My first book has just been published :)
I write fiction, short stories, up to 30 pages long. They have psychological themes, and i try to include some horror elements as well in them. Infact the title of the book is "The notebook and other stories of horror".
It is in greek, if it becomes successful to a degree then it may get translated, but it is still early days.

I am very happy with being published, i wanted that for more than 10 years, since i was still in university :) The best thing is that the publishing house did not change my original text in any way at all, so i can be of the view that the reception of the book will be entirely caused by my own writing.

In the spoiler there is a brief summary of the four stories found in the book.

The first story is called 'The contest', it is about a 10 year-old child that finds himself at night reading the magazine that has been published by the school. In it, in the final page, there is a strange drawing, of the shadow of someone standing infront of a closed door. Below the drawing is the explanation, according to which there is a contest going on, and one stranger will be sent behind the door of one of the pupils at night.

The second story is titled "The threat". It is again about a child in elementary school. It has become, after many years and a lot of pain, in a way popular, or at least that is his view. He is happy about this new state, but has the feeling that there is some unknown threat which could take it away from him. One night he is sitting with some other children outside, thinking again of this threat. The monotonous moan-like voice of an unseen child is heard behind him, but this does not alarm him, untill the other children stand up and walk away. Then he turns his head to see what is behind him, and immediately is cought by the moaning child, who is in reality a retarded person and keeps pressuring him in a tight hug, continuing to moan more and more wildly.
After he has been set free he returns, shaken, to his room, and there thinks of the possibility to cause the death of the retarded person.

The third story is named "Nightmare". It is about a university student who is troubled by intense, very vivid hallucinations of a white wolf. The wolf was originally seen at the edge of a forest just outside the university, but later on jumps inside his room from the open window. Then, just as the narrator is beginning to calm down a bit, he hears a knock on his door. It is a hated other occupant of the dorm. The wolf attacks him, and cuts his face into pieces, and the narrator cannot accept whether or not the hated roomate was too a hallucination, or something else is happening.

The fourth, larger, and final story, is the Notebook. It is about two friends who were planning to study abroad. A party is held in the house of one of them for Newyear's day. However an unexpected visitor arrives, one of the quests opens the door expecting to see someone he knows, but it is the father of the host. The host immediately gets up from his chair and goes into the deeper parts of the house, seemingly unable to even confront his father. The narrator, after a while, decides to go looking for him, but the only thing he sees is a notebook being thrown from the darkness of the bedroom of his friend. Inside there is nothing. In the notebook he reads a strange story about his friend being lost in a vast, unknown and unlit place, while trying to exit his room.


Personally i hope that they will be of interest to the readers. May it be the first step in a journey that will take me far in the world of literature, perhaps to depths which i can only see so far in some of my dreams :)

You can ask anything about the book, being published, or writing in general, horror or other...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/Leap_of_Faith.jpg

Well done! What's your favorite Stephen King story? Did you have to try very hard to get a publisher?

What's a typical workday for a writer like you?

Well done! What's your favorite Stephen King story? Did you have to try very hard to get a publisher?

Thank you very much :)

I tried to read Stephen King, but i didnt like how he was writing at all, so i dont have a favourite story.

I didnt try very hard, but i had sent work to publishing houses over the years. I just wasnt ready to be published back then though, the level of work was rather poor. One disadvantage i have is that horror writing as a genre is in reality non-existant in Greece. Works by foreign authors who write horror exist, but i have not heard of another greek author of horror who has been published.

What's a typical workday for a writer like you?

I am lazy. I have become even more so after my work had been accepted. I have enough material for a second book, but havent completed anything new in weeks. I should get back to it though ;)

Ussually i think of an idea while i am in bed, before sleeping. Then if i like it i will try to write something around it the next day. I never create plans for writing. I always have some scenes in my head and a way to get to them, so the story is by definition something that climbs towards a climax.

I have become even more so after my work had been accepted.

I know how that feels. :lol:

Anyway, how long do you usually write? Can you write for hours or do you write in shorter intervals?

I know how that feels. :lol:

Anyway, how long do you usually write? Can you write for hours or do you write in shorter intervals?

I try to write everything in one attempt. Ussually my stories are a bit over 15 pages long, and i always write these without ever stopping, so it takes- i think- something more than 1 hour and a half, or thereabouts.
For stories that go on for more pages i write 15 pages or so without stopping, and then as much as i can at the next time.

I have found that writing continiously like this for a long time can have both a positive and a negative effect. The positive effect is that i get really sunk inside the world of the story, and have better command of it. Thenegative effect is that i get tired, and may miss opportunities for better writing. But up to 15 pages i can write without being tired :)

do short stories sell well?

do short stories sell well?

Im not sure about that. I think that the industry mostly asks for novels. But some writers mostly wrote stories, such as Poe and De Maupassant :)

I write in such a form for many reasons, one of them being that i think that in order for my work to have the maximum effect, the reader should be able to read it without pausing. And this would not have been possible if it was longer ;)

My first book has just been published :)
I write fiction, short stories, up to 30 pages long. They have psychological themes, and i try to include some horror elements as well in them. Infact the title of the book is "The notebook and other stories of horror".
It is in greek, if it becomes successful to a degree then it may get translated, but it is still early days.

