In the last week, I picked up 10 new patrons, so I'm up to 29 total. It's slow going, but I'm hopeful.
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WritersEra |OT| Publish before you die, writing writer writes
- Thread starter weemadarthur
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In the last week, I picked up 10 new patrons, so I'm up to 29 total. It's slow going, but I'm hopeful.
That seems really good from what I've seen of other writer Patreons.
lol seriously, I was thinking about it after the discussion in here and I'm just way too chicken
I've considered Patreon before but I a) don't have enough of a profile yet and b) write too slowly.
I'm just not sure what else to do with a story that while broken up into books/arcs is now over 200 chapters long (with the average chapter length over 4k words) :P
I'm gonna get noped out of the room of basically any traditional publisher, especially when I tell them I think I'm only like 33% done with the story lol.
Maybe try something like Wattpad or Booksie, and just start posting the chapters now? I don't have much experience with them (I just set up accounts yesterday), but in theory, you might be able to get some feedback.
Patreon is a monthly thing, right? It seems like an interesting prospect for serialisations.
If you don't manage to deliver in a given month does it have a system where it withholds payment from your patrons until you do, or are you just forced to try and catch up and hope they understand?
If you don't manage to deliver in a given month does it have a system where it withholds payment from your patrons until you do, or are you just forced to try and catch up and hope they understand?
Patreon can be set up a few ways.
The most common is monthly, but you can also set it up to be a price per release.
An example of this one would be the I Fight Dragons album I have backed where I get updates while backed but I won't be charged until they are ready to ship the album.
If you set it up monthly, it's going to take money whether you put out anything or not.
If you aren't consistently putting out content though, it's highly unlikely you will keep patreons for long.
You typically need to put out 3-5 comic strips a week (if you are writing a web comic)
a picture every day (if you are an artist)
at least one video content per day (if you are a youtuber)
a chapter of a story a week (if you are a writer)
ect if you want to keep your patreons. Most people aren't devoted enough to someone to keep paying them for their services if you aren't consistently giving them something in return.
Keep in mind my numbers are just rough things. I mean you could be a bit slower if your content is really good, but even then for some of those it might be lower than it needs to be. Most successful youtube channels for example put out at least 3-5 videos monday through friday. (or if we talk about streamers, most successful streamers stream for at least a few hours every day)
I know as a webcomic reader that consistency is important. If you miss your comic drop days I just start forgetting your comic exists.
As zulux noted, it can be set up to charge "per creation", which is how my account is set up (though it won't actually process payments until the 1st of the next month). At the moment, I'm releasing a batch of chapters every two weeks as paid posts, plus the occasional tidbit of insider information that goes to patrons only, but they don't need to pay for it. You can also have public posts, but currently my only one is the 7 free chapters I provided as a sample.
As soon as I finish the first book, I'll package it together, pay for a custom cover, and try to figure out how to do an appropriate marketing push, and then inside the book itself, I'll include a link to the Patreon account, in case additional people are interested in following along on future installments.
Thanks for the replies, I didn't know about the per creation option. It's exciting that those kinds of flexible options exist, especially when the fight for people's attention is so competitive these days. Anything that can help you find your own niche can only be a good thing.
Zulux's numbers are a bit exaggerated as I follow several pretty successful patreons that don't have nearly as extreme an output as that, but the basic idea of "Gotta keep putting out consistent content" is still always there.
In regards to content output on patreon, I've noticed a reasonable strategy used by creators with irregular output (like a video every few weeks/once a month) is to keep the highest tier to a low price like $10 or so. The idea being that any loss of subs due to the irregular output, especially from the higher tiers, won't have a huge impact on the total amount. It seems to work out as far as I seen.
I did outright say in my post "Keep in mind my numbers are just rough things. I mean you could be a bit slower if your content is really good, "
I was just outlining the general numbers you should be aiming for if you want people to follow you as your general person won't follow someone who isn't putting out a steady stream of content.
You can have success with more irregular content if your content is really good or a niche that you get some core fans on. Most really successful ones though release a lot of good content a month though.
It does seem like the modern "content creator", whether they're making books, comics, videos, or podcasts, has to hit a consistent schedule, and that schedule is probably at least posting once a week for most. It's an intimidating workload and I imagine a lot of people will end up burnt out. Personally, that's why if I ever did something like that I'd probably finish the book and then serialize it. I'd definitely fall behind- and get incredibly stressed out- if I tried to write it chapter by chapter every week.
Yup. Steamers can lose subs fast even just for taking 2 days off
it seems that with him shifting towards other public stuff he has lost a ton of his subs in general
But yeah my plan is totally finish the book first, get a ton of content done in advance and then start on a weekly schedule trying to keep up.
