7 ms·

Spent several years writing and editing my first book before thinking the job was finished when I hit the publish now button. But it is literally only half the

by boznz 2y ago

Spent several years writing and editing my first book before thinking the job was finished when I hit the publish now button. But it is literally only half the job done. The hell now is unless you get friends and family or an agency involved to push it and market it it will languish on the 500th page of any Amazon search forever. Oh and did I say that there are thousands of books a day released and there is nowhere you can self-promote stuff if you do not have social media, HN and reddit will also immediately block self-promotion even if relevant to the audience (I guess I can understand why). I guess the only ones destined to read it are the AI training algorithms. Still it wont stop me writing, having a book published, even if nobody reads it is very self-satisfying and leaves something of you in this world when you are gone.

pavlov 2y ago
Ten years ago I wrote a science fiction novel in Finnish, printed 300 hardcover copies at my own expense, and gave them away to people over the years. I would guess less than 10% of those copies have actually been read. (A few people claim they liked it, but of course that doesn't necessarily mean they read it.) So, a waste of time and money? That's not how I feel about it at all. The creative process was illuminating. And as you say, it's satisfying to think that there's now a physical artifact of my mind that's longer and deeper than any other work I've produced, and it will probably stay for a while on somebody's bookshelf after I'm gone.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
  Exactly. Don't expect anyone to read what you wrote, much less commercial success, unless you were a Harvard undergrad English prodigy who joined Penguin publishing, or somehow wiggled into the circle of [City] Review of [Each Others'] Books. It's a one-way, time-traveling message in a bottle comprised of dead trees. Doing it for art is a wolf's howl that it lived and that it could. Although, it's gradually shifted into over-reliance on the linkrot of spinning rust, floating electrons, and burning transistors such that used and new bookstores and libraries are endangered species. Perhaps another cycle similar to the early medieval period maybe gradually happening as today's "Romes" decline in slow-motion, accelerated by climate change decline unless and until we save ourselves through economic and ecological limits.
  - psadri 2y ago
    Digging the phrase "wolf's howl". I distinctly know this phrase is part of song's lyrics - but can't think of the name.
  - frutiger 2y ago
    > It's a one-way, time-traveling message in a bottle So too is DNA in children. You don’t get to choose the entirety of the message but you do get to choose the half of the lottery that they must receive. And that message is likely to far outlive any message in any dead tree or electronic book.
    - serf 2y ago
      where there is increased opportunity there is usually increased risk; it's hardly a relative comparison. also no one really chooses their offspring's 'half of the lottery', it's an accident of nature -- we only get to choose whether or not we try to propagate our own skew into the lottery roll. and to be very real here for a second, 99% of sexual interaction has nothing to do with genetic time-traveling bottle-messages, and just as few people really give a thought about the genetic combinations resulting from their actions. they just like to orgasm -- it's just not as poetic a concept to talk about.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - frutiger 2y ago
        > also no one really chooses their offspring's 'half of the lottery', it's an accident of nature -- we only get to choose whether or not we try to propagate our own skew into the lottery roll In modern societies, most people choose their mating partner. That’s the lottery half that I am referring to. Of course no one chooses specifically which half of each mate goes into the child. That would be absurd. > and to be very real here for a second, 99% of sexual interaction has nothing to do with genetic time-traveling bottle-messages, and just as few people really give a thought about the genetic combinations resulting from their actions. For the individual sure “it’s just deliberate sex” but for the genome, transmission of the message into the distant future is all there is. Just look around you, you will likely see and hear more evidence of those billion year long message transmissions than anything else.
- beej71 2y ago
  > A few people claim they liked it, but of course that doesn't necessarily mean they read it. Reminds me of that Groucho Marx quote: "From the moment I picked up your book until I put it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it." :)
  - pdonis 2y ago
    There's also the classic Churchill quote, when a friend who had just published a book gave him a copy: "Thank you very much, I shall lose no time reading it."
- bruceb 2y ago
  Have you thought about translating it to English (using cheap or free means)?
- Ntrails 2y ago
