Who has self-published on Amazon or another e-book store?

[Caillagh de Bodemloze]

Regarding copyright and having your name to things, I have actually been wondering how difficult it would be for there to be a field added to the "Optional Information" portion of the "Edit Profile" screen here on TWC where we could put in our actual name? Being in the optional area, we could still opt to have it not be visible, in the same way we can hide our birthday, but then our own name would be associated with our posts and could be verified by the tech staff in the case of any kind of issue. Since it only requires the adding of one small field, it seems like a rather simple and elegant solution for potential future copyright issues some might be worried about.

That would be a question for Technical Staff, Hex, and GED, since it isn't just a question of whether it's possible, but also a question of whether GED would want it to happen. If you think it's a good idea, you'll need to go and suggest this in Q&S, I'm afraid.

You could always email a copy of your work to yourself, as an alternative.

Ah, I see the confusion. I didn't mean actually having people here purchase things you've written and posted that they've already seen. The thought was more that these people might become interested in your writing in general, and be more apt to get things you publish that aren't here. Also, a big part of becoming known is still the time tested method of word-of-mouth, and if you have a few hundred people following you here, then they will tell friends of theirs who might like your work about you, and some of them may buy the books, and then epidemiology kicks in for the win! The point of taking things down before publishing for real is so that any of those people who are now interested can't just download the text.

That makes more sense, yes!

(I'm not quite so sure deleting things you're never going to sell would matter a great deal, though. I know at least some published authors (I can think of two off the top of my head) have some of their work available as free downloads. They consider that to be a good idea for exactly the reasons you're suggesting.)

I still think that if you're planning to sell your work, it's best to say so before anyone offers any kind of help, though. A lot of people will be happy to help anyway, but a few people might prefer not to if they feel they're helping you to make money - and it could cause bad feeling if you haven't mentioned your plans in advance.

That's a good point and worth everyone bearing in mind. I tend to forget that, because I just help and assume reciprocity is in place and we can forget the money (I actually really don't like money in general, so I tend to push it out of my mind as quickly as possible) but some people may be disinclined to give anything away for free, even a simple word of advice, and so if someone is looking to later publish something they post here, it would be good to make that clear in the original first post so that readers know their comments may be incorporated into the writing or used for editing purposes.

Exactly!

(I think most people would be fine about 'a simple word of advice'. But most worthwhile suggestions are going to require at least some work from the person making the suggestion. Let's be honest, if your writing is bad enough that it's easy for other people to make improvements to it, you're probably going to need to improve quite a bit before you sell many books!)

I think stating your intention to publish upfront is particularly relevant here, because the WS's purpose isn't to provide critiques and feedback, or to help people improve their writing, or to help people publish and sell their writing. We're very happy if people do feel their writing improves as a result of posting here and receiving comments, and of course it's wonderful if people find a publisher, or self-publish and do well. But the reason the WS exists is to provide a place where people can post their writing if they want to. Not everybody wants critiques or suggestions; not everybody wants to give feedback. We're here to support and encourage writers, rather than anything else. We encourage everyone to comment on other people's writing - as you've said, that benefits everyone. But it's fine if those comments are just things like "I like this!" If people are happy to give detailed comments to people who want them, fantastic! That isn't the main purpose of the WS, though, so there will always be some people who don't want to get involved with that - and we value those members of the WS community, too.

[Kilo11]

If you want your posts to be deleted so that TWC holds no record of their contents, I believe that is possible - though I know nothing about the technical workings of TWC, so I may be wrong about that! There may be a way for Writers' Study staff to do that kind of permanent delete, but I'd need to check with Technical Staff to be sure - it's always possible that what I think is a permanently deleted post can still be found somehow by those technical geniuses.

Editing your own post to be a blank post won't remove all the details of your original post (records of the edit history are automatically stored). So if you do ever want posts deleted, you'll need to ask a staff member. We're happy to help - but please make sure you explain that you want your post deleted so that it can never be retrieved.

