Try not to target your writing at a what you think will get published, you may not write with the passion you have when you are writing for your story and your readers... and passion is what makes a good book. Also length is a high barrier but not insurmountable. Last year the top five $1M plus contracts for debut authors (link to article was on this site once) were all 400-1000 pages, 200 to 500K words, I am guessing. Obviously, they must have been much more than just good. @BayView, E&D at 550 pages is $14.99. Of course, my royalties are small, and I opted out of extended distro to B&N and Ingram to keep the launch price down. I may press that button when a pass a sales threshold, and my price and Amazon royalties will go up significantly. Kindle significantly does outsell paper.
Nah Lew's right, even if you want to get published you can't take your eye off the ball of what makes a good story just to follow market trends. A book is as long as it is at the end of the day. Word 'limit's' didn't stop Stephen King writing the dark tower, or Tolkein writing LOTR Like all these thinks its a 'rule' for the guidance of wise men but the blind obedience of fools
The two aren't mutually exclusive (writing what sells and writing a good story - in fact there is an awful lot of overlap in that Venn diagramme) but I maintain it's terrible advice to write without regard to what publishers want if you want a publisher to buy your book. Comparing ourselves, as unpublished authors, to people like Stephen King and Tolkein isn't going to get us anywhere.
There's a difference between not considering whether what you are writing is at all saleable (in the vein of say Rapey Ryan) and not targetting your writing on what you think will get published rather than what you want to write - Lew is advising the second, not the first. If your passion is for long sci fi novels then you would be ill advised to write a 50k romance because you've heard they sell better... likewise if your passion is short romances you shouldn't set out to be the next Ben Bova. As I said a book should be as long as it needs to be... regardless of whether that's 150k or 50k (that's not to say it shouldn't be well edited or have extraneous fat cut out of it - but if after redrafting and editing etc its still 150k words then accept that it is what it is)
I don't think that's what Lew was advising at all. In any case your example is a strawman. It's more like deciding that if you love writing romance and want it to be published then give the couple a happy ever after or publishers won't buy it. It makes no sense whatsoever to ignore publisher requirements and expect them to pay to publish your book.
Its worth noting that unlike you, or I, Lew is (self) published with a long novel, so he probably has more expertise in this discussion than either of us. That aside I think the key point is not that anyone should deliberately choose to ignore publisher requirements, but that you should create the product you want to create first, then look for a publisher who's requirements suit the product you have created, rather than looking at the requirements first and forcing yourself to write something that fits them. E.g if you've written a romance without a happy ever after (is that still a romance ? ) then you should look for a publisher who doesn't require happy ever afters , rather than forcing yourself to write one despite it not being what you want to produce.
We're not talking about self-publishing though, right? So Lew's experience doesn't mean too much in this situation? If your goal is selling a novel to a publisher, surely it only makes sense to pay attention to what publishers are buying? Because, no, it's not a romance if there's no HEA, and it's going to be super-duper hard to sell that book to any publishers anywhere. If you could have just as easily written another story that did have a HEA, it would be way more straightforward to sell that story. So why not write the story that would be easier to sell? If you want to be a memoirist or create some sort of True Expression of Inner Self, then, sure, write without worrying about the market. But also don't be too shocked if the market isn't interested in your story. If you want to be a storyteller? There are literally thousands of stories I'd love to tell; honestly, there may be an infinite amount, or at least a constantly expanding pool. Some of these stories would be hard to sell, others would be easy to sell. I want to sell. So...?
Well yeah, Lew's experience is a very good example of what I'm talking about. He wrote a book without consideration for what publishers want, and ended up with something that publishers wouldn't buy. He's been very candid about it so we know he tried about 50 agents with one request that became a rejection. He happily self-published and has achieved everything he wanted, which is fantastic. But he's not giving advice to people who want to self-publish - he's telling people who want to be traditionally published to do the same. And, for them, it's bad advice. I disagree with that key point. Firstly because there is absolutely no guarantee there will be a publisher whose requirements fit you, let alone a good and reputable publisher who will help your career. Secondly because it makes no logical sense at all - if you're creating a product for a certain group (i.e. readers of that genre) then why on earth wouldn't you research their expectations before you create the product? If your goal is to create books that make you happy then A+ advice. If your goal is to be traditionally published, then terrible advice. Another perfect example. As Bay says, there is no romance publisher who would buy that book. Someone who followed your and Lew's advice and ended up with a romance without a HEA would not achieve their goal. And I think that's a big shame.
