The No News is No News Purgatory Thread, Volume 8

raburrell said:

Less stupid question - I'm currently torn between self-pubbing and trying to go the small press route with the Israel book. I did read the article Haupe linked yesterday on JF's blog (thanks, Haupe), and I just... can't make up my mind on what to do. Any purgies who have made that decision care to weigh in?

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I've thought about this a lot and there are two parts to the decision. First, consider your longterm goals:
1. Do you want a hybrid career and are you intending to write more books like this one to selfpublish?
2. Or do you really and truly want to publish with traditional publishers but you'll put this book out because you don't want to trunk it?
3. Or do you want to try to make it as a solely selfpublished author?

If it's 2, then I'd say go the small press route.

The other part of the decision is how much time and/or money do you have to put into the selfpublishing aspect of it?

Very few people can do the editing, copyediting, cover design and ebook formatting in the various formats themselves and do it well. For people who work fulltime or are juggling work and family, or have lots of family obligations, it would be a challenge unless you can hire someone to do some of it for you.


It's a tough choice. I don't want to say you should do one or the other, because i made my choices based on where I am in life and what I want, and that differs for everybody.

Thanks, Amarie - that's very helpful and those are great questions.
It's probably 2, but at this point I'm resigned to the idea that for whatever reason, the books I write are too much of a genre mishmash for traditional publishers (or at least that's what my agent keeps telling me)

Financially, I do have the resources to go it alone, but all the marketing talk the last few days is making me cringe - so not my forte. Although that's going to be a problem either way.

Thank you

Mornin' folk!

Working from home today, so it's fuzzy pajamas. No singing really loud, though, 'cause hubby is still sleeping. Party pooper.

Feeling better and better about the decision I made yesterday. Feel like this year might not suck.

MOrning all.

I'm awake, barely functional, and need more sleep. On a good note, I'm going to see live fights tonight. On a bad note, we have snow and it's flipping cold here.

I also have started querying the horse book. Hold me now.

Morning, purgs! Happy Imbolc to you all.

Still have trees all over my lawn, alas, but since mine weren't on my house, car, or driveway, they're not really a priority. Mr. Sunna is home for the next 24 hours or so, and hopefully the tree people will be able to come back today.

{{{Caleb}}} Not sure what's going on, but if I can help in any way, please let me know.


Loving (though dreading the application of) all the promo talk in here. I had a few epiphanies about the direction I'm going in while waiting for the tree people to show, and I think I have at least a bit of an idea of how I want to proceed.

Now I just need to save up and find some way to fit an extra few hours into my day.

*holds Sammy*

Hiya purgs!

Good luck Sammy!

Sunna - yay for a direction. Good luck and can't wait to hear about it.

lily - woot for coworkers reading your book!

raburrel - i read that post too (thanks haupe for posting) and it was great. i think amarie asks great questions for you. good luck figuring it all out. Also, repped ya.

Sammy, you almost had me thinking it was Saturday, lol. What's on tonight?

Rab, promotion depends partly on your genre. Some are harder to get eyes with self-pub than others. One thing you can control in an e-book you create is links - link to your site, FB, Twitter, other books, GR...any place that gets the readers more in touch with you after they read. This kind of thing really helps build loyalty to keep them around, and the ones that like your story will comes straight to you to tell you.

If you just want people to read the story, there are a few original fiction archives.

Thanks all.

K- This is a local event. It has both boxing and MMA matches.

Lily- apparently writerly agenting things was a trend for dreams last night. LG's agent posted something similar this morning about a dream he had last night. Perhaps.... we have now entered... Th3 Tw!light Z0ne. *cue creepy music*

Thanks, Jenn & KT. Genre-wise? Guh, that's the question. I used to say that the Israel book is Indiana Jones meets Dr. Quinn lol.

Rab- sounds like I would call it a literary adventure. But, that's just me.

I'd totally read that, Rab.

raburrell said:

I used to say that the Israel book is Indiana Jones meets Dr. Quinn lol.

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Me too!

raburrell said:

TI used to say that the Israel book is Indiana Jones meets Dr. Quinn lol.

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Sign me up.

Sniff. If nothing else, you guys are encouraging me to stop moping and get off my ass...

Thanks, Peeps

raburrell said:

Sniff. If nothing else, you guys are encouraging me to stop moping and get off my ass...

Thanks, Peeps

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You're too good a writer not to be published, missus. So, yes, get off yer arse.

Yay lily!

Good luck Sammy!

rab, Indiana Jones meets Dr. Quinn sounds amazing! I'd read that in a heartbeat.



Question: Do you all ever work on two books at the same time? And I don't mean in different stages... Like is it insane to be drafting two books at once? I keep going back and forth between a MG and a YA, and they're having a death match for my attention. Should I just roll with it? I've only written one book before, and for some reason, I didn't have any SNIs during that one.

Well, the tree guys came, so there goes all of our tax refund and then some.

*wince*

Ouch.


IDK, I occasionally work on more than one book at a time, but it's not easy. Generally I try to pick one. But sometimes my brain just stalls if I try to make myself do that, and in that case, I do my best to give them an equal amount of time and effort, and alternate either every other day, or every three days.

raburrell said:

Thanks, Jenn & KT. Genre-wise? Guh, that's the question. I used to say that the Israel book is Indiana Jones meets Dr. Quinn lol.

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I'd so read that!

I was following your question about the small pub v. traditional v. self-publishing. Thanks for asking! I'm obviously in a very different situation, but it was good to read other people weighing in on long-term career goals and small pubs.

Dreams! Y'all, I had a dream last night that my girlfriend wrote a roughly 500,000 word fantasy novel about zombie . . . oh, god, I can't remember. Zombie elves? Zombie pixies? Zombie mermaids? Something weird. But she sent it off to agents with this god-awful query, got a full request, and got this ridiculously glowing feedback. In the dream, she was lamenting to me about it, and I was saying, How is this possible? Your query is terrible, your novel is weird, and your word count is too high!

mayqueen said:

Dreams! Y'all, I had a dream last night that my girlfriend wrote a roughly 500,000 word fantasy novel about zombie . . . oh, god, I can't remember. Zombie elves? Zombie pixies? Zombie mermaids? Something weird. But she sent it off to agents with this god-awful query, got a full request, and got this ridiculously glowing feedback. In the dream, she was lamenting to me about it, and I was saying, How is this possible? Your query is terrible, your novel is weird, and your word count is too high!

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callalily61 said:

mayqueen, what did we all drink last night?

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I bloody dreamt about bloody zombies taking over the world last night.
Sad thing is I had nothing to drink. I blame the Worcestershire sauce, it's yet another trigger of weird dreams for me.