I worked on my first novel which was published through Amazon (after being let down by a dishonest publishing company who took advantage of my naivety), on and off from 2007 until it's publish in 2015. I still need to re-write it again to improve it, though I'm currently working on a number of other projects, as well as a new job and owning horses, dogs, a husband etc, so I'm super busy at the moment. Hoping it'll be even more successful once it has been re-written though! Trick is having a break now and then. Work on something new for a while, then go back to your original manuscript. In reading and working through it again with fresh perspective, you'll be so surprised at how energised you'll be to work on it after a break Happy writing!
Not the biggest fan of this though I do agree with most of what you are saying! Breaks should be many and often. Whilst writing my novel breaks kept me from getting irritated with my work, brought perspective as I read what I had wrote, and kept me from getting burnt out. There is danger with working on other projects while doing so though. It can get your thoughts all jumbled, and it keeps you from staying tuned in on your A game. How can I discover ways to better my work if I'm to busy jumping between three different stories?
I can finish a story in six months, but that is usually an online story and my word count per chapter is anywhere from 3,500 all the way up to 20,000 words, with 24,000 being the longest chapter I have ever written at one time. Finishing a chapter usually takes me 8 to 24 hours with about an hour's break during those times. I go into my own 'writer world' and because of that, some of my chapters have been written in one go and others have been posted a week later. Lately I haven't been able to fully get into my own world. My end stories are anywhere from 200 to 400 pages long and stretch from 250,000 to 400,000 words total. It does get discouraging, but it is rewarding when the story is done. I mostly write fan fiction, but I joined here, because I want to do some real writing. I think what keeps me going is the feedback, as well as constantly developing characters and getting to explore and meet a new person. The most challenging part for me has to be setting and accurate/clear descriptions. A plot, I can usually think up a story from beginning to end in about 5 minutes while working out the events around it for each scene as I go from chapter to chapter. That part for me is the easiest, the descriptions are the hardest and character development is the most fun for me - you don't realize exactly how many different personalities you remember meeting or how many that are a part of you until you start breaking them down.
There's plenty of unreadable trash that's published by major publishing companies. The only difference is, you wind up paying a lot more for it and it gives you a false sense of security.
I disagree with this. There is plenty of material published by major companies that is not to my taste and that I don't think is going to be making any contributions to the world of arts and literature. But actually unreadable, in the way that the worst of the self-published stuff is? No, I've never encountered that. Can you give an example of something from a major publisher that is as unreadable as the low end of the self-publishing spectrum?
I don't know how you can disagree without having read the books I've read. And why would I compare it to the low end? Aren't all books put out by major publishers at least supposed to be spell-checked? Formatted correctly? Because I've seen ones where that isn't true. Hell, I've seen books from very well known authors like Clancy where there were typos and misspellings and no one caught them. As far as content, I'm not talking about books "not to my taste," I'm talking about utter crap that I could have (and did) write when I was in High School. I recall a book I picked up in the SF/Fantasy section of a bookstore which was part of a series (!) called "Galactic MI" (short for Military Intelligence). The whole thing was basically circa 1980s "men's adventure" stories complete with anachronistic helicopters (used by aliens!) but plopped down into a supposedly SF story with very human aliens. There have been countless others like this, particularly in the thriller section, where just horribly written, amateurish prose has been printed and plopped on the shelf by a major publisher. You can type till your fingers fall off and you won't convince me that being published means a book is well written, or being self-published means it isn't.
My first novel took me about 3-4 weeks to finish. It wasn't a long novel though. About 56k words. I only did it to see if I could do it, and once I did, I wanted to write more. So now I am on my second book, which is about 85% complete. I'm on my second month, with breaks and job obligations. The editing is what I hate most though. By the time I was done editing the first book, I never wanted to read it again. But then I have my rare moments where I'll read a chapter and say to myself: "By god, you wrote a book man!" Haha, funny stuff. The editing is a killer though, hate it. Despise it.
What is the driving force that makes a publisher accept a novel? Saleability. Now, saleability correlates strongly with quality, but they're not the same thing. That's why Twilight was published, that's why pulp fiction was a thing, that's why Harlequin can make off like bandits despite assigning literal outlines for pace and structure. The stuff you've read that was bad was all saleable, maybe because the audience is voracious, maybe because the author was established (and the audience voracious), but it was saleable. As for the actual topic, trends are trends. The average traditionally published book is likely to I) sell more copies and II) be better written than an average self published book. Any one book can make or break that assertion, but we're talking about the industry as a whole, not points of data. As for typos in Clancy, books are long things and eradicating typos is, I think, basically impossible. One should try one's hardest, but some will always get through the net.
The fact that a team of professionals whose career is selling books deciding that a book will sell doesn't mean the book will sell? Mistakes are made and flops happen, but I know I'd trust the people who make a living in publishing when the conversation that way floats. Would you not? Do you know better?
I'd rather spend money on a book that a professional publisher thought was saleable than one the author and his mum decided was saleable and threw up on the internet in a couple of hours. God bless the gatekeepers. After doing their job and trawling through the Amazon slush pile for a few months in search of good books, I'm more and more thankful for them every day.
No, I wouldn't. Publishers are like hitters in baseball and strike out more than they get on base. Do I know better? In my genre perhaps. I see self-published mil-sf books doing very well (including my own, thanks very much) while the ones that make it through to the stores...well, there's perhaps one house that succeeds more than it fails with the genre and the others barely touch it.
