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.
She needs an agent. It will be difficult to get one, but publishers have the luxury of basically ignoring everyone without.
Yeah, she's trying. Sorry, the way I wrote that was unclear (especially since I don't understand the whole process that well), but she's been reaching out to agents more than publishers.
A single agent gave any real response, saying they prefer works a professional editor has edited, but we've also seen stuff online saying many agents/publishers will want it ran through their own editors. Not to mention hiring an editor on your own is like $3,000 minimum (or so we've seen, with up to $10,000 not being unlikely). And while we could budget for that, its a big cost, not even being sure its an expense that will help.
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.
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.
Lindsay Ellis spent like ten years writing her book, and then two getting it published, despite being a pretty popular YouTuber and seemingly having a lot of fan clout behind her. So I can't offer any advice besides keep trying, especially with indie publishers since they tend to be more specific (ie find a publisher that specifically does YA LGBT fiction, I'm sure there are a few that exist).
Publishing is indeed soul-crushing no matter how you do it. Traditional publishing is probably not the way to go here, because as you observed, it's not a particularly fair system and it requires going through a lot of rejections, and even when you get accepted, you don't get to keep most of what your story earns.
Self-publishing directly on Amazon via KDP is an option, but if an agent already told her that the work needs to be edited, it probably does. The numbers you quoted sound high to me (used to be a copy-editor and I sure wasn't making that kind of money) unless her manuscript is super long, but at a minimum, it needs to be proofread, even if just by a smart nitpicky friend. Paying for a professionally-designed cover is also important, but those run from $50-200.
She should probably look in at the Indie Authors Ascending discord server because they're good at giving no-nonsense critiques and feedback: https://discord.gg/V3dBmfYmQj
Editing numbers were non specifically to her work, it was looking up some places and seeing what they charge by the word, not sure if it was really correct tbh.
She's had me and two friends proofread it, and fix errors and give feedback.
Thanks for the discord link, worth getting some advice from other authors.
