Ugh Facebook really? I would want t read it but how do I remember? An email would work maybe. But a text would get me for sure but I don't have Facebook
How to self-publish a paperback novel, that is. Looks like a lot of good advice!
For my use case (self-publishing a digital-only book):
I wrote "Learn Java the Hard Way" using Leanpub and I was pleased with the experience, but their build tools are closed-source and sort-of creaky and the tweak-compile-preview cycle is WAY too slow for my workflow.
I intend to use Softcover for my next one.
Recently I switched to Gumroad for fulfillment and I have been incredibly happy with them. Highly recommended.
I'm writing a technical book at the moment and looking at a couple of ways to get it to print. Is there a particular reason why you're looking at Softcover, or is just "better than Leanpub"?
I have published two tech books on leanpub, if you like markdown then leanpub is great.
Earlier it used to be free, but now they charge 99$ for carrying a book, their rates are awesome, you get something like 90% of tge book sales
I'm very particular about how I want certain parts of the book to work, and with Leanpub there was a lot of random tweaking of Leanpub-flavored Markdown to try to please the parser.
I'd change a thing, press build, wait 9 minutes and check to see if that fixed it. In particular, woe is me if I wanted to use a mathematical formula.
I like that with Softcover I can use a local build system and can fall back to LaTeX (well, PolyTeX) to give me much better control.
I've currently got one product up on Gumroad and they seem to add VAT to the overall cost in countries which use it. I did end up getting a few complaints from customers about their lack of handling VAT IDs though.
[ We’ve talked a lot in the past about how we approach building Gumroad: We ask ourselves what creators are spending time on that isn’t making things, and then we figure out how to do those things for them.
We are tackling VAT in the same way. Going forward, this is what creators on Gumroad need to do to properly handle VAT for their digital products:
Go back to making awesome stuff.
In other words, we’re on it. Gumroad will collect VAT as required and remit it to the EU. You won’t need to fill out any forms, register for anything, or send anything out. Your (EU-based) customers, will see (and pay) the added VAT on their purchases. ]
Thanks for this, it's interesting to see an article that goes from showing step zero all the way to selling on Amazon. I tried getting my novel published in 2012 and was rejected by many literary agents to the point I was having trouble finding any left that I had not submitted to. I considered self-publishing at the time but decided against it. I'll keep this bookmarked should I choose to self publish in the future.
The author mentions getting a copy editor, but I would also advise hiring a development editor and/or getting feedback from beta readers. Quoting Stephen King (1):
Show your piece to a number of people—ten, let us say. Listen carefully to what they tell you. Smile and nod a lot. Then review what was said very carefully. If your critics are all telling you the same thing about some facet of your story—a plot twist that doesn’t work, a character who rings false, stilted narrative, or half a dozen other possibles—change that facet.
It doesn’t matter if you really liked that twist of that character; if a lot of people are telling you something is wrong with your piece, it is. If seven or eight of them are hitting on that same thing, I’d still suggest changing it. But if everyone—or even most everyone—is criticizing something different, you can safely disregard what all of them say.
In the same piece, King advises “if it’s bad, kill it.” (“When it comes to people, mercy killing is against the law. When it comes to fiction, it is the law.”)
With this approach, your novel becomes an average of what the masses like to read, rather than what you wanted to say. Engineered for the masses, so to speak. Which, of course, could explain why King is so successful.
IMO, this is an artistic fallacy that needs to die. Responding and adjusting to feedback doesn't undermine the integrity of a work or weaken its authenticity. Cycles of feedback and iteration are common to all work in every medium.
Obviously, you can take responding to feedback too far, but the idea of the artist-in-a-tower-birthing-a-fully-grown-work-whole is an inaccurate idea at best, and a damaging assumption at worst.
Like King says, ignore the outliers. But if no one understands a plot twist, or everyone dislikes something you really like, maybe take another swing at it. Iterate a little more. Creative output is the art of refinement as much as anything else.
(Good editors can also often help substitute for peer feedback)
Depends on what you account for as feedback. If we are narrowly talking about plot twists when writing an entertaining thriller, than yeah, by all means, make sure the audience gets it. Also, there is much to be said about a sharp, crisply edited book that doesn't meander or ramble pointlessly.
On the other hand, in general I almost exclusively read books and blogs because I'm interested in what the author has to say, rather than what I'd like to hear. Cal Newport discusses the idea of craftsmanship in a way I really like. When you're building a table or a bass guitar, there are better and worse woods for the application at hand that have little to do with how the craftsman feels about them. They are, to an extent, impersonal and external to him. A song or a poem, by contrast, have everything to do with the author and little in the way of objectivity about them.
Of course, all of this is a case of finding an optimum balance.
>On the other hand, in general I almost exclusively read books and blogs because I'm interested in what the author has to say, rather than what I'd like to hear.
I'd say the author's voice shines through even clearer in fiction though. Authors certainly can exercise flair when writing history or something, but even more when they invent a fictional world and develop and atmosphere and characters within it.
When a fiction writer comes up with a plot, or even a turn of phrase that blows my mind, that's one of the best things about reading. Like "how did he think up all this?!"
> When a fiction writer comes up with a plot, or even a turn of phrase that blows my mind, that's one of the best things about reading. Like "how did he think up all this?!"
Typically the answer is: hard work and iteration, and many times not by himself. I think you're partially falling for the fallacy of the singular author completing a perfect work with unflinching vision. IMO this is incredibly rare.
Take, for example, Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird. It's an amazing book. It's a novel that might at once feel effortless and also an unaltered vision of the author. But it's actually the result of years of editing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harper_Lee):
> Ms. Hohoff was impressed. "[T]he spark of the true writer flashed in every line", she would later recount in a corporate history of Lippincott.[16] But as Ms. Hohoff saw it, the manuscript was by no means fit for publication. It was, as she described it, "more a series of anecdotes than a fully conceived novel".[16] During the next couple of years, she led Lee from one draft to the next until the book finally achieved its finished form and was retitled To Kill a Mockingbird.
Everything from the narrative structure to the title to characterization is refined, over and over again.
The goal with feedback and subsequent editing isn't the dilution of an author's vision, it's the opposite. It concentrates and clarifies the vision with each successive pass.
When the work gets as broad as a fictional book, authors don't magically expand their skills like a gas to cover all the new volume. They pick a target and start writing towards the target. It's the realigning of everything else to fit that target -- that is how a design becomes unusual.
That depends entirely on whether you are writing for the audience or writing for yourself.
Novels are clearly a medium for writing to an audience. Artists, esp amateur ones, think they can write for themselves and still create a novel. They should stick to their journals.
This. There's nothing wrong with writing for yourself, and only yourself. But, if you want readers, well, you have to somehow appeal to readers. They don't owe you anything.
Both approaches to writing are okay, but I think there's something wrong when an author says "oh, I'd like you to read this story, but I don't care about what you think".