Come on, guys, I am the one that knows what I meant, though it is fun to watch you guys think about what I meant. And maybe that was my point, to get you to think about it. I did NOT mean to write whatever you want and let the devil take the hindmost. I was targeting the phrase "I realized the one of the best selling books are kinda written on a 8th grade reading level, but around 100k." I don't read, nor am I going to write, books written on the 8th grade level, unless I were specifically targeting that young adult/older child audience. And I think you would all agree. I think to write a good story, you first and foremost must like the story you are telling. If you are including things because someone told you they sell, not because you wanted them in the story, they will show like a glaring searchlight in the final product. And the final product will be artificial because of that. Somehow, to think that I said that if you violate the normal scope of the genre you are writing, HEA in a romance, for example, and then market it as a romance, that is a fool's errand. However, there are many stories that begin as a romance but end unhappily. "Gone with the Wind" is an example. That is historical fiction, with a romance that didn't end well. And it certainly sold. There is an almost infinite numbers of niches into which your story can fit, though to be sure some may be harder to sell than others: combining romance with butchery for example. As to my self-publishing, I chose to do that because of my age (69) and production time for traditional publishing (2 yrs). As I am starting my third career rather much later than anyone else on this site (probably), realistically, I don't see an infinite expanse of time in front of me as I did when I was 30. Sending still more queries just does not seem to be a wise use of my next (probable, hopefully) 11 years. I have other stories that I want to tell. And no regrets. My standing on Amazon is quite respectable for a nobody after just three months... double digits in Chinese historical fiction, and five digits for action/adventure
No they won't. Definitely not inherently, and probably not even most of the time. What are you basing this on? What? What is an artificial book? But it isn't a fool's errand to write a 196k book for a 100k genre? What's the difference?
I think we are all talking past each other, rather than trying to help the OP make some key decisions.
I'm trying to help the OP by challenging what is, in my opinion, bad advice for him. But I think we've said enough for him to make his own mind up.
I wouldn't give up on lawsuits entirely if someone just stole my work. I would at least look for a firm to take my case on a contingency. I'll end up spending some money up front, but if I can convince them that I'm legit and have the proof for them, I would be surprised if they turned me away. I'd let them have their 30-40% cut of the judgment. In my case, I have a boatload of documentation that goes back almost ten years, and a chunk of that is almost prima facie evidence. But that being said, I think the crew here is absolutely right about who you work with.
I'd be shocked if they'd work on a contingency - the person plagiarizing your work could be a sixteen-year-old kid in Croatia, totally impoverished and judgement proof, or buried behind so many internet identities that it would take the lawyers ages (and thousands of dollars in billable time) to even figure out who the plagiarist was, etc. And the lawyers have no way of knowing whether the plagiarist is someone worth suing until they've already sunk a load of time into the case. It's really not about what you can prove. It's about what you can collect.
-Eh, I'm sorry. I meant if the book was successful and the party collected enough to interest such lawyers. Otherwise, I'd proceed with soliciting for representation and publication anyway.
In the photography field this happens a lot ... in the uk you can now take a small claims track at the patents court to enforce copyright... of course that depends on the infringer being in the courts jurisdiction. If they are in a foreign country there's not a lot you can do (if its on amazon or kobo or whatever you could send the distributing service a cease and desist which doesnt cost much)
Prima facie means at first sight. The implication is that what you've got looks like evidence, but may not be. Except that it almost looks like evidence, but may not be.
I know what the term means. That's why I used it. You, however, don't seem to understand what evidence means. Why?
Because you are saying that a good chunk of that is Prima Facie evidence as though that's a good thing, where as what you've said is that a large chunk of your documentation appears to be evidence at first sight but might actually not be. - leave the legalese to the lawyers. On the wider point as Bayview said it doesnt matter what you can prove - the difficulty isn't proving your copyright (most of us could easily do that), its collecting any damages awarded if the copyright violator lives anywhere but the same country as you - if they turn out to be in china, or azerbijan , or croatia or whereever you arent going to see a cent regardless of what the court rules Hell even if they live within the jurisdiction of the court there's still an issue if they are on a low income or don't have the money to pay the damages anyway, or declare themselves bankrupt, or are a minor or a host of other things, which is why your IP lawyer would want to bill you not work on a percentage. The only exception to this will be if the stolen manuscript is so successful that its on the scale of fifty shades, or jack reacher or similar , but this is vanishingly unlikely
I didn't write that. I didn't write that, either. No. My use of the term is not incorrect. Are you a lawyer or have a legal credential? And now you're just rehashing what was already covered.
Yes you did you said " I have a boatload of documentation that goes back almost ten years, and a chunk of that is almost prima facie evidence." So if you know what the term means why do you think its a good thing that a chunk of your documentation almost appears to be evidence at first sight but actually might not be ? When you're in a hole you might want to stop digging From your latter posts you may have meant that a good chunk of it appears at first sight to be evidence, but that's not what you wrote - this is what comes from using legal terms to try to look good, and if you are going to court you probably want to avoid that. to answer your question no i'm not a lawyer - though i have some basic training from my time in the army - but i'm not the one bandying legal terms around oh and welcome to my ignore list
No, I didn't. You: you are saying that a good chunk of that is Prima Facie evidence Me: In my case, I have a boatload of documentation that goes back almost ten years, and a chunk of that is almost prima facie evidence. This is what I was told by one lawyer who was also in the presence of another lawyer. That was what I was told. Almost prima facie evidence. This was unnecessary.
