How's the writing career going, Veeky Forums?

The traditional market is way too saturated. Don't count on being famous. You have to find an audience. Start a group or journal or something.

Besides, many famous authors have their books first rejected, and quite a few were only famous after their death. The only reason Lovecraft is known today is because he had so many friends and they promoted him.

I have about 12 things I'm working on and haven't finished. Never submitted anything because of my crippling perfectionism. I'm now considering writing opinion/commentary for the internet or working on something nonfiction/historical just to put something out into the world and maybe build a name for myself that way before I consider finishing my fiction work.

33. Married. No kids. Work in sales.

I don't believe in suicide.

Don't get your hopes up. The usual story is that nobody gives a fuck about short story collections unless they're from an established novelist. If they all turn you down, it won't be for the quality of the content.
Best thing to do is submit the short stories individually to the best magazines you can and try to get them published that way. If/when they do, those publishing credits will look good on your cover letters when you submit full length MS to agents and publishers.

I've gotten a few individual stories published, but not many. And none so far in any of the big magazines, though I've gotten a few really encouraging rejection letters.

How hard is it to get published?

I mean if some random romanian ( Eugene Chirovici) can learn english and get a 7 figure deal it shouldn't be too hard right

I'm in the same boat. The received wisdom I have is to carry on with that and don't bother with short story collections unless it's in a really small indie press or something.

Writng carewr? Listen bere byd. It's called techniczl communication! Get it right. I'm doing tevgnival communication for chemistey. It's a good stress&free job. Anyone else here doing tevgnical communication ad wrll?

It's not about learning English and just getting dat phat moneys yo nigga.

Learning a fiction book level of English is pretty easy. You dont necessarily need to follow all the grammar rules and farm fancy words readers dont know.

It's all about your ability to write a good book. Most of good books are easy to read. And using a single person as an example is a terrible idea. There are thousands of writers who wont get published and thousands of published books nobody reads

I picked that dude as an example because it seems silly that, in an oversaturated market, some romanian could beat thousands of anglo writers at their own game

Learn how to write quantity over quality, then pump out at least five novels a year for 1.99 a pop all in a series so the reader is forced to wade through 20 volumes of hot genre fiction garbage to get a satisfying conclusion.
It's really the only way.

I need to write something.
I've never worked or written but my youth lies wasted behind me in a haze of isolation and now I must write.
Unfortunately starting seems as daunting as it does necessary. I've nothing to write about and what small talent I had shriveled in disuse.

Well, don't just write because you feel like you need something to accomplish. Make sure that writing is what you feel pulled to do. Make sure it's your passion. If it isn't, you might try some of the other arts, like photography or dance. Don't just write because you feel desperate for artistic output, write because you have an unstoppable urge to write.

Not him, but what if I have the urge and starting is still just really daunting?

Just this evening I accepted a friend's offer to work on a webzine focusing on philosophy and pop culture that is starting to come out in January, which doesn't seem like much until you know that behind it are some of the biggest publishing houses with a focus on philosophy in Italy - and they've already kind of guaranteed a physical release after a few issues on the web. I mean, I don't know how positive I should feel about all of this but I can't help some hopefulness breaking through the cynicism.

Other than that, I have a few very small projects going on that I'd like to self-publish with the help of the above mentioned friend, who has a sizeable presence on social media and could, I guess, at least help me sell more than three copies - I'm writing a series of vignettes about aphasic people whittling their life away while pseudo-communicating ("Palimpsest of my Nights"), a dialogue about a soon-to-be-mutilee and their executioner focusing on their mutual need for each other and the beauty of mutilation as a a moral action, a story involving skinwalkers that I'd like to publish in an English and an Italian version and maybe a small-ish surreal and psychedelic novel that I'm just starting to work on. Things are looking up, I guess.

My best month so far was I think September, when I made around $135 or so. $10 more than I made the month prior, but October was only $50 and November was a rather miserable $20 or so. Still a long way to go, but that's ok. I have years, and it's not like I'm not enjoying the process. Free money is free money. All in all I've made around $500 since mid-March, so 8.5 months. That's an average of nearly $60 per month, so it's just about paying my groceries. Hey, it's something!

"If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented."
-Stephen King

Well, I didn't get it via a cheque, it was direct-deposit, and I also didn't get it from just one person but rather it was from multiple, and it wasn't my light bill but pretty much my groceries... so Stephen King MIGHT consider me talented. Nice...

What are you writing?

