The Whining and Bitching Thread

[Blurry_Dreams]

I had to google Maori people. This is the featured image on their Wikipedia page, lol

View attachment 22689
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what the fuck's up with the weird-ass facial expressions on their faces ROFLMFAO

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Finally made up my mind to talk to my boss soon and ask for part-time hours. Don't care if they fire me. I'm overdue for a change. It's partly that I'm still working my ass off on the novel (45k words now), which makes it feel like I have two jobs, but I'm also kinda having a midlife crisis.

On the upside, I might be spending a lot more time on UM soon

 

[Slammed]

Yeah tell the boss to shove it up his arse and finish the book. My latest is up to 48K but I have a lot more ability to ignore the work I should be doing than most people.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Yeah tell the boss to shove it up his arse and finish the book. My latest is up to 48K but I have a lot more ability to ignore the work I should be doing than most people.

Latest? How many have you written, and what sort of books?

Yeah, I've been tempted to switch to something like paramedic or security so I could fuck off writing for large parts of the shift, but I doubt that would actually happen. I need to be inspired to write, and environment is key to my inspiration.

 

[Slammed]

I've written 5 horror/thriller novels and a YA that's three parts.

I started writing when I got injured at work and the prick of a boss insisted that 'light duties' to help me get back quicker into my role as a truck driver was to do his office work. Prick even made me work my usual night shift hours. So instead of doing his shit I spent 4 months killing the fucker off in a novel.

Once I find inspiration time is my problem. I get caught up doing the wrong things then at the end of the week I realise I have a back log of work and only ideas not actual writing.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

I started writing when I got injured at work and the prick of a boss insisted that 'light duties' to help me get back quicker into my role as a truck driver was to do his office work. Prick even made me work my usual night shift hours. So instead of doing his shit I spent 4 months killing the fucker off in a novel.

Once I find inspiration time is my problem. I get caught up doing the wrong things then at the end of the week I realise I have a back log of work and only ideas not actual writing.

You talking about procrastinating instead of writing, or like brainstormy writing that's of no use in the book?

Over time I've become more aware of the spectrum of what my writing sessions can produce, from an incoherent jumble of ideas to a great scene that immediately moves the book along. I have a huge file dedicated to brainstorms and poorly-written scenes. I try to keep it organized by subject, in hopes that eventually enough crap on one subject gloms together into something better, like combining gems in Diablo haha

 

[Slammed]

You talking about procrastinating instead of writing, or like brainstormy writing that's of no use in the book?

Na I procrastinate very little when it comes to writing. I procrastinate when it comes to work quite a bit (downside of working from home and why I used to regularly take truck driving jobs). I used to do brainstormy writes that weren't related to any particular story, just scenes, or ideas that seemed good at the time but didn't have the substance for a full story but these days I don't tend to do it as much. I used to fill my time writing a few different blogs, from general fiction to horror to erotic fiction, and I used that for brainstormy type ideas because I could get away with anything from 1000 words to 20,000 words and not worry about editing, spelling or that type of thing. But in the end I gave up that put a little more effort back into work and decided to only play with ideas that seem like they can go full length

Over time I've become more aware of how my writing sessions can produce anything from an incoherent jumble of ideas to a great scene that immediately moves the book along. I have a huge file dedicated to brainstorms and poorly-written scenes. I try to keep it organized by subject, in hopes that eventually enough crap on one subject gloms together into something better, like combining gems in Diablo haha

I've still got a bunch of files on my server like that which I hope I named well because I'm sure to have forgotten what half of them are by now. These days though when I sit down to write I tend to just let it flow. I might put an idea I had ages ago into a story but I usually re-write it, or I just write and hope for the best. There has been days where I put down 8000 words, then I've re-read what I typed and deleted half of it.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Got it. Funny you mention the blog - I actually have a private wiki that I do some brainstorming in, though nothing close to 20k words in one article. I'm not as prolific as you, but I've only really been a story writer for the past two years. Before then, I thought stories were too hard for me.

