Tomas’s Comments (group member since May 15, 2018)

Tomas’s comments from the Support for Indie Authors group.

Avelyn wrote: "We have two specials going on this month and next."
Please respect the group rules. No self-promotion and no links allowed.

Uh, into which house are daydreaming weirdos usually sorted?

Maybe you could look into it - if there's a way to block it from going over the limit...
Also, you can kick people from the lists. Some people do clean-ups 2-3 times per year when they see the people don't read it - and probably only signed for the 'bait' (whatever free stuff they gave for joining the list).

From my personal reader's point of view, if I want to know about an author's releases, I'll just follow them on Amazon instead of a mailing list. And even without it, Amazon does a good job reminding me of books by authors I've read a lot.

The mail list services are usually free until X followers (I think it's around 2000 for one of them), then paid.
Have a good look at the conditions, I've heard Mailchimp did some questionable change by counting all sign-ups, not just active ones.

Dwayne wrote: "That's not two books. That's two rough drafts."

Hey! It was 76% of a rough draft in my case!

On a serious note, good point. Editing takes probably even more time than creating the first draft - and it's much harder to track or set daily goals.

Well, not everyone's imagination is strong enough to bust out 500 words/day forever.

I can imagine picking up my own book sometime after it's out but shortly after it when I still remember the draft count needed to get it out there? Probably not.

I have a hard time guessing how exactly I'll react to releasing my book, though. Probably some degree of mixed feelings.

Or maybe they have a stable team of editors and betas to the point they just write new books and do some bits of story-based editing while the team takes care of the rest.

I think what you should consider the most are your priorities and goals for the book.

Going traditional means focusing on print sales more than e-books (especially if the publisher goes the despicable way of price-matching them), having wider reach (because they can reach bookstores), a good chance of good professional cover as a part of the deal, possibly stronger launch - but you'll have to give away your rights and creative freedom, maybe even make a change you don't like so much to align your work with the publisher's goals. And once the deal is over, your book will be on its own anyway. You might also be required to have a specific online appearance (social networks, etc).

If you self-publish, you keep full creative control/freedom. You might be ready to launch sooner (because you are not limited by waiting for a positive response) but you'll need to invest into a cover yourself (which might be some amount) and your focus will be mostly on e-books (from which you'll get better % than with traditional). Reaching physical bookstores or libraries will also be harder and having a strong launch might take a lot of effort as well. And, finally, the way you present yourself if all your choice.

I hope this might help you - if it's not what you meant, feel free to ask.

It seems something like 1-5% of readers ever write a review.

Dwayne wrote: "When you love writing more than you love money, success is easy."

Or, as I have put it to myself: choosing between being a bard or a businessman.

M.L. wrote: "Happy Birthday, Ann! And congratulations too on 15K members. You and the mods do a great job. :)"

Shall I, for once, pretend to know what I am doing?
Bah, screw that.
Anyway, happy birthday! And happy milestone to us all (or something?)

On self-done passes, I look for both types of issues - but I still fix 'mechanical' ones on the spot while making notes of 'creative' issues to fix later. Now that I am in beta and get feedback chapter-by-chapter, I have to leave the creative changes when I have at least some batch of chapters, especially if it's something that'd have some kind of spill-over and I need to see how it would affect the greater picture, not just one chapter. For major changes/rewrites, I leave them for when I am sure I'll be alone and undisturbed so there are (almost) no distractions.

Dwayne wrote: "Huh. I always thought the most creative part was the rewrites and the edits. That's where you're taking a big pile of shit (your rough draft) and making it into something spectacular. It's where the characters come to life and where you find fun ways to add in a little humor. Rough drafts are okay, but for me, the real fun comes later."

What I meant by 'drafting can be tedious' are the countless small changes of mechanical nature with little creativity (when I hammer out the first draft, it's riddled with typos and overloaded sentences which are not fun to fix).
The frustrating part (at least for me) is not the change I am making in a draft but the process before I make it: figuring out what's the problem and how to fix it. When it happens and ma imagination comes back... yay!
To be honest, there are several scenes I created in later drafts I love and it was fun to write them. But during those, time tends to fly while the 'mechanical edits' just feel endless.
In other words, it depends on what the focus of an editing pass is.

Jason wrote: "After the 2nd and 3rd draft (8th, 9th...) editing gets a little tedious for me. The first draft is the most exciting."

Yep, drafting can get tedious and, if you find the need for a major change, even frustrating. Which is why I started to work on early drafts of the sequels between drafting passes, to keep doing something fully creative.
And then, I just go back to drafting #1.
Dory humming "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming..."

I'd think it's similar to when you speak with someone who breathes loudly, whether standing next to you or on the phone.

Definitely work on the sequel(s) and, in the meantime, feel free to give #1 a nudge with some marketing here and there. How big 'nudge' exactly? Well, that's quite the question.

To build on what I said and what Leah said, my experience: I wrote the first draft of the second and third book while drafting the first one, so I had the very base of the whole story complete, and then turned to draft #1.
This way, when you're done with #1, you can jump right back to drafting/editing #2 - and same with each following book.

What Phillip says is a good point. Unless you're genius planner, there will be things coming to you as you write sequels - you might want to go back and drop hints, or you might see that something would go better a bit differently with regards to how the sequel builds on it.
And shorter gaps between individual pieces in a series are always good for both the author and the readers.

Dwayne wrote: "Google it sometime. Leisure reading has been on a decline for decades. People still read, sure, but not like they did some years ago."

Long-term, sure, because there was almost no alternative in the past. In the scope of the last few years, I am not sure it's that bad. E-readers had brought some people back to reading - especially younger people and students (who would face space issues with print books).