4 ms·

Your parents were right--every dipshit English major with no talent thinks they can be a writer. It's a crowded field and hard to break out with so many compet

by turk73 7y ago

Your parents were right--every dipshit English major with no talent thinks they can be a writer. It's a crowded field and hard to break out with so many competing products looking for eyeballs. The irony is it has never been cheaper to get a book published and find an audience, but that just opened the floodgates. For example, my neighbor wrote a couple of fantasy novels that he sells on Amazon as e-books. I don't think he has sold many copies. But you can make a start if you desire to. It's like starting a band. Anyways, don't feel bad because coding is creative work. BTW, I have been semi-successful at writing--I was a sports writer for a local newspaper before I went to college. Later on, I had a chapter in a compendium on Internet privacy that was a top seller on Amazon. That's a tiny taste of success, right? It's not the same as fiction, I know. Do journal publications count? I have tons of those... I got paid by the word for the sports articles. I did the book chapter for free. The rest was grant-funded. I gave up when I shouldn't have, but it was right when my first child was born and the free time wasn't there anymore.

SolaceQuantum 7y ago
> The irony is it has never been cheaper to get a book published and find an audience, but that just opened the floodgates. It's actually true that it's never been cheaper to get a book published and find an audience. But when you're self publishing, you're no longer purely a writer in the truest sense. In order for your work to succeed, you must pick up the slack that a publishing company would ordinarily do for you. You must market your work, design an attactive cover, preferrably have a professional editor tear your piece asunder, and build your reputation among the general fanbase of your genre as a producer of enjoyable pieces. Given the above it's "easier" than ever to become a full time self published author (dependent on your genre- fantasy is one of the few genres that has a relatively high chance of succeeding on pure self-publish basis. The best chance is as a romance author).
Mirioron 7y ago
If you want to write turn you should do it as a web novel. Go to one of the sites (like royalroad) and consistently publish chapters. You don't even have to be good at writing for people to read it. Some will even give you money, but it's probably not comparable to what you'd make in programming. And when I say that you don't have to be good at it, I mean that some people in these communities read machine translated stories. What matters is consistency and volume of releases.

by turk73 7y ago

SolaceQuantum 7y ago

> The irony is it has never been cheaper to get a book published and find an audience, but that just opened the floodgates. It's actually true that it's never been cheaper to get a book published and find an audience. But when you're self publishing, you're no longer purely a writer in the truest sense. In order for your work to succeed, you must pick up the slack that a publishing company would ordinarily do for you. You must market your work, design an attactive cover, preferrably have a professional editor tear your piece asunder, and build your reputation among the general fanbase of your genre as a producer of enjoyable pieces. Given the above it's "easier" than ever to become a full time self published author (dependent on your genre- fantasy is one of the few genres that has a relatively high chance of succeeding on pure self-publish basis. The best chance is as a romance author).

Mirioron 7y ago

If you want to write turn you should do it as a web novel. Go to one of the sites (like royalroad) and consistently publish chapters. You don't even have to be good at writing for people to read it. Some will even give you money, but it's probably not comparable to what you'd make in programming. And when I say that you don't have to be good at it, I mean that some people in these communities read machine translated stories. What matters is consistency and volume of releases.