  My grandfather self published a memoir some 30 (ish) years ago. Unsurprisingly he never really managed to shift many of the thousand or so hardbacks I believe he paid to have printed. I think a lot of it was catharsis? I also know that the published versions leave out a lot of stuff that he thought was too sensitive or reflected badly on the Air Force etc. He's long since passed, and I have a stack of 20 or so left (many were destroyed) from "inheritance". Our current strategy is to take one with us to every hotel/b&b we stay in, most of which have a library shelf, and leave one there. Maybe they never get read, maybe they do. Feels better than sending them to burn!
  - em-bee 2y ago
    donate them to libraries
    - bwb 2y ago
      They generally don't want them, and will do a big giveaway desk out front. Salvation army takes books too.
ghaff 2y ago
So it's either a hobby--which is fine!--or it's an adjunct to a day job which can be very profitable--which is very fine!. But, yes, publishing a book that you think will be a bestseller with or without exceptional promotion is probably a lost hope.
xhevahir 2y ago
> I guess the only ones destined to read it are the AI training algorithms. I'm imagining a lone genius toiling away at a novel and dying in obscurity, with his work gaining recognition only after his death, à la Herman Melville, except in this future the writing eventually enters the canon by deeply impressing not human but machine readers.
- troutwine 2y ago
  Melville was a prominent author, an early sex symbol even, owing to the success and popularity of his novels before Moby Dick. That novel was hugely controversial in its day -- perceived as blasphemous, overwrought -- and it ruined his reputation as an author. Also, he'd spent money he didn't really have during the writing of Moby Dick so that when it flopped he couldn't survive on the famine part of the feast/famine divide. Point being, had Melville continued writing south pacific adventure novels he probably would not be remembered today but might have died a well-off man.
  - bowsamic 2y ago
    This doesn’t line up with what is written on his Wikipedia page at all, which claims it was his next novel that was more controversial, and he clearly wasn’t that poor because he did a grand tour of Europe and the Mediterranean a few years after
    - troutwine 2y ago
      I can’t speak to the Wikipedia page as I have not read it but the biographical material in my Norton Critical Moby Dick and Delbanco’s Melville line up: Moby Dick was a flop and ruined his reputation in society, Pierre not selling further precipitated the crisis built from choices made while riding a high into The Whale. Melville bought many things with debt: his farm, his rare books, clothes. I don’t find it unimaginable that he paid for the grand tour with debt spending either.
- mensetmanusman 2y ago
  The machine wept.
devbent 2y ago
> HN and reddit will also immediately block self-promotion even if relevant to the audience ( HN doesn't block self promotion if it comes up as part of a conversation, e.g. "I'm having this technical problem." Re: "I wrote a book about how to solve that!" Also you can at least put a link in your profile! Reddit has tons of self promos all the time, it just depends on the subreddit. Also it helps if you're a long time active member in a community.
- modeless 2y ago
  HN doesn't block self promotion in stories either. There's a whole section for it, "Show HN".
  - boznz 2y ago
    My comment was because my last three submissions were blocked. I emailed the moderator the first time it happened, and he said the algorithm probably thought it was self-promotion as I cross posted it to medium.com which I now know everybody hates. By blocked, I mean the articles showed as normal on my browser but was hidden to anybody else. I did not use the "Show HN" option because I have had articles submitted in the past from my website without this issue. I am not a prolific poster, maybe 2 or 3 a year, and appreciate HN efforts to keep the spam out, so I will give it another shot on my next original article using the "Show HN" option. Ironically my last submission that was rejected was exactly about this https://rodyne.com/?p=1400 https://rodyne.com/?p=1400
    - bryanrasmussen 2y ago
      Right, I seem to get the same result on things I post from my medium publication - which started after I posted some links to some time travel stories I wrote in a post about time travel which seemed to me to relate and which got a few upvotes. After that if I posted a link to an article I wrote it got shadow blocked (at least for a bit) the thing is I only post things here that I think fit the site, which is about 10% of what I write, and I am a relatively prolific poster. Looking at my current submissions - in the last 30 submissions one was to an article I wrote. Why? Because I thought it fit HN, just like all the other things I post I think fit HN. Personally I think that's being a relatively well-behaved user of the site, but evidently not.
er4hn 2y ago
I agree on it being self satisfying. I wrote a short story on my blog once that I seriously doubt anyone ever read. It was a cyberpunk story, but the themes were really very much about how I felt about having my startup crash and burn early on. After finishing it I felt like I'd finally been able to express how I felt about everything.
jimbokun 2y ago
I don't understand why Hacker News and Reddit block self promotion. "Hey, look at a thing I made!" is a lot more interesting than a lot of the other drivel that gets posted.
- modeless 2y ago
