So, this is actually for my partner, who doesn't use social media at all, but she's written a book, and is working on more, but is really struggling getting anything at all from publishing companies. Rare to even get a 'no' response, mostly just ghosting.
Not sure if anyone has any kind of advice; she did set up a website, and has some of the first few chapters posted, and is perhaps considering giving the webserial format a try. But in general, struggling with mental health of having accomplished a cool thing, and now doing the 'business' side of it, and realizing how soulcrushing it all is.
A loooot of the authors we've seen talk about getting their start either knew a publisher already, or had a family connection, and its pretty hard to not feel cynical, even if the authors are genuinely good writers.
FWIW, genre is basically YA fantasy, but gayer.
Self-publishing is full of sus companies taking advantage of people. Has she considered putting her work out there for free? I'm still on my first draft, but that's my plan B if sending manuscripts out to agents and publishers yields nothing.
Putting something you've worked on the internet for no compensation doesn't feel great, BUT it allows her to directly engage with readers. (If her genre is YA but gayer then that's what Web Serial readers already want to read.) If she post it on Wordpress (or some other website that gives you analytics built in) then she can track stuff like unique views and view retention. Do it right, and she can really build up a following and then show that to a publisher "See, I have x unique followers already." The guy who wrote "The Martian" basically did that. Less likely to pan out is Patreon, but it's there if you can build up a fan base.
Yeah it's a bit of a hail mary to post in all online for free and hope somebody pays you for it, but in my mind it seems about as likely as getting picked up a traditional publisher. This way, people will actually read her work and give her feedback and it could maybe lead to something more.
Yeah, she has a squarespace site up atm, with like the first 3 chapters of each of the books, and is currently posting a chapter a week, but its just hard to know if that's a good path forward to keep doing or not.
Sounds like she knows what she's doing more than any of us clowns. All I can offer is this great blog post by John McCrae (known as Wildbow) who is the most successful web serial author out there. This person has been writing full time and living only off crowd funding for like 7 years.
https://wildbow.wordpress.com/2017/05/22/thoughts-on-writing-serials
I'm actually a huge Wildbow fan haha, though thanks a lot for the link; hadn't actually seen that writeup before.
They're a real GOAT in a lot of ways. I'm pretty deep into the Malazan series, so I'll probably get back to Pale when it's finished. I couldn't keep up with Ward or Twig when they were releasing, prefer to read them all when finished.
Ooh, good choice, rereading Malazan again myself.