Friday, August 27, 2010

Let The Games Begin...

First off, Zoe Winters is the shit. To be able to keep her calm as much as she does and still laugh about things... amazing to me.

Cover art: original artwork or graphic design?
Editing: Professional Editing, friends that have English majors, beta readers?
Layout: internal artwork, formatting, name displayed on every even numbered page and title on all the odd numbered ones?
Publishing: Traditional or Independent?

Good Evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my hell!

Whoever said writing the book was the hard part so very obviously lied their asses off. But yet again, this is just another blog littered with opinions of the writer behind it.

I will say that I am in no way saying this is writers as a whole, but for me personally, once I got off my rear end and actually started writing, the writing came very easily. I’ve listened to people say that writing the book will be the hardest thing you ever do, and not to sound cocky, so far it’s been the easiest.

Perhaps that’s because I’m indecisive when given too many choices, and let’s face it, in this world, choices are endless it seems. When it came to writing I knew everything that would happen, now it’s up to me to decide the intimate details of the look of the book, the appearance rather than the story, and I’m swimming in doubt.

Do I go with a simple indie site that does print on demand, to which the costs are minimal but which just about everything else falls back on me? Or do I go with another company that is a self publishing company, but they do all the work. I’m talking marketing (to an extent), printing, layouts, file formats, cover art, editing etc. This other company is a little more pricey, however from the people I already know who will be buying the book, I will make back what I will pay for publishing in no time.

Here is the thing… yes, this is totally my baby, and it has been a long time in the making, is it really so selfish that I want to be taken care of now?

I’m a realist and I know that this book is my first, and no I do not expect to have Hollywood beating down my door with movie deals. I know that I’m going to have to pay my dues just like everyone else, but I’m a writer. It’s what I do. I did my job and I know nothing of publishing and putting a book into print. Should I really be the most qualified one in charge of that? It would be like someone with no computer experience coming into my work and trying to tell me how to test server speed or pull data with SQL queries. I would smack them and tell them to sit down and shut up.

Well now that I’ve done rambled enough that I can sleep, I hope.

4 comments:

  1. I offer one piece of advice:
    Take. Your. Time.

    When I was finishing up with Lucifera's Pet I got in a rush. My own self-imposed deadline came and went and I freaked. I rushed the editing. I rushed the cover. I rushed the Kindle launch.

    I have since corrected most of the mistakes I made, but I should have taken my time and made sure everything was 100%.

    No matter which way you decide to go with the publishing, you are already head and shoulders above most first time authors because you can avoid all of the screw-ups that your fellow indies mention.

    Oh yeah, there is also the fact that you have written a great book! Thanks counts for something, too.

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  2. By the way, "thanks" is old gaelic for "that." True story.

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  3. This is one of the things so many people on both sides don't understand. Indie publishing is the BEST deal if you have an entreprenuerial mindset and don't mind doing all the work. But if you don't (and not everyone does) then trad publishing is the BEST option. Simples.

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  4. @MT Murphy - I have since calmed considerably since this post, and yes I'm kind of taking the go with the flow thing. I'm still also in euphoria of I've written a book... publishing will happen eventually.

    @Scathach Publishing - Yes I somewhat agree with you but work you put into it or not aside, Traditional publishing has, in my opinion, too many hoops to jump through for the simple minded person such as myself. I've written a book, I want that book in print, I honestly don't care who or if anyone buys it because I can face myself in the morning say Hey I wrote a book.

    Thanks for the input guys. LOVE IT!

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