Personally, I am more interested in books that "no one understands" or "everyone dislikes". It might be because they are really badly written or conceived. I might also be because they bring something really new and/or disturbing. Even if it is both, I'd still go for it any day of the week. I'd trade any defect and flaw for something that doesn't conform.
I think another factor here is carefully picking your audience. If you're writing a sci-fi book, you probably won't get very good feedback and criticism from a bunch of elderly people who like to read craft magazines, for example.
One place to get feedback is in writer's groups/clubs. They may not reflect your intended audience as much, but they're also writers and would be better at separating their subjective biases (like not liking sci-fi) from a more objective analysis of the work, looking at things that are common to all writing, esp. fiction (is the writing overly wordy, does the plot make sense, are the characters believable, etc.).
How can you the communication of your words is accurate without feedback of others expressing to you what was clear and unclear?
Like, damn, do you also argue that proper grammar and sentence structure is just "an average of what the masses like to read"? Because yes, that's what English is, its an average of what the masses communicate ideas with, within the mass of people who speak English.
I think King is actually telling us to do the exact opposite. The only time he suggests listening to feedback is when everyone is agreeing that something doesn't work. But if everyone is giving different feedback he advocates for ignoring all of it because then it is just pandering.
If your goal is to write something just for yourself -- maybe to practice a technical element of the craft or just to have total artistic freedom -- then go for it! That's actually a fine goal. I work on many creative projects that are Just For Me.
If you're interested in other people enjoying your work, though, it behooves you to get feedback on what you're creating. If nothing else, I think it's good for an artist to learn to intuit his or her audience's reactions. A band or a stand-up comic gets on stage every night and gets feedback, but for a writer it can be tough.
I'm a published author and I agree that you shouldn't compromise the elements of your storytelling, but you should at least value their input and look for patterns. The rest is noise.
For example: I got criticism for character names, too much romance, too little romance, not painting settings enough, too much description in certain places, etc
>With this approach, your novel becomes an average of what the masses like to read, rather than what you wanted to say. Engineered for the masses, so to speak. Which, of course, could explain why King is so successful.
If your goal is to make a lot of money selling, then "Of course!"
However, I submit to you that King is not a massive success because he targets the average. He is a success because he writes well. His plots and stories are not that great - even his fans agree. But his ability to suck you into a story is quite strong. As he said in his book:
"The job of a storyteller is to get out of the way!"
This means no fancy literary devices that let the reader appreciate the choice of words - that alerts the reader to your presence, and distracts from the story. It also means strong settings and descriptions.
> "The job of a storyteller is to get out of the way!"
> This means no fancy literary devices that let the reader appreciate the choice of words - that alerts the reader to your presence, and distracts from the story. It also means strong settings and descriptions.
This is subjective, though. I, for example, love authors who alert me to their presence. This can powerfully reinforce or enhance the story. Vonnegut was a shining example of this.
I know Brandon Sanderson also uses writing groups and feedback heavily. And I wouldn't say his books are engineered for the masses. But it definitely is a balancing act between listening to their feedback, while preserving the core of your story.
I have a small circle of artist friends, and we were discussing this at a Brooklyn rooftop over beer (of course.) They were a group of illustrators who work in publishing, and talking about the frustrations of getting feedback from authors who didn't "get" their illustrations.
One person then brought up a point: "If you only created art for it's own sake, rather than for people," she said, "you'd be in the fine arts. And if that is what you want to do then awesome. But what we do - making art that people will use, because that's what we value - is different."
And I think that is the point here. If the goal is to make a novel that people will want to read and share and enjoy, that necessarily means foregoing your own idea of what the writing ought to be. And that is a completely okay motivation to create art!
I liken the idea of alpha readers to the popular tech concept of failing fast. Why not fail early in front of a smaller audience (with a chance to pivot and improve) than wait to fail late and run out of runway (or motivation).
In my case, I thought I had told a different story than the alphas perceived, so, in truth, I hadn't told the story I set out to. Making changes was a natural part of the process to correct issues "lost in translation" as it were.
PS: rooftop conversations sound awesome, by the way.
Not really. It is just a method for getting - and processing - feedback.
You aren't taking all suggestions, just the ones that 9 or 10 out of 10 agreed was bad. 6-8 complain? consider changing it. Not that you have to or anything.
With these categories, it is more likely that you didn't write something clearly enough for others to have your understanding of the subject. Maybe it doesn't make sense or whatever. Either way, edits are needed.
And this holds true even if you are writing non-fiction about a somewhat niche subject. If your intended audience doesn't get it, you won't sell to the tiny group you are aiming at.
King didn't say to take any of their advice about how to fix the thing they think is wrong. He said that if they all think it's wrong, you need to change it. You still figure out for yourself what kind of change to make. (Maybe I'm making up that last part -- I haven't read his book. But it's how I think about feedback.)
I think there's a dividing line between plot-driven and character-development driven works for lack of a better word. I think plot driven stuff should pretty much follow very common heuristics (the horror story, the heist, the serial killer novel...look at 20ish from each genre and you'll see very common structure) and only deviate ever so slightly. King follows this and an excellent book that goes into more detail on it is "The Story Grid" (teaches you to become your own editor, uses Silence of the Lambs as a running example)
Howdy, author here. Completely agree on the early reader feedback. I went through two rounds of readers (alpha and beta) and it was immensely helpful in grinding down some of the rough edges of the book.
A development editor would be fantastic as well, I honestly just didn't know where to find one!
Ie - did you wait for your first completed draft before showing them the whole thing, or did you show them chapter/scene works-in-progress as you wrote them?
I gave the 15 alpha readers a "finished" book, by which I mean, I thought it was ready to go, so I had already edited it myself a few times.
The consistent feedback I received from those readers weighed heavily on the major edit which followed. I had made some mistakes, no doubt about it. The work is now better for it.
I then gave the "finished" book to a much smaller group of beta readers and repeated the process. Then I went through the book a few times myself to improve the flow. Finally, it went to the copyeditor.
Thanks for sharing your experience about using beta readers. I think this is so important for any type of media creation, from books to music to videogames. I am actually developing a framework that explores this called Lean Media:
What is Lean Media? It’s an approach to creating media content that emphasizes low-cost production, careful observation/measurement of audience feedback, and fast iteration. Properly incubated and carefully scaled, Lean Media projects can attract loyal audiences and grow into successful works and brands.
Would you be interested in being profiled on the blog about your approach to using beta readers? If so please email me at ian -at- leanmedia.org ... I think what you are doing would provide a great example!
It turns out that many editors who work at major publishers also freelance edit on the side. (Source: I have many friends who work at Penguin in NYC.) If you want, I can ask some of them if they know any leads who might be interested.
I'd be interested in that as well. Trying to build something that's geared heavily toward developmental/structural editing, and connecting freelancers with writers. Could I send you an email?
