Welcome to Gaia! ::

like wise. it's why i'm looking into other options to get into the industry to allow me to work with what i enjoy and ensure i have time to continue writing too biggrin

not that i've seen in local shops. There may be one for manchester but I'm not technically in manchester :S

that would be great if there is a local group biggrin
I'll keep an eye out. <3

And it's a grand adventure! The only thing that could make it better would be evil overlord madboy suitors! *is re-reading Girl Genius*

I'm really excited about finishing this draft. It makes it that much more real, even if editing is going to be awful.

Eh, I guess? But the rewrites have been fairly heavy so far, and likely to continue that way.


I went to a talk tonight about e-publishing, which was really interesting since it was from the perspective of a publisher. Also because we are very ideologically different. The format wars are interesting, in that there are about two dozen different formats ebooks are sold in right now, and most are only compatible with specific hardware. And most are being undersold - a UK publishing house did an analysis, and it cost them only about 30% less to produce an ebook, and most are sold for at least 40% less.

Those numbers change drastically, of course, with high-volume publishing, like stuff by Rowling or Meyer. But it's very interesting how e-publishing is most viable right now for huge houses like Random House and for self-publishing and POD.

Thanks. ^.^ At least the main character's friends are now getting fleshed out as other than 'foul-mouthed asian' and 'druggie playboy.' Which is progress.

Yeah. I mean, they're still minor characters, but now they are not 1-dimensional. Probably.


Markets

Many of us work on novels, because we want to be novelists, and that's the most visible aspect of the publishing industry. But what a lot of us tend to overlook is that there is much less of a market for novels than for non-fiction and short fiction. There are thousands of literary magazines and anthologies out there that publish short fiction, most of whom are listed on Duotrope, which everyone should at least visit. One of the cool things about Duotrope is that you can narrow your search for only paying markets, too, which can make submitting pieces potentially lucrative. Of course, there is still a high rejection rate - the magazine I work on has a very high acceptance rate at 20%, so you can still expect many rejection letters. But the beautiful thing is that you can have as many short stories as you like out there circulating. Publishing credits and a writing resume will also help you when you try to get a novel published - if other people have seen your work fit to spend money on, that increases publisher confidence that you will sell.

Non-fiction is another potentially lucrative market, and the beautiful thing about non-fiction is that you can pitch an idea to a publisher, but you never start work on non-fiction until you already have payment and publication lined up,