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Thank you for all of the feedback. This is extremely useful! How is this for a cover:  The story in question is only about 4k words, which I worry might be a bit on the short side. I have three short stories about weird animals that add up to about 7k words, so I was thinking about doing a little themed mini-collection and selling it at short story price. What word counts are typical for short stories and collections?
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Jun 24, 2023 10:35
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SimonChris posted:Thank you for all of the feedback. This is extremely useful! I would buy this instantly and I follow most of Her advice. Also she made me read "Moist Actually" so I may be biased.
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Jun 24, 2023 23:12
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The AI scammers have claimed rank 30+ in the teen contemporary romance subcat https://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/digital-text/7006648011?fbclid=IwAR1HyBGNM4M3_62whm33cxUi97OXLV7W9_Yd5P9Vaf2bizWpb1nY8huXL_s I, for one, can't wait to read the unputdownable teen romance "Department of Vinh Du stands in front of his parents' tombstone"
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Jun 27, 2023 20:02
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What the gently caress is happening there, exactly?
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Jun 27, 2023 20:14
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There is a scam where you have AI barf out 400ish pages of words and then sell it for what looks like ~$9 on Amazon (actually way more than I thought it would be), clicking around there are a bunch of them on there now. IIRC is related to that tiktok thing where they were making short stories and sending them to paying publications which caused many paying publications to freeze submissions. Scroll below the 30s and you will see all those books with generic covers and Vietnamese names (at least the ones I saw, I am sure there are other countries doing this) and they are all ai. Makes me wonder how much else is automated with how many are on there, maybe just buying each other's books, reducing/raising price to try to climb ranks, not sure if setting kindle unlimited accounts to read the books also affects rank on these selling lists. Click on one of the books and you'll see a bunch of related books, all scams. He Is Such A Kind Person by Phan Tan Thanh is #1 in Computerized Home & Entertainment https://www.amazon.com/Such-Kind-Person-Phan-Thanh-ebook/dp/B0C6YHZLNM/ Let’s Watch Some Commercials by Tran Thi Thu is #1 in LGBTQ+ Drama & Plays https://www.amazon.com/Lets-Watch-Some-Commercials-Tran-ebook/dp/B0C6YH3JQG/ Tars Tarkas fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Jun 27, 2023 |
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Jun 27, 2023 20:26
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But how does that make any money? (I swear I’m not a scammer) Sorry—I’m just baffled by this stuff.
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Jun 27, 2023 20:44
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You don't lose money by publishing to amazon. There is no capital cost, just time. Also, depending on the category, it is incredible easy to get into the top ten. Watch out for authors that claim their book is in the top ten of an amazon category.
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Jun 27, 2023 20:57
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newts posted:But how does that make any money? (I swear I’m not a scammer) Burn $N getting to the top of the list. Hope you get more than $N gross revenue. At $10/per, you're netting $7/per. So you need to sell more than N/7 to make money.
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Jun 27, 2023 21:04
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I've always wanted to read one of these AI books that get inexplicably popular, but goddamn I'm not paying $9 for the "privilege."
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Jun 27, 2023 22:35
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There's a thing about Amazon where if you have five days of consistent sales then they come in and advertise it for you. They "take over" to sell more hotcakes as it were.
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Jun 27, 2023 23:51
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If you listen to podcasts, Behind the Bastards did 2 episodes about AI books and focused on AI children’s books being pumped out on Amazon. https://overcast.fm/+4cUO2w0hE
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Jun 28, 2023 02:32
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leper khan posted:Burn $N getting to the top of the list. Hope you get more than $N gross revenue. At $10/per, you're netting $7/per. So you need to sell more than N/7 to make money. They're on KU, a single bot can "read" hundreds of your books and you get the pennies per page.
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Jun 28, 2023 02:35
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lol, came here just to post that the use case for AI is spam generators
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Jun 28, 2023 17:02
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divabot posted:lol, came here just to post that that's certainly all I've seen thus far!
