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'I wish I had known this when I was writing my first book'?
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I wish I had known there were less expensive ways to self-publish than BookBaby. I had thought I'd done my research, but it turns out most people here use Amazon and Create Space. I found this out when I later joined Goodreads here. I have finally made a profit this year, though.
Whether to put one or two spaces after the end of a sentence. Still not sure which is correct!
When you think you're ready to publish, don't. Have several more betareaders, who are native English speakers go over it. While they are doing that, put it out of your mind, work on something else, and you'll come back to it with fresh eyes.
The biggest error people make is publishing too early, especially of they are self editing. Believe me, even if you've gone over it 100 times, THERE WILL BE ERRORS.
The one thing I wished I had known? That my first book is not be as good as I think it is.There will probably come a time when you will realise this. Maybe you will be staring down the barrel of a one star review. Maybe a beta reader will say "sorry, but this doesn't work for me". It might be your first rejection slip. Or your first hundred rejection slips. Whatever.
How you react at that moment is absolutely critical.
You might throw up your hands in horror and say a rude word or two. Bah! That shows that you're not cut out to be a writer. And then you give up. You take up the piano instead. Or knitting bootees out of yak hair. Selling your body for scientific experiments. I don't know. You wander off into the sunset muttering that you "could have been a contender".
Or you might come over all argumentative. How dare they give me a one star review? They must be a bad reviewer. That beta writer doesn't know anything. And didn't every great writer get hundreds of rejection slips. You dismiss all the criticism with an airy wave of your hand. You know to the absolute core of your being that your book is perfect and it's the world's fault (and their loss too) for not being able to see it.
And you keep on doing this until the message finally sinks in and you hop over to the first group.
Or you could take the third approach. You accept that you still need to learn. And you write another book. And another. And another. And you keep on writing until (a) you get good at it, and (b) the world notices you.
You can guess which approach I am going to recommend, can't you?
One last thought. I have recommended this video more times than I care to remember ...
https://vimeo.com/24715531
James wrote: "Whether to put one or two spaces after the end of a sentence. Still not sure which is correct!"2 spaces on a typewriter, 1 space on word processor. Or so I've heard!
Using text-to-speech for your final proofread. You will hear far more errors than you will ever see.
Gray wrote: "James wrote: "Whether to put one or two spaces after the end of a sentence. Still not sure which is correct!"2 spaces on a typewriter, 1 space on word processor. Or so I've heard!"
Do either typewriters or word processors exist anymore? I believe it is two spaces no matter which device you use.
The 2-space rule no longer applies. Copy editors will edit manuscripts that feature 2 spaces after a period to just one. A cursory review of any book on your shelf published within the past decade will verify this - just 1 space after a period, comma, colon, semicolon, exclamation point or question mark.
And I've heard of readers who are turned off by two spaces. One can never win.
Proof reading from a printed copy is a hundred times more effective than proofreading from a screen if you have even the slightest bit of vision problems. I read from the paper and edit the screen.Printing on both sides can be a real pain with a cheap printer. The pages stick together and now the run is off by one or more pages. So it's either 10 pages at a time, then check, reprinting when necessary or print single sided. I print single sided and use the blank side for notes about anything, sketches, things to do that have nothing to do with writing. It becomes a journal of sorts.
Jim wrote: "The 2-space rule no longer applies. Copy editors will edit manuscripts that feature 2 spaces after a period to just one. A cursory review of any book on your shelf published within the past decade ..."Thanks for the update. I guess that is why text looks so scrunched together now. I thought I was just looking at poor editing.
How to get meaningful feedback on your work. Like who to ask. The ideal critique group is people who know your genre, maybe write in other genres, too, and are firm but kind. They point out your errors, don't let you get away with inferior work, and let you know how to fix it. You want several points of view, because everyone sees it differently. And you do the same for them. Don't ever send out any work that hasn't been reviewed by someone.
Before you start, be sure you have a story to tell and have a clear idea how you want to tell it. Don't let anyone else tell you how or what to write apart from errors in grammar or basic style.
