Self-Publishing Goons: Yep, people buy it!

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > Self-Publishing Goons: Yep, people buy it!

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

All Else Failed posted:

I am an innately gifted writer who has largely ignored the craft out of self-loathing. Part of the goal of doing this is to establish the fictional storytelling fundamentals I always hated, because I recognize that I am wasting my talents.

I don't mean to sound like I'm having a go, but on what authority do you declare your genius? I mean, who else has confirmed it? Every writer thinks their stuff is genius, and as your next quote shows, the reader does not always agree. Maybe I've just been in a lot of writing threads lately but "I'm great" as a sentiment sets off all kinds of alarm bells. "I sell loads" or "I won these awards" is fine, but I'm not so sure when it comes to self declaring.

Again, not having a go, just curious about what your background is that makes you such a match for self publishing.

All Else Failed posted:

I read a full sample of a successful title and just laughed at the garbage tropes and thesaurus linedance.

Bear in mind that what you see as garbage is good enough to sell by the bucket load, so don't sell it short.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2014 21:33

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 07:23

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Grizzled Patriarch posted:

I don't write it so I can't really comment with authority, but I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of people self-pubbing in erotica and romance still have day jobs. I wouldn't be surprised if most of them were making in the $300-500 a month ballpark after a whole year of writing, based on anecdotes I've seen tossed around here. If that's enough for you to live comfortably on and you have the time to get to that point without being tossed out on the street, then go for it.

The figure commonly tossed round the subreddit is people tend to pull in a reasonably steady $500 a month once they have 30 titles out there. Generally takes people about 4-6 months to get to that point.

It's hardly a living, but as I've observed elsewhere, it's better than welfare.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2014 01:45

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

All Else Failed posted:

I know as an unmitigated fact I have what it takes if I put my mind to it. That will be the true struggle.

How do you know this? Look up subjective and objective, and then think about it again. There is a vast, vast gulf of difference between motivational self-belief and delusion. Yeah, confidence is great, but if you want to make a career of it, you need to be sure. How can you be sure that your subjective opinion is objective truth? Check with others. As many as you can.

Same point for all the following statements:

All Else Failed posted:

I am, however, extremely good at identifying what makes a good story and what doesn't, what makes good writing and what doesn't.

I am a ruthless critic with excellent taste because of this.

It will be easy for me to grasp, it is simply a matter of having even the slightest bit of willpower to get it done.

Understand that the guys in this thread are trying to point out that you need the confirmation of others about these statements, or you will end up being to self-pub what the guy on the corner who screams homophobic slurs at pigeons is to PR.

If you can't accept that you need to confirm if you are as good as you think you are, here's how I see your phase trajectory:

fiction thread
thunderdome
fyad intervenes
failed assassination attempt on Ronald McDonald

# ¿ Nov 5, 2014 02:27

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Um, anachronistic much? Upholstery didn't come into common practice until 20 years AFTER the great barnyard war, dickslice. If I could rate it lower than 1 star I would. Do your loving research, amateur.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2014 23:04

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

You guys are all an inspiration to keep going. Between this thread and the subreddit, it actually feels possible to make a living from writing if I throw myself at it completely.

Every time the thread comes back round to bragging I end up having a good day and getting a ton of writing done.

# ¿ Nov 6, 2014 08:46

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

As someone who spent 3 years at university studying creative writing, I would say that there were some people to whom writing does comes easier. There were others who had to work at it, and eventually became good by listening to advice and practising over and over. And unfortunately there was a third group who - even after three years of literally being paid to write, were still poo poo.

I would say that the defining feature of this third group was that they thought their ideas were brilliant and that the criticism they were getting was because the lecturers / agents / publishing industry didn't 'get' them.

It's my opinion that writing requires a weird balance of believing in your own ideas (otherwise they dry up and you quit), but accepting that you need to verify if they're actually good with an impartial third party.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2014 09:01

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Most of my time in writers groups has been spent wishing that people spent less time inserting themselves into their books, and more time inserting their books into themselves and then loving off so the rest of us can get on with it.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2014 16:09

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Sulla-Marius 88 posted:

Napoleon jumped up in shock from the bed and began scrambling for ~~his lamb shanks-encrusted ceremonial~~ his new hand crocheted vest.

I edit

# ¿ Nov 11, 2014 22:05

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

My missus got the same mark as me at uni, so she's a great resource to see if my ideas are on track. She's dyslexic as gently caress though, so I tend to do my own editing.

Sulla-Marius 88 posted:

I was half-asleep when I wrote that and I'm half-asleep now but shouldn't that be hyphenated?

