Personally, I believe that print and e-media will find ways to coexist, but that is an entirely different subject. Your decision to completely avoid the agent/editor/publisher route intrigues me, especially because you said you don't think your subject matter is something a 'big' house would take a risk on. I've seen plenty of work that is extraordinarily 'niche' and still finds a home. Your work is clearly speculative fantasy, but I'm wondering, if you had to choose a sub-genre classification for the shelves, where would you place yourself?
The King Henry Tapes (By Me!)
- Thread starter Nebuchadnezzar
- Start date
Nebuchadnezzar
Golden Squire
- 458
- 50
Azrayne
Irenicus did nothing wrong
- 2,161
- 786
New Weird is a term used to describe a bunch of writers (only one I remember off the top of my head is China Mieville) who's writing is well, weird. Not sure why it's 'new,' except maybe it sounds better than just calling it 'weird.' It's a bit lovecraft, a bit steampunk, a bit urban fantasy, kinda thing. Pick up Perdido Street Station or The Scar and you'll see what the term is getting at.
Hmmm. I was given Perdido as a bday gift several years ago but have yet to read it. Perhaps I should dust it off.
moontayle
Golden Squire
- 4,302
- 165
If I may chime in on the self-publishing thing, the vast majority of new authors who get picked up traditionally do not get the same treatment as someone like Butcher, Hamilton, Martin, etc. No duh, right? Well, here's the thing, unless you're at that level the only tangible difference between being an independent author and a publishing house author is the availability of "free" professional editing, copyediting, and proofreading services. Over the last decade what marketing that did exist for unproven authors has all but dried up. Sure, some get pushed but usually because its a pet project of someone high up the publishing house food chain. Otherwise, the author gets stuck with the wonderful task of doing most if not all of the marketing themselves. Speaking from experience, promoting a new book can take more time out of your day than actually writing, which is not what most people sign up for when they latch on to a publishing house. Pardon, they DO sign up for it, but aren't thinking about the implications behind the endeavor. So there's that.
Then there's the royalties. Frankly, they're shit. They don't need to be, but they are. I used to have a picture that showed how little an author made off the sale of a $25 hardcover, but sufficed to say that you couldn't even buy a full meal off the $1 menu at McDonalds with it. For e-book royalties it was, and likely still is, even worse. Many new and mid-level authors never even see a royalty check though, because they never pay off the advance they got when they signed the dotted line. And what if you're an author that signed up for a three book series? First book is okay, second sells below expectations and then the house drops you because you're not bringing in a profit? Well you'll never get that third book out now. They own the rights and don't want the third book.
There's more than could be said, much more, but I honestly don't think its worth debating. Sufficed to say that two avenues exist for getting published, and both require a lot of work. Like Raley here, I had something that couldn't be sold. A vampire tale that didn't fit into the current "hot selling" paranormal romance genre? I could see that rejection coming from a mile away. So I self published and found a limited amount of acceptance in going that route. Doing indie isn't for everyone. It's also not an excuse to half-ass your work. Just like the traditional route, you have to put your best foot forward. However, unlike the traditional way, the rewards at the end of the independent route are arguably better. I've encouraged both types of publishing with aspiring authors so while I've hitched my wagon to the indie parade, I still think the traditional method has value. It just doesn't have value for me.
Then there's the royalties. Frankly, they're shit. They don't need to be, but they are. I used to have a picture that showed how little an author made off the sale of a $25 hardcover, but sufficed to say that you couldn't even buy a full meal off the $1 menu at McDonalds with it. For e-book royalties it was, and likely still is, even worse. Many new and mid-level authors never even see a royalty check though, because they never pay off the advance they got when they signed the dotted line. And what if you're an author that signed up for a three book series? First book is okay, second sells below expectations and then the house drops you because you're not bringing in a profit? Well you'll never get that third book out now. They own the rights and don't want the third book.
