Does posting work here harm our chances of being published?

If you're dedicated to writing, it might be worth it. There are still people though who can be moderately successful on their own. Most people though probably aren't going to get professionally published, and it might not be worth holding back.

 

I'd agree with most of that except the marketing part no author interview I've ever seen on publishing as ever said they got any help marketing their book from the publisher beyond adding it to their catalog. In fact most say that if you want to be successful you have to do a lot of your own self promotion and advertising.

Publishers don't help as much as people think. They will use their extensive experience to make it as marketable as possible and get it into store but nothing beyond. Also its worth remembering that many well known writers are earning less then minimum wage through their work and many have another job to support themselves. The reason is the author earns so little of the sales price of a book. Off of a $10 paperback after agent fees the author typically makes $.54 (6% royalties less 10% agent fee).

But if you don't go with a publisher you'll have to pay for your cover art, proofreading and copy editing services. You'll also potentially lack the market knowledge and critical eye to make the book successful. Although you will potentially make a better living at it.

 

goth...
don't forget that a paying publisher also does all the distribution, placing your books in bookstores everywhere...

while major bookstores or chains won't take on self-pubbed books, and no smaller ones will unless you go in person and successfully beg them to do so...

most traditional publishers will also arrange book tours and signings and interviews for you... all of which you have do on your own, if self-pubbing...

 

Your right of course. Without a publisher your book won't be in bookstores. You also will get paid an advance up front regardless if book ever sells enough copies to cover that advance. When I talk about self publishing I'm referring to ebook only with createspace for those interested in having print copies available.

Based on my research the publishers marketing budget tends to only go to successful authors. Until you've written a best seller don't expect them to spend money promoting you. There are some writers who suggest that a debut writer should use their full advance to hire a PR firm to promote their book.

 

...need to change that 'will' to 'may'...

...new, unknown authors most often either don't get any advance, or only get a small one... and many of the smaller/indie/niche presses don't pay advances at all...

 

Going to a publisher can be worth it, but only if you're really serious. Fot most people, that's going to be more work than it's worth for what's basically a hobby. If you want to write professionally, than it's good. Even on your own, you can still make a few thousand dollars per year. I remember downloading a sample of an ebook about making money publishing books. It seemed to be fairly realistic and said that it does require doing work; it also emphasized writing non fiction and instructional books.

 

...yes, that's the only way that making 'a few thousand dollars per year' is likely... unfortunately, it's true for only a very rare few of the countless new and unknown writers who self-publish novels...

 

A few thousand dollars per year isn't that much. Nowhere near enough to be a job. With $10 books, it would only take 300 sales to get to $3,000 dollars. You'd need to publish several books and work on marketing, but it's doable.

 

Sounds easy on paper, if you ignore the costs (nonzero) and the fact that selling three hundred copies of a ten buck book is not quite as easy as it sounds. You can make more money with less effort panhandling in the subway stations.

 

It's actually less then that. If you look at Amazon for instance they pay either 70% less data cost or 35% of the sale price and then you'll have to pay income tax on whatever you bringing in. A few instructional books can potential give you an extra bit of cash but there are a lot of books out there and you need people to buy yours in the first place.

Which is why the best advice I got about self publishing so far is that you have to treat it like any other business start up. If you want to do it full time you have a lot of work to do beyond just writing. I worked out for instance that I need to sell a little over 10,000 books a year if want to be full time self published writer, which is a huge amount to reach for a complete unknown. Granted it is significantly less then the 65,000 copies i would need to sell through traditional publishing to make the same amount.

But hey if I can earn a living doing what I love then it'll be worth it. If all wanted to was make then there are a lot of easier ways.

 

The 70% range for the Kindle is between $3 and $50 or $100 for the retail price. Unless you're giving them away for a dollar, you'll keep most of the money.

I have a "publishing company" that I'm doing with my friends. It's really a company in name only since we only publish stuff for our friends since we don't want to get into the complexities of being an actual publisher. I do writing and I have friends who handle distribution and reading for audiobooks. We aren't selling anything ATM though.

