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KELNOR THE OVERWASP posted:That would be Ninjitsu, so it may or may not make a good cover for Kung Fu Jesus 4. We'll see! Do you think the average customer on Amazon knows the difference? Do you think that people who otherwise would have aren't going to buy your book because the cover implies ninjitsu when the book is actually about Kung Fu? Your target market is people looking for a fun action story in a wacky setting. They absolutely do not know or care about the subtle differences between various martial arts. This market is probably decently large, and probably under served right now. Look at that goon who wrote the Hard Luck Hank series - he did very well, and made lots of money in a similar niche to yours. The most immediate difference is that he nailed the marketing for that book. Amazing cover and blurb, and he must have paid a pretty penny for that artwork. However, investment like that is practically necessary in your genre/niche. Don't cheap out on your covers, it's the single most important part of a book, IMO. Be willing to spend good money on cover art, because if you get it right it will MORE than pay for itself.
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Mar 28, 2016 17:59
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You could try posting a thread here in CC, or perhaps SA Mart to find an artist. I see lots of threads in SA Mart with people commissioning logos, and a book cover isn't all that different. Set a budget ($100-$200 maybe?), give an outline of what you'd like, and you'll probably find someone decent.
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Mar 29, 2016 10:18
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Silvyfox posted:Whoof. Second novel of the year done. I just popped it off to the editor, hope to release it soon if there aren't major problems. Any promotion you can do will help with a mailing list of two. What genre is the book? I'm sure there are paid promo sites out there too that could give you a boost on release. I would set book 1 free now and book as much promotion as you can for that too. You might get a few more mailing list sign ups out of it.
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Mar 31, 2016 11:19
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Silvyfox posted:It's your basic shifter romance, like actual romance and not smut. I'm not able to do as much paid promotion as I'd like to, because I'm still starting out. I'm thinking of running them both free for a couple days, to build the 'also bought' on Amazon for the second one, and letting the first one get me some mailing list subs. I'm sure you know about these two already, but they'll give you a nice boost for cheap. https://www.naughtylistbooks.com https://www.excitespice.com Most of Fiverr is poo poo, but this person's service punches well above its weight, and it has always more than paid for itself for me. https://www.fiverr.com/hgromance There are lots of promo services for around $20-25, (bettybookfreak is the first that comes to mind) but I have never really found them to be worthwhile. If you can stretch to $70, https://www.bargainbooksy.com/ is good. Be willing to spend some money on promotion - set aside a couple of hundred dollars for each release, because it's practically necessary these days, especially in a niche as crowded as shifter romance. Here's what I would do if I was in your position: 1. Set book 1 free a week before release. Book a few cheap promos for it, and make sure the backmatter is updated to let readers know that book 2's release is imminent. 2. Release book 2, use a few free days immediately to populate your also-boughts. As soon as the book is live, book all your promo for the day it comes off free (and make sure it's priced at 99 cents) - you want as big of a 1 day push as possible to make the book climb as high as it can, as fast as it can. This is the most effective way to get Amazon's algorithms to work for you. If you had a higher advertising budget, I'd advise booking promo for the free days aswell, but if cash is limited I'd prefer to use it on a 99 cents promotion. It can be tough to get all the promotion booked on the same day, so for those sites that let you I would book it ASAP, before the book is even released. The closer you get to the date, the more likely it is that day will be fully booked on most sites already. 3. Make sure your cover and blurb are as good as they can be. Post them here if you feel comfortable, because there are plenty of romance authors who will be able to immediately let you know if you have anything that needs to be changed. 4. If at all possible, get some reviews on it as soon as it goes live. Send an email to your two mailing list subs and offer them a free copy of the book if they'll review it for you. This is probably a longshot with only two, but even having one good review is so, so important. 5. Cross your fingers and hope for the best.
