Author Topic: Published Author On Board  (Read 174039 times)

Offline trboturtle

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Re: Published Author On Board
« Reply #135 on: May 17, 2014, 03:14:41 AM »
Not willing to go that route, no.

Any reason? I just wondering....
Author of 25+ stories for Battlecorps.com, the official website for Battletech canon stories.
Co-author of "Outcasts Ops: African Firestorm," "Outcast Ops: Red Ice," & "Outcast Ops: Watchlist"
http://thebattletechstate.blogspot.com

Offline Rechan

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Re: Published Author On Board
« Reply #136 on: May 17, 2014, 04:17:30 AM »
Any reason? I just wondering....
If you self-publish, you are responsible for everything, which means you either do it yourself or you pay someone to do it. That means editing, formatting/layout, cover art, printing, promoting, selling. Even if you go e-pub, that just means you aren't printing it.

Whereas even a small press will do most of that for you.

Now, this is taken with a grain of salt because even the Big Five traditional publishers now expect authors to be responsible for a good portion of their promotion. Gone are the days where you just crank it out and someone else handles all the other steps. But that is a world and a half from self-pub.

I'd much rather let someone else take care of all that other stuff, so I can focus on the writing part. ;)
« Last Edit: May 17, 2014, 04:19:37 AM by Rechan »

Offline Wordmaker

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Re: Published Author On Board
« Reply #137 on: May 17, 2014, 06:18:22 AM »
Yep, self-publishing isn't for everyone. The main reason I've gone hybrid is to get more books out there than my current publisher can manage in a year. That said, I want to find a literary agent now, so there'll be a while where I'm just releasing self-published titles.

Offline Rechan

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Re: Published Author On Board
« Reply #138 on: May 17, 2014, 07:02:25 PM »
Yep, self-publishing isn't for everyone. The main reason I've gone hybrid is to get more books out there than my current publisher can manage in a year. That said, I want to find a literary agent now, so there'll be a while where I'm just releasing self-published titles.
What do you need the literary agent for?

The biggest thing that I can tell an agent is good for is getting your manuscript into one of the Big Five publishers; they won't accept non-agented manuscripts.

Offline Wordmaker

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Re: Published Author On Board
« Reply #139 on: May 17, 2014, 07:09:22 PM »
There's a lot to be said for having someone to negotiate contracts and get you a better deal than you can on your own.

Offline Rechan

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Re: Published Author On Board
« Reply #140 on: May 17, 2014, 07:14:35 PM »
So that's what they do; I wasn't clear on an agent's role and duties.

Offline Wordmaker

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Re: Published Author On Board
« Reply #141 on: May 17, 2014, 07:58:42 PM »
Literary agents use industry contacts and knowledge to find the best time to pitch your book, the best publisher to pitch to (based on market trends and each publisher's current backlist and upcoming releases), helps you make changes to the manuscript to make it more marketable, and negotiates offers to find the best deal for you. Not to mention making sure you don't get stung with a bad contract.

I got lucky in getting my first book deal without an agent, but I'm ready to move forward with my career and want someone who knows the industry better than me to help.

Offline trboturtle

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Re: Published Author On Board
« Reply #142 on: May 18, 2014, 06:48:36 PM »
Literary agents use industry contacts and knowledge to find the best time to pitch your book, the best publisher to pitch to (based on market trends and each publisher's current backlist and upcoming releases), helps you make changes to the manuscript to make it more marketable, and negotiates offers to find the best deal for you. Not to mention making sure you don't get stung with a bad contract.

I got lucky in getting my first book deal without an agent, but I'm ready to move forward with my career and want someone who knows the industry better than me to help.

Word of advice: Before signing any contract, have a lawyer that has IP law experience review the contract. I have heard and read about horrorible contracts that screw over the writer so bad. That's both agent and publisher contracts. It'll cost a few bucks, but it's better than getting screwed....

Craig
Author of 25+ stories for Battlecorps.com, the official website for Battletech canon stories.
Co-author of "Outcasts Ops: African Firestorm," "Outcast Ops: Red Ice," & "Outcast Ops: Watchlist"
http://thebattletechstate.blogspot.com

Offline Wordmaker

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Re: Published Author On Board
« Reply #143 on: May 18, 2014, 07:49:09 PM »
Yep. I was lucky to have a friend who works for a non-fiction publishing house who was able to read over the contract for my first book.

You want to avoid anti-competition clauses and anything where there's no clear way to get your rights back.

Offline Willowhugger

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Re: Published Author On Board
« Reply #144 on: June 22, 2015, 10:16:40 PM »
I struggled for a very long time to get published before my 1st book was finally released by Amber Cover, "The Rules of Supervillainy" just a couple of weeks ago.

My second book, "Esoterrorism" is coming out on July 8th.

I owe Jim Butcher a lot for helping inspire my writing as well as develop my style but it was a long hard road. Almost five years in the process.
Check out my blog: http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/
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Offline Willowhugger

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Re: Published Author On Board
« Reply #145 on: July 10, 2015, 06:08:27 AM »
Esoterrorism came out a couple of days ago.

Available here

I generally prefer to publish with independent publishers rather than try to go with the big leagues and have worked with a number of them. One thing is the quality standards vary drastically and you really have to shop around. One of the more respected independent publishers I dealt with (who I ultimately turned down) offered me an extremely small percentage, ebook only publication, and almost no promotion benefits.

Amber Cover, by contrast, gave me a straight 50% of the fee from sales, an audio book guarantee, paperback guarantee, and plenty of work together for promotion.

Ditto, Ragnarok Publications.

So you really have to look around if you're going for indie publications as the terms are highly variable.
Check out my blog: http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/
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Offline Farmerbob1

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Re: Published Author On Board
« Reply #146 on: September 09, 2015, 08:50:21 AM »
Well, a few minutes ago, I joined the ranks of published fiction authors.  I published a short story of mine for 0.99 on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.  I don't think I blew anything up too badly, but, of course, I had errors in the short description and I haven't been able to fix them yet.

Benefactor

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0154JS53A?*Version*=1&*entries*=0

Offline The Deposed King

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Re: Published Author On Board
« Reply #147 on: September 15, 2015, 03:00:37 PM »
Good job farmer bob!



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Offline Snowleopard

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Re: Published Author On Board
« Reply #148 on: September 15, 2015, 06:41:17 PM »
Congratulations Farmer Bob, way to go.

Offline Squidly

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Re: Published Author On Board
« Reply #149 on: May 28, 2016, 02:39:27 PM »
A little good news from (and for) me. Some of you mat remeber that I tried self-publishing 'The Book of Xyxy' several years ago (2012) but it didn't really do all that well. I earned a whole $3.50 over the 8 or 9 months it was up on Kindle. I took the stories down from there in Jan of 2013 and they've pretty much been just sitting around since. However, I've been playing around with those and other stories in the meantime, and the good news is ...

Part 1 of The Book of Xyxyx,- Genassist - will be published sometime this summer by Smoking Pen Press in an anthology called 'A Read on the Run'. Not sure of the exact date, but I'll let you all know when I do.

Also, a short story of mine called 'The One' has been accepted by Fiction Magazines for publication in the Jun 11th issue of New Realm (a monthly online magazine).

I'm not sure how popular either of these are going to be but ... it gets my name out there.  8)
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