Read your manuscript out loud or have someone read it to you. You will find more errors that way. I like to print out my draft (double spaced) and make notes as we go.
Hi Zinnia, I have just completed my second novel having embarked on my first as a complete novice in writing/publishing. I really found it so difficult. You need to be constantly reading up on changing trends in the market and all the latest publishing/ editing advice. When I look back though it certainly has been a steep learning curve and the way I work now reflects that learning. Keep at it girl.....and by the way as a second language your English is pretty good.
James wrote: "Whether to put one or two spaces after the end of a sentence. Still not sure which is correct!"<I took a professional copyediting course a year ago, and learned a lot about these kinds of style and editing issues. Today's standard is for only one space after the sentence-closing punctuation mark. This standard was prompted by the advent of computer word processing programs. Supposedly the computer adjusts the space after a period to accommodate our visual ability to discern between the end of one sentence and the beginning of the next. I guess I'm old - I'm also old-fashioned - and my eyes prefer two spaces. You are right: "text looks scrunched together now."
Valery wrote: "Read your manuscript out loud or have someone read it to you. You will find more errors that way. I like to print out my draft (double spaced) and make notes as we go."Absolutely! Yes, yes, yes! Not only reading it out loud by yourself, but also having someone read it out loud to you, both of you with manuscript in hand.
Not only will reading it out loud allow your ears to pick up on word or phrase repetition, but it will catch problems in your prose - the tongue-twisters, overly long exposition or narrative, unclear attribution in dialog, etc. Because you are reading out loud every word, you are also going to eliminate just about all of the punctuation and typographical errors, which are easily missed when we read with our eyes only (for the umpteenth time). You can flag those spots for revision into smoother linguistic reading, which will improve reader comprehension, whether or not the reader is reading aloud or silently. Also, this will make for much easier reading out loud if and when you have your book narrated for audio-book formats.
Also, use spell-check, but do not rely on it as the only method. For one thing, it has no idea if you meant to use the word "now" or "not." They are both valid words, but each will obviously give your sentence an entirely different meaning from the other.
I have also been very disappointed with the spell-check/grammar-check option in the MS Word software package. It often suggests changes that are just plain wrong, in the standards of any grammar or style guide. For example, it told me that I needed to correct the sentence "The horse lifted its hoof" to read "The horse lifted it's hoof." The possessive "its" does NOT use an apostrophe. What the software wanted me to say is "The horse lifted it is hoof" which makes no sense whatsoever.
So, my advice is to use these software programs, but use them carefully. Also, invest in a good style guide, such as the Chicago Manual of Style. It's a little pricey, but if you are a serious writer, you will end up with a very much tattered copy from constant reference to it.
Save money by formatting the book yourself. Spend money on a professional editor and professionally done cover.Emma above is right. Take a real break from the manuscript before you do your before-publish proofs.
After you publish the book online, tell no one. Order a copy yourself and proof again. Order another copy after that and proof again. It will save you heartache when the few errors you miss are found.
It can be helpful to join a writers group and self-publish support group but keep your eye on the prize--don't get lost in other writers' opinions.
Start the next book as soon as possible.
Considering that I publish all fiction work on a fluke, I think the best advice would be to say that there is a difference between being a writer and being an author. One has to take it professionally and all that that entails. I'm still learning.
From a reader (not an author): apply all the above writing advice to the book cover and book description/synopsis--edit, get opinions, read out loud, make it interesting and make sure it's a good indication of what your book is. Look at it again when uploaded for sale on various online sites and how it appears on the ereader device stores. Look both at how the cover displays at that size and at the description. You could have a wonderful cover suited to your book that doesn't show well on product pages. Amazon websites unfortunately are getting more difficult to have a description to catch someone's interest because keep shrinking the book description area -- but, you still might want to see how yours looks.
Even traditionally published books will have quoted praises front and back and inside pages -- but maybe it's not the most appealing thing to a reader if the first few screens of your book description are nothing but quotes from folk they never heard of. Exception if your horror book got praised by Stephen King or other really notable people type of praises. Some readers may not scroll past to get to book description and instead move on to next book. It's disappointing and gives us no indication if we want to read the book if the sample/look-inside is nothing but front pages, praises, acknowledgements, copyrights, etc. and ends almost before your story begins.
