There's still a few days left to enter and the score stands at 10 all! Come and join the battle by entering your work.
My goal has become quite simple - I want a career as a writer.
That's not just about being able to make it financially viable enough to be my full time job, it's also about developing my craft to the best of my ability, participating in the wider writing scene and everything else a career entails.
So far I've had a couple of short stories published. In the short term my goals are to self publish a collected anthology for my website and try to get more of my shorts published. In the longer term I want to find an agent and publish novels.
As far as I'm aware you have to pay for ISBN numbers in the UK too.
Getting free ISBN numbers through Create Space ties you to that distributor, as you cannot use the ISBN through another publisher/distributor. I assume the same is probably true of similar sites. Since ISBN numbers are primarily used by distributors and retailers for stock distribution and so on, this seems to somewhat defeat the object of having one in my opinion. You can sell a book without an ISBN number, the only reason to have one is if you are looking to distribute more widely.
Of course if you go with a traditional publisher you don't have to worry about overheads of any kind.
That tip about making the first book in a series free is certainly something to think about.
It's a complicated question as there are so many different things in that list.
Would I pay someone to proofread my work, even if I'd learned how to do it myself? If I could afford to, yes, because I will always miss mistakes in my own work, no matter how much teaching I receive.
Would I pay someone to sort out ISBN numbers for me? No, since all I have to do is go to ISBN, buy a batch of 10 and register the details. Can I afford ten ISBN numbers? No. So would I pay a premium to buy a smaller quantity through a third party? Maybe.
Book cover design requires a completely different skill set, talent and level of effort from setting up an account on Smashwords.
So I can't answer for everything. On average though, I'd probably say I'd pay someone for a professional service if I could afford it, but at the moment I can't. But I would not pay someone to do what I consider to be my work for me.
Simultaneously reading "Dante's Inferno: A retelling in prose" by David Bruce (on my Kobo on my lunch breaks and the bus) and "Spellbound" by Kelley Armstrong (hardback, in the evenings).
Thanks for setting up the new groups. I'm looking forward to getting involved.
I'm a member of an online writing group elsewhere and I've got a couple of recommendations for guidelines which we might want to consider:
1. When posting a piece for critique, include the word count in the header of the post so readers can see at a glance how long the piece is. This is a really easy and useful bit of board etiquette.
2. Recommend a max word count for pieces of, say, 2,500 words. It's a lot to expect detailed feedback on a piece longer than that, so it might help keep members expectations realistic. Make it a guideline rather than a rule though; sometimes pieces don't lend themselves to being broken down.
3. My writing group works on a reciprocal principle. That is, if you post a piece for critiquing, you're expected to critique two other pieces. We work on a monthly basis, so each person can post once a month. It usually works to make sure no one's work ends up sitting on the board with no replies. The worst case scenario would be if everyone wanted to write, no one wanted to read, and all the posts sat there with no comments. Such a goodwill arrangement for writers to commit to critiquing other posts might be a good idea.
What do people think?
I tend to post pieces here that I am generally happy with. I have a writing group where I can get detailed critiques and, for me, Stories Space is more about sharing. That said, if someone takes the time to give me feedback then I welcome it. After nearly two years of serious writing I've learned how to take criticism better than I used to. People's opinions are their opinions. You may not agree with them, but why take offence when you can pick them apart and see what you can learn from them.
When I read other people's work, I like to try and pick up on one thing to praise and one thing that could be improved. I also try to explain my reasoning. But, I am wary about being overly critical, since there is no way to tell what sort of feedback a writer wants here. In my writing group I know were all there for the same reasons, and none of us hold back in picking each other's work to pieces. Here there are different people with different agendas.
Opps, posted in wrong topic.
I have a wordpress blog.
From the blogger's pov, Feedburner allows you to see the details of those who subscribe via RSS which are otherwise hidden from you. I don't have it installed at the moment, I don't think I get enough hits to my blog to need it yet.
Thanks for the links Alan.
I highly recommend Duotrope. I have used them a number of times. They have an excellent system for you to track your submissions and responses which I find really useful.
They also won't list anyone who charges a fee to read your work, so you can be confident there aren't going to be any catches to the markets you find.
