Activity for user394536
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
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| Edit | Post #39134 | Initial revision | — | almost 5 years ago |
| Edit | Post #35768 | Initial revision | — | almost 5 years ago |
| Edit | Post #35735 | Initial revision | — | almost 5 years ago |
| Edit | Post #35650 | Initial revision | — | almost 5 years ago |
| Edit | Post #34319 | Initial revision | — | almost 5 years ago |
| Edit | Post #33145 | Initial revision | — | almost 5 years ago |
| Edit | Post #33092 | Initial revision | — | almost 5 years ago |
| Edit | Post #32962 | Initial revision | — | almost 5 years ago |
| Edit | Post #32548 | Initial revision | — | almost 5 years ago |
| Edit | Post #32315 | Initial revision | — | almost 5 years ago |
| Edit | Post #32131 | Initial revision | — | almost 5 years ago |
| Edit | Post #32113 | Initial revision | — | almost 5 years ago |
| Edit | Post #31723 | Initial revision | — | almost 5 years ago |
| Edit | Post #31478 | Initial revision | — | almost 5 years ago |
| Edit | Post #31127 | Initial revision | — | almost 5 years ago |
| Edit | Post #30147 | Initial revision | — | almost 5 years ago |
| Edit | Post #29886 | Initial revision | — | almost 5 years ago |
| Edit | Post #29667 | Initial revision | — | almost 5 years ago |
| Edit | Post #29479 | Initial revision | — | almost 5 years ago |
| Edit | Post #29297 | Initial revision | — | almost 5 years ago |
| Edit | Post #5994 | Initial revision | — | almost 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
How can one "treat writing as a job" even though it doesn't pay? I hear this advice a lot: "Treat your writing as a job." But it seems to me that this is easier said/done when it is actually paying off and, thus, one is encouraged to do it. But what if one is being discouraged by painful (even bewildering) rejections? How then does one 'treat it as a job' when it ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
What matters more when it comes to book covers? Is it ‘professional quality’ or relevancy? This is a sort of follow up to my previous question. It is generally understood that covers matter a great deal in terms of getting people to click on a fiction eBook and check out its blurb and contents, and covers are the main marketing tool of an eBook. But I have noticed that there is a great de... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Is it true that a great cover is enough to sell many copies of your book I've come across podcasts and internet articles about self-publishing in which they basically say that books with fantastic covers and interesting blurbs tend to sell lots of copies even if the actual writing is substandard. And there is also this article I recently stumbled upon that blatantly outl... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
As an author, how can you ensure that your agent/publisher isn’t ripping you off by pocketing your money and giving you false info about sales? Agents typically demand that authors sign over complete control of their royalties to them so that their money comes from the agent rather than from the publisher directly. I know a certain author named Dean Wesley Smith who has spoken a lot about how agents often steal from authors and exploit them.... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
As a new author, is it possible to sell a book to a publisher within one or two weeks after you've finished writing it? I know it normally takes several months to get an agent and then a contract. But are there any shortcuts, any particular companies that one can submit to directly and get a much faster evaluation? Or can it only happen by luck? Note: by 'finished writing' I mean you've finished writing, revising and... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Is it true that writers don't really need agents and they can just query publishers directly, as Dean Wesley Smith says? While I tend to agree with the writer & publishing guru, Dean Wesley Smith, that agents are usually a liability and that it is wrong for writers to hand over their royalties to them, I am not sure about the part where he says they are totally unnecessary for submitting your work to publishers. Becaus... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
How do some self-published books on Amazon get lots of sales without any marketing whatsoever? I get confused with this whole indie-publishing thing in terms of the advice I keep hearing from experts. On one hand, people say that no matter how great your book is, no one is going to read it or even know it exists if you don’t market it. On the other hand, I sometimes come across bloggers who br... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
Why is it that all the bestselling indie authors are based in the US (and, to a much smaller degree, the UK)? I find this rather strange given that the English-speaking population of the rest of the world combined is much greater than that of the US (even though the US is the largest single market for books in English) and the fact that there are lots of extremely talented writers in other countries. I would... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
What exactly is a 'series' in indie publishing? Is it a large seamless novel chopped up into several parts, or is it a collection of independent novels with recurring characters? (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
Should I be myself and write what I really want even though it isn't getting much traction? Or should I dumb down my writing and pander to what I think most people like to read? (Note: This isn't necessarily about me. It's a general question for many writers facing such a dilemma.) NB: I have been urged to expatiate in order to make the question more understandable. So let me give this sm... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
Why does pricing one's ebook at $1.99 tend to result in far lower sales than pricing it at $2.99 or $0.99? This is what I keep hearing but no one seems to be able to provide an explanation. Is it because 2.99 is high enough to be make the book respectable while 0.99 is low enough to make it easy for people to purchase it, while 1.99 is some sort of danger middle zone? (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
Is it true that setting your book price low (without making it clear that it is a sales price) makes people assume it is of low quality? I’ve heard from some authors that setting your book at a low price without making it clear that it is a sales/giveaway price tends to devalue your work and makes people assume that it is of low quality. Is that actually true? I used to assume that most people had enough common sense to know (or gues... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
Why do expert fiction writers often give conflicting and contradictory advice to novice writers? Lots of writers give writing advice -- but why do they so often contradict each other? For example, some say that "good writing is rewriting", while others (like Dean Wesley Smith) say that rewriting is bad. How can a novice writer learn in the face of contradictory advise? (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
Which are the fastest-paying literary magazines? How fast a magazine pays is a function of several factors like their response time for stories they accept, their payment policy (eg., paying on acceptance as opposed to paying after publication), and their publication schedule. Thus there seems to be no actual data on it even in places like Duotrope... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
Is it possible for one to be a good editor but a bad writer or vice versa? If so, how? Intuitively, it would seem like being skilled in one automatically entails being skilled in the other. Why is that not necessarily the case? (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
Why do literary magazines insist on cover letters? Why don’t they simply judge each story based on its own merit? Why do they want your publication history? Of what relevance is it to the story itself? I ask this because a suspicion has been growing in my mind for quite some time that many of these magazines, especially the ‘elite’ ones, are not rea... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
Is it true that "Any story can be great in the hands of the right storyteller"? Presumably, like all trite sayings, it's a bit of an exaggeration since a story has to be at least interesting. (I mean, it would take amazing talent to write simply about someone sleeping and make it interesting.) But my overall interpretation of the statement is that a writer does not have to worr... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
How much value do publishers and editors place on informative/educational content in fiction stories? I have heard people say that ‘good stories are educational as well as entertaining’. But how much does it actually matter in the eyes of editors and publishers? For example, if one is writing a story that happens to involve farms to some extent, is the author expected to enrich the story and provide ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How to overcome the fact that I can't write long stories? It's funny that i have the opposite problem. I find it much easier writing novels than short stories, and oftentimes when i come up with a good short story plot it ends up actually being a novella! For people who have trouble writing long stories, the so-called 'snowflake method' seems to be a good ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
Is it true that stories get rejected simply because the stories are not appealing enough and not because of the quality of the writing? In other words, if the writing is poor or not good enough but the editor likes the story, then a revision is requested. I'd like to add that part of the reason for asking this question is because there is a temptation to try to somehow 'test' the idea of a story first, in terms of whether or not edi... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
Why do most literature magazines take so long (several weeks or months) to respond to submissions despite having only a few hundred subs per month? I have heard that the the editor of F&SF (Finlay) is the only one who reads all the submissions. Yet he always responds within a week! (With detailed comments on each story.) Clarkesworld is another example. They have only a few people reading and yet they respond within two days! So why do other (lo... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |