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[Meph]

Hey everyone,

Some from the modding forum might know me, but I guess the biggest part of the forum doesnt. It's not really important to this question, but I better introduce myself properly: I'm a 26 year old German with a somewhat non-standard life. I do not have a job in the common sense, but rather do smaller, personal projects, which might, or might not, create money as a biproduct. I put them into one of two catogeries: Active/Practial, or Passive/Theoratical projects. Learning to dive or sail, or running a Marathon, these things would be practical ones, MasterworkDF, a photo exibition or writing a book would be a theoratical one.

Which brings me to the topic: Does anyone here have experience with writing? Getting a publisher, or rather doing ebooks/self-publishing? Print or electronic. Ghostwriter or not. Writing in English (larger customer base) or in your native language (which would result in more eloquent texts, because my German is superior to my English), writing styles and techniques... whatever you can think of.

I ask because I might start to write a book. Not sure about the style, although I do have some ideas. I did promise that I would write one if 100 people (independently from each other) ask me about it, and this number is long past. Since I have never written a book before I am quite excited about learning to do so. I only have to add that time is not an issue, I can take as much as I like.

Thank you,
Meph

[jaass]

I personally think you should start small like short stories then build from there. The problem about writing books is that if you don't have a general plot line in place it can't get very messy.

[Darkmere]

I'll write more about it later, but you should really check out National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo.org). They have a ton of resources and places to check out to get you started.

[Vector]

I'm a published poetry translator.  What do you want to know?

[sackhead]

out of interest what are you planing to write about? Also have you done any writing before?

[Meph]

I have done no writing before, except school assignements, which are a thing of the past. The "start with short stories" makes sense if I'd be writing prose, some fictional story, but I dont think I'd go that way.

About what I'm planing to write about: I have several ideas floating around.
1. A book about how modern, western people throw away their life at their job, their material goods, and dont do anything with it. A mix between "how do I efficiently use my time" and "Vagabonding(a seemingly good book, which I never read)

2. A simple travel story book. I have been travelling over 6 years, over 100 countries, mostly by bicycle, and everyone always asks me to write a book about it.

3. A fantasy novel. Simply to spite the expectations that my book would be about my travels. And I love fantasy novels. I mean, I am no author... but neither am I a programmer, and MasterworkDF turned out alright.

@Vector: I'm not sure. I'm not planning on starting right away, I leave tomorrow on a 6 week bike tour through Europe, and after that I have 2 months at home, before I go for 3-4 months to Westafrica, so its probably more of a: Tell me its possible, and throw ideas at me-phase.

[LordBucket]

Does anyone here have experience with writing? Getting a publisher, or rather doing ebooks/self-publishing?
Print or electronic. Ghostwriter or not. Writing in English

Yes.

Ask questions. I can probably answer them for you.

[Meph]

Ok, first question: Should I approach a publisher/editor/professional book-person first, saying: Hey, I have this idea, I have this timeline, I want to do X or Y... OR should I rather start, finish a draft, have a written manuscript, then go around and see if someone pays interest?

In short: Work first, Connections later; or Connections first, Work later?

Ghostwriters: I understand correctly that I would give the idea and background info (for example what happened in 6 years  of travelling round the world) to a publisher, who gives it to some professional, underpaid author (who can write better than I do) and after a while the book gets released under my name (even if I havent written much of it) and the biggest part of the income goes towards the publisher?

[Darkmere]

You need a book to sell a book. If you had credentials and a record of churning out quality literature, you could get away with asking for an advance with only a basic treatment, but if you have nothing to show, no one will take you seriously (and in traditional publishing, most people still won't take you seriously no matter what).

[Meph]

I didnt mean that I would ask for a salary as a writer, while showing nothing. But I thought that the publisher, editor, whatever usually helps the writer in the writing of his book... at least I often read "thank you for xyz to my editor/random person", when I read a book.

Honestly, writing it and publishing it myself as an ebook does sound more attractive.

Btw, this is nothing imminent, I do have other projects for the next 6 months, I'm just gathering intell.

[Aseaheru]

Hey, you could always write stories of things that happen in masterwork.

[Meph]

Hey, you could always write stories of things that happen in masterwork.

And have a tiny audience?

[Sappho]

I, for one, would love to read a book of stories from your travels. Not a travel guide or anything - there are enough of those. More just a book of anecdotes. Anyone who travels a lot racks up a lot of those.

