Boarders Writing a Novel, Take 6

[Centrist Simon Steele]

One letter and you're ready to throw in the towel?

Come on! Sack up. Send out about 10 at a time and see what happens.

Patience is a virtue.

Yeah, I just can't figure out formatting, and the kindle formats it perfectly for me. Are there any easy to use programs out there that will format my manuscript like a pro? You know page numbers and headings and all that cool stuff? I feel like I fail miserably at that and give off an amateurish presentation.

[Jojen]

I sent out a query letter and never heard back. I know I should send out like 50 more, but I'm seriously considering just putting it on Kindle.

Don't know if you all look at the plethora of writing mags out there, but I found that Writer's Digest 2012 Yearbook has some good advice and writing tips, for instance, the article on recognizing time-wasting activities that are holding you back, such as submitting things that aren't your best work. "Self-publishing when no one is listening" is another big no-no. If your goal is simply to get published, then by all means, go that route. But if you actually want people to read your work (besides your friends and family), the traditional way of submitting to publishers until you finally get a bite will help you promote and market your work much better than you can likely do on your own. The gatekeepers still provide a valuable service.

Although, with the way technology is changing the game, reaching an audience is becoming easier and easier--but taking shortcuts isn't always the best path to success.

[Zoë Sumra]

Yeah, I just can't figure out formatting, and the kindle formats it perfectly for me. Are there any easy to use programs out there that will format my manuscript like a pro? You know page numbers and headings and all that cool stuff? I feel like I fail miserably at that and give off an amateurish presentation.

What program do you use for typing? Word?

[Centrist Simon Steele]

What program do you use for typing? Word?

Yeah word.

I honestly don't see a problem with "self publishing" on a kindle device, I mean it can't hurt me in the long run from what I've read, it's free, and it could help me get noticed by an agent. Self promotion could be hard but I have indeed read writing magazines and their advice, and I've read many, is if you do get a book deal that you take your meager advance and put that into self publicizing because book agencies just don't do that for you anymore anyway. Not a first timer for the most part.

I don't know, I could spend a couple more years spinning my wheels, sending stuff out--not hearing back, etc. Or I could do something about it. I could invest in myself and publicize myself. It seems like a good idea on some level. I've had this novel for ten years now. It's time to get something done so I can move onto something else.

[Aximand]

Anyone else a fan of Writing Excuses? I've been listening during my workouts for the past couple weeks and find it to be pretty inspiring. It's weird, because I don't think they're ever really saying anything I don't know or haven't heard, but still. And it's nice to get SFF-related writing hints, as it's not always embraced by other writing aids. Also, I think it's pretty funny. I usually laugh out loud probably about twice during an episode (and they're only 15 minutes long).

I enjoy Writing Excuses a lot, although I don't listen to it as often as I would like. Like you said, it is nice to get advice and information from established authors that deals specifically with the genre I am interested in.

Simon: Correct me if I am wrong (i mean really do, because I am not sure) but isn't self-publishing kind of the kiss of death for ever wanting to get published the traditional way? I have always heard that, but maybe it is based on old information...

[Arthmail]

Simon: Correct me if I am wrong (i mean really do, because I am not sure) but isn't self-publishing kind of the kiss of death for ever wanting to get published the traditional way? I have always heard that, but maybe it is based on old information...

Old news. Michael J. Sullivan, who has been on the board, was selling 11k books a month as an indie (self-published ebook) author, and parlayed that into a book deal for 6 figures. The notion that its the kiss of death is going to fade more and more as time goes on.

I hear you, Simon. It makes sound business sense to go your own way if the traditional methods don't work. I mean, even if you sell 100 books a month at like 5 bucks, that can put money in your pocket. I think you make more money, you just don't get the same recognition. It is, like fantasy itself, poo-poo'd on by certain types.

But ultimately, try it with one book and see where it takes you. If it doesn't work, its better than spending years spinning your wheels trying to fight through a very narrow doorway guarded by people that do not necessarily know what is going to sell.

I've basically decided that if i don't find acceptance by a single publishing house - orion or one of their imprints - i'm going to go indie. I honestly think it makes better business sense.

[Zoë Sumra]

Aximand - the situation is starting to change, but not incredibly quickly. There's a self-publication thread elsewhere in the Lit forum on this specific topic.

Yeah word.

I honestly don't see a problem with "self publishing" on a kindle device, I mean it can't hurt me in the long run from what I've read, it's free, and it could help me get noticed by an agent. Self promotion could be hard...

Slow down, sailor.

