New Testingstan

Everyone and their collective dog wants to be a writer. I'd bet that some of you have flirted with the idea of writing some novel at some point. Red has obviously written a novel and is currently looking for a publisher. Stark has chewed my ear off about the novel he'd like to write (and I wish he would). Raptor has devoted considerable time to his own novel, with the help of Ohma.

I've wanted to be a writer for a really long time. I wrote my first story back when I was five. It was like, Lego fanfiction with its only piece of dialogue stolen from Power Rangers Zeo, but it was a story. All through my life I've wanted to be a 'great author', with increasingly delusional ideas of grandeur as I got older. I've worked on my writing for over 15 years, and to be honest I think I'm pretty good. I can only ape the power of narratives of real authors like McCarthy and will never blaze trails in the written world, but I like to think I'm not a bad read these days.

But I think I'm unpublishable. Well, maybe not unpublishable because all sorts of shit gets published, but some of the stuff I really want to write might be a hard sell. But really, I don't think I want to deal with 'being published'. Red's stories about the process, and the things I know about the industry generally, just make the whole thing sound like an ordeal. And more, there's a certain hands-off quality to it which I don't like. You give them the manuscript, then they handle the rest in terms of presentation. something about that doesn't sit right with me. I understand that an important role that publishing houses play is reigning in excess, but I mean they're typically just shoddy at selling a book. There are exceptions, but in a lot of ways it feels farmed out.

I'd still like to be 'an author' (and I'd still like to get paid for my hobby). I have a number of different books I'd like to pour myself into and then pass out to the world, but either can't or won't brave the publishing industry. So I got to thinking, and thought 'well why not just sell e-books'. That's just self-publishing, but the more I thought about it, the more I convinced myself that there was a certain kind of legitimacy there that a vanity press lacks. I might just be a little behind the times, but I feel there's scope in web media for electric novels. I know Amazon provides some kind of service, but even regarding their traffic and ease of use, I think I'd prefer to set up my own website. I mean, if you came across a website which was half as cool as this and it was selling a novel, then maybe you'd be interested. I don't know.

And I mean, there's scope to do stuff there which you couldn't in a traditional setting. I don't just mean picking your own cover art, you could integrate art on a wider scale, which is something I'd like to do. You could engage in more interesting methods of marketing and sale on your own initiative. Sure, you won't be on a shelf in a bookstore, but you can't win them all. I'm getting a little ahead of myself here obviously: I have more ideas than novels and can't draw and can't do web design but you know I felt I had to share.

That's it.

i've always wanted to be a writer too

i don't know what else i can contribute to this thread but if you want to bash ideas off here then i'll be interested in talking about it

i'm interested in what you mean by integrating art

Maybe like mashing together different medium, like written stuff, animated stuff, cool pictures, things like that ? Using the tools that technology gives us to create something new ?

Anyway, I'm interested in this idea.

I got an A+ in marketing, holla at ya boy

But for real, I'm sure between me, Stark, and JSF, you could get a ton of help on the business end, so you could focus on the creative side.

fanfiction.net

Simjen

Stofsk wrote:i'm interested in what you mean by integrating art

For most novels, there's no visual element, but I don't think that 'novel' is incompatible with 'pictures'. Things like character or mechanical design, or punctuating important moments in the story with pieces of art etc. I'd like to take it further than that, like Oxy says with stuff like music etc, but it's another layer of things i can't do and beyond that you've got to cater to the peripherals on the market (e-book readers, I guess).

zhaktronz wrote:Simjen

As much as I'd like to hire Simjen as a joke, can you imagine the size of the bill

Concerning written text & music : it's really hard to mix both, because some people find it hard to read while listening to something ; and in other cases, due to people reading at different speed you fall into problems like the guy finishing reading some part while the music is still running, or the reverse. So ideally you'd have to have a musical loop (with all the composition problem it entails).
And given how the human mind work, you have to restrict yourself to instrumental music devoid of lyrics lest it would disturb the reader's experience. This kind of music, for example.


In the other hand, what would be interesting, would be to mix your book with its audio-book : voice-acting, narration, ambiance music ; and the text for those who may have difficulties following (and people could only just read your book without having to wear their ear-plugs if that's what they want). You could also include some flash/video animations for some parts, or ship your e-book with maps, character sheets with drawn pictures of the characters, goodies like that. Peripheral things that enhance the experience.

At core I'd prefer to keep things relatively simple.

Yeah, I went a bit ahead, there...


So, basically, let me get this straight : you're talking about a platform that would let independent writers publish their works with the hope of making some bucks from it, right ?


I don't have a kindle or any kind of e-book reader, so I'll ask : what decide you, as a consumer, to buy an e-book ? Do you often wander into your e-library to find books that could interest you ?

If you somehow ended up in this indie, fair-trade virtual book-store, what would get you to throw a few bucks at the store/author and buy one of the rags ? And how would you have ended here anyway ?

And how many hipsters would it take to begin a marketing campaign ?

Oh, no, I don't want to publish the things other people write. I want to quote unquote publish the things that I write. Like it would be fordprefectbullshit.net not indiebooks.com.

http://www.drivethrufiction.com/

So, something like this?

No, nothing like that.

A few books/RPGs through that network have had some cool stuff like you mention - embedded music/sound cues for certain pages and stuff like that. Can't remember which ones, but it's cool when you encounter them.

I remember working on a RPG project with some friends where instead of static gameplay examples, we were going to film or animate portions of gameplay to demonstrate exactly how things were meant to work and embed those into the "ebook".

Is starkhateseverything ok

If you ever start that blog Dan I'll read it

Yeah, seriously.

domain registration is a bizarre labyrinth

probable solution = give adr $50 bux lol

I thought about buying xenosurf.net a couple of weeks ago

But held off due to a sudden pang of 'maybe this is stupid'

Stofsk wrote:i don't know what else i can contribute to this thread but if you want to bash ideas off here then i'll be interested in talking about it

Look why not

Basically there are three things I really want to write. The one I want to write most is Xenosurf, which is basically a love song to Chrono Trigger team's Xenogears and its spiritual successor Xenosaga. In all honesty those probably weren't great games or even great stories, but they resonated with me and I want to try and capture what it was exactly that captivated me. It's set in 'the Great Surf', which is two galaxies colliding, in a far off future, and is more or less about the main character, some grommet from some beach in middle of nowhere, getting caught up in a grand tale about making the future. I want it to go a little further than just space opera and strike a chord of myth, if I'm capable of it. I've envisioned it as a trilogy, which might be unnecessary, but you know.

The second thing I'd like to write is called Hunter of the Sun. It'd be a single novel, and also in the style of a myth, but with less 'horizon' than Xenosurf. I want it to be a novel where it is very difficult to draw a definite conclusion with, so that people can freely interpret the events as they wish, whether they want to take it as happening in the past, the future, or even nowhen. I based it somewhat on my impressions of Inuit mythology. The premise as far as I can establish it in a story which isn't meant to be concrete is that the sun is rising on a nighttime world of ice and is melting all things, and Horus sets out with her dog team to ... hunt the sun.

The third thing is a magical girl story that I have attempted to write a thousand million bazillion times. I thought I'd settled on a pretty good premise, but then Puella Magi Madoka Magica came along and basically did my story but better so I abandoned it. But recently I had this idea for a magical girl who, with a transformation trinket scraped together by a bitter mascot character from the shattered remains of the magical kingdom, fights a lonely resistance against the crystal utopia spreading across the world unhindered, headed by the previous generation's magical girls.

Xenos don't surf

will there be lesbian robots

No robots, but it's p. yuri

can your story feature Roman Spektor

Well

I guess that depends on who he is