I am very happy with being published, i wanted that for more than 10 years, since i was still in university :) The best thing is that the publishing house did not change my original text in any way at all, so i can be of the view that the reception of the book will be entirely caused by my own writing.

In the spoiler there is a brief summary of the four stories found in the book.

The first story is called 'The contest', it is about a 10 year-old child that finds himself at night reading the magazine that has been published by the school. In it, in the final page, there is a strange drawing, of the shadow of someone standing infront of a closed door. Below the drawing is the explanation, according to which there is a contest going on, and one stranger will be sent behind the door of one of the pupils at night.

The second story is titled "The threat". It is again about a child in elementary school. It has become, after many years and a lot of pain, in a way popular, or at least that is his view. He is happy about this new state, but has the feeling that there is some unknown threat which could take it away from him. One night he is sitting with some other children outside, thinking again of this threat. The monotonous moan-like voice of an unseen child is heard behind him, but this does not alarm him, untill the other children stand up and walk away. Then he turns his head to see what is behind him, and immediately is cought by the moaning child, who is in reality a retarded person and keeps pressuring him in a tight hug, continuing to moan more and more wildly.
After he has been set free he returns, shaken, to his room, and there thinks of the possibility to cause the death of the retarded person.

The third story is named "Nightmare". It is about a university student who is troubled by intense, very vivid hallucinations of a white wolf. The wolf was originally seen at the edge of a forest just outside the university, but later on jumps inside his room from the open window. Then, just as the narrator is beginning to calm down a bit, he hears a knock on his door. It is a hated other occupant of the dorm. The wolf attacks him, and cuts his face into pieces, and the narrator cannot accept whether or not the hated roomate was too a hallucination, or something else is happening.

The fourth, larger, and final story, is the Notebook. It is about two friends who were planning to study abroad. A party is held in the house of one of them for Newyear's day. However an unexpected visitor arrives, one of the quests opens the door expecting to see someone he knows, but it is the father of the host. The host immediately gets up from his chair and goes into the deeper parts of the house, seemingly unable to even confront his father. The narrator, after a while, decides to go looking for him, but the only thing he sees is a notebook being thrown from the darkness of the bedroom of his friend. Inside there is nothing. In the notebook he reads a strange story about his friend being lost in a vast, unknown and unlit place, while trying to exit his room.


Personally i hope that they will be of interest to the readers. May it be the first step in a journey that will take me far in the world of literature, perhaps to depths which i can only see so far in some of my dreams :)

You can ask anything about the book, being published, or writing in general, horror or other...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/Leap_of_Faith.jpg

Congrats, Varwnos!:king:

Obvious question: You mention you've been wanting to be published since 10 years ago; how did you manage to get finally published?

Congrats, Varwnos!:king:

Obvious question: You mention you've been wanting to be published since 10 years ago; how did you manage to get finally published?

Thank you Jeelen :)

I only managed to create my own style and also arrive at some stable form of narrative and thematology in the last three years. Before that i was mostly a symbolist, trying to write vast allegories, in a sort of kafkaesque way. But then i decided that this, even if it was well-writen as what it was, could never be appealing. So i altered the narrative to realism, and included symbols as part of the story, and also had a very clear horror element as well. I only have kept my work from these last three years, 10 stories in total, sufficient for two books, and they are all made in such a way.
Also i sent the work to many more publishing houses. Originally i only aimed at some magazines and a select few houses.
I think that when one is ready he has more chances of being published. I know that i would have regretted being published before, since my work was not yet ready for that :)

Gratuluji :goodjob:

Now when you've been made practically immortal, how does it feel? :)

Gratuluji :goodjob:

Now when you've been made practically immortal, how does it feel? :)

So it begins ;)

I am not yet immortal, i will first have to at least wait for an english translation i guess :)
Greek is sadly only spoken by 20 million people around the world, and some more who use it as a foreign language. But english is universal..

Maybe you should do the translation yourself, your English is obviously very good.

Maybe you should do the translation yourself, your English is obviously very good.

Yeah, it isnt "very good", it used to be a lot better, it has deteriorated over the years. But i wouldnt try it since my language (the text in greek) is really the simplest possible, so that i can construct very complicated meanings, using the simplest building blocks, and people can follow them with no missunderstanding or problem. So it would need someone really fluent in english to emulate this. I fear that my own english is too basic, and might seem strange, something which i do not want.
But i would be very interested in working together with an english speaking translator who would be conscious of what i meant in each sentence :)

Congratulations!

I also agree that you seem able to do a basic translation to English yourself. You could probably at least do it well enough that an editor could fix your few mistakes and help you with word choice without much effort.

Edit: I actually have a question now that I think about it. How does the book actually look? Is that picture the cover?

Kudos :)

I have a question...
Since you wrote the stories, are you allowed to distribute the text on the internet for free? Like posting it in a blog or as a free download? Or is it now the publisher's property, and you would be violating copyright or whatever?

Congratulations!

I also agree that you seem able to do a basic translation to English yourself. You could probably at least do it well enough that an editor could fix your few mistakes and help you with word choice without much effort.