Alternatively, you can take a different page out of King's book, and get ripped on Schlitz and PBR and cocaine and write away in a blackout haze. Most of us probably won't produce some of our greatest work like he did, however [1]
Okay cool, thanks. I have a friend who's a librarian and she strongly suggested not using CreateSpace because you won't get your book in as many places (i.e. not Barnes and Noble, not smaller bookstores, not libraries) through CreateSpace, but she didn't really know who else to use instead. I'll have to look into IngramSpark/Lightning Source.
Not everyone wants to live by amazon or even succeeds with it.
Try https://bubbl.in for example if you wish to sell your work like a responsive book straight on the web. Zero lock-ins and great sales outside of a garden if you will ;)
Full disclosure: I'm the developer/engineer behind the service.
I just finished my first book, and I went a little bit different of a route than the author here.
I know this isn't very DIY, but it's probably worth knowing it's an option: I simply hired someone who works at a book publishing company to edit and typeset the book for me on the side. The person I hired does it for a living and is incredibly good at it. Let's just say it's not the most lucrative career choice, so I had the entire book (198 pages) edited and typeset by a professional for about $400.
This also had the added benefit of letting me write and get feedback from early readers using google docs, which was incredibly important.
I ended up paying her a pretty big bonus on top of that (as we pre-sold $110,000 worth and since publishing a couple days ago have brought in another $2,000 - all straight profit since we're ebook only so far and not on Amazon) but for my time and sanity it was very, very worth it.
Haha, well it's a book about Internet marketing (we wanted to create a practical step-by-step guide that read like a programming tutorial), so we've tried hundreds of things over the years and know what works. We made a promise to use only the things in the book to sell it.
We ended up changing the marketing messaging to "the ultimate growth hacking guide" from "a step-by-step guide to user acquisition" because that performed 200% better in our A/B tests, and I'm still a little bitter about that, but the money soothes my bitterness. So that was important.
Our biggest winners tactics-wise were sharing the first couple chapters on Medium and cheating a little bit, doing the same on Reddit, with a link that said "if you want more like this pre-order the book," and we worked Twitter pretty well and did a few guest speaking engagements, but no silver bullets, just a lot of lead ones.
Any insight on "piracy" rates? I recently published something print-only, and was considering offering a PDF (layout matters). It's a completely different "vertical," so the rest of your experience isn't too relevant.
A good take on this from a writer friend of mine: the people that "pirate" the book were likely never going to pay for it. But they could very well recommend it to people who might prefer buying it. The more it gets "pirated" the better as that means it's likely to be a decent book. I kind of agree with this and my gut says avid readers (which are always your #1 target due to word of mouth etc.) are generally fairly likely to pay for books.
I also once saw an author online who had a similar sentiment and offered a "did you download this book somewhere" button where you could donate a freely chosen amount of money to "ease your mind" and support future releases that worked rather well (to his own surprise). Trying to think of the name but can't I'll edit if it pops into my head.
My book is neither tech nor mass-market, and I've heard from another author in the area that "piracy" doesn't seem to be a major factor. It's also a large enough file to be a pain to email or put on a free blog, and unlikely to turn into a reliable torrent, so accidental or casual mass distribution is unlikely. Hm...
Awesome! I didn't realize you resulted in those numbers. I was one of your first backers for this project & really enjoyed my read through. Keep up the great work.
Far and away the most important thing is No. 1, because No. 2 cannot happen effectively without that. And the bar is high - very high. So in many ways the battle is lost or won by the time you've put down your pen. Yes marketing and distribution are incredibly important. Design too. But none of it is going to do much good unless the book really works. And making a book work is not hit and miss. It's the product of a very exact type of knowledge and skill - this is especially true of genre work. Of course, there have been a few tremendous exceptions - but you'll know if you're one of those.
So with self-publishing, as with ordinary publishing: first write a great book.
For that the tools you need are:
1. Someone who can give you tough feedback and who knows what they're talking about
2. A writing group for softer, more regular feedback
3. Long practice in writing shorter work
4. Long practice in critical reading of other people's work, especially unpublished work. You'll never make a mistake once you see that mistake and understand it in someone else's work.
There is a danger that any nuance you've intended accompany your main point may be lost, since this is indeed how a lot of technical people think: "If you build it, they will come", meritocracy, etc. It is the reason there are a lot of great, undiscovered products out there. However, marketing is the biggest piece of financial success (this may not be the chosen goal). Pretty much all non-technical activity can be classified as marketing except for required business paperwork. Writing something is literally the starting line.
Random technical example (fast NTFS filesystem metadata search) I almost lost because I forgot to bookmark it after reading the only HN comment I've ever seen mention it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13738309 And further, I just found the child comment sharing another utility!
Edit: Focusing more on preventing misinterpretation.
FWIW I work as a fiction editor for a publishing house. I only mention that because I'm really not that a technical person. I'm more on the arts side.
I accept that some bad books succeed, but this really is vanishingly rare. Subjectively even many so-called bad books have really excellent qualities - especially in narrative structure.
So there are Bad Books and then there are BADly written books.
I agree also with your point: build it and they will come doesn't work. Marketing is essential. But ask people to swallow an unreadable book - which is most books people write - and all the marketing in the world won't save you.
I definitely agree with your initial post, I'm just not able to offer advice on how to write a good book as I may, or may not, know how :)
In the writing groups I've participated in, there seem to be a number of authors that are scared off by the process of getting their work out there. I'm hopeful that this post will help them overcome the technical hurdles in doing so.
There is a book out there called "Writing the Breakout Novel" by Donald Maass. The book was a tremendously help for me in deconstructing my plot and characters. I rewrote and even rearranged entire chapters. I had subplots that had no closure that I rewrote to provide an ending.
I invite you to check out my novel's Amazon page and read some of the reviews. Even the negative reviews praise the story itself, while slamming my writing style :)
Would you mind answering a few questions? I'm curious how you published your novel (self vs traditional), how you marketed, what your sales were like, etc.
I really appreciate the practical advice you're sharing as someone in the trenches of this specific process. What is the first action that should be taken by someone wanting to self-publish?
Something about getting the product in front of a critical audience ASAP to prevent wasting time creating something that even marketing can't save?
Well I don't want to oversell my wisdom here. I have a specific outlook on all this and commercial success is low down on the list of priorities I think about. That said:
The trouble with getting stuff in front of a critical audience is that you don't get many chances. If you run after friends and family with a manuscript, you may also find your circle of acquaintance rapidly shrinking.
So, I don't think you can treat it exactly like an MVP :). However, to talk in "HN" terms the equivalent of an MVP in the literary scene is probably a short story. If you can write one good short story, the chances are you've cracked a great number of the problems of writing a novel. So I always strongly advise people to write short work and share it. And that is less intimidating to your potential audience. Also it's likely you can get feedback from magazines and so on. With a novel - it's very hard to get feedback in a timely fashion, or with any detail.
Now, of course, novels have significant other challenges, but at least you've addressed style/voice and basic story-telling.