  Hacker News doesn't block self promotion. You are free to post your own stories linking to your own work, I've done it, people do it all the time. There's a whole section for it, 'Show HN' (although it's not required to post there). And you're free to post links to your work in comments when relevant. Of course spam is unwelcome everywhere. Don't overdo it and don't be deceptive about it, and you'll be fine.
  - bowsamic 2y ago
    Hacker News does block self promotion as stated by a mod elsewhere in this thread
    - pvg 2y ago
      I can't find such a comment in this thread, can you link it?
- PheonixPharts 2y ago
  As mentioned repeatedly, HN doesn't block self-promotion. But reddit something else entirely. It so clear that all of the major subs are constantly being manipulated by firms working PR for large companies, but the second someone posts "I made this!" people get up-in-arms. Of course who really knows how much of reddit is even real people anymore.
- CM30 2y ago
  In theory, they limit self promotion so that people actually participate in the community, and don't just use it as a link dump. The ideal is that people discuss other topics more often, and share their own work only every so often. A lot of forums and chat servers have similar rules for the same reason. Unfortunately, this doesn't work very well on Reddit, since the smarter advertisers and astro turfers have figured out how to manipulate the system well enough that people don't suspect they're advertising. Add this to how certain types of low effort content get a ton of upvotes anyway, and how popular creators don't need to care since their fans will promote them anyway, and well, the end result is less "participate in the community" and more "don't be unpopular or bad at pretending to be someone else"
laurex 2y ago
Isn’t “Show HN” a thing that exists for self-promotion? It doesn’t guarantee anyone will upvote it, but seems like it’s fine?
- bryanrasmussen 2y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html Show HN is for something you've made that other people can play with. HN users can try it out, give you feedback, and ask questions in the thread. Off topic: blog posts, sign-up pages, newsletters, lists, and other reading material. Those can't be tried out, so can't be Show HNs. Make a regular submission instead. but if you make a blog post and you make a regular submission and those blog posts of yours get automatically pulled out...then what?
unclebucknasty 2y ago
Your comment resonates and I liken it to promoting when starting a business, which I have just recently done again. Feels like there is a massive imbalance between quality outlets where eyeballs exist and the volume of people /content/businesses vying for attention at those outlets. And, the idea that we need to all become influencers of some scale and amass our own audiences to get the word out about something is not practical or possible. Just creates a long-tail for the platforms. This leaves a relative handful of platforms and influencers through which everyone must flow. It produces an all-or-nothing effect, with tons of failures and a few outsized winners (relatively). I've solved this before, but things weren't as concentrated then. And, ironically, my latest business is intended to solve this for others. But, this startup phase is a beast.
- latentsea 2y ago
  I guess we need to invent ads, so that we don't all have to become influencers?
  - unclebucknasty 2y ago
    >I guess we need to invent ads, so that we don't all have to become influencers? It's almost as if you've never bootstrapped a business, self-published a book, or similar. If you have, and had the resources to use paid ads to reach your desired scale, then congratulations. I think that does indeed entitle you to be smug and dismissive with everyone else.
    - tomnipotent 2y ago
      So we're expected to feel sympathy for the broke bootstrapper? What I'm reading is someone wants all the upsides with none of the downsides. No one is entitled to an audience, especially that of another, just because they've produced some good or service. Participating in capitalism requires either time or money, usually both, and even then you're not guaranteed success.
      - unclebucknasty 2y ago
ido 2y ago
there is nowhere you can self-promote stuff if you do not have social media Isn't the solution (I know it's not that easy) to have social media?
- Draiken 2y ago
  I believe social media [with a big following] is implied. Otherwise it's useless too.
- desert_rue 2y ago
  there is nowhere you can self-promote stuff if you do not have social media [with a significant following] They forgot the last bit.
soneca 2y ago
Another option is starting a newsletter, which feels more suited for a writer to gather readers (when compared to gather “followers” on any social media). Full disclaimer: I believe that so much that (as a fellow beginner writer) I created a “newsletter” platform more suited for fiction writers to slowly form an audience of readers owning the mailing list. https://writer.confabulists.com https://writer.confabulists.com You still have to keep writing constantly (essays, short stories, chapters of a novel, or even some communication of what you are doing) but it feels more natural for writers to write than to keep posting cute pictures, hot takes or creative short videos. Also, I added the concept of “books” in my platform, so new subscribers to your newsletter start reading your old stuff (not only your future posts). Having a newsletter also is very satisfying that you keep some contact with people that like what you write, no matter how few they are.
