This wasn't aimed at you anyway--you're perfectly willing to open up and give your opinion "face to face" so to speak.
As to selling to major publishers, that is a fine goal, and one I share. But I'm not sure it's where publishing will be at a decade from now, and I don't have a dozen finished books to be marketing right now.
I have been watching Maggie Hogarth (haikujaguar) and others' experiences publishing online. Ms. Hogarth has noted that many of her stories garner professional wages, by word-rate, from her sponsors. That's nothing to sneeze at. Of course, she's been doing this for quite a while, and has built up a substantial audience.
Even Hugo-winning Elizabeth Bear has fiction online with a "donate" button attached, a sample of her wares set up as a trickle-income source as well. (She calls it "guilt-ware".)
So, now I'm working on getting new fiction out at least twice a week, and working on gathering an audience. So I'm trying lots of things to let people know I'm here, and to try to get people comfortable with speaking up here as well. (Speaking of gathering an audience, if you want to do an interview with me on crowdfunding and reader-supported fiction, let me know.)
Besides, there's also the novel set in this same world. If I can get a big enough audience here, I figure that will be a selling point for the novel, because there will be a certain amount of sales for my first book from people seeing it as part of a series that they already enjoy.
As to your choices in life and in publishing--you have to choose the path you think is best for you in this writing business. I'm not dissing your choices by making different ones for myself.
It takes years of investment and high-quality work to make a published novel, especially if you count all the "practice" writing that comes before. So, you write your novel in your garret, and then you hope you can find the right publisher for it, who didn't just buy a similar novel from someone with more name recognition.
It's a gamble, and the writer invests time and energy and hope (and money for equipment, supplies, correspondence, and so on) either way.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-12 08:33 pm (UTC)As to selling to major publishers, that is a fine goal, and one I share. But I'm not sure it's where publishing will be at a decade from now, and I don't have a dozen finished books to be marketing right now.
I have been watching Maggie Hogarth (haikujaguar) and others' experiences publishing online. Ms. Hogarth has noted that many of her stories garner professional wages, by word-rate, from her sponsors. That's nothing to sneeze at. Of course, she's been doing this for quite a while, and has built up a substantial audience.
Even Hugo-winning Elizabeth Bear has fiction online with a "donate" button attached, a sample of her wares set up as a trickle-income source as well. (She calls it "guilt-ware".)
So, now I'm working on getting new fiction out at least twice a week, and working on gathering an audience. So I'm trying lots of things to let people know I'm here, and to try to get people comfortable with speaking up here as well. (Speaking of gathering an audience, if you want to do an interview with me on crowdfunding and reader-supported fiction, let me know.)
Besides, there's also the novel set in this same world. If I can get a big enough audience here, I figure that will be a selling point for the novel, because there will be a certain amount of sales for my first book from people seeing it as part of a series that they already enjoy.
As to your choices in life and in publishing--you have to choose the path you think is best for you in this writing business. I'm not dissing your choices by making different ones for myself.
And I wish both of us luck!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-13 02:30 pm (UTC)It takes years of investment and high-quality work to make a published novel, especially if you count all the "practice" writing that comes before. So, you write your novel in your garret, and then you hope you can find the right publisher for it, who didn't just buy a similar novel from someone with more name recognition.
It's a gamble, and the writer invests time and energy and hope (and money for equipment, supplies, correspondence, and so on) either way.