What I find about technical people (even mildly technical people such as myself) is that we have a big disadvantage: rationality. The thing is that being reasonable often makes for bad story telling. You need to have a little bit of cruelty and unreasonableness to generate an emotionally convincing world. I find writers with a technical background portray rational actors and lack a sense of drama (I do anyway). To give an example, they resolve conflicts too early. They find using "miscommunication" to be a kind of cheat. They don't like information hiding (ironically!)...And these are all staples of provocative fiction.
Anyway, sorry I haven't really clarified much there.
Your last paragraph there speaks volumes about my own writing ability. Any advice on how to overcome the handicap of being too rational? (In my writing, it manifests as all my characters being unnaturally reasonable)
Missed this...It's a hard problem and I struggle with it a lot. There's a few choices:
1. Identify the problems and just work on eliminating them.
2. Write about characters in a milieu in which everyone does behave in a highly rational way - to be honest I don't know of such an environment - but kinda sounds interesting.
3. Abandon conventional narrative techniques. However this doesn't work if you want to write genre fiction, or anything that will be widely read - i.e. you're in the experimental zone!
4. One writer I know uses Myers–Briggs personality types to determine each character's behaviour and lets their actions in each situation flow from that. In fact he's a good writer and the technique (however he uses it) really works, though I would have been a sceptic if someone told me that is what they do.
The thing that fascinates me is how some writers can create tension in the smallest things. Some writers can generate drama out of a missing cat, or the fleas on a dog. It's all about tapping into extreme subjective reactions, while showing the rational justification the character supports it with...
I've been toying with the idea of a site for original written works, in the same vein as current fanfiction sites or Deviantart.
I imagine it would end up working along the shareware model, x chapters here for free and purchase access to the full story, or something along those lines - though if there is a market for it you could use it as a streamlining process for publishing houses I suppose
Is anybody aware of a site like that in the wild already?
Im CTO at a startup that is working in that space — https://tablo.io
We currently offer a way to streamline creation, sharing and publishing of work through to the iBooks Store. Going forward we are focusing on being a new home for publishing.
I self published a book of my poetry on Kindle Direct publishing 5 years ago see http://a.co/iw4r1jq
I also used lulu to make a physical copy. For lulu I think I used Microsoft word and for kindle you could just make a HTML document to be published . The tooling in this article is great but as other people have pointed out marketing your book is more important. The article should be titled how to typeset a novel in 2017.
Not sure what you meant, but I think an appropriate answer would be: for fun and profit.
It is a bit like saying, why go climbing the mount Everest if lots of people have already done so. Indeed, why trying to do stuff nobody else have done before, exclusively? If billions of people have already existed before yourselves, all the good stuff worth doing will have been done over and over again, and the only original stuff left will be JackAss(TM) material.
Both. Ideas for the story accumulated in a Moleskin for a few months before I started writing. I also carry around a little field notes booklet in my backpack/pocket a good bit of the time. Makes me feel like a creative :)
The major edit was done via 3x5 cards. Each card had a scene, the values it turned on, and the actors in the scene, so I sort of treated it like a screenplay. 3x5 cards are really nice for juggling things around (though Scrivener does has a corkboard view, I liked the paper approach for this step).
For journal-style writing, I'm finding using a physical notebook and bringing it with me is definitely the way to go. It's a constant reminder that I should be trying to keep it up, instead of being buried in the file system on my computer. I also like how I can easily add drawings whenever I feel like, or how easy it is to bring out while at lunch and write a few pages.
I personally haven't been able to make that work with writing stories, although I have found printing drafts and marking them up physically can work.
NOTE: Step 2: Write the Novel ... You know, the easy part.
For those who have never written a novel, writer is being sarcastic here. The equivalent in terms of reference more familiar to the regulars on HN might well be: "Step 2: study for a CS degree, then decide which industry you intend to disrupt, learn how it works, and come up with a strategy. Oh, and write the killer app."
This is just the framework for the business plan: it's helpful, but it's insufficient on its own.
Writing Singular was probably the most emotionally trying and, at the same time, rewarding challenge I've tackled. It even feels weird to describe it that way, it's simply been a part of me for the last two years.
I'm curious how that changes from the first book to the twenty-first?
> I'm curious how that changes from the first book to the twenty-first?
For your answer, compare "The Right Stuff" (1979) to "I am Charlotte Simmons" (2004), both by Tom Wolfe. The second book, apart from being unreadable, seems not to have been written by the same person.
Seems I am on a downvote streak lately so I'll keep going; why would you not use (Xe)LaTeX? If I was too lazy to use that I would probably use something like bookdown.
I am using LaTeX, but I'm almost certain it will be a pain when I go to the eBook step, since they all have their own formats and I'm not aware of any tools that can render the math formulas in my book faithfully on all of them.
This is a problem. In epub, you can use MathML, but support on reading systems is spotty. You could embed something like MathJax, but that would also depend on there being scripting support (not all systems have it). On the Kindle, there is none--no Latex, no MathML, no scripting, nothing for math support at all. Your only choice is graphics. SVG or high-res PNG works best. Though on a Kindle, there's no "S" in the SVG (i.e, the Kindle can't actually scale SVG). Occasionally we do a math-heavy econ book here, and it is always a compromise.
What is your opinion on publishing a math-heavy e-book (like, equations on every page, inline and offset)? I don't think I will be able to do better than having a physical book paired with a pay-to-download PDF.
I guess it comes down to what the market is, how much work it would take to do the conversions, and what compromises you're willing to take. Inline math is easier to deal with, usually it's just a matter of making sure the characters display correctly. Complex multi-line math is where things start to fall down. If this is a specialized technical reference that is of interest to 500 people, it might not be worth a lot of work to sell 20 copies on Kindle.
Well, you could, at least for the print part, if that was what you were comfortable working in. LaTex is sort of notorious for being designer-unfriendly (something like ConText might be better if you want more design flexibility). But if you don't actually know anything about book design or typesetting (like most self-published authors) then at least it might keep you from making a true horrorshow by using a common stylesheet.
If you want to do epub/kindle publishing, then you need to be able to output that into the necessary html files those formats are constructed out of. This is a little chore, but a manageable one.
He may be referring to using KDP's freebie program, that requires exclusivity. I keep waiting for Amazon to be dinged for monopoly abuse on that policy, but I'm still waiting.
Interesting. I recently published a paperback in a different space (color, lots of figures), and made completely different choices. I can't write anything nearly as long or specific as your blog post here, but in brief:
* I used XeTeX plus my editor of choice.
* I sent it to a few friends, listened to what they said, and read and re-read until my eyes bled.
* I avoided Amazon like the plague, instead using a small print-on-demand shop with reasonable prices.
* I sold via pre-sales, my personal website, and consignment at small bookstores.
Very nifty guide and honestly very needed in the DIY space I think. Mostly because I feel long-form print (specifically hard copy) is occupying a smaller and smaller market share year after year. There's definitely still demand - as in airport bookstores - but the ROI doesn't seem very appealing.
