ProjectOmega wrote:
Yeah, but did you get laid? In my opinion you shouldn’t wait until you get published
Congrats to you on finishing yours also. Give us a title and what’s it about.
The agent hunt is a real ego bruiser, at least that’s been my experience so far. So many of the books that I’ve read have really sucked, so it’s hard to understand why they can’t instantly see that mine has best seller written all over it.
Neg on getting laid. Need a girlfriend for that… or a hooker… but if I had money to blow on a hooker, what would I bother writing for? 
Mine’s entitled “I, Charon”. Basically it’s about an average high school kid that slowly slips into insanity (or he was already there and just never knew it–take your pick), told from his perspective. He goes through a seemingly innocent chain of events, but warps and twists them within his mind bringing him to hate virtually everyone around him, himself included, dragging him along a trail of obsession, stalking, a suicide attempt and eventually, mass murder. That description doesn’t really do the overall feel of the book justice, which is more dark and poetic than gratuitous in its subject matter.
Since the content is understandably controversial (school shootings aren’t taken lightly), I don’t know if all the agents will be afraid of trying to take it on, or if they’ll jump the chance to represent something so edgy and horrifying. I guess time will tell 
astro wrote:
Great questions. Really gets to the heart of the matter.
I think the characters will stand out. It would be difficult to not form strong opinions about them. You might hate them or love them but you can’t ignore them, for the most part.
My approach to writing about the Vietnam war is a little different from anything I’ve read. For one thing a large part of the book is told through the eyes of two NVA. The fighting is not the focal point of the story. One of the folks in a writers group I go to said that the battle scenes were more like another character.
I have a library of about 1,000 pictures that either I took or men that served in Vietnam with me have sent me to draw on. I have spent a lot of time looking at them. It brings back a lot of details that I have tried to put in the book. I also kept a diary and have drawn on that. So iwhat I have to say is accurate.
There is a fair amount of humor.
It’s just a damn good story.
How much time on average did you spend each day writing? I know you said you’re retired, but did you look at writing as a fulltime “job” of sorts or was it more of a leisure activity/labour of love? I’m just curious about how rigorous/regimented your schedule was. How did you manage your time? I would love to have the freedom to devote myself to writing a full-length novel, but it seems like something that would require a hell of a lot of self-discipline.
noddygrrl wrote:
It varied wildly. When the going was good and the story let me pretend I was in charge things could go very well indeed, 2,000 words in eight hours. Other days I could spend 10 hours getting 150 words down. Every little bit I had to step back a bit and give it a rest, think about things for a few days.
Just guessing, about 4 hours a day for 3 years. Figuring I wrote 300 days out of the year that comes to 3,600 hours, or 46 words an hour. Isaac Asimov would spit in my general direction.
I enjoy it, most of the time anyway. If I wanted a job I’d go back to accounting and probably make about 10 (at least) times whatever I’ll get out of this.
But it’s not exactly a hobby either. I badly needed to do this. The year I spent in Vietnam affected me deeply. I really needed to talk about it, and that’s hard to do. I’ll go to my grave still hearing Tom Yolkiewicz dying, shot through both lungs and drowning in his own blood. I’ve seen Hayward Peleiholani’s death 2-300 times a day for 30 years. And watched Darryl Smith loose both legs almost as often.
Benjamin Franklin once wrote that, “The best time to plant a tree was 30 years ago, the next best time is today.” If a novel seems too daunting try writing some short stories for your self. It’s good exercize and who knows, a novel is just a short story that got out of control.
SandyHook, I just want to say that I hope you get published, and I will certainly buy your book when that day comes. More power to you, buddy - you’ve done what I’ve been dreaming of doing for a long time now.
I’m also an aspiring writer, and I’m currently doing all the background work for my first Sci-Fi novel. I always find it encouraging when I hear from other regular people who are doing the same thing - I tend to find a strong sense of community between writers and trying-to-be writers such as myself.
I’d really love to hear from other Dopers who are either published or currently working on something. I think I’ll start a new thread rather than continue to hijack this one. In any case I found the following site to be very helpful from a practical point of view, as well as inspirational:
Check it out and see what you think.
Best of luck, again.
Congratulations, SandyHook I’m proud of anyone who finishes their book.
I’m posting to officially offer my services to help you proof and edit. I just finished helping out a friend of mine, whose bookwill be released in April. My e-mail is in my profile: shoot me an e-mail if you’re interested. I’ll do it for free – I would like to gain more experience at this. I think I’m good at it and I do enjoy it immensely.
Would also like to refer you to her husband’s book: he was a medic in the Marines in Viet Nam around the same time. You might find it to be an interesting read.
Okey dokey. I just finished The Proving Ground, a damn good book about sailing, so I’m short a book. I stole a box of red pens from office supply. When do I start proofing this thing?
Damn, should have mentioned earlier - I’d also be honoured to help proof your book for free. Send it on over and I’ll try to be as fair and constructive as possible.
Mind if I cut in and answer a few? I would suggest something that pays well but is creatively boring. A noncreative job will keep you bored enough that you’ll want to do something creative just to get your mind off your work. Very few people can make a livable wage as a writer from the start. My writing pay has gone from $400 a year to a whopping $2200 a year. And none of that is for fiction writing.
If by pre-writing you mean an outline or whatever, I hate doing it and prefer not to. Some writers like them, but I don’t use them.
I don’t have a publisher for any of the three books I’ve written, so I can’t answer this directly, but one source is www.writersmarket.com. They charge a fee, though. Most publishers and agents prefer a writer with experience. It’s a definite Catch-22. But, a writer with experience in the particular field (such as Sandyhook’s time in VietNam, would help.)