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Jun 28, 2023 17:13
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When I was watching Dan Olsen's video on a couple of scam artists selling a get-rich-quick scheme involving audio books, all I could think was, "how long till they replace the ghost writing sweat shop with AI?" Video link, if you haven't seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biYciU1uiUw
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Jun 28, 2023 23:10
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I also saw a TikTok video of someone creating writing journals through Canva and then publishing them through Kindle Direct. She sells them for $20 a piece and Amazon does “all of the work”.
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Jun 28, 2023 23:45
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Dream Weaver posted:I would buy this instantly and I follow most of Her advice. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9TRVQ4Q  I will hold you to your word! Any feedback on cover, blurb, etc. is welcome. I uploaded an old version of the cover without the neat frame by mistake, but it seems that fixing it will require a new approval, so I am waiting until any other potential issues have been identified. SimonChris fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Jun 30, 2023 |
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Jun 30, 2023 15:38
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Welp, this is a horrible time to ask this question, but does anyone know how the ABSR is calculated now? I literally am asking for a friend who asked me. I am not a robot.
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Jul 1, 2023 00:46
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Doctor Zero posted:Welp, this is a horrible time to ask this question, but does anyone know how the ABSR is calculated now? I literally am asking for a friend who asked me. I am not a robot. Tell them to go read David Gaughran's Amazon Decoded which is probably the best explainer out there on the Amazon algorithm.
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Jul 1, 2023 00:58
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SimonChris posted:https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9TRVQ4Q I think I would put more shadow under 'Simon' so it's more readable.
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Jul 1, 2023 12:12
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Megazver posted:I think I would put more shadow under 'Simon' so it's more readable. I think it great, reads fine to me. Maybe just remove the lines, idk.
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Jul 1, 2023 13:43
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Fat Jesus posted:I think it great, reads fine to me. Maybe just remove the lines, idk. Do you mean the frame lines on the sides? If so, I already uploaded and old version without those lines, so I can just not fix it later  .
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Jul 1, 2023 16:25
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An author I've met through the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off contest has started a self-published monthly subscription box: https://www.yourpaperquest.co.uk/submissions UK-based and limited to works <350 pages for anybody who might qualify and interested in checking it out.
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Jul 3, 2023 05:51
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SimonChris posted:Do you mean the frame lines on the sides? If so, I already uploaded and old version without those lines, so I can just not fix it later Yeah they seem superfluous or w/e if i had to pick something. I'm going to assume the penguin in the story has hands like Devon Larratt too.
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Jul 3, 2023 07:43
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So does anyone know how to merge D2D and Smashwords editions sensibly? I ask because I just had to update a detail in a book (one acknowledgee has a new name and asked for the old one to be changed, I said "of course"). Remember how to use Calibre editor again, fine. Reinstall epubcheck, fine. Remember to remove calibre_bookmarks.txt before upload, fine. Upload to D2D, fine. I ticked the box on D2D to publish to the Smashwords store, cos I figured I'd need that anyway in due course. Perhaps I'm wrong. What do I do with Smashwords once D2D publishes - remove the book entirely? Leave it in the list but take it off sale? Does this preserve my sales stats? etc etc etc, anyone else done this?