mattgreenrocks 2y ago
Same experience for me in another domain (indie apps). I’m okay with getting better at marketing, and allowing for the possibility of lack of product market fit. I’m less okay with believing I have to become Extremely Online to “build my personal brand,” just to have a chance at launching things successfully. That’s some bullshit that they peddle to justify their own addiction. It’s learned helplessness to platforms.
- ghaff 2y ago
  You have to promote somehow. No one is going to do it for you for free. You can hire a publicist, take out advertising, speak at events, etc. and none of those probably count as "social media" but they're neither effort nor cost-free.
  - mattgreenrocks 2y ago
    Yeah. So my journey's figuring out the way that works well for me. The goal of indie dev for me is to use the computer less ultimately.
dangus 2y ago
Financially successful writers embrace the sales and marketing game. Like you said, writing the book is only half (or less!) of the work required to get someone to read it. That means constantly engaging their target audience, setting up booths at conventions, posting interesting content on social media, etc. Writing for yourself is a wonderful thing. But if you do want more people to read your work, I would recommend scrapping the idea of avoiding social media and treat your social media presence like a business treats social media. For you it’s not a toxic doomscrolling app, it’s an app you use for your business during your business hours to market your business. Let’s be real, so far you’ve basically talked about how you’ve been unwilling to do anything besides write. > The hell now is unless you get friends and family or an agency involved to push it and market it it will languish on the 500th page of any Amazon search forever. Sure, that will be the case if you just click publish and sit back doing nothing hoping for some sales. I sure hope my family and friends market my book for me, because I don’t want to be in social media! And, hey, that’s fine, not everyone wants their hobby to be some kind of side business. But I sense a bit of disappointment in your comment almost like you tried everything and still haven’t gained traction, which doesn’t seem to be the case.
- boznz 2y ago
  I am lucky enough to have a good programming gig which pays the bills so writing is and will always be a side gig. None of my friends or family are aware I am an author (though I occasionally drop a hint) and I have no interest in the marketing or social media side of making it a business so there is no disappointment and great satisfaction in the achievement. I hope I did not make it sound like I was disappointed; I certainly am not, I got to play with 2048-bit graphene processors, zero-point energy and wormholes for a short while, and I am happily writing my second novel as we speak.
  - dangus 2y ago
    I'm glad to hear. And I can fully understand why one would not want to enter that grind. On top of that, being successful at marketing can depend on a lot of luck (just look at all the successful social media personalities fueled by a lucky break).
gonzo41 2y ago
Consider reading your book as chapters into a limited series podcast.
ravenstine 2y ago
Why not sell physical copies of your book from out of the trunk of your car?
narrator 2y ago
Not many people have read my novels because they are extremely dense and technical near future stuff, but I've made interesting friends from writing those books. In fact, one contact I made basically paid for the whole two year investment in writing the novel. I know a very successful writer of thrillers and he said that the technical content of the books would have to be completely stripped down to maybe what's contained in a few chapters of my book in order for it to be mainstream accessible.
- permadeath 2y ago
  I like the sound of that, can you share where to find your novels?
  - narrator 2y ago
    Since you asked: Here's my first novel: "The Undeserving Future" https://a.co/d/aQ1Nn4G https://a.co/d/aQ1Nn4G which is basically 1984 and Brave New World but for a future dystopia based on eco-totalitarianism instead of Stalinism. It's also got a lot more jokes than those dour books. It has a completely novel economic system that might even work to implement permanent ecological sustainability in a less awful way than central planning everything. The second novel draft is done and is being edited. It's about AI, Mars Colonization, and how humanity gets past the limits to growth and to the next stage of human history past the one we're currently in and takes place in the same universe as the first book. Here's an excerpt that describes a particularly soft and comfy AI doom: https://open.substack.com/pub/botsfordism/p/the-bot https://open.substack.com/pub/botsfordism/p/the-bot
    - permadeath 2y ago
      thanks!
nothercastle 2y ago
Why write a book as your first attempt? It seems like you would need to write a bunch of short stories and establish a name for yourself before anyone would commit to reading your book.
- ghaff 2y ago
  Not that you'll probably make money in any case but there's very little in the way of routes to market where short stories have even a hope of making beer money. This is even true of genres like SF that at least to have reasonable short story magazines as an entry point.