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Apr 1, 2016 06:31
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angel opportunity posted:Bardeh and Silvyfox please email me at josefjakobus on the google mail service to get a Slack invite!!! I will do this, even though I'm not really sure what Slack is
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Apr 1, 2016 15:03
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It's been going on for quite some time, but when it came to light last month and people started digging up numbers on just how much some of these scammers were making, the KU rate suddenly lurched upwards to coincide with Amazon's statement that they were dealing with it. The trouble is, unless Amazon actually start reviewing the content of the books they accept and not just the cover and blurb, it's pretty much impossible for them to keep on top of it. Unfortunately, when you outsource your 'content review' to low paid Indian workers who may not have the best grasp of English, and who are probably dealing with dozens if not hundreds of books per day each, that is just never going to happen. As the system is set up right now these scams will continue to happen, and millions of dollars will be siphoned off from the pot each month. Amazon will presumably plug the gap as best they can by pumping cash in to keep the rate where they want it to be, but until they fundamentally change how KU works, they can't stop it. Bardeh fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Apr 20, 2016 |
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Apr 20, 2016 16:57
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thewhitehand posted:Why don't we make a goon group and do this? Because most of us here sell actual books through Amazon and are pretty much dependent on them for our livelihoods. If my Amazon account got banned I'd be loving boned (which is a scary enough thought in itself) and a short term gain isn't worth giving up potential future earnings. Not to mention that it's loving scummy and effectively stealing money from the content creators who are the driving force behind the program the scammers are taking advantage of.
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Apr 21, 2016 04:39
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I've been deactivated from Slack again. Can someone re-add me?
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Apr 23, 2016 13:07
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angel opportunity posted:Not to sound like a dick or start any drama etc., but we made an announcement that we were removing anyone who 1) didn't actively publish romance and 2) didn't actively participate in chat, then like 15 hours later we removed all those people. I am a romance writer, I just went on holiday for a couple of weeks...
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Apr 24, 2016 08:58
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I'd heard of Booktrope but never really knew what it was they did. So was it basically a social network to allow authors, cover artists and editors to find each other? Like, y'know, every author forum out there? Except forums don't take a cut of your earnings (30%!  ) I'm not surprised they're going under if that was their business model.E: and they took control of your rights?! Why in hell would anyone use this service
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May 7, 2016 16:02
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EngineerSean posted:I don't know, but we did have at least one local forums user get sucked in by it. Oh yeah, that was the dude who wrote that Snapshot book, wasn't it? And they completely hosed up his release and their promotion was godawful. At least he'll get his rights back and can actually do a real release now. E: I'm looking at the Amazon page for this book now and it's such a drat shame. He nailed the cover (and it looks like he made it himself, so I'm not even sure what Booktrope actually did for him apart from ruin any chance he might actually make money off his work), he has some excellent reviews, and the book looks great. All he needed was a strong release and some targeted promo and he could've done so well with it. Bardeh fucked around with this message at 03:52 on May 8, 2016 |
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May 8, 2016 03:48
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magnificent7 posted:Been waiting for y'all to bring it up. I'm sad they closed, they helped me get my book out. And I'm glad they closed up so I don't feel so bad about not using them for my second book... assuming I ever get around to finishing it. How much have you made off the book after Booktrope take their cut? Your book is of high enough quality that it could have done really great things and been a launching point for you to potentially make a career out of writing. Instead...well. Bardeh fucked around with this message at 07:25 on May 9, 2016 |
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May 9, 2016 07:23
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If there's one thing that Booktrope roping in so many authors shows, it's that there's a sizeable market for a service which helps new authors promote and publish their work. If I had any sort of tech savvy I'd be temped to set up my own one. Except not poo poo. For a 10-15% cut, and being selective with the books you took on, you could make a decent living at it. I'm baffled at how Booktrope have managed to blow through however many million dollars they raised in investment.