Firstly, you need to check how difficult the encoding provided by Amazon's free convertor is to break. I can't find any information on this within Amazon's FAQs. Professional ebook conversion, with good DRM, costs $$$. Amazon may be able to loss-lead on decent conversion. I don't know. Find out.

Secondly, while the situation with self-pub versus trad-pub is changing now (maybe enhanced by some authors receiving trad deals for epublishing only), it has not changed in its entirety. If you want to attract an agent using a self-pub reputation, as things stand, firstly you will need to build that self-pub reputation, and secondly you will almost certainly need to work as hard at getting an agent as you'd have to work now with no self-pub background. Do you want to stake everything - everything - on becoming the self-epub version of JK Rowling? You can't bank on having the sheer luck that that involves (on top of all the work it would involve).

Thirdly, if you're not confident using Word's formatting features well enough to format a manuscript, are you confident in using the same Word formatting features well enough to create an ebook? It involves the same skills plus a bunch.

I know that manuscript formatting is a frustrating business nowadays. Ten years ago you could say quite confidently that every agent and every publisher wanted 10-pt Courier New, 1" margins, specific chapter heading format, specific header and footer layout, and all you needed to do was make something that looked good when printed out. Now, a stack of agents' requirements have changed and may differ from one to the next, and the invisibles need to be good enough to hold together when emailed, transferred by online form or sent to Kindle. It's annoying, but there you go. At least everyone's in the same boat.

Fourthly - that work I mentioned. Can you sell? (If anyone asks you for hard copies, can you buy?) Can you create, or do you know someone you can pay to produce, marketing and viral marketing material? If and when you start incurring costs, can you take accounts? Can you file your taxes correctly, and do you know IP law? It's a tough business, and requires absolute dedication as a goal in itself. Like Jojen said, if you go into self-pub with the sole goal to go into self-pub, great. If you go into self-pub with the intention of getting into trad pub... well, why put in all the extra effort for self-pub on top of what you really want, which is trad-pub?

If you want a Word class I'll host one - how to make a page look good, and how to structure it correctly (that agent's-Kindle formatting I mentioned above? I've been bitten by that one. For years I've just tabbed in by 1" at the start of every paragraph... but tabs don't convert to Kindle, so I'm having to go back into the paragraph formatting, indent the lot by 1", and go through a 134K manuscript 1) manually removing the tabs on every single sodding paragraph and 2) undoing the paragraph indents on the centred chapter headings. I can't create templates in Word, which is a failing, but I should at least have used the style sheets instead of manually formatting, otherwise I could have changed the styles... anyway). You'll find that learning Word's salient features is not as difficult as self-publishing, not by a long shot.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

Amazon has made it so easy though, I've put my book into kindle format. Took me about an hour of tinkering around. All I have to do is hit "publish" now, but I haven't yet. I'm waiting on some cover art. I don't know look at this as being an easy way out to be honest, it's going to take a lot of work to make something of my book. But I recently got a short story back saying "no" because I didn't tag my headers correctly, and as far as I could tell my headers were correct. I'm assuming they just looked at my formatting and didn't read it, which is really frustrating. It's an attitude in the industry from agents, publishers, editors, etc. that is very hard to deal with. But that's just my feeling, I know.

[Zoë Sumra]

But I recently got a short story back saying "no" because I didn't tag my headers correctly, and as far as I could tell my headers were correct. I'm assuming they just looked at my formatting and didn't read it, which is really frustrating. It's an attitude in the industry from agents, publishers, editors, etc. that is very hard to deal with.

When the market is at saturation point, doing what people want is a good way to be noticed.

Do you want to send me a sample of your writing so I can have a look at the formatting?

[Arthmail]

Personally, i think that there is even requirements for formatting beyond a basic size and font is ridiculous.

[Planetary]

What are we talking about with all this formatting? Submitting to publishers? E-books? I don't understand.

Any editor who rejects a good story because of formatting is not an editor worth working with. I'm not saying to ignore requirements. That's just as important as researching a company before you send a resume. But I wouldn't stress over tiny little details. The story is what counts.

[Verboten]

What are we talking about with all this formatting? Submitting to publishers? E-books? I don't understand.

Any editor who rejects a good story because of formatting is not an editor worth working with. I'm not saying to ignore requirements. That's just as important as researching a company before you send a resume. But I wouldn't stress over tiny little details. The story is what counts.

The story is being passed over the desk hundreds of times a day. It's the same with newspaper articles, two of my teachers were freelance journalists and they said that the editors were so stressed and overloaded that if the document was even stapled incorrectly or set in a white envelope instead of manilla, it's out. This was back in the nineties, for reference. If you want something to get noticed you comply with all of the company rules and hope the editor will like it.

