17 Oct 2009, 1:50 pm
ZEGH8578 wrote:
quick update!
btw, Oregon, i will probably go for the big safe publishers, rather than to experiment around w so much effort. i feel like im putting it at risk, especially if i am to showcase it around for free before publishing. i dont want to mail it anywhere at all, only deliver hard copies in established publishers. norway has some 2-3 big ones, and several small ones, so... ill try around along the long road, before trying shortcuts and stuff. anything that takes place online terrifies me
btw, Oregon, i will probably go for the big safe publishers, rather than to experiment around w so much effort. i feel like im putting it at risk, especially if i am to showcase it around for free before publishing. i dont want to mail it anywhere at all, only deliver hard copies in established publishers. norway has some 2-3 big ones, and several small ones, so... ill try around along the long road, before trying shortcuts and stuff. anything that takes place online terrifies me
I can only speak of the US market. In the US you need an agent, because if you do not there is a good chance it will not make it to the 1st reader. Our publishers receive 1,000s of manuscripts. Most sales from people I know made their 1st sale because of people they have met at writers conventions, networking is important. If you can have an established writer take you under his/her wing, you will increase your chances dramatically.
Many excellent writers out there are never published because they do not know the inner workers of the market. It's a business and publishers buy what they feel they can make the best profit on. Agents are usually the best people to make the sales pitch.
17 Oct 2009, 6:14 pm
Oregon wrote:
ZEGH8578 wrote:
quick update!
btw, Oregon, i will probably go for the big safe publishers, rather than to experiment around w so much effort. i feel like im putting it at risk, especially if i am to showcase it around for free before publishing. i dont want to mail it anywhere at all, only deliver hard copies in established publishers. norway has some 2-3 big ones, and several small ones, so... ill try around along the long road, before trying shortcuts and stuff. anything that takes place online terrifies me
btw, Oregon, i will probably go for the big safe publishers, rather than to experiment around w so much effort. i feel like im putting it at risk, especially if i am to showcase it around for free before publishing. i dont want to mail it anywhere at all, only deliver hard copies in established publishers. norway has some 2-3 big ones, and several small ones, so... ill try around along the long road, before trying shortcuts and stuff. anything that takes place online terrifies me
I can only speak of the US market. In the US you need an agent, because if you do not there is a good chance it will not make it to the 1st reader. Our publishers receive 1,000s of manuscripts. Most sales from people I know made their 1st sale because of people they have met at writers conventions, networking is important. If you can have an established writer take you under his/her wing, you will increase your chances dramatically.
Many excellent writers out there are never published because they do not know the inner workers of the market. It's a business and publishers buy what they feel they can make the best profit on. Agents are usually the best people to make the sales pitch.
thats exactly how i imagined it working in america, but i am pretty sure its not that difficult here. just the contrast between populations 300/4 million
at least it SHOULD be easyer to squeeze through here, and i havent even heard of people using agents for anything here, i cant even think of a good way to translate "agent" properly :S
for now tho, im not in a hurry. my aim isnt to sell well, or do good, at ALL, in fact... i probably will insult sci-fi geeks and offend other readers, ive made sure to be utterly repulsive from time to time, i just want SOMEONE to publish, safely, so that whoever wants can buy and read. untill then tho, i am going to polish, polish and polish. i read through it all some time ago, and ill read through it again and again untill i can detect no more errors or difficult sentences or anything that i could correct.
Fogman
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24 Oct 2009, 1:40 pm
Warsie wrote:
Pfft-My story has 4channers nuking enemy planets with kiddie porn from orbit. 
That warrants this on description alone:
Giftorcurse
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24 Oct 2009, 3:19 pm
Tollorin
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24 Oct 2009, 7:09 pm
Half a million words, Whoa!! !! ! Congratulation 
is about as much as Les Misérables. Still not a much as Marienbad My Love and is 17 millions words though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marienbad_My_Love (Not sure if there is anyone crazy enough to read the integral of it though. 
)
ZEGH8578 wrote:
it depends, without telling too much the story spans over 7000 years Very Happy
so many fleets come and go, theres also an aging issue for the people involved, BUT
i operate with a "realistic" scheme of the majority of the vessels being "light fighters", meaning they have a crew of 1. the bigger the ships, the fewer.
only in the 1st book do i operate w "motherships" cus after theyre gone, all the major powers are also gone, and "motherships" become too costly/ridiculous compared to a much much larger fleet of many many more smaller aggressive vessels.
so... in short... i avoid too many visual descriptions, cus i want the reader to imagine things, but the smallest vessels would be roughly van-sized and the biggest in the story are "very very big" described as being fit with half a million personell.
the final fleet described has around hundred and fifty million personell (most are infantry), but thats... "a long story" ;]
after all, they ARE at war with entire worlds, not mere countries Very Happy
so many fleets come and go, theres also an aging issue for the people involved, BUT
i operate with a "realistic" scheme of the majority of the vessels being "light fighters", meaning they have a crew of 1. the bigger the ships, the fewer.
