Hello! I have some advice I would love to share with people who have recently published or will soon publish. I myself haven’t put anything out there. There is a complete 350 page novel on my hard drive but one teacher said something mildly critical of a story about my cat I wrote in 8th grade so now I have a phobia of readers despite my assurance writing is the career for me.
While I have no personal experience, I know all about this game as I have spent the last several years becoming a big deal on r/writing (pause so you can thank me for my service.) There is nobody who is more qualified to help you out. You will get full, unambiguous info here. I want all writers to succeed and I don’t have a deep hatred for those who actually have content available for purchase!
Tip 1: don’t worry about copywriting your book but you need it trademarked yesterday.
2: scared of margins? Relax, KDP will make sure you won’t print your words off the page but BE SURE you set the formatting right so your words don’t slide off the page.
3: market ONLY on self-promotion sites. These won’t sell you more than a couple copies if you’re extremely lucky.
4: you can use brand names in your writing but word to the wise, don’t use brand names if you don’t want to get sued.
5: please do another draft of your work to make sure it’s perfect. All my shit sucks the first 10 times so I imagine yours does too. Don’t get excited thinking you’re done. I put “her” instead of “here” once on page 236 and wrote the whole book from scratch. This is meticulous craftsmanship and not stalling to make me look more productive than I am, mom!
6: your second book begins the second you hit publish on your first or roughly six years after you last typed a word.
Self-publishing is as good as trad pub but it’s worse than trad pub
Don’t market your book to people you already know. They have no interest. High school was already Hell for me. They also don’t need to know about the Mothman erotica you wrote on Royal Road that not even your mom is aware of although there are times where there are subtle clues she may have seen the tab you might have accidentally left open once
That’s all I got! Feel free to ask me any other questions for not counterproductive advice. I may not be a published author yet but I do have a laptop with Word installed. Just don’t get your hopes up. There’s a lot of good writers on this sub and you’re probably not going to break the group personal record for units sold (5 over three years.)
By - SirJosephGrizzly
Love your point about trad pub vs self pub. Personally, trad pub is clearly superior, but when my book inevitably gets denied by every major publisher, then self pub is better, and always has been, I get more money per buy that way I mean it only makes sense.
Keep in mind, most people will never get published without contacts in the industry and a prestigious MFA but if they do, they’re just purveyors of commercial shlock that’s easy to market. Self pub allows for the real quality to stand for itself, unless it’s successful because the person writing it cheated by being good at marketing and successfully writing for a target audience. That’s why the best books are never published.
U/j: No kidding. The sauce for my comment was my actual experience. I heard all about rejections but I never heard anything back so I just self-pubbed my book. Loved the creative control. They would’ve forced me to cut so many things. I got kinda scolded on the main writing sub cause I said “y’know I feel like *I* should ultimately decide what stays and goes.”
You’ve had your lightbulb moment quicker than most do, my friend.
Thank you for your service! This will help me to publish my redpilled guide to dating, even though I have not been on a date in twenty eight years and three months.
Like the old saying goes “write what you don’t know!” I’m writing a manual on how to churn out books like crazy.
Those who can’t do teach! Or if not doing bothers you, ask your doctor about Viagra.
/uj I saw the original on arr writing and didn't bother to read it, knowing full well it would be lampooned into the stratosphere here on the good ol' jerk.
/uj I actually didn’t even know there was a big one of these recently. I was just making fun of a lot of the general gatekeepers there. I know there are some solid people on there but man those who make it unbearable really make it unbearable.
Haha, yes, there was one VERY similar to what you wrote here, right down to the "I've just written my first book and now I am going to dispense advice to all the noobs" thing. Lol.
At least they have a book out. I think it’s sad how many people on those subs have clearly never written a word that wasn’t for school or something. To be fair, I’ve also had those moments where I was like “as someone who has sold one (1) book almost a couple hundred times, I should tell them how ‘The Biz’ works. I think we just need to realize half of these communities are literal children and the other half is Brian Griffin using his burners. Haha.
Yeah, the writing sub in particular is especially stupid. If the mods would actually allow interesting conversations to happen there, it might attract more quality participants, but unfortunately they've got their heads shoved so far up the asshole of their own arbitrary rules that they can't see any purpose in broadening the scope of that sub. Children and ding dongs post there because the rules only permit the kinds of conversations children and ding dongs want to have about writing.
I have to disagree with number 7 Trad publishing is good if you like trad publishing more than self publishing BUT self publishing is better if you like self publishing more than trad publishing