Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

zhubert.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 169 posts

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#51

Post by maxerickson »

amelius wrote: post #19
ilamont wrote: post #5

The author mentions getting a copy editor, but I would also advise hiring a development editor and/or getting feedback from beta readers. Quoting Stephen King (1): Show your piece to a number of people—ten, let us say. Listen carefully to what they tell you. Smile and nod a lot. Then review what was said very carefully. If your critics are all telling you the same thing about some facet of your story—a plot twist tha…

With this approach, your novel becomes an average of what the masses like to read, rather than what you wanted to say. Engineered for the masses, so to speak. Which, of course, could explain why King is so successful.

Or maybe it leads to people more clearly receiving the intended message.

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#52

Post by joeax »

amelius wrote: post #19
ilamont wrote: post #5

The author mentions getting a copy editor, but I would also advise hiring a development editor and/or getting feedback from beta readers. Quoting Stephen King (1): Show your piece to a number of people—ten, let us say. Listen carefully to what they tell you. Smile and nod a lot. Then review what was said very carefully. If your critics are all telling you the same thing about some facet of your story—a plot twist tha…

With this approach, your novel becomes an average of what the masses like to read, rather than what you wanted to say. Engineered for the masses, so to speak. Which, of course, could explain why King is so successful.

I'm a published author and I agree that you shouldn't compromise the elements of your storytelling, but you should at least value their input and look for patterns. The rest is noise.

For example: I got criticism for character names, too much romance, too little romance, not painting settings enough, too much description in certain places, etc

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#53

Post by cstross »

NOTE: Step 2: Write the Novel ... You know, the easy part.

For those who have never written a novel, writer is being sarcastic here. The equivalent in terms of reference more familiar to the regulars on HN might well be: "Step 2: study for a CS degree, then decide which industry you intend to disrupt, learn how it works, and come up with a strategy. Oh, and write the killer app."

This is just the framework for the business plan: it's helpful, but it's insufficient on its own.

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#54

Post by exergy »

thedz wrote: post #28
amelius wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With this approach, your novel becomes an average of what the masses like to read, rather than what you wanted to say. Engineered for the masses, so to speak. Which, of course, could explain why King is so successful.

IMO, this is an artistic fallacy that needs to die. Responding and adjusting to feedback doesn't undermine the integrity of a work or weaken its authenticity. Cycles of feedback and iteration are common to all work in every medium. Obviously, you can take responding to feedback too far, but the idea of the artist-in-a-tower-birthing-a-fully-grown-work-whole is an inaccurate idea at best, and a damaging assumption at…

Depends on what you account for as feedback. If we are narrowly talking about plot twists when writing an entertaining thriller, than yeah, by all means, make sure the audience gets it. Also, there is much to be said about a sharp, crisply edited book that doesn't meander or ramble pointlessly.

On the other hand, in general I almost exclusively read books and blogs because I'm interested in what the author has to say, rather than what I'd like to hear. Cal Newport discusses the idea of craftsmanship in a way I really like. When you're building a table or a bass guitar, there are better and worse woods for the application at hand that have little to do with how the craftsman feels about them. They are, to an extent, impersonal and external to him. A song or a poem, by contrast, have everything to do with the author and little in the way of objectivity about them.

Of course, all of this is a case of finding an optimum balance.

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#55

Post by j_s »

scandox wrote: post #49
j_s wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really appreciate the practical advice you're sharing as someone in the trenches of this specific process. What is the first action that should be taken by someone wanting to self-publish? Something about getting the product in front of a critical audience ASAP to prevent wasting time creating something that even marketing can't save?

Well I don't want to oversell my wisdom here. I have a specific outlook on all this and commercial success is low down on the list of priorities I think about. That said: The trouble with getting stuff in front of a critical audience is that you don't get many chances. If you run after friends and family with a manuscript, you may also find your circle of acquaintance rapidly shrinking. So, I don't think you can trea…

No apologies! Thanks for taking the time to flesh out a first action that could easily spare a future author some heartache.

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#56

Post by zhubert »

arc_of_descent wrote: post #47

I'm curious. Do you jot everything down on Scrivener? Or do you also write on paper? Lately I've been carrying a notebook everywhere I go and I'm starting to write much more.

Both. Ideas for the story accumulated in a Moleskin for a few months before I started writing. I also carry around a little field notes booklet in my backpack/pocket a good bit of the time. Makes me feel like a creative :)

The major edit was done via 3x5 cards. Each card had a scene, the values it turned on, and the actors in the scene, so I sort of treated it like a screenplay. 3x5 cards are really nice for juggling things around (though Scrivener does has a corkboard view, I liked the paper approach for this step).

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#57

Post by BeetleB »

exergy wrote: post #54
thedz wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, this is an artistic fallacy that needs to die. Responding and adjusting to feedback doesn't undermine the integrity of a work or weaken its authenticity. Cycles of feedback and iteration are common to all work in every medium. Obviously, you can take responding to feedback too far, but the idea of the artist-in-a-tower-birthing-a-fully-grown-work-whole is an inaccurate idea at best, and a damaging assumption at…

Depends on what you account for as feedback. If we are narrowly talking about plot twists when writing an entertaining thriller, than yeah, by all means, make sure the audience gets it. Also, there is much to be said about a sharp, crisply edited book that doesn't meander or ramble pointlessly. On the other hand, in general I almost exclusively read books and blogs because I'm interested in what the author has to say…

>On the other hand, in general I almost exclusively read books and blogs because I'm interested in what the author has to say, rather than what I'd like to hear.

I assume you read mostly nonfiction, then?

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#59

Post by username223 »

austenallred wrote: post #9

I just finished my first book, and I went a little bit different of a route than the author here. I know this isn't very DIY, but it's probably worth knowing it's an option: I simply hired someone who works at a book publishing company to edit and typeset the book for me on the side. The person I hired does it for a living and is incredibly good at it. Let's just say it's not the most lucrative career choice, so I ha…

> we're ebook only so far

Any insight on "piracy" rates? I recently published something print-only, and was considering offering a PDF (layout matters). It's a completely different "vertical," so the rest of your experience isn't too relevant.

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#60

Post by j2kun »

necklace wrote: post #58

Seems I am on a downvote streak lately so I'll keep going; why would you not use (Xe)LaTeX? If I was too lazy to use that I would probably use something like bookdown.

I am using LaTeX, but I'm almost certain it will be a pain when I go to the eBook step, since they all have their own formats and I'm not aware of any tools that can render the math formulas in my book faithfully on all of them.
Post reply on HN