by boznz 2y ago

pavlov 2y ago

Ten years ago I wrote a science fiction novel in Finnish, printed 300 hardcover copies at my own expense, and gave them away to people over the years. I would guess less than 10% of those copies have actually been read. (A few people claim they liked it, but of course that doesn't necessarily mean they read it.) So, a waste of time and money? That's not how I feel about it at all. The creative process was illuminating. And as you say, it's satisfying to think that there's now a physical artifact of my mind that's longer and deeper than any other work I've produced, and it will probably stay for a while on somebody's bookshelf after I'm gone.

hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
Exactly. Don't expect anyone to read what you wrote, much less commercial success, unless you were a Harvard undergrad English prodigy who joined Penguin publishing, or somehow wiggled into the circle of [City] Review of [Each Others'] Books. It's a one-way, time-traveling message in a bottle comprised of dead trees. Doing it for art is a wolf's howl that it lived and that it could. Although, it's gradually shifted into over-reliance on the linkrot of spinning rust, floating electrons, and burning transistors such that used and new bookstores and libraries are endangered species. Perhaps another cycle similar to the early medieval period maybe gradually happening as today's "Romes" decline in slow-motion, accelerated by climate change decline unless and until we save ourselves through economic and ecological limits.
- psadri 2y ago
  Digging the phrase "wolf's howl". I distinctly know this phrase is part of song's lyrics - but can't think of the name.
- frutiger 2y ago
  > It's a one-way, time-traveling message in a bottle So too is DNA in children. You don’t get to choose the entirety of the message but you do get to choose the half of the lottery that they must receive. And that message is likely to far outlive any message in any dead tree or electronic book.
  - serf 2y ago
    where there is increased opportunity there is usually increased risk; it's hardly a relative comparison. also no one really chooses their offspring's 'half of the lottery', it's an accident of nature -- we only get to choose whether or not we try to propagate our own skew into the lottery roll. and to be very real here for a second, 99% of sexual interaction has nothing to do with genetic time-traveling bottle-messages, and just as few people really give a thought about the genetic combinations resulting from their actions. they just like to orgasm -- it's just not as poetic a concept to talk about.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - frutiger 2y ago
      > also no one really chooses their offspring's 'half of the lottery', it's an accident of nature -- we only get to choose whether or not we try to propagate our own skew into the lottery roll In modern societies, most people choose their mating partner. That’s the lottery half that I am referring to. Of course no one chooses specifically which half of each mate goes into the child. That would be absurd. > and to be very real here for a second, 99% of sexual interaction has nothing to do with genetic time-traveling bottle-messages, and just as few people really give a thought about the genetic combinations resulting from their actions. For the individual sure “it’s just deliberate sex” but for the genome, transmission of the message into the distant future is all there is. Just look around you, you will likely see and hear more evidence of those billion year long message transmissions than anything else.
beej71 2y ago
> A few people claim they liked it, but of course that doesn't necessarily mean they read it. Reminds me of that Groucho Marx quote: "From the moment I picked up your book until I put it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it." :)
- pdonis 2y ago
  There's also the classic Churchill quote, when a friend who had just published a book gave him a copy: "Thank you very much, I shall lose no time reading it."
bruceb 2y ago
Have you thought about translating it to English (using cheap or free means)?
Ntrails 2y ago
My grandfather self published a memoir some 30 (ish) years ago. Unsurprisingly he never really managed to shift many of the thousand or so hardbacks I believe he paid to have printed. I think a lot of it was catharsis? I also know that the published versions leave out a lot of stuff that he thought was too sensitive or reflected badly on the Air Force etc. He's long since passed, and I have a stack of 20 or so left (many were destroyed) from "inheritance". Our current strategy is to take one with us to every hotel/b&b we stay in, most of which have a library shelf, and leave one there. Maybe they never get read, maybe they do. Feels better than sending them to burn!
- em-bee 2y ago
  donate them to libraries
  - bwb 2y ago
    They generally don't want them, and will do a big giveaway desk out front. Salvation army takes books too.

