/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11273746]

Have any of you actually been published? If you have, post what it was in this thread and how successful it became. You don't have to be specific with names or anything, but describe what it was in as much detail as possible.

[Anonymous No.11273760]

Aiming for publication in an era of mediocrity is the mark of the ultrapleb.

[Anonymous No.11273775]

>>11273760
so that's a no, I take it

[Anonymous No.11273782]

>>11273746
Is your question really to pander to inscrutable standards or to find hope?

[Anonymous No.11273809]

>>11273782
I'm not OP but I literally don't understand what you're trying to say.

[Anonymous No.11273812]

>>11273760
>not trying to be the guy to change it

[Anonymous No.11273834]

Some music journalism. Gig reviews, quite a long piece about black flamboyance in music from little Richard to Pharrell. Literally the lowest form of writing there is.
But fuck you, I've had my work published on real paper with my byline and everything and I got paid.

[Anonymous No.11273861]

>>11273760
>era of mediocrity
That could be said about any era. The time just removed most of the shit and we're left with the good stuff.

[Anonymous No.11274274]

A poem of mine is soon to be published in The Mays anthology

[Anonymous No.11274278]

I've wrote books such as Antifragile and Black Swan, maybe you've heard of me?

[Anonymous No.11275365]

>>11274278
Here is a picture in case you all haven't heard of me yet.

[Anonymous No.11275372]

I wrote part of the hypersphere, recently I watched some youtube videos of some anon reading the book, felt so weird when he got to my part

[Anonymous No.11275754]

I've had six short stories published, one of them was in an anthology that got a lot of good reviews on Amazon and was mentioned positively by two huge review sites/blogs. Made about two hundo so far from writing, been writing seriously for about three years. I know that's literally nothing, but I see the amount of neckbeards on /lit/ who struggle to get a single sentence written or or whine when their 1,000,000 word high fantasy epic has been rejected for the hundredth time and can't understand why and get a little bit of a self esteem boost

[Anonymous No.11275784]

>>11273861
that's objectively untrue of most of human history, at least as far as literature is concerned. For most of history you had to be decently well educated to even write in the first place, and much better educated to have your works reproduced (not to mention the wealth necessary to meet both requirements which would preclude both education and erudition as a general rule).
I'm not one to sit here and bitch about being born in LE WRONG GENERASHUN but its plainly evident that we are closing or have already closed the gap between the amount of literature worth reading and the total amount of literature produced and are now rapidly turning the former into a comparative scarcity.

[Anonymous No.11275793]

>>11275365
Are you an Arab? You look like one.

[Anonymous No.11275799]

>>11273746
Does writing in a /lit/ doc project count?

[Anonymous No.11276007]

>>11275793
I AM NOT A FUCKING ARAB!

[Anonymous No.11276203]

I make my living by publishing private circulation Harry Potter fanfiction. I write from the Slytherin perspective with heavy emphasis on erotica

[Anonymous No.11276215]

>>11273746
Yes, last year I began my career as a freelance writer. I wish I had learned sooner how easy it is to make a living writing.

[Anonymous No.11276277]

>>11275372
What part did you write

[Anonymous No.11276297]

Published in multiple newspapers. Nothing long. We're not exactly in the heyday of writers here. The interest is off of white male writers, so basically everything from this point is going to be shit and literature is going to go downhill.

[Anonymous No.11276541]

>>11275784
>I'm not one to sit here and bitch about being born in LE WRONG GENERASHUN
But you are, and you threw in some nice class elitism - DAE things were better back when only landed gentry could reach the people with art?

[Anonymous No.11277172]

>>11275372
Hypersphere doesn't count retard.

[Anonymous No.11277874]

Haven't published yet but I've done some editorial work that got my name in print.

[Anonymous No.11277932]

>>11275754
How did you get your stories published? I'm sitting on a bunch of stories I've written and tweaked but haven't shown anybody except my friends. I have no idea how to go about publishing anything though, who do you send it to? Did you know what anthology you wanted to be part of ahead of time or did someone else place you in it?

[Anonymous No.11277954]

>>11277932
Just use submittable

[Anonymous No.11277962]

Workin on it senpai. I woke up to this email.

I have some blog stuff and did the amazon route, but that aint me.

[Anonymous No.11278312]

>>11276541
But it's true though. You can't hand wave away the fact that the aristocratic upperclass were the gatekeepers of culture because they were the most literate and educated who could afford to go to universities. As literacy and education became democratized, literature became commercialized. The language had to be dumbed down for the lowest common denominator, however. Knowledge and literature is still being preserved and safeguarded by academics (twisting them for Marxist ideological ends notwithstanding). So, the gatekeeping just shifted from the aristocratic ruling class to the bourgeois intelligenstia. The quality lit is still there, but it became buried under shitty books, and became more esoteric over time. You just have to be more patient and discriminating to find it.
>The time just removed most of the shit and we're left with the good stuff.
You are confusing quantity with quality. In an age of universal literacy, everybody thinking they are special, self-publishing, and advertisement & marketing, everone thinks they have a story or an idea worth publishing, and all they need is a pretty of provocative cover along with an attention grabbing summary and taglines. It isn't any other way.

