shooting them an email once I have the book I'm currently working on finished, under the assumption that 35% of a book being marketed competently is going to work out to more than 70% of a poorly-managed release, but since my main purpose is to see if I can actually make halfway-okay money from this, I feel like it's silly to pay for services anyone trying to make a living with this should be proficient in anyway.
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May 28, 2015 00:09
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Omi no Kami posted:Assembly lines are tough- the union has been trying to negotiate a raise in price-per-E-key for months, but thus far no dice. They are good guys (and gals) and I think you'll find them very open to talking about your projects with you. I have not published with them, but I've worked with them for several years now (and co-authored a series with one of them), and I can safely say that I think very highly of them.
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May 28, 2015 00:28
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That's the impression I got from reading their website- they seem really on the ball. Thanks for the recommendation! ^^
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May 28, 2015 00:37
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Omi no Kami posted:Seriously though, what do you guys think about Pub Yourself, the goon-run publishers? I'm seriously considering shooting them an email once I have the book I'm currently working on finished, under the assumption that 35% of a book being marketed competently is going to work out to more than 70% of a poorly-managed release, but since my main purpose is to see if I can actually make halfway-okay money from this, I feel like it's silly to pay for services anyone trying to make a living with this should be proficient in anyway. I'll be honest, if you think you're competent with everything it would be a mistake to give someone half of everything you make for them to do it for you. However, it sounds as if this is your first self-pubbed work? There's an awful lot that is common knowledge but putting it all together is more than a little daunting, and you're going to make some serious mistakes. Struggling through those mistakes is part of the process of becoming your own self publisher but if you'd prefer to maybe skip a few of those mistakes, it's a great option.
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May 28, 2015 01:02
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syscall girl posted:Headboard is all sticky. also this one made me giggle
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May 28, 2015 01:03
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EngineerSean posted:I'll be honest, if you think you're competent with everything it would be a mistake to give someone half of everything you make for them to do it for you. However, it sounds as if this is your first self-pubbed work? There's an awful lot that is common knowledge but putting it all together is more than a little daunting, and you're going to make some serious mistakes. Struggling through those mistakes is part of the process of becoming your own self publisher but if you'd prefer to maybe skip a few of those mistakes, it's a great option. This is definitely my first self-published work, everything I've done before now has been "Commit mouth words to text, wait to get back from vetting and proofreading, send to publisher, never think about it again". Even that was all academic stuff with university publishers, so I'd wager 99% of my experience doesn't apply here. What I was thinking was finishing my market research, deciding on a niche/theme within romance to pursue, write one book that I'm pretty happy with, and use Pub Yourself as a kind of tutor by watching and learning from how they suggest marketing it. This is getting pretty obscure, but is there a recommended reading level in the romance genre? I keep having to restrain myself from writing silly purple BS like "How could I possibly keep him from feeding my vulgar, licentious appetites".
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May 28, 2015 01:08
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We generally aim for a 4th to 6th grade reading level, based on the Flesch-Kincaid scoring method. edit: I am an author and I don't know what licentous means.
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May 28, 2015 01:18
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Oh crap, some pompous walking thesaurus I am- turns out it's spelled licentious. I just learned it today- heard somebody use it on TV, and figured "vulgar, licentious appetite" was just about a case study in how not to write fun-to-read fiction.
