Spoonie Scribbling

The adventures of a chronically ill person who decided to write a novel.

[surreality51]

[drchucktingle]

hey chuckie, how do you get published and also over the fear of nobody liking your work.

my initial way was to trot a SELF PUBLISHED trot, which is pretty dang exciting because anyone can do it. after writing about four hundred books WORLDS GREATEST AUTHOR CHUCK sent a message to a big time publisher name of nightfire and said 'will you publish my horror novel in all stores?' and they said 'yes bud'

so basically to answer first question of 'how do you get published?' it is both simple and difficult. SIMPLE in that i just started self publishing which anyone can do but DIFFICULT in that i did it for a long time and wrote till my dang eyes fell out.

but honestly i do not think this is the real question.

i think what is really being asked is: how can i climb over the greatest hurdle of all, the voice telling me that i am no good?

the way is to understand that YOU ARE GOOD AT BEING YOU. in fact YOU ARE PERFECT AT BEING YOU. there is LITERALLY NOBODY BETTER, not now, not in the past, not in the future. you are a brilliant eruption of rarity in the middle of endless time stretching forever in either direction.

when i say 'i am the worlds greatest author' i HECKIN MEAN IT, but this does not mean that i am better than you. the podium i stand on is not just for one buckaroo, it is for ALL BUCKAROOS. there is plenty of room at the top because YOU CAN BE THE WORLDS GREATEST AUTHOR TOO. IN FACT, YOU ALREADY ARE.

now that you realize you hold this power and prestige, what are you gonna do with it? that is up to you bud. id say you should go out and publish your dang incredible book

[thebibliosphere]

This is more of a problem on Facebook and Twitter, but there are some fellow authors who get a tad... upset when you talk about money and royalty earnings.

Needless to say, my frankness about how royalties work and just how little many of us are earning from our labor has drawn the ire of a few people, even here on Tumblr.hell.

I'm not particularly bothered by this. In my view, they're the same people who won't discuss wages in the workplace because they don't want anyone else to earn what they do. They know the system is unfairly rigged, but they like it that way because they're scared if more people are educated about how things work, they'll lose whatever competitive edge they think they have, thus enforcing the status quo.

Needless to say, I don't care for this view.

I'm very much a "holy shit, two cakes" kind of creator. I also very firmly believe in pulling people up behind me and spreading the wealth of information that was shared freely with me by other like-minded individuals who also believe that the mysteries around publishing are gatekeeping bullshit and everyone deserves the chance to earn money from their creative endeavors, not just the people who can afford to.

Anyway, David Gaughran's 'Let's Get Digital: How To Self-Publish And Why You Should' is an invaluable resource for indie authors and provides great insight into how publishing and distribution work. It is available for free through the retailers listed on his website.

If you don't want to publish exclusively through Amazon, draft2digital.com does global ebook and also paperback distribution. (I've only used it for ebooks, but I'll be trying out their paperback options for my next book.) You can pair it up with a books2read account to create easy-to-post buy links. Draft2Digital also allows for distribution through library lending services like Overdrive. So that's neat. (NB: if you use d2d, you can't use Kindle Unlimited, so be aware of what links you have active and where if you decide to enroll in KU. You can always opt for wide distribution again once your KU time expires.)

D2D also recently partnered with FindawayVoices.com for audiobook distribution. You can find voice actors there, or you can upload your own files if you already have them. You can submit to Audible through them, too, but you'll earn a pittance more if you upload directly through Audible. Findaway also allows for library lending distribution through Libby and several other global equivalents.

If you need ISBNs, you can buy them cheaper in bulk from Bowker at myidentifiers.com

Individual storefront options like Payhip.com and Gumroad.com are also great ways to allow people to buy directly from you, though I soured on Gumroad after the whole NFT thing and their CEO harassing people on Twitter over it. Payhip is now my preferred storefront, and as an added bonus, they calculate VAT in European countries as well, so that's one less thing for me as an indie author to work out. As an added bonus, Payhip can be directly integrated into your author website if you have one. It's a feature I'll be implementing soon.

itch.io also allows for the sale and distribution of ebook files, though I haven't used it yet.

If you don't have the means to hire a cover designer or the means to do it yourself in photoshop, Canva.com has some decent-ish ebook templates. Just make sure the images and fonts you're using have the right licenses for commercial use.

Editing and formatting are also extremely important, though I know not everyone can afford them. If you can, I highly suggest doing so and shelling out extra to have them format your work across mediums. Ebook formatting is different from paperback formatting, and it can look very strange if you just try to format an ebook into a pdf. It is a skill you can teach yourself (plenty of youtube videos) if you really want to, but I prefer to throw money at my editors, who provide formatting as an additional service. Whatever you can afford to do to streamline the process is money well spent.

Also, do not be shy about using affiliate links to sell your work. Authors lose a solid chunk of money to places like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, etc., in distribution fees. Whatever pennies you can scrape back through affiliate links for directing traffic to those sites is hard-earned--and it is literal pennies sometimes. You can also integrate any affiliate links you do have into draft2digital, so they auto-generate, which is handy.

When it comes to paperbacks, BookShop.org offers the best affiliate earnings, and a percentage of the sale goes toward supporting indie bookstores. They do not take that percentage from your earnings, they pay it themselves. Libro.FM is the audiobook equivalent of BookShop.org, and they also give a percentage of sales to supporting indie book stores.

Anyway, I hope that helps someone. Good luck out there.

Also, if you're the person who sent me the irate email about "giving away trade secrets," feel free to die mad about it. 😘

[skittlebits]

Happy November!

[authorkims]

[mywritingcannotbestopped]

Is this a problem?

[gae-bolg-alternative-dot-exe]

[traditional-latin-math]

[draculas-husband]

[dduane]

...All of the above?