ghaff 2y ago

So it's either a hobby--which is fine!--or it's an adjunct to a day job which can be very profitable--which is very fine!. But, yes, publishing a book that you think will be a bestseller with or without exceptional promotion is probably a lost hope.

xhevahir 2y ago

> I guess the only ones destined to read it are the AI training algorithms. I'm imagining a lone genius toiling away at a novel and dying in obscurity, with his work gaining recognition only after his death, à la Herman Melville, except in this future the writing eventually enters the canon by deeply impressing not human but machine readers.

troutwine 2y ago
Melville was a prominent author, an early sex symbol even, owing to the success and popularity of his novels before Moby Dick. That novel was hugely controversial in its day -- perceived as blasphemous, overwrought -- and it ruined his reputation as an author. Also, he'd spent money he didn't really have during the writing of Moby Dick so that when it flopped he couldn't survive on the famine part of the feast/famine divide. Point being, had Melville continued writing south pacific adventure novels he probably would not be remembered today but might have died a well-off man.
- bowsamic 2y ago
  This doesn’t line up with what is written on his Wikipedia page at all, which claims it was his next novel that was more controversial, and he clearly wasn’t that poor because he did a grand tour of Europe and the Mediterranean a few years after
  - troutwine 2y ago
    I can’t speak to the Wikipedia page as I have not read it but the biographical material in my Norton Critical Moby Dick and Delbanco’s Melville line up: Moby Dick was a flop and ruined his reputation in society, Pierre not selling further precipitated the crisis built from choices made while riding a high into The Whale. Melville bought many things with debt: his farm, his rare books, clothes. I don’t find it unimaginable that he paid for the grand tour with debt spending either.
mensetmanusman 2y ago
The machine wept.

devbent 2y ago

> HN and reddit will also immediately block self-promotion even if relevant to the audience ( HN doesn't block self promotion if it comes up as part of a conversation, e.g. "I'm having this technical problem." Re: "I wrote a book about how to solve that!" Also you can at least put a link in your profile! Reddit has tons of self promos all the time, it just depends on the subreddit. Also it helps if you're a long time active member in a community.

modeless 2y ago
HN doesn't block self promotion in stories either. There's a whole section for it, "Show HN".
- boznz 2y ago
  My comment was because my last three submissions were blocked. I emailed the moderator the first time it happened, and he said the algorithm probably thought it was self-promotion as I cross posted it to medium.com which I now know everybody hates. By blocked, I mean the articles showed as normal on my browser but was hidden to anybody else. I did not use the "Show HN" option because I have had articles submitted in the past from my website without this issue. I am not a prolific poster, maybe 2 or 3 a year, and appreciate HN efforts to keep the spam out, so I will give it another shot on my next original article using the "Show HN" option. Ironically my last submission that was rejected was exactly about this https://rodyne.com/?p=1400 https://rodyne.com/?p=1400
  - bryanrasmussen 2y ago
    Right, I seem to get the same result on things I post from my medium publication - which started after I posted some links to some time travel stories I wrote in a post about time travel which seemed to me to relate and which got a few upvotes. After that if I posted a link to an article I wrote it got shadow blocked (at least for a bit) the thing is I only post things here that I think fit the site, which is about 10% of what I write, and I am a relatively prolific poster. Looking at my current submissions - in the last 30 submissions one was to an article I wrote. Why? Because I thought it fit HN, just like all the other things I post I think fit HN. Personally I think that's being a relatively well-behaved user of the site, but evidently not.

er4hn 2y ago

I agree on it being self satisfying. I wrote a short story on my blog once that I seriously doubt anyone ever read. It was a cyberpunk story, but the themes were really very much about how I felt about having my startup crash and burn early on. After finishing it I felt like I'd finally been able to express how I felt about everything.

jimbokun 2y ago

I don't understand why Hacker News and Reddit block self promotion. "Hey, look at a thing I made!" is a lot more interesting than a lot of the other drivel that gets posted.