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May 28, 2015 01:23
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Blue Scream posted:This thread focuses on mainly the business side of writing (and as such I have found it very useful), but that doesn't mean people here don't care about telling a good story, or developing realistic and interesting characters. Writing is hard and monetary rewards are uncertain at best, so anyone who approaches it as a purely mercenary venture has bad ideas and should feel bad. I'm pretty sure most people here really enjoy writing (when it doesn't also make us all I didn't mean to make any judgement with that. I've had one goon contact me to say, and maybe their sarcasm didn't come through, that "i literlaly only care about making money." I don't think that's a bad thing. I know commercial photographers (in a non-photography jargon sense) who have no consideration for art and treat their work as something to put food on the table. They're good at what they do, and they have a lot of clients who love what they do. They put a lot of effort into their photography, it's a job they enjoy and they do feel there's creative endeavour in it. They just don't feel artistically fulfilled by it. I don't think creativity is about endless suffering and being "true" to your vision while you starve. I really was just wondering if the majority of people here see it as an "assembly line" of producing words for whatever markets are more profitable. I'd also hate to think that there are people reading this thread who are writing something they truly want to write, and who want to get eyes on their labour of love through self-publishing, but are turned off from it because it's not easily marketable. There's room for "I literally only care about making money" and "I want to sell my loved creation." There has to be people who self publish because they feel they wrote a great novel that they wanted to write, and they feel it's worth money (and I'd imagine selling your book will get you more readers than giving it away,t he reader will want to feel the author values themselves.) Whether they squeeze the industry for every last dollar may not be their top priority, but they can still care about selling their book.
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May 28, 2015 01:28
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) and want to produce quality work. I've read some great stories by goons.
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you can tell he doesn't work at the assembly line because he misspelled clitorally
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May 28, 2015 01:45
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Yea, things have been brutal ever since they started timing people- anyone who can't punch out a variation of clitoris within 0.65 seconds gets put on probation but quickly.
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May 28, 2015 01:51
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I have a craft-related question: Which of these sounds more natural? Miranda walked into the room, exasperated. "Is everyone in this thread purely working a writing assembly line to make money?" The disgust was as clear as day on her face as she looked at these so-called "artists" that were really just soulless corporate automatons. -or- Miranda walked into the room. With a sheepish look on her face, she asked softly, "Is everyone in this thread purely working a writing assembly line to make money?" She sat back, hoping to get an honest answer from her question with absolutely no judgement meant even if someone did say that they were. -or- Miranda walked into the room, a smile on her face. "Is everyone in this thread purely working a writing assembly line to make money?" She looked eager to write, and also to make money. I'm just not sure which one of these adequately captures the tone of my Miranda character best.
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May 28, 2015 01:57
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I hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty of attempting an edit. I think it conveys Miranda's disposition a bit better. Miranda walked into the room, hate clear her face, ""Is everyone in this thread purely working a writing assembly line to make money?" Everyone was making more money than her.
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May 28, 2015 02:01
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Mrenda posted:Miranda walked into the room, hate clear on her face fixed this for you Dr. Kloctopussy fucked around with this message at 02:07 on May 28, 2015 |
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May 28, 2015 02:03
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Mrenda posted:I hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty of attempting an edit. I think it conveys Miranda's disposition a bit better. *chomps on cigar* put this girl on a typewriter, she can write 480 hooks a day
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May 28, 2015 02:07
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I'm ex-military and after that worked a "process one hundred foreclosures a day" bank job (might as well have been an assembly line). I might have been happier writing science fiction but I definitely put my heart and soul into every romance and erotica book I write. I am artistically fulfilled.
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May 28, 2015 02:11
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My apologies for getting pissy. I took things said elsewhere into this thread. I have no issues with someone earning megabucks from a novel written with a straight out of market research, and I know that doesn't mean it's badly written or written without attention. I'm not at the point where I want to do that. I followed advice that was wrong for me and what I've written. It's my own fault for not paying heed to my own judgement and getting my own balance between business and what I want to do wrong. I shouldn't have said what I said. Edit: And I understand that Sean. I've started writing romance and I am enjoying doing it. I shouldn't have implied it was different for anyone else.
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May 28, 2015 02:16
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whoa whoa we were talking about Miranda, not Mrenda.
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May 28, 2015 02:40
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Mrenda posted:My apologies for getting pissy. I took things said elsewhere into this thread. I think there some weird mythologies around writing, and many of them seem mutually exclusive, but a lot of people believe both. Like, you should write only what you want to write. If you write for market, then you're just being a sellout. That's not true art. But! You have to get an editor. Of course a professional editor will ask you to make changes aligned with a vision which is mostly intended to help move a book to market! Or, once more, you should only write what you want to write. If you aren't writing what you want, you're selling out. But writing it should be really hard, and miserable. If you're having fun or being efficient, then you're missing the point that writing is pain. It won't make you much money of course, unless you are really lucky. But if you are insanely lucky, the stuff you like to write will align with market preferences. Then you'll have an impossibly tortuous dream job. Stupendous!