I'm at peace with the fact that I'm wholly inadequate to meet this kind of schedule. I just don't have the level of productivity required to maintain that schedule, especially for years.
Same. Although outlining stuff has helped a bit on the productivity front.
Does Grammarly suck as much as it seems to? I just tried out the free version and copied and pasted one of my chapters. It found 50 or 60 things, but only one of them was an actual error (and even there, it's one of those things where it's not mandatory to fix). In every other single thing it flagged, it was Grammarly that made the mistake. Considering the way they market the software, it seems like a major problem... If you know what you're doing, there are too many false positives to make it worth using. And if you don't know what you're doing, you risk blindly accepting a bunch of their suggestions, thus making your writing worse than it was before you started.
I'm a freelance writer, and I use Grammarly, but only as an additional guide to finding typos. It depends on which mode you're using. If you've got it set to check for a formal business letter document, it's going to be a lot stricter. If you select it for Creative stuff like novels, it eases up on the nitpicking.
I would say you are right in that if you got a pretty strong sense of grammar already, depending on the mode you're using, a lot of what Grammarly picks up on will be deliberate choices you made, that you're going to ignore. But if you write a LOT, with a high volume daily word count that runs in the thousands per day, it's worth it as an extra set of eyes to pick up on typos. I mostly keep it on the article/blog mode for the bulk of my writing, but I do use it for one final pass on my novels, switched to Creative/Novel mode, before handing it off my agent or editor.
In a lot of cases, it wasn't even deliberate choices, but that it was suggesting words or punctuation changes that were just flat out wrong or nonsensical. I had to turn it off. Maybe the paid features are more helpful, but the free features aren't exactly a great advertisement for the software. I currently do four drafts before Patreon posts and six drafts before releasing on Amazon, but there are still some things I miss. The one thing it did catch was helpful, I guess, but with so many false positives, I don't think this is the solution I was hoping for.
I sat down and wrote 15 pages of a script in an afternoon. I haven't written that much or that fluidly in a long time, but now it's been two days and I haven't written anything.
I think I'm just hesitant to go back to it and then find myself at a grinding halt compared to how well I was doing a couple days ago.
I think I'm just hesitant to go back to it and then find myself at a grinding halt compared to how well I was doing a couple days ago.
I've been writing a couple stories. They are around 33 pages and 73 pages.
They are comedies. Anyone interested in reading some of it?
If you are easily offended, you probably aren't interested.
They are called "Everything Changed the day the R190 Launched" and "I...Changed".
I posted the story of the Angry Gamer in this thread I think. It's kind of similar to that kinda thing.
They are comedies. Anyone interested in reading some of it?
If you are easily offended, you probably aren't interested.
They are called "Everything Changed the day the R190 Launched" and "I...Changed".
I posted the story of the Angry Gamer in this thread I think. It's kind of similar to that kinda thing.
To be fair, it's always going to be like this. Especially if you write on a regular basis. You'll have streaks, but there will also be days when the words are being squeezed out of stone. It's important to find a method of writing that's compatible with your productivity. For some people that means forcing themselves to write every day, but for others, they're productive enough on a regular basis that they can afford to only "strike while the iron is hot" and write when they feel really inspired.
I'm starting to realize how nerve wracking writing avengers infinity war and end game must have been.
I'm just starting the arc I spent 4 books setting up and the pressure to make this good is super stressful, I can't imagine what it must have been like for trying to end a multibillion dollar 20+ film franchise lol.
I'm just starting the arc I spent 4 books setting up and the pressure to make this good is super stressful, I can't imagine what it must have been like for trying to end a multibillion dollar 20+ film franchise lol.
Good luck. You're going to a land that I can never visit. Until starships and magic exist in real life, I'm never writing realistic.
I can get that.
I do soft genre changes across the books of my main story (the main genre is always adventure/fantasy but the secondary genre changes drastically at times), and it's terrifying changing genre's like that since you can't rely on much that you learned doing the different genre previously :P
Aka doing a psychological horror story doesn't ready you for a war arc. it can help at spots but they are very different in design lol.
As someone that writes a lot of realistic fiction (and really enjoys writing/reading it) forget the realism part a bit. Typically the genre is referred to literary and I like to refer to it like that rather than realistic cause people get too bogged down by the "real" part. My favorite litfics are almost always pretty weird, dealing with weird people doing weird stuff written kinda weirdly.
To give some examples from some stories I read over the years to illustrate how weird they can be (and also cause no one ever lets me talk about the literary fiction I like to read!): couple regales a dinner party with the horrifying story about when a robber trapped them in the trunk of their car for a whole night juxtaposing the lighthearted dinner party with the horrific time in the trunk, A guy wants to swim across the town which really just amounts to him hopping into people's backyards and swimming through their pools to hop over the fence to the next pool, two families trade cats because they think the cats dispositions would be better suited in the other's environment but the little girl hates the new cat cause he's not mean like her old one. Anyway what I mean to say is literary is pretty fun too if you give it the chance, just saying.
