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DukeRustfield posted:Well, I guess it depends on what you're shooting for. I will say it works quite well as a business plan in nearly any business. If you apply to a company, let's say Google, and tell them, "I just do what everyone else does," you won't get the job. This is one of those things that is a little bit foreign to me, because in my field (pharmaceutical science, a highly regulated field), that's exactly what they want to hear. They don't want to hear that you do unique things - they want to hear that you know the CFRs, USP/EP/JP and ICH guidelines inside and out and that everything you do is exactly aligned with those guidelines/laws/whatevers. "I shoot for the next big thing" is a surefire way to not get a job in the field. My entire job is defined by SOPs, even though I'm supposedly a "creative" scientist. Go figure. I agree on a gulf between carbon copy poo poo and AAA blockbuster, and I wasn't trying to imply that "make carbon copies" was the answer either. A better example of what I meant would be this: I have an idea for a billionaire romance in the shadow of 50SoG with a few twists of its own, and I have an idea for a really cool science fiction romance novel that hasn't been done before. Is there an audience for sci-fi romance? No, not really. It's very, very small, so even if I do it well, the odds of it being even a moderate commercial success are incalculably small, no matter how great the book is. Is there an audience for kinky billionaires? Hell yes. Even if my work is just another billionaire book, I can bank on at least $8K in earnings. I could turn around and say "Hey, let's break the mold and write a sci-fi romance anyway!" and that'd be just fine as long as I also acknowledged that it would most likely be a commercial failure. I may very well do that someday when I get to write full time (I'm aiming to quit pharma at the end of 2015), but right now, I'm still stuck with very limited writing time at night after work. I can't afford the time to take on experimental projects, because every experimental project I take on is a guaranteed money-maker not being written.
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# ? Oct 14, 2014 14:26 |
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# ? May 10, 2024 01:08 |
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quote:If you apply to a company, let's say Google, and tell them, "I just do what everyone else does," you won't get the job. If you tell your prospective agent, "I just want to make C+ grade work," s/he is likely not going to be interested. Those are matters of branding, not actual production. You're free to bill yourself as whatever, but you write to market. You go to google with a resume appropriate to the position you're applying for, not an eight page rambling document calligraphied on construction paper about how creative you are as an artist and how your work history consists of running tabletop RPGs for your buddies. And an agent is going to be much more interested in hearing that you write commercial fiction in a proven market than that you're an innovator out to try new and untested things. They tend to be risk adverse. And the reading public? Even worse. They want work that resonates with what they've been reading their entire lives. They want to read what they like to read. I'm not saying that there's no room for innovation. I'm saying that innovation is incremental and built upon a foundation of "doing what the successful people do" only better. Successful innovators predict what's going to be hot next and write that, not whatever random bullshit strikes their fancy. You can't force people to read what you've written just because that's what you want to write. That's not how capitalism works. Edit: I want to clarify here that I'm talking about financial and commercial success, not critical acclaim or literary accolades. Creating a sustainable income takes priority over creating great art. psychopomp fucked around with this message at 14:31 on Oct 14, 2014 |
# ? Oct 14, 2014 14:28 |
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To be honest, there's only one career where it's a selling point to say "I want to be the very best, like no-one ever was" but they won't accept my CV.
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# ? Oct 14, 2014 14:50 |
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There's room to write the poo poo you want, even in selfpub. Not everyone is making a living writing. If you wanna write something and you don't mind that it won't sell too well, write it. I mean I don't think my horror comedy has a huge audience but I'm not abandoning it to write romance.
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# ? Oct 14, 2014 15:42 |
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I've got a hybrid publisher (trad/self-pub shop) who is interested in my book. They're a local publisher, my book takes place in our city, so that too seems like a good pairing. Two of their authors have been presidents of the Atlanta Writer's Club, (one of those just published his third book with them). To me, that speaks volumes about the legitimacy of the company. They've done vanity press work and they've published works that sold over 5,000 copies locally. I met with them on Sunday at a book launch for one of their authors-- I got to see first hand how they support their artists. I've researched the company to make sure they're not a scam, or have any history of shady dealings, (they do not). They've been in business for over 15 years, everything looks very legit. Here's what I want out of it: - A distributor who'll share in the marketing, alongside their other published books - Strategic guidance on how to reach my target audience, plus connections - Creative control over the final product, (cover design, final manuscript approval) - Copyright ownership Here's what I want to be responsible for: - Editing - Cover design - Website, etc. Here's what I want to split 50/50 - Printing costs - eBook distribution/management The contract has all of these things. I control the things I want, and they contribute the services I need, and we share in the costs and the profits. This ensures that they're motivated as much as I am to see the book succeed. Is there anything I'm missing?