Would you happen to know precisely who one should talk to about such things? It would be nice for people following the thread to have an idea of who to turn to, and I am considering putting up some things in the Political Theory and Moral Philosophy forums that will certainly need to be deleted if accepted to journals (the academic publishing houses are very much akin to mafia organizations, and do not deal kindly with authors who have their work open access somewhere).

[Basileos Leandros I]

I'll post a bit of an insight as someone who attempted to become published.

I worked extensively in private on a novel set in 16th century Italy, a Young Adult novel, which I then submitted to agents for consideration. As expected, you don't get a lot of replies, but I did get six replies that were very kind and offered very good feedback. I even got a request for a partial, which is a rather important step forwards. (partial request -> full request -> sign with agent -> sign with publisher)

I was very disappointed back then to be honest - there was even a common theme in the rejections: "Good enough, but you went full historical, too authentic." What that meant was - "Making it sound like Shakespeare doesn't make it that interesting unless you're a Shakespeare fan"

(formal dialogue, stilted even in some cases, the whole piece was far too authentic to make it a viable sell)

Now, as for a market, it's good to post online - that's why I have my own works online which I do as feedback, as a way to build up a base and to improve!

[Caillagh de Bodemloze]

Would you happen to know precisely who one should talk to about such things? It would be nice for people following the thread to have an idea of who to turn to, and I am considering putting up some things in the Political Theory and Moral Philosophy forums that will certainly need to be deleted if accepted to journals (the academic publishing houses are very much akin to mafia organizations, and do not deal kindly with authors who have their work open access somewhere).

For those forums, you'd want to contact a member of Moderation Staff. You can do that by reporting one of the posts you want to have deleted, or you could PM one of the moderators listed for that forum. (They're listed at the bottom of the main index page for each forum. For those forums, all the moderators are members of Moderation Staff.)

It's possible to delete posts so that they can be retrieved later - so, as I mentioned before, if you want your posts to be permanently deleted, you'll need to make sure that's clear to the person you're talking to.

[Kilo11]

So, a friend of mine was visiting this past weekend and we were talking about me posting my work here and my desire to at some point try to become a professional author, and he suggested putting stuff up through Patreon, that way I could post regularly, like the things here are usually done, and get a sort of subscriber base that could become patrons of my work. I was wondering if anyone here has any experience with that site, or knows anything helpful about it? I've been doing some research of my own, but first-hand experience is always good to have at hand, if possible. So, anyone know anything about that?

[C-Beams]

So, a friend of mine was visiting this past weekend and we were talking about me posting my work here and my desire to at some point try to become a professional author, and he suggested putting stuff up through Patreon, that way I could post regularly, like the things here are usually done, and get a sort of subscriber base that could become patrons of my work. I was wondering if anyone here has any experience with that site, or knows anything helpful about it? I've been doing some research of my own, but first-hand experience is always good to have at hand, if possible. So, anyone know anything about that?

I don't have Patreon experience but I am on the verge of self-publishing my first book on Amazon. Finding an income to support further writing would be great. Excluding this forum, I have no audience for my writing, so I figured self-publishing on Amazon's Kindle Unlimited service would be the first stepping stone to take. People can read for free, though you do still make money off Amazon. As I've yet to publish, I can not report what the income is like. However, from what I've researched, one should not expect much until they have released several books. That is fine by me as right now I need to expand my audience anyway. I can let you know of my experience once I've self-published to help your own plans.

Out of interest, what draws you to Patreon?


Some things you may find helpful...

This reddit wiki has some interesting info. (r/selfpublish)
And this other reddit wiki (r/writing)
Fiverr is a good place to commission front cover art
This blog post helped me write my books blurb (blurb writing is damn hard!)

[Swaeft]

Great thread, I think any author who has written an extensive AAR or other material on here would eventually think of self publishing, and if not for profit or sales, for the sake of looking at your own AAR in a book

That's helpful info there C-Beams, thanks! Good luck with your book!