BarbarianSpy for
literary heat
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JUST OUT
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First up - help yourself
and get out there. There are so many ways now to get your writing out there to other people. And there are so many sources of writing information and advice available on the internet. General writing advice on
the net. Sites worth visiting - http://julieduffy.com/index.html http://www.eharlequin.com/store.html;jsessionid=F2D411FA714FF4700E5F3163B7CC16D7?cid=535 Yes, Harlequin. They have loads of articles on all
aspects of writing romance and most of it is relevant t any genre. There are also plenty of other sites that will give you good sensible advice on all aspects of writing for free. There are also a lot that are trying to sell you something. My advice is that if they want money - go elsewhere, until you understand what they are wanting money for and know whether you need to pay for it or not. Usually you can get it free. Getting your writing
out there. Unpaid options Writers review sites, personal websites, blogs, free story sites. There are lots of limited access options, writer sites with paid membership where you review each others stories, private group sites, blogs and your own website or group website. They will all give you some feedback and let you get over the hurdle of showing your work to others, if nothing else. Free Story Sites. I used to worry about giving up some rights to my work by posting it on the net. Now I know that for me it’s the best thing I ever did. Free story sites are places people go to read short stories generally or poems, and they will get you a readership before you ever publish a book in print or electronically. And those people are the core of your fans and buyers when you are first published - and can push you into the bestseller lists. So don’t be afraid to put your writing out there where people can find it and read it - and the more readers the better. Posting to your website may get you a few hundred readers, but posting to a popular free story site may get you 50,000 or even a million readers. If you write Romance or sexy romance then you are lucky- www.literotica.com is the worlds largest free erotic story site, they are an adult site but their romance sections cover a wide variety of content and they will also take non-erotic stories and poetry. In fact about a third of their poetry is non–erotic. And you don’t have to read what’s there to post there. You just need to join up. There is feedback and commenting and rating of stories/poems, and they also have a volunteer editor service available where you may find someone who loves your writing and can help to get it into shape for you. It’s a great community. You can get slammed there too if they don’t like your story, or if its full of mistakes, but this will toughen you up for the real world too. www.gaydemon.com gay www.motnes.com gay Other sites – for non erotic writings http://www.booksie.com/index.html - This site also offers ratings and comments. From the look I have had a lot of the short work seems to be written by young people who don’t know how to spell, or punctuate. There seems to be quite a bit of feedback though and quite a few readers. - this is a document sharing site. http://www.publicbookshelf.com/ http://www.free-online-novels.com/ -just what it says you can have your novel put up here. http://www.free-online-novels.com/submissions.html http://www.shortbreadstories.com/ Possible paying options POD Anyone can be in paperback now! Well you may need to learn to set up a PDF file, but I’m sure you can do that! Commercial E-book publication Here we get back into the real world of submissions and rejections. But it’s easier than trying to submit to a Random House imprint. What is an ebook? Well go to Fictionwise, or Allromanceebooks, and download a free one and you will find out. ebooks are cheaper to produce and sell than conventional books. No freight, no shop or staff putting books out on shelves, or counter staff answering questions and taking payment to get them to the customer. There is not as much editing or setting up either. To a certain extent if you submit a reasonable romance/fantasy/erotica/sci-fi story that is “ready to go” you wont find it too hard to find an ebook publisher, compared to finding a conventional print publisher. But ebooks are very genre driven. And unfortunately, as in the print world, certain genres have a higher turnover of titles than others and the market is better. To find publishers go to Fictionwise, or another ebook seller's site, and search for books in your genre and look at who has published them. Then go to the publishers sites and see if they are taking submissions and what their requirements are. Sounds simple, but people don’t always do it. And some people are just shy about pushing themselves. Unfortunately it’s unlikely anyone will come looking for you if you don’t promote yourself in some way. I am not a good promoter I know, and wouldn’t be published except for a friend's example and encouragement, and favourable circumstances. Getting involved in posting sites will also help you to meet people who also write and who write what you like to read, or write similar work to you. These will be your biggest asset if you can cooperate with them. Review each others writing, and give feedback, keep each other informed of opportunities. Networking on the net is much easier than in a room full of people. Keeping in touch is easy. Networking will give you people to ask if you need advice about a publisher or hear of one starting up. Once you have a list of publishers, and this could take some hours of research to get together, you want to submit to it time to get their submission guidelines. And if you are going to submit your work to them and want
to make a good impression make sure you understand a few things about setting up
a submission - Points of importance –
Learn how to do these. Page breaks - insert at the end of chapters. Page numbering - never submit without them. . . . the ellipsis -you can type this yourself. Three dots with a space between - no more and no less. — the em dash - this is found at "insert" then "special'' in word. Normal style - this is like the basic typed document, no fancy stuff, nothing automatic. Why? Because its the easiest style for an editor to change. Indents - real editors will use the tab key for each one so you do too, unless a publishers guidelines say otherwise. eXCessica requires indents to be set up on the layout page. Line spacing - easy to alter in a "Normal" style document. Spelling – use US, wherever you live and however much it irritates you, as most publishers are US based and so are most readers. Of course if you are submitting locally, great, you can write the way you like. And yes, I am using Australian spelling in this article, yeah, as it has been written for a workshop I am running locally - and I haven't changed it.
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