Tales of the Parodyverse >> View Post
·
Post By
HH

In Reply To
Anime Jason 
Owner

Location: Here
Member Since: Sun Sep 12, 2004
Posts: 2,834
Subj: Publishing and Software
Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2015 at 07:05:50 pm EST (Viewed 2 times)
Reply Subj: Re: Well, the villains are rotters.
Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2015 at 02:21:03 pm EST (Viewed 393 times)



    Quote:


      Quote:
      5: Do the research to get the story right in the first place


    Quote:
    You missed 6: Don't be afraid to throw most of it out.


That was the second rule on my original list. I generally find that a break of a few weeks between drafts helps me with clarity for self-editing. I no longer remember what I meant to say so clumsy expression and clunky grammar stand out better.


    Quote:


      Quote:
      For software you probably need a cogent business case document, not more than 3000 words, outlining your proposal for potential investors or supporters. One format is:



    Quote:
    Here that's usually called a "business plan" or "mission statement", and I can write those pretty well. What I lack is *access* to the people with money.


No, I'm being precise in my definitions. A business plan would usually include financial projections of how the business would go, profit & loss, risk assessments on best, middle, and worst cases, and generally a lot more detail. A mission statement is a description of what you intend to do and some core values or methods.

A business case is really "why you should take a second look at this". It's the difference between a scooter and an SUV.

The real difference between a business case and a business plan? About £3,500 when I'm doing them!



    Quote:
    Ironically, the place I work full time for could net me a lot of connections, but I can't use any of them because of an NDA and non-compete. I'd have to get permission directly from the owner, which is kind of awkward to say the least.


Yes, that is a problem. I'm not sure how you'll get past that.


    Quote:


      Quote:
      Even if you eventually do have to look at something like Kickstarter, which would require you to seek almost 200% of the actual costs to cover marleting, rewards, and their percentage cut of cash raised, you've upped your profile which may up take-up.



    Quote:
    That's the part that disturbs me most about it. Even if I could pull it off, it's going to be really hard to without losing a ton of money.


I suggest you start by figuring out what you estimate you'll need in time and costs, so you know the magnitude of asset you require. For example, if you think you'll need 500 man-hours, $1000 dollars of legal for registration etc., $1500 to hire somebody to get you a sales deal etc. at least that gives you some solid objectives.


    Quote:


      Quote:
      Until the tax forms arrive.



    Quote:
    Those don't scare me, I'm already a contractor.


Imagine the fun I have with sales in the US but tax in the UK.


    Quote:
    I went back and looked at the novel-like things I started:



    Quote:
    "Traders" is up to almost 30,000 words now since August.



    Quote:
    "World Class" is up to 11,000 words since August.



    Quote:
    "A New World" (a barely started secret project) is 7,000 words since March.



    Quote:
    So I wrote about 48,000 words this year that I *kept*. I probably toss out about 1/3 to 1/2 of that, so it's somewhere between 90,000 and 140,000 words total. That's with me working full time, plus some working at home.


That's a robust body of work. Since traders is probably the nearest to finish, take some stock on that one. How close to complete is the story? Would it nicely fit into a 60k word package (which equals a Createspace print edition selling at say $13 with you getting about half of that)? Would it be better as a trilogy of novellas at 20k each, selling for $2.99 apiece on Amazon kindle?

I'm not advising that you let the packaging determine the story, but now's the time to decide how best to present what you've got. The final draft is the time to make editors/publishers happy, even if you are your own editor and publisher.



    Quote:
    The larger amount since August is because that's when work started to let up a bit.


Returning to a previous point, when you are ready you need to get in two or three beta-readers. You ideally need one who is great at nitpicking, especially on typos and grammar, one who is not savvy in the genre who will get confused every time you make assumptions about your readers, and one who "gets" what you are doing and is a barometer for your target audience. Between the three you should get a good picture of what work needs doing on a final draft.

Sometimes you can get offers like that from the folks at Goodreads or other book-discussion places. The advantage of that is that you then have some advocates and reviewers for your work when it comes out.







Posted with Mozilla Firefox 42.0 on Windows XP
On Topic™ © 2003-2024 Powermad Software
Copyright © 2003-2024 by Powermad Software