Genre fiction stuff with some light political commentary. Planning to try more political stuff, also planning to experiment with short stories. I've been told by some that my stuff is pretty awesome, but I've of course also gotten some negative reviews (even a 1-star one though it was clearly spiteful) and also heavily suspect that all my books could use an edit. As for the first book I wrote... an editor would likely have entire sections that they'd like to remove, some pages that could be lines, some details that could be expanded upon, etc.

35. About a dozen published short stories. A Pushcart nom.

Had a NY agent reach out after reading one of my stories in one of the better-known journals. Wants to see a novel manuscript. I've only written short stories, so I've been tinkering with a novel. Tougher than I thought it would be but the agent said to take my time. Kind of freaking out, to be honest.

Now or never, I guess. Hope to have something ready for him by Spring 2018.

Be careful, you might die right before your books get skyrocket fame too late.

What kind of stories do you write?

My stories usually have an element of magical realism. Up till now I've gotten a couple lengthy rejection slips and one request for revision (ended up getting rejected anyway).

How do I make my stories more "marketable"?

26 and NEET here. I am looking at a life of endless possibilities.

Good point, user. I better go back to the drawing board and rethink that whole plan.

4 novels on Amazon. First one is cringey and I'll probably take it down or rewrite most of it. Other 3 are science fiction and not so bad.

My fifth novel is called The Fall of the American Republic. Coming out in January. Hope it takes off.

Bad

More interested in poetry these days. No one wants to publish the poems of a socially and politically conservative, working class bloke

But i don't really care for getting published, the novelty is there but still, I'm not loosing sleep

My normal job is going ok. Got a new tig welder and I'm learning how to use it. My health has been quite bad though

I write about people with psychological disorders, mostly. Caught in situations where they’re taking on water quicker than they can bail it out.

As for marketability, the stories I’ve sold tend to have a few common threads:

-a “captain happen” that’s introduced very early in the narrative (see Charles Baxter for more on that concept),

- a compelling, off-kilter voice free of thought-cliches and that aims to induce a kind of hypnosis in the reader, and

-a conscious application of structure and repeating themes.

I submitted like hell, too.

Very helpful

Thank you

>4 novels on Amazon
Explain to me how this works because I'm thinking of doing the same

It's not so simple for the first time but it's easy enough to figure out. Sign up on kdp and just follow the directions. I recommend a premade book cover rather than trying to find a graphic artist who's actually good. There are a bunch of premade book cover sites. Formatting is easy if you're good with Word.

As for actually getting sales, you're going to have to get creative with advertising.

>career
This is a hobby for me at most desu
I'd have to hit a bestsellers list (not likely) or get a movie deal (lmao) to justify making this my sole source of income

>Start doing Movie/Vidya reviews
>Something i can wack out in Forces me to write everyday
>Once writing everyday becomes a habit move onto writing fiction
It's doable - hell if i ever got fans i could Patreon it too

Pretty good. Started writing seriously about a year and a half ago while in the middle of getting a degree and working various musical jobs for moolah. Written 25 short stories, 5 novellettes and 4 novellas so far. Sold two short stories to a few indie press mags for $50 and been writing for themed anthologies any chance I get, and have gotten 4 stories places in anthologies but they were unpaid start up presses. I have one novella I self published under a pen name and been building a social media presence with that name while I work on trying to get more additional publishing credits to my résumé. Honestly though I may abandon that route, the "writing communities" on Instagram and Twitter are cringey as fuck and I feel like a neck beard fedora every time I try and promote on there. If all else fails I'm just gonna self publish my whole back log in a few collections and go back to focusing on music full time. Just sucks novellas are such a niche market to try and sell in, every time I try and shoot for novel length I just feel like I'm adding too much filler to get the story to pan out.

Not too bad

>he thinks he can make a career out of writing
>not just having a normal career and writing in your free time for its own inherit value

Never gonna make it, desu.

I thought I had something really original until I realized its really just snuff erotica. Gosh darn it.

I wish I could write full time, I consider it my true passion, but it utterly depresses me when I remember I made more in a day sitting on my ass than did in eight months.
Thanks STEM, I guess. Maybe I'll shoot for an early retirement.

Great that you're in a STEM field, yeah it took me 8-9 months just to make $500 and when I worked in construction I had MANY occasions where I made that much in just a 1-2 day period. I've only been writing for a little over 15 months (self-published for almost 13.5 months), I haven't invested a single red cent towards my books so the covers are crappy free ones, I've not spent any actual money on advertising or marketing, I don't even use Facebook or any other sort of social media which in and of itself would have UNDOUBTEDLY gotten me so much more exposure over the past year. I also don't write for any particular group or market, I just write what interests me.