I meant you forgot to mention knitting, but yes, probably.

My other half will probably kill me for conflating crocheting and knitting, but that's a separate issue.

Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Nov 11, 2014

# ¿ Nov 11, 2014 23:40

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

May be relevant to any UK based self-pubbers:

https://www.change.org/p/vince-cable-mp-uphold-the-vat-exemption-threshold-for-businesses-supplying-digital-products?recruiter=180450651

Changes to tax law in the UK might be removing the current exemption of £10k per annum for digital distributors. This petition is to try and keep the exemption in place.

Without it, any UK authors who want to give ePublishing a try will have to register self employed and submit quarterly tax returns as soon as they make their first £1, making it impossible for a lot of people.

# ¿ Nov 14, 2014 09:47

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

I can't actually read, I just dictate php scripts that pick up on keywords.

# ¿ Nov 15, 2014 15:08

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

I love how AEF is acting like you guys are the big mean guardians of self-pub success who are refusing to give up your secrets, when in fact the posts he's interpreting as attacks are the actual advice.

In summary:

:smuggo:

teach me kung fu sifu

:eng101:

first we must work on your posture which even outside of combat I can see is sloppy-

:smugjones:

gently caress you I don't need to prove myself to you, teach me kung fu damnit

:eng99:

Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 09:53 on Nov 16, 2014

# ¿ Nov 16, 2014 09:50

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

EngineerSean posted:

It's funny because I write erotica because I'm not in dire straights, but if I really did get down to dire straights, I'd write nothing but erotica until I was back on my feet because it's so easy.

See, everyone says it's easy but I'm finding it's taking me two weeks to put a story together, and I keep going way over 5k. At this rate it's going to take me a year to get to earning anything like a decent living from it.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2014 23:02

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

e: sorry, I'll stop mentioning Erotica. For the sake of having SullaMarius' post below make sense, I will leave this in:

I care too much about what I'm writing to just put any old poo poo up, which is probably massively harming sales because there's so much of what I've written that is justifying or explaining the convoluted situations they're in.

My proper book feels like it's going well though, I just know when it's ready to go up (looong time away) though I'm going to have an existential panic attack over the marketing.

Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Nov 18, 2014

# ¿ Nov 18, 2014 18:09

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Sulla-Marius 88 posted:

But you've brought up a question that applies to all writing (in fact, all industries): know your market.

For example, in YA you wouldn't get very far reasoning "hold up these characters are just kids, they don't know how to do poo poo, realistically they would just be torn apart by wolves after fifteen seconds and the rest of the time they'd spend feuding amongst each other with their thumbs up their arses, so that's what I'm going to write".

That is a very good point. There are a lot of TV shows / films that sell really well, and I watch them thinking "This is ridiculous, in real life that kid would get stabbed / there's no way that plan would work / being shot in the shoulder would send him into shock" etc. And yet it sells. I have to try and remember the phrase 'suspension of disbelief' and try to find a good balance of it.

I sometimes think that it might be more important to make sure that the reader believes that the character believes in what they're doing rather than trying to cover all your bases and justify it to the reader.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2014 18:57

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

All Else Failed posted:

I think I did around 400 words last night. I've squeezed out about 350 words thus far today but I'm trying to make a decent push through my scatterbrainedness. I miss chainsmoking cigarettes inside right about now, that's for sure. . To my credit (maybe), I apparently have trouble just making GBS threads out the words and kind of obsessively edit as I go. It probably makes for more cohesive writing in the meantime, but maybe feels less productive by a simple wordcount.

If I could offer one piece of advice, it would be this: free write first, edit later.

Your brain consists of two processes - creative and critical. And they absolutely do not get on. When producing, your major problem is always going to be your critical side shooting down ideas as they form. For me this is counterproductive because if I let my brain roll, a lot of complete poo poo comes out* but when I look at it afterwards critically, it can be trimmed into something useable - often good. To get the best out of the critical/creative dichotomy, sometimes you just need to separate them a bit.

I do this and on the days when my e/n bullshit isn't crushing me and I can work, I average 1-2k words a day. Blog post about it:

http://dansclayton.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/where-do-ideas-come-from.html

Also my god do I miss brain drugs. I don't smoke anymore and in my early twenties I developed a sensitivity to caffeine, so unless I want palpitations and eventual tachycardia, I can have like one coke a week, maybe. But no coffee. Being a writer without coffee is horrible. This must be what normal people's brains feel like.

I wish the science was in on whether or not ecigs are safe enough because 90% of my best ideas over the years have come from a good walk and a fag.

