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

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

Thank you both for trying to help. I was looking at the beta reader group already but first, I need to get my work closer to the beta stage. I'll need to do one more edit pass, which will need to wait for when my exams are done.

Zana wrote: "So I say do it yourself OR maybe find another writer here on Goodreads to take a look... I don't know where that would be, but I am guessing that they are here someplace!"
I want to have beta version prepared in a month, hoping that I'll find someone willing to point out some things.

Yeah, that too. Grammarly works well for the things simple spellcheck will not find even though it struggles with custom words (character names in my case), especially if there's an apostrophe in it.

Dwayne wrote: "Kudos, then, for wanting to write in another language. It's something I would never attempt. "
Well, it's an advantage of us non-native English speakers, because English is easy to learn the basics. Then, since literature in English is widespread thanks to e-books, it can be honed by reading a lot (to get the feel for it) and eventually get far with the skill to consider writing.

Anyway, Sameer...
I am not into thrillers but something that was said: when I read the very beginning, I have no clue who those people are. Personally, I don't need a detailed description, but at least stating who the person is (even if it's to say that he's a middle-aged policeman, for example) will help a lot. If it's happening in a real place, probably mention that as well - if I was to use your start, then maybe something like:
(city name), 04.06.2007 and if it goes in the diary style (for lack of better words) then you can use to show if the story moves around the land.

That's just my quick input, good luck writing!

I think it might be really tricky to ask your family to read your book, especially if it's not a genre they are interested in.

Putting aside the fact that my family can't speak English, even if I wrote it in my native language, I'd probably still need to explain some things that are, for a fantasy reader, quite basic knowledge and there would still be a chance they'd not grasp something and for that reason maybe even fail to grasp important plot element correctly.

Unfortunately, I am the only one in my family who can speak, read or let alone write in English, so asking them for reading it ould would not work...

I think that maybe the fact I have no clue how text-to-speech stuff works is why I am reluctant to it. While the book is in English, there are names that have Latin or Greek influence and it would most likely end up worse if I tried to use English spelling on them (I guess that's why many fantasy authors include a pronunciation list at the back of their book).

I will admit that I would be scared of text-to-speech. Mostly because I don't know how I'd have to "teach" it to pronounce character names that don't follow English pronunciation.

J. Leigh wrote: "With the coffee, they already know what they're getting. With us, they're taking a chance."

That's another important factor. From my own experience (please keep in mind that all I said in this regard is reader's perspective), the more people rated/reviewed it positively, the more willing I am to pay more for that. For an author established in his/her genre, it's well possible to sell 200 pages for $6. For someone completely unknown, I doubt it.

When my debut is complete, I am not sure I could start at $6 even though it's going to be somewhere in 650-700 pages range, because no one knows who I am and if my work might be worth it. By length, maybe. by quality? Only time will tell.

Compared to the traditionally published book, you don't lose money that the publisher, the agent, the printing house and the retailer would take, which is around 70% even for ebooks (because publishers inflate the price of ebooks to the level of a paperback to increase THEIR profit). The current prevalent prices of self-published ebooks reflect that.

Self-published author gets more money from $3 ebook than traditionally published author gets from $10 ebook.

$5.99 is really a lot for a ~200-page book (if I am looking at the correct book and seeing correct page count). At that price, I'd expect an epic, at least as a fantasy reader. It feels like novella for the price of a full-length novel. The books I usually read at that price are either sequels to something I enjoyed or books with triple the page count.
That's just my personal opinion, of course.

Dwayne wrote: "Since nearly all of us are self-published authors, you could browse a bit through our profiles and see what looks interesting to you."

By Murphy's laws, she could be "lucky" enough to click those who aren't.

What I did when looking for self-published works in my genre (fantasy), I went to the list section of Goodreads. There's usually something like "best books with less than X rating in [genre]", "Best indie [genre] books" or "Hidden gems: [genre]".

Alternatively, if you know a self-published book you liked, look at the book's page and see if it's part of a list. If yes, have a look there. Or go to its Amazon page and see "people also bought" section.

Margret wrote: "Crap, I can't even get my own family and friends to read and share my links. It's humiliating. My own stepmother promotes for a famous author for free and would never even admit to her friends that I was a writer and that they should read my novel. Like I was an embarrassment."

I confess that despite working on my debut since summer 2015, my family still does not know (okay, my sister does). Because I am not sure how they would react. I am writing fantasy. My mother, by what I remember, was reading historical novels (not sure if based on truth or if it was historical fiction) in past and my father is into Sci-Fi, but mostly in movie form.

Personally, I take writing as my hobby. It's a way to let my mind wander creating the story in a world that, at least for now, very few people know about. I don't know if I'll sell anything, let alone in any significant numbers, but I'll keep writing until the story is complete, because I want to know how it ends. If someone else reads it and likes it, I'll be glad for it. If I break even on the costs (mostly talking cover design here) or even get to + (even if by a single dollar), then I'll be happy.

Hell, I think the hardest step for me will be to enter the beta stage because that's where the first "stage fright" comes.

"...writers hate being asked where they get their ideas, because the answer is obvious: they make them up. I’ve never fired a musket, eaten a horse, or banged a sailor, but I’m pretty sure I could imagine what these feel like. And if you can imagine it, you can write about it."
- David Gaughran

Well, you can always use HTML code to make it look better, into a link with any description you choose.

Found another one in my drafts.
"... differences between crating a shielding spell..." instead of "creating".
Anyone wants a crate of shielding spells?

About the find and replace, if you look into the "more" or "advanced" or how it's labeled, there are tick boxes. One of them is something like "only full words" which means it won't consider it if it's part of a longer word. Then there's case sensitive tick box (good for ordinary words that can be names like Smith) and some other useful options that should work with the possessive "-'s" ending.

I have Word in my native language, so no idea how exactly are the options named, but it should be easy to figure out on sight.

I think the feature could be great for longer books, especially sci-fi (custom names for various tech gizmos) or fantasy (custom creatures, names, locations). I am seriously considering using it in my WIP when it's done, at least for main characters and the main custom words (demon species mostly). I can imagine it can help the reader if he forgets something.

I think the problem with 1,99 is that it's worse for the author than 2,99. For 1,99 with 35% royalties, you get 0,7. For 2,99 with 70%, you get something like 2,1. (all of that is excluding potential taxes, etc.)

And 2,99 is still low enough for "looks good, I give it a try", at least for me.
I, personally, start thinking about it when it's above 3,99 for shorter book (less than 400, maybe 500 pages) and above maybe 5,99 for longer books. The break point moves with length, but rating and reviews have an impact too. Over probably 7,49; I'll start thinking about it more and usually it needs to be a sequel to something I enjoyed to buy.

I personally think that Patreon is mostly associated with fan art. I saw a lot of people doing digital fan art that are there. I also saw musicians who make covers have a presence there.

In general, I'd say it's for things that are (relatively) quick to create and quick to consume - like images or songs - instead of long-term creation and consumption like books. Fanfic short stories might work as well, maybe.

Again, it's just my personal opinion, I do not use the site, only base this on what I know about those who do.

What I'd be more interested in knowing is comparing mailing list to "follow author" either directly on Amazon (for Kindle books) or here on GR.
Especially when Amazon sends me 2-3 newsletters each week and it seems to take into account authors I've been reading - from reader's PoV, of course. I have no experience from writer's side (yet).