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# ? Oct 14, 2014 15:58 |
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If you can manage a print-only deal, do it. Setting up the ebook to sell is something most small publishers don't do well.
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# ? Oct 14, 2014 16:12 |
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Paying for half of the printing costs seems a little odd. Is it Print-on-Demand, where you wouldn't be paying for anything unless there was a guaranteed sale, or would you be paying out of pocket for a set print run and hoping you recoup the costs out of future sales? The former may be a valid way of doing business for small / local publishers (I don't really know anything about that tbh) but I'd be wary of a contract that made you pay for, say, a 5k print run with no guarantee that you'd ever make that money back. Unless you just want to see something of yours in physical print and the cost is something that you don't mind eating in a worst-case scenario.
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# ? Oct 14, 2014 16:22 |
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Do they actually have distribution? Because everything else sounds like poo poo you can do on your own, especially if you're paying half for printing.
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# ? Oct 14, 2014 16:26 |
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Can I get some feedback on a blurb? It's for a serial fiction project (so it updates in chunks twice a week), for context but I figure I can ask here about the blurb anyway:quote:The star Ain sits at the centre of the universe. Orbiting it is the hollow world Mir, which conceals within herself an old god. The celestial abyss around Mir is full of spirits – the young shoggot, who freed themselves from slavery mere millenia ago. Their former masters, the fungal stareczi, still lurk in space, in the darkness between stars. But down on Mir, along with spirits generated from the planet’s own magic, live mortals and the mortals have their own problems.
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# ? Oct 14, 2014 17:27 |
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:Paying for half of the printing costs seems a little odd... a 5k print run with no guarantee that you'd ever make that money back. Unless you just want to see something of yours in physical print and the cost is something that you don't mind eating in a worst-case scenario. ravenkult posted:Do they actually have distribution? Because everything else sounds like poo poo you can do on your own, especially if you're paying half for printing.
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# ? Oct 14, 2014 17:46 |
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chthonic bell posted:Can I get some feedback on a blurb? It's for a serial fiction project (so it updates in chunks twice a week), for context but I figure I can ask here about the blurb anyway: First paragraph completely unnecessary for a blurb, let your book explain the context right? If the goal is to attract someone's attention, the first paragraph is useless info and doesn't follow the rest. Including all the names is also very difficult to follow as well; Orn, Ain, Mir, Anzu etc. etc. it'd be better to say "A father searches for his daughter across an apocalyptic wasteland, hounded by the shadow of his former master, the powerful Necromancer Reimut". Sure it might sound a lot more bland than what you've written but this blurb is just pitch to get people to buy. So just make it more readable. Less names, be more concise about whats happening, and drop the useless context which you'll probably explain in the first couple chapters of the book anyways.
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# ? Oct 14, 2014 18:52 |
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quote:Is there an audience for sci-fi romance? No, not really. It's very, very small, so even if I do it well, the odds of it being even a moderate commercial success are incalculably small, no matter how great the book is. And saying definitively "no matter how great the book is" is awful certain. You have no clue what would happen. No one does. I was a computer programmer for 15-20 years. And I worked fortune 50 for most of that. No one wants to hear that you're just one of the crowd. Not in Accounting. Not in Human Resources. Not in Information Security. I never remotely heard that play work. People want to think they're getting quality a step above. If you're cranking out books of [level x] which is beneath you, I feel you're hurting yourself as a writer, hurting your name (or at the least not growing your potential break-out name), and making yourself if not miserable, then not as happy as you could be. quote:Those are matters of branding, not actual production. You're free to bill yourself as whatever, but you write to market. Think of all the medium successful bands. Not even the superstars. They got something that's different. Even if it's just being an all girl band playing metal wearing pixie clothes. But usually it's sound. I was just looking through upcoming concerts a bit ago and all these bands that hung around for decades they weren't the same. They aren't Generic Rocker Band 343.