[Anonymous No.11278383]

>>11277954
Looks like a shit site barely related to writing and more relevant for surveys

[Anonymous No.11278433]

>>11278383
Then you’re on the wrong website. It’s the middle man between your shit writing and lit journals.

[Anonymous No.11279970]

>>11273760
you're so fucking simple it hurts.

[Anonymous No.11279991]

>>11279970
t. has had work rejected multiple times

[Anonymous No.11280064]

I've published a bunch of papers in top CS conferences. We try to do good write, I promise.

[Anonymous No.11280083]

senpai

[Anonymous No.11280085]

>>11273746
I've been writing a YA fable/fantasy series for years. I'm doing really well! I'm no rowling but the lights stay on.

Kids just want to be listened to, I think? I don't know. It's weird, because I know a lot of people who work harder and are more talented than I am who don't get nearly as far. There's a weird survivor's guilt to success.

[Anonymous No.11280094]

>>11273746
Yep. In school magazines, when I was 10 (wrote a short story where I replaced nouns with drawings of the items) and 18 (wrote a couple of short movie reviews for the mag).
I'm pathetic, am I?

[Anonymous No.11280110]

>>11280094
Yes. I was in advanced English at no more than seven years of age, was frequently dispatched to the principal's office to show him my work, made my teacher fall down stairs and get brain damage (disputable), worked on a story with a senior student while plebeians practiced writing shopping lists.

[Anonymous No.11280137]

>>11280064
I fucking hate reading CS papers, they're always so clearly rushed and rarely argue with any real rigor. Sort out your field.

[Anonymous No.11280141]

>>11273746
I’ve had 8 short stories published not counting the ones in my university journal when I was in college, two of them are in semi-major lit mags (but not huge like Paris Review or the New Yorker) and the others are in smaller literary journals.

I recently sold my first novel (not the first one I wrote, just the first publishable one) for between 20-30k in the US. It’s literary/historical with some hints of magical realism. I feel extremely proud and hope to one day make my entire living as a writer. Right now I still have a regular old job.

AMA

[Anonymous No.11280142]

No, partly because I've never finished anything to my satisfaction and partly because getting published seems like a massive pain in the ass that you'll almost certainly fail at. I'm no good at all the shit you need to do to rep your work desu.

[Anonymous No.11280147]

>>11280141
>for between 20-30k in the US.
I don't believe you. What publisher even buys texts like that anymore?

[Anonymous No.11280159]

>>11273746
no my work is too good to be published

[Anonymous No.11280163]

>>11280159
>tfw not publishing your work so other authors still have a chance

[Anonymous No.11280204]

>>11280147
People like that have proof of profitability and credentials with being published in magazines or just things that shows your writing has been approved of (or if you have a large following on a social network). Whenever he finds an agent his letter can include the growing list that has taken him/her on. With enough work the truck will back up for you.

[Anonymous No.11280241]

>>11273746
I'm published recurrently in a magazine. I have total creative freedom as long as it's not "too political". It's not a huge magazine but I get quite a few readers. I enjoy it for the most part, problem is I've stopped putting much energy into it, I just do it for the money.

[Anonymous No.11281176]

>>11280147
Believe or not there are people whose first novels started bidding wars between publishing houses and end up making six to seven figure deals. It happens and even more, so I don’t see why it’s so unbelievable.

[Anonymous No.11281233]

I've had three short stories published, but nothing in a while. More recently I've had two poems published, or announced to be published, just this year. I'm starting to think that maybe poetry is my true calling. I certainly enjoy writing it, though I like prose too.

[Anonymous No.11281415]

I'm an english grad student, had my mildly successful YA novel published in New Zealand, mostly just read by teen booktube/goodreaders. Feels good. Wasn't my best writing, but it's a start.

[Anonymous No.11281449]

>>11280163
It's incredibly based. If that's true, I'm in admiration of this man.

[Anonymous No.11281453]

>>11280141
I'm gonna be the boomer here and ask if you have any advice for people just starting out.

Do ya?

[Anonymous No.11281496]

>>11273760
But isn't it way easier to break out with a great novel if everything else is mediocre? Could it be your writing is just shit?

[Anonymous No.11281657]

>>11281496
Perhaps he means that all the mediocrity has besmirched the good name of publication to such an extent that it would be better, more noble, to avoid pursuing it altogether.

[Anonymous No.11281771]

>>11281453
Find writers that you love and read their entire works from beginning to end. I am a believer in rereading books and closely studying them. Pick a handful of people you want to emulate or turn yourself into some sort of chimera of, and read them intensely. Even their works that are less praised.

Copy passages into a journal and memorize passages of literature that you love. Something about it will fuse with your style more if you memorize and copy the texts in your own hand, rather than just reading.

Have a word quota everyday and never ever miss it. 200 words per day is not very much but if you do that every day you will have a novel length manuscript in 1-1.5 years. I do 300 minimum and usually don’t go much over because I’m lazy.

Revise a lot but also rewrite, try to rewrite a whole story blind without referencing your first draft. You might find you write things better starting from scratch again. Understand that it might take 40+ drafts to get to the final product. Writing well is mainly about rewriting and revising and never being satisfied.

Find smart people to show your writing and make friends with them. Do this as many times as you can until basically everyone says you’ve got something good on your hands.