I could see myself going through that earlier phase you had of writing out any idea regardless of length, but I doubt I'll want to spend much time writing once I finish my current book. For one, I don't expect to have many good ideas left after it, since it's largely a culmination of ideas I've had throughout my life. It's also been consuming me, and (as mentioned earlier) making it hard to hold a job. It's the kind of creative torture I have to go through at least once in my life, and hopefully never again.

 

[Slammed]

I think I got into blog writing because I was under the illusion that it would go somewhere. It's a good place to play around and test things, write different styles and see what reactions people give your stuff but it's terrible for decent feed back. So few people actually read and comment positive or negative towards things because too many are simply into reciprocal liking. I had a blog with 200 followers and maybe 10 gave decent feedback, told me when something was shit, when something worked that kind of thing. I also had a blog with 4000 followers that mainly attracted desperate pervs who thought every writer of adult material wanted dick pics of them or to fuck them, none of them actual critiqued the writing. For me it the lack of "real" comments eventually pissed me off and rather than posting all those stories on an form of blog or group I gave up and wrote them for myself and maybe one day for publishing.

I suppose one day I'd like to make money from writing, but I'm realistic I don't just expect a publishing deal (one has to submit for that to happen) and despite the praises of some I'm not interested in self publishing. I've looked into both methods in great detail, got friends who went the self pub route, friends who were lucky enough to be published. At this stage I've still got three businesses running and I'm not really prepared to spend as much time as I need to get a book published when I could spend that time writing...I mean working.

 

[CiG]

I also had a blog with 4000 followers that mainly attracted desperate pervs who thought every writer of adult material wanted dick pics of them or to fuck them, none of them actual critiqued the writing.

lol.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Well I spilled my situation to my boss today. Asked her if a month of unpaid leave is an option, which basically led to her asking if that's really what I want or if I just want to quit. She suggested I think about it and decide later. I don't see how self-interest would allow me to just quit without requesting a sabbatical first, and hoping there's some magical change in my attitude toward the job by the time I come back. So most likely what'll happen is I'll request the leave, it won't get approved, then I'll quit. C'est la vie.

So few people actually read and comment positive or negative towards things because too many are simply into reciprocal liking.

Yeah, it's hard. The best feedback I get comes from a critique group a friend of mine started. There's usually 5-6 of us. We've been meeting almost once a month for the past two years now, it's been awesome. Aside from that, a few people I know have been willing to read drafts of my book and share their thoughts. I wouldn't expect anything from strangers.

I suppose one day I'd like to make money from writing, but I'm realistic I don't just expect a publishing deal (one has to submit for that to happen) and despite the praises of some I'm not interested in self publishing. I've looked into both methods in great detail, got friends who went the self pub route, friends who were lucky enough to be published.

To me that comes down to the size of the advance. I assume the advance is typically the only money an author ever makes through a publishing deal. I've got plenty of savings, so unless a publishing house offered me like $40k or more, I'd rather self-publish so I have the option of keeping 70%+ of the revenue on the off chance the book actually does sell. I can afford to pay for a book design and online ads out of pocket; I don't need a publisher for that.

 

[Slammed]

Well I spilled my situation to my boss today. Asked her if a month of unpaid leave is an option, which basically led to her asking if that's really what I want or if I just want to quit. She suggested I think about it and decide later. I don't see how self-interest would allow me to just quit without requesting a sabbatical first, and hoping there's some magical change in my attitude toward the job by the time I come back. So most likely what'll happen is I'll request the leave, it won't get approved, then I'll quit. C'est la vie.[/QUOTE]

Sucks when bosses have to be stupid about things. I remember asking my old boss if I could have 1 night off a week, I was working 10pm-12pm 7 nights at the time, and you'd reckon I was asking him for his left leg. I was the one who had to hire the person to do my night off, I had to train him, I couldn't take the night off until the guy could do the job, yet the boss, who didn't even answer his phone after midnight while we worked, thought he was being put out.

Yeah, it's hard. The best feedback I get comes from a critique group a friend of mine started. There's usually 5-6 of us. We've been meeting almost once a month for the past two years now, it's been awesome. Aside from that, a few people I know have been willing to read drafts of my book and share their thoughts. I wouldn't expect anything from strangers.

