Hey, my name is Shaun from England. I randomly came across this site whilst blundering blindly through a few other writing sites and forums so figured I'd give it a go and introduce myself. Long story short I'm about as new as new could be to this writing thing. I've always had a love of books and literature and, following a significant injury at work, found myself suddenly with a considerable amount of spare time on my hands. As a result I'm now in the final stages of writing my first book (Action / Crime thriller) and don't really have a clue how to take it further.....self publish, publisher, agent, Kindle etc?? Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated! Thanks Shaun
Welcome @Samsonjh There's plenty of helpful stuff to read here. There's also a lot of unhelpful stuff so read, digest and avoid the bullshit.
Thanks mate, I think that's where the confusion lies mostly for me. There seems to be A LOT of contradiction!
Hello @Samsonjh and welcome to the forum! I hope you like it here. Redraft a few hundred times before you try to publish your work (well, maybe not quite a few hundred...but it will certainly feel like it once you're done.) You can post it on this forum for critique to help you as well. If you head on over to the "Publishing" part of the forum you'll find lots of useful information, especially in this thread. https://www.writingforums.org/threads/so-you-wrote-a-novel-and-want-to-get-it-published.148510/ Your main options are to self-publish or publish traditionally. I'm personally aiming to get published traditionally one day, but it all depends on your goals. If you're really serious about writing and you would like to take it really far, (or, if you're really lucky, turn it into a low-paying career) then traditional publishing is a good route. However, you may never get there. Lots of work is rejected for the smallest of things. You have to get an agent, who will reject a lot of things, to accept you before you can even think about playing the game of trying to be accepted by a publisher. It's a long, long journey that may never take you anywhere. If it does, however, the publishers and the agent will organise a lot of things for you that you will have to do yourself if you decide to self-publish. If you just want to share your story with a few people and get it read, then self-publishing would be better. No one will reject you. You just put it on Amazon or somewhere else and hope people will come along and buy it. You have to organise and pay for any advertising, and you also have to sort out your own cover etc and pay for any costs involved with that. That's as much as I can say because I've never actually experienced either of them.
Ha ha, I know what you mean when you say re draft. There's always something to change! I'm starting to think I'll never truly be happy with the final product. Thanks