My experience was through Smashwords and I was pleased with the platform. Never even recouped the $10 or so fee to get the ISBN number hah. It's a nice opportunity - self publishing, that is - and I think lots of amateur writers should feel compelled to give it a try. Nothing is quite like the artistic experience of working very hard on a piece, getting it out into the world, and almost nobody paying any attention to it. Except a couple purchases by relatives.
Not everybody gets to be Chuck Tingle, which, while fiscally successful, is the literary equivalent of the contents of a mop bucket at a seedy peep show joint. Ugh.
This is not related to the article, but US-based HN readers may benefit from it: You can set up an account with your local library to 'check out' books for your Kindle completely free. If you an avid reader like me, this saves a lot of cash in buying those books and reading them once or twice. There are some restrictions on the number of titles and the length of 'check out' though. Each library has different rules and stipulations. Check out if your local library has this program, most cities do by now.
Scrivener exports to Word, and various other formats. Working with large manuscripts in Word is a challenge, and it lacks many of the writing features of Scrivener. I've personally never had a problem with Scrivener's Word exporter, and have never felt like I needed to purchase Word.
Largely driven by my copyeditor only working in Word. Given that incorporating their recommendations was much easier with change tracking in Word, it was a very useful addition to the toolbox.
My wife is an aspiring novelist (on her 9th draft of the novel) with an MFA in fiction and some experience working for a literary agent. Some perspective from that side:
- 99% of all drafts sent to literary agents are objectively non-publishable. Simple lack of quality, lack of maturity, or other quantifiable factors. One or two drafts is not enough, even for experienced established novelists. Sadly, you can often tell within the first 5 pages, and even within the first paragraph.
- Out of the 1% that have the potential to be publishable, at least 4 drafts, and often much more, are required to reach the quality desired to actually be publishable.
- Good novels that are simply not what the agent/publisher is looking for at that time is also a factor, but a very distant one relative to just quality of work.
- In fact, if your novel is "good" but the agent/publisher is not inclined to pick it up, they are more inclined to ask for a full draft, to give great editorial notes, or to give referrals to other agents/publishers.
- If an agent thinks that they cannot take a specific "Good" book to market, they will frequently give pertinent feedback and often suggest specific revisions in order to make such a book marketable.
- At PNWA and other literary conferences vast majority of attendees bring single or maybe two-draft.
I should note that "number of drafts" is not an absolute requirement. Different folks write differently, and having a high number of iterations on your novel is not an indication of quality, rather than indication of prerequisite work required to produce a good product.
So while the publishing world is far from perfect, and both publishers and agents tend to gravitate towards what's fashionable, the reality is that the vast majority of aspiring work is simply far from finished, despite the authors' claims (this doesn't preclude garbage like "50 shades" from seeing the light of day, mind you).
Self-publishing gives those 99% a window to self-publish with only marginal quality controls. This in a way has the potential to overwhelm the system, and the objectively higher quality works can get drowned out in the noise.
Not to mention that, once self-published, a book is highly unlikely to be re-published by a traditional publisher, especially for a first-time author.
I'll close this tirade on a positive message. If you're a writer, you've already succeeded. The inner battles fought every single day for months and years on end alone make you a winner.
> One or two drafts is not enough, even for experienced established novelists.
cough Elmore Leonard cough
cough Robert Heinlein cough
> Not to mention that, once self-published, a book is highly unlikely to be re-published by a traditional publisher, especially for a first-time author.
That's a good thing. I think more writers should be in a "fire an forget" mode, i.e write a book, self-publish it, have readers or not, and move on to the next story. Rinse and repeat until you are able to write good stories. I think it's much better for self-esteem to be able to think "I already wrote 5 novels. Most are shit but, hey, it's getting better and better every time" than "argh, I have to write that first novel from scratch, for the fifth time. I'm fed up with it. I've been working on it for 10 years. I feel like I won't ever finish it. Maybe this writing thing is not for me".
If you can write a great novel in one or two drafts, more power to you. I mentioned that it's not an absolute rule, especially for established experienced authors.
However, if you're an aspiring novelist, and you are frustrated that agents are not responding to your query letters with 5 pages of manuscript, and you've only done one or two drafts, there's a good chance that your book just isn't ready.
The other point I make is that the self-publishing industry allows for books that are objectively "not ready to enter the market" to enter the market, and at a ratio that overwhelms books that ARE objectively ready. This skews the market.
Yes, that's true, but I think self-publishing authors (at least on the ebook market) adapted. Amazon is very good on this market. More often than not, if you want to make money in that niche, you better publish series with a free first episode. If your book sucks, the reader will put it back very fast. Nobody will buy your series, and your book will quickly get lost in the abyss of amazon's search engines.
So, it kinda works. People who know you will be able to download your awful book, while innocent anonymous amazon customers will never find it by accident.
> However, if you're an aspiring novelist, and you are frustrated that agents are not responding to your query letters with 5 pages of manuscript, and you've only done one or two drafts, there's a good chance that your book just isn't ready.
Yes, but the question is : is it worth keeping working on that book or is it better to forget and start working on a new one ? There is no definitive answer, but abandoning forever the first novel I ever wrote was the best decision in my writer life. YMMV.
One thing I would suggest, which isn't mentioned in the article, is to join a writing group. It will give you an opportunity to both give and receive constructive criticism, see what works and what doesn't, and will help improve your work overall (if you listen to the criticisms, anyway).
Excellent advice. I tried to stay focused on the technical side of production in this post as reams could be written on how to improve the writing side.
The copy editor is a sore point with me. It's getting more and more common for me to run across jarring errors in novels. I don't mind so much if it's a digital-only 99 cent Kindle book, but if I spend six bucks on a book I don't expect to see duplicate sentences or incorrect word choice. "Tow the line", for example, or "then" when "than" would be correct.
> "Tow the line", for example, or "then" when "than" would be correct.
My favorite recent malapropism, seen more and more often and in increasingly exalted locales, is "reign it in". "Reign" is what a monarch does to a kingdom, "rein" is what a cowboy does to a horse.
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[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 253 ms ] threadThat homepage also has a 3MB image of the cover on it, bit excessive. Google reckon on saving 2.8MB by image optimisation (or 3.4MB when targetting desktop), https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=... .
Each week I release three more chapters on the website (www.singularbook.com), not on Facebook. It was just something to do for fun :)
Yep, the cover image is a bit excessive. My gulpfile didn't have that image in it but I'll get that sorted out.
For my use case (self-publishing a digital-only book):
I wrote "Learn Java the Hard Way" using Leanpub and I was pleased with the experience, but their build tools are closed-source and sort-of creaky and the tweak-compile-preview cycle is WAY too slow for my workflow.
I intend to use Softcover for my next one.
Recently I switched to Gumroad for fulfillment and I have been incredibly happy with them. Highly recommended.
I just used them to get a nice-looking PDF and sold it myself from my website using Stripe to accept credit cards.
I'd change a thing, press build, wait 9 minutes and check to see if that fixed it. In particular, woe is me if I wanted to use a mathematical formula.