* much like my posting

Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 14:22 on Nov 19, 2014

# ¿ Nov 19, 2014 13:55

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

If you want to make money (and I don't mean a lot of money, I mean any) then you have to write for an audience.

Writing what you want in the hope that you'll break open a new genre and trailblaze a new way of doing things is a gamble. If you win, you get money and freedom.

But like any gamble, there's one winner and a million losers. And one of the life experiences that has scared me into taking things seriously was the words of a friend who spent time in a psychiatric ward. She meant it as a compliment in that I wasn't alone in being unpublished, but she said to me:

"Those places are full of people like you."

People who hold on to the dream. People who are misunderstood geniuses if only people would give them a chance. People who gambled their lives on artistic endeavour and lost. We all chase the dream because we see the winners but the losers at the other end should drive us just as hard.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that you need to decide if you're doing this to write what you want, or if you're doing it to make a living. It's possible eventually to do both if you're lucky and committed, but in the beginning at least you're going to have to decide - commercial or artistic.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2014 15:40

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

ravenkult posted:

I've been waiting 2 weeks for a cover change. There's a ''technical error.''

I was alerted yesterday that one of mine is $3 instead of $2.99, despite being pretty sure I changed them all a few weeks ago, so maybe it's just a bit buggered.

# ¿ Nov 21, 2014 21:49

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Two of them are still at £3, and I definitely changed one of them last night. Time to shoot an email to support!

# ¿ Nov 21, 2014 22:08

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Doesn't matchbook do that, or is it just a discounted physical copy when you buy the eBook?

# ¿ Nov 28, 2014 12:34

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Moridin920 posted:

Is it worth selling short stories (5k-20k word range) in a non romance/erotica genre or not really? Mostly wondering if it is even worth the effort to do all the legwork behind self-publishing as I'm not going to get a full length novel together anytime soon; I just write for the fun of it now that I'm not in school anymore.

The universally cited truth is no, unless you're already famous for other stuff. If you have a lot of short stories in the same genre, you might be better off trying to edit / link them into one 50k narrative and market that instead.

# ¿ Nov 30, 2014 13:13

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

All Else Failed posted:

I've been nothing but friendly and honest about the kind of person I am.

I did have a big post written but ultimately it boils down to this: look up neuroplasticity. At the moment, you want to play league of legends, because that's the reward your brain is used to.

IF YOU SIT DOWN AND WRITE, THAT IS THE REWARD YOUR BRAIN WILL GET USED TO.

If you can't get yourself to the point where you see writing as a good thing that you enjoy doing, your time will be so better served doing something else. You need to be having fun writing, otherwise it won't be fun to read.

And the only way to do that is to put the controller down. I managed it after a bit of kick-up-the-arse feedback. I've only published three, have two in the edit stage and one crafting, and I have horrible motivation.

If we can do it, so can you. Or don't. It's your choice.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2014 23:09

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

I can see how that would be a valid excuse, being so entirely burnt out from writing all day that you can't face it in your free time.

Maybe try to set up writing time as a habit? Current research suggests that if you do something at the same time every day for 18 days in a row, it becomes habitual and a lot easier to get into.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2014 21:03

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

So I'm having trouble with blurbs. Anyone have any good guides bookmarked?

I'm not posting them for feedback because they're not thread appropriate, but any good guides to how to construct a good blurb would be appreciated.

The few I managed to google were vague at best.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2014 13:28

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Why do you need UK KU, isn't it a global thing?

# ¿ Dec 5, 2014 22:35

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

I think the idea is that it's free of distractions and you can't do anything but write with it. No alt-tabbing to porn, or steam, or whatever. Plus it loads up instantly.

I don't own one, but I do have an old laptop with lubuntu and OpenOffice write and nothing else on it. Same reasoning, but I get multi line editing.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2014 16:25

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Possibly relevant to the conversation:

http://www.thebookseller.com/futurebook/honeymoon-over-ku-comes-between-amazon-and-self-publishers

H. M. Ward apparently labels KU as destroyer of self publishing, points out unfair payment structure of KU.

Article seems to go overboard with the death of Amazon, but I was interested in what you lot think - especially about the 'subscribe to author' idea everyone seems to be throwing about, and the accusations that paying everyone from the same pot is ludicrous / unfair.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2014 22:09

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

I figured, the whole piece seems to be written from an 'Amazon is going down' angle that doesn't square up with anything else I've read.

The one point that I think is fair though is her saying that the KU payments shouldn't share the same pot, but I don't even know if that's an accurate reflection.

Just interested to see if it lined up with the experience of everyone here really.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2014 23:43

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Reddit seems to think the UK is particularly bad for doing it.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2014 00:54

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

I'm still marvelling at the idea that book piracy is now a thing.