Thank you :)

Well when it comes to that i could try to do this. I still fear that my own english doesnt really sound normal, evenmoreso when it gets to be more complicated. The stories rely on connections between meanings and symbols, and that would have to be conveyed, albeit in a subtle way, by choice of correct words.

Kudos :)

I have a question...
Since you wrote the stories, are you allowed to distribute the text on the internet for free? Like posting it in a blog or as a free download? Or is it now the publisher's property, and you would be violating copyright or whatever?

Im not sure about that. But at this time i simply aim to be read, so that a second edition can follow. Once i have this second edition things will look better for me in every way :)

Btw you can have a look at the spoiler for summaries of the stories. I would really be interested in reading what you think of them, even if the summary does not contain much of the actual feeling in the story :)

Whatever happened to that one story you were working on? I think it was you...
I think it was about a guy in a room without a lot of stuff in it, and he had a journal... and at the same time there was another story going on in some post-apocalyptic world or something? I'll see if I can find the thread, I thought that had potential :)

Whatever happened to that one story you were working on? I think it was you...
I think it was about a guy in a room without a lot of stuff in it, and he had a journal... and at the same time there was another story going on in some post-apocalyptic world or something? I'll see if I can find the thread, I thought that had potential :)

Yes, that was mine :) I started writing it but after 7 pages i gave up since i didnt like the way it was going. I may try again to write it, although it would have to reach over 40 pages and i am not very comfortable with that.
He was supposedly in an asylum, in a dream, and in reality he was left alone in the empty city :)

I have done ome writing in the past and people I know said it is pretty good. Some questions:

1: If I have an idea for an "historical fiction" story, who is the best person to talk to and how do you get a hold of them for background info?

2: Is it really as hard to get published as I've heard?

3: (Has to be asked) How much does one get paid for writing?
By the word?
% of the book sales?
'X' ammount per book?

I have done ome writing in the past and people I know said it is pretty good. Some questions:

1: If I have an idea for an "historical fiction" story, who is the best person to talk to and how do you get a hold of them for background info?

2: Is it really as hard to get published as I've heard?

3: (Has to be asked) How much does one get paid for writing?
By the word?
% of the book sales?
'X' ammount per book?

1. I dont know how you do this, since i do not need interviews for my work because it is entirely fictional.

2. It depends, you need some degree of luck, along with having some skill, or at least for a person working in the publishing house to find your work attractive.

3. I dont think there are set deals. Personally i have agreed to recieve a percentage from the profits of selling the books.

Edit: I actually have a question now that I think about it. How does the book actually look? Is that picture the cover?

No, although i would like that picture as the cover a lot :)

I tried to find a pic of it online, but couldnt. Perhaps i will be able to in a couple of weeks though :)

Just to add a couple of comments, if I may, to supplement Varwnos'...

I also agree that you seem able to do a basic translation to English yourself. You could probably at least do it well enough that an editor could fix your few mistakes and help you with word choice without much effort.

Editors are always needed, but translation is always done by a native speaker of the target language. Even a fluent non-native speaker cannot get it just right. So if Varwnos' book were to be translated into English it would be done by a professional Greek-to-English translator, who would be a native English speaker with fluent Greek.

It is a very strange thing to have your text translated into another language - even stranger than having it published in the first place. Just think of someone else toiling over your works like that and striving to convey your precise thoughts into a language you don't even speak.

2: Is it really as hard to get published as I've heard?

That depends very much on what it is you're writing. Fiction is obviously the hardest thing to get published. As a rule, you cannot publish a novel unless you have a literary agent, because most publishers won't even look at any MS that hasn't come via an agent. So the first task is getting an agent, and then the next task is for that agent to get the text to a publisher.

However, if you have a strong proposal for a book, a publisher in mind who publishes that sort of book, and can demonstrate that it would probably sell, then you might find it less hard. It's all about finding the right niche, and being able to show (a) that the book needs to be written, and (b) that you need to be writing it.

Also, of course, once you are published it's much easier to get published again (assuming the first one goes well). In my own case most of my books were proposed to me by the publisher rather than vice versa, which makes things much easier - although I still had to draw up formal proposals for them before they could be finally approved, of course.

3: (Has to be asked) How much does one get paid for writing?
By the word?
% of the book sales?
'X' ammount per book?

Usually the author gets royalties on the sale price of the book. How much this is will vary depending on who the author is and what the book is. Also, the author is usually paid an advance, which is typically split into three - part on signing of the contract, part on delivery of the text, and part on publication. This is an advance on the royalties, so the author won't get any royalties until enough have been earned to cover the advance. Most books never sell enough for this to happen, which means that the only income most authors ever get is the advance, and believe me, unless you're Dan Brown that's not much.

Sometimes a different system is used, where the author sells the copyright to the publisher. When that happens, the author is paid much more up-front, but never gets any royalties. This is usually a better deal for the author from a financial point of view. It tends to be used for reference books or similar volumes where the publishers might hope to bring out revised editions in the future, without necessarily involving the original author or editor.

Thanks for your answers, both of you; I appreciate it very much.

How did you sustain yourself prior to being published? Have you had to hold other jobs related to writing?

How did you sustain yourself prior to being published? Have you had to hold other jobs related to writing?

By other sources of income. A young, unknown writer cannot really sustain himself from being paid for his work, i trust that only known writers can achieve that, at least to a degree.