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Jul 3, 2023 20:44
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So far my short stories have sold two copies, not including myself and personal friends, and have 2 KENP read on KU. I wasn't expecting to make bank from short fiction, but it would be nice if I could sell a few dozen copies, maybe. I suppose I should do some promotion, but how? I've signed up for KDP Select, but I don't know if any of these promotional options are worth it. Should I do a free giveaway, a countdown deal, run ads, give out copies to reviewers, or what? What do people here usually do to promote their e-books? Anyway, this mini-collection is mostly a trial balloon, so I can get this process down before publishing a full-length collection later. I am not expecting huge success, but I would like to learn. SimonChris fucked around with this message at 10:55 on Jul 8, 2023 |
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Jul 8, 2023 10:47
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SimonChris posted:So far my short stories have sold two copies, not including myself and personal friends, and have 2 KENP read on KU. I wasn't expecting to make bank from short fiction, but it would be nice if I could sell a few dozen copies, maybe. Bookbub it if you're doing at least a 2-3 book long series.(after book 2 is out) If not does it fit into the character of Wattpad,Scribble hub or Royal Road so you can build up a fan base? If you want to understand(the bookbub rec) why then...take the course. https://courses.davidgaughran.com/courses/starting-from-zero Leng did a video about his work(yes our Leng), if you want to do the absolute bare minimum research. https://youtu.be/sGyrO42tgTo Dream Weaver fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Jul 8, 2023 |
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Jul 8, 2023 21:06
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SimonChris posted:So far my short stories have sold two copies, not including myself and personal friends, and have 2 KENP read on KU. I wasn't expecting to make bank from short fiction, but it would be nice if I could sell a few dozen copies, maybe. Any/all of those things can work. The thing is, assuming you've packaged your book (cover and blurb) for the right audience who will enjoy it, you need to go and find that audience. Where do they hang out? How do they find their next read? What will induce them to give a new book by an unknown author a shot? Ads, promo sites, free giveaways, countdown deals, ARCs, etc all of these can/do work. Ads & promo sites = paid traffic Free giveaways & countdown deals = lowering the barrier to purchase/risk aversion for readers (e.g. it's free/$0.99, so no biggie if I don't like it) ARCs = another form of driving traffic, where you're relying on the ARC reviewer's reach plus you're trying to get social proof out of it Social media = another traffic source, where you can create content to drive the traffic or get others to do it Remember the funnel: traffic source > clickthrough to product page > cover & blurb > sample > purchase Assuming your cover, blurb, and sample resonates with your target audience, what you need to do is focus on driving traffic that has a high clickthrough rate to your product page. If you've been targeting the right traffic, you should have a high conversion rate for those who land there. If your conversion rate from clickthroughs to buys/borrows suck, then there's an issue with the promise you're making in your pitch to drive traffic and what you're delivering in the cover/blurb/sample. So don't just run a countdown deal or set your book to free and expect copies to move without doing anything else; there's so many books out there that nobody's gonna automatically find it. If you're hoping for the algorithm to pick it up, you need to drive enough traffic to get copies moving initially, and then you hope that the initial momentum will get your book to stick for a little while in the charts and in also boughts/also viewed where it will grab eyeballs and start snowballing. If you have money to burn, throw it into ads/promo sites. If you don't, sink your time into pitching reviewers/readers/creating bookish content. Start your mailing list now. Write a reader magnet to drive sign-ups. And always be writing the next book. Personally I would not be spending money promoting a first short story collection because I doubt you'd ever get a positive ROI on it with only one book out.
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Jul 9, 2023 00:01
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divabot posted:So does anyone know how to merge D2D and Smashwords editions sensibly? so i emailed D2D! And the official answer is: wait for the merge, they should have it sorted by Q3 2023 or so :-D which is uh now, but hey
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Jul 9, 2023 15:26
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 Cover reveal for the upcoming paperback version of my short stories. I am still not sure about the blurb - which is the same one I used for the e-book - so feedback is welcome. So far, I have followed the advice from this post on publishing short stories.. I have realized that I have to make a paperback since no one I know owns a Kindle. They are not very widespread over here because there is no Amazon.dk, and Amazon has this stupid rule where you must buy Kindles through Amazon.com if there is no local Amazon in your country. I can't buy a Kindle from Amazon.de, even though Germany is right next door. I have already signed up for Kindle Select, so it will be at least another three months before I can expand to other e-book markets. Edit: It just occurred to me that I might not actually qualify for KDP Select since several of these stories are still available online. Is it just the book as a whole that must be exclusive to Amazon or does it apply to the individual parts as well? Edit2: Reading the terms, they mention that "...if your Digital Book consists primarily of content that is in the public domain or licensed by you on a non-exclusive basis (i.e., if others can also publish this content), you cannot include it in KDP Select." So, you might be able to get away with including a few non-exclusive stories, but definitely not all of them. I guess I will see about unenrolling and distributing the e-book more widely. SimonChris fucked around with this message at 14:23 on Jul 13, 2023 |
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Jul 13, 2023 13:31
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Exclusive rights doesn’t mean it can’t be available online, unless your contract says it can’t. But that’s not an Amazon concern, it’s a concern for whoever you sold the rights to (if anyone). Putting something online doesn’t automatically make it PD or non-exclusive. Publishers will still have to license your work if they want to publish it.