modeless 2y ago
Hacker News doesn't block self promotion. You are free to post your own stories linking to your own work, I've done it, people do it all the time. There's a whole section for it, 'Show HN' (although it's not required to post there). And you're free to post links to your work in comments when relevant. Of course spam is unwelcome everywhere. Don't overdo it and don't be deceptive about it, and you'll be fine.
- bowsamic 2y ago
  Hacker News does block self promotion as stated by a mod elsewhere in this thread
  - pvg 2y ago
    I can't find such a comment in this thread, can you link it?
PheonixPharts 2y ago
As mentioned repeatedly, HN doesn't block self-promotion. But reddit something else entirely. It so clear that all of the major subs are constantly being manipulated by firms working PR for large companies, but the second someone posts "I made this!" people get up-in-arms. Of course who really knows how much of reddit is even real people anymore.
CM30 2y ago
In theory, they limit self promotion so that people actually participate in the community, and don't just use it as a link dump. The ideal is that people discuss other topics more often, and share their own work only every so often. A lot of forums and chat servers have similar rules for the same reason. Unfortunately, this doesn't work very well on Reddit, since the smarter advertisers and astro turfers have figured out how to manipulate the system well enough that people don't suspect they're advertising. Add this to how certain types of low effort content get a ton of upvotes anyway, and how popular creators don't need to care since their fans will promote them anyway, and well, the end result is less "participate in the community" and more "don't be unpopular or bad at pretending to be someone else"

laurex 2y ago

Isn’t “Show HN” a thing that exists for self-promotion? It doesn’t guarantee anyone will upvote it, but seems like it’s fine?

bryanrasmussen 2y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html Show HN is for something you've made that other people can play with. HN users can try it out, give you feedback, and ask questions in the thread. Off topic: blog posts, sign-up pages, newsletters, lists, and other reading material. Those can't be tried out, so can't be Show HNs. Make a regular submission instead. but if you make a blog post and you make a regular submission and those blog posts of yours get automatically pulled out...then what?

unclebucknasty 2y ago

Your comment resonates and I liken it to promoting when starting a business, which I have just recently done again. Feels like there is a massive imbalance between quality outlets where eyeballs exist and the volume of people /content/businesses vying for attention at those outlets. And, the idea that we need to all become influencers of some scale and amass our own audiences to get the word out about something is not practical or possible. Just creates a long-tail for the platforms. This leaves a relative handful of platforms and influencers through which everyone must flow. It produces an all-or-nothing effect, with tons of failures and a few outsized winners (relatively). I've solved this before, but things weren't as concentrated then. And, ironically, my latest business is intended to solve this for others. But, this startup phase is a beast.

latentsea 2y ago
I guess we need to invent ads, so that we don't all have to become influencers?
- unclebucknasty 2y ago
  >I guess we need to invent ads, so that we don't all have to become influencers? It's almost as if you've never bootstrapped a business, self-published a book, or similar. If you have, and had the resources to use paid ads to reach your desired scale, then congratulations. I think that does indeed entitle you to be smug and dismissive with everyone else.
  - tomnipotent 2y ago
    So we're expected to feel sympathy for the broke bootstrapper? What I'm reading is someone wants all the upsides with none of the downsides. No one is entitled to an audience, especially that of another, just because they've produced some good or service. Participating in capitalism requires either time or money, usually both, and even then you're not guaranteed success.
    - unclebucknasty 2y ago

ido 2y ago

there is nowhere you can self-promote stuff if you do not have social media Isn't the solution (I know it's not that easy) to have social media?

Draiken 2y ago
I believe social media [with a big following] is implied. Otherwise it's useless too.
desert_rue 2y ago
there is nowhere you can self-promote stuff if you do not have social media [with a significant following] They forgot the last bit.

soneca 2y ago

Another option is starting a newsletter, which feels more suited for a writer to gather readers (when compared to gather “followers” on any social media). Full disclaimer: I believe that so much that (as a fellow beginner writer) I created a “newsletter” platform more suited for fiction writers to slowly form an audience of readers owning the mailing list. https://writer.confabulists.com https://writer.confabulists.com You still have to keep writing constantly (essays, short stories, chapters of a novel, or even some communication of what you are doing) but it feels more natural for writers to write than to keep posting cute pictures, hot takes or creative short videos. Also, I added the concept of “books” in my platform, so new subscribers to your newsletter start reading your old stuff (not only your future posts). Having a newsletter also is very satisfying that you keep some contact with people that like what you write, no matter how few they are.