I mean, before Kindle, the amount of effort it would have taken to either photocopy or scan & compile a novel, you'd be better off just doing an hours overtime and buying two copies of it.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2014 18:45

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Maybe it'd be interesting if there was a way of displaying for each return the percentage of ebooks that purchaser has returned.

There again, that would probably cause the sellotape to come loose on the cardboard boxes Amazon are using as servers.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2014 20:03

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Grizzled Patriarch posted:

I don't have a dog in this fight either way, but I've always wondered why they didn't just implement some system based on how far into the book someone has read, since they evidently have ways of tracking that.

I don't see how saying, for example, "If you've read at least 50% of this book, you can't return it" would be all that unfair. It's kind of like eating at a restaurant: if you take one bite and send it back, cool. If you eat half of a steak and then decide you don't like it, you probably aren't going to get it comped.

Unfortunately I have sat opposite someone at a restaurant who ate the entire steak, then when the waitress asked if everything was OK he said the steak was too dry. Sad thing is he ended up getting 50% off and sat there the rest of the night acting like he'd beaten the system.

Some people are just pricks that don't pay if there's any way of avoiding it, ethical or not.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2014 21:04

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

2014 has been an absolute waste of a year due to e/n bullshit and my procrastinatory reaction to it. Salvaged only during the last 2 months, during which I've published four 'romance' shorts (fifth hopefully up next week).

If I could ask one thing of 2014, it would be the motivation to keep going at my current pace. Unfortunately I suspect Xmas is going to knock me out of what little routine I've managed to scrape together and set me back a couple months.

I'd also like a way of editing the back matter on a published title without it putting the whole book into reverification and resetting the counter on kdp promos. Or at the very least, a way of editing the book's Amazon link in before publishing.

# ¿ Dec 22, 2014 03:05

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

EngineerSean posted:

Oh and it doesn't reset the counter on KDP promos when you update the book.

Oh. The warning on the kdp site seemed to imply it did - it says something about the book needing to have been published for a month without changes before you can schedule a deal. Otherwise I'd have everything on offer over new year, instead of only half of them.

# ¿ Dec 22, 2014 10:14

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Ah, that makes sense. I thought it was ANY changes.

Let's Get Visible arrived today, so there's that to look forward to.

# ¿ Dec 22, 2014 22:39

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Write them as short stories, then go back and edit them into chapters of a longer narrative.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2015 10:09

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Romance sells insanely well, so if you're purely in it for the money, go for that. If you want to make an okayish living having fun and writing what you want, then stick with sci-fi. Don't get tempted to rewrite it as a sci-fi romance because no.

You sound like you have a healthy frame of mind about it though, so I wish you all the best.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2015 22:53

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Sundae posted:

I intended to be completely done and and ready to go self-employed at latest by December, but TL;DR: medical bills my insurance refused to cover. (Hard to build up a sufficient reserve when you've just been charged $13,000, you know?)

I'm so close to being free that it's starting to drive me batty.

Jesus, that sucks. Hopefully something big comes along. I can sympathise with that goal being just out of reach. Right now I feel like I'm working 9-5 and seeing nothing yet except a crawling increase in my sales / borrows on Amazon. It's been hard getting my head back into it after Christmas, but I feel like I'm starting to get there.

My situation is different though, since i'm already at zero so I kind of have nothing to lose. It's got to be scary operating without a safety net though, so probably best to wait until you're sure. Must be tempting though every time you have a bad day at work to make the switch early...

# ¿ Jan 20, 2015 21:49

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Hijinks Ensue posted:

I've gotten good reviews from book bloggers. It can take time, as most of them are swamped with requests, but over the long haul I've built some excellent relationships with bloggers. This makes getting reviews for subsequent books easier, as you can say, "Hey, blogger! A while back you read my novel Finite Laughter. My new book, A Peach Is Not A Peach Without A Pit, is out. May I send you a copy?" Never hurts to participate in bloggers' contests and rafflecopter giveaways either.

I very briefly dated a book blogger and this seems like a really good tip. You're targeting someone who is used to reviewing books and wants their opinion out there, and would probably review it whether you asked them or not.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2015 18:17

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 07:23

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

ravenkult posted:

Thanks for posting it, man.

I'll be writing a series of articles for LitReactor on how to do your own covers on the cheap, with some actual tips and how-tos. They'll be up in March, I'll make sure to link them.

That would be really interesting to read, specifically how you go about choosing the stock sites you're using and how much your outlay is in creating a cover.

Also I love your goddamn covers. I think the American Nightmare one is my favourite.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2015 20:05

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