But Is It Worth It?

"Thingie" is my go-to descriptive word.

 

I'm also a prolific..... What's the word..... Portmanteauist

Usually by mistake. Since I was small, I've often when speaking, accidentally blended two words which mean the same thing. I also enjoy coming up with them on purpose. Yesterday I went to mention my eldest and her girlfriend and called them Chaya by mistake, which is a combo of their names. I realised it's not too bad.

 

I honestly cannot judge who my reading audience would be.

Years ago I wrote some kids books, but I honestly have no idea how to tell what age they're suitable for. I don't know where they are now.

 

I think it's a good plan to write the story you want to write. Then test it out on as many beta readers as you can. You'll be able to tell, after getting feedback, who your target audience is likely to be.

I know several newbie writers who started out intending to write YA fiction, but the stories they wrote took them in a different direction. Either towards adult fiction or towards children's books. However, until the story got written, they didn't know.

Once you've found your stride, I suppose it's easier to direct your work towards a specific market or readership group. But if you're not sure ...just write anyway. If it's good, it will end up fitting someplace.

Slightly unrelated ...but I think lots of new writers think they'll write a children's book or a YA book because it's easier than adult books. Mistake. These genres can be quite tricky. The only advantage, really, is that they tend to be shorter than 'adult' fiction. However, getting them to work is art in itself.

Ditto people who think writing a short story is easier than writing a novel. Well, it's shorter, that's for sure. But you also have to know what you're doing in order for it to work. Novels are more forgiving of issues such as extraneous material, quiet starts, slightly draggy middles, tangents, a few too many characters, etc. A short story must be snappy the whole way through. Nothing included that isn't necessary to the story. A very focused plot, centred on as few characters as possible. Short story writing is a difficult art to master.

I'd say write the story you want to write, the way you want to tell it. Then figure out the market later on. It might surprise you.

 

I remember, fondly, writing short stories at secondary school for English. It was so easy to make them too long.

I would never be able to edit my work to suit young adults, I'm better at writing shit no one would ever want their kids reading haha

 

I really do just want the satisfaction of having done it.

I'm crippled and have little to show for my 36 years. Ever since I was four I've wanted to write books.

I left uni just over two years ago, my lecturers found it strange how I was so in awe of their having books published. I had a few of them sign their books for me.

But it is a huge achievement whether it's the sort of books you all write, or an academic tome. It's published. You're out there. You're leaving something behind.

My art will never make me rich. My writing won't. But I'm unemployable and this is all I've got.

I'm revisiting the memoirs idea because I think it might be cathartic for me, and people want to read those sort of things. But if I can make my dystopian novel work, I'll be so happy.

 

I think it's totally possible to make a reasonable living self-publishing, but you need to be happy writing to market, and writing a lot. If you're happy to write stuff like romance or military sci-fi, you can make a go of it. They're large, voracious markets.

And that's not me. I write flash fiction and weird speculative shorts. The 'traditional' self-pub business model, for want of a better term, doesn't work for the stories I want to tell - at least, not to the extent where I could make a good living at it. And if I want to make money writing stuff I'm not really that interested in writing, I'll take an advertising contract and make that $10k so much faster.

(There are ways I could see my style of writing having a crack at doing OK: either throw up a load of shorts and hope the algorithm does some magic, or build an audience off of Amazon, somewhere like Facebook or Instagram that you can directly contact when you publish something new - but these require either luck or groundwork I don't have much interest in doing, and it still doesn't make me anywhere near as much money as writing advertising)

This is why I don't think self-pub for money is going to go anywhere for most people. As far as I can tell, most people here don't want to 'make money writing stories'. They want to make money writing their stories - and that's a very different proposition.

 

Saw this and remembered they have some kind of low yield waste reactor that looked gooey.

 

Yeah, absolutely. The challenges with trad are a bit different - there's publishers who specialise in most niches and know (in theory) how to sell to them, so it's not like more esoteric stuff, especially fiction, isn't going to have a chance at finding a publisher. But then you've got to actually persuade the publishing house to sign you, and even if you do you're unlikely to make much from it.

I just see far more people looking at self-publishing as a money-making operation than I see looking at traditional publishing the same way (at a guess, because self-pubbers have to do so much more themselves, they tend to be more entrepreneurially-minded, so money's higher up their list of priorities).

 

I don't actually remember what flash fiction is.

And I'm new to the term speculative. I had to google it when setting up my account, but it seems that's the genre I'm currently slowly working on. But I often have multiple projects on the go at a time, and I would like the option to show I'm spanning more than one genre, here.

 

I'm still very much thinking a traditional publisher is the way to go for me. Now that I've published quite a few short stories and essays with some highbrow places, I see how much my work improves with the help of great editors. These are editors who know the business and have probably been at it for quite a while. I can get a piece to where I think I'm happy with it. I can use beta readers and make correction. I can even think something is close to perfect. I can get my work to the level it needs to be accepted. But once something is accepted there is still a lot of work to do before publication. The edits can even feel overwhelming at times. But then the finished product is really great. It sort of feels like a team effort, and that's something I'm okay with. It's something I'm grateful for. It produces work that I'm really proud of.

I've had informal communication with a publisher about a book. I'm not sure where that will go, but it is a place I think I would really like to work with. Doing it on my own (self publishing) it would probably still be a decent book, but I want it to be better than it can be on my own. Maybe some people don't need or want the same level of help I desire from editors and publishers. I don't want just a book out. I want it to be the best book I can put out there with my name on it. I want the team that comes with traditional publishers.

I said earlier in this thread that self publishing is a different path. People can hire editors and layout people, and someone to do their book cover, and then bust their ass to promote it. To me it seems like self publishing is a lot more work for the writer. I want to write. I have no problem being a part of everything else, but going it alone seems overwhelming.

@Lolly Inkstain -- It seems like you just want to publish a book to be able to say you've published a book. And that is something anyone can do when it comes to self publishing. But to do it right, there is a lot more involved than you're really thinking about it seems. If you want your book to do well at all, you still have to be a good writer and write well enough to compete with books that are traditionally published.

 

Ah. So that's shorter than a short story. About how many is a short story?

Sorry to have a million questions.

 

Most of the places I send stuff to say it's 0-1000.

 

Which is fine. I don't think there's anything wrong with trad publishing, just like I don't think there's anything wrong with self-publishing. They're both viable choices, depending on what you want to achieve. As long as you understand what you're likely to get out of it, and you're making the choice that's right for you, it's all good.

 

Cheers guys.

I have some more questions, but about the book I've started to write. I feel uncomfortable starting several threads in my first week here. So I hope it's OK for me to ask here.

OK, I was hoping to connect at least four areas of the UK (Sheffield, Cornwall, Bristol and Brighton) and London has to feature, Westminster etc. But, the more I pore over Maps of these areas and try to work out the logistics and so on, the more I'm thinking I'm making this too hard for myself. Would you suggest I focus on one area, at least for a first book which I could write sequels to, using the different areas?

I don't know if any of that makes sense, specially without explaining the storyline.

I just don't want to trip myself up, plus I get overwhelmed at easily. Which would put a halt to my writing.

 

My other option is to start in one place and move the story through.

Because I have a tendency to develop ideas as I go, even with a plan, I haven't mapped out my entire novel.

I think I overplan, usually.

 

Guess what?

Trade publishing won't let you 'just write', either. You'll need to research publishers and agents, write query letters, make changes to the book to try to make it more publishable, and may not even get published after that. If you do get published, you'll have to deal with publishing contracts, and they'll probably expect you to create a social media presence and market the book to readers.

Self-publishing and trade publishing are probably about the same amount of work. It's just different kinds of work.