I'm really not trying to convince you that being self-published means a book isn't well-written. I believe there are lots of self-published books that are very well written. But surely you know that there are also lots of self-published books that are absolute trash. If a book comes from a major publisher there is more than one person involved, there are quality control measures, etc... No, none of this guarantees that a book will be excellent, but I really don't think any book put out by a major publisher could compare with the crap some self-publishers produce. No, this does not mean your books are crap just because you self-publish. I self-publish too, and I don't think my books are crap. But your initial post said "The only difference is, you wind up paying a lot more for it and it gives you a false sense of security." And I disagree with that. I think there's a significant difference between books from publishers and books from self-publishers when it comes to finding books that are absolutely terrible.
It seems to me that you're one of a good few authors who have something against tradpublishing, rather than having made since shrewd business decision. If you're doing well in your avenue of choice, grand, but yours is not the only, nor is it better inherently.
I have nothing against traditional publication. I have many acquaintances who've been published and if I were offered a contract for my next book that gave me a nice advance, I'd probably take it. But I do have something against the idea that you're somehow "safer" grabbing a random paperback in your genre of choice from the shelf at the store than browsing Amazon for a self-published e-book at a reasonable price. I go to the book store locally and look for books in my favorite genres and there's very little. A few established names who can sell whatever they put out, and then not much else. Pretty much if I want to read what I liked to read (and not wait a year for the established authors I like to finish their book and have it put through the publishing mill) I have to search among the self-published and indie-published books. And there are some really good ones there, stuff by people who chose that route because it has some financial advantages. Badmouthing it and praising traditional publishing as some mystical "gatekeeper" is doing yourself a disservice.
I started to write my book in 2008. from 2009 to 2011 I haven't even touched it. I worked a bit on it in 2012 then stop for a few years. now end 2016 until now i wrote again. the reason why I don't write is because I work full time and have other commitment, But I don't want to let it go, not because I like writing but because I know I have a good story.
With the advent of the personal computer, it doesn't take nearly as long as it used to. In times of unemployment I can bat out 1000 words per day pretty easily so a little over three months for 100,000 words. That's assuming it's not a research novel. Back in the typewriter and carbon paper days it took a lot longer.
Great thread, really intersting to see the different writing speeds (ignoring the equally fascinating discussion on publishing routes). I actually decided to take a career break because I wanted to write a book, and it took 4 months, 100k words. And that's not counting the first 20k that went in the bin... Editing and beta took another month at least. Now looking for a publisher. But feeling there's probably some more editing required. Fascinating to see many people write fast, but also that people are able to take their time to deliver alongside other priorities in life.
Glad my post is still alive, didn't realize I posted this over a year ago. Almost going on 6 years writing my book. Now I'm officially out of the military, will have more time to finish my book. Honestly I am so close finishing my 2nd draft, then I can work on polishing it. Very close connecting the middle and end of the story. I wrote for 3 hours tonight, than playing my video games. I dream of it like watching a movie of my own story, and I'm the director. I'm constantly going in like surgery, creating my story until it's perfection. I don't have a schedule, I write when I'm in the mood or a idea comes to mind, sometimes I take short or long breaks. I feel a story should have any limited amount of time to be done right than rushed. Harry Potter, took her five years to write, and Hunger Games, two years. Also every story is unique in it's own way. As time goes on, I lose motivation, fighting the doubt of myself ever finishing the thing but that is what separates us from success and failure. I keep myself positive, I keep imaging the end result, finish what I started or five years was writing the story was all wasted. Wanting to see my book on a shelf in a book store, being proud of actually publishing a book that I never imagined doing so.
I've written the beginnings of several "novels" over the last ten years. It was mostly out of fear of not knowing how to finish them that they never really progressed past that. Over the last two weeks though I've been able to scratch out almost 5,000 words in my down time in my office and I don't seem to have the hesitation I use to. I'm not sure how long it will take but at this pace I can see my first draft getting pushed out in around six months.
My first book took seven months to write. I started when I went away on holiday by myself and began writing in the hotel. After that I just followed it through. The sequel took ten weeks and my latest standalone novel took 9 weeks. These are jusf first revisions though. I tend to move onto new projects but will look into publishing eventually. I must have wrote up to 20 hours a week. It can definitely be done if it becomes an obsession lol
not offhand now but it happened often when i was in a book club now i am very careful to check reviews and ratings before buying a book but i am sure there are still a lot of poorly done books out there that were published recently although real trad pubs have much fewer than the self published stuff which is mostly worse than slush they still have some duds
It took me about a year and a half to write my 270 word manuscript. I had the advantage of having the entire idea in my head, and just needing to put it into Word. The far bigger challenge has been editing and getting betas that will actually read it.
The book-that-started-out-as-a-short-story I'm now wanting to publish took five months. I usually write short stories and that's exactly what I thought I was going to end up with when I began last March, by August I realised I'd not only finished a book - which then took me another five months to type up - but a book of almost 250,000 words (so that's about 50,000 words a month). Some days I'd write for hours on end (including when I was cooking) other days I'd be thinking through which ideas would be best to pursue rather than putting pen to paper (and backside to chair as someone once said) especially when I was driving; in fact the last chapter was 'written' on the 20 minute drive home from my partner's. On the other hand I began a story FOURTEEN YEARS AGO which is yet to be finished, it's the most complex piece of writing I've ever started as each 'scene' is narrated from several points of view; if, and I know it's a big (HUGE!) IF, I ever collect sufficient royalties from the publishing of my most recent scribbling to have it properly edited it would be the spur to finish it. Good luck, don't over-think things, try to summon the courage to ask someone you trust to take a look at what you've written so far.
