How to write a best selling fantasy novel. - 08/10/06 02:44 PM
Re: How to write a best selling fantasy novel. - 08/10/06 04:24 PM
Either that or be born Ray Bradbury. 
Re: How to write a best selling fantasy novel. - 08/11/06 03:37 AM
This is a rather delightful essay and all the more funny because of the (many) grains of truth embedded in it. I passed it along to all of the fantasy-fiction nerds (there are many) in my cyber address book. Thanks, Woody.
Re: How to write a best selling fantasy novel. - 08/11/06 12:08 PM
heh.
Re: How to write a best selling fantasy novel. - 08/11/06 02:52 PM
As the country's most resoundingly unpublished writer, I can testify that it's a lot easier to write a "best seller" than it is to find a publisher who agrees with your assessment
Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead" was rejected by 12 pubs. But with the advent of the word processor, I estimate it's 25 times easier to write a book; and using the Internet it's 25 times as easy to address a potential market. Given those figures, a typical publisher probably gets 625 times the input load. To find one that liked her book enough to publish it, might today require 12 x 625 = 750 queries
If the book occupied, say, 200 written pages and typing at the time cost, say, $2 a page, then you had to submit a $400 MS to one pub at a time, with return postage
Even today, in order to discourage overloading of its hard drives, a pub showing any interest might ask for a printed copy. You will be very lucky if your 750 queries result in 75 such requests
Postage notwithstanding, that's 75 x 20 = 150,000 pages
Don't write a book
Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead" was rejected by 12 pubs. But with the advent of the word processor, I estimate it's 25 times easier to write a book; and using the Internet it's 25 times as easy to address a potential market. Given those figures, a typical publisher probably gets 625 times the input load. To find one that liked her book enough to publish it, might today require 12 x 625 = 750 queries
If the book occupied, say, 200 written pages and typing at the time cost, say, $2 a page, then you had to submit a $400 MS to one pub at a time, with return postage
Even today, in order to discourage overloading of its hard drives, a pub showing any interest might ask for a printed copy. You will be very lucky if your 750 queries result in 75 such requests
Postage notwithstanding, that's 75 x 20 = 150,000 pages
Don't write a book
Re: How to write a best selling fantasy novel. - 08/18/06 02:42 PM
Eh, for me mildly amusing, far less than delightful.
Create a Wise but Useless Guide - 08/25/06 07:23 AM
Why does the author give away all that advice for free?