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May 28, 2015 02:51
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Mrenda posted:I've had one goon contact me to say, and maybe their sarcasm didn't come through, that "i literlaly only care about making money." This was me, by the way. Go back and read my first posts in this thread. I was doing exactly what you are doing. Reading this thread pissed me off because it felt like no one cared about writing. I care about writing what I really want to write and love, but as someone in IRC said, "I'll do that from atop a throne of money." For writing romance/erotica, I am in it 100% for the money. I do greatly prefer sitting down and making up characters and stories--even if it's romance--to being a bureaucrat for a university (which is my day job), so while it does all come down to money, it's also about getting free of the eight-hour work day where I only have 2-3 hours of work. If I succeed at this to even a fraction of what the biggest sellers in this thread are doing, it means I can move wherever I want in the world. Compare that to now, where I am stuck living in a sweltering hot swamp because that's where my job is. All of those things are more important to me at this point than getting my speculative fiction published in Clarke's World. I'd feel SUPER AWESOME if I got a Clarke's World publication, but at the end of the day it would net me like $500 one time, and I'd still be working my day job forever. I've been writing 10,000 words per week since I started doing romance, and I'm trying to increase it to 20,000. There's no way I could do that without a serious reward motivating me.
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May 28, 2015 03:04
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EngineerSean posted:whoa whoa we were talking about Miranda, not Mrenda. Mrenda, of course, was illiterate- she responded to all forms of writing with distrust and disdain. I don't want to get into erotica too much, since the OP asks us not to, but am I correct that it's below romance & erotic romance in terms of pure volume of sales?
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May 28, 2015 03:31
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I've read a great deal of this thread, but not all of it, so I apologize if these are silly or beaten to death questions. I don't think I have what it takes to dive into this market right now, but it would be nice to temper my aspirations. 1. Do you guys see eBook publishing as an economic bubble? The meteoric rise of self-pub seems to have occurred in the past 5 years. The whole thing feels like a cash train that is tearing rear end through town and you either get on now or pick up the exhaust-coated nickels left behind. 2. Do traditional publishers give the stink eye to mediocre self-pubbers? It's obviously a bad idea to try selling the first story you vomit, because a store page seems analogous to a C.V. for the public. If a traditional publisher finds a  series that you've written, do you think that weighs heavy into their considerations, or would the work you put on their desk matter more? Maybe sales are the more important metric?3. How the gently caress does online marketing work? The OP posted:Don't even think about marketing stuff yet. Just don't. Oh, nevermind.
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May 28, 2015 03:55
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EngineerSean posted:whoa whoa we were talking about Miranda, not Mrenda. I really related to Miranda. She felt really fleshed out and acted exactly how I would have if I was in her situation. I hope she gets her HEA in the next in the series. 4/5 because I don't like cliffhangers.
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May 28, 2015 04:34
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Pete Zah posted:3. How the gently caress does online marketing work? A question of such breadth and depth that I could not possibly begin to answer it here.
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May 28, 2015 05:08
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EngineerSean posted:A question of such breadth and depth that I could not possibly begin to answer it here. What do you think about sending out ARCs to book blogs for a 1st romance novel?
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May 28, 2015 05:21
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Dr. Kloctopussy posted:What do you think about sending out ARCs to book blogs for a 1st romance novel? Bloggers are so enormously overburdened with books to read that they'll never take it. I don't mean to say that like it's a flip answer, they literally get frustrated at unsolicited submissions to them. Release one novel, start up a mailing list right away, and use that as the pool for future novel ARCs.
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May 28, 2015 05:25
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Pete Zah posted:
As far as I'm concerned (as a small press guy), that's only a positive. It means you have output, maybe some fans. I'd love it if people submitted to me and they had a 5-book series self pubbed somewhere. Means someone is reading their stuff. But it has to be legit, not I-cobbled-together-some-poo poo-and-put-it-on-Amazon type thing.