only in the 1st book do i operate w "motherships" cus after theyre gone, all the major powers are also gone, and "motherships" become too costly/ridiculous compared to a much much larger fleet of many many more smaller aggressive vessels.
so... in short... i avoid too many visual descriptions, cus i want the reader to imagine things, but the smallest vessels would be roughly van-sized and the biggest in the story are "very very big" described as being fit with half a million personell.
the final fleet described has around hundred and fifty million personell (most are infantry), but thats... "a long story" ;]
after all, they ARE at war with entire worlds, not mere countries Very Happy
It will seem that "bigger" ship is more realist http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3x.html#fighters http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?t=99686&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
I do not agree with you about the descriptions. Propably because of The Lord of the Rings with is lengtly descriptions and the amazinglandsacpes it made me picture in my head. (BTW, do your novel got appendices.
)ZEGH8578 wrote:
Quatermass wrote:
No big battle fleets. My story is not so much a space opera as a futuristic espionage/conspiracy thriller with an unusual twist. At least the first book, anyway.
i got fleets, but i wouldnt call it a "space opera" cus i dont really focus that much on _space_ per se, really. im listing up the epic stuff here, cus its more... "epic"
im not really sure how to categorize my story, so i class it as a sci-fi cus it takes place in space, in space-ships for much of the time. its much more of an "epic chronicle" about one specific captain and his immediate crew (the few who survive through the whole story) and how their personalities also change, to different degrees and in different directions according to character, but yeah, i guess thats the _main_ theme, time and change, focused around 2-3 main protagonists.
space, fleets, battles come second, and are a red-thread to bind everything together. a major thread of course, but its not the main theme, like in "star wars" or "star trek"
Sound to me like space opera.
ZEGH8578 wrote:
No androids!
No robes! Very Happy
No laser rays!! !
I include "plasma balls" in the later stories, but only on large space-ships, used only to "soften" "energy shields" (shields! a must! Very Happy ) i consider "energy weapons" to be, well, energy wasteful Very Happy hard projectiles also make for a lot more "raw" action.
No robes! Very Happy
No laser rays!! !
I include "plasma balls" in the later stories, but only on large space-ships, used only to "soften" "energy shields" (shields! a must! Very Happy ) i consider "energy weapons" to be, well, energy wasteful Very Happy hard projectiles also make for a lot more "raw" action.
Where is the fun then.
(Just kidding , still ) BTW, laser ray is much more realist that some king of "magical" plasma ball who don't expand (explosing) as soon as he leave the canon. 
(Then again, if you got FTL )ZEGH8578 wrote:
another "theme" of my story is that high diplomacy and great and established powers fall quite early on, and so the rest of it has a grand, but sortof amateurish feel. the tremendous size of the fleet i mentioned (7 mill ships) is due precisely to the amateurishness of the leaders, who really have no clue how many ships they need, and decided to just pump it up to be safe Very Happy
Crazy generals and leaders, that is fun. Oregon wrote:
ZEGH8578 wrote:
quick update!
btw, Oregon, i will probably go for the big safe publishers, rather than to experiment around w so much effort. i feel like im putting it at risk, especially if i am to showcase it around for free before publishing. i dont want to mail it anywhere at all, only deliver hard copies in established publishers. norway has some 2-3 big ones, and several small ones, so... ill try around along the long road, before trying shortcuts and stuff. anything that takes place online terrifies me
btw, Oregon, i will probably go for the big safe publishers, rather than to experiment around w so much effort. i feel like im putting it at risk, especially if i am to showcase it around for free before publishing. i dont want to mail it anywhere at all, only deliver hard copies in established publishers. norway has some 2-3 big ones, and several small ones, so... ill try around along the long road, before trying shortcuts and stuff. anything that takes place online terrifies me
I can only speak of the US market. In the US you need an agent, because if you do not there is a good chance it will not make it to the 1st reader. Our publishers receive 1,000s of manuscripts. Most sales from people I know made their 1st sale because of people they have met at writers conventions, networking is important. If you can have an established writer take you under his/her wing, you will increase your chances dramatically.
Many excellent writers out there are never published because they do not know the inner workers of the market. It's a business and publishers buy what they feel they can make the best profit on. Agents are usually the best people to make the sales pitch.
Giftorcurse wrote:
ZEGH8578 wrote:
half a million words
thats not bad, eh? :I
i must say i was surprised, split in 5 books tho, roughly 100+ in first 4, and 75K in the last which is a short story collection.
thats not bad, eh? :I
i must say i was surprised, split in 5 books tho, roughly 100+ in first 4, and 75K in the last which is a short story collection.
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha... half-a-million words? That's more than I could ever write in a lifetime!
