Fiction Writer's Thread

[The Soloist]

I knew someone who used Inkshare to publish her first novel. She sold about 300 copies.

Inkshares

Curating the world's best stories.

www.inkshares.com

In the 80s I badly wanted to be a film director and made short films that didn't go anywhere. In the 90s I wanted to design games and had one prototype with SJ Games but it never materialized. After that, I was a computer graphic designer for 25 years which gave me the creative outlet I craved and needed.

Now that I'm retired, I create stories using RPGs and oracles as I play solo. I take a lot of pleasure in journaling, drawing maps and taking pictures of the battles during my sessions. I post an abridged version of my stories in solo FB groups.

In the end, the act of creating was and is rewarding in itself, for me.

 

[Reynard]

:thread necro:

So I am thinking of starting a serial thing. Does anyone know a good delivery system? Substack, maybe? Patreon? A blog? All of them?

I don't care about making money but I kind of would like it to be seen.

 

[RangerWickett]

I have finished my novel's first draft, and I'm doing revisions while reading a bunch of recent fantasy, looking for good 'comps' to make when I write a query to agents. Because I do rather want to try to get published traditionally. My wife's best friend self-publishes romance novels with a niche audience, and she makes a decent living out of it, but I'd like to get my book in a major store, y'know?

As for serialized stuff, though, I know 'progression fantasy' is a popular subgenre these days, and my sense is that people start by sharing content for free, and they grind out free stuff for a while before eventually - once they've got a decent following - starting a patreon.

 

[hirou]

Does anyone know a good delivery system? Substack, maybe? Patreon? A blog? All of them?

I hope this doesn't count as an advertisement, but the only example I'm following since ~2012 is Wildbow, who's been writing web serials in wordpress blog format (in very different genres), with monetization via Patreon since 2015. If I'm reading Graphtreon correctly, this gets him about 5k$ per month.

 

[Reynard]

I hope this doesn't count as an advertisement, but the only example I'm following since ~2012 is Wildbow, who's been writing web serials in wordpress blog format (in very different genres), with monetization via Patreon since 2015. If I'm reading Graphtreon correctly, this gets him about 5k$ per month.

Thanks. Even not worrying about compensation, that is a nice example to consider.

 

[Reynard]

::necro::
I decided I wanted to start a new project and I immediately got hit with the "why bothers" from myself because of how poorly my previous books have sold. Ugh.

 

[Epic Meepo]

::necro::
I decided I wanted to start a new project and I immediately got hit with the "why bothers" from myself because of how poorly my previous books have sold. Ugh.

If you enjoy writing, you can always just write for the sake of writing. If you're having fun, it doesn't really matter how many copies you sell. Heck, I don't even share most of what I write with anyone, and I still enjoy writing it. (Your mileage may vary.)