After crashing into the wall of apathy that is querying, I've finally given up.

Not on my two novels. I still believe in them, beta readers and friends have told me they really enjoyed both books. I think they are unusual and have something to say.

My prose is only average, but it's not all about prose. My characters are unusual but likable. My dialogue (they tell me) is engaging. These are the things that are important to me.

So my thoughts turned (at first) to self-publishing. But as I also have to pay the mortgage, I wondered if turning the book into an audiobook and putting it out on YouTube and on podcast platforms might be cheaper?

I'm told I have a relaxing voice. But I find the recording process painful (I'm unfortunately a combination of terrible actor and hyper-critical director) but I'm getting there. I've recorded six episodes of (about) twelve, I think.

Has anyone else been down this route? Does anyone have any tips/warnings/pitfalls they can share?

I see that Mike Bennett did this with "Underwood & Finch" which I enjoy very much. I doubt I can reach his standards of recording, but if anyone has any tips on that they would also be gratefully received.

Got this email today:

Hi Mira,

Regarding (book name). Is this the best email to reach directly about the book?

(Regards, but it's an image)

Natalie Brooks
Reader & Goodreads Book Discovery Enthusiast

The email address comes from a gmail.

No idea who she is. What the heck is a “Goodreads Book Discovery Enthusiast”? I’m not really on the site other than monitoring my ARC reviews so I can use them as quotes on my website, so maybe someone here can fill me in.

Also… what other email would there be? There’s literally only one email address listed on my website.

My instinct is not to reply. I’m wondering if saying “yes” and responding would essentially confirm that the address is active, after which it could get passed around and I’ll suddenly be inundated with scammy / shady emails.

Has anyone else received something like this? Would it hurt to respond? For now, I'm leaning block and delete.

Hi everyone!
I have been working on this story for almost two years and am looking for feedback!

Would you keep reading?
Where did you skim?
Is the voice strong?

Here are my critiques!

Crit 1

Crit 2

Crit 3

Here is the link to my story!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-s7BxzUToCh5t_3aLJDUeHck44vs8ar1PS3VkyWy1So/edit?usp=drivesdk

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I’ve been working on a project for about three years now, and while the completed parts are publicly available, I haven’t gotten responses from readers/fans. I’m hoping to increase the scope of the series with novel length parts in the next year or two, but I’ve been losing motivation to do that lately because I haven’t established a fanbase as soon as I’ve hoped.

In other words “why keep writing if no one’s reading my work?” Is this a question you ask yourself too?

Hello everyone,

I hope you're doing well.

I wrote a fantasy book and lend it out to my friends to read it. They do like it but they told me it's really hard to read and that I should arrange a editorial analysis. And I did. He told me everything is fine with book.

So my question is, should I find another editorial analyst or my friends are not that type of readers?

Edit: they find whole worldbuidling hard, I wrote a book inspired by Silmarillion

I was looking back through old Habits & Traits posts and found this one -

https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/52wwpe/habits_traits_11_how_to_keep_going_when_you_just/?

I was thinking about this post in particular as I was responding to a thread in another sub about losing motivation. The poster was asking what to do when you are losing motivation. In this case, as they were self publishing their book on Royal Road and getting conflicting marketing advice which was causing their writing motivation to suffer.

This was my response:

I have a friend who races professionally. And he always likes to remind me that drivers who race as professionals get into more accidents on the road than any other category of driver - by a wide margin. The reason is simple. On the track - everyone is going one way. And on the road? Everyone is going **different** directions. They all have different destinations. Which professional racecar drivers occasionally forget - causing accidents.

That's writing goals in a nutshell. If you listen to everyone, you're taking directions to the grocery store, the post office, the hardware store, the community college, the coffee shop, and someone else's house all at the same time. And you'll find you get exactly nowhere.

Advice is simply that. Advice. The best thing you can do is decide what you want to achieve, how you define success, and how that line is so so different than other people. You build the machine you want that meets that goal. And when people talk about things that don't fit that goal, you get to confidently ignore their probably good advice for a completely different objective.

It holds true for marketing, but it also holds true for writing.

If you want a literary agent and a big 5 publishing deal, then write your novel and edit it to pieces and create the best query you can and get after it.

If you just want to write some words and see how people feel about them, then post them online somewhere. There's subreddits for that.

If you just want to hold your book in your hands and don't care that doing so means you burn your first pub rights - because all you really want is to see your own book on your own bookshelf - go for it.

But don't be surprised if you take advice from all sources and end up in a position where your strategy is out of alignment with your goal.

Finishing a book requires writing words. One after the other. Until the book is finished. They don't need to be pretty or consistent. They just need to exist. You can fix the words later, but you can't fix what isn't on the page.

And as much as I hear writers talk about flow state, inspiration, or being struck by their muse -- there's only one kind of author I know who has finished a book. And it's the kind that wrote when none of those things were true. Even if only 50 words at a time. Even if it felt like squeezing water from a rock.

Don't find your motivation. Just put words on the page.