I like that with Softcover I can use a local build system and can fall back to LaTeX (well, PolyTeX) to give me much better control.
Happy to update the post with alternatives.
Not the person you asked, and haven't tried the feature out myself, but saw this a while ago:
How We’re Handling VAT at Gumroad: http://blog.gumroad.com/post/110080508463/vat
Here is an excerpt from that page:
[ We’ve talked a lot in the past about how we approach building Gumroad: We ask ourselves what creators are spending time on that isn’t making things, and then we figure out how to do those things for them.
We are tackling VAT in the same way. Going forward, this is what creators on Gumroad need to do to properly handle VAT for their digital products:
Go back to making awesome stuff.
In other words, we’re on it. Gumroad will collect VAT as required and remit it to the EU. You won’t need to fill out any forms, register for anything, or send anything out. Your (EU-based) customers, will see (and pay) the added VAT on their purchases. ]
:)
Show your piece to a number of people—ten, let us say. Listen carefully to what they tell you. Smile and nod a lot. Then review what was said very carefully. If your critics are all telling you the same thing about some facet of your story—a plot twist that doesn’t work, a character who rings false, stilted narrative, or half a dozen other possibles—change that facet.
It doesn’t matter if you really liked that twist of that character; if a lot of people are telling you something is wrong with your piece, it is. If seven or eight of them are hitting on that same thing, I’d still suggest changing it. But if everyone—or even most everyone—is criticizing something different, you can safely disregard what all of them say.
In the same piece, King advises “if it’s bad, kill it.” (“When it comes to people, mercy killing is against the law. When it comes to fiction, it is the law.”)
1. http://www.jerryjenkins.com/guest-blog-from-stephen-king/
He says ignore the gradient
Obviously, you can take responding to feedback too far, but the idea of the artist-in-a-tower-birthing-a-fully-grown-work-whole is an inaccurate idea at best, and a damaging assumption at worst.
Like King says, ignore the outliers. But if no one understands a plot twist, or everyone dislikes something you really like, maybe take another swing at it. Iterate a little more. Creative output is the art of refinement as much as anything else.
(Good editors can also often help substitute for peer feedback)
On the other hand, in general I almost exclusively read books and blogs because I'm interested in what the author has to say, rather than what I'd like to hear. Cal Newport discusses the idea of craftsmanship in a way I really like. When you're building a table or a bass guitar, there are better and worse woods for the application at hand that have little to do with how the craftsman feels about them. They are, to an extent, impersonal and external to him. A song or a poem, by contrast, have everything to do with the author and little in the way of objectivity about them.
Of course, all of this is a case of finding an optimum balance.
I assume you read mostly nonfiction, then?
When a fiction writer comes up with a plot, or even a turn of phrase that blows my mind, that's one of the best things about reading. Like "how did he think up all this?!"
Typically the answer is: hard work and iteration, and many times not by himself. I think you're partially falling for the fallacy of the singular author completing a perfect work with unflinching vision. IMO this is incredibly rare.
Take, for example, Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird. It's an amazing book. It's a novel that might at once feel effortless and also an unaltered vision of the author. But it's actually the result of years of editing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harper_Lee):
> Ms. Hohoff was impressed. "[T]he spark of the true writer flashed in every line", she would later recount in a corporate history of Lippincott.[16] But as Ms. Hohoff saw it, the manuscript was by no means fit for publication. It was, as she described it, "more a series of anecdotes than a fully conceived novel".[16] During the next couple of years, she led Lee from one draft to the next until the book finally achieved its finished form and was retitled To Kill a Mockingbird.
Everything from the narrative structure to the title to characterization is refined, over and over again.
The goal with feedback and subsequent editing isn't the dilution of an author's vision, it's the opposite. It concentrates and clarifies the vision with each successive pass.
Novels are clearly a medium for writing to an audience. Artists, esp amateur ones, think they can write for themselves and still create a novel. They should stick to their journals.
Both approaches to writing are okay, but I think there's something wrong when an author says "oh, I'd like you to read this story, but I don't care about what you think".
One place to get feedback is in writer's groups/clubs. They may not reflect your intended audience as much, but they're also writers and would be better at separating their subjective biases (like not liking sci-fi) from a more objective analysis of the work, looking at things that are common to all writing, esp. fiction (is the writing overly wordy, does the plot make sense, are the characters believable, etc.).
Like, damn, do you also argue that proper grammar and sentence structure is just "an average of what the masses like to read"? Because yes, that's what English is, its an average of what the masses communicate ideas with, within the mass of people who speak English.
If your goal is to write something just for yourself -- maybe to practice a technical element of the craft or just to have total artistic freedom -- then go for it! That's actually a fine goal. I work on many creative projects that are Just For Me.
If you're interested in other people enjoying your work, though, it behooves you to get feedback on what you're creating. If nothing else, I think it's good for an artist to learn to intuit his or her audience's reactions. A band or a stand-up comic gets on stage every night and gets feedback, but for a writer it can be tough.
For example: I got criticism for character names, too much romance, too little romance, not painting settings enough, too much description in certain places, etc
If your goal is to make a lot of money selling, then "Of course!"
However, I submit to you that King is not a massive success because he targets the average. He is a success because he writes well. His plots and stories are not that great - even his fans agree. But his ability to suck you into a story is quite strong. As he said in his book:
"The job of a storyteller is to get out of the way!"
This means no fancy literary devices that let the reader appreciate the choice of words - that alerts the reader to your presence, and distracts from the story. It also means strong settings and descriptions.
> This means no fancy literary devices that let the reader appreciate the choice of words - that alerts the reader to your presence, and distracts from the story. It also means strong settings and descriptions.
This is subjective, though. I, for example, love authors who alert me to their presence. This can powerfully reinforce or enhance the story. Vonnegut was a shining example of this.
One person then brought up a point: "If you only created art for it's own sake, rather than for people," she said, "you'd be in the fine arts. And if that is what you want to do then awesome. But what we do - making art that people will use, because that's what we value - is different."
And I think that is the point here. If the goal is to make a novel that people will want to read and share and enjoy, that necessarily means foregoing your own idea of what the writing ought to be. And that is a completely okay motivation to create art!
In my case, I thought I had told a different story than the alphas perceived, so, in truth, I hadn't told the story I set out to. Making changes was a natural part of the process to correct issues "lost in translation" as it were.
PS: rooftop conversations sound awesome, by the way.
You aren't taking all suggestions, just the ones that 9 or 10 out of 10 agreed was bad. 6-8 complain? consider changing it. Not that you have to or anything.
With these categories, it is more likely that you didn't write something clearly enough for others to have your understanding of the subject. Maybe it doesn't make sense or whatever. Either way, edits are needed.
And this holds true even if you are writing non-fiction about a somewhat niche subject. If your intended audience doesn't get it, you won't sell to the tiny group you are aiming at.
A development editor would be fantastic as well, I honestly just didn't know where to find one!
