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Goodread's or Wattpad?

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  • Well, however you go about it - best of luck, Lydia.
  • A couple of questions Lydia.

    How expert is your expert ?

    How expensive is your expert ?
  • However expensive she is she knows her stuff or can enquire about it from the right sections. She has connections in showbiz land, films etc. So i trust her guidence and she is going to save me a small fortune, annually by getting me to cancel my expensive contract with my web design conpany and setting up a website on tumblr with just the domain name to pay for yearly.. Knows her stuff. Worth investing in her. You have to speculate to accumulate, they say...
  • And as people have so kindly pointed out, my brain power doesn't extend to such knowledge so i'll hand that over to a hired expert who is quite polite and respectful towards me. No harm in doing that, is there?
  • Tumblr is not such a good place to have your website, really. I'm on there and have never had a hit.

    However my good old Wordpress site which honestly is VERY easy to set up now has 1,083 followers.
  • (You can get web optimisation done by someone from Fiver for, well, a fiver.)
  • Am having both and with jb's help and some of her followers i am hoping to pick up some fans.

    It really depends on what you're trying to sell. Some ideas work better on different nedias. I'll let jb advise me on that. She is obviously very experienced on these topics... Which is what i need.
  • Taking on board everything you have all been saying here, and i confess i do have a stubborn streak but with reflecting usually come round to people's thinking. Just wondering if anyine here could set up a simplified tumblr website with images and text to showcase my tales for me? You could be right that this expert might be in this just for the money. Any offers for a reasonable fee...?
  • Amazon's a good place to showcase your work - link to it via any website or Facebook page; even a blog would suffice.
  • Do you mean your entire ebook? Mine's not complete yet. Can you realy showcase your blog posts, website and otjer social media? Where do you go to do that if you have no books for sale yet?
  • This expert is insiating the tumbler can promote ny ideas. The pared down books might be more appropriately promoted on there via images or would instagram be just as good? Images suggested of the tales and where would i get those images for free?
  • It's costing me£65 per month for my contract with my web team. Some of you have suggested i could turn my wordpress blog into my website and save a packet. With the simplified ebooks i am thinking of the wattpad crowd and promoting it to them? Battery going now. Come back on to the forum later...
  • Thanks Tiny Nell. Noted.
  • £65 is extortionate.

    Focus on finishing the book.
  • Yep. True, but tied up in hospital right now.

    Neil. There's an earlier version of my scripts opening scene on my facebook page. Linda Carcavella. September 2014, 10.30am if you want to get the gist of it. Been some changes since...
  • Oh, Lydia, what a lot of money. I don't pay a penny to anyone for anything.
  • For £65 a month I'll do all the web stuff AND rub your feet!
  • Trouble is with stuff like this is, it's like popping into a sports shop and saying "I want to take up running" - they're going to try and sell your shoes and leggings and shorts and technical t-shirts and sun deflecting caps and gel packs and blister treatments and super duper lightweight water bottles, when all you really need to do is step out of your front gate wearing some old trousers and a scratty tshirt. You can buy the expensive stuff when you're winning all the local Parkruns and free races you can find!

    If you find a web expert, or a writing relations expert (or whatever they call themselves) they're going to insist you need looooads of stuff to be the best of the best and make easy cash...which always confuses me - someone has an easy way of making cash, but they're in a different business? Hmmm...
  • That all sounds like good sound advice from very seriously experienced people.

    I have a wordpress blog already. Would i need to add images and text to it, to illustrate my themes?

    And as the two ebooks that should be completed soon when i can get out of hospital, as they are the pared down version similar to the film sctipt versions, then perhaps promoting on wattpad and through images on instagram and other relevant social media connections would be more potent in effect with regards to possible sales? It's a learning curve. If one thing doesn't work i'll try something else...
  • Sounds to me like you're being fleeced.
    Know what? I think you should stop being sidetracked with all this talk of promoting and making connections until you've got something to actually promote.

    Listen to what Baggy Books said: Focus on finishing the book.

    After that - see if you've written something good enough to attract an agent or publisher - and THEN concentrate on promoting your book.

    Obviously, this is just my humble opinion - others may disagree. :)
  • I agree with Claudia. You've only got so much energy, so pour it all into just one project - either a script, or a book. With just one focus, you can make it the best it can be. Otherwise, it's a bit like plate-spinning.

    A publisher/agent will want to see your very best work, and just one thing at a time. Submission guidelines warn against sending more than one manuscript to a recipient at once. You can always mention in a covering letter that you have ideas for further projects.

    Once it's finished, then you'll have something great to showcase. Promoting a draft isn't as likely to get the positive reaction which you're seeking.
  • I agree completely.

    You can't promote nothing. People will see though that as quick as a wink.

    Finish your project, and like every one else has been saying do one thing first, the novel.

    Then you have something to promote. Having 4 things from different POVs is NOT going to make anyone more likely to take you on. What they will think, like many of us are thinking, is that you can't concentrate on one project, and that you don't have the experience to see which POV is the most interesting.

    You have even implied somewhere here that you are not sure if it is good enough to be a novel and that is why you are thinking of doing it as an ebook. If it's not good enough to be a novel it's not good enough to be anything else - film script, ebook, or whatever.

    It is paramount for your future work that you do not let anything out that is substandard in any way - that is why you must concentrate on one thing, make it perfect, get it checked for grammar, punctuation etc (which will be a lot cheaper than paying money to someone who I think is just probably heating you for something that is promoting work that isn't even extant!).

    But the the main thing is - if this is the first thing you have written, it probably isn't good enough. No-one's first thing is ever good enough, unless you are a genius, or writing the odd poem which I do) where making something perfect and learning how to do so, as long as you have ideas and ability, is easier. It still takes 10 years on average to get a book of poetry published, 10 years of hard learning to write well graft. It's also on average 10 years for a novelist to get a book published.

    And there is also the fact that even a novel that has been published by a big pub. house might not make much money. You might get an advance of £5,000 from a huge publisher but it may only make £2,000. This happens a LOT. Then you get no royalties. You only start getting royalties when the advance has been paid off. Small publisher will give you perhaps £1,000. No royalties.

    The average wage for an author is £4,000.

    So you see you will probably not get rich, and paying 65 out each month, well it's madness.
  • You're right, Claudia. Inexperience. But all my tales need only another 4/6 weeks to complete, if i can get out