Any writers in here?

2,051 Views | 22 Replies | Last: 8 yr ago by KeithDB
Eliminatus
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AG
So I have reached the point in my life where I would like to write. The idea has always interested me going back to single digit years. I have googled endlessly and the information is good but scattered and a lot of it contradictory. So I figured I'd try here as well for possible first hand accounts on how and where to get started. Any help would be appreciated.

As far as what I am interested in writing wise is mostly fantasy/sci-fi stuff. Think Raymond E. Feist for the fantasy type stuff and Hugh Howey for the scifi-ish stuff. (I had an idea that was VERY similar to his Wool series....that *******) However, I Have a few more story arcs bouncing around in my head. Would love to get it out there at some point in the future.

TIA
Icecream_Ag
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S
quote:
So I have reached the point in my life where I would like to write. The idea has always interested me going back to single digit years. I have googled endlessly and the information is good but scattered and a lot of it contradictory. So I figured I'd try here as well for possible first hand accounts on how and where to get started. Any help would be appreciated.

As far as what I am interested in writing wise is mostly fantasy/sci-fi stuff. Think Raymond E. Feist for the fantasy type stuff and Hugh Howey for the scifi-ish stuff. (I had an idea that was VERY similar to his Wool series....that *******) However, I Have a few more story arcs bouncing around in my head. Would love to get it out there at some point in the future.

TIA

track down KeithDB. His wife is a writer (she has a nice little series going), so he would probably be your best bet.
Definitely Not A Cop
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Everyone that I know that is a successful writer will tell you the same thing. Just write constantly. The easiest way to do this is a blog while you work on something. Have a schedule that you commit to. Tell yourself that every Tuesday you will have 1000 words out there for people to read. You mentioned sci-fi, so work on that as well, but there are three types of sci-fi novels. Terrible writing and great ideas, great writing and great ideas, and terrible at both. The ideas are the hardest part, you are either imaginative or not, so work on what you can control. If you have never written seriously before, you will see drastic improvement in your work by writing consistently in the first year or so. Wish you the best.
Professor Frick
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AG
What about great writing and terrible ideas?
AliasMan02
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quote:
Everyone that I know that is a successful writer will tell you the same thing. Just write constantly.


Was just about to post this. It's important for discipline. You want to write in all states of mind, not just when "in the mood."
KeithDB
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I'm the KeithDB referred to. My wife has published about 25 books to include one that made the NY Times bestseller list and two that made the USA Today list. She pretty well known in the industry for her "Show Me the Money" survey of author earnings, something that she presented this weekend at the Romance Writers of America Conference in New York this weekend.

Most of her books are of the historical romance variety, but her most recent series of books (the Starstruck Series) is a departure from that as a young adult science fiction romance series of four books. The first book in the series is right now Amazon's #1 ranked young adult book and #8 overall, it's had over 12,000 downloads so far today. http://amzn.to/1KrLKcC

But enough of me bragging on my wife (it has been a good day). As stated, she's out of town at the conference and will be back tomorrow night. I'll answer whatever questions I can.

I will tell you her first advice to new writers, and it sounds applicable to you. You can't sell an idea. You have to write a book. So, if you want to be a writer, sit down and write a book, an entire book. That's kind of step 1.

You can find out more about my wife's books at her website, http://brendahiatt.com/


rich1232
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Not sure how to link on mobile but check out writingexcuses.com. It's a series of 15 minute podcasts by 4 different authors, Brandon Sanderson being one, who talk about what to do to become a better writer. They have themed episodes, how to improve your craft, and what to/not to do to get published, among other things.

They've been going for a few years now and they recently changed their format for this season, so you'll have to search through the show notes if you want something specific. If you have the time to go through it I think you'll find it a valuable resource. Good luck!

nai06
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congrats and good luck!

As stated before, you need to start actually writing. I think more importantly though, you need to decide what genre you are going to write. Thats going to really depend on what sort of advice to give or seek out. Take KeithDB's wife for example. She writes Romance which is different animal than traditional adult fiction, Non fiction, or Young Adult (which is what my wife writes). Romance authors can make a boatload self publishing whereas its a little more difficult in other genres. Likewise, I could never really give advice on it because my experience via my wife is on the traditional publisher route in YA. So it really depends on what you want to write and if you want to go traditional publishing or self published.
nai06
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Also here is another TA link that a lot of others have used to talk about writing

http://texags.com/forums/13/topics/2106239/1
KeithDB
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quote:
Take KeithDB's wife for example. She writes Romance which is different animal than traditional adult fiction, Non fiction, or Young Adult (which is what my wife writes). Romance authors can make a boatload self publishing whereas its a little more difficult in other genres.
Brenda's Starstruck series of books are young adult science fiction romance and at the moment (more on that later) the first book, Starstruck is Amazon's #1 young adult download and in the Top 10 overall. It's also #1 in the science fiction romance category.

