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Posted: 12/19/2017 3:03:46 AM EDT
[#1]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
I definitely think that's part of it. If the authors wanted to produce polished books they should pull together and hire a proofreader full time Quote HistoryQuoted:
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Its almost impossible to proof read your own work. You read and re read it over and over again and you just can't discern the errors after a while. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 3:19:06 AM EDT
[#2]
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Based on the reading I've done lately, an average 6th grader thumbing through it during their afternoon snack could find and fix most of the errors. I can't explain what's gone wrong but it's getting to where it's like reading on the forum here. The written language is devolving or something.  Quote HistoryQuoted:
Quoted: There are different sorts of editors. Are you talking about a developmental editor? Because most self published authors couldn't afford one of those and many traditional publishers don't use them much anymore. I can't explain what's gone wrong but it's getting to where it's like reading on the forum here. The written language is devolving or something. 
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Posted: 12/19/2017 3:22:24 AM EDT
[#3]
Some may know Travis Corcoran TJIC from his blog and twitter (including a certain joke about Gabby Giffords that had the po-po all over him). After a couple years of development (I read an alpha version back in 2011!) he Kickstarter'd his Aristillus series books this year, and now they are on Amazon. Yes, there were some typos and glitches, which have supposedly been fixed in the Amazon versions. I count myself lucky to have the "bad" first editions
 . Good hard sci-fi, and 20mm rifles.
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Posted: 12/19/2017 6:58:01 AM EDT
[#4]
If for some reason you have not read the Honor Harrington series...
Nimitz and your post in the Royal Manticore Navy awaits... 
I have chewed through 1200 or so in the last 4 years, nearly all "Space Opera" and Honor always sticks out amongst the crowd. Also, Vaughn Heppner is worth a look also. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 7:03:08 AM EDT
[#5]
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Self-publishing as a means to reach traditional publishing is still the best use for the tool, in my opinion, but I haven't self-published a book in years. I wouldn't sign a publishing contract now unless it was for serious money. It's not worth it. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 10:42:50 AM EDT
[#6]
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I'm sure it's well-written, but the author sure as hell had an SJW agenda that she wants to push. Quote HistoryQuoted:
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ETA: what's current in my e-book right now? Ancillary Justice (Ann Leckie). I'm willing to bet she wouldn't make my Christmas card list politically, but she is a brilliant writer. Nebula winner Locus winner Arthur C Clarke winner Lots of “retardedly bad” books sweep the major awards. The genderless thing is annoying, but it’s a very well written novel. A shame so few people can’t distinguish between “it doesn’t appeal to me” and “it’s poorly written’. I find that quirk very annoying, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a well crafted novel... much more so than the pulp trash some folks are praising. It sucks that most of the best sci-if authors are liberal, but they’re still good at what they do. If I only read books by folks with my political ideology, there wouldn’t be much to read, and it wouldn’t be very good. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 10:50:10 AM EDT
[#7]
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If all gender references had been male, would you have thought the same? I find that quirk very annoying, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a well crafted novel... much more so than the pulp trash some folks are praising. It sucks that most of the best sci-if authors are liberal, but they’re still good at what they do. If I only read books by folks with my political ideology, there wouldn’t be much to read, and it wouldn’t be very good. Quote HistoryQuoted:
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ETA: what's current in my e-book right now? Ancillary Justice (Ann Leckie). I'm willing to bet she wouldn't make my Christmas card list politically, but she is a brilliant writer. Nebula winner Locus winner Arthur C Clarke winner Lots of “retardedly bad” books sweep the major awards. The genderless thing is annoying, but it’s a very well written novel. A shame so few people can’t distinguish between “it doesn’t appeal to me” and “it’s poorly written’. I find that quirk very annoying, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a well crafted novel... much more so than the pulp trash some folks are praising. It sucks that most of the best sci-if authors are liberal, but they’re still good at what they do. If I only read books by folks with my political ideology, there wouldn’t be much to read, and it wouldn’t be very good. I'm very much a political animal, but I don't infuse my books with my politics. If anything, a few of the books have characters who believe the opposite of my politics and yet aren't bad people for all that. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 11:00:56 AM EDT