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# ? Oct 14, 2014 19:06 |
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quote:I was a computer programmer for 15-20 years. And I worked fortune 50 for most of that. No one wants to hear that you're just one of the crowd. Not in Accounting. Not in Human Resources. Not in Information Security. I never remotely heard that play work. People want to think they're getting quality a step above. B2C marketing is not in any way related to dealing with a formal institutional corporate environment. Middle management's goals are unrelated to consumer purchasing habits. I have no idea why you assume that one would relate in any way to the other. quote:No, you don't. I mean, you can. But you're going to have a better time making your own market. I'm not talking about an entire genre of book. But like someone mentioned above, horror comedy. I wrote a horror comedy screenplay years and years ago and it placed as a semifinalist or finalist in the Nicholl Fellowship and got a lot of traction--though went nowhere ultimately. Still, one of the reasons it got attention was because it was different. Awards-winning does not translate to saleable product. Often, in fact, it's entirely the opposite. I will say that it's vastly preferable to create your own genre than it is to try and become a leader in an existing genre, but the only difference between this and book marketing is a matter of scale. You still need an in-depth understanding of the market, as well as your ideal consumer's purchasing and reading habits. Genre isn't about what you write, it's about how you promote your author brand. It's short-hand to make readers easier to market to, so they can quickly and easily identify what already appeals to them. You can (and should) define your personal genre however you like, and use that to stay on target, but if there's no demand, there's no demand. Find out where the demand is. Then write it. quote:Think of all the medium successful bands. Not even the superstars. They got something that's different. Even if it's just being an all girl band playing metal wearing pixie clothes. But usually it's sound. I was just looking through upcoming concerts a bit ago and all these bands that hung around for decades they weren't the same. They aren't Generic Rocker Band 343. Think of all the unsuccessful bands. All the ones with their special snowflake gimmicks and unique sounds. The ones you'll never hear about because they didn't get lucky unlike the ones you're talking about. Luck is a terrible basis for a business plan. Don't use the outliers when constructing one. TL;DR: Corporate management practices don't compare to consumer reading habits. Readers like the familiar, and tend to be risk-adverse when it comes to trying new authors. Hook them first, then you can get all avant-garde and see if they stick around. (They won't.) psychopomp fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Oct 14, 2014 |
# ? Oct 14, 2014 19:44 |
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I am thinking about dabbling in self-publishing. The biggest issue I'm running into is how to advertise or market the book. Alternatively, what to sell it as. Right now, I'm thinking of doing a collection of short stories (4, but well over 5k words in length per). The crux is that it kind of goes against the grain. The hero doesn't win in the end, so I'm trying to focus more on plot and character progression. I read the OP, and have a few questions concerning that stuff. Such as editors for hire, covers (I'm assuming if I use a creative commons picture I'm ok if I make money off of it being my cover legally?), and an average word count I should shoot for. The real big thing for me though, is getting the word out there and actually having people wanting to read my book. I have one story more or less completed, as it was submitted for a contest, but I'm going to add on to it to make it longer and more thought out. There are two genres intermixed between the two, two sci-fi and two straight fiction. The concept is, that regardless how hard someone tries and preservers through the adversities given to them, that it's not always enough. This with a little bit of addiction, and the darker sides of our human self. I guess the big thing is, what should the first step be besides finishing the book? Is my lack of a hero figure in the end going to damage my sales?
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# ? Oct 14, 2014 20:22 |
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Being a non-porn short story collection is what will hurt you. If they are related stories, you would do better to do the connecting you need to make them chapters instead. Even if they're long, titled chapters.