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May 9, 2016 09:17
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magnificent7 posted:I think booktrope bridged the gap between vanity presses and self pubbing. That's where it worked. Except it wouldn't be pennies because I know how to properly market a book (romance at least, but I'm sure I could figure out other genres too) and would only take on books that were of decent quality. And the thing with Booktrope is, it didn't work. They've just shut down, and presumably spent all their capital without ever making any profit. We have a perfect case study as to why right here in this thread. Anyway, I hope that when you get the rights to your book back, you pull it from publication and give it a fresh start yourself. Here's how to do it: 1. Set up a mailing list and a Facebook page. 2. Go to Goodreads and Amazon and find other books in your genre, and find some reviewers who've left nice reviews. Get in touch with them and ask if they'd like an ARC copy of your book. 3. Set aside at least $100-200 and book some ads. Try to co-ordinate them to be as close together as possible. In romance this can be difficult, in other genres you may have an easier time of it. 4. Release the book at 99 cents and enroll it in Kindle Unlimited, and send out an email to all those ARC readers and get them to post their reviews. Hopefully you've managed to do a bit of networking on the Facebook page, and have some people there you can spam the book link to aswell. 5. After a couple of weeks, schedule a few free days through Kindle Unlimited and book some more ads for that. This should hopefully net you some nice visibility and some more reviews. If all goes according to plan, the book should rank quite highly from this initial push, at which point you let it do its thing while you work hard on the next one, occasionally posting little excerpts and teaser images on your Facebook and to your mailing list. Because you're not in Romance like lots of us here, it's going to be easier for you to get into top 100 lists and stay there for some time. This is great visibility, and great for sales. You could also do blog tours and all that stuff, but in my experience paid ads beat that hands down, and are much less time-consuming to arrange. You have a quality product, ready to go, and it has the potential to earn you some real money. For god's sake don't just let it wither and die. Bardeh fucked around with this message at 14:31 on May 9, 2016 |
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May 9, 2016 14:28
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Jalumibnkrayal posted:KU rate for April = $0.00496 Huh, that's a pleasant surprise 
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May 13, 2016 20:06
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ravenkult posted:I'm making a Slack for Booktrope fans, who's in? I'm only going to join if it's as exclusive as the other slack. We don't want anyone please let me in the other Slack again Bardeh fucked around with this message at 19:25 on May 14, 2016 |
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May 14, 2016 16:48
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magnificent7 posted:To follow up, yes, I get my book back, yes, I'm planning on following your list here as close as I can with a re-publish several months after the Booktrope poo poo dies down. Most of the other authors are shifting their books to Amazon right away. I'd rather let the poo poo settle, focus on my next book, then re-release this one first, following the steps you listed, and then roll out the next one. How long should I wait? That's great to hear. How long you wait is up to you, but it mostly depends on your next book. Ideally you'd re-release Snapshot about a month, month and a half before the new one is ready to publish. However, if it's gonna take you a while, just do Snapshot as soon as possible. The longer it sits on your HDD, the more potential money you're not earning. All of the major marketing can be booked in a couple of hours, it's not that time-consuming. Maybe others here will have some good suggestions for places to submit it to, I've only ever promoted Romance and I'm not sure where you'd get the best value for money in other genres. Let us know when it's out. I'll borrow it and leave you a review.
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May 23, 2016 02:20
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It's gotta suck for the poor bastards whose books get pushed out of the top 100. That's potentially a huge hit to their income. E: Looking at the six books, it's not surprising they've boosted them. There's pretty much no way any of them apart from maybe The Butterfly Garden is getting there on their own merits. Bardeh fucked around with this message at 08:57 on May 30, 2016 |
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May 30, 2016 08:43
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The highest is now 300 or so, and the lowest 1.2k. I guess that's reasonably consistent with just a 'normal' big promo push?
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Jun 1, 2016 17:51
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Do we know the terms these Kindle First authors get?
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Jun 2, 2016 05:44
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I've sent out a whole bunch of ARCs today. Despite the instructions being extremely simple and clear (add me to your accepted senders list on your Kindle and give me said Kindle's email address OR just tell me if you want me to send you the book file as an attachment) readers can't manage it. They get their Kindle email address wrong, they ask me to resend 3 or 4 times when I know they're just not adding me to the accepted senders list, they ignore the instructions entirely and just respond with 'me' 'me plz' 'ARC rdy' 'me ty'. I think I'm going to have to automate this process better next time.