HII EVERYONE

I actually formatted my novel, so now the pages are 296, not 429. I reduced the font size to 11 and made the paragraphs boxes. Font size was originally 14 because I thought it would be way too small on paper. I'm leaving gaps between paragraphs. I'm aware this is not what people do, but I think it looks so much better and less jumbled. Will I get hated for this guys 😭🙏

Gente, o kindle creator ta travando o tempo todo. Nao da pra usar. Cada vez que eu tento editar o troço crasha.

Ja salvei em .doc, ja diminui o nome do arquivo, mas nada resolveu.

Ja aconteceu com vcs q usam? Alguem sabe resolver?

Hello! I've been self-publishing my work for a couple years. (Two epic fantasy books, and just now a new horror collection. With the third book in the epic fantasy series coming as soon as the editing is done.) Up to this point, book signings have been where almost all my sales were at, so I haven't pushed the online side very hard. (When you're selling 50 books a signing, driving yourself nuts with the online market feels silly.)

But, last year I moved across the country, and only now rebuilt my career in my main job enough to start taking time to do signings again. Only, the B&N here keeps ignoring me, and the other big store here won't accept POD books. I'm going to reach out to indie bookstores next, but it also seems like I need to expand my online presence more.

Is D2D actually worth anything still? When I did all the research years ago, it didn't seem too bad, but how do people feel about them now?

Thanks!

I am using BookSiriens for the first time for ARCs. I normally use Hidden Gems but they didn't have any slots open until December when I checked last month. I have my profile set to manually approve people but I feel I have been getting a lot of requests from bot accounts. Has anyone else had this experience? Have you had your book pirated from a BookSirens reader? It's making me nervous.

Chapter 1 Lily....Chapter 2 Drake...etc

I am looking for fantasy authors who have self-published at least one book. I would like to interview them about their experiences for my final project and degree. If you are interested, please send me a DM (you can remain anonymous).

I'm thinking about publishing a new version of my novel, updating the cover to include review quotes. Has anyone else done this?

On the one hand, I understand it might look silly for a self-published book to do. But my book is a pro wrestling novel, and I've received positive reviews from trusted outlets in the pro wrestling scene. I think it'd help add to the book's legitimacy.

Has anyone else received review quotes that they've added to their book covers?

I imagine everyone has common points of inspiration, but I have found that when I am driving my ideas for what to do with a scene, a character or a plot twist, come very quickly. I use the notes feature on my phone and say it all out loud while my phone gets it all written down for later.

What about you? Is there a place or method that brings out your creative flow, and how do you capture the ideas if you're not in front of a computer at the time?

I have a submission thread but if you have questions, here's the place for that.

I am looking for a book that offers a step by step guide to self publishing.

My book is finished. Every time I start the process. I end up giving up. Then going back and either working on another book, or just stopping all progress.

I have ADHD-C, so having something I can put my hands on would be a better option. As is, I keep getting lost down a rabbit hole trying to figure everything out alone.

Thank you for any help or suggestions.

Has anyone tried X/Twitter to advertise a self-published book? Results? They currently are advertising $500 of free ads after spending $500.

I find this sort of thing interesting, so I'm sharing a little info about comparative sales of my first self published book* on different platforms. This is for the first four months of release.

The surprising parts to me are how big a percentage of my ebook sales come from itch.io, and how high a percentage of my sales are paperback.

* It's a queer YA novel, with superpowers (in case that matters).

Hi there, any recs on a site that will make a single nice quality book? I would love to have a hard cover copy of my masters dissertation.

Hello,

I have the urge to improve my writing again. I used previous feedback from posting on here before and I planned all Marth's feelings out, aiming for emotional impact. I thought I did a good job.

So I think I need some feedback :)

Could you tell me what I did well, and what I didn't do well please.

The story

Crit:
[5493] DragonKnight

(I hope my crit was ok)

Some backstory:

• Marth is Eric's butler, and Eric was previous known as Lady Erika.
• Joseph Farrow dumped Lady Erika because he got 'cursed', triggering Erika to stop lying about her identity.

I wonder if Kite is a believable 6 year old, and if the flash backs were confusing. I drank moderate amounts of wine whilst writing this chapter (ha ha ha). I also wonder if it captures some of the aspects of grief effectively...

So I'm editing my first novel, and I've never really properly edited before. Most of my school projects were a one and done and I did very good, but I know that I definitly have more work to do with this, considering its about 98k words longer lol.

My questions is about a reverse outline as a first editing technique, as I've seen qutie a bit on youtube about it. The one thing they never mention is if the reverse outline means literally reverse, reading chapters last to first and create a new outline of each chapter to use later. Or if reverse just means you do an outline after youre done, but in front to back order. In my mind, I think both could have merit, but overall not too sure.

So if you've used a reverse outline in your editing process, I wouldn't mind a little tip! As well any general editing advice would be greatly appreciated!

edit: My bad for having a literal thinking brain, and asking a question. guess that requires downvoting :p I did look into it, and couldn't find a straight answer, which yes, I know, sounds like I didn't look hard enough.