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/lit/ - Literature

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12325345 No.12325345 [Reply] [Original]

My mommy bought two copies of my book today.

How are all the authors on here doing?

>> No.12325397
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12325397

>>12325345
hi

>> No.12325404
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12325404

>>12325345
Your sugarmommy bought your book?

>> No.12325422

>>12325345
lmao your mom is a whore

>> No.12325549

>>12325345
Based mommy

>> No.12325597

>mom buys my book
>the main character has a very unhealthy love/hate relationship with his mother

>> No.12325626

>>12325597
>mom buys my book
>the main character is addicted to momcest porn

>> No.12325633

>>12325345
what's your book like ?

>> No.12325647

>>12325633
Just some low fantasy genre schlock. It's not going to revolutionize literature, but it was a fun story to write.

>> No.12325656

>>12325647
I'm happy for you anon.
Have a good life

>> No.12325659
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12325659

>>12325656
Thanks, friendo. Same to you.

>> No.12325664

>>12325647
Self edited and self published? Can you tell me more about your experience?

>> No.12325677

I have concluded the enraptured phase and have entered into the cycle of despair.

>> No.12325705

>>12325664
Sure. If you're looking at self-editing, I wholly recommend Amazon Polly. It's a text-to-speech program. It's free, but you do have to give them your card details in case you go over the generous limit of 1 million characters per month. The benefit of having your story read out to you by a machine is that any typing, spelling and grammar errors are immediately apparent in a way that aren't if you're reading. Seriously, it's been a life-saver. (Homophones and punctuation you'll have to sort out yourself, though.)

Self-publishing is a pretty pain-free process if you go through Amazon. You have to do your own cover, blurb, and pretty much anything else that would otherwise be the job of a traditional publisher, but I think it's worth it in the end to have full control. Downside of self-publishing: no one's going to market for you, so you need to do all of that yourself. You can either do it through AMS ads if you have disposable income and are happy to take a risk, or you can build up a following off Amazon and hope that some of it translates into sales or at least reviews that you can use to garner more sales.

The process from start to finish is obviously a lot more complex than that, but that's the most important stuff off the top of my head. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to offer guidance as best I can.

>> No.12325752

>>12325705
Thanks

>> No.12325761

>>12325705
talk a bit about your marketing efforts and growing an audience.

>> No.12325763

>>12325404
>Tfw my PI is my sugarmommy

>> No.12325789

>>12325656
>>12325659
die

>> No.12325795

>>12325761
"Proper" marketing has been nothing for now, but I've been growing an audience by posting my work online for free. If it's good, people will want more. I haven't reached the stage where I'm leveraging that for sales yet, but the goal is to at least get reviews and then use AMS to get sales based on the fact that the book already has good reviews.

But honestly, marketing is my weakest point in this whole process, so you're better off not taking advice on that from me.

>> No.12325813
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12325813

>>12325345
I love your mom because she loves you :D

>> No.12325830

>>12325795
it's less that i'm looking for solid advice and more that i'm interested in your struggle. have you had any interactions with people who have appreciated your work?

>> No.12325855

>>12325830
Yeah, quite a bit. Most of the people reading it tend to keep an eye out for new chapters as they come out. How much of this is sycophancy, I don't know, but said people tend to be very interactive and vocal about how much they like my work.

My problem is with scaling - I need to get it to more people - but how I'm going to do that, I don't really know. Again, there are AMS ads, but I've heard that they're an absolute money sink if you don't already have good reviews on Amazon.

>> No.12325862

>>12325855
Do you let your fans influence the story?

>> No.12325886

>>12325862
I'm not against the concept, but I haven't done so yet. I tend to be a few chapters ahead on my computer compared to what I've posted online, so taking on board suggestions would mean rewriting a lot of what I've already written.

The closest I've come to doing so is when something I introduced that was going to be a twist was predicted by every single reader in the first chapter that it was mentioned. I realigned the story to make it seem like a red herring instead. I didn't want to take it out completely because I'd already posted it and retroactive editing would just confuse people.

>> No.12325946

>>12325886
So you've finished the book, you're selling it, but you're releasing it in installments for free online up to a point? Or you're selling the story in installments? How does this work? Digital? Print?

Also, what online communities do you discuss your work in? What has been your biggest catch in terms of attracting new readers?

>> No.12325972

>>12325946
Releasing for free in installments and selling in entirety. It sounds self-defeating on the surface, but the way I see it, they're two different markets. No one's going to go to Amazon to buy a paperback but then not do so because they can read it cut into a trillion pieces on an app.

As for attracting new readers, speaking for myself, maybe about half of mine are other writers whom I've spoken with about writing (sharing tips, comments on their work, etc). I haven't done any marketing, so the other half have either heard about me through word of mouth or stumbled upon my work.

>> No.12326050

>>12325972
what has been the most challenging thing for you to pull off story-wise?

>> No.12326088

>>12326050
That's got to be balancing fun-to-write and fun-to-read. My first book was a passion project that I did wholly my own way and without any care for established conventions, and it got a rather quiet reception. No one said it sucked, but it didn't really take off either. My second one is more focused on what a reader would enjoy, and, not surprisingly, people that have read it seem to really like it and want more.

>> No.12326107

>>12325345
Be honest, did you sell more than two copies? Didn't think so.

>> No.12326110

>>12326088
what are your takeaways on reader enjoyment? sorry this conversation is somewhat one-way, i'd offer my own understanding of these things but i've yet to even finish anything so it's all hypothetical at this point.

>> No.12326143

>>12325795
Where do you post work? Your own website or some third-party? If it's your own website would you mind sharing some details for set-up and cost?

I've been thinking about doing something similar (and even in a similar genre).

I don't know if you'd be comfortable with this but do you have a throw-away email or something? I'm not gonna send you my work or anything, I just want to chat one-on-one.

>> No.12326209
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12326209

>>12325345
It's good that your mother mother bought me a copy of your book. Saves me the trouble of picking one up for myself. Well, I'll get along to reading it eventually. Good job boy.

>> No.12326215

>>12326110
That's a tough one to distill into a few words. Honestly, a lot of it is following cliches. For instance, imagine your average Jean Claude Van Damme movie. He spends the entire film fighting against the antagonist/adversity/whatever and taking loss after loss, then at the end of the film, against all odds, he beats it/him/whatever. Then you have the hated trope of constant quips between characters. Yes, literary and television snobs poo-poo it all the time, but readers love that stuff.

The list could go on forever, but the short version is: look at what makes up any given piece of popular fiction, and emulate it. I'm not suggesting ripping off stories (although there's something to be said for unoriginal movies rising to the top year after year), but rather, story structures and literary devices.

>>12326143
I don't have a website for my writing, but I've owned and run websites before, and it's dirt cheap. You can get personal shared hosting with a domain for $50 per year, or you used to be able to back in the day anyway.

You can write to 9567795610 [at] protonmail [dot] com