[#8]
Quote HistoryQuoted: If all gender references had been male, would you have thought the same? I find that quirk very annoying, but it doesn't change the fact that it's a well crafted novel... much more so than the pulp trash some folks are praising. It sucks that most of the best sci-if authors are liberal, but they're still good at what they do. If I only read books by folks with my political ideology, there wouldn't be much to read, and it wouldn't be very good. Reminded me a lot of The Windup Girl hype...the "message" it was sending about the "State of SF&F" ala Strahan/Wolfe was what was important than the actual story |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 11:08:24 AM EDT
[#9]
Quote HistoryQuoted: No, that's inaccurate. I still have thousands of books I bought back in the 70s-90s on my book shelves, and I re-read them a lot. A misspelling in a book used to be unheard of. I can't even think of a book I have printed back then that has so much as a misused homonym. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 11:09:51 AM EDT
[#10]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Kloos is not, technically, self-published. He's published by 47North, an Amazon imprint. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 11:13:46 AM EDT
[#11]
Quote HistoryQuoted: In the old days, the expectation was that, if the book had been published, it had jumped through enough hoops to be at least readable. These days, when the barrier to entry is owning a copy of Word, the expectation is that whatever you find that's self-published is crap until proven otherwise. Used to be that writing the book was the hard part. These days, there are tons of good books that will never be read because of the noise to signal ratio. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 11:14:46 AM EDT
[#12]
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I'm all for self publishing, but for God's sake everyone should do more proofreading. 
Those that are putting out decent tales will survive, those that don't work on the skill, oh well. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 11:15:29 AM EDT
[#13]
I'm loving all those new sf series. I can't wait for the new Exforce and Space Team to come out.
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Posted: 12/19/2017 11:18:16 AM EDT
[#14]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Sorry I missed this before. It's an incredibly inaccurate statement nowadays. There are multiple self-published authors making millions of dollars a year while keeping complete control over their work. Hundreds more make in the 6-figure range and thousands make in the mid-to-high five figures. They get their money immediately, once a month and control their own marketing. If you're an unknown signing a book contract with one of the big publishing houses and don't have a well-placed and knowledgeable editor backing you (and there are fewer of those every year), you will never see that kind of money. You'll get one small advance that you'll likely never see pay off and they won't spend any time or money marketing your book past the first week of release (and that's if you're lucky). Then, if it doesn't sell as well as they'd like the first few months, they won't buy a sequel and you won't be able to write one either. And that's if you're lucky enough to get picked up in the first place, which can take years in and of itself, and likely another two years between the time you get signed and the time your book appears in the stores. I wouldn't sign a publishing contract now unless it was for serious money. It's not worth it. I get paid monthly, my books have been very well marketed for the most part, my advances have been fair and paid off... |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 11:19:38 AM EDT
[#15]
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How does that prove anything? I'm sure someone could dig up a pile of books from the same period with errors throughout, but doing actual research on the matter would be nearly impossible and very time consuming. As I said earlier, most modern traditional publishers go through a very through editorial process, and I don't buy this line that they no longer care or put in the effort to fix their mistakes. Quote HistoryQuoted:
Quoted: No, that's inaccurate. I still have thousands of books I bought back in the 70s-90s on my book shelves, and I re-read them a lot. A misspelling in a book used to be unheard of. I can't even think of a book I have printed back then that has so much as a misused homonym. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 11:23:14 AM EDT
[#16]
Quote HistoryQuoted: How does your baseless assertion prove anything? Nothing we say is going to PROVE anything, I'm just telling you that books that I read didn't use to have these errors. I can't do a fucking survey of every book published, but I know that in the genres I read, there are more errors now than there used to be. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 11:27:21 AM EDT
[#17]
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I don't think I've read any self-published stuff that was any good. There's a lot of crap out there. Generally I download the Kindle sample and 9 times out of 10, delete it. The Martian and Ready Player One suffered this fate. I've gotten really picky about what I'll read anymore; authors like Stephenson have turned me into a fiction snob. Of course, that doesn't mean there isn't a lot of horseshit that is being put out by publishers, too. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 11:30:03 AM EDT