The problem with the dog gone YA market for independent publishing involves a couple of things. First, the book has to be ordered, generally for ebook download. You can order paperback versions of the Starstruck series, but that costs more and still has to be mail ordered. The kids themselves generally don't have credit cards or Amazon accounts of their own, they would have to go through their parents for that, and what kid wants to do that? An indie book is thus at a disadvantage from the mainstream published book that a kid can walk into a store, pick up off the shelf and then pay for with baby sitting cash.

In addition, the kids (ironically enough) still generally prefer paper copies over ebooks. It's a status thing that helps identify them and say who they are to their friends. So they want their friends to see them with their books, or see the books on the bookshelf of their room.

But the real tough thing about the YA market is that there's just no way to reach those dang kids. They are notoriously resistant to advertising, they don't like being advertised to (at least about books). They hear about books from their friends, which creates a real "chicken and egg" problem. Basically if you aren't already a name in the field its hard to get in. Sure, my wife has published a bunch of historical romances, and had some of those big name bestseller lists, but that does not mean jack diddly snot to the YAs out there. It might even hurt as it means Brenda is identified with books their parents read, and what teen wants to read what their parents read?

Still Brenda's four YA books are doing fairly well. Obviously not Harry Potter/Twilight/Hunger Games/Divergent well, but they are her biggest sellers this year and we expect what's happening this weekend to only make that bigger. This is partially because the YA market isn't really just YAs. At least half the people buying YA books are past their teens. Most aren't the same population as her historical romance novel readers, but there is some carry over and it helps word of mouth get out.

But we have also worked hard to market in the few mediums where you can connect some with the kids. There are blogs, and lots of them, and most are free (or will review the book for a free copy of the book). One breakthrough was in making the first book in the series, Starstruck, free. That's something you can do as an Indie publisher that you can't do when publishing mainstream. It's obviously a cynical ploy to suck you into the buying the rest of the series, and it has worked spectacularly well, with sales of the remaining three books in the series going up 10X after she made Book 1 free.

Then there are the paid for mailing list promotional services. You have to be careful because there are a lot of these and only a few are worthwhile. But the ones that are worthwhile can be very worthwhile (I'll ask Brenda for a list when she gets back tonight). The big one, the 800 pound gorilla, is "Bookbub" and Bookbub is what happened yesterday with Starstruck.

In that regards, I know there's curiosity about such stuff so I'll share some real numbers. Without such promotional boosts Starstruck averages about 100 free downloads a day. Not bad. Enough to keep it ranked around 1,500 on the overall Amazon free book list and enough to support sales of about 30 books a day (total) of the remaining three books in the series. This makes her about $100/day in sales profit off her Starstruck series books (she averages so far this year close to $200/day counting all her other books). So nobody's getting rich here yet, but its good money.

Okay, yesterday (and so far today) Starstruck went from that around 1,500 overall on Amazon all the way up to #8 putting it as also #1 in a variety of categories to include YA and science fiction romance. What numbers are associated with that?

Yesterday on Amazon Starstruck had 14,804 downloads on Amazon alone. While we don't have hard numbers from the other sources, such as iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Smashwords, etc these generally add about a third more. So Starstruck probably had about 20,000 total downloads yesterday, roughly 200 times the usual daily average. The bounce is continuing today as people open the emails from yesterday and because of the visibility the book is getting by being ranked so high on Amazon and iBooks etc. As of 9:15 Eastern time this morning it had 875 more downloads today on just Amazon. It will probably finish this weekend with at least 30,000 total over Saturday and Sunday.

So why doesn't everybody just get a Bookbub boost and shoot to the top of the ebooks charts? Well for starters, Bookbub costs money. A few hundred dollars, generally. How much did we make on those downloads yesterday to pay for that? $0. It's a free book. We are just hoping that once people read it enough will be interested in the rest of the series to pay for it. The data we have supports that it will, but one never knows.

But more to the point, Bookbub is highly selective, which is why it works so well, the readers who sign up for the service know it rigorously screens books for them. Simply put, many apply (all willing to pay) and few are accepted, most in the industry say it is about 10%. Starstruck was rejected at least six times before getting accepted this time around, and circumstances of that suggest Brenda got lucky and applied just as a previously accepted work dropped out (probably didn't pay). Though even that is a lesson on perseverance and not giving up on it.

