How many writers do we have here?

[MyKidLuvsGreenEgz]

self publish?

is that expensive? You foot all the bill and then you must sell your own books? Is that right?

Years ago I got pulled in by the "self-publish your own book" gimmick where you supply your manuscript and they print it. Then you have to market and sell it. They don't even edit it, help with illustrations, grammar, or help you find distributors. Don't go with those companies that help self-publish because it's a waste of money. YOU can do it yourself.

Then I got into actual publishing, and later moved into self-publishing my own work. Today, it's a LOT easier.
Look up Dan Poynter with ParaPub. He's pretty much the king of self-publishing.

As for cost, if you go the e-book route, it costs almost nothing to download a free program to make your book into a .pdf file, then join Amazon.com as a publisher and upload your e-book. Or some of the other online e-book distributors.

 

[Marianne]

Now that's some good stuff! Thanks for posting!

 

[Joel_BC]

I spent over 20 years in the magazine & newspaper free-lance writing field. Also wrote or edited publications that the government published (contract work). In the earliest years, since every assignment for an article was very short-term and earned between, say, $50 and $2000, I filled out my income by working as an assistant carpenter or assistant mason. I was able to leave the building trades behind, but I did gain some valuable manual skills during that time.

In the magazine & newspaper field, I wrote on a broad range of subjects - outdoor living and experiences, nature study, environmental topics, self-reliant and sustainable lifestyles, arts, fascinating people, small businesses (among other topics).

I was not living in the places where the publication offices were located (Seattle, Vancouver, Boston, New York, San Francisco) . Hence, I was never able to get to know the editorial staff people personally, such as by going out to lunch together. So I almost constantly had to research and pitch ideas to the editors, which at times was a little discouraging. After 20 years, I got tired of the frustrations of working in a feast-or-famine sort of field, and I took a job for seven years as the manager of a regional business association. A paycheck (of known quantity) every month! I did do some published writing during that period, but did not have to try to depend on it.

At this point, I do some editing work. And I'm writing short stories in my free time. Fiction (which is about all I write now) is almost totally different from jurnalism, although in journalism you do hone some word skills (such as 'turning a phrase'). But in fiction you aren't tied to facts in the same specific ways. Fiction is more parallel with what a painter does, and journalism is more like what an illustrator does. I'm enjoying getting my feet wet with fiction.

 

[~gd]

I used to earn a good living in a weird form of writing that I called Reverse technical writing. After kicking around a few years in Biotech labs, someone made me an offer that amazed me. I was called by a MD that wanted me to join his start-up company to produce vaccines for an early childhood disease. I was to take the test methods developed by his team of MDs and PhDs and rewrite them on a lower level that lab techs, managers, and salesmen could follow. If you have ever read a research report written at that level you might understand the need. I asked where he had gotten my name, and why he thought I could do such work. It was from a bit I had done before I went to college. I had taken no Biology in college since I had intended to be a chemist.
The salary was twice what I was then earning and the only drawback I could see was that I would have to wear a tie. I went from blue collar to white collar overnight. When I met the team I learned I was special, the only one not to have a doctors degree, the only one ever to have worked in industry, worked with government regulators and the oldest in the whole team. I would take their lovely technical reports which were 20 to 50 pages long and turn them into 3-5 page standard laboratory methods so that everybody was running the tests the same way. I also had to translate FDA regulations to them because regulators have their own language like when they say you will it means they want something done that way but when they say you shall it means they will take legal action against you if you fail to do it their way.
The product was a big success, it hit the market and we were bought out by a bigger firm. This kept happening about every 5 years, another new product and another buy out. I was never paid for my writings directly but they appear in the records of 66 countries.

 

[Joel_BC]

I would take their lovely technical reports which were 20 to 50 pages long and turn them into 3-5 page standard laboratory methods so that everybody was running the tests the same way. I also had to translate FDA regulations to them because regulators have their own language like when they say you will it means they want something done that way but when they say you shall it means they will take legal action against you if you fail to do it their way.
The product was a big success, it hit the market and we were bought out by a bigger firm. This kept happening about every 5 years, another new product and another buy out. I was never paid for my writings directly but they appear in the records of 66 countries.

This is an interesting story, ~gd.

In my freelance days, tried to get some work doing technical writing. But I think I only did one or two isolated jobs of that type.

When you say you were "never paid directly for [your] writings", do you mean that you were on salary? Just curious.

 

[TheMartianChick]

I've been writing for years. Until recently, I wasn't writing the about things that I really enjoy. In my day job, I write business plans and grants for small businesses and non-profit organizations. In my spare time, I began to write fanfiction for a tv show that was on the CBS network. A few years ago, I began writing articles for country living and agricultural magazines. While I still write articles and (now) blog for Grit magazine, I am finally able to write the original fiction that has been spinning in my head since I was a child. It is quite freeing to be able to write in the "voice" of each character and try to paint a scene for a reader. I also self-published my first novel through Amazon, though hubby and I did form a publishing company to allow us to be able to provide editing and other services to my regular business clients.

While I have incorporated some of my homesteading/self-sufficiency skills into a few of the novels that I am currently working on, I have others that are in a rough draft stage and they don't have the homesteading aspects.

 

[Beekissed]

I have aspirations to write, though I've never written anything to publish. I will be starting a book project after the first of the year...sort of a mixed genre of memoir, how-to, inspirational. We'll see what happens after it's done....

 

[TheMartianChick]

It is fairly easy to self publish with Amazon and if you decide that you don't want to release the book officially or publicize it, you can just leave it in a PROOF stage and order a few copies for friends and relatives. At that point, it is still a physical book with a cover and everything.

 

[Joel_BC]

It is fairly easy to self publish with Amazon and if you decide that you don't want to release the book officially or publicize it, you can just leave it in a PROOF stage and order a few copies for friends and relatives. At that point, it is still a physical book with a cover and everything.

It's an appealing option, TMC. A friend of mine just recently did one with Amazon - a book of photographs.

When considering this option, my feeling is that what's maybe lacking in the Amazon DIY book is what publishers conventionally offer: an independent editing input, really professional cover design, advertising/promotion, and widespread distribution (i.e., to bookstores).

One thing I've wondered is whether the book you make this way, via Amazon, can be used as a neat-and-tidy offering to a publisher - a nice-to-look-at "first-draft" format, from the publisher's point of view. (Even if you've re-drafted the text five times before you commit it to the Amazonn process.)

 

[CheerioLounge]

I have often thought about trying my hand at fiction. In my call center career I wrote many training manuals for different procedures and systems that we used, but that was very dry, technical stuff. Who knows, now in my forced retirement I may give fiction a try.