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How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

zhubert.com

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Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#131

Post by Nomentatus »

rev_bird wrote: post #130
crpatino wrote: post #124

More or less off-topic question. How to not get sued by overzealous copyrights holders? I have an idea for an informal Chemistry 101 notebook. I might end up making comparissons between cartoon characters and periodic table elements: Hydrogen ~= Tinkerbell, Hellium ~= Master Yoda, Lithium ~= Philoctetes (from Hercules movie), etc. It is not reassuring that most references in that list are owned by Disney Co.

>How to not get sued by overzealous copyrights holders? I might be misunderstanding, but why is it unreasonable for the holder of a copyright to object to an author using their work without licensing it? This in particular seems like a pretty clear-cut example of actual infringement.

Not sure why you don't see the mere mention of cartoon characters as lying outside fair use. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#1._Purpose_and_charac...

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#132

Post by Nomentatus »

malloreon wrote: post #99
faet wrote: post #64

I have some of my books on Amazon KDP and a few not. KDP is nice because it's easy. But, the exclusivity can suck.

You are mixing up terms. KDP refers to the entire publishing program. KU, Kindle Unlimited requires exclusivity but you get paid by page read.

He may be referring to using KDP's freebie program, that requires exclusivity. I keep waiting for Amazon to be dinged for monopoly abuse on that policy, but I'm still waiting.

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#133

Post by Nomentatus »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #123
lutusp wrote: post #111

Quote: "TL;DR: Scrivener, Vellum, KDP, Createspace" Scrivener is US$40, Vellum is Mac-only and US$200, the other two are unnecessary/replaceable and IMHO should be a list of equivalent options -- once you have a manuscript, which can be created using any number of free tools. Someone who imagines writing the Great American Novel, but who also expects to have to pay a premium for each step along the way, may not grasp…

To be fair, he's describing the tools that worked for him. Scrivener is for taking stories from notes through first draft; it's not a word processor in the same way Word and LibreOffice are, and there's no direct free software equivalent. You could use free tools for the same tasks, but you'll do those tasks differently--and that might be preferable to you, depending on how you work. Scrivener is very powerful, very…

Scrivener now spits out epub and I believe mobi formatted final products if you wish. Use is non-trivial however.

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#134

Post by memset »

zhubert wrote: post #21
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…

Howdy, author here. Completely agree on the early reader feedback. I went through two rounds of readers (alpha and beta) and it was immensely helpful in grinding down some of the rough edges of the book. A development editor would be fantastic as well, I honestly just didn't know where to find one!

It turns out that many editors who work at major publishers also freelance edit on the side. (Source: I have many friends who work at Penguin in NYC.) If you want, I can ask some of them if they know any leads who might be interested.

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#135

Post by memset »

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 have a small circle of artist friends, and we were discussing this at a Brooklyn rooftop over beer (of course.) They were a group of illustrators who work in publishing, and talking about the frustrations of getting feedback from authors who didn't "get" their illustrations.

One person then brought up a point: "If you only created art for it's own sake, rather than for people," she said, "you'd be in the fine arts. And if that is what you want to do then awesome. But what we do - making art that people will use, because that's what we value - is different."

And I think that is the point here. If the goal is to make a novel that people will want to read and share and enjoy, that necessarily means foregoing your own idea of what the writing ought to be. And that is a completely okay motivation to create art!

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#137

Post by jessaustin »

zhubert wrote: post #106
valine wrote: post #94

> The lingua franca for most writing is Microsoft Word so you’ll have to buy that eventually... I don't understand why something as ubiquitous as writing necessitates spending $100 on software from Microsoft. A plain text editor works out of the box. If you have a need for more complex formatting you could use LibreOffice, OpenOffice, Pages (comes free with a new Mac/iPad), WPS Office, etc. I get that Word has is the…

It wasn't the formatting actually. Change tracking of the proposed edits from the copyeditor was greatly expedited through Word's toolset. While I could have copied them all over by hand, I figured I'd likely introduce other errors in the process. Clicking accept/reject was worth the peace of mind.

It's my (possibly false...) impression that those who find Word's "Track Changes" valuable, have never used diff/patch or any of their many descendants (i.e. git etc.) Trying to keep two contributors' work straight with Word's "Track Changes" is a hair-pulling challenge. With more people, forget about it. In large groups, I've found even "change the third sentence in the ninth paragraph" requests via email to be better...

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#138

Post by Broken_Hippo »

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.

Not really. It is just a method for getting - and processing - feedback.

You aren't taking all suggestions, just the ones that 9 or 10 out of 10 agreed was bad. 6-8 complain? consider changing it. Not that you have to or anything.

With these categories, it is more likely that you didn't write something clearly enough for others to have your understanding of the subject. Maybe it doesn't make sense or whatever. Either way, edits are needed.

And this holds true even if you are writing non-fiction about a somewhat niche subject. If your intended audience doesn't get it, you won't sell to the tiny group you are aiming at.

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#139

Post by [deleted] »

memset wrote: post #134
zhubert wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Howdy, author here. Completely agree on the early reader feedback. I went through two rounds of readers (alpha and beta) and it was immensely helpful in grinding down some of the rough edges of the book. A development editor would be fantastic as well, I honestly just didn't know where to find one!

It turns out that many editors who work at major publishers also freelance edit on the side. (Source: I have many friends who work at Penguin in NYC.) If you want, I can ask some of them if they know any leads who might be interested.

[deleted]

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#140

Post by zhubert »

memset wrote: post #135
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.

I have a small circle of artist friends, and we were discussing this at a Brooklyn rooftop over beer (of course.) They were a group of illustrators who work in publishing, and talking about the frustrations of getting feedback from authors who didn't "get" their illustrations. One person then brought up a point: "If you only created art for it's own sake, rather than for people," she said, "you'd be in the fine arts…

I liken the idea of alpha readers to the popular tech concept of failing fast. Why not fail early in front of a smaller audience (with a chance to pivot and improve) than wait to fail late and run out of runway (or motivation).

In my case, I thought I had told a different story than the alphas perceived, so, in truth, I hadn't told the story I set out to. Making changes was a natural part of the process to correct issues "lost in translation" as it were.

PS: rooftop conversations sound awesome, by the way.

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