Any writers?

[AmateisGal]

Nobody here seems to have too much interest in e-publishing either. I am, but only because it's a sure thing. There's no way NOT to get e-published if you want it. That said, it doesn't seem the same. It's almost like a consolation prize. You haven't really gotten published until you can go to Borders or Barnes and Noble and buy your book off the shelf (preferably in hardcover - I always shoot for hardcover). Will we have printed paper media when I draw my last breath in oh, 90 years? I'd like to think so, but the safe bet would be on no.

My thoughts EXACTLY. It is like a consolation prize...and I am going to try and hold out until I get the real thing - i.e. a book on the shelf. It's been my dream since the 6th grade...

 

[Harp]

Anyone else wish they could win the lottery (or have a very generous benefactor) for the express purpose of being able to quit their job and write full-time?

shades of Melville in the customs house? Hang in there kiddo. :cheer2::clap::eusa_clap

 

[AmateisGal]

shades of Melville in the customs house? Hang in there kiddo. :cheer2::clap::eusa_clap

Thanks, Harp. Yesterday was a particularly bad day. I have so many projects on the go at the moment - a nonfiction book on the German POW camp at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, during WW2, an article on a gal who worked at the FBI in D.C. during the war, two freelance history articles, my regular freelance writing projects, PLUS my novel. And to have to spend all day at a job I don't love instead of working on my writing projects is incredibly frustrating!!!

 

[Unique Tales Of Intrigue]

Dear Fedora Loungers,

LORD Willing, Unique Tales Of Intrigue will start printing our spring issue in March or at the latest, April.
We are still looking to purchase the publishing rights to a few more stories, and specifically we would love a detective and sports.

Do any of you think you could write a pulp-era detective or sports tale?

To read some pulp fiction, please go to: http://pulpgen.com/pulp/downloads/list_by_mag.php?page=1

Also, for more details on our magazine, read this thread: http://www.thefedoralounge.com/show...-stories-and-serials-to-be-published-upcoming...
and e-mail us at: uniquetalesofintrigue@gmail.com

May JESUS CHRIST THE MIGHTY LORD GOD and SAVIOR Bless you, yours, and these United States Of America!

Sincerely,

Daniel Benjamin Orris

(3:20PM-EST, February 23rd, Wednesday, 2011 in the year of JESUS CHRIST ALMIGHTY!)

 

[Senator Jack]

Hmm, I suppose I come across as a heathen after that last post, but The Fine Art of Mixing Girls is finally for sale. I'll post more about it in the Loungers in Print.

 

[WH1]

Jack, wouldn't want know what to make of you any other way, it would be like a sidecar with bottled lemon juice instead of fresh squeeze. still good in a pinch but just not right.

 

[Senator Jack]

The funny thing about the book is that the title is probably the raciest thing about it. While writing it, I approached it as a Billy Wilder comedy subject to the Breen office, though maybe something closer to 'Kiss Me, Stupid' rather than 'The Seven Year Itch', when they were really pushing the envelope.

Do we now have the ability to start a private group discussion on FL? I have some comments and knowledge about the business that would help everyone, but for certain reasons, I don't want them to show up on search engines.

Regards,

Jack

 

[LizzieMaine]

I don't think Observation Bar threads show up on search engines, but I'm not sure about private group discussions in public rooms -- I'll look into it.

 

[AmateisGal]

The funny thing about the book is that the title is probably the raciest thing about it. While writing it, I approached it as a Billy Wilder comedy subject to the Breen office, though maybe something closer to 'Kiss Me, Stupid' rather than 'The Seven Year Itch', when they were really pushing the envelope.

Do we now have the ability to start a private group discussion on FL? I have some comments and knowledge about the business that would help everyone, but for certain reasons, I don't want them to show up on search engines.

Regards,

Jack

I'd like to hear your thoughts on it, too, Jack. Since I worked at a leading self-publisher (and still freelance for them), I could offer my two cents on that side of the aisle.

 

[Tux Toledo]

Nobody here seems to have too much interest in e-publishing either. I am, but only because it's a sure thing. There's no way NOT to get e-published if you want it. That said, it doesn't seem the same. It's almost like a consolation prize. You haven't really gotten published until you can go to Borders or Barnes and Noble and buy your book off the shelf (preferably in hardcover - I always shoot for hardcover). Will we have printed paper media when I draw my last breath in oh, 90 years? I'd like to think so, but the safe bet would be on no.

I too share these thoughts. While I have an e-book available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble there's nothing quite like having a printed book on the bookseller's shelf.

 

[Senator Jack]

Actually, I should retract the bit about Borders because nobody's going to have their book there. They filed Chapter 11 a few weeks ago and stiffed all their distributors.

As for e-books, somebody cracked the DRM on about 2,500 titles and posted them on the bit-torrent sites for pirating, so you know how much that is going to eat into sales. The established publishers don't even know what they're going to do about it. The thing to do, of course, is, like they do with paperbacks, is not release a title as an e-book till a year or two after the hardcover. No one's going to scan an entire book just to pirate it. Problem solved.

