Magnus’s Comments (group member since Oct 20, 2017)

Magnus’s comments from the Navigating Indieworld Discussing All Things Indie group.

mmm... I like spaghetti...
Ooops, done it again. I get distracted way too easily ;)

Yes, Carole. Swell, and then some. I'm sooo humbled by how efficient you are. My German genes have blushed green with envy!

:))))

okay. Great. Thanks again

ah, okay. Thanks for clarifying
And everybody, have a Swell Christmas Holiday!

by time? How long it takes ot read them? Is there something I'm not getting here? Are they audio recordings?

actually, I do have one more question. If you've mentioned this before I didn't see it, but apologise for the oversight. How long are your articles typically, what's the average word count?
Thanks

many thanks, Dale. Terrific stuff

P.S.
Carole, I got so excited about your good news, I forgot to comment on your bad news... so they really deleted your comments? Yowser, ouch! Again something you'd worked for very hard. Incidentally I don't think they deleted your review of my second book (I think; haven't checked for a while). It was amazon.co.uk who deleted the reviews for my first book, though strangely enough they might still be visible on dotcom...

Carole wrote: "I agree with you, Magnus. It's disheartening. Amazon wiped out so many hard-earned reviews.They shouldn't have done all of them- tho. Did they keep mine? They took all of mine down and then restore..."

it's probably not quite what you wanted, Carole, after all the time you invested in this business, but still, congrats, right? You've worked hard, very hard for the success. Well done!

Dale wrote: "Out and out plagiarism isn't all that likely, from what I understand. Ideas can't be copyrighted, only the actual execution, but even so, it's not so much the ideas that grab editors. It's your writing. ..."

I'm sure you're right and I'm just being silly. But consider the timing versus copyright 'thing' in high concept movies. Often two films with a very similar concept come along at the roughly the same time (say Armageddon and Deep Impact, or Despicable Me and Megamind,; there is a long list here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_films). It makes you wonder.

I'm surprisingly thick when it comes to the marketing of my books and have basically given up. I think unless somebody 'discovers' my stuff I'll go forever unnoticed. I spend weeks and months without shifting a single copy (and, yes, I know it's my fault). I used to try, I had some 15 4-and 5 star reviews one my first book when amazon came along and deleted them (to the best of my understanding because one of the reviews had been written by my wife).

Sorry, long, boring sob story that I didn't really mean to get into.
My point's this - I think my fourth book could change all that (provided I get the prose right, of course; the concept is pretty bullet-proof) but only by ways of a traditional publisher since I am stubbornly unsuited to the self-publishing business, it seems. And my respect to anybody who can make a living out of it. Well done, youse!
Rant's over, I promise ;)

D.J. wrote: "And I haven't shifted a single ebook in weeks whether wide or on Kindle."

alas, I know what that feels like, and I feel for you...

Alex wrote: "I think something to be considered on this subject is that agents and publishers are all trying to predict, or catch the tail of, the latest trend.

What they reject today, they might accept next m..."

I'd like to butt in at this point, with a question regarding timing. What if you're working on a book that you feel hits all the right nerves, is very NOW, but since it's not ready to be shown to anybody you have to bide your time?
The problem is, what if in the meantime the ship is sailed? Is there a way you can pitch a book when it's not finished? Is that even advisable? Say, you have a 'high concept' project that could 'inspire' a big publisher to have one of their hacks write their own version along similar lines. By the time you finish writing your book the story's an old hat...
Or is there a straight forward way to protect against plagirism like that?
Or am I just being delusional? ;) It's quite possible, I know. But I'd like to hear if anybody has any experience pitching an unfinished product.