Amazon does have a separate section for praises so don't feel like you have to quote a few dozen in the book description (for the sake of those buying from and/ or reading on the kindle devices, the kindle store shows separate areas for book description and praises but doesn't cull praises from what you enter in the description field.)
Now that you mention it, I have discovered that this is a peeve of mine. Book blurbs/descriptions should be located immediately below the title and author information. I hate having to scroll all over the page looking for something that will tell me about the book. I was on one page yesterday and never did find a description, just quotes, so I have no idea what the book was about. Quotable quotes are great, but they are not as important as the book itself. If it weren't for the book, there wouldn't be a quote. I'm not purchasing a quote.
Sally wrote: "Now that you mention it, I have discovered that this is a peeve of mine. Book blurbs/descriptions should be located immediately below the title and author information. I hate having to scroll all o..."That's a problem for some GR giveaways too. There is so much praise in the listing that they never actually describe the book.
Pick up just about any commercially published book—hardback or paperback—and you will find there is only one space between sentences. The two-space rule came from typewriters with their monospaced typefaces (what people mistakenly call "fonts"). Try composing in Courier and you will see what I mean (Courier is a typewriter typeface). I am also a copy editor as well as a writer, etc., and it took me a few years to get used to not typing two spaces at the ends of sentences.
In answer to the original topic question, I wish I had known how much time, effort and patience the writing and publishing process would require before deciding to write my first and only novel.It took fourteen months and six revisions to produce what I believed to be a completed and polished manuscript, only to be made to realize during the pre-publishing process that it was not yet complete nor polished. It took an additional eleven months, working with and learning from the copy editor, conceptual editor and layout design artist, to convert the manuscript into a commercially viable book.
I recently wrote my Top 10 Tips for Authors on my blog, some of which I got right the first time and some I learned the hard way.https://lizlazarusblog.wordpress.com/...
Cheers,
Liz
Liz: Your top 10 tips list is excellent. I would add one thing to the list: Get a good editor to review your work before you go to print or Kindle. They’re worth their weight in gold. I especially liked your points 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, and 8. Not sure if #10 applies if you’re an indie author going the POD or Kindle/ebook route. Maybe drop that one and add the editor. As for #4, I do my composing in layout form (I’m a devotee of the best-kept secret in DTP: Microsoft Publisher). I want to craft both the text and the layout as I go along. I feel the two are inseparable twins. If you’re going for Kindle/ebooks, however, #4 doesn’t apply anyway. There is no real layout to ebooks with their flowing text. #6 is an unfortunate truth; it’s a shame we have to reply on these insecure all-to-easily-subject-to-abuse social media. My 2¢ worth.
Write the first draft for you and keep other voices out of it until you get it down on paper. Once you have made it as good as you possibly can, then and only then get feedback on it.Let it set. Re-write. More feedback.
During this process, subscribe to Writer's Digest and start to get a feel for the self-publishing world (personally, I would not self publish, but that's me.)
Before you do anything with your finished novel, read the writing scam sites so you don't get hooked.
Hire an editor and hire a proofreader. Choose both wisely and then listen to them.
You will learn a lot if you go through this entire process. I'm a successful playwright currently going through this process with my first novel. I'm at the making it as good as I can stage and reading Writer's Digest for market info.
Scrivener is very helpful for organizing and re-writing. I was a sceptic. I didn't think I'd find anything better than Screenwriter. I found Scrivener does for the novel what Screenwriter does for the script.
Good luck!
Sally wrote: "Nobody wants to buy a pig in a poke."I love this!
Jim wrote: "In answer to the original topic question, I wish I had known how much time, effort and patience the writing and publishing process would require before deciding to write my first and only novel.I..."
This is a good list but it should be title "Top 10 Things for First-Time Self-Publising Authors" or something like that. Because if it is for writing your first book you missed some big ones.
