McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

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The Deposed King:
I agree with many of the statements here.  Writing is a job, not a hobby and if you approach it like its a hobby, you can have a lot of fun but that's all it'll ever be.  You'll probably never break on through to the other side unless you're the Rainman of writing.  A hidden genius who everything he/she touches turns to gold.

On the other hand if you are dedicated, and willing to write/work, even when its not fun.  Even when you'd rather be reading someone else's book or watching TV instead, then you can succeed at this authoring business!

However and with all of that said, I have to wonder if Kindle has changed things.  Maybe in the past you had to be a dedicated professional, slavishly perfecting each and every paragraph, line and sentence if you wanted to be a writer.  The reason I wonder this because I certainly don't.

I also don't pay anyone to help me copy edit.  I do whole heartedly agree that writing is a continual effort of self improvement.  If you're not getting any better then certainly you've plateued at whatever level you've already achieved.

Admittedly part of the reason I don't pay anyone else to fix up my work, is because I have made many of the contacts necessary to find people to help me out.  I have a handful of other aspiring and actual (kindle) authors and other who aren't authors to acting as beta readers helping me with plot, story and the egregious stuff.  I also have my brother and another guy over on our.forum.com to help the copy editing side of the equation.  Admittedly at some point it may become more cost effective to try and go professional, hiring some outside people to help with the copy editing side of things.  I honestly don't know because I haven't got there yet.

I'm on the cusp of being able to turn this writing business into a full time job that will support me and my family.  I've made 10k off my first two books and 6/7ths of it came from book 2 due mainly to the price differences.  Book 3 so far shows every sign of continuing this trend and in fact I'm having higher 'peak' sales than on either of the other two books.

Peak sales -
Admiral Who? = 50's
Admiral's Gambit = 60's
Admiral's Tribulation = 90's

Right now book three is screaming like an eagle, its only been a little less than a week out so I suppose it could drop like a rock and leave me scrambling but if it only does as well as book 2 and I can manage to keep putting out a new 400-500 page novel every 3 months, I can make this writers gig work.  If not I'll have to reevaluate.

In short I say don't be discouraged when you hear you have to make everything perfect grammar wise. If you can make everything else an 8 through a 10, there's an audience out there who will forgive you so long as you keep improving.  At least they did for me.  Admiral Who? was pretty rough when it first came out.  Just look at my reviews!

Writing at this level won't make me rich and I'll never break through into larger audiences if I don't keep fixing and improving my game.  I'd probably make more money working as a nurse in all honesty.  However each and every book I've got better, as has my team.  Having watched me and helped edit my brother is even working on an epic fantasy type series of his own and is two and a half books into a multi-book arc.

In my experience its got to be readable but it doesn't have to be perfect, so long as you are killing it in the other areas.  If you aren't watch out.  And wherever you are on the writer craft front, unless you launch into the Jim Butcher/David Weber etc stratosphere you'll need to hone your skills.  Just don't let anything stop you and don't become paralized with indecision.  Its better to get something imperfect out there now, then wait half a decade until you've got it exactly right, IMHO.  Perhaps I'm showing my own bias here, because people do do that, hone and hone their work until its perfect and then make it in the writing business.  But I'm living proof that you can write a book in a month, edit it in another and then launch the beast into its eventual success.



The Deposed King

Wordmaker:
There is a danger in rushing a book out before it's ready, but it's just as dangerous to edit and re-edit with no end. Eventually you have to trust that the book is as good as you can make it and take the plunge.

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