#And publishing

[atinylittlepain]

im gonna rant a little sorry about it but, so

i know that ninety-five percent of putting your writing out there - submitting to lit mags, querying, submitting to contests - is rejection. i know that. i know that it's all subjective too, right? there isn't really one Objectively Good piece of writing - one person loves it, one person doesn't get it, one person hates it etc

that being said, i have been getting a lot of rejections lately, and i am starting to get seriously weighed down by them. i'm already in a bit of a slump with my writing, and add the rejections on top of that, i start to question if i'm actually any "good" at this thing, or if i should just quit while i'm ahead.

i don't know, just feeling really fucking sad and discouraged about writing rn (this does not include fic writing) and i guess i just wanted to say the quiet part loud if there's anyone else who reads this and is feeling the same way - it's fucking brutal out there, and i'm starting to not even want to play the game anymore

[kindlythevoid]

You write so that your favorite actor will one day star in an adaptation of your book.

I write so that an adaptation of my work gets featured on Film Theory.

We are not the same.

[shellyscribbles]

Unplugging from social media has me wondering about publishing.

Do I have the self control to maintain multiple social media accounts strictly for writing?

I guess this tumblr is proof that I do. If they aren't on my phone I wont be on them all day and won't get into stupid arguments that will damage my image if I am not on them all day.

But also, do I want to publish? Can I leave it as a fun little hobby where I work out ideas and maybe self publish or something later on? I don't even know what it feels like to have a story completed.

I guess I have time to think about it.

[roseworth]

i think theres this idea in the general public that the "best" fanfic gets turned into real books like 50 shades of grey. but the truth is that the best fanfic can never be published as an actual book because its intricately woven into the canon material so its inseparable even if you change the names

[syn4k]

would he fucking say that? let's investigate.

[that-butch-archivist]

"Lesbian Weddings" by Wendy Jill York

source: The Femme Mystique, edited by Lesléa Newman

[intermundia]

this is the single worst way i've ever read to describe an erection, frank herbert

[foxglovedforest]

AND THEY’RE FUCKING CORRECT

[thewhumpyprintingpress]

This is a friendly reminder to never, ever publish your book with a publishing company that charges you to publish with them. That is a vanity press, which makes money by preying on authors. They charge you for editing, formatting, cover art, and more. With most of these companies, you will never seen a cent of any royalties made from sale of your book. A legitimate publishing company only makes money when you make money, they will never charge you to publish with them. If a company approaches you and says "Hey, we'll publish your book, just pay us X amount of money," tell them to go fuck themself and block them.

[bebewrites]

woop there it is

[faffreux]

it's weird to be attracted to an ugly frog like wtf is even your taste in men

i won't argue with you about whether or not fawful is ugly but it is weird yes, i agree

i have long accepted that i am weird

[shigure]

it's so beethover / we're so bach

[sporesgalaxy]

i shouldnt be at the club i should be at a monastery. illuminating texts and shit

[malcolmschmitz]

So, there's a dirty little secret in indie publishing a lot of people won't tell you, and if you aren't aware of it, self-publishing feels even scarier than it actually is.

There's a subset of self-published indie authors who write a ludicrous number of books a year, we're talking double digit releases of full novels, and these folks make a lot of money telling you how you can do the same thing. A lot of them feature in breathless puff pieces about how "competitive" self-publishing is as an industry now.

A lot of these authors aren't being completely honest with you, though. They'll give you secrets for time management and plotting and outlining and marketing and what have you. But the way they're able to write, edit, and publish 10+ books a year, by and large, is that they're hiring ghostwriters.

They're using upwork or fiverr to find people to outline, draft, edit, and market their books. Most of them, presumably, do write some of their own stuff! But many "prolific" indie writers are absolutely using ghostwriters to speed up their process, get higher Amazon best-seller ratings, and, bluntly, make more money faster.

When you see some godawful puff piece floating around about how some indie writer is thinking about having to start using AI to "stay competitive in self-publishing", the part the journalist isn't telling you is that the 'indie writer' in question is planning to use AI instead of paying some guy on Upwork to do the drafting.

If you are writing your books the old fashioned way and are trying to build a readerbase who cares about your work, you don't need to use AI to 'stay competitive', because you're not competing with these people. You're playing an entirely different game.

[christadeguchi]

liberté, egalité, fraternité et yaoi

[that-butch-archivist]

"Dyke March 1994" by Morgan Gwenwald

source: The Wild Good: Lesbian Photographs & Writings on Love, edited by Beatrix Gates