 

[AmateisGal]

Actually, I should retract the bit about Borders because nobody's going to have their book there. They filed Chapter 11 a few weeks ago and stiffed all their distributors.

As for e-books, somebody cracked the DRM on about 2,500 titles and posted them on the bit-torrent sites for pirating, so you know how much that is going to eat into sales. The established publishers don't even know what they're going to do about it. The thing to do, of course, is, like they do with paperbacks, is not release a title as an e-book till a year or two after the hardcover. No one's going to scan an entire book just to pirate it. Problem solved.

Excellent point. Although with today's "instant" society, people wouldn't like the wait.

 

[Undertow]

I went to a "writer's panel" of sorts up in Ames at Iowa State University last Saturday afternoon. The discussion panel consisted of a New York literary agent, a literary magazine publisher, a small-press book publisher and a twice published author. We crammed ourselves elbow-to-elbow in a dusty meeting room overlooking the iconic campanille.

As you can imagine, the crowd was mostly drawn down the center between desperate, sweaty, coffee-drinking lunatics like me who have been trying to break out into the scene and college kids that got extra-credit in their English class for taking notes. Likewise, the questions from the audience were polarized between the painfully awkward "artists" trying to pitch their sci-fi stories to the self-indulgent community college graduates who've been published in some 2-bit rag and needed to toot a few of their own horns.

Although I learned absolutely nothing (and I mean I sat there with a pad of paper and fresh pen just begging to write something down), I did have an opportunity to meet some fellow writers while snacking on ginger snaps and stale coffee. Unfortunately, I seemed to have spoken to a half dozen psychopaths that were intent on grilling me about anything I'd ever written or read, ever, in my life. One guy, a balding, mincing recluse named Billy, literally followed me out of the room, down the hall, through the building and out the door asking what else I'd read by Ray Bradbury (because I guess three novels, two short stories and Zen and the Art of Writing weren't enough).

When I finally made it home after a seemingly exhaustive drive through the bleak Iowa landscape (nothingness accented by the occassional passing bird who is entirely lost) I sat down in my favorite chair and very nearly started crying. Why, God, why did I have to take up writing?! Why couldn't it have been engineering, or glass blowing, or jet piloting? Even the local whinos experienced a sense of warmth and satisfaction, if but briefly.

Then I remembered you guys, my brothers and sisters in arms, struggling just like me, and you're not all totally weird (haha, well...)

Seriously, thank you for all of your advice and support on this little thread. You guys are really great!

 

[Senator Jack]

I sat down in my favorite chair and very nearly started crying.

I've done that, and I feel like doing it again tonight.

The hardest thing to accept about all this - the state of the business - is that I have lost all respect for the literary field. This is something you put on a pedestal as a kid, and all these years later you realize the people running it are nothing but idiots celebrating other idiots. Books from the schnooks on Jersey Shore? Books culled from unfunny Tweets? This was just about the only business I respected, and that's gone.

 

[AmateisGal]

I loved your description of the meeting, Undertow.

There must be something in the air. I was completely deflated the other night after looking at my novel for the umpteenth time and wondering, why, why, why do I do this to myself? But it seems when you are called to write, really called (unlike those morons who think, "Hey, I'm going to write a novel and get rich!"), you can never stop. It is who you are, and you cannot separate yourself from it.

Jack, oh boy, do I agree with you. My only comfort is that the Snooky (sp?) book didn't sell well, but that they even thought of publishing it in the first place made me lose faith (again) in the publishing biz.

 

[AmateisGal]

Here's something else I've been struggling with - writing itself. It seems like everything that comes out on the screen is complete and utter drivel. I think I have a brain synapse that isn't firing right or something. Driving me up a wall.

 

[Senator Jack]

How is it that 'the arts', a term that would signify things artistic, is just about the only field that is overrun by people without any idea of what art is about?

For example, a surgeon spends ten to twelve years going to school to learn how to cut people open. Then he goes out for a job. Would the hospital say, 'You know what? That's all great that you spent twelve years learning your craft, but we're going to hire this schmuck from the Jersey Shore, the one with no experience or talent, instead.' Why in hell is our craft diminished? How is it that publishers, who ought to know better, can actually justify their actions. I met one of them from McGraw-Hill in a bar the other day. It felt good to blast him.

Kind regards,

Jack

 

[LizzieMaine]

The problem is that our culture isn't geared to people who *read* anymore. It's geared to people who *look.* The books that sell today are either warmed-over kiddie fare, TV/Movie junk, packaged talk-radio screeds, or pickled novelty websites. Literary fiction is going the way of radio drama -- something appreciated by a few enthusiasts, but not part of mainstream culture. And we've skidded too far down the slope over the past thirty years for that to change...

 

[Senator Jack]

And Lizzie comes out swinging. Pickled novelty websites. That's rich.

Do you know there's one that was started about three months ago and already they got a book deal? It's called Crazy Things My Parents Text. THREE MONTHS! Here I am struggling over plot, character, climax, restrictive and non-restrictive clauses, and these guys get a book deal in three months. Why bother any more?

 

[Lincsong]

Write about "crazy things people post on forums". bahahhahahahahaha