There's more than could be said, much more, but I honestly don't think its worth debating. Sufficed to say that two avenues exist for getting published, and both require a lot of work. Like Raley here, I had something that couldn't be sold. A vampire tale that didn't fit into the current "hot selling" paranormal romance genre? I could see that rejection coming from a mile away. So I self published and found a limited amount of acceptance in going that route. Doing indie isn't for everyone. It's also not an excuse to half-ass your work. Just like the traditional route, you have to put your best foot forward. However, unlike the traditional way, the rewards at the end of the independent route are arguably better. I've encouraged both types of publishing with aspiring authors so while I've hitched my wagon to the indie parade, I still think the traditional method has value. It just doesn't have value for me.
See, this is the kind of well-thought-out, intelligent, and reasonable answer that I hope for any time I talk to people about the future of publishing, and of authors in general. 99.7% of the time, I get some frantic, political or madly emotional answer that usually involves them grabbing books from a shelf, or receipts to show how expensive things are, and how they've been cheated.
Thank you so much for being a civilizdd human being
Void
Experiencer
- 9,425
- 11,092
Now go buy his books (and Nebuchadnezzar's, of course) to thank him!See, this is the kind of well-thought-out, intelligent, and reasonable answer that I hope for any time I talk to people about the future of publishing, and of authors in general. 99.7% of the time, I get some frantic, political or madly emotional answer that usually involves them grabbing books from a shelf, or receipts to show how expensive things are, and how they've been cheated.
Thank you so much for being a civilizdd human being
In all seriousness, any of you that like to read and have been forum members/lurkers for any length of time, go buy their books. I get nothing monetary out of it, just to be clear (and as evidenced by this thread, they don't get much either), but I want them both to keep writing and this is the only way I can help.
The Dauntless One
Lord Nagafen Raider
- 1,159
- 137
I'm not usually a reader, but I've been reading the first book. I'm on Session 8 and so far I'm really enjoying it. Great job man.
Nebuchadnezzar
Golden Squire
- 458
- 50
Jx3
Riddle me this...
- 1,039
- 173
Just finished the first book.
Insert takemymoney.jpg here.
This book rocks, love the setting. I'm not a writer so I can't really get all verbose with my love for this but just know that it's fucking awesome and I will be yelling at people in my literature class to read this.
Insert takemymoney.jpg here.
This book rocks, love the setting. I'm not a writer so I can't really get all verbose with my love for this but just know that it's fucking awesome and I will be yelling at people in my literature class to read this.
Nebuchadnezzar
Golden Squire
- 458
- 50
Jx3: not sure if literature classes are my target audience, but go forth, spread the gospel.
Ichu: reading about King Henry Price with your girlfriend, talk about a minefield. You are brave, sir.
Everyone else: just finished the first draft for the school timeline in FM3, so 5 chapters left to write. At about 75k words/300 pages now.
Ichu: reading about King Henry Price with your girlfriend, talk about a minefield. You are brave, sir.
Everyone else: just finished the first draft for the school timeline in FM3, so 5 chapters left to write. At about 75k words/300 pages now.
I just finished The Foul Mouth and the Fanged Lady.
Given that the author is a fellow FoH-er, my expectations going in were... modest. I wasverypleasantly surprised.
Neb, your setting is fantastic - fresh but not weird, familiar but not derivative. I really enjoyed the spins you put on what could have been a very bland design of the supernatural. Where you did borrow shamelessly you gave the reader credit and delivered with a wink and a nod. The King Henry character is a lot of fun, and more nuanced than I was expecting. I enjoyed the changes in his voice between his teenage, young adult, and middle age years. Cycling between plotlines and King Henry's ages was a great device for controlling the pace and feeding the reader information without being too expository, although the use of the technique did drop off significantly in the second half of the book. You also write action nicely. The scenes are tight, visceral, and memorable. (That said, your sense of time passage is odd. Two or three punches and a guy thrown over the counter and five minutes have gone by? Fights are *fast*.) I also loved the cultural and historical references sprinkled through the book. They were always dosed with humor or context and avoided coming across as self-back-patting in way that it does for some authors.