 

True words to us, the 'not so wise' yet.

To that, I might add, the plagiarism I have come across here in bits and pieces is sad. Just when I had just fallen in love with a metaphor here-boom-I find it was written by someone else.
Some are flat out copying. I'm beginning to think-do all writers do this?

 

i hope you were joking, summerrain... 'cause using clichéd expressions/metaphors/similes/et al. is certainly not 'plagiarism'... the reason why you see folks using a particular metaphor or whatever that you later find elsewhere is simply that it is a cliché...

 

Can you list some examples? I don't think I've seen anything here that I consider plagiarism, except one time when someone quoted the entire lyrics to the Eagles' song Hotel California without giving proper credit.

 

I once saw someone write 'She's the bee's knees' and I immediately reported them for copyright violation. Plagiarism is out of control.

 

This is such a useful thread. Thanks for discussing the ins and outs of putting work online and getting published.

The thread has raised for me issues about why share work at all? Worries have been voiced about people stealing ideas and passing them off as their own. I have to say that I don't particularly find myself worrying about that sort of thing. Partly because the more people share, the more ideas that will be generated and I think that can only be a good thing overall. Partly because I find it hard to believe that if somebody stole an idea of mine and produced a piece of work based on it, their piece of work will not be anything like something I would have done - they aren't living in my head and having my experiences so it would be hard to replicate what I would do.

For me, the benefits of sharing far outweigh the risks of sharing. When it comes to writing I think that I find it hard to create believable characters - that flaw is going to be present in everything that I write. So spending time here sharing writing that focuses on developing characters and asking for feedback on that should, I think, be useful. I don't need to share entire pieces of work that I might, one day, like to be published in order to gain that feedback. I do need to write stuff that I have no intention of getting published and that's fine - I think that the practice of writing is important in itself regardless of outcome and so I write lots of small pieces that won't ever be sent to a publisher.

T

 

failing to cite the author is not plagiarism, minstrel... it would be plagiarism only if those words were used verbatim in a piece of writing that poster claimed to be his/her own original work...

here's where you can learn what it means, along with all the other stuff anyone who writes should know about copyright law:
www.copyright.gov

that's for the US... i believe the british library is where you'll find the UK version... any country that is also a signatory to the berne convention will have similar laws...

 

I have read through this posting until my eyes crossed, with that said i did not notice this question asked or answered. If i use Google drive to write would that be a problem trying to get it published if i never make it public? the reason i am asking this seemingly obvious question is because i don't know how my info is being used for sure on there. any thoughts on if this is a good or bad idea?

 

Google drive is private storage. Even if someone hacks it and is able to view your work, it does not harm your First Publication Rights, which is what this thread is about. First Publication rights are what any prospective publisher wants, and you no longer have them to give if your work is previously published.

The problem is that "previously published" is a slightly fuzzy concept. From most publishers' perspective, if the piece of writing has been available for public viewing, it is tainted - few will wish to purchase a copy if it can be obtained gratis. Publishers also differ as to how much of the story having been available is too much for First Publication rights.

Even if your manuscript has been accepted, a publisher could use the First Publication rights to break the contract if a substantial portion of your story has been "discovered" online. They could do so if sales have been dreadful an it looks like their investment won't be recouped, or if they consider you uncooperative or difficult to deal with.

 

Thank you very much. this entire thread has been very helpful and informative.

 

So does this mean that I should not post a sample of my novel here (first two chapters)?

 

I wouldn't, for a couple of reasons, but I get paid to err on the side of paranoia

 

brief excerpts won't be a problem... but i side with the counselor on this and would not recommend posting entire chapters...

 

I'm glad I read this before posting anything significant. I originally created my new wordpress blog to use as an editing tool but then decided to just do creative original stuff instead of my novel...I used the characters names but that's the only similarity!

 

was your novel not creative, or not original?