Heads up, everyone! Here's your chance~
Text for non-Twitter people (though you may want to get a Twitter just for this):
"@RebellionPub
Want your shot in publishing?
For the next week, reply to this with a one-tweet pitch, and if it piques our editors' interest, they'll be in touch! #shootyourshot"
Text for non-Twitter people (though you may want to get a Twitter just for this):
"@RebellionPub
Want your shot in publishing?
For the next week, reply to this with a one-tweet pitch, and if it piques our editors' interest, they'll be in touch! #shootyourshot"
Already replied to them!
A lot of Rebelliion's previous publishing (Abaddon Books, for instance) has come under work-for-hire, but I don't know if they're branching out to the more traditional model.
Perfect! What'd you go for? And even so, some support in publishing (if it's not traditional) seems like a fun chance. A real nail-biter, though. One of their editors is already going through scoping people to DM. @_@ If they don't bite on my serial killer in Faerie, I'll be devastated. Devastated.
That's my editor, Kate! Protip: She is a huge Harry Dresden fan, so if you've got anything like that, your odds are good.
I feel like a bit of a cheat now, I've already got a book coming out with them next year, now I find out through this shoot-your-shot thing that they also take novellas, and I just happen to have one sitting around.
Oh, awesome! Mine's presented as The Talented Mr. Ripley meets Stardust.
Aaaaaaaaaah! And she just DM-ed me! O_O
GOOD LUCK!
I have nothing but good things to say about Kate. It's been great working with her.
I went for a near-future dystopia, so no idea if it's their thing.
I'd want to read a Faerie serial killer! Best of luck.
Near future dystopia is definitely a thing they do. They take some pretty crazy concepts. My book is about a 22nd century combat mage for hire, and they decided "Screw it, let's print this."
They've also done Judge Dredd stuff (naturally, since their parent company owns the IP), and Nigerian Harry Dresden style urban fantasy stories, they just put out a book with Franz Kafka tackling a murder mystery with a giant talking roach as his Watson, and they have a series about a Malaysian chef that prepares cannibal dishes for the gods so... yeah, weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeird stuff suits them just fine.
So... I cheated.
I mentioned to my agent, "HEY DID YOU KNOW REBELLION TAKES NOVELLAS, AND I GOT THIS THING JUST SITTING HERE?"
So I'm jumping the line and getting it sent direct. Sorry guys.
Thank you! I know it's still an absolute long shot, but still very exciting (especially since you've had a good experience).
Dystopia could be super fun! I could also see it being really popular, especially in this climate.
And for mine, it's more like a serial killer dropped into Faerie and playing by a 3rd set of rules (not fae and certainly not normal human), but I thought it might be fun. Only problem is now I have to draft and outline/synopsis for this thing. @_@
That does sound really intriguing - and I can't think of any published books that resemble it at all either.
Good luck on the synopsis - I've always hated writing those.
Because of the character limits for Twitter, one popular technique I've seen used is "comp titles," which just means referencing existing works, with a popular structure being "something meets something." Like, my current WIP is about some magic student who messes up and is sent to reform school, so I've been short-handing it to people as "Harry Potter meets The Breakfast Club."
Gave it a shot, just for fun. It was fun coming up with pitches. Totally not serious, but serious in a way, ha ha.
We'll see how it goes. It started out just light and fluffy and then the dumpster fire that is the American geopolitical climate turned it into something... else. I've already made peace with the fact that it may be too angry and specific to ever get published, but at least I got it out of my system.
Hmmm this is tempting but...
A. I don't really want to try to push my main story until it's fully done.
B. I don't know how to sell my first book without spoilers for the second half.
C. Selling my first book doesn't represent my main story as a whole very well :P
perhaps I will just pitch my kids story lol
A. While it's planned to be a total length of 3 books, the first book is done and a complete story on its own.
B. I can have a far easier time writing a pitch for it as being able to sum it as something along the lines of
(hmmm I need to cut that in like half to get it on twitter lol)
I wonder if the fact that it's aimed at 12-15 year olds and broken up into "episodes" which are 7-9k word chapters designed to take place in a half hour TV show or so (but given how much I tend to stick in a chapter likely more hour long episodes >.>) will hurt it lol.
It's designed in general to be a story for my SO to draw a comic for, but I'm writing it as a novel as well on the off chance of getting it published some day.
I think that's sound advice but I don't know if that would really work with my story since I hadn't conceived of it in that manner. Not to say that it's completely original or that it doesn't have influences, but they're not necessarily...obvious. Like, I don't think too many people have read The Night Battles by Carlo Ginzburg.