mattgreenrocks 2y ago

Same experience for me in another domain (indie apps). I’m okay with getting better at marketing, and allowing for the possibility of lack of product market fit. I’m less okay with believing I have to become Extremely Online to “build my personal brand,” just to have a chance at launching things successfully. That’s some bullshit that they peddle to justify their own addiction. It’s learned helplessness to platforms.

ghaff 2y ago
You have to promote somehow. No one is going to do it for you for free. You can hire a publicist, take out advertising, speak at events, etc. and none of those probably count as "social media" but they're neither effort nor cost-free.
- mattgreenrocks 2y ago
  Yeah. So my journey's figuring out the way that works well for me. The goal of indie dev for me is to use the computer less ultimately.

dangus 2y ago

Financially successful writers embrace the sales and marketing game. Like you said, writing the book is only half (or less!) of the work required to get someone to read it. That means constantly engaging their target audience, setting up booths at conventions, posting interesting content on social media, etc. Writing for yourself is a wonderful thing. But if you do want more people to read your work, I would recommend scrapping the idea of avoiding social media and treat your social media presence like a business treats social media. For you it’s not a toxic doomscrolling app, it’s an app you use for your business during your business hours to market your business. Let’s be real, so far you’ve basically talked about how you’ve been unwilling to do anything besides write. > The hell now is unless you get friends and family or an agency involved to push it and market it it will languish on the 500th page of any Amazon search forever. Sure, that will be the case if you just click publish and sit back doing nothing hoping for some sales. I sure hope my family and friends market my book for me, because I don’t want to be in social media! And, hey, that’s fine, not everyone wants their hobby to be some kind of side business. But I sense a bit of disappointment in your comment almost like you tried everything and still haven’t gained traction, which doesn’t seem to be the case.

boznz 2y ago
I am lucky enough to have a good programming gig which pays the bills so writing is and will always be a side gig. None of my friends or family are aware I am an author (though I occasionally drop a hint) and I have no interest in the marketing or social media side of making it a business so there is no disappointment and great satisfaction in the achievement. I hope I did not make it sound like I was disappointed; I certainly am not, I got to play with 2048-bit graphene processors, zero-point energy and wormholes for a short while, and I am happily writing my second novel as we speak.
- dangus 2y ago
  I'm glad to hear. And I can fully understand why one would not want to enter that grind. On top of that, being successful at marketing can depend on a lot of luck (just look at all the successful social media personalities fueled by a lucky break).

gonzo41 2y ago

Consider reading your book as chapters into a limited series podcast.

ravenstine 2y ago

Why not sell physical copies of your book from out of the trunk of your car?

narrator 2y ago

Not many people have read my novels because they are extremely dense and technical near future stuff, but I've made interesting friends from writing those books. In fact, one contact I made basically paid for the whole two year investment in writing the novel. I know a very successful writer of thrillers and he said that the technical content of the books would have to be completely stripped down to maybe what's contained in a few chapters of my book in order for it to be mainstream accessible.

permadeath 2y ago
I like the sound of that, can you share where to find your novels?
- narrator 2y ago
  Since you asked: Here's my first novel: "The Undeserving Future" https://a.co/d/aQ1Nn4G https://a.co/d/aQ1Nn4G which is basically 1984 and Brave New World but for a future dystopia based on eco-totalitarianism instead of Stalinism. It's also got a lot more jokes than those dour books. It has a completely novel economic system that might even work to implement permanent ecological sustainability in a less awful way than central planning everything. The second novel draft is done and is being edited. It's about AI, Mars Colonization, and how humanity gets past the limits to growth and to the next stage of human history past the one we're currently in and takes place in the same universe as the first book. Here's an excerpt that describes a particularly soft and comfy AI doom: https://open.substack.com/pub/botsfordism/p/the-bot https://open.substack.com/pub/botsfordism/p/the-bot
  - permadeath 2y ago
    thanks!

nothercastle 2y ago

Why write a book as your first attempt? It seems like you would need to write a bunch of short stories and establish a name for yourself before anyone would commit to reading your book.

ghaff 2y ago
Not that you'll probably make money in any case but there's very little in the way of routes to market where short stories have even a hope of making beer money. This is even true of genres like SF that at least to have reasonable short story magazines as an entry point.