[#18]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
I completely agree with you. Most of my best work is never going to see the light of day, but that's the business of publishing. Quote HistoryQuoted:
Quoted: In the old days, the expectation was that, if the book had been published, it had jumped through enough hoops to be at least readable. These days, when the barrier to entry is owning a copy of Word, the expectation is that whatever you find that's self-published is crap until proven otherwise. Used to be that writing the book was the hard part. These days, there are tons of good books that will never be read because of the noise to signal ratio. Small presses are even worse; they offer even smaller advances, worse distribution and very little marketing. You can do everything they do on your own and pocket more of your sales. It's a lot of work, and it's not for the person who thinks being an author means sitting around in coffee houses and searching for juuuust the right word for three days. But I will guarantee that if you publish your "best work," SOMEONE will read it, and someone will pay money for it. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 11:32:11 AM EDT
[#19]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Sorry I missed this before. It's an incredibly inaccurate statement nowadays. There are multiple self-published authors making millions of dollars a year while keeping complete control over their work. Hundreds more make in the 6-figure range and thousands make in the mid-to-high five figures. They get their money immediately, once a month and control their own marketing. If you're an unknown signing a book contract with one of the big publishing houses and don't have a well-placed and knowledgeable editor backing you (and there are fewer of those every year), you will never see that kind of money. You'll get one small advance that you'll likely never see pay off and they won't spend any time or money marketing your book past the first week of release (and that's if you're lucky). Then, if it doesn't sell as well as they'd like the first few months, they won't buy a sequel and you won't be able to write one either. And that's if you're lucky enough to get picked up in the first place, which can take years in and of itself, and likely another two years between the time you get signed and the time your book appears in the stores. I wouldn't sign a publishing contract now unless it was for serious money. It's not worth it. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 11:34:57 AM EDT
[#20]
Quote HistoryQuoted: As stated, that was my opinion of the best use of self-publishing. Having worked on both sides of the coin, however, I'm not sure that I'd self publish again. Of course, my experiences in traditional publishing are vastly different than what you're describing, as are those of most authors that I know. I get paid monthly, my books have been very well marketed for the most part, my advances have been fair and paid off... |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 11:35:13 AM EDT
[#21]
Quote HistoryQuoted: That's your loss. I tried the agented, big-5 route years ago. Took years and wound up with oh-so-close-but-not-this-time. I had two completed, professionally edited and multiple-rewrite SF novels and no one ever read them except my agents' multiple editors. I self-published them and, within a year, 30,000 people had bought them. I've written 13 novels, 6 just this year, and I'm working on my 14th, and guess what? Shitloads of people have bought them and read them and I've made a good amount of money from it. Enough to call it a full time job, even though I have yet to quit my day job. There are a lot of other authors out there just like me, and a lot of them have received and turned down offers from the big publishing companies because they don't NEED them. I don't need them. They're an outmoded and obsolescent business model that's dying a little every day. Small presses are even worse; they offer even smaller advances, worse distribution and very little marketing. You can do everything they do on your own and pocket more of your sales. It's a lot of work, and it's not for the person who thinks being an author means sitting around in coffee houses and searching for juuuust the right word for three days. But I will guarantee that if you publish your "best work," SOMEONE will read it, and someone will pay money for it. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 11:37:41 AM EDT
[#22]
Quote HistoryQuoted: I can only give you the accounts of the authors I've talked to in person and on author groups on Facebook, but most do not get paid monthly. Most I've talked to get paid either twice a year or quarterly. I've never talked to any who get paid monthly royalties from a big publishing company. As for the advances/marketing/etc...that's from surveys that have been done of published authors. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 11:38:52 AM EDT
[#23]