How did you get yourself published? I'm working on a book too but it's in the very early stages.

How did you get yourself published? I'm working on a book too but it's in the very early stages.

Already answered, both by me and Plotinus. And it seems that in the Us it is a different process than here, there you also need an agent. I just kept sending my work to publishing houses until one of them answered back positively.

Works by foreign authors who write horror exist, but i have not heard of another greek author of horror who has been published.
Isn't there a certain Homer whose writings are full of killings and murders, or torture of body and mind of a poor traveller by horrible monsters?

Isn't there a certain Homer whose writings are full of killings and murders, or torture of body and mind of a poor traveller by horrible monsters?

The story of the cyclops Polyphemus must be the first horror story in western literature :)
Also there were all sorts of ancient greek writers, some wrote even sci-fi about battles on the moon.
But there has been no known greek writer of a literature that is strictly horror, up to now anyway :D

Already answered, both by me and Plotinus. And it seems that in the Us it is a different process than here, there you also need an agent. I just kept sending my work to publishing houses until one of them answered back positively.

Well, in the US you don't necessarily need an agent, but it depends a lot on the kind of work you're trying to get published. The American Fiction market is *very* competitive, especially works that might be considered niche fiction, like horror, or short stories. Unless you are submitting it to a university journal, you *do* need an agent, because very very few publishing houses seriously consider unsolicited fiction pieces.

It is a pretty different market for articles/short pieces. I did a lot of freelance article writing for newspapers and magazines. I had a network of maybe 10 (which is pretty small, but I was also a niche guy) that I figured would be interested in my work. I would pitch ideas to them unless one of them "bought" the article, and then I sold it to them. I understand that some non-fiction books work this way.

Congrats on getting published Varwnos. I know how complicated that process is, and I hope you book sells well!

Edit-Mostly X-posted with Poltinus. Whoops.

How did you get yourself published? I'm working on a book too but it's in the very early stages.

What's it about?

What do you want with your stories? Considering it's horror, I suppose you want to scare people, or are you also trying to evoke other emotions? Do you consciously try to make people like one character, hate another or feel sorry for a someone? Or do you just write a story and realise afterwards "that character is a rather nice guy". How do you make characters? Do you base them on yourself?

Congrats on getting published Varwnos. I know how complicated that process is, and I hope you book sells well!



Thank you Downtown :)

What do you want with your stories? Considering it's horror, I suppose you want to scare people, or are you also trying to evoke other emotions? Do you consciously try to make people like one character, hate another or feel sorry for a someone? Or do you just write a story and realise afterwards "that character is a rather nice guy". How do you make characters? Do you base them on yourself?

I view my stories as being most of all psychological. They are about mind states. How one can see things in ways which may seem distorted to someone else, but to him they are presented as entirely logical. The horror ussually comes from such a situation, for example in the second story of the collection the protagonist is a boy in elementary school who gets frightened by a retarded person. But he has, over the years, formed intricate theories about the place in the world of people based on their bodies and intellect, and thus now decides that he should try to harm the retarded person, so as to be in line with his theory.

As for characters, that is another very interesting question you ask. Always the main character is myself. Also all of my work is writen in first person narrative. I do this for many reasons, but they can summed up into the belief i have that one can never really understand other people, and so can essentially only present his own psyche in some depth.
I ussually try to play with the reader's emotions, to the degree that i can really imagine what they would be. So in that story the child starts off being someone friendly and polite, and happy with himself, and then the retarded person attacks him, so one might view the retarded person as a threat, and see him with hostility. But later on you read that the narrator tries actively to bring the death of the retarded person, so you may change your mind about who really is the victim. :)

And to get back to your original question: i do intent people to feel frightened, at least in some of my stories. I consider being able to cause actual terror something which makes the work successful. The first book i read that made me want to became a writer was a collection of stories by H.P.Lovecraft, and indeed i was very impressed by the fact that i could actually feel frightened by mere words :)
But the horror part is only one level of my work. Below there is always the study of the mind.

Congratulations Varwnos!

I have toyed with writing something for many years, but I am a perfectionist and the more I write, the more I re-write and re-write and re-write trying to get precisely what I mean but getting more and more convoluted in my writing and less and less happy about it as I go. As a result I've never finished anything for myself, just technical or progress reports for work which are not the same at all.

Do you suffer from this problem? How many rewrites would you usually do on something?

The real money is in the movie rights and it is easier to sell those to Hollywood if the book is in English.

Congratulations Varwnos!

I have toyed with writing something for many years, but I am a perfectionist and the more I write, the more I re-write and re-write and re-write trying to get precisely what I mean but getting more and more convoluted in my writing and less and less happy about it as I go. As a result I've never finished anything for myself, just technical or progress reports for work which are not the same at all.

Do you suffer from this problem? How many rewrites would you usually do on something?

Thank you Furiey :)

I do not have this problem since i very consciously decided that i would not make any alterations to what i write the first time. Sometimes i change some words, if i have accidentally writen the same word in a space of a few lines, but that is ussually all that i change. The downside is that if i decide that i dont like something then it is completely erased, but at least i never rework anything that i have liked sufficiently. :)

The real money is in the movie rights and it is easier to sell those to Hollywood if the book is in English.

