Well, it pretty much sucks to be anyone involved in publishing right now, I think. Yeah, it sucks for me and other aspiring authors because companies will slow down acquiring new projects, but it really sucks for those who lost their jobs in the past few weeks.
Since everyone who visits me is, I'm pretty sure, a writer, what are your plans for the upcoming months? Will you hunch down and polish your manuscripts until they gleam? Try to write as much as you can so you'll have tons of stuff to submit when things calm down? Or will you go on with business as usual?
I'm nowhere near the querying stage, despite my drafted letter below. I'm editing DRAWN TO YOU, slowly but surely. It's pretty fun to add in scenes. When it's all said and done, I think the ms will be closer to 60k. Whee!
I hardly make my living as a writer. My NaNo novel was the first novel I have ever finished since HS. So, I am just now getting back into it. I'll be editing my NaNo novel, but not until the first of the year. This month I am focused on my blog and reading. Oh and the occasional game of Peggle.
ReplyDeleteWhat's Peggle?
ReplyDeleteI'm focusing more on the electronic market. Even at the NY publishers, like Random House, their e-sales have tripled this year. The profits for all the major e-publishers have done nothing but rise, significantly.
ReplyDeleteThat's where my main focus is, at the moment. If something else comes along, cool.
Hey, spyscribbler. What's the difference between e-publishing and having tangible books, beyond the obvious? I'm guessing e-publishing will continue to blow up with the kindle and similar devices.
ReplyDeleteI'm no where near ready to query any of my novels. Unfortunately, most of them never see "the end." It's a personal struggle of mine. If I stick with the goal I set four years ago, I still have six years before I wanted to be published. I figured ten years was enough time to learn, practice, and write something good enough. If it happens sooner, all the better.
ReplyDeleteSo, I suppose I'll keep learning and trying to write something I'm proud enough to query within the next few years. Who knows what the market will look like then. I just hope it's better.
Yeah, I know. The market is scary. I'm hoping, with the new year, we will see better days.
ReplyDeleteThe news has me down, I have to admit. I've written my agent an email to ask her thoughts on everything and if it will affect our submission process. Hopefully, I'll hear positive news from her soon.
ReplyDeleteUntil then, I'll just keep on writing.
Jen, I hope you hear back soon. Keep writing; I guess that's all we can do.
ReplyDeleteGood question. Oy, it's rough out there...I'm trying to do business as usual. :D
ReplyDeleteps--feel free to email me directly with your questions about AB! What kind of stuff do you want to know?
I'm not sure there's enough information out there to differentiate between the different classes of epublications. I'll use the word "normal" to represent the standard dead-tree publication through big print editions. (Say RWA Rita standards.)
ReplyDelete1) epub of public domain works, (which makes money for the publisher but none for the authors).
2) epub auxiliary to normal publishing, (which adds marginal money for the authors already publishing normally).
3) epub backlist to authors publishing new books normally, (which is an auxiliary direct royalty channel for longstanding authors).
4) direct-to-epub for new authors.
The question is, how viable is direct to epub for a new author? I don't have an answer, but I'd love to hear some opinions and facts.
I have question, for example, on how wide the market is, versus how deep. In other words, if epubs are making lots of money and selling lots of ebooks, but the average title is selling 100 copies, then it isn't really viable for a writer, is it?
Actually, average versus median data would be interesting info too. If most titles sell less than fifty copies, but a few sell tens of thousands, averaging a couple hundred, then there's more of a realistic market.
I assume this because I know there will be many low-quality ebooks due to the lower barrier to entry, and typically lower editing and layout standard, so I'd expect a good book - cough cough anything written by anyone here - to do better than 2/3 of the ebooks out there.
Eh, trucking along. It's never REALLY a good time to be an aspiring writer, haha, right?
ReplyDelete