Hey... I've been writing for a few years now. Things have changed since my teenager, innocent self had this idea of being a writer -turned out I was one already... Anyways, back in those days it seemed that being a self published author could destroy your chances of associating with a serious crowd aka having even the faintest chance of a contract, or an advance for your next book. There used to be this huge stigma floating around every self published writer, both socially and on a professional context. The stigma implied that self published writers had to be awful, otherwise somebody should have discovered them already. I've listened to a few amateurish podcasts on self publishing, and my impression has not changed a bit. I have been told to try online services that market and sell your work, all easy-peasy, in fact I've had chats with a few authors using such platforms, none of them seems to be doing reasonably well. None of them was able to switch into professional publishing. All complained about the need to market themselves. I found the whole thing quite surreal, I still do. I have still mixed, contradictory feelings about beginning the second part of my career -the publishing thing. Besides of the cautionary tales of mental and financial breakdown, or the even worse horror stories about losing the joy when writing, I just can't get out of my head that self publishing could ruin your chances, not to mention to have your work stolen, as we all know good things take time and effort to write. I could understand the kids who are chronically broke sharing pirated files, but I'd never forgive an individual on a different situation. Yet I can't spend the whole day scanning the internet and sniffing traces of crime, I'm a writer and I have to use my time for writing. So, I'm looking for your experiences when you were on my situation, throwing also the subtle question if I shouldn't forget about going online and focus on live groups and real life workshops, since when somebody steals your work, at least you can punch their f... Okay... I think I've made my point clear. Another question on the so called beta readers -I know you guys have a place for posting the occasional 1500ish thing, but when it comes to betas for a longer work, how do you usually go about it? Keep in mind family and friends are not capable/ not interested/ should never know about a twisted, sick mind hiding behind an otherwise friendly, very nice and healthy human being. I'd appreciate your feedback. It took years for this question to escape my skull. This is my -year long, writer's block.
There's no S in anyway. It's always anyway. Never anyways. Something to keep in mind if you want to try and get published.
@deadrats informal language is common practise on a board. It's confusing that you bring it up via a post that contains a typo and incomplete sentences? Also, usage is debatable: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/lets-talk-about-anyways
I'm asking if anyone here has had the experience of a career that begins with self publishing, then leads to an agreement with a flesh and blood agent who won't dismiss me right away because I uploaded a couple of books or short stories to some online platform, unrelated to the serious literary world. I'm not sure if I should start with self publishing or with the average contest. Self publishing being so immediate, giving you the opportunity of interacting with your readers and being more in control of the financial aspect. The downside seems to be you are also in control of marketing, which is a task I'd rather leave to an agent, in spite of losing a reasonable amount of my income. My belief is that agents are easier to attract once your story has won some contest. The downsides of this contest game are just too many to mention. Another question I'm asking is how good or bad you deal the pressures of becoming a full time writer, as a published author, when your main source of income is your work, and if the pleasures of writing have diminished due to the pressures previously mentioned. I can imagine very well you don't always feel up to the task at monday, 8 am. I've done this myself with no hopes of being financially rewarded, which makes you feel even worse. I ask about the long term, months or years after you signed that contract, or self published and things got a bit out of hand. All in all I'm asking if my assumptions have anything to do with your experience. If any of those questions hits too close to home, for any of you, feel free to skip, keep calm and carry on.
Ah, right. Most of that is rather beyond my experience, however: I'm given to understand that you're likely to have to shoulder a significant amount of the marketing work regardless of whether you self-publish or are traditionally published. An agent will represent you to a publisher, help you out with contracts and so on, but when it comes to actually selling the book, the publisher is going to expect you to be doing a large chunk of that work. Their marketing budget will be spent on their more guaranteed prospects, and you're not Hilary Mantel. My situation isn't quite the same, but several years ago I started copywriting for a living, so writing - albeit not fiction - became my day job. My desire to write stories in the evening nosedived, and never entirely recovered. I think I'd write for pleasure far more if I didn't also write for money. This is all subjective, of course. Not everyone's going to react like I did.
I would imagine that if your work was good enough they wouldn't care where you came from, or what you did before you sent them your amazing novel, as long as you didn't put in on your online blog, or similar. And NigeTheHat is right, doesn't matter what platform you use, or means by which you publish, or are published, you will be knee deep in marketing. That's pretty universal I think. I'm in engineering and often have ideas related to that, and find myself reluctant to use my spare time doing, effectively, what I do in my day job. We are all the same, we need to spend time away from our jobs in order to find some equilibrium in our lives. My experience anyway.
Well, she is 70 anyways, I assume she had to work for decades on both her books and her network, before reaching the idol status. When I look at the careers of the writers I admire the most, I see a decades of long, real hard work, and countless technical skills I still need to acquire, but these observations doesn't prevent me from writing. I keep writing, I've always have. I'm aware most writing career's fruits (if any) tend to drop later in life. Definitely one of the less lucrative career choices. I even wanted to give up writing for good, but either I can't or I don't want to, pick one... Makes perfect sense to me, thank you for sharing. That is what I'd do if I were looking for new flesh. You don't care where the flesh comes from, as long as it can be chewed. The blog mention reminds me about the material published here. From what I've heard, anything you publish on the internet becomes automatically public domain, unless you use some form of copyleft, like creative commons. Not that it's strictly enforced, but at least it's something? Any experiences to tell in that front, anyone? Yes, a life is composed by many aspects, your choice of career doesn't matter. I happen to enjoy both my main job and writing, they complement quite well since one is technical, the other non-technical. My main job is an exciting field, which provides both with stories and ideas. We all come from somewhere, as writers. I'm not in a rush to publish. To be honest, if I could, financially speaking, I don't think I wouldn't even bother to talk about my work. I wish the few people who read me wouldn't have encouraged me, insisting on you can sell this, this is good, you can write. Perhaps I could... Better than them, which means nothing. The writing career, or any career in the arts, is a quite strange game. There is hardly any money on it, it's harder work than most of jobs out there, no rules and no guidelines, you are on your own... And the success to failure rate should explain why it's such a bad idea to invest your time on it. Even the whole world warns you against it, and we know they are right. And yet we keep writing...
Yes, I'm in the same boat with regard to my job, I enjoy both the artistic side of my interests and the technical side of my day job. My writing will never be a job as I'm not sure I would enjoy a life of full time writing, and the marketing aspect of it is not something that I would be comfortable doing. Posting your writing on a forum has been covered previously, with many impassioned arguments for boths sides. I think you are better erring of the side of caution and only posting work you do not intend to publish and use the information that you learn from that to polish your publishable work.