Anyway i dont think that short stories do well when presented in movie form. Perhaps Anime would be better for them.
Movies are so much different as a medium from writing that ussually they destroy it, although my own writing is full of pictures it also extremely relies on the narrative being precicely as it is. So, again, a movie or anime adaptation of it would need to have large parts of the unaltered narrative, which is unussual for these media.

congratulations on my behalf as well.

how do you go about finding a publisher or an editor? do you just send out copies to a bunch of publishing houses and hope for the best? do you use some sort of safeguard for plagiarism (do you place a copy somewhere before sending it out)?

congratulations on my behalf as well.

how do you go about finding a publisher or an editor? do you just send out copies to a bunch of publishing houses and hope for the best? do you use some sort of safeguard for plagiarism (do you place a copy somewhere before sending it out)?

Thank you Scherbchen :)

Yes, i just kept sending my work to different publishers. I secure the rights before, with the help of a sort of lawyer (not exactly a lawyer but i dont know the term in english; they make contracts for the selling of property for example, but they also do this kind of work).

if you had an editor put in front of you before being published, how much was changed or how many alterations were expected from you? did this bother you or help you? was there at any point a "you change this or it's a dealbreaker" moment?

I am truly intrigued :>

Were you born/always had a talent/interest in writing, or did you gain it later on?

What Scherbchen want to know is, did the editing go anything like this:
IwbB6B0cQs4

if you had an editor put in front of you before being published, how much was changed or how many alterations were expected from you? did this bother you or help you? was there at any point a "you change this or it's a dealbreaker" moment?

I am truly intrigued :>

I was terrified of my work being edited. I dont think that i could stand any significant editing. But luckily none at all happened! This was the best part. They must have been of the view that my language was nothing peculiar, and indeed i aim to write as clearly as possible :)

Were you born/always had a talent/interest in writing, or did you gain it later on?

From the early elementary years i was very fond of thinking and imagining, but had no urge to write. Very rarely did i read books if i didnt have to for school. The turning point was one i already mentioned: when i was 17 i borrowed a book of Lovecraft's stories, and felt horror from reading. This amazed me since i had no idea that reading could have such an effect on me, or anyone. Instantly i decided that i would write, and indeed that night i wrote for 3 hours, and finished my first ever story. I still remember most of its plot, and i have been writing ever since :)

But, like i said, it took many years to reach a good level, and find my own style.

It is nice to know that your hard work has paid off. :goodjob:

I don't understand how the text could not have been edited at all. Surely there must at the very least have been a copy-editor to lay the text out and design the look of the pages, and it must have been edited to fit house style or for consistency, mustn't it? No author can produce completely print-ready text, not even those who are also copy-editors themselves.

I don't understand how the text could not have been edited at all. Surely there must at the very least have been a copy-editor to lay the text out and design the look of the pages, and it must have been edited to fit house style or for consistency, mustn't it? No author can produce completely print-ready text, not even those who are also copy-editors themselves.

I didnt check with my original text for that. Perhaps they did change some of the format of paragraphs. It is also, at least slightly, possible that they changed mildly some words, but i did not recognise any such changes, and i was very conscious and frightened of the possibility that they would exist :)

It is nice to know that your hard work has paid off. :goodjob:

Yes, indeed. We all want to be recognised for what we can do, and writing is my main creative interest.

Congratulations, K.

Congratulations, K.

Thank you M. :) (i hope i remember your name correctly) ;)

I didnt check with my original text for that. Perhaps they did change some of the format of paragraphs. It is also, at least slightly, possible that they changed mildly some words, but i did not recognise any such changes, and i was very conscious and frightened of the possibility that they would exist :)

It can happen. With my first book, the US publisher changed a few of the lines quite substantially without telling either me or my UK publisher, which rather annoyed the latter. I wasn't enormously bothered. The text changes so much between my initial draft and the final publication that I generally can't remember what it was like to start with anyway. Minor changes (i.e. those that don't affect the meaning) are usual and frequent, of course, and a copy-editor wouldn't normally bother contacting the author about those unless they really affect the flow or sense of the sentences. I didn't when I was a copy-editor, at any rate - some tend to contact authors more frequently. I had a terrible copy-editor once who sent me enormously long query lists and tried to change everything in the book to suit his own agenda. That in itself might have been OK but he had a very hectoring, arrogant tone - it was like he was marking the text, like a teacher - and he was pretty rude about the aspects he didn't like. Which is unprofessional and completely unacceptable.

An interesting thing you learn as you take different roles in publishing: proof-readers spend their time complaining about the copy-editor who let so many mistakes get through. Copy-editors spend their time complaining about the author who made so many mistakes in the first place. Authors spend their time complaining about the editor who won't let them exercise their artistic integrity with perfect freedom. I don't know who editors spend their time complaining about - probably all of the others at once.

I have toyed with writing something for many years, but I am a perfectionist and the more I write, the more I re-write and re-write and re-write trying to get precisely what I mean but getting more and more convoluted in my writing and less and less happy about it as I go. As a result I've never finished anything for myself, just technical or progress reports for work which are not the same at all.