(headclutch)

[onespoontowrite]

*mental ping*

Holy shit.

I could totally write a seance, or a ghost hunting thing, or something else similarly wonderfully stupid into my book. It would absolutely fit.

[darkbloomiana]

[bixbythemartian]

hey, I'm from Norman, and Summer Boismeir wasn't fired- technically. She was 'investigated' and placed on administrative leave. The district claimed that she was expected to return to teaching, but she has since resigned. (Given the extremely patronizing language the NPS put out about this, I do not blame her for resigning in the slightest.)

what happened was, she put up a lot of red paper over book covers in her room, and wrote on it 'books the state doesn't want you to read'. It looked something like this:

(It looked exactly like this. I have borrowed this picture from Ms. Boismeir's twitter. The link to where this specific photo can be found is here.)

She put the QR code above on the board of her classroom.

This was the first day of class, which was August 19. (In fact, this picture was taken before school started.) A parent complained immediately, and the shitshow started. There have been six school days, school won't have been going on a full two weeks until September 2 (writing this on August 28 2022). That's how fast this has gone down.

The Green Feather Book Company in Norman is raising money to get t-shirts printed and made available for NPS students at no cost to the students.

notice the venmo address (@soonerhawkeye) if you want to help support them in this endeavor. This was posted August 26, 2022, but is still going on August 28 2022, as far as I'm aware.

This is a national thing, an ongoing problem with the book bans that are going up everywhere, but it's also an extremely local thing, and I just wanted to bring some attention to that, because this is my hometown.

[carpe-diem-since-1899]

[intj-confessions]

Every writing advice thing ever: Don’t get bogged down in details on your first draft. Just write! ☺️

Me: How I begin this scene hinges on whether cheese sandwiches were served with mayo in the 50’s.

[colourfullmess]

have not seen anything more relatable today >.<

[wufflesvetinari]

let me link the world’s most useful twitter thread. 

some excerpts:

there’s nothing to stop you from using the <get there> method for research details. in fact, i know many many writers who use it for just that.

[anexperimentallife]

[teashadephoenix]

Me reading a really good book: god this makes me wanna write

Me reading a really bad book: ugh this makes me wanna write

Me having coffee: i wanna write

Me going on a drive: i wanna write

Me doing the dishes: i wanna write

Me waking up: i wanna write

Me writing:

[transformativeworks]

[image description: a GIF of a blank word document and blinking cursor. end of description]

[thebibliosphere]

Hello Joy! I loved Hunger Pangs & really appreciate the time you take to answer our questions about the book & self-pub! :^)

I was wondering how a hopeful self-published author would vet their editor?

I checked out the editors you used, but I found someone who is familiar with Arthurian Lit I may want to work with instead as that suits my needs. I already received sample edit & agreed with the feedback. But I also want to be sure they’re not like going to try & edit out my queer themes! Any thoughts on tactfully addressing that? Thank you!

Well, the simplest thing would be to sit down with them and discuss what you want to achieve and see how you vibe together.

Sample edits are an excellent means of gauging technical skills, but unless they put it on their website that they are queer/queer-friendly (and some editors do--I used to), the only way to know they’ll be a good fit for you and your goals is to actually ask them and tell them what you want from a project.

If they vibe with it? Great! If they give you weird vibes, thank them for their time and move on. Some editors might charge an assessment fee for this conversation but in my professional experience, I’d only ever do this if I was given the whole manuscript to read first because reading + providing feedback = time and my time is valuable--just like yours! So check and see if they offer manuscript assessments. Most good editors should. (I know @roselarkpublishing does.)

And even then you won’t really know if you’ll be a good fit until you experience working with them. It could be they nod and say all the right things at the time, but when push comes to shove, you might not like their suggestions, and that's okay. You’re allowed to disregard certain suggestions or ask them to tweak things.

And let’s be clear, any edits they make to your manuscript should be marked up as suggestions using the review tools so you can eitheir approve or reject them. The editor should not be changing anything where you can’t see what they’ve changed first.

If they just alter your manuscript in such a way where you don’t know what’s been edited, that's not great and also not how it should be done. Time was we’d edit things with a red pen and leave handwritten notes. Now we have handy review tools that let you see the changes side by side and scroll through them all.

You can also, if you really hate the edit, thank them for their time so far, pay them what they’re owed and find someone else. It's an expensive way of finding out you’re not a good fit, but that's why I suggest getting a manuscript assessment and talking it through first. That's often the best way to find out if you’re going to be a good fit together.

Basically, like any good relationship, you need to communicate with them.

Best of luck! I hope this was helpful.

[stitch-n-time]

Authors, I have a question

There are restrictions on how much of a manuscript can be published online, or publicly, if you’re planning on publishing for profit.

Does anybody know offhand what percentage of the book that is? Isn’t it like 10% or something?

[fellshish]

@ fic authors what do you personally consider a successful fic? What’s the bar?

[sherl-grey]

actually writing the fic down

[mikkeneko]

i just got this comment over on twitter and honestly i think this is one of my favorite things that has ever been said to me about writing

[mikkeneko]

#THE MAGIC WORD PERSON TYPICALLY ALSO WANTS TO SHAKE THEMSELVES UNTIL THE STORIES FALL OUT

truer words never spoken

[alcibiades-hacks-it]

[onespoontowrite]

A Minor Discovery

I found out where the court transcripts are! So what does that mean for this blog? Well… absolutely nothing. I’m not going to go digging until I deem it safe for myself to be out in public for that long. They’re also not at the museum or anywhere directly relating to the museum, which is what this blog is about. Does that mean that I won’t go digging? Not necessarily. One day I’ll get the itch…

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