Ie - did you wait for your first completed draft before showing them the whole thing, or did you show them chapter/scene works-in-progress as you wrote them?
The consistent feedback I received from those readers weighed heavily on the major edit which followed. I had made some mistakes, no doubt about it. The work is now better for it.
I then gave the "finished" book to a much smaller group of beta readers and repeated the process. Then I went through the book a few times myself to improve the flow. Finally, it went to the copyeditor.
What is Lean Media? It’s an approach to creating media content that emphasizes low-cost production, careful observation/measurement of audience feedback, and fast iteration. Properly incubated and carefully scaled, Lean Media projects can attract loyal audiences and grow into successful works and brands.
(more information via http://leanmedia.org)
Would you be interested in being profiled on the blog about your approach to using beta readers? If so please email me at ian -at- leanmedia.org ... I think what you are doing would provide a great example!
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cujo
- use proprietary tool №1
- enslave yourself to Amazon
- use proprietary tool №2 from Amazon
See: http://selfpublishingadvice.org/watchdog-ingram-spark-vs-cre...
Try https://bubbl.in for example if you wish to sell your work like a responsive book straight on the web. Zero lock-ins and great sales outside of a garden if you will ;)
Full disclosure: I'm the developer/engineer behind the service.
I know this isn't very DIY, but it's probably worth knowing it's an option: I simply hired someone who works at a book publishing company to edit and typeset the book for me on the side. The person I hired does it for a living and is incredibly good at it. Let's just say it's not the most lucrative career choice, so I had the entire book (198 pages) edited and typeset by a professional for about $400.
This also had the added benefit of letting me write and get feedback from early readers using google docs, which was incredibly important.
I ended up paying her a pretty big bonus on top of that (as we pre-sold $110,000 worth and since publishing a couple days ago have brought in another $2,000 - all straight profit since we're ebook only so far and not on Amazon) but for my time and sanity it was very, very worth it.
We ended up changing the marketing messaging to "the ultimate growth hacking guide" from "a step-by-step guide to user acquisition" because that performed 200% better in our A/B tests, and I'm still a little bitter about that, but the money soothes my bitterness. So that was important.
Our biggest winners tactics-wise were sharing the first couple chapters on Medium and cheating a little bit, doing the same on Reddit, with a link that said "if you want more like this pre-order the book," and we worked Twitter pretty well and did a few guest speaking engagements, but no silver bullets, just a lot of lead ones.
Link to a chapter on Medium: https://medium.com/startup-grind/seo-is-not-hard-a-step-by-s...
(Link to pre-sales page, for reference: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-ultimate-growth-hacki...)
FWIW, we sell it direct-only to not deal with fees at https://secretsaucenow.com
Any insight on "piracy" rates? I recently published something print-only, and was considering offering a PDF (layout matters). It's a completely different "vertical," so the rest of your experience isn't too relevant.
If you're really concerned you can use gumroad, which will allow you to stamp each .pdf with the user's email when they bought
I also once saw an author online who had a similar sentiment and offered a "did you download this book somewhere" button where you could donate a freely chosen amount of money to "ease your mind" and support future releases that worked rather well (to his own surprise). Trying to think of the name but can't I'll edit if it pops into my head.
My book is neither tech nor mass-market, and I've heard from another author in the area that "piracy" doesn't seem to be a major factor. It's also a large enough file to be a pain to email or put on a free blog, and unlikely to turn into a reliable torrent, so accidental or casual mass distribution is unlikely. Hm...
1. To write the best book you possibly can
2. To print, market and sell that book
Far and away the most important thing is No. 1, because No. 2 cannot happen effectively without that. And the bar is high - very high. So in many ways the battle is lost or won by the time you've put down your pen. Yes marketing and distribution are incredibly important. Design too. But none of it is going to do much good unless the book really works. And making a book work is not hit and miss. It's the product of a very exact type of knowledge and skill - this is especially true of genre work. Of course, there have been a few tremendous exceptions - but you'll know if you're one of those.
So with self-publishing, as with ordinary publishing: first write a great book.
For that the tools you need are:
1. Someone who can give you tough feedback and who knows what they're talking about
2. A writing group for softer, more regular feedback
3. Long practice in writing shorter work
4. Long practice in critical reading of other people's work, especially unpublished work. You'll never make a mistake once you see that mistake and understand it in someone else's work.
Proof that "none of it is going to do much good unless the book really works" is not reliably true, by counter-example: https://www.google.com/#q=bad+books+bestsellers
Random technical example (fast NTFS filesystem metadata search) I almost lost because I forgot to bookmark it after reading the only HN comment I've ever seen mention it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13738309 And further, I just found the child comment sharing another utility!
Edit: Focusing more on preventing misinterpretation.
I accept that some bad books succeed, but this really is vanishingly rare. Subjectively even many so-called bad books have really excellent qualities - especially in narrative structure.
So there are Bad Books and then there are BADly written books.
I agree also with your point: build it and they will come doesn't work. Marketing is essential. But ask people to swallow an unreadable book - which is most books people write - and all the marketing in the world won't save you.
In the writing groups I've participated in, there seem to be a number of authors that are scared off by the process of getting their work out there. I'm hopeful that this post will help them overcome the technical hurdles in doing so.
I invite you to check out my novel's Amazon page and read some of the reviews. Even the negative reviews praise the story itself, while slamming my writing style :)
Something about getting the product in front of a critical audience ASAP to prevent wasting time creating something that even marketing can't save?
The trouble with getting stuff in front of a critical audience is that you don't get many chances. If you run after friends and family with a manuscript, you may also find your circle of acquaintance rapidly shrinking.
So, I don't think you can treat it exactly like an MVP :). However, to talk in "HN" terms the equivalent of an MVP in the literary scene is probably a short story. If you can write one good short story, the chances are you've cracked a great number of the problems of writing a novel. So I always strongly advise people to write short work and share it. And that is less intimidating to your potential audience. Also it's likely you can get feedback from magazines and so on. With a novel - it's very hard to get feedback in a timely fashion, or with any detail.
Now, of course, novels have significant other challenges, but at least you've addressed style/voice and basic story-telling.
What I find about technical people (even mildly technical people such as myself) is that we have a big disadvantage: rationality. The thing is that being reasonable often makes for bad story telling. You need to have a little bit of cruelty and unreasonableness to generate an emotionally convincing world. I find writers with a technical background portray rational actors and lack a sense of drama (I do anyway). To give an example, they resolve conflicts too early. They find using "miscommunication" to be a kind of cheat. They don't like information hiding (ironically!)...And these are all staples of provocative fiction.
Anyway, sorry I haven't really clarified much there.
1. Identify the problems and just work on eliminating them.
2. Write about characters in a milieu in which everyone does behave in a highly rational way - to be honest I don't know of such an environment - but kinda sounds interesting.
3. Abandon conventional narrative techniques. However this doesn't work if you want to write genre fiction, or anything that will be widely read - i.e. you're in the experimental zone!