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Michael Scott Earle is the top author I'm reading right now. He is completely self published and has publicly stated multiple times he wont sign any contract unless it is in the millions. He is making oodles of money self publishing his own books. He recently told me his author facebook group gets upwards of 300 requests a day. Quote HistoryQuoted:
Quoted: Sorry I missed this before. It's an incredibly inaccurate statement nowadays. There are multiple self-published authors making millions of dollars a year while keeping complete control over their work. Hundreds more make in the 6-figure range and thousands make in the mid-to-high five figures. They get their money immediately, once a month and control their own marketing. If you're an unknown signing a book contract with one of the big publishing houses and don't have a well-placed and knowledgeable editor backing you (and there are fewer of those every year), you will never see that kind of money. You'll get one small advance that you'll likely never see pay off and they won't spend any time or money marketing your book past the first week of release (and that's if you're lucky). Then, if it doesn't sell as well as they'd like the first few months, they won't buy a sequel and you won't be able to write one either. And that's if you're lucky enough to get picked up in the first place, which can take years in and of itself, and likely another two years between the time you get signed and the time your book appears in the stores. I wouldn't sign a publishing contract now unless it was for serious money. It's not worth it. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 11:40:04 AM EDT
[#24]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
I'm also talking about conversations that I've had with authors in person. I've never talked to a writer that only gets paid once a year. Not saying it doesn't happen, but I've never spoken with anyone that had that experience. Quote HistoryQuoted:
Quoted: I can only give you the accounts of the authors I've talked to in person and on author groups on Facebook, but most do not get paid monthly. Most I've talked to get paid either twice a year or quarterly. I've never talked to any who get paid monthly royalties from a big publishing company. As for the advances/marketing/etc...that's from surveys that have been done of published authors. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 11:45:21 AM EDT
[#25]
Quote HistoryQuoted: There are a lot of people like that. Michael Anderle made $2 million last year self-publishing. He's basically running his own publishing company at this point with all the authors he's collaborating with, and some of them are well into 6 figures per year. Lindsay Buroker has made over a million dollars in a MONTH before. And those are SF/F authors. Self-published romance authors can make even more money; romance readers are voracious and if you get a following and publish quickly, you can make 7 figures a year in romance. I wish I could write it, but that's not my thing. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 11:49:14 AM EDT
[#26]
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Michael Anderle is proof positive that your work can be absolute dog shit and you can still have a million fans as long as you are good at marketing and have seed money. I read the first 18 Kutherian books IIRC and the only thing that kept me going is how amazed I was at how terrible the writing was lol. I'll give him this: his concept and IP world are awesome. I swear by the third book though I could tell he had never really had a serious girlfriend or serious friend for that matter and had done zero research into veterans. Michael Anderle is an amazing businessman, but a terrible writer. Doesn't matter what I think though, he is sleeping on a pile of hundred dollar bills right now. And among his co-authors is a retired Marine colonel with a lot of combat experience, so... I met Anderle and Buroker and Jonathan Brazee and Craig Martelle and a bunch of others at the 20Booksto50K conference in Vegas back in October. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 11:55:12 AM EDT
[#27]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Honestly, I've never read a single one of his books. I read the Look Inside of the first couple books and didn't like them so I never went any further. But the guy has been married for like 20 years and is a very accomplished speaker with lots of friends, so I have to correct you on those assumptions. He never had military experience and freely admits that all of his military scenes are more based on action movies than anything else. He's not bashful at all about admitting his first few books were amateurish and barely edited at all. But he tells an interesting story, apparently, and he's got a shitload of readers. And among his co-authors is a retired Marine colonel with a lot of combat experience, so... I met Anderle and Buroker and Jonathan Brazee and Craig Martelle and a bunch of others at the 20Booksto50K conference in Vegas back in October. I honestly would have never guessed he was married based on how he thinks normal people talk to each other. Like I said though my opinion doesn't matter, the dude is stinking rich because he so good at selling books. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 11:55:55 AM EDT
[#28]
He writes Fantasy, but I've had some interaction with Trevor H Cooley. His The Bowl Of Souls series is the best I've read in years. He went through the publisher, re-edit, rewrite, maybe later merry-go-round and never got anywhere.