This is the kind of thing that it's fantastically useful having an editor (as opposed to a copy-editor) for. When you're sick of the text and don't know how to improve it further (i.e. which bits to cut out) you can just send the whole thing to the editor and ask for suggestions. By the time you look at it again, with the suggestions, everything is much clearer.

I always write far, far too much, which means most of my "writing" time is actually spent cutting down. The longer the book, the more there is to cut. The worst one was the time I had to cut out 50,000 words from one book - that was miserable. But one of the first things you learn as an author is that you cannot be precious, you cannot get emotionally attached to the material, and you have to be ruthless. Because what you think is good and what actually is good probably don't coincide all that well.

Thank you M. :) (i hope i remember your name correctly) ;)

Apparently you do. If you did not, you'd be in trouble!

Already answered, both by me and Plotinus. And it seems that in the Us it is a different process than here, there you also need an agent. I just kept sending my work to publishing houses until one of them answered back positively.

Ok Thanks.

What's it about?

I can't tell you what it's about (or you'll just have to wait and find out) :p but it's a collection of poems written as short stories in the form a diary.

I can't tell you what it's about (or you'll just have to wait and find out) :p but it's a collection of poems written as short stories in the form a diary.

Sure it's not an novel about an Australian girl who hates her new Irish boss - or does she? Love and hate are two sides of the same coin, as she discoveres when they take a business trip together to India...

Sure it's not an novel about an Australian girl who hates her new Irish boss - or does she? Love and hate are two sides of the same coin, as she discoveres when they take a business trip together to India...
Are you mad? What the hell have you been smoking?

Are you mad? What the hell have you been smoking?

Come on, Bast, it'd be a classic... I can even see the cover now

I am curious about what you thought of the summaries of the stories. Does anyone want to comment on them? :)

The site of the publishing house finally uploaded a pic of my book :)

This is how it looks:

http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/9629/78433752.png

It looks a bit like a notebook because the title is "The notebook and other stories of horror" ;)

that's a deadly cover

that's a deadly cover

I like it too :) Particularly the spider-webs and the distorted forms. Also the victorian feel.

Congratulations, Varwnos :goodjob:

The only thing I have to comment on (since you seem to want 'em so much), is the text on your cover. The rest of the cover is really nice :) But the font could be improved. Just saying. Though it'd be easier to comment on it if you posted a picture of the cover on the Notebook itself.

There was one thing I wanted to know and that is the whole "from publisher -> book store" process. Do the book stores read the stories the publishing house send them before hand so they can be sure the book is up to quality?

Second question: How hard is it for a new publishing house to get deals with acclaimed/big book stores?

Sure it's not an novel about an Australian girl who hates her new Irish boss - or does she? Love and hate are two sides of the same coin, as she discoveres when they take a business trip together to India...

Are you mad? What the hell have you been smoking?

Come on, Bast, it'd be a classic... I can even see the cover now

:lmao:

Congratulations! Will all of my heart :)

Congratulations, Varwnos :goodjob:

The only thing I have to comment on (since you seem to want 'em so much), is the text on your cover. The rest of the cover is really nice :) But the font could be improved. Just saying. Though it'd be easier to comment on it if you posted a picture of the cover on the Notebook itself.

There was one thing I wanted to know and that is the whole "from publisher -> book store" process. Do the book stores read the stories the publishing house send them before hand so they can be sure the book is up to quality?

Second question: How hard is it for a new publishing house to get deals with acclaimed/big book stores? :lmao:

Thank you Yared :)

I don't know the details of how the publishing house approached the bookstores, but im sure they first check the book before they decide if they will have it, and not all bookstores took it, although maybe they only approached some major ones and a tradesman as well. They seem to decide based on whether the book fits their other titles, if its quality is ok etc etc. Not sure if they actually read all of it beforehand, they may have people who do it i guess if its a large bookstore.

Don't know about the second question either im afraid...

Congratulations! Will all of my heart :)

Thank you Gelion :D

Publishers have sales reps whose job it is to market the book to the various outlets. The sales reps prepare information about the book, such as its anticipated readership, place in the market, and so on, and the outlets' buyers order it on that basis. They don't read it to assess its "quality" - that is taken as a given if it is a reputable publisher with whom the buyers have dealt before - they are interested only in whether they can sell it, and if so to whom and in what quantities, and the publisher provides them with the information they need to make that judgement.

Varwnos, good luck with the book! I hope you sell millions of copies!:goodjob:

There was one thing I wanted to know and that is the whole "from publisher -> book store" process. Do the book stores read the stories the publishing house send them before hand so they can be sure the book is up to quality?

I don't know the details of how the publishing house approached the bookstores, but im sure they first check the book before they decide if they will have it, and not all bookstores took it, although maybe they only approached some major ones and a tradesman as well. They seem to decide based on whether the book fits their other titles, if its quality is ok etc etc. Not sure if they actually read all of it beforehand, they may have people who do it i guess if its a large bookstore.

Publishers have sales reps whose job it is to market the book to the various outlets. The sales reps prepare information about the book, such as its anticipated readership, place in the market, and so on, and the outlets' buyers order it on that basis. They don't read it to assess its "quality" - that is taken as a given if it is a reputable publisher with whom the buyers have dealt before - they are interested only in whether they can sell it, and if so to whom and in what quantities, and the publisher provides them with the information they need to make that judgement.

