[gmw]

Originally Posted by E.M.DuBois

Despite how my over eagerness to publish The Savior Libra (leading to mistakes) may make me look, I actually write a lot. Been doing so for 13 years. I have a lot piled up on me. Most of it won’t be published. Some of it’s going to writerscafe.org. Only what I’ve set my heart, soul, blood, sweat, and tears into will be published for sale. Most of what I write is just for fun, and as a hobby. So, I can relate to your perspective as well.

At the risk of seeming to contradict myself, there are a couple of problems with the "only publish the best" approach - especially when you're starting. The two problems are tightly related:

1) I've come to realise that preparing a book for publication really is part of finishing it. Having been through the process a few times now, I can't look at my non-published writing and think of it as finished.

2) I learned so much through the publication process that has (I think) made my writing better the first time around.

I think there's a lesson in there that other starters could take from what you're going through now, and what I went through some years ago: do NOT wait for your first big novel to truly finish (make publishable) a story.

Pick up some shorter stories and do them finish properly: editing, cover, blurb, the works. Learn what's involved, during which you collect the tools and skills that will make it slightly less painful when the novel comes. With a short story it may even be possible to afford a professional editor and see the real difference they can make, and learn from that. Treat this seriously with short stories and it won't come as such a shock with a novel.

Short stories also make it much better when trying to collect like-minded friends to help out. It's so much easier to ask someone to review a 10 page short, than to review a 400 or 600 page novel. It's also much easier for them to make a difference at the smaller scale.

There isn't anything new in the advice. Short stories are where so many traditionally published authors started. What's important is to realise the advantages it could offer to independent publishing as well.


This also comes under the heading of: Don't do what I did, do what I say. I didn't try to publish any shorts until after my first three novels. So I don't really expect anyone to pay that much attention. For some reason we writers seem to need that shock to the system to fully realise what is involved.