Bardeh fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Jun 3, 2016 |
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Jun 3, 2016 19:40
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Yeah just write it on your PC and then submit through D2D. Smashwords is another option, but it's not as good.
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Jun 5, 2016 14:42
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The whole situation is bad news. People on author forums have been talking recently about what form 'KU 3.0' might take, fixated upon what Amazon might change about the pages read system and KENPC calculations. I think this is probably the next seismic shift, though. They want more control, and with Kindle First rankings fuckery, Goodreads paid promo, and now this, they're starting to try and wrest it back. I guess we just wait and see how far they go.
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Jun 18, 2016 16:41
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ArchangeI posted:So, I have a bit of an issue. Not much you can do, unfortunately, apart from just taking it down like you said and renaming it.
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Jun 21, 2016 16:23
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https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-eBooks/b/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&node=13632018011& I wonder if this is going to affect the way that KENPC's are worked out. IE that now only pages actually read will count towards the total, instead of every page before the furthest one recorded.
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Jun 29, 2016 15:24
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EngineerSean posted:Still, a nonfiction essay by some no-name is #6 in the Kindle Store and that's pretty lol. Whoa, five reviews at a 3.5 star average. They could at least try and make this crap believable.
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Jul 4, 2016 08:01
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Bobby Deluxe posted:Barnes & Noble are going to start selling self pubbed books in stores. Having not read the article at all and knowing it would never happen, I would very much like to see some of the utter filth I wrote years ago and that is still published on B&N in their stores.
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Jul 10, 2016 16:01
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I got more amusement from this:  than your book. Sorry dude.E: for more constructive criticism. The cover is bad, the blurb is bad, and the book looks bad. Maybe it's excellent, but it looks bad, and that's all that matters. The pricing is all wrong (just set it to 99 cents if you're going to price in this range). If you're looking to just write what you like, then by all means, carry on. However, if you want to make any money at all, you're going to need to reevaluate your strategy. For books this short it's erotica or nothing, basically, and even erotica isn't the moneyspinner it used to be. If you want to write horror and still keep your books relatively short, maybe create a shared universe for your stories to inhabit, and then write 15-20k word novellas in that world. Pay someone to create covers for you, keep the branding consistent across those covers, and you might get somewhere. Bardeh fucked around with this message at 05:13 on Jul 13, 2016 |
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Jul 13, 2016 05:08
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OK, I actually borrowed and read Ghost Toilet. I read it all the way through. Unsurprisingly, it's full of poop jokes and godawful dialogue. Because I'm an immature idiot, I'll admit I smiled once or twice in a 'it's so bad it's kinda funny' sort of way, but your average horror reader is probably going to hate it and think it's extraordinarily puerile, because it is. If you're going for the 'it's intentionally bad which makes it funny' angle, then you really need to play that up in the blurb. E: Yes, I have better things to do with my time, no I don't know why I made this for GHOST TOILET of all books. 
Bardeh fucked around with this message at 05:58 on Jul 13, 2016 |
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Jul 13, 2016 05:32
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Magnanimous Lurch posted:Thanks for the advice everyone! Feel free to use it. While you're in there uploading it, work on the blurb too and change the price to 99 cents. Also have a quick proofread of your manuscript and fix some of the minor spelling and grammar/punctuation mistakes. Go to https://www.mailchimp.com and create a signup form, then put the link in the back of the book. Get all this done now - I doubt Ghost Toilet is going to set the world on fire, but any signups will help in the future. Bardeh fucked around with this message at 07:00 on Jul 13, 2016 |
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Jul 13, 2016 06:57
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Popular Human posted:I write smut to pay the bills and fantasy novels on the side. The friends/family who would be put off by the truth think "oh, he makes money writing books like Game of Thrones" and the cool people who are close to me know nah, the vast majority of my money comes from smutbux. It's nice to have something 'legit' to point to when somebody wants to read something you've written. Chuck gets a ton of media attention - I'm sure he's doing alright for himself. Recently he had the Hugo nominated book and the Brexit book in the news, both of which have probably made him a very decent amount. He's also got a huge back catalog, and I'm still convinced that he's just a side project for an already successful romance author.