A good writing group can be the best thing ever, but it really does have to be the right people. I find it funny that so often on social media people just love to hate everything, they get triggered by everything, and they bitch when someone thinks they are wrong. Put them on blog, or the like for writing critique and the same people can only come up with, "that's good", or "yeah that's ok". What the fuck cunt, you spent 5 hours arguing with someone you thought was wrong on FB and that's your writing critique?

To me that comes down to the size of the advance. I assume the advance is typically the only money an author ever makes through a publishing deal. I've got plenty of savings, so unless a publishing house offered me like $40k or more, I'd rather self-publish so I have the option of keeping 70%+ of the revenue on the off chance the book actually does sell. I can afford to pay for a book design and online ads out of pocket; I don't need a publisher for that.

There is a lot more to publishing than an advance though. There is a hundred 'vanity' publishers out there that for about $5K will take your book and treat you like a publishing house does. They foot the rest of the bill, they do the legals etc but they don't care about the book once it's made their investment back. They wont kill it but that doesn't mean they keep pushing it either. A traditional publisher doesn't necessarily offer an advance, different deals different payments. But they do handle everything from editing (no author can self edit), which includes line editing, spell checking and actual book editing, they handle the printing and publishing, they handle the advertising and marketing and they handle all legals. But they have to see potential in the book, self publishing and vanity publishing doesn't need that.

Profit margins are also a possible trap. Sure it sounds good that you're making 70%+ of the revenue (and Amazon should be higher than that) for every sale but if you only sell 10 copies a year that's not really profit. A publishing house might be as low as 30% for print and 70% for electronic but it's in their best interest to push the sales and 30% of their sales can quickly become more than 70% of self published sales.

As I mentioned I have looked at that fairly extensively from all angles and it's not that any one of them is terrible it's more of a case of each angle is only suited to certain criteria. Understanding that criteria could make a huge difference.

I've got a mate who self published a book of poetry last year. To get the books to printed stage, which was also having a saleable product on Amazon he spent more than $40K. Now he has boxes full of books he sells for about $10 through his own site and through Amazon and a e-reader version which sells for $7 unless Amazon tell him they are putting on sale and he has to sell it for 99cents.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

There is a lot more to publishing than an advance though. There is a hundred 'vanity' publishers out there that for about $5K will take your book and treat you like a publishing house does. They foot the rest of the bill, they do the legals etc but they don't care about the book once it's made their investment back. They wont kill it but that doesn't mean they keep pushing it either. A traditional publisher doesn't necessarily offer an advance, different deals different payments. But they do handle everything from editing (no author can self edit), which includes line editing, spell checking and actual book editing, they handle the printing and publishing, they handle the advertising and marketing and they handle all legals. But they have to see potential in the book, self publishing and vanity publishing doesn't need that.

I'm aware of vanity presses and the need to hire an editor. I already hired an editor once to evaluate an earlier draft of my book. FWIW, the editor said it has potential, and that if it weren't for genre constraints at her publishing house, she'd try to acquire me. The publisher she works for is listed here, and she has good reviews, so I think she's legit. I can afford a full editing job, as well as a lawyer on the off chance I need help dealing with an infringement. I've registered stuff for copyright before, and I know not to infringe other people's work in my own. Amazon's self-publishing service handles printing. Obviously I'm still skeptical of whether a publisher would add value for me, but I'm happy to hear your rebuttal.

Profit margins are also a possible trap. Sure it sounds good that you're making 70%+ of the revenue (and Amazon should be higher than that) for every sale but if you only sell 10 copies a year that's not really profit. A publishing house might be as low as 30% for print and 70% for electronic but it's in their best interest to push the sales and 30% of their sales can quickly become more than 70% of self published sales.

Your royalty figures are way off according to this article: https://careertrend.com/info-8116741-much-do-bestselling-authors-make.html

"According to the Authors Guild, authors commonly receive 10 percent of sales up to 5,000 copies, 12.5 percent of the next 5,000 and 15 percent after that. Any advance paid to the author before publication is deducted from the incoming royalties from sales."

That's why I assume authors typically make next to nothing on top of the advance.