[Arthmail]

The story is being passed over the desk hundreds of times a day. It's the same with newspaper articles, two of my teachers were freelance journalists and they said that the editors were so stressed and overloaded that if the document was even stapled incorrectly or set in a white envelope instead of manilla, it's out. This was back in the nineties, for reference. If you want something to get noticed you comply with all of the company rules and hope the editor will like it.

This is my understanding as well. So the field, essentially, narrows even further because of the constraints of not only the industry, but the workload of editors.

Like i said, i'll send my book out to one publisher and see if it get a bite? If not, i'm going indie and i'm not looking back.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

When the market is at saturation point, doing what people want is a good way to be noticed.

Do you want to send me a sample of your writing so I can have a look at the formatting?

Yeah I could send you my short story? I think I can still find that buried in my hard drive somewhere.

[Myrddin]

Anyone else a fan of Writing Excuses? I've been listening during my workouts for the past couple weeks and find it to be pretty inspiring. It's weird, because I don't think they're ever really saying anything I don't know or haven't heard, but still. And it's nice to get SFF-related writing hints, as it's not always embraced by other writing aids. Also, I think it's pretty funny. I usually laugh out loud probably about twice during an episode (and they're only 15 minutes long).

I love this podcast. True, many are not that ground breaking, but I usually get a huge "Aha!" moment from every two or three.

I'll look at my iTunes when I get home and post my favorite episodes.

What are your favorite ones?

From memory, my favorite one is how to use the Hollywood formula in novels. No, not just the basic 3-act format (which I do like), but the breaking down a story to its pure basic level: the protagonist, the antagonist, and the relationship character. Applying that to Dark Knight was an eye opener. I just downloaded it to listen again.... :)

ETA: Wow. What a great podcast. I've been wasting time here at work going through a slew of movies and books, deconstructing them on a protag/antag/relationship character level. Yes, I'm a writing geek.

[Aximand]

Saw this over at Pat's Fantasy Hotlist, thought it may interest a few people here (myself included). Some of the authors in it are pretty legit, although only Mark Lawrence is one that I had heard of before Arthmail mentioned Michael J. Sullivan to me earlier. Any thoughts?

Edit: Looks like I actually forgot to post the link. :blushing: http://fantasywritingcontest.com/

[The Marquis de Leech]

Eight chapters down on second draft. 39,500 words. Of course, now I'm in tougher territory with the revision: chapter nine onwards is where the first draft gets very rough.

[Starkess]

So I've decided to take a little break from novel-writing. (My poor novel was apparently so bad my betas couldn't even get through it! :P) My writing has been too inconsistent, and I keep wasting weeks writing a quarter of a novel that I'll never finish, or coming up with ideas that aren't fully fleshed out and trying to write them just to have something to write.

Instead I am going to try short stories! I'm not very strong on short stories, and I think it'll be a great help for me as a writing tool. Quicker feedback to see if I like what I'm writing or not, good improvement of my skillz, and a bit more manageable with my somewhat nuts schedule right now. So far, I've gotten 2k words down on a sci fi story that I am really liking. (Full disclosure: I went to this story generator and clicked until something sparked off an idea. And totally got an idea for a secondary plot for a novel I'm planning on writing! Yess free inspiration!)

From memory, my favorite one is how to use the Hollywood formula in novels. No, not just the basic 3-act format (which I do like), but the breaking down a story to its pure basic level: the protagonist, the antagonist, and the relationship character. Applying that to Dark Knight was an eye opener. I just downloaded it to listen again.... :)

I'll have to listen to that one. I've only listened to about half of season 6 and season 7, but so far I really enjoyed the fantasy setting one. Worldbuilding really gets my inspiration going!

[Slurms McKenzie]

I think I'll write a cookery book.

[PhoenixFlame]

I'm loving this thread, so I have a question I wanted to throw out there. Has anyone had this problem?

I'll get an idea, really like it, and work on it furiously in my mind. Then when I go to write it, the original fire is just kind of gone and it never comes out as strongly as I "crafted" it in my head. I wind up getting bored of it. When I just write off the top of my head it's more fun and interesting to me but stuff can go in random unnecessary directions and it's harder for me to guide the story/keep the characters distinct. Any suggestions to get better balance?

One thing I kind of regret (sometimes...like when it's not earning me money) is my journalism background. I've had endless journalism classes that have made me a much more technically proficiency writer than I was years ago, but it feels like it strangled my creativity. I look back on stuff I wrote years ago and while I might laugh at the mechanics and whatnot, shit, I had some damn good imagery. Where did it gooo?