I'm giving blood today, and for some reason I'm just a bit nervous. I've given before, I don't get queasy or nauseous, but it's been about two years (since just before I got my tattoo) and I feel like it's my first time.
In other news, my editing is going well! I can't remember all the times I've had to stop, shake my head and say, "What the hell, Ken?!" Right after I finished The River Runes I was flush with excitement and ready to start selling a million copies. So it's not surprising that I got impatient, half-assed my line edits, and convinced myself that my pixelated cover art was awesome.
Ouch. Here I am, almost a year later, and only now doing proper edits and re-writes (oh, and I have a much better cover that I am in love with!).
What have I learned? PATIENCE! Holy rusted metal, Batman, be patient with your work. Putting out something that isn't quite finished isn't going to help anyone, and may even be harmful. Learn from my mistakes and don't publish or send queries to agents and publishers until your book is DONE. If you can afford it, hire and editor. If not, edit once, walk away from your story for at least two months, (if not longer) and then do another edit.
Oh well. :) I'm happy with where The River Runes is now. Even if I wasn't, it's not like I could take it back, so what's the point in being upset? I'll fix what I can and make it better.
Besides, everyone loves a second edition, right?
Thanks for reading,
buh bye then
Showing posts with label publishing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label publishing. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Monday, June 13, 2011
That First Novel
Good day, all you... people. (dang, I just couldn't find anything clever to finish that with today)
Wow, it is tough out there finding people that will read your book when it is your first published novel. Right? Riight? Yes, it is. (Although I think that most of these things are likely to pertain to anyone, I have to admit that I am writing about my experiences as an indie author, rather than an author involved in legacy publishing)
There are lots of reasons for this:
Almost all readers already have favorite authors, and if this is your first book, you are not one of them. It's sad and not likely to change soon, (due to the not reading of your book) but it's something you need to be able to deal with.
There are thousands of books out there that cost less than yours, and were there first. People with ebook readers tend to have their readers loaded with free and cheap ebooks that they hope to one day, eventually, hopefully read. Yours is a newbie and it takes a while for people to find it.
Umm, who are you again? Aside from the handful of friends and family that are kind enough to read your blog once a week or so, not many people know who you are. Yet.
And then there are the reasons that are kicking around in your head, the may or may not be true.
Your writing sucks. I believe every writer worries about this at some point. Maybe you didn't edit enough, maybe your dialogue is horrible, maybe your characters are unlikable, etc... These things could be true. If you think they are, maybe you should reread your book, re-edit, and decide if you really want it out there.
Of course, this is a short list that could be much, much longer. The truth of the matter is this: Finding an audience is a marathon, not a sprint- paraphrased from J.A. Konrath
You're not going to sell a million copies in your first month, probably not even 50 copies. This can be stressful, even if you went into it with realistic expectations. You believe in your work, you know it will succeed, so why should you have to wait? Because it takes time. Finding an agent, finding readers, finding your place... these all take time.
Hold out. Make changes if you think they are warranted, but keep moving forward. Write. Every. Day. If you want your work to be its best, you have to keep getting better.
Things to do that might help, maybe but also might not because this game is a lot of luck, include:
Have good cover art. If it looks dated, it's probably a turn off to today's readers. Hell, the stock art provided by places like Lulu or Createspace is better than a lot of the covers I've seen lately. This is the first thing people see, and no matter what they say, people do judge a book by its cover.
Keep your prices competitive.
Make sure your writing is at its best.
I think that's it for today. :)
thanks for reading,
buh bye then
Wow, it is tough out there finding people that will read your book when it is your first published novel. Right? Riight? Yes, it is. (Although I think that most of these things are likely to pertain to anyone, I have to admit that I am writing about my experiences as an indie author, rather than an author involved in legacy publishing)
There are lots of reasons for this:
Almost all readers already have favorite authors, and if this is your first book, you are not one of them. It's sad and not likely to change soon, (due to the not reading of your book) but it's something you need to be able to deal with.
There are thousands of books out there that cost less than yours, and were there first. People with ebook readers tend to have their readers loaded with free and cheap ebooks that they hope to one day, eventually, hopefully read. Yours is a newbie and it takes a while for people to find it.