He self published on Amazon and now makes enough to be his full time job. But like YouTube does with their creaters. If Amazon tweaks an algorithm, what they are pushing, how they pay Kindle Unlimited, etc it can quickly take an author from making good money, to needing a 2nd job. Your still at the whim of others for your livelihood. As a reader I didn't understand kindle unlimited at first but have found way better Fantasy books there than what i've been seeing at the book store. Its a treasure trove of good stuff and I'm still on the Black Friday 3 month free trial. For published stuff about the only one I ready any more is L.E. Modesitt who does both SF and Fantasy. First Bowl of Souls book: https://www.amazon.com/Eye-Moonrat-Bowl-Souls-Book-ebook/dp/B0082V0ZHM |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 12:03:23 PM EDT
[#29]
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He self published on Amazon and now makes enough to be his full time job. But like YouTube does with their creaters. If Amazon tweaks an algorithm, what they are pushing, how they pay Kindle Unlimited, etc it can quickly take an author from making good money, to needing a 2nd job. Your still at the whim of others for your livelihood. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 12:05:42 PM EDT
[#30]
Quote HistoryQuoted: It's a reflection of the market. There is a market for basically pulp fiction that gets put out very quickly, a la the Doc Savage novels back in the day. The actual number of people who buy these books isn't huge, but they are voracious readers and they'll buy and read anything in the genre. You can and some people do make quite the living by putting out a short book every two or three weeks for those voracious readers to buy, and when you're writing that fast, there's not much time for polishing. I don't like reading that stuff much, but there are people who do, and those people spend money. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 12:07:05 PM EDT
[#31]
Quote HistoryQuoted: I never said once a year. I don't know where you're getting that. I said twice a year or quarterly. I blame my editorial team. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 12:08:51 PM EDT
[#32]
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His main social premise in all of his books is that a 20 something year old female openly calls a bunch of grizzled combat veterans her "bitches" and bosses them around and constantly has to show them how to do things and operate. They seemingly accept their new title as "bitches" with open arms and are happy to be called a bitch multiple times a day. I honestly would have never guessed he was married based on how he thinks normal people talk to each other. Like I said though my opinion doesn't matter, the dude is stinking rich because he so good at selling books. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 12:09:49 PM EDT
[#33]
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Apologies, I misspoke. I blame my editorial team. Quote HistoryQuoted:
Quoted: I never said once a year. I don't know where you're getting that. I said twice a year or quarterly. I blame my editorial team. 
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Posted: 12/19/2017 9:36:07 PM EDT
[#34]
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Just for my own curiosity, how many of the Space Team books have you read? Quote HistoryQuoted:
Just for my own curiosity, how many of the Space Team books have you read? Four (counting the "Holiday Special", which was meh) so far, getting ready to go through the next four. Have you read them yet? Any thoughts on the "The Bug" novel? (Which seems to be a horror novel that traces the events on Earth from after the first chapter or two of ST#1.) Quoted:
Luckily he's already big enough to be the anti-sjw with impunity.  I hadn't thought about it that way, but it makes sense, and I'm all right with that.