The only book I've gotten published was through Hex Games. It was a game manual for a world segregated by gender called Herland. I posted a short free adventure idea on their site and they contacted me and said if I wanted to get paid, I could write a whole book for them. They're a tiny company, though, and I made about $60 over the course of 3 years from that.

From what I've heard, it's very difficult to get anything published these days. Too many people who want to write. Big companies hardly look at almost anyone who isn't already successful. There are lots of ways to self-publish. If you are content to sell e-books, it's very easy. If you want to self-publish print books, it takes a serious investment and I've heard there's not much profit.

Anyway that's my limited knowledge. Others are probably better-suited to answer than me, but I'll be interested in whatever information comes from this thread, because I'm hoping I'll eventually be able to publish my NaNoWriMo book.

[Vector]

But I thought that the publisher, editor, whatever usually helps the writer in the writing of his book... at least I often read "thank you for xyz to my editor/random person", when I read a book.

No.  That's "I wrote a book, and then the editor came and helped me make it into something legible."

Given what I know of your background thus far, I think you're definitely best-off self-publishing.  It can take years of commitment to hock a book, they usually want to see other publications (short story pieces, for example), and you're asking us questions about what to write about and the style to use.

Ghost-writing is more of a thing if you've got something really great to sell.  Like, say, if you were a former president of the United States looking to publish a biography.

[LordBucket]

first question: Should I approach a publisher/editor/professional book-person first, saying: Hey, I have this idea, I have this timeline, I want to do X or Y... OR should I rather start, finish a draft, have a written manuscript, then go around and see if someone pays interest?

Both are valid options, depending on what exactly you're doing. What are your expectations? I'm a professional editor. If I were willing to give you my name and if you were to do a search for it on amazon, you would find books that I have edited. So, here I am. Approach me. What do you want to know?

What are your goals? Do you want to write a book or do you want to make money?

If you want to write a book, doing so is not difficult. My advice here would be to write something, then find a local writers group in your area. If you happen to live in southern California I can point you to several groups with multiple, published authors who get together every week to be sociable with aspiring authors and help them with their material. Help of that sort is abundantly available. But to get it you need something to show them. Doesn't have to be much. Spend a couple days and write a chapter.

But, if your expectations are to write a book, have someone else edit it for you, have someone else pay to have it printed, have someone else market and distribute it, then split the money with them....that pretty much doesn't happen unless you're already famous. Also, to even have a work of fiction considered, it's generally expected that it to be complete, finished, polished and done. "Drafts" are for writers groups. Not publishing companies. And even once you've done that, standard practice is to send out a proposal that is basically a sales pitch and a request for them to read your manuscript, which you'll send to them if they want to see it. Books are available describing the process. Unsolicited manuscripts will generally not be read, but the rules vary depending on what you're writing and who you're sending it to. Writing fiction vs nonfiction, books vs magazines vs television or movie scripts...it doesn't all work the same.

If your goal is not specifically to write a book, but rather to simply to have your work published and be able to call yourself a professional writer, then be aware that is it vastly easier to have your work printed in a magazine than in book form. And in either case, being able to point to previous successful publications of your work will make it easier to convince others to publish more of your work later.

Magazines are generally happy to review pitches. By all means send out some letters explaining what you intend to do and asking if they'd interested. It's entirely reasonable that you might get some positive responses. For many periodicals, this is standard practice. For example, here are writer's and proposal submission guidelines for National Geographic Travel. Here's a list, and here's anbother list of various travel-related magazines. Go through those, read through their various submission policies and send them prepublication inquiries. It's entirely likely that you might get a few responses back saying "why, yes, we'd be willing to consider your article for publication once it has been written. Here are our requirements. Contact us again when you're finished." This helps you in several ways. It allows you to avoid wasting a lot of time by, for example...taking your six month trip to Africa, then spending 2 months writing about it only to discover that the magazines that might otherwise have been interested are only willing to consider submissions that are accompanied with pictures with higher digital resolution than the pictures you took. Oops. Or that they would be absolutely interested in publishing an article about a visit to city X that you were considering visiting, but you went to neighboring city Y instead that doesn't interest them. Again, oops. In neither case are they going to promise in advance to print anything to write, but the simple contact in advance can easily help your chances, and if several months later you contact them back with an article and they think, "oh, hey...I remember this guy. He was going to write about X." that recognition makes them all the more likely to select your piece than if they receive an unsolicited submission from a completely unknown writer.

writing it and publishing it myself as an ebook does sound more attractive.

I recommend you read this thread. It might anticipate some of your questions, and discusses some issues with the industry that you might benefit from being aware of.