Umm, who are you again? Aside from the handful of friends and family that are kind enough to read your blog once a week or so, not many people know who you are. Yet.
And then there are the reasons that are kicking around in your head, the may or may not be true.
Your writing sucks. I believe every writer worries about this at some point. Maybe you didn't edit enough, maybe your dialogue is horrible, maybe your characters are unlikable, etc... These things could be true. If you think they are, maybe you should reread your book, re-edit, and decide if you really want it out there.
Of course, this is a short list that could be much, much longer. The truth of the matter is this: Finding an audience is a marathon, not a sprint- paraphrased from J.A. Konrath
You're not going to sell a million copies in your first month, probably not even 50 copies. This can be stressful, even if you went into it with realistic expectations. You believe in your work, you know it will succeed, so why should you have to wait? Because it takes time. Finding an agent, finding readers, finding your place... these all take time.
Hold out. Make changes if you think they are warranted, but keep moving forward. Write. Every. Day. If you want your work to be its best, you have to keep getting better.
Things to do that might help, maybe but also might not because this game is a lot of luck, include:
Have good cover art. If it looks dated, it's probably a turn off to today's readers. Hell, the stock art provided by places like Lulu or Createspace is better than a lot of the covers I've seen lately. This is the first thing people see, and no matter what they say, people do judge a book by its cover.
Keep your prices competitive.
Make sure your writing is at its best.
I think that's it for today. :)
thanks for reading,
buh bye then
Friday, May 13, 2011
Follow Friday and The Deleted Post
Another Follow Friday!
Today's question:
The Blogger Apocalypse made me a little emotional. What is the most emotional scene in a book that you have read lately?
I'd have to say that the scene from, The Vampire Lestat, where Lestat decides to turn his mother is pretty freakin emotional. (I'm re-reading after like 10 years and it's still awesome.)
******
I'm also going to put yesterday's blog on today's, since it was deleted in the Bloggerocalypse. It's a little longer than most of my posts, but please to read and enjoy:
I can't begin to describe how good it feels to be writing again. I've been editing and revising and talking with beta readers and revising and editing for months. That's part of the gig. I'm okay with it and even happy to do it. Those last bits of writing a novel are hectic and scary and, at times, brutal as all hell. But when you're finished...
What a feeling.
I've been looking around a lot at book reviews on Goodreads and Amazon. Especially, indie book reviews. I've also been looking around at blogs and forums to see what types of things folks are saying. Wow, is it ever polarized out there?!!
A common thread on one side out there, is the belief that all indie authors have self-pubbed because their writing wasn't good enough to get published traditionally. Is there some merit to that? Yeah, of course there is.
When you give everyone the means to put their ideas and opinions out there for the world to see, a lot of what goes out is going to be crap. People who don't know the first thing about world or character building, spelling, punctuation, editing, etc. can now write anything and call it published.
So, yes, of course people will take advantage. Every teenager who writes a poem about how badly his girlfriend hurt him and how no one in the world has ever felt that way before and how the darkness is crushing and the world is fading... They all believe that they are writers. Good writers.
Although, is this true of every indie author? Of course not. Joe Konrath is an amazing writer. Read something from him, I dare you. It's great stuff. He has a general rul, that I think makes a lot of sense. You can't be great at anything, unless you've put 10,000 hours into it. I think he's right.
Writers, real writers, know that it takes time and work to create something worthwhile. There will be failures (oh the failures) and missteps along the way. You will crumple pages full of writing and never look at them again. You will cuss and pound your head on the desk because you have to delete thousands of words that you wrote when you were full of coffee and cable tv. You will finish stories that you spent months on, and then realize that they are garbage.
So, will some indie authors be horrible? Yes. Will they learn from it and get better? Maybe.
On the other hand, do you really believe that agents and other readers of the slush pile the world over will always give every book a fair shake? I don't think so. I do believe that most folks in the writing industry truly love what they do. They have to. Anything to do with writing will swallow time like a fat kid with cake.
But everyone has bad days. Everyone with a job looks at the clock at the end of the day, just wishing they were somewhere else. I know that there are unpublished books out there that would have been great, but were never given a shot.
There are problems with both sides of the issue.
Writers: Write the best book possible, and then get people to read it. Not your family or your friends. Strangers. Find people you don't know that will read your book and tell you the truth. Find lots of them.