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But if anybody is looking for a right leaning writer who puts out some entertaining pulp SF, check out Neil Asher. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 10:21:16 PM EDT
[#35]
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Getting a story for free and then bitching about a shitty job done isn't the point. Doing good work, and a good job - that's the point. Either you get that or you don't. Free, or costly, makes no difference. Do you want to do a good job, or a shitty one? Which one can you live with? |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 11:14:24 PM EDT
[#36]
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A decade or so ago, I had pretty much given up on SF books. Everything that got published seemed to be left-wing drivel. The last straw for me was a Gardner Dozois "year's best" anthology that was full of nothing but Global Warming, illegal immigrants are awesome, and homosexuals can have ass babies when stranded on desert islands (don't ask me how they take a dump, I don't know, and I doubt the author bothered to think about that little problem). Then along came the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies. I didn't particularly like their picks, but their point was absolutely correct -- SF got hijacked by all the SJW assholes. Just like the SJWs tried to hijack the gaming industry, resulting in GamerGate. In the last couple of years, though, the SF genre seems to have revived itself, and most of the good new authors are self-published or got started that way. Andy Weir's "The Martian" started as a bunch of blog posts. It became so popular that a major publishing house heard about it, did a professional edit, and put it out as a "real" book. Dennis Taylor's "We Are Legion (We Are Bob)" had a weird enough title that I decided to try it. It's a great take on the self-replicating probe trope, and he even took time to get some of the (non-magical parts of the) physics right. From that, I ran into Craig Alanson's Expeditionary Force series. It has some weak points, like the constant over-the-top ADHD of one particular character that sometimes goes on for pages before another character reins him in, but it's enjoyable light reading. And yesterday, I discovered the joy of Space Team by Barry Hutchinson, which is hilariously mediocre. It's a giant ripoff of "Guardians of the Galaxy" but without the ridiculously overpaid Hollywood actors. Other than Weir, they aren't going to win any awards any time soon, but that's a GOOD thing considering that to win an award nowadays, an author seems to be required to spew a constant stream of leftist politics. Of course, I'm probably biased, she (well, the publishing house) sent me a box of chocolate to thank me for moderating their web forum :-) |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 11:40:33 PM EDT
[#37]
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Most of my favorite authors started with self publishing. Larry Corriea for one. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 11:41:35 PM EDT
[#38]
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Finding an error in a book after it's gone through several rounds of self-editing, editorial recommendations on content, three rounds of creative editing, three rounds of grammatical edits, and a final pass through for proofreading is a bit of a bummer, but it happens Quote HistoryQuoted:
Quoted: I've read quite a few books from non self published authors with presumably several levels of editing/proofreading/approval/etc and still found third grade grammatical errors. It's ridiculous. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 11:42:38 PM EDT
[#39]
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The Empires Corps by Christopher G. Nuttall is a great series and written by an Englishman who understands how socialism destroys. Yes I agree SF was a waste land for a long time. A lot of the self published authors are great. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 11:45:56 PM EDT
[#40]
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Its almost impossible to proof read your own work. You read and re read it over and over again and you just can't discern the errors after a while. |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 11:51:35 PM EDT
[#41]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Oops - I stand corrected on Flint. I read 1632 a few years ago and my recollection doesn't include lefty leanings. Actually I don't recollect anything beyond the general premise for the story. Quote HistoryQuoted:
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Baen is one publisher that does a good job publishing conservative and conservativeish authors. Ringo, Weber, Flint are examples. Edit: his Wikipedia page mentions his politics, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Flint Flint worked on a Ph.D. in history specializing in southern African history. He left his doctoral program in order to become a political activist in the labor movement and supported himself from that time until age 50 in a variety of jobs, including longshoreman, truck driver, and machinist, and as a labor union organizer. A long-time leftist political activist, Flint worked as a member of the Socialist Workers Party.[3] |
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Posted: 12/19/2017 11:56:55 PM EDT
[#42]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Correia self-published before there was even such a thing as an e-book. He did it the old-fashioned way: had thousands of copies printed and sold them himself. (Admittedly advertising on the net, so not entirely old-fashioned.) Quote HistoryQuoted:
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Most of my favorite authors started with self publishing. Larry Corriea for one. |
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Posted: 12/20/2017 12:02:45 AM EDT
[#43]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
If for some reason you have not read the Honor Harrington series... http://antigravreview.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/honorharrington.png Nimitz and your post in the Royal Manticore Navy awaits... http://www.davidweber.net/files/downloads/royalManticoranNavyFlag.jpg I have chewed through 1200 or so in the last 4 years, nearly all "Space Opera" and Honor always sticks out amongst the crowd. Also, Vaughn Heppner is worth a look also. |
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Posted: 12/20/2017 12:05:54 AM EDT
[#44]
I am trying to break into self-publishing through Kindle Direct.