I sell books so I thought I'd add a bit to the answers from Varwnos & Plotinus.

Some bookstores carry many thousands of titles at any given time so it would be impossible for them to read everything before they decide to stock it.

I'm not sure how it works overseas, but, in the U.S., paperback books are much less risky than hardback ones because paperback books are a "guaranteed sale." Retailers can return unsold paperback books to the distributor or publisher for full credit after an agreed-upon period of time.

The downside for retailers is that their cash is sometimes tied up in useless inventory until the credit is received. Sometimes, the agreement is that the retailer only pays for paperback books that have sold so their cash doesn't get tied up.

Hardback books aren't returned for credit so retailers have to be more careful with those. If they don't sell in a reasonable period of time, their prices are marked down. Depending on the markdown, this can remove the profit from the book's sale or even result in a loss. The thinking there is that it's better to get something than nothing at all. Cash flow is vital to a retailer. Even so, it's not possible to read every hardback book before deciding to stock it in a typical bookstore.

Second question: How hard is it for a new publishing house to get deals with acclaimed/big book stores?

I'm not sure about publishers specifically, but new suppliers usually have an uphill battle getting their products on store shelves for many reasons. Start-up costs are high. Retailers & wholesalers have to be convinced that the new supplier is more attractive than the ones they've been using & have established relationships with. It's difficult to quantify "how hard" that is, but it's not easy.

Plotinus has already learned everything about the book industry :eek: I am a novice next to him ;)
But in a few years i will be sitting in an archair and discussing the state of books using mild curses and raising my eyebrows with professed tiredness :)

edit: Thank you Maimonides :)

Are there any more questions? :)
I am really happy to answer especially writing-related ones.

Sure, I have one. When you were supporting yourself while writing your books, did you ever take any "less sexy" writing jobs?

For example, the publishing market for my favorite type of writing (creative non-fiction) is pretty narrow, and I've managed to get a few published, and at pretty modest rates. Thinking that writing is better than not writing, I took a lot of more conventional writing assignments...high school basketball games, city council meetings, copy writing for ads, etc etc. Many of my other friends who work in the creative industry do the same thing. They may be in a rock band at night, but record a jingle for a toothpaste ad every once in a while.

Have you ever done that, or did you stick to non-writing side jobs?

I never really had any interest in any other kind of writing, and neither the need- thankfully, i guess :) - to be forced in any degree to write something other than my stories...
I have some sources of income from my family. I have a degree in philosophy, but in order to get a job, as a professor at university, i would need an MA first. I may still do that though :)

Instead of creating individual threads about ideas for stories, i think it is better to just keep them all here, where other things may be discussed as well. So in the future i may post some plot line to ask what you think of it ;)

Do you ever plan writing something else other than horror? Why or why not?

I may write "horror", but in reality my stories are mostly "strange", or rather psychological involving dark themes. They are not gothic horror, there is no monster in them. There are hallucinations of hiddeous images in many, other times they are about strange ideas, like the theory an elementary schooler develops that he is allowed to kill another child if he is beautifull somatically and the other child is deformed.
In greek there is the term "psychographema" for this kind of story where the deep psyche of the narrator is portrayed, and everything, or almost everything, is going on inside his mind.

Now i do love good horror, which is rare. Afaik writers like Poe never officially named their work as horror, although today it is seen as part of that genre. Mine is similar in that, although i chose to name it horror in my first book, but this may change. It could have just as easily been called "fantasy", although that title would be misleading :)

Two nights ago i finished a new story. It was about someone trying to calm himself down after experiencing what in all probability was the anihilation of another person, and old classmate of his.
The old classmate was thrown from the balcony, below in the dark pavement surrounded by the tall, ancient buildings.
It was a person the narrator used to loathe, and be envious of, due to some other particular element of his psyche. It is most probable that he wished his death, but never expected the wish to materialise, let alone carry it out himself (if that is what indeed happened, since he is not sure).
He cannot understand what happened. because it seems that he saw a hallucination of a strong man dressed in a blood red mask that appeared to cover his entire body. The man's expression was a horrible smile, full of hatred and malice. He waited until his victim saw him, since at first he had his back turned against the room from which the being came, and then run to him and with a few silent moves lifted him up and left him to fall to his death.

This is the synopsis, more or less. :)

That sounds messed up. And you said you base the main character on yourself? :mischief:

I'm sure it's a good one :)

Thank you Yared...
There is always hyberbole in my writing, but yes, like everyone else i too had difficult periods in my life. Fortunately i did not kill anyone though ;)

Can a mod move this to arts&literature? :)

Your method of writing - all in one go, mostly short stories - sounds similar to mine Varwnos, though our chosen genres are different. I write mostly sci-fi stories, usually either detective or action stories.

This probably sounds like an incredibly stupid question, but I've only recently started thinking about this as a career and haven't looked into it at all yet, but how does one actually go about getting in touch with publishing companies and/or an agent? I'm sure they have better things to do than read mountains of unsolicited manuscripts.