4. One writer I know uses Myers–Briggs personality types to determine each character's behaviour and lets their actions in each situation flow from that. In fact he's a good writer and the technique (however he uses it) really works, though I would have been a sceptic if someone told me that is what they do.
The thing that fascinates me is how some writers can create tension in the smallest things. Some writers can generate drama out of a missing cat, or the fleas on a dog. It's all about tapping into extreme subjective reactions, while showing the rational justification the character supports it with...
Good luck.
I imagine it would end up working along the shareware model, x chapters here for free and purchase access to the full story, or something along those lines - though if there is a market for it you could use it as a streamlining process for publishing houses I suppose
Is anybody aware of a site like that in the wild already?
We currently offer a way to streamline creation, sharing and publishing of work through to the iBooks Store. Going forward we are focusing on being a new home for publishing.
https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=AH8RA6CMVRN8Y&ref_=pe_29...
It is a bit like saying, why go climbing the mount Everest if lots of people have already done so. Indeed, why trying to do stuff nobody else have done before, exclusively? If billions of people have already existed before yourselves, all the good stuff worth doing will have been done over and over again, and the only original stuff left will be JackAss(TM) material.
Lately I've been carrying a notebook everywhere I go and I'm starting to write much more.
The major edit was done via 3x5 cards. Each card had a scene, the values it turned on, and the actors in the scene, so I sort of treated it like a screenplay. 3x5 cards are really nice for juggling things around (though Scrivener does has a corkboard view, I liked the paper approach for this step).
I personally haven't been able to make that work with writing stories, although I have found printing drafts and marking them up physically can work.
For those who have never written a novel, writer is being sarcastic here. The equivalent in terms of reference more familiar to the regulars on HN might well be: "Step 2: study for a CS degree, then decide which industry you intend to disrupt, learn how it works, and come up with a strategy. Oh, and write the killer app."
This is just the framework for the business plan: it's helpful, but it's insufficient on its own.
;-)
Writing Singular was probably the most emotionally trying and, at the same time, rewarding challenge I've tackled. It even feels weird to describe it that way, it's simply been a part of me for the last two years.
I'm curious how that changes from the first book to the twenty-first?
For your answer, compare "The Right Stuff" (1979) to "I am Charlotte Simmons" (2004), both by Tom Wolfe. The second book, apart from being unreadable, seems not to have been written by the same person.
If you want to do epub/kindle publishing, then you need to be able to output that into the necessary html files those formats are constructed out of. This is a little chore, but a manageable one.
KDP refers to the entire publishing program.
KU, Kindle Unlimited requires exclusivity but you get paid by page read.
* I used XeTeX plus my editor of choice.
* I sent it to a few friends, listened to what they said, and read and re-read until my eyes bled.
* I avoided Amazon like the plague, instead using a small print-on-demand shop with reasonable prices.
* I sold via pre-sales, my personal website, and consignment at small bookstores.
My experience was through Smashwords and I was pleased with the platform. Never even recouped the $10 or so fee to get the ISBN number hah. It's a nice opportunity - self publishing, that is - and I think lots of amateur writers should feel compelled to give it a try. Nothing is quite like the artistic experience of working very hard on a piece, getting it out into the world, and almost nobody paying any attention to it. Except a couple purchases by relatives.
Not everybody gets to be Chuck Tingle, which, while fiscally successful, is the literary equivalent of the contents of a mop bucket at a seedy peep show joint. Ugh.
Actually, after several years of decline, print sales have been bouncing back in the past couple of years:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bo...
- 99% of all drafts sent to literary agents are objectively non-publishable. Simple lack of quality, lack of maturity, or other quantifiable factors. One or two drafts is not enough, even for experienced established novelists. Sadly, you can often tell within the first 5 pages, and even within the first paragraph.
- Out of the 1% that have the potential to be publishable, at least 4 drafts, and often much more, are required to reach the quality desired to actually be publishable.
- Good novels that are simply not what the agent/publisher is looking for at that time is also a factor, but a very distant one relative to just quality of work.
- In fact, if your novel is "good" but the agent/publisher is not inclined to pick it up, they are more inclined to ask for a full draft, to give great editorial notes, or to give referrals to other agents/publishers.
- If an agent thinks that they cannot take a specific "Good" book to market, they will frequently give pertinent feedback and often suggest specific revisions in order to make such a book marketable.
- At PNWA and other literary conferences vast majority of attendees bring single or maybe two-draft.
I should note that "number of drafts" is not an absolute requirement. Different folks write differently, and having a high number of iterations on your novel is not an indication of quality, rather than indication of prerequisite work required to produce a good product.
So while the publishing world is far from perfect, and both publishers and agents tend to gravitate towards what's fashionable, the reality is that the vast majority of aspiring work is simply far from finished, despite the authors' claims (this doesn't preclude garbage like "50 shades" from seeing the light of day, mind you).
Self-publishing gives those 99% a window to self-publish with only marginal quality controls. This in a way has the potential to overwhelm the system, and the objectively higher quality works can get drowned out in the noise.
Not to mention that, once self-published, a book is highly unlikely to be re-published by a traditional publisher, especially for a first-time author.
I'll close this tirade on a positive message. If you're a writer, you've already succeeded. The inner battles fought every single day for months and years on end alone make you a winner.
cough Elmore Leonard cough
cough Robert Heinlein cough
> Not to mention that, once self-published, a book is highly unlikely to be re-published by a traditional publisher, especially for a first-time author.
That's a good thing. I think more writers should be in a "fire an forget" mode, i.e write a book, self-publish it, have readers or not, and move on to the next story. Rinse and repeat until you are able to write good stories. I think it's much better for self-esteem to be able to think "I already wrote 5 novels. Most are shit but, hey, it's getting better and better every time" than "argh, I have to write that first novel from scratch, for the fifth time. I'm fed up with it. I've been working on it for 10 years. I feel like I won't ever finish it. Maybe this writing thing is not for me".
However, if you're an aspiring novelist, and you are frustrated that agents are not responding to your query letters with 5 pages of manuscript, and you've only done one or two drafts, there's a good chance that your book just isn't ready.
The other point I make is that the self-publishing industry allows for books that are objectively "not ready to enter the market" to enter the market, and at a ratio that overwhelms books that ARE objectively ready. This skews the market.
So, it kinda works. People who know you will be able to download your awful book, while innocent anonymous amazon customers will never find it by accident.
> However, if you're an aspiring novelist, and you are frustrated that agents are not responding to your query letters with 5 pages of manuscript, and you've only done one or two drafts, there's a good chance that your book just isn't ready.
Yes, but the question is : is it worth keeping working on that book or is it better to forget and start working on a new one ? There is no definitive answer, but abandoning forever the first novel I ever wrote was the best decision in my writer life. YMMV.
My favorite recent malapropism, seen more and more often and in increasingly exalted locales, is "reign it in". "Reign" is what a monarch does to a kingdom, "rein" is what a cowboy does to a horse.