I whined a lot today. In a very Eeyore way.
Entitled people make me impatient.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
-
Find me: Updated Links
Recent Comments
- ROBERT EVANS on Day 2754: Day Not Found
- ROBERT EVANS on Day 2753: Untitled For Some Reason
- Nate on Day 2752: Was A Sunny Day
- Robert Willey on Day 2752: Was A Sunny Day
- Robert Evans on Day 2745: Busy Day
Nathan, my personal opinion on the whole ebook/paperback book thing: What you need to do is what makes you happy as a writer. Life’s too short to spend 6 to 8 months slogging through something that you really don’t necessarily want to do, and as you’ve noted, there’s probably not a lot of return on that effort. If you really don’t think there’s enough sales involved to justify the effort, then why do it? Yeah, it might make a few more people happy, but if it’s not making you happy, and the return on a a half year of effort is in the few hundred dollar range, what’s the point? One thing that’s true in life is you’re never going to make everyone happy, and trying to do so is only going to make your own life miserable.
I’m going to have to cheat on this diet of nuts and twigs. I’ll HAVE to write new work or I’ll probably quit — and *that* ain’t happening.
But it’s time. I’m going to focus on getting my ship on track so I can strip out all the angst over “what?? How can you not publish in paper???” emails.
Strongly agree with Gary!!
Sigler has “A” to keep all the rocks moving and keep Scott writing. They explained as much during a podcast where they talked about hiring out the audio of Nocturnal.
40% done with the Hermit – after chapter 4 it is a real page turner and I like that.
It is sort of amazing to me that in November you wrote it, and here it is in e-book 60ish days later. Screw paper. Write a Green-wash marketing bit about why you don’t do paper and paper is Evil. All Evil paper is good for is flushing down the toilet. You know that sort of thing. Could be fun!
Nathan, I’ll toss my two cents in. I’ve discovered over the last year+ that even when I buy paperbacks I don’t read them. My tablet is so convenient I’ve wound up buying ebook versions of books (reference and recreational) that were originally purchased in dead tree format – so I could read them. Not to say I don’t want signed hard cover versions for posterity, though! But if it’s a minimum ROI situation, new material would be a better investment of your energy.
I’ve known for a long time that I would be happiest if I just put all my stories up on a locked website and sold subscriptions. Have a forum, and just churn out books and stories until I die. No ebooks, no audio books, just text files. I’d do my usual final pass edit, of course. It would be finished work, but not heavily proofed.
I’d write far more over the course of my life. I’d let my heirs worry about producing it in all formats in order to make more money off it. Or just send it into the public domain after my death and let my fans produce it.
I think I’d be much happier.
This again, it’s possible that this is just the fatigue of finishing 5-books series in fullcast audio talking.
First, “Hermit” is fabulous. My new favorite of your books.
What about having the book covers printed and you could autograph them and the end user could frame and display them. If you must publish in paper, maybe it could be limited to the 6 Share books.
It is the 21st century. I think our new ways of consuming literature are fabulous. I have to put reading as my first choice, but I would love to hear ‘Anabel Lee’ read by Poe and if I could hear Crowley’s reading of ‘One Star in Sight’ I would be over the moon. I just can’t go back to the 19th century and relive the past, but I can hear my favorite author read his books today. What a treat!
Embrace the present and the future of literature. Write your stories and let your spirit soar. Once your words are published, the stories are immortal and they can be put in print at any point in the future. Write your books now and find the satisfaction that you so richly deserve. You need to have in joy your life. I hope writing will bring that joy to you.
This. Very, very well said.
(My 2 cents from the cheap seats):
As far as paper copies go, I’d say do only the ones for the series you’ve already started, where you have a paper reader out there looking for that next book in the series. South Coast and others, if you can’t farm out the paper setup, I’d just forget it.
One thing I thought I was picking up from you was a feeling that the book had to be perfect, but that’s a point we never arrive at. It will never be perfect. Ideally, I’d say just address (some of?) the corrections readers brought up and move on. (With the assumption that if readers didn’t notice it, it wasn’t a big deal.) I, too, hate getting bogged down in big revisions. I really want to move on to something new.
I’d rather see you doing the stuff that only you can do, ie creating great stories. Anyway, hang in there and thanks for the wonderful story!
Thanks.
I kind of like that idea of just printing a card with the cover matter on each side, allowing for it to be signed by the author. For the corrections and stuff – I’d accumulate a list of corrections for each book, put up a list of commonly sent in mistakes that aren’t, or that you won’t fix for one reason or another, and maybe once every six months or a year, make a run through applying the fixes, and don’t worry about any larger structural bits. It’s really a PITA that you can’t get your formatting down to a edit-once-correct-everywhere thing, but e-books are just so different from paper copies…
I read ebooks on the kindle because I have book cases in every room of the house, books under the bed, on top of the taller cases, stacked here, there everywhere. C’mon, I don’t need paperbacks; I need the cloud so I can find my favorites. I sure can’t here. I bet there are more of us folks than them, so, forget’em. Well Ok, I do understand, but I have moved on and I guess some folks haven’t. Still, do it YOUR WAY. I’d rather have books, not repeats, and I am a re-reader. That is what my kindle is for. Here is to Amazon——-