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# ? Oct 14, 2014 20:37 |
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DukeRustfield posted:If you love the poo poo out of sci-fi romance and your heart is aching to do it, I'd say it has at least as good a chance of being successful as a normal bodice-ripper that doesn't break any molds and your heart isn't completely in. I am in a unique position to judge this statement, having written both a sci-fi romance that I was super into and a normal new adult romance that I wrote specifically to cater to that genre. The scifi romance flopped hard because there is a tiny market for sci-fi romance. The new adult romance sold a shitton and landed me my NYT bestseller letters because NA romance was hot. Readers don't give a poo poo if your heart is in your book; they are not going to buy your book because you yearned and ached to write it. Stop making idiotic statements that pander to "artistes" who don't want to change their writing to adapt to readers' expectations. If you want to make money at this, you cannot be so obtuse as to think every market is equally easy to break into. You are wrong. How many novels have you written? How many have become bestsellers? How about you listen for two seconds to the people who are actually doing this for a living? You paint this as the dichotomy of a) writing what you want, which makes you HAPPY and b) writing to market, which makes you MISERABLE. That's idiotic, sour grapes at its best. In reality, I write to market and I write fun, smart, awesome characters that I like, and if the guy happens to be a kinky billionaire, I know I can make bank because I have an market for the book. It's not miserable, it's fun, and it makes me money while I'm in my pajamas. Miserable is spending ten years writing a "masterpiece" that nobody reads or cares about. quote:But you're going to have a better time making your own market.
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# ? Oct 14, 2014 21:02 |
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neongrey posted:Being a non-porn short story collection is what will hurt you. If they are related stories, you would do better to do the connecting you need to make them chapters instead. Even if they're long, titled chapters. What about connecting it with like a narrative thing? I won't use this example, but the closest thing I can think of is possibly a story thing around a camp fire. And yeah, not porn.
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# ? Oct 14, 2014 21:10 |
Soulex posted:What about connecting it with like a narrative thing? I won't use this example, but the closest thing I can think of is possibly a story thing around a camp fire. The best example I can think of is Max Brooks' World War Z. You've got a bunch of stories from a bunch of people all reacting to the same key events. My first piece I ever published was a collection of fishing/outdoor short stories. I think it has sold like four copies, ever. The worst part of that is it's ranked in that category, there are literally no sales to be had. Beware, people like novels for a reason.
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# ? Oct 14, 2014 21:43 |
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There's no harm in writing and self-publishing entirely for fun and personal enjoyment, but "entirely for fun and personal enjoyment" is obviously going to be less deliberate and targeted than writing to market for the purpose of profit.
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# ? Oct 14, 2014 22:25 |
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We appear to have fallen into the ol' art vs. commerce discussion. For the newbies around here: There seems to be a sense people have, coming in, that because self-publishing removes all the evil, stupid, Visigoth gatekeepers, it gives the readers what they really wanted and what the publishers are too dumb to give them, which is your offbeat story. Don't expect this. Short story collections are just as unpopular in self-publishing as they are in traditional publishing. Sci-fi romance is just as unpopular as, etc. The publishers were and are just giving people what they want. One of my favorite books of this year was Lydia Davis' short story collection "Can't And Won't". Quirky, literary, oddball stuff. Another book I adored this year was Lydia Netzer's "How to Tell Toledo From the Night Sky", a loopy romance with sci-fi elements. I'm glad these books by these various Lydias got published. But the fact remains that the public would rather have something in the John Grisham or Nicholas Sparks vein than either of those books. The fun of self-publishing with today's technology is that neither the gatekeepers nor your coffers can stop you from putting stuff out. If you pick up a few bucks here and there, it's more than you'd have made posting it for free on your blog. Just don't expect the readers to be less risk-averse than publishers are. The publishers follow the lead of readers! People in publishing (or movies, TV, etc.) have to write this e-mail all the time: "I loved it, but I just don't see the market for it." I've gotten that e-mail myself a few times, I can tell you that. Icon-Cat fucked around with this message at 22:44 on Oct 14, 2014 |
# ? Oct 14, 2014 22:33 |
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Well that's unfortunate . I am doing it mainly to get stories out there, but some fun money would be great too.
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# ? Oct 14, 2014 23:31 |
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Have any of you had experience with publishing your books in audio format? On Audible, for example?
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# ? Oct 14, 2014 23:33 |
magnificent7 posted:Have any of you had experience with publishing your books in audio format? On Audible, for example? A month after my first book came out I was contacted by a voice actor who wanted to do the Audible version. It was a painless process and I make a few bucks off of it every month. I wouldn't pay to have it done, but use the revenue sharing model, unless you're confident that it'll sell like hotcakes. Mine does not sell like hotcakes, but it sells.