Yes, there are very different publishers for different genres. One sign of an amateur is someone who sends their book to a publisher that doesn’t publish their genre.
Sandyhook, congratulations on finishing your book! I hope you’ll start on your next one soon, since getting the very first book you ever wrote published is a rarity. The teacher of my writing workshop class has written nine books, none published, but she’s gotten a publisher’s interest with her latest. I’ve written three, no interest yet (though the 2nd book is only 1/3 edited and the 3rd isn’t edited yet).
My first published works were in the form of computer game reviews. I’ve published two non-review articles since then (well, one is upcoming), and I’m working on a fiction project related to the d20 roleplaying system. ::brag:: Mine was one of only two samples that were sent to the publisher.
How exactly does one go about selling a book? Or getting it to a publisher, who will make an offer of some kind?
What kind of offer is likely? Percentage of sales, or a flat fee? Clauses for multiple books?
Wow!!! Offers of help and words of encouragement. What a way to start the day.
Barbarian wrote:
I don’t really know the process. I’m plowing new ground here myself.
Unless you’re a Stephen King, Tom Clancy, or others of that ilk my understanding is that you absolutely have to have an agent. And even getting an agent my not help you that much. They only do you any good if the agent is one known and trusted by publishers.
My understanding is that a percentage of sales is the norm. My personal chances of getting an advance are so close to 0 that I think we can safely ignore it.
Realistically the best I can hope for is a chance to get my foot in the door with this book.
The best way is an agent. Send out a query letter (basically a summary and a sales pitch, sometimes a sample) to agents and hope you peak the interest of one of them. Once they request the full manscript, read it and decide to represent it, you just gotta wait to see if a publisher picks it up. You could send a query letter directly to a publisher, but your chances of having anyone look at it, much less consider it, are less than 1%.
Usually an agent will take off 15% of all money made, and request a one-year exclusive contract. A publisher will often give you an advance when they decide to publish (anywhere from a few hundred bucks to a million or more, if you’re Stephen King). From there, you’ll probably sell the rights to your book. This varies too; Stephen King made $200 000 off his first book. Realistically, you can expect $10 000 - $50 000 and maybe a small commission on every book sold. The publisher might also wish to sign you for a multi-book deal, or at least a one-year contract, but that can vary a lot too, depending on the subject matter of your work.
The right of first refusal is also common. Basically, they get to look at your next book(s) and decide if they want it or not before you can send it to someone else.
Hopefully one day I’ll know all this stuff from first hand experience.
Have you considered submitting it to the Penn-Faulkner awards? Or any other writing contest? Do you think that’s a good way to get an ‘in?’
Have you considered self-publishing at all?
Writing contest awards look great on query letters, and definitely ensure agents take you more seriously. Self-publishing is only good if you’re willing to hawk your book store-to-store. Since I’m guessing most authors are writers first, salesmen second to never, vanity publishing isn’t the best way to go about things except in special cases.
An agent seems to be essential in the US market unless you know an editor or can network to someone in the publishing industry who can get your book out of the slush pile. We don’t have an agent because in the Australian market, there’s nothing an agent could do which we can’t do. But even the Australian market is changing to where I think an agent will be necessary for a beginning writer.
SandyHook, if you sell your book you will be offered an advance. It mightn’t be much of an advance but they’re a standard part of a contract. If you’re not offered an advance, there would need to be a damned fine reason for it. Offhand I can’t think of what that reason realistically could be.
Most publishers pay a royalty on a book as opposed to a flat fee. Royalty rates vary depending on the territory. That’s one area where an agent is very useful for the neophyte.
ProjectOmega, there’s a difference between selfpublishing and vanity publishing. Vanity publishing is where you hand over scads of money to a scam artist who prints your book for you. Selfpublishing is usually done by the writer with an eye to distributing the book. It can be very successful if you can identify the market for your book and a distribution channel. Most bookshops do not accept self published books so you need a book distributor for that.
And remember everybody, money flows from the agent/publisher to the writer, not vice versa. Any agent asking for an upfront fee is not a real agent. You shouldn’t pay reading fees from an agent either.
I don’t understand. In both cases, you hand over a lot of money to a printer to get a bunch of copies printed, right? Then it’s up to the writer to promote and sell it (or get a distributor).
OK. Vanity publishing is where you hand your book over to a vanity press who print the book and do nothing else. They may promise you the world but in general you end up with a garage full of poor quality books. The book is ‘published’ in the loosest sense of the word by the vanity press. The writer pays the vanity press to turn their m/s into a ‘book’. A vanity press often sends a glowing letter and asks the writer for money. They will promise promotion but don’t do it. They make their money from the writer, not from book sales.
Self publishing is where the writer writes, edits and proofs the book. They may pay a professional editor to do the editing and proofing for them. Then they organise a cover and layout and send the book off to a printer. There’s no ego stroking involved <G>. Some self published books are of very high quality, some are not. Some will be picked up by a distributor and some will be sold (or not) by the author.
At the moment we’re selfpublishing a book in partnership with a NZ tramping club. It’s a YA novel about tramping safety which didn’t find a publisher but someone from the tramping club read it in ms and decided to talk to us about publishing it. The market is tramping clubs and school libraries. We’ve done the editing and proofing and my SO is doing the cover. Someone else is laying the book out in pagemaker and then we send it to the printer. Sir Edmund Hillary (yay!) wrote a foreword.
Can you see the difference? If that book were being vanity published we’d just send it off with a cheque to someone like Minerva Press. This book might or might not get reviewed – a book published by Minerva most emphatically would not be reviewed anywhere reputable.