Doctor Zero fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Jul 13, 2023 |
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Jul 13, 2023 18:03
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Doctor Zero posted:Non-exclusive rights doesn’t mean it can’t be available online. Publishers will still have to license your work if they want to publish it. Most short story contracts explicitly state that the market maintains non-exclusive publication rights in perpetuity. Otherwise, they would have to stop selling the magazine when the exclusive rights expired. That means "others can also publish this content", which is incompatible with the KDP Select terms as I read them.
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Jul 13, 2023 18:08
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SimonChris posted:Most short story contracts explicitly state that the market maintains non-exclusive publication rights in perpetuity. Otherwise, they would have to stop selling the magazine when the exclusive rights expired. That means "others can also publish this content", which is incompatible with the KDP Select terms as I read them. No, that's not how it works. Most markets purchase First Publication rights, and include a period of time before you are allowed to sell second printing / reprint rights. NEVER sign a contract that gives someone rights to your work in perpetuity. That's only appropriate for contracts where you are writing Work for Hire. Doctor Zero fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Jul 13, 2023 |
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Jul 13, 2023 18:13
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Doctor Zero posted:No, that's not how it works. Most markets purchase First Publication rights, and include a period of time before you are allowed to sell second printing / reprint rights. NEVER sign a contract that gives someone rights to your work in perpetuity. That's only appropriate for contracts where you are writing Work for Hire.  The "article" here is a short story.   Most short story contracts I have received has included a non-exclusive rights provision like this. Edit: I double-checked and managed to find a single exception: 
SimonChris fucked around with this message at 19:39 on Jul 13, 2023 |
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Jul 13, 2023 18:22
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SimonChris posted:
Ah, I am an idiot. I read what you wrote as exclusive rights in perpetuity. My bad. I also didn't realize when you said they were online that they were on a publisher's site, so bad assumption on my part. Regardless, for short story markets they don't have to get perpetual non-exclusive rights to publish the story in the magazine. They just wouldn't be able to reprint the issue in which your work appears. But the already printed editions can still be out there without issue (pun intended). Online would be a different thing, though. When I sold to Analog, the only non-exclusive rights they retain are for anthology and foreign print editions, probably because those could be published some indeterminate time in the future. quote:1. A. Seller grants to the Publisher first English language serial rights throughout the World and non- exclusive foreign language translation serial rights for the use of the Work in all editions of the
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Jul 13, 2023 19:55
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Doctor Zero posted:Ah, I am an idiot. I read what you wrote as exclusive rights in perpetuity. My bad. I also didn't realize when you said they were online that they were on a publisher's site, so bad assumption on my part. I am glad we understand each other, then . As I read the KDP Select terms, even something like Analog's anthology rights would theoretically preclude you from enrolling since another party has rights to publish the story outside of Amazon. Anyway, there doesn't seem to be any way of unenrolling from Select, so I have just turned off auto-renew and will wait out the three months. It can't hurt to see if anyone reads the book on KU.
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Jul 13, 2023 20:20
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I have made almost $40 on my book this month  Which is only exciting because I haven’t really advertised it at all. Most of the money comes from KU reads.ETA: I’d be pretty wary of breaking the terms of exclusivity that Amazon’s laid down. Apparently even having pirated copies of books appear somewhere on the internet is enough to get authors kicked out of KU newts fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Jul 14, 2023 |
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Jul 14, 2023 00:27
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Hey there, I'm sorry to jump to the end of a long and venerable thread, but I read the first few pages and am wondering if there are any other spots I should dip in to read? I write and post Sci-Fi on Tumblr and have a minor following, and have written about three 100k books and enough shorts for one or two anthologies. My writing is more old school Sci-Fi (think like 1970s Larry Niven without the weird sex stuff or Robert Heinlein without the weird sex stuff) and there doesn't seem to be much of a market for that with traditional publishing. I've also talked to an editor (who is willing to take me on at between 1 and 3 cents a word depending on how much editing work I do myself which still makes it a couple thousand dollar process - so I'm still getting over that. I want to pay folks what they're worth but I _also_ wasn't ready to hear that editing is "buy a new laptop" prices. I want to explore self publishing but I'm intimidated by all the non writing work that it takes. When editor said "no really, writing the book will be the easy part" I wasn't prepared for how right they were.
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Jul 14, 2023 03:59
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beep-beep car is go posted:Hey there, I'm sorry to jump to the end of a long and venerable thread, but I read the first few pages and am wondering if there are any other spots I should dip in to read? You should really read the whole thread. I know it's long but honestly, the self-publishing game is a long one and everything will take ages and be super confusing the first time through so just take your time etc. The details have changed but the overall basic philosophy hasn't (have a good cover and blurb, always be writing the next book and publishing, etc). I also have a YouTube channel focused on the business side of publishing that you might find helpful: https://www.youtube.com/c/PaperTigerProductions I do mostly video essays with opinions/analysis because there are loads of other channels that cover the basic how to stuff on the mechanical steps of publishing but if you're going to start anywhere, you should probably start with my first one that explains the publishing industry in general and what you're signing up for when you decide to self-publish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrgRWJvhLjw If you have any particular questions though, shout. beep-beep car is go posted:I write and post Sci-Fi on Tumblr and have a minor following, and have written about three 100k books and enough shorts for one or two anthologies. beep-beep car is go posted:I've also talked to an editor (who is willing to take me on at between 1 and 3 cents a word depending on how much editing work I do myself which still makes it a couple thousand dollar process - so I'm still getting over that. I want to pay folks what they're worth but I _also_ wasn't ready to hear that editing is "buy a new laptop" prices. I want to explore self publishing but I'm intimidated by all the non writing work that it takes. When editor said "no really, writing the book will be the easy part" I wasn't prepared for how right they were. Controversial opinion here that I really should get around to making a YouTube video on: spending $$$$ on an editor is maybe the biggest waste of your limited funds when you're starting out. Assuming that you're posting from the position of "I have been serializing these as I write them on tumblr and haven't gotten any critique on the writing except for notes on tumblr and I also haven't done anything else other than collate the words into a document": Go back and do a thorough self-edit. Then go post either an excerpt in the Fiction Farm thread for crits or a request for beta readers in the main Fiction Writing thread. Go through your beta reader feedback and do a revision. Depending on how extensive the revisions turn out to be, get more beta readers to confirm if your changes land the way you want them to. If they don't, repeat until they do, then move onto line edits and proofing and commission some professional cover art. Once the cover is ready and your manuscript and blurb are as polished as you can make them, publish and announce it to your tumblr following and the SFF thread in TBB (and the related SFF KU thread if you enrol in KDP select). Congratulations: you're already way ahead of most self-pub authors who start with a following of zero. Now move on and repeat with the next book.
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Jul 14, 2023 05:36
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yep. if your book content is good, then the only really big tip is: get a professional front cover. one that does not look self published. unless you are literally a graphic designer, pay someone money to do this. it'll be worth it. this matters almost more than the content. 100% of readers judge a book by its cover.
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Jul 14, 2023 10:54
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