In short, in self-publishing you are in COMPLETE control, and many of my decisions are not particularly smart in terms of making money. I write because I love to write, and if people like what I write, great, but I'm not going to linger on it too much if people don't like it because merely by the nature of how I include some political aspects there's going to be a lot of melting snowflakes. Anyways, just because I'm not making all that much money doesn't mean I'm even considering stopping. I love to write, and I love it when I've got a project on the go that I enjoy working on so much that the FIRST thing I think about the moment I wake up (besides coffee) is the book I've got on the go. It's a spectacular feeling, just like when I get 4-5 star reviews, just like when I swap emails with fans of my work (whom I had never met and never spoke to prior to them reading my stuff), and just in general I know that this is what I want to do with my life.

It's been over a year, I have over half a dozen books to show for it (majority of them are novels, meaning 40,000+ words), and about $500 that I have gotten purely for my writing. I'm steady learning, steady improving, and year 2 will be FAR better both in terms of revenue as well as in terms of the quality of my work, and I know that year 3 will be even better. My first goal is a modest one; $15,000 a year. That's literally less than full-time minimum wage, but I live a pretty minimalist lifestyle. I can live comfortably on that, with quite a bit of spending money. I could definitely go out and eat at a restaurant or get drunk at a pub at least once a week and all my bills will be covered, including groceries of course. After that, since I will continue to write, it will only get better from there.

Now this is more comical, but one of my fans have already said that it's only a matter of time before agents are knocking at my door for the movie rights. Still, we're not talking about some over-enthusiastic teen or 20-something. This is a grown man, around his 50s or 60s, living in Germany but with Australian ancestry (possibly Polish too). It's a wild thing to even consider so I'm not going to hold my breath, but just based on who he is, I can't exactly just disregard his comment entirely because he seemed to be quite honest in it.

Thanks, Wallace Stevens.

I've got a short story that really has legs and I'm trying to get it ready for submission.

I'm currently in university, working a 12 hour shift factory job on the weekends. I write my ideas on the side, spending the 12 hour shifts as very long brainstorming sessions. It's going well, but things at Uni (like finals and such) tend to make my writing schedule irregular.

I'm over 25,000 words into my first book, and I like what I got so far despite knowing that it needs some editing.

poor

i was loved by the department but i got lazy and had a shit time reviewing my work.

I finished my first book this year(third attempt in trying to write a book) but i don't have the guts to publish it. Even though i love the characters and fantasy world i wrote i think that plot itself is way too short and silly and lots of the concepts are really "alien" in the literature medium. It has almost 130 pages.

I pretend to start writing a new thing before 2017 ends.

How fast do you guys usually write?
I struggle to get past 20,000 words a month, and I'm afraid that's just too slow for any hope of self-publishing.

Idiot, just write because you love to write. Yes, 20k words is low, and I could manage over 3x that, but that doesn't mean you have any better or worse chance of self-publishing. You could self-publish a book that has 10 chapters wich each chapter saying 'boi pussy' complete with no capitalization or end punctuation. As for getting successful in self-publishing, you can still make it with just 20k per month.

... you're probably doing something wrong, somewhere along this grand path in life and art and expression, if you're worried that you write creative works too slow

>bored

wtf bro, there's a civil war brewing. Just imagine all the material we can write about

Exactly as it should be - I am broke and unpublished writing on the dreams of a posthumous discovery.

Kinda looks like me

Great, Im applying to law school.

I got a rejection email from the New Yorker a few weeks ago. This is actually an improvement over my past submissions to them. I used to never hear anything at all from them, but this time they bothered to send me a note, even if it's probably a form note.

Should I submit to them again, even if I recognize that my chances of getting published are very close to zero? Am I making enough progress with them to get back on the horse?

Of course! Hell, even if not, worst case scenario is they reject it. Best case, you get published, you get noticed, you start on your path to fame and fortune. Have you been submitting to other magazines, out of curiosity? New Yorker is just one fish in the pond.

fuck the New Yorker and fuck you for applying to the most cucked middlebrow magazine in the known universe. Jerking yourself off the their form rejection letter, and you call yourself an artist!? Where is your sense of shame?

Not that guy, but you're an idiot if you think publishing in The New Yorker or Harper won't help your career. What the fuck is wrong with you people? If you don't want to be read, just keep posting your excerpts on Veeky Forums's critique threads and call it a day.

>>>>>>career

i.e. the death of art

Writing fiction has always been a career unlike other art forms such as dance, music and poetry. The novel is, by design, a commercial format. I understand what you're trying to say, and I think I agree with it to a certain extent, though.