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# ? Oct 14, 2014 23:38 |
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Anthologies just aren't popular. Book buyers much prefer novels. DukeRustfield posted:If you love the poo poo out of sci-fi romance and your heart is aching to do it, I'd say it has at least as good a chance of being successful as a normal bodice-ripper that doesn't break any molds and your heart isn't completely in. Knock yourself out, dude. Write your untapped-market, heartfelt thing. Prove us all wrong, and sell tons of it. I'll be the very first to congratulate you, I promise. But I'll also be very surprised. See, the thing is, I haven't worked for 15 years as a programmer, or spent time at Fortune 500 companies. I've been working in publishing for the last twenty years or more -- editor, commissioning editor, author, freelancer, publisher, you name it. I can't remember the last time I saw some earnest, worthy, heart-felt boundary-breaker do any sales worth talking about. Meanwhile, the derivative evergreen stuff keeps on flowing, keeps on performing almost exactly to prediction, keeps making money. It can happen. Of course it can. But the chances of any modern human coming up with a novel, ground-breaking, _popular_ idea that hasn't been done yet are minuscule. Generally, if there's no big books already out there in your clever niche, it's because no-one has bought any of many other books that tried that clever niche.
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# ? Oct 14, 2014 23:47 |
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If anyone has proved us wrong, its Duke's story. I still think "write what your heart desires" is bad advice, but for Duke and anyone else who has just wrote what they loved and made a ton of cash on it, I bet it's pretty sweet.
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# ? Oct 14, 2014 23:58 |
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I'd point out for the newbies, of course, that just because you're not _writing_ to fit some sort of market doesn't mean you've no reason to learn marketing things. Whether you're writing the most mainstream space adventure or a collection of free-verse poetry about forbidden love in Siberia, you still have the job of making sure your cover art looks good, your blurb is as effective as it can be — maybe you're not targeting the same audience, but you still want to make sure that the audience you're looking for will (hopefully) find it, and will give you a chance if they do find it. Talking about outliers — right now the most absurd 'outlier' publishing success story is, for my money, "My Struggle", a six-book series of incredibly long Norwegian stream-of-consciousness autobiographical novels totalling thousands of pages of what by design are largely banalities. Definitely a boundary-breaker and not the kind of thing that flies off the shelves on its own accord, I'm sure—yet something like one in ten Norwegians have bought at least one title in the series, I'm told. But: just because it worked for him doesn't mean it can work for everyone.
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# ? Oct 15, 2014 01:03 |
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magnificent7 posted:Have any of you had experience with publishing your books in audio format? On Audible, for example? Yeah, I've published a few of my books through ACX. They recently cut royalties across the board for all new audiobooks, but they're still basically the only game in town. It's a painless process unless something goes wrong; their support team hasn't been that great.
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# ? Oct 15, 2014 01:10 |
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Kindle Scout has launched. https://kindlescout.amazon.com/about#how-it-works-authors Looks like you can only submit Romance, Mystery, and Sci-Fi/Fantasy. They also upped the auto-renewal threshold from $5k to $25k every five years.
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# ? Oct 15, 2014 01:54 |
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Jalumibnkrayal posted:Kindle Scout has launched. edit. Oh. It's a battle-of-the-bands for authors? F that.
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# ? Oct 15, 2014 02:16 |
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Hmm... might be worth playing with if you already have a reasonable mailing list / fan base. Not sure. At this point, I'm basically Amazon exclusive anyway, so why not?
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# ? Oct 15, 2014 02:24 |
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Hey looks like they had the "write whatever you want/write what sells" conversation at KBoards today, albeit with a ton more negativity! http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,197056.0.html
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# ? Oct 15, 2014 05:05 |
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Yooper posted:A month after my first book came out I was contacted by a voice actor who wanted to do the Audible version. It was a painless process and I make a few bucks off of it every month. I wouldn't pay to have it done, but use the revenue sharing model, unless you're confident that it'll sell like hotcakes. Mine does not sell like hotcakes, but it sells. I'm interested in how a revenue sharing model would work, though I'm an editor/translator not voice talent. It seems like there's some translated self-pub stuff on Amazon here in Brazil, but not a great deal. Has anyone here dipped their toes in that water yet?