I've got a mate who self published a book of poetry last year. To get the books to printed stage, which was also having a saleable product on Amazon he spent more than $40K. Now he has boxes full of books he sells for about $10 through his own site and through Amazon and a e-reader version which sells for $7 unless Amazon tell him they are putting on sale and he has to sell it for 99cents.

You sure he didn't get ripped off somewhere along the line? I'd like to know the breakdown of where that $40k went. Based on my math, $10k is the most I'd need to go through the publication process, with most of that going to the editor. Good to know about the discount practice on Amazon though.

 

[Slammed]

I'm aware of vanity presses and the need to hire an editor. I already hired an editor once to evaluate an earlier draft of my book. FWIW, the editor said it has potential, and that if it weren't for genre constraints at her publishing house, she'd try to acquire me. The publisher she works for is listed here, and she has good reviews, so I think she's legit. I can afford a full editing job, as well as a lawyer on the off chance I need help dealing with an infringement. I've registered stuff for copyright before, and I know not to infringe other people's work in my own. Amazon's self-publishing service handles printing. Obviously I'm still skeptical of whether a publisher would add value for me, but I'm happy to hear your rebuttal.

I don't have a rebuttal. Amazon works, there is no denying it, but it doesn't work for every book, and there is reasons for that. I can't tell you if your case suits Amazon self publishing any more than you can tell I'm better off following the same path. The two biggest mistakes people make when comes to writing books is thinking they understand everything and not being able to see it when they don't understand something. There is plenty of things Amazon T&C's have in them that can have effects later on, but likewise some contracts are very restrictive. No single way is right for every book or every person.

Your royalty figures are way off according to this article: https://careertrend.com/info-8116741-much-do-bestselling-authors-make.html

"According to the Authors Guild, authors commonly receive 10 percent of sales up to 5,000 copies, 12.5 percent of the next 5,000 and 15 percent after that. Any advance paid to the author before publication is deducted from the incoming royalties from sales."

That's why I assume authors typically make next to nothing on top of the advance.

My figures are based off several people I know who do write novels. Every contract is different and advances are very rarely paid to first time writers. You have to prove to a publisher that you have what they want which in most cases means you need a product to sell them. Very few first time writers get an advance to write a book, especially a novel. Advances come after contracts are signed and the publisher pays you to write for them exclusively, the advance is as much about keeping you on their books as it is about you writing. Some publishers wont even offer advances until the author has multiple books, they offer a 'first choice option' which basically gives them first choice but they don't have to buy anything. Also rates vary greatly between different publishers and also for different books. Novels/Fiction is usually a higher royalty than Non Fiction or factual books and e-pubs are always higher than print.

You sure he didn't get ripped off somewhere along the line? I'd like to know the breakdown of where that $40k went. Based on my math, $10k is the most I'd need to go through the publication process, with most of that going to the editor. Good to know about the discount practice on Amazon though.

Yeah but publishing is only a small part of making a book and everything has a cost, even the writing part has a cost. If you start a business you want to know everything that costs you money that's why you create a business plan with profit and loss statements, projected earnings, market research etc. A book is no different and there is a lot of costs that are not obvious even if you can do some of it yourself. Even getting a publisher to do a lot of the hard lifting it pays to know what they are doing rather than just letting them do it. The $40K the guy I know spent is from the onset to a saleable product. It included the time he took off work to write, the entire process through proof reading, editing, design, layout (he vows never again to use Amazon lay out services), the typsetting, all the way up to having a box of books on his desk. Then the advertising after it was ready. His was a little different to most novels because it was very regional specific, despite selling throughout the world, and he organised radio interviews, library visits, newspaper interviews himself. He paid for a website and web advertising because Amazon's advertising is a very narrow target model. Everything has a cost and Amazon/self pub can't do it all.

Again every book is different and there isn't one system that suits all. It's also fucking hard to get a publisher, but that doesn't automatically mean Amazon is a better option, it's a different option. It's also an option that most published authors will tell you has pitfalls to be very careful of, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work.