Then listen to what they tell you. Revise, edit, do it again. Find new readers. Once you know that your book is at its best, make your decision. I chose to self publish, not because my manuscript was rejected.(I didn't really try the traditional route, other than half a dozen queries I sent out to agents right after I finished my FIRST DRAFT. Don't do that!) I chose this route because I think things are changing, and I want to get in before it's too late.
Could I be wrong? Yes, but I could also be right. I'm happy with my decision and I know that I am going to keep on learning. The day I decide my writing cannot get any better is the day I stop writing.
Thanks for reading through my rambling,
buh bye now
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Warning: This is a long one :)
I can't begin to describe how good it feels to be writing again. I've been editing and revising and talking with beta readers and revising and editing for months. That's part of the gig. I'm okay with it and even happy to do it. Those last bits of writing a novel are hectic and scary and, at times, brutal as all hell. But when you're finished...
What a feeling.
I've been looking around a lot at book reviews on Goodreads and Amazon. Especially, indie book reviews. I've also been looking around at blogs and forums to see what types of things folks are saying. Wow, is it ever polarized out there?!!
A common thread on one side out there, is the belief that all indie authors have self-pubbed because their writing wasn't good enough to get published traditionally. Is there some merit to that? Yeah, of course there is.
When you give everyone the means to put their ideas and opinions out there for the world to see, a lot of what goes out is going to be crap. People who don't know the first thing about world or character building, spelling, punctuation, editing, etc. can now write anything and call it published.
So, yes, of course people will take advantage. Every teenager who writes a poem about how badly his girlfriend hurt him and how no one in the world has ever felt that way before and how the darkness is crushing and the world is fading... They all believe that they are writers. Good writers.
Although, is this true of every indie author? Of course not. Joe Konrath is an amazing writer. Read something from him, I dare you. It's great stuff. He has a general rul, that I think makes a lot of sense. You can't be great at anything, unless you've put 10,000 hours into it. I think he's right.
Writers, real writers, know that it takes time and work to create something worthwhile. There will be failures (oh the failures) and missteps along the way. You will crumple pages full of writing and never look at them again. You will cuss and pound your head on the desk because you have to delete thousands of words that you wrote when you were full of coffee and cable tv. You will finish stories that you spent months on, and then realize that they are garbage.
So, will some indie authors be horrible? Yes. Will they learn from it and get better? Maybe.
On the other hand, do you really believe that agents and other readers of the slush pile the world over will always give every book a fair shake? I don't think so. I do believe that most folks in the writing industry truly love what they do. They have to. Anything to do with writing will swallow time like a fat kid with cake.
But everyone has bad days. Everyone with a job looks at the clock at the end of the day, just wishing they were somewhere else. I know that there are unpublished books out there that would have been great, but were never given a shot.
There are problems with both sides of the issue.
Writers: Write the best book possible, and then get people to read it. Not your family or your friends. Strangers. Find people you don't know that will read your book and tell you the truth. Find lots of them.
Then listen to what they tell you. Revise, edit, do it again. Find new readers. Once you know that your book is at its best, make your decision. I chose to self publish, not because my manuscript was rejected.(I didn't really try the traditional route, other than half a dozen queries I sent out to agents right after I finished my FIRST DRAFT. Don't do that!) I chose this route because I think things are changing, and I want to get in before it's too late.
Could I be wrong? Yes, but I could also be right. I'm happy with my decision and I know that I am going to keep on learning. The day I decide my writing cannot get any better is the day I stop writing.
Thanks for reading through my rambling,
buh bye now
What a feeling.
I've been looking around a lot at book reviews on Goodreads and Amazon. Especially, indie book reviews. I've also been looking around at blogs and forums to see what types of things folks are saying. Wow, is it ever polarized out there?!!
A common thread on one side out there, is the belief that all indie authors have self-pubbed because their writing wasn't good enough to get published traditionally. Is there some merit to that? Yeah, of course there is.
When you give everyone the means to put their ideas and opinions out there for the world to see, a lot of what goes out is going to be crap. People who don't know the first thing about world or character building, spelling, punctuation, editing, etc. can now write anything and call it published.