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May 28, 2015 05:44
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EngineerSean posted:Bloggers are so enormously overburdened with books to read that they'll never take it. I don't mean to say that like it's a flip answer, they literally get frustrated at unsolicited submissions to them. Release one novel, start up a mailing list right away, and use that as the pool for future novel ARCs. Thank you. It did not sound like a flip answer. I really appreciate the alternate advice, too.
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May 28, 2015 07:39
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Pete Zah posted:1. Do you guys see eBook publishing as an economic bubble? The meteoric rise of self-pub seems to have occurred in the past 5 years. The whole thing feels like a cash train that is tearing rear end through town and you either get on now or pick up the exhaust-coated nickels left behind. Used to be that it was that mythical easy work, good pay, work your own hours kinda deal, writing erotica back in 2012, when people told each other that you could live off the passive income from two dozen shorts. Not anymore. Personally, I don't think we're headed for a crash. More and more people are adapting to e-books as a viable form of content, and with the wide spread of tablets and smart phones to consume that content, the market is going to grow for a good long while yet. Eventually it will slow down, but that doesn't mean books don't sell anymore. The biggest problems are the sheer amount of white noise that's being put out, getting people to see your book will become an ever increasingly difficult task. As a self-pub writer you're already considered barely above fanfiction in most genres, anyway. But then again, fan fiction is also massively popular, so w/e
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May 28, 2015 08:31
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Im no expert but publishers, especially big ones, care about dollars on the table and would publish a literal poo poo on a page if they thought it would be a run away success. They run as a business not as the vanguard of all things literary. If you fit their genres and have self pubbed to some level of success I would be really suprised if the line "I have self published x novels and sold y copies this year" doesn't make them sit up and take you very seriously. The problem is, as i understand it, once you hit the point where they would be interested, you're no longer interested in them as you're making more money on your own than they would pay you.
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May 28, 2015 08:51
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EngineerSean posted:Bloggers are so enormously overburdened with books to read that they'll never take it. I don't mean to say that like it's a flip answer, they literally get frustrated at unsolicited submissions to them. She works for a publisher now though, so good for her.
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May 28, 2015 09:12
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A couple of months ago I was talking about writing an article about making your own book covers, kind of like a cheat sheet. Part one is up now: https://litreactor.com/columns/diy-book-covers-for-the-self-publishing I hope it helps someone out there!
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May 28, 2015 20:05
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ravenkult posted:A couple of months ago I was talking about writing an article about making your own book covers, kind of like a cheat sheet. Part one is up now: https://litreactor.com/columns/diy-book-covers-for-the-self-publishing It looks helpful, but unfortunately I'm still in the "what the hell is a layer mask?" part of my photoshop education. There are so many tutorials out there that it's a bit overwhelming. One day I'll sit down and properly learn the tools I depend on, but right now it's just band-aids and duct tape. You can hear my teeth gnashing when I have to remake a cover into a 1:1 ratio for the audiobook. I haaaaate it.
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May 28, 2015 20:20
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Jalumibnkrayal posted:It looks helpful, but unfortunately I'm still in the "what the hell is a layer mask?" part of my photoshop education. There are so many tutorials out there that it's a bit overwhelming. One day I'll sit down and properly learn the tools I depend on, but right now it's just band-aids and duct tape. You can hear my teeth gnashing when I have to remake a cover into a 1:1 ratio for the audiobook. I haaaaate it. Ain't no need for layer masks bruh. Not for what I did in this article anyway, it's just layer styles at most.
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May 28, 2015 20:29
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My first month isn't over yet, but I'm pleasantly surprised. Wish I had taken my stories off my blog and thrown them into an ebook earlier. Working (slowly) on the next collection of short stories now, and hope to get a full length YA thriller out in time for Halloween. I also hope to flex my rapidly growing email subscription list better next time. Kind of screwed up with this book by setting it at .99 and just asking my email list to buy it even though they had already read all the stories since they were previously posted on my blog. On the next book I will set it to free next time and ask them to review it! grenada fucked around with this message at 23:39 on May 28, 2015 |
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May 28, 2015 23:29
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