That's the thing about Indie publishing as opposed to the mainstream publishing. The good news is that you get to control the marketing. The bad news is that you have to do the marketing. And it's like football recruiting, you can't ever let up on it. It's constant and it requires a lot of work. Brenda is actually considering letting me retire so I can help her with it full time. Towards that end, I'll actually be going with her to one of her conferences in a couple of months.
nai06
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Those conferences get pretty crazy. My wife was at romance times this year and although I didn't attend, the hotel scene was pretty wild when I dropped her off.
Redsurf03
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Good luck to you, OP. Would love to try this as well someday. Your genre interests are similar to mine, if you want any reader feedback or start a blog as another suggested I'd love to read your future work.
KeithDB
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I showed up at the end of the RWA Conference one year as we spent a few extra days in NY catchings shows. They were still partying hard at night, but Brenda insists it all work during the day.
Eliminatus
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Thanks for the replies all. Very encouraging. I have written a couple of short stories in the past but I have always had a problem keep a short story...well short. I always want to keep expanding it to novel size type of writing. As far as actual long story I have been working on one for about two years now. I was never really serious about it and would sometimes go weeks with not doing anything with it. I used it as a boredom killer really and had no aspirations to do anything with it. However, last week I actually sat down and read through what I had ( bout 8 chapters worth) and realized I had no structure to it. Just a long rambling run on with no direction or future. Which is fine. That story is what it is. A testbed. But It has inspired me to perhaps take this to the next step. Why I made this post. I think starting next weekend I will sit down and write something fresh. Something that I will actually aim to do something with aside from my own amusement.

And I never once thought about starting off with a blog. That's a pretty neat idea and something I may do when I want to scratch that boredom itch. And KeithDB thanks for all the insight. Gives me a LOT to consider as I explore this path.
Ulrich
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Strunk and White's Elements of Style, Stephen King's On Writing, and Gardner's The Art of Fiction are commonly cited resources for new writers.

Actually, the first is a commonly cited source by many people in many professions... I'd recommend it for just about anyone. The second one is an easy read. The third I haven't gotten to yet.
TheEyeGuy
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Sponsor
AG
On writing well by zinser is another to look at. I still go back to it sometimes
KeithDB
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AG
That's just it, going from an idea to a full, length cogent novel is hard, really hard. My wife knows many, many people who have started books, written a few chapters, but then never finished it. It's hard to do. It generally takes her about six months, sometimes longer, and she really does it as a full time job putting more hours into it than most people with full time jobs.

And then, we you are "finished" there is as she says "no such thing as good writing, only good editing and revising." You have to edit and revise and then edit and revise again. When you think the story is really, really done and doesn't need any major revisions, then you need to have OTHER PEOPLE edit it. If they are good at that sort of thing, it can be friends and family. Or you pay professional editors, but other eyes have to go over it with a fine tooth comb.

If you are going to submit to mainstream publishers, few things send a manuscript back to the slush pile faster than a sloppy book with lots of mistakes. If you are going to Indie publish the book readers are brutal in reviewing books that have lots of spelling or grammar mistakes.

It has to be highly polished and error free either way, and that's a lot of work when dealing with a volume of text of 100,000 words and often more.
MW03
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quote:
Stephen King's On Writing
That's a good book in general.
NyAggie
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quote:
Everyone that I know that is a successful writer will tell you the same thing. Just write constantly.

yep.

I was just recently published for the first time (about 4 months ago) and when I was writing my book I pretty much ate, slept, and drank writing while I wasn't at work and also on my lunch hour. I used to stay up all night long writing and would jot ideas down on envelopes, cocktail napkins etc... no matter where I was.

And it finally paid off.


I now have a published fantasy novel (part 1 of 3), and even though it is a smaller publisher I've generated some sales and hope to keep it going. If I could make enough money writing I'd quit my job and just write. I have 3 more books written just waiting in the wings to be published as the series progresses.


KeithDB
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Congrats NyAggie! What's the name of the book?
aggiesportsfiend10
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Started Stephen King's "On Writing" yesterday. Wow. Should have read this years ago. Confirms a lot of what I've heard from others and is teaching me plenty of new things. Love his craft.
Eliminatus
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Just ordered "on writing". Really excited for it. Thanks for the recommendations!
NyAggie
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Thanks!!

The Book is called Cleric's Consequence: it's part one of a fantasy trilogy
KeithDB
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I assume this is it?

http://amzn.to/1OYqoC6
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