So, yes, of course people will take advantage. Every teenager who writes a poem about how badly his girlfriend hurt him and how no one in the world has ever felt that way before and how the darkness is crushing and the world is fading... They all believe that they are writers. Good writers.
Although, is this true of every indie author? Of course not. Joe Konrath is an amazing writer. Read something from him, I dare you. It's great stuff. He has a general rul, that I think makes a lot of sense. You can't be great at anything, unless you've put 10,000 hours into it. I think he's right.
Writers, real writers, know that it takes time and work to create something worthwhile. There will be failures (oh the failures) and missteps along the way. You will crumple pages full of writing and never look at them again. You will cuss and pound your head on the desk because you have to delete thousands of words that you wrote when you were full of coffee and cable tv. You will finish stories that you spent months on, and then realize that they are garbage.
So, will some indie authors be horrible? Yes. Will they learn from it and get better? Maybe.
On the other hand, do you really believe that agents and other readers of the slush pile the world over will always give every book a fair shake? I don't think so. I do believe that most folks in the writing industry truly love what they do. They have to. Anything to do with writing will swallow time like a fat kid with cake.
But everyone has bad days. Everyone with a job looks at the clock at the end of the day, just wishing they were somewhere else. I know that there are unpublished books out there that would have been great, but were never given a shot.
There are problems with both sides of the issue.
Writers: Write the best book possible, and then get people to read it. Not your family or your friends. Strangers. Find people you don't know that will read your book and tell you the truth. Find lots of them.
Then listen to what they tell you. Revise, edit, do it again. Find new readers. Once you know that your book is at its best, make your decision. I chose to self publish, not because my manuscript was rejected.(I didn't really try the traditional route, other than half a dozen queries I sent out to agents right after I finished my FIRST DRAFT. Don't do that!) I chose this route because I think things are changing, and I want to get in before it's too late.
Could I be wrong? Yes, but I could also be right. I'm happy with my decision and I know that I am going to keep on learning. The day I decide my writing cannot get any better is the day I stop writing.
Thanks for reading through my rambling,
buh bye now
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Editing and gopher milk
I finished my first edit of Chapter 1 last night. I swear I've been over those pages, at least a dozen time, and still I found things that needed to be fixed. Tense issues (changing "is" to "was" or "are" to "were"), paragraphs not being broken where they should, and even spelling mistakes... SPELLING!
Oh well, calm down, and take a deep breath. (oohhmmmm) Okay, much more zen now :)
So yeah, my first read-through and edit of Chapter 1 is done. Yay! However, I haven't started my query letter yet, and my summary is still untouched. I'm nervous about letting people read it, trying to get it out there, and about my possible failure. Don't get me wrong, I did write the book for myself, and I finished it for myself (even after all the wrong turns and breaks in writing).
There is still a big part of me, though, that needs this book to succeed. I know that the odds are against me, and there are thousands of "writers" out there that never have a word published... I don't want to be one of them. Also, I know that the art should be for me, and it is. I love writing, always have, and probably always will.
I guess these jitters are to be expected. I am, after all, in brand new territory.
Hey! I also got the new Scott Pilgrim graphic novel (an early birthday present from a beautiful lady) which I intend to read within the next few days. I'm very excited to finish the series, and the movie was pretty rad ;)
that's it for now, I think.
Thanks for reading
Oh well, calm down, and take a deep breath. (oohhmmmm) Okay, much more zen now :)
So yeah, my first read-through and edit of Chapter 1 is done. Yay! However, I haven't started my query letter yet, and my summary is still untouched. I'm nervous about letting people read it, trying to get it out there, and about my possible failure. Don't get me wrong, I did write the book for myself, and I finished it for myself (even after all the wrong turns and breaks in writing).
There is still a big part of me, though, that needs this book to succeed. I know that the odds are against me, and there are thousands of "writers" out there that never have a word published... I don't want to be one of them. Also, I know that the art should be for me, and it is. I love writing, always have, and probably always will.
I guess these jitters are to be expected. I am, after all, in brand new territory.
Hey! I also got the new Scott Pilgrim graphic novel (an early birthday present from a beautiful lady) which I intend to read within the next few days. I'm very excited to finish the series, and the movie was pretty rad ;)
that's it for now, I think.
Thanks for reading
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)