There is nothing on your list about the quality of the work. If the work is not top notch, you can have the best ISBN number ever and it won't matter. Once your work is out there, you are competing with Stephen King, J.K. Rowling and writers of that ilk. Like it or not.
FYI I followed your blog.
If you're just starting out my advice is to forget about tips and advice and just write your book. Then leave it, forget about it, and write something else. And so on. Do this for a while and then start going back and looking through your old work. You will start to notice the improvements in your writing when reading older work and you will also be able to determine which stories really were good and which ones you want to hide away forever because they were badly written and/or lame. This takes time, but you can't skip that - it's the practice that's really important. After you've written a few things you can go back to all the advice and tips and interacting with online communities and so on and you will be much better equipped to take in and really make use of all the great tips and advice. This is just from my own personal experience of course. Good luck!
Still going through the process so no tips yet to offer, but I would say great topic OP! Also, cosign on having someone or the computer read it back to you. It makes a world of a difference. It actually made me feel better sometimes because I've written things I thought were awful but when it read it back, it actually sounded pretty good. On the flip side, it definitely catches those pesky typos, run-on sentences etc.
Cynthia wrote: "...During this process, subscribe to Writer's Digest..."Agree with Cynthia: whether you are in the middle of writing the manuscript, revising it, sending it to print, or noodling with ideas for the next book, subscribe to Writer's Digest or to The Writer or to both (those are the only two magazines I know of - not that I'm any kind of expert - devoted to writers). The Writer suits me better than Writer's Digest, but I have acquired a number of books on the craft published through Writer's Digest.
I have subscribed to The Writer since 1977, with only a few years' lapse because of finances, and go through it, cover to cover. I always gain something even from stories about genres or topics I am not particularly interested in. There's gold in them thar articles!
I have always advised my writing students to read aloud to someone who really cares about you. They will catch the stuff you would "auto-correct" if you were proofing silently to yourself. Tense agreement in a paragraph, passive voice, repetitive word use all fall into this group.But, there are some fine points that reading cannot or may not catch. Paragraph break placement is just one. Others include consistency (Chapter 1 leads to Chapter 2 not Chapter II), homonyms (their, there) and habitual misspellings (for me that is ecconomic and economic). But, even in the last instance, spell check is not your friend (born and borne, for instance) ("He bears it all." versus "He bares it all.") if your fingers manager (intentional mistake for emphasis) to hit "f" instead of "g" to give you "fag" instead of "gag."
Then there are craft items--as in writer's craft.
When do you use a single sentence paragraph, for instance?
Or a sentence fragment?
Why are you using parallel construction (or not)? The same goes for metaphors and similes.
Best advice for writers...be like an athlete who views film of competitors...except in this case your film is books and articles. Read voraciously. The more you read good writing, the more good writing will begin to creep into yours.
Best advice for writers: Use ALL of these tips, tools, methods, systems, software, and guides. NEVER rely on just one or two. The athlete referenced above cross-trains in a variety of disciplines to strengthen and tone all parts of his body, because each part supports the others.Even using all of these things, plus loads of others not mentioned here, there will be mistakes and errors in our work, but we will have weeded out the majority of them - like Ivory soap - 99.44%.
James wrote: “Whether to put one or two spaces after the end of a sentence. Still not sure which is correct!.”The two-space rule came from typewriters, which use a monospaced typeface like Courier. All text that is set in a proportionally-spaced, kerned typeface, such as Times Roman or Georgia, should have only one space between sentences. It is a major blunder to set a proportionally-spaced typeface like Times with two spaces between sentences in a book.
I'm a brand new author, I've never really written any proper, lengthy work of fiction and haven't done a lot of writing, overall. But I've always had a dream to publish a book, so I recently decided to take on the challenge of writing and self-publishing a fiction trilogy (a big task, I know) in English, which is my second language.
I'm determined, and I've been working on it for 9 months now. Having no experience, and having even less experience writing in a secondary language, I've looked up lots and lots of writing advice, tips and tools - some useful and some less so.
Now I'm curious! For those of you who have already published a novel, what advice do you have along the lines of 'I wish I had known this when I was writing my first book'? Perhaps something that could have saved you time and grief?