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# ? Oct 15, 2014 13:29 |
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hoiyes posted:I'm interested in how a revenue sharing model would work, though I'm an editor/translator not voice talent. It seems like there's some translated self-pub stuff on Amazon here in Brazil, but not a great deal. Has anyone here dipped their toes in that water yet? Some authors have used Babel Cube for their foreign translations, I'm not sure exactly how they interface with Amazon. Also it should be noted that nobody I know has gotten paid by them yet apparently, though that's apparently because of their payment delays rather than their delinquency. http://www.babelcube.com/ ACX may also handle your foreign translation audiobooks but I imagine it is hard to find quality foreign language voice work there. http://www.acx.com/
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# ? Oct 15, 2014 14:04 |
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September borrow rate is $1.518, a little higher than I was expecting. Edit: UK borrow rate is £1.27 ($2.07). Jalumibnkrayal fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Oct 15, 2014 |
# ? Oct 15, 2014 19:27 |
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New freebie (through Sunday) out of me. I was initially working on this for a 'nerdy love stories'-type anthology that (perhaps predictably?) fell apart. I was happy enough to continue plugging away on my piece for my own amusement, although I confess it may have made more sense alongside other themed stories than on its own.quote:When game night at an Atlantic City bar brings loners Cecily and Sam together, it seems like a winning match from the first toss of the dice. They bond over nerdy jokes and the world's most beloved property trading game. It's perfect—at first. But shared personality quirks only get a relationship so far… http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OAC62I8
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# ? Oct 15, 2014 19:44 |
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Jalumibnkrayal posted:September borrow rate is $1.518, a little higher than I was expecting. I am a very happy clam.
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# ? Oct 15, 2014 20:06 |
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Icon-Cat posted:New freebie (through Sunday) out of me. I was initially working on this for a 'nerdy love stories'-type anthology that (perhaps predictably?) fell apart. I was happy enough to continue plugging away on my piece for my own amusement, although I confess it may have made more sense alongside other themed stories than on its own. That sounds like a cute anthology idea and I'd definitely have contributed if I knew about it. Ring my bell if anything like that resurfaces, looking forward to reading yours.
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# ? Oct 15, 2014 20:13 |
Those of you that do Select, do you go free immediately? Or wait a bit for the buzz to die, then go free?
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# ? Oct 17, 2014 02:50 |
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I thought it was important to share the email exchange I had with Fiction4all. I sent them an email last night when a book that was supposed to be unpublished from their site was sold. I was freaked out because that book is now in Kindle Select and -really politely- asked them to please make sure it was no longer listed. Their response: "Hi According to us the book was only published with us in late August – so barely 6 weeks ago. All four of the books you listed are off sale so do not appear on our site any more. My view is it is probable someone added it to a shopping cart back in late August or early September before you pulled it and then decided to pay for it yesterday or the day before. I have customers that build up their carts over a period of time and then decide to pay for it when they can either afford to or when they have a number of books waiting to be bought. Curious as to why you bothered to post these books only to take them down a few weeks later – it’s a waste of your time and ours to do that. Regards" I responded with: " Thank you for your quick response. The books were listed after hearing good things about your site. Unfortunately they did not perform as well as I hoped, and so a deal was made with Amazon. I'm sorry to hear you think new authors trying your service is a waste of time. I have passed on your message to the author communities I am a part of to let them know not to bother listing with you since you are so busy." and they replied: "For the record I don’t think new authors trying our service is a waste of time – what is a waste of time is putting up a number of books for just a few weeks. Obviously I will be checking the blogs and forums and if you have defamed me you will be hearing from my solicitor with a very large claim for damages." Thought it seemed like really bizarre customer service.
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# ? Oct 17, 2014 12:45 |
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# ? May 10, 2024 01:08 |
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The fact that the site looks like some sketchy internet relic from 1997 is probably more damaging than you telling us the dude got all butthurt about you taking your books down after a couple weeks and "wasting their time". I never put any of my books up there because it looks worse than the ebook pirate sites and involves customers giving cc info to a sketchy-looking site and then side loading the files. So it's not like my perception has been damaged any further.
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# ? Oct 17, 2014 13:21 |