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

I'm still working my ass off on the novel (45k words now)

how many K words do you expect your finished novel to be??
all the Anita Blake novels are edited down to be aprox the same number of words as each other
the same with all the Drizzt Do'Urden novels and all the Alex Cross novels
not sure how much more than 45k these novels are
you're prolly at the point where you can write-out what's going to end-up the last several chapters and then work backwards to fill in the space between the last few chapters and what you've already written

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

I'd rather self-publish so I have the option of keeping 70%+ of the revenue on the off chance the book actually does sell. I can afford to pay for a book design and online ads out of pocket; I don't need a publisher for that.

with things like minuteman press
minuteman press dallas - Google Search
you'd actually keep 100% of the revenue, minus the cost of you paying for the cost of printing, minus a small fee (for the printing company to stay in business), minus the cost of you doing all of the advertising yourself, (advertising really costs nothing if you use facebook or patreon)
if you're book has superheros in it, you can self-publish and sell your book at superhero cons
if you're doing sci-fi, you can sell it at sci-fi cons
me personally,
i'm actually planning on self-publishing my book specifically so that i can sell it at cosplay conventions
IIRC, you actually have to self-publish in order to be able to sell your book at cosplay cons

the chaotic nation comic chaotic nation comic - Google Search
is self-published, sold only at anime cons and the woman who writes and draws this comic is making a fortune selling this

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

@zabu of nΩd

i'm prolly going to just self publish with minuteman press or something

if i can put "superhero" and "inappropriate for children" on the front cover i could prolly easily sell my book at the Dallas cosplay cons
seriously thinking of cramming in a bunch of shit that won't make sense if you don't live in the metroplex

the superhero novel i've written in my head is kinda a female version of The Punisher
with a cloak-of-invisibility, speed-demon boots, a gun that only fire while it's invisible,
and i'm using 1st-person instead of 3rd-person as a short-cut for world-building

 

[Slammed]

45k words is little more than a novella in adult lit.
40-50K is about average the ages of 10-15
While a novel by definition can be considered anything over 40K there is very few places that will categorise such a small book as so.
Even the Mills and Boon type romance stories that are released by the hundreds are paid at nothing less than 55K
Most novels range between 80-100K with the exception of Sci-Fi which often pushes 120K
None of the figures are hard and fast but books labelled as novels and under 70K and by unknown authors generally fall out of the novel categories on most sites pretty quickly.

When it comes to selling the book, you can sell it anywhere once it has an ISBN, you can take it into books shops, sell it at markets, sell it on fleabay. But going to cons cost money, selling at cons costs money, it's far from a cheap way to sell books and you've got to be the salesman with the sales pitch to get people interested you can't just rock up to a con with a bunch of books and say "look at me I wrote a book now you should buy it". Although fools and their money are easily parted.

As for using Facebook and Patreon to advertise what a fucking joke, try living in the real world. Sure most people will have a FB page and some might even sell shit from it but it's far from a successful way to sell. How do you get people to your Facebook page, it's not a case of build it they and they will come. One of my clients sells art on FB, she spends upwards of 30 hours a week maintaining contacts, working on new contacts, figuring out ideas for sales and advertising, tell her selling on FB is free. There is 2.5billion FB accounts good luck standing out enough to sell a single book from one of those without constant time, effort and money. As for Patreon what a fucking joke, that's not advertising, it begging...oh I see.

 

[MasterpieceMesias]

@zabu of nΩd



the superhero novel i've written in my head is kinda a female version of The Punisher
with a cloak-of-invisibility, speed-demon boots, a gun that only fire while it's invisible,
and i'm using 1st-person instead of 3rd-person as a short-cut for world-building

...OK, I won't lie, I may actually read something like that.

Probably would allow you to sleep in a real, big boy home if it got big enough

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

...OK, I won't lie, I may actually read something like that.

Probably would allow you to sleep in a real, big boy home if it got big enough

it will prolly sell pretty well at superhero cons
assuming i get a good-looking cover picture
with the word "superhero" and the phrase "inappropriate for children" on the front cover
not even trying to become richest-author-ever kinda thing
just going the self-publishing route to avoid editors altering my stuff
and i would really enjoy selling my stuff at the superhero cons,
interacting directly with the people reading my material
and if i self-publish,
i can hire an artist (of my own choosing) to turn my superhero character into a comic
a superhero comic would sell at the anime cons