If I could point to one area for improvement, it would be the editing. There were a number of typos, verbs in the wrong tense, and curiously botched figures of speech ("tic for tac" instead of "tit for tat"), etc. They weren't so frequent as to be unforgivable, but they were distracting and kept the production value below AAA rating.
Most excellent work. I downloaded the free version of this book, but I will go back and buy a copy if it and its siblings immediately. Keep it up; I really look forward to seeing what you put out as your style and technique mature.
RR, support our brother and buy his books!
Edit: Looking at your B&N page, you could really stand to put some more work in your "jacket" summary. There's very little in the blurb that jumps out as interesting, and in retrospect it's not a particularly good or compelling description of the story. If I'd only had that to go on and not the RR referrals I don't think I'd have tried the book even at $0.
Given that the author is a fellow FoH-er, my expectations going in were... modest. I wasverypleasantly surprised.
Neb, your setting is fantastic - fresh but not weird, familiar but not derivative. I really enjoyed the spins you put on what could have been a very bland design of the supernatural. Where you did borrow shamelessly you gave the reader credit and delivered with a wink and a nod. The King Henry character is a lot of fun, and more nuanced than I was expecting. I enjoyed the changes in his voice between his teenage, young adult, and middle age years. Cycling between plotlines and King Henry's ages was a great device for controlling the pace and feeding the reader information without being too expository, although the use of the technique did drop off significantly in the second half of the book. You also write action nicely. The scenes are tight, visceral, and memorable. (That said, your sense of time passage is odd. Two or three punches and a guy thrown over the counter and five minutes have gone by? Fights are *fast*.) I also loved the cultural and historical references sprinkled through the book. They were always dosed with humor or context and avoided coming across as self-back-patting in way that it does for some authors.
If I could point to one area for improvement, it would be the editing. There were a number of typos, verbs in the wrong tense, and curiously botched figures of speech ("tic for tac" instead of "tit for tat"), etc. They weren't so frequent as to be unforgivable, but they were distracting and kept the production value below AAA rating.
Most excellent work. I downloaded the free version of this book, but I will go back and buy a copy if it and its siblings immediately. Keep it up; I really look forward to seeing what you put out as your style and technique mature.
RR, support our brother and buy his books!
Edit: Looking at your B&N page, you could really stand to put some more work in your "jacket" summary. There's very little in the blurb that jumps out as interesting, and in retrospect it's not a particularly good or compelling description of the story. If I'd only had that to go on and not the RR referrals I don't think I'd have tried the book even at $0.
Nebuchadnezzar
Golden Squire
- 458
- 50
Smashwords only sends out about 1/4th of the actual full jacket summary to B&N. It's extremely limiting. Not a whole lot I can do about it. That said, had about 2000 downloads off B&N for FM1 the last two months, so...can't be hurting that much.
Editing...yeah, I hear ya. I greatly look forward to the day when I make enough doing this to pay for a professional copy-editor...or two. And Raymond Swanland for all my covers...
Thanks for the review and all the kind words.
Editing...yeah, I hear ya. I greatly look forward to the day when I make enough doing this to pay for a professional copy-editor...or two. And Raymond Swanland for all my covers...
Thanks for the review and all the kind words.
Nebuchadnezzar
Golden Squire
- 458
- 50
Smashwords only sends out about 1/4th of the actual full jacket summary to B&N. It's extremely limiting. Not a whole lot I can do about it without messing up what they send out to all the other stores I'm at (only Amazon is separate). That said, I've had about 2000 downloads off B&N for FM1 the last two months, so...can't be hurting that much.
Editing...yeah, I hear ya. I greatly look forward to the day when I make enough doing this to pay for a professional copy-editor...or two. And Raymond Swanland for all my covers...
Thanks for the review and all the kind words.
Editing...yeah, I hear ya. I greatly look forward to the day when I make enough doing this to pay for a professional copy-editor...or two. And Raymond Swanland for all my covers...
Thanks for the review and all the kind words.