The Genre Underground discussion

I apologize if this isn't the right place to put this, but I've recently been looking to amp up my writing career. I'm considering taking one of my pet stories and turning it into an ebook.

My question is how do I know if I'm ready for that step? I've been working on this short story for a long time, and had considered one of two possibilities. Either write it as a novella or write it as several short stories to publish as ebooks.

Any advice that you guys have to offer would be greatly appreciated. If you feel that your information may be to overwhelming to type on here, I can set you up with my email in order to make it less straining on the topic. Thanks in advance everybody!

The only way to find out is to do it. If you never start you will never know. I started at age 56. Now on my third novel. Go, man, go!

The great thing about self publishing is that you can start with a novella idea AND do the full novel. It's all yours.

If you've been reading short story periodicals in your genre for years, do write the individual stories. Otherwise, I'd write the novella. The only test I can think of to see if it's best for you to epublish the book is to then write a second, independent story. If your first novella still seems good in hindsight, then consider buying an editor.

The sooner you get it out there, the sooner you can get reviews and feedback. Don't take a zillion years trying to get it perfect when you can always update the book/story with a few clicks.

Actually take as long as it takes to get it perfect. You only get one chance to make a first impression. And no matter how much updating you do once you've lost a customer you can never get them back.

Rashad wrote: "Actually take as long as it takes to get it perfect. You only get one chance to make a first impression. And no matter how much updating you do once you've lost a customer you can never get them back."

That's actually wrong nowadays. Here is an excerpt from an author who's making six figures after publishing 14 books in two years. I'll get his name soon. My ePublisher talks to this guy regularly.

""Author A is an incredibly skilled writer and a perfectionist who goes by the old model of publishing. He takes two years to write and publish the book, and it’s ABSOLUTELY PERFECT! There are no typos and every factual tidbit in the book is 100% accurate. It is literally a perfect book. Author B is a good writer, but not incredible by any means. He’s not a perfectionist either, he just wants to write a book that’s “good enough.” So he writes his book on Facebook in four months and publishes it. It’s far from perfect! His first readers tell him about a dozen typos and factual errors. So what does he do? He takes that feedback and fixes all the errors and typos, and in a few hours they don’t exist anymore. In a few weeks, his book only has a few typos left and is now totally factually accurate, thanks to some helpful feedback from readers. At first, Author A sells more books than Author B because it has more 5-star reviews and readers know it’s a really well-written book. Then Facebook makes some changes. They release Timeline and Facebook Offers and all kinds of other changes. Author B, being proactive, updates his book to reflect these new changes and in a few hours those updates are now live. Author B’s new readers now start leaving 5-star reviews, impressed that the book has such up-to-date information. Author A’s book starts getting more and more negative reviews as readers realize that the content is out of date. Eventually, Author A’s sales dry up while Author B takes over the market because his book is so up to date. Do you understand now why speed is more important than perfection? Everyone talks about how the world is changing faster than ever, and how “the world is flat.” Why then do so many authors take so long to embrace these crucial changes? But it’s not just the speed at which you make updates to your books that will give you a competitive advantage; it can also be speed to market, or how fast you publish. Assuming Author A and Author B had started writing at the same time, Author B would have had a year and eight months head start on sales. You can sell a lot of books in a year and eight months! And you can build an incredible author brand in that time as well. Publishing fast provides a huge advantage. Yes, there are downsides to it. Your book might have mistakes in it. It might not be perfect. People might leave bad reviews. But your book is going to get bad reviews anyways, assuming it has any modicum of success. Harry Potter has Eighty-eight 1-star reviews last time I checked."

Rashad wrote: "Actually take as long as it takes to get it perfect. You only get one chance to make a first impression. And no matter how much updating you do once you've lost a customer you can never get them back."

The author I quote is Steve Scott.

Hey Justin. You will probably sell more novellas. Smashwords has done a study and the longer the book, the better (depending on the genre of course). Speaking from personal experience, I have released two novels, a book of short stories and separate short stories and the short stories hardly sell. My novels sell at least 1 a day, every day. If I were you, I would either group the short stories into one book, or write the novella, get two or three people you trust to read it with the provisor that they give you totally honest feedback and take it from there.

To each of you guys, thanks you. Though it has been a year since posting this, each of you continues to give me advice. I admit that, due to a painful experience in my career over the last year and my recent change to a new one, I am still no further with my goal. But your suggestions might just be what I need to get my ass in gear, because though I like that sense of accomplishment I get with my my day job, I don't love it and I do love writing.

Long winded I know, so again I'll just say thank you. :D

Justin wrote: "To each of you guys, thanks you. Though it has been a year since posting this, each of you continues to give me advice. I admit that, due to a painful experience in my career over the last year a..."

Pfft that wasn't long-winded

S.M. wrote: "Rashad wrote: "Actually take as long as it takes to get it perfect. You only get one chance to make a first impression. And no matter how much updating you do once you've lost a customer you can ne..."

I think you're looking at the exception and not the rule. Also the genre he publishes in which seems to be non-fiction-self-help (how to this or that) is one where editing issues may not be scrutinized as heavily. When self-publishing you are comparing yourself with the majors, saying hey I'm just as good. So why rush to publish with a 6th grade manuscript that you didn't even care enough about to ensure it was perfect. Readers are unforgiving especially in the fiction genres. If I take a chance on Unknown author A in lieu of say Stephen King, then I expect it to blow my mind. If the plot is ruined by misspelling and poorly formatted writing, you won't get my money again. Trust me this is the take of the majority of readers. Sure there are exceptions that publish and manage to build an audience with less than perfect writing, but why take the chance? Your success is determined largely from word of mouth. Do you want your would be fans complaining about spelling or shouting how they purchased a book that rivaled the big dogs for under five bucks. I'll take the latter, but to each his own. This comes from my own experience as a self published author and working to slowly build my audience.

I think the part you guys are forgetting from the quote I pasted is that the non-perfectionist author took the time to say, "Hey, I saw your complaints and have done something about them. Here is an updated version of my book to reflect that."

If you're going to work so hard on a book for the sake of perfection, you're going to watch it flop, and then you're gonna be like "But worked so hard on that book. It's perfect..."

Perfect? Why does this word exist? Let go of the need for absolute perfection! It's holding too many writers back!

Again, I think that's the exception. The majority of readers are not gonna care that you update your book. Once you've lost them you've lost them forever and while someone going out of their way to praise your book is difficult it takes no time for someone to tell the world how horrible it is. I don't think all self pubbed authors have the resources to go through the editing process a major might, but you should at least write and revise several times and at a minimum have another four eyes with some command of the English language go over it. I think ideally having an editor and some beta readers would be great. But writing a book catching what you can and then publishing it essentially letting your customers be your editor is a bad strategy. The market is already saturated with people's poor conceived plots and barely comprehendable writing. Why perpetuate the stereotype? When someone reviews your book, gives it one star and says they couldn't make it through the first chapter because of the horrible editing that's gonna do much more harm than the potential for additional sales by releasing two weeks early. My .02 cents, take the time, edit diligently and make sure you can be proud of what you produce. Will people find mistakes? Of course they will I doubt there is one book without a mistake somewhere. And when they find them you can immediately fix them, which is the beauty of self publishing. But don't go shooting yourself in the foot expecting the audience to do the work you should've done.

Oh, god. NEVER publish a book without editing and revising, or having test readers. That's not what I was saying at all!

:-) well that's how I understood it. Sorry for the confusion, glad we are on the same page.

Oh, and that wasn't what Steve Scott was saying either XD Glad we're on the same page, too.