I learned, quick, that writing the book was just the first step. That being said, I think I'd rather go it alone. That being said, if Baen wanted to lock me into a contract, I wouldn't say no. They're the only publisher with whom I think I could get along. Best, JBR |
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Posted: 12/20/2017 12:06:20 AM EDT
[#45]
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I'm also talking about conversations that I've had with authors in person. I've never talked to a writer that only gets paid once a year. Not saying it doesn't happen, but I've never spoken with anyone that had that experience. Quote HistoryQuoted:
Quoted: I can only give you the accounts of the authors I've talked to in person and on author groups on Facebook, but most do not get paid monthly. Most I've talked to get paid either twice a year or quarterly. I've never talked to any who get paid monthly royalties from a big publishing company. As for the advances/marketing/etc...that's from surveys that have been done of published authors. |
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Posted: 12/20/2017 12:13:28 AM EDT
[#46]
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Larry got VERY lucky that someone put a copy in his now-publisher's hands, most publishers won't consider anything that's been self-published or is unagented. Fortunately, Larry's book wasn't a substantial print run when self-published, and it was a very good story, so the publisher was willing to reach out to him about going pro. Quote HistoryQuoted:
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Most of my favorite authors started with self publishing. Larry Corriea for one. |
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Posted: 12/20/2017 12:14:18 AM EDT
[#47]
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Baen was publishing ebooks well before Larry published "Monster Hunter International" ;-) Quote HistoryQuoted:
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Most of my favorite authors started with self publishing. Larry Corriea for one. |
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Posted: 12/20/2017 12:24:01 AM EDT
[#48]
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If you didn't like Ready Player One than you are a terrible book judge, and you have no concept of what a good book is. |
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Posted: 12/20/2017 12:58:27 AM EDT
[#49]
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True, but there was no such thing as an e-reader at the time. Quote HistoryQuoted:
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Most of my favorite authors started with self publishing. Larry Corriea for one. |
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Posted: 12/20/2017 1:44:04 AM EDT
[#50]
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In the old days, the expectation was that, if the book had been published, it had jumped through enough hoops to be at least readable. These days, when the barrier to entry is owning a copy of Word, the expectation is that whatever you find that's self-published is crap until proven otherwise. Used to be that writing the book was the hard part. These days, there are tons of good books that will never be read because of the noise to signal ratio. Quote HistoryQuoted:
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Self-publishing has been the best and worst thing to happen to publishing in general over the last few years, not just science fiction. It has created a more open marketplace, which can be a very good thing, but more content doesn't always mean more good content. Self-publishing as a means to reach traditional publishing is still the best use for the tool, in my opinion, but I haven't self-published a book in years. These days, when the barrier to entry is owning a copy of Word, the expectation is that whatever you find that's self-published is crap until proven otherwise. Used to be that writing the book was the hard part. These days, there are tons of good books that will never be read because of the noise to signal ratio. I've got literally piles of novels that I'll probably never have time to read. I'm in the middle of writing one novel and one physics textbook, plus one serial online novel that I haven't updated in months, but it's my backlog of good reading material that's weighing on my soul. |
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