TL Fiction Writers - Page 6

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On March 28 2012 18:50 TheQuarryman wrote:


My advice would be to look at self-publishing, not at established publishers. Unless you are getting a million dollar advance, the case for self-publishing is compelling. Some established authors have already turned down large advances to keep their rights and self-publish – Barry Eisler turned down $500k. The downside is that some people still view self-publishing as vanity publishing. It isn’t.

Of course, you still need a great story, well-written and edited (no shortcuts there), but you can self-publish for free and the process is straightforward. No managers, agents, query letters or publishers.

I would suggest first looking at Amazon (the largest eBook retailer) and at Smashwords. Smashwords can give you distribution into the Apple store, B&N, kobo and lots of others. Be careful not to be drawn into one of the vanity publishers that charge you money to simply self-publish your book for you. Do a lot of googling and reading up – there is lots of information out there.
https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help
http://www.smashwords.com/about/how_to_publish_on_smashwords

If you want to see your book in print, you can do print-on-demand (POD) with CreateSpace (Amazon), Lulu and/ or Lightning Source (Ingram), amongst many others.

I have found that the toughest part of self-publishing is editing (not that I’m saying any of it is easy). It takes me longer to edit a book (with several ‘alpha-readers’ proofing it/ reading it) than it does to write it in the first place. This came as a surprise to me.

J A Konrath has written a great blog about the case for and against self-publishing. If you’ve spent two years writing a novel, then spending two or three days reading through his blog could be time well spent.

A newbie’s guide to publishing
http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/

Good luck with it.

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On March 28 2012 22:30 khaydarin9 wrote:


I've worked in bookselling and in publishing, so I have my biases - but if you do decide to self-publish, these are a few things you should do:
Hire a professional editor to do an edit of your work. Writing and editing are two different technical skills, and you can benefit greatly by having a trained and experienced structural editor look at the manuscript. And don't skimp on copyediting either. This will cost you money.
Get a designer who knows what he/she is doing to do the cover - by which I mean, is familiar with market, genre, target audience, etc. There are an awful lot of designers out there who won't bother to read the book before they design a cover. Sometimes they can get away with it, but it's also a matter of pride, particularly the writer him/herself is commissioning the designer. Having a professional-looking product is important. This will also cost you money.
Have a distribution plan. Amazon and eBooks make this easier, but depending on what kind of scale you're aiming for, you'll need some sort of structured distribution to get your books into the hands of customers who want them. This won't cost you money upfront, but it'll probably be some sort of percentage of the RRP.
Think about marketing and publicity! There are thousands of self-published books going into the market every month, and it's becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate between a good product and a run-of-the-mill churned out manuscript. Think up new and innovative ways to promote yourself (yes, this means more than setting up a website/blog/Facebook page - this is standard now). This will probably cost you money ...

The advantage of going with a traditional publisher is that their job is to worry about the above, and that you don't have to pay upfront for any of it - obviously, you'll be paid in royalties instead, which will look like a lot less on the page (between 5 and 10% of the RRP is standard), but means you also don't have to mess around with the less glamorous aspects of book production and sales. Of course, going with a traditional publisher has its obstacles - difficult to get a contract, you have less say in the finished product, etc., but a lot of writers forget that publishers aren't out to sabotage books - they're not going to go out and create a product that they really think won't sell (though you may or may not be surprised at the number of people I know in book sales and marketing who never read some of the books they were selling that went on to make it big - including Twilight)l. Most of the time, they're on your side - and chances are, they know more about the biz than you do.

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On March 27 2012 07:09 FoxyMayhem wrote:
I like that idea. I don't want the story challenge to take too much time from our regular writing, so I suggest we set a word goal-limit. How does 1000 words sound? It's small, but it has enough room to tell a story.

So here's the idea:
-1000 Word limit, that or less.
-At the start of week 1, an idea is presented for a short story to be written around. At the end of that week, you need to turn in your story.
-Occasionally, a challenge goes for two weeks, where the second week is dedicated to editing and polishing week 1's story. After all, more than half or writing is rewriting.

My suggestions for the first story challenge: Write about a character who realizes, through some dramatic circumstances, that something important that they've held as true all their life is wrong. Write that realization.

What do you guys think?