Hi Lord Baal :)

Im not sure how this happens in other countries, i think that in Greece there exist no agents of this kind. Personally i just kept sending work to numerous publishing houses, until they replied. They do have people whose job is simply to read anything that is sent to them, for they are on the look for new authors.
However it saves considerable time if you get to learn which houses publish the kind of literature you write. Here there are at least two that publish horror and fantasy, whereas the rest are involved in more general fiction (they can still publish something like that, but it is less likely). So have a look at books you have of that genre, and be aware of whether or not the houses actually publish similar works by local authors, or if they are just in the business of translating/releasing best sellers from other countries :)

I wish you good luck :)

Thanks Varwnos. That's basically what I've been doing, minus the actual sending part; I'm still working on the story that I think is my best chance of being a first sale, so I'm holding off until I'm satisfied with it.

Still, if anyone has any tips on getting noticed, I'd be grateful. Especially if they're Australia-specific.

If it's fiction, then in the English-speaking world at least you must use an agent; publishing houses will generally not look at unsolicited MSS that don't come via an agent. What you need to do is get a big list of all the agents who deal in anything like your work, and do a massive mail-out to all of them. In the UK there is the Writer's handbook, which covers British and American publishers and agents; I'm not sure if it has Australian as well (I can't find my - outdated - copy right now). If it doesn't there must be some equivalent publication in Australia, or failing that you could just search online.

If it's fiction, then in the English-speaking world at least you must use an agent; publishing houses will generally not look at unsolicited MSS that don't come via an agent. What you need to do is get a big list of all the agents who deal in anything like your work, and do a massive mail-out to all of them. In the UK there is the Writer's handbook, which covers British and American publishers and agents; I'm not sure if it has Australian as well (I can't find my - outdated - copy right now). If it doesn't there must be some equivalent publication in Australia, or failing that you could just search online.
Thanks. I will search online as soon as I'm done with this story, and ask at the local libraries as well. One would assume the'd have a copy of the equivalent Australian text.

Yeah, fiction is an extremely difficult market to break into, specially without a publishing history. My mentors recommended to me that if fiction was where I wanted to go, I'd have better luck getting a publisher for an actual manuscript if I built up a history. Most major universities have at least one lit magazine, and several cities have smaller ones as well, many who specialize in first-time authors. You can always get an edited version of a chapter published, or a short essay, just to prove to people that you don't suck.

Failing that, you can always self-publish. If you can move a few hundred units of your own book, you have a decent chance of convincing a smaller publisher to help you out. Your profit margin is also a lot higher if you self publish.

In the U.S., you can build up a good portfolio by selling to as many magazines as you can. io9.com recently published a good article about this:

http://io9.com/5457388/12-secrets-to-being-a-super+prolific-short+story-writer

In the U.S., you can build up a good portfolio by selling to as many magazines as you can. io9.com recently published a good article about this:

http://io9.com/5457388/12-secrets-to-being-a-super+prolific-short+story-writer
Thanks, that's an interesting link.

It can happen. With my first book, the US publisher changed a few of the lines quite substantially without telling either me or my UK publisher, which rather annoyed the latter. I wasn't enormously bothered. The text changes so much between my initial draft and the final publication that I generally can't remember what it was like to start with anyway. Minor changes (i.e. those that don't affect the meaning) are usual and frequent, of course, and a copy-editor wouldn't normally bother contacting the author about those unless they really affect the flow or sense of the sentences. I didn't when I was a copy-editor, at any rate - some tend to contact authors more frequently. I had a terrible copy-editor once who sent me enormously long query lists and tried to change everything in the book to suit his own agenda. That in itself might have been OK but he had a very hectoring, arrogant tone - it was like he was marking the text, like a teacher - and he was pretty rude about the aspects he didn't like. Which is unprofessional and completely unacceptable.

An interesting thing you learn as you take different roles in publishing: proof-readers spend their time complaining about the copy-editor who let so many mistakes get through. Copy-editors spend their time complaining about the author who made so many mistakes in the first place. Authors spend their time complaining about the editor who won't let them exercise their artistic integrity with perfect freedom. I don't know who editors spend their time complaining about - probably all of the others at once.



This is the kind of thing that it's fantastically useful having an editor (as opposed to a copy-editor) for. When you're sick of the text and don't know how to improve it further (i.e. which bits to cut out) you can just send the whole thing to the editor and ask for suggestions. By the time you look at it again, with the suggestions, everything is much clearer.

I always write far, far too much, which means most of my "writing" time is actually spent cutting down. The longer the book, the more there is to cut. The worst one was the time I had to cut out 50,000 words from one book - that was miserable. But one of the first things you learn as an author is that you cannot be precious, you cannot get emotionally attached to the material, and you have to be ruthless. Because what you think is good and what actually is good probably don't coincide all that well.
This. Great advice Plotinus.

How do you get through a story? I can barely finish a few chapters of a project before losing interest.

I can answer- and will- although first i should note that i asked for this thread to be locked, since there exists another thread in OT with the same topic (and that one is more updated).

Anyway: I very seldom write any story that exceeds thirty pages or so. Most of my stories are at around 10 pages, so losing interest is not an issue.

However if you have to write something larger, then you can sustain interest by choosing a topic and format that you think will perpetuate your interest in it. If i had to write a novel, it would not be about my past, since i do not feel like being bound by it, but it could be about the future, since that would not bore me at all, and that is just a basic example of this mental stance :)