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Jul 13, 2016 18:02
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Chokes McGee posted:Yeah okay I'm done trying not to suck. I'm just going to sit on it for a few months and save up the money for a commission. You could try and trade a service for it. See if you can proofread / edit / do a little ghostwriting or something in exchange. Lots of cover artists also publish their own stuff, so it's worth an ask.
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Jul 18, 2016 14:12
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Jalumibnkrayal posted:GoOnWrite really shouldn't be in the OP anymore. It makes it seem like his covers or prices are good, and neither is the case. He just makes two hundred covers at a time, with no rhyme or reason or attention to what the marketplace wants. When I first got started I bought a ten pack of cover credits based on this thread. I still have all ten cover credits. $45 isn't bad for the quality of cover you get, assuming you find one that does actually work for you. It's just that I could spend a little more and get something customized, so I would never have a reason to sift through the massive piles of crap on there.
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Jul 18, 2016 16:43
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Oh hey, an extra $300 or so from that adjustment. I'll take it!
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Jul 22, 2016 08:10
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MussoliniB posted:I took all the notes I could from these threads and worked hard on creating my book. And still published it with that cover? Really? Also, you've written a guide to management. Put your credentials further forward. As it is now, you write that you've 'hosed up many times' before you tell the reader why they should listen to you. I get that the tone of the book is supposed to be irreverent, but it's still a self-help book. Tell people why they should listen to you, and by extension, buy your book. Do it in the blurb. The wankery in the prologue is also getting in the way and needs to go. Write it as an afterword or something. Bardeh fucked around with this message at 10:19 on Jul 22, 2016 |
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Jul 22, 2016 09:50
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Chokes McGee posted:OneDrive or Dropbox. It's a lifesaver. I just use my OneDrive folder as my writing folder. Never even have to think or worry about backups, and all my work is always there on every computer I use. I really don't understand why there are ANY authors left worrying about data loss when it's so fast and easy to install OneDrive (or similar) and then just forget about it forever.
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Jul 27, 2016 06:45
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Chokes McGee posted:Try #3. Changed the title font out to Bebas, used Trajan for the secondary font, then went mad with power with Bevel Object. I really like this.
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Jul 28, 2016 03:53
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Chokes McGee posted:While I'm at it, can I run these two phrases by the Greek speakers in this thread so I don't sound like a dumbass post production? (These are both things Nemesis says since, y'know, Greek goddess.) Does it? I haven't got a clue what it says without Googling.
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Jul 28, 2016 17:37
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Finger Wagon posted:I looked it up and it seems to be an exclamation, or a cuss of some kind, which is actually... pretty much what I expected. Being totally fair to Chokes, something like "Ρε γαμώτο!" she swore, "[English dialogue]" is actually a pretty tried and true way to go "hey I know you probably can't read this but you know she's swearing so it honestly doesn't matter what she's saying." The same goes for the "Θέμη, βοήθησέ μας/Themis help us" thing- with the right contextual indicators it can be pretty obvious that someone's essentially going "god help us, we're hosed" without ever stating it. Sure, in that sort of situation it's fine. The reader doesn't really need to know the actual meaning because the context makes it clear. It just seemed weird to drop some Greek that the vast majority of people are not going to be able to read, and say that it 'speaks for itself'.
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Jul 28, 2016 19:49
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LionArcher posted:
It still just looks like badly designed text slapped on a fairly uninteresting stock photo. You can mostly get away with this in erotica and romance (less so in romance, but still, you're 90% of the way there once you've found which particular shirtless man you want to use) but other genres generally need more. Your pitch was: quote:Basically the elevator pitch for the series is it's Veronica Mars in college meets Silence Of The Lambs meets Harry Potter (No magic, but each book covers a year of school). and this cover isn't saying that to me at all. What existing books or series would you say yours was most like? Did you have any in mind when you wrote it?
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Jul 30, 2016 19:02
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