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On March 26 2012 22:52 khaydarin9 wrote:


In my opinion, the only benefit of studying creative writing at a tertiary level is to meet other writers. An MFA will not give you legitimation; a publisher or agent is not more likely to take your work more seriously if you have a qualification on your resume (though making a connection through a lecturer or an academic could plausibly get you an "in"), and if you write genre fiction, prepare to be looked down upon by the literary institution. There are easier/faster/less expensive ways of learning the mechanics of writing, there are people everywhere who are happy to swap writing critiques, and really the best thing you can do is just to develop your own writing habit.

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On March 29 2012 11:34 Klamity wrote:


I understand this completely, but I think there's an argument to be made for having a few years of writing covered for. I would never advocate paying your way through one, but in this day and age, there's a large amount of programs which fully fund their MFA candidates. Even genre fiction is starting to make headway. I know people at the Iowa Writer's Workshop - the preeminent program in the world - who do write genre fiction and there are a handful of programs which are certainly receptive of it (Colorado and San Diego State come to mind). It's definitely a matter of putting in the research for that, though.

So assuming you go for free (which, again, is all I'd advocate), that leaves "easier" and "faster." I would disagree with that - the likelihood of finding talented writers off of the street or by whatever other means is too sporadic. Even the top programs won't guarantee you a good reader, but the odds are much higher - these are people picked out from a large pool of candidates. For example, the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas - Austin selects 6 fiction applicants from 600-800 applicants each year (and they grant you a generous 27k stipend on top of that). Odds are you'll get a damn good batch of writers who will be invested in your growth and work for a set amount of time (3 years in this case).

I suppose speed depends on the individual, and if you can support yourself and write at the same time, then kudos! I do think there's a case to be made for removing yourself form the work world for a few years to focus entirely on writing (well, teaching too in most cases - but to be sure, there are programs which don't require teaching such as UT). Plus, you'll receive a degree while you're at it, and while that assuredly does not guarantee a teaching position or even an academic one, it does enhance your resume and then that door isn't entirely closed.

Anyway, I like fiction and write short stories here and there, but my interest is definitely in poetry. I just wanted to see if there were any fellow MFAers around here (I'll be attending a program in the fall for poetry).

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On March 29 2012 12:22 khaydarin9 wrote:


I understand the appeal of wanting to focus on writing, but I feel that the vast majority of writers are going to have to balance a day job and other commitments with their writing for most of their career anyway.

The difficulty with forming a critique group or a group of readers from a university course is that chances are there's going to be a wide disparity in reading tastes, critiquing styles and quality (yes, being a good writer doesn't necessarily mean you're a good critiquer or editor, so being accepted into an MFA isn't much of an indicator on this point) etc. If you assemble a critique group on your own, at least you'll be able to specify what you're looking for and what will be of use to you.

I know a bunch of people who studied creative writing at university and kind of didn't know what to do after they finished, so they just went on to do Honours, and are now doing their PhDs, with no real intention of going into academia - it was just an excuse to write/avoid getting a job, which is okay for them in the short-term, since it's relatively easy to get PhD scholarships in Australia, and they're all living at home ... but they still have no idea what they're going to do once that finishes, and unless they do write a novel that instantly hits the best-seller list ... it's going to involve some sort of day job.

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On April 04 2012 16:22 FoxyMayhem wrote:
We're putting the writing group idea on hold in favor of the writing challenge, for the time being. For the first one, the due date is Saturday. Write away! (Challenge topic in OP)

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On April 06 2012 04:53 FoxyMayhem wrote:
It's only Thursday, you have several more days!

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On April 06 2012 05:06 Broodie wrote:
It's kind of weird that every time an idea comes to mind I always see things pop up that closely relate to my interests, happens all the time [spoiler]joking around with a friend we thought the best Halloween costume would be the man of a thousand dicks. The very next day I woke up, hopped on facebook and the third picture down was someone I knew in a costume of a lot of dicks, same concept though lol[/spoiler=weird example]

Anyways I was wondering if anyone here has interest in graphic novels and is good at brainstorming, I've been working a lot and don't have as much time to play sc2 so I've been brainstorming a concept for a graphic novel.

I'm on an external pc atm so I will upload the basic idea a bit later, but the question is: Is anyone interested in maybe helping me brainstorm the loose ends of the storyline and help create bio's/bestiaries?

I'm aiming to have a decent sized novel to be turned into a graphic cartoon, almost in the style of afro samurai

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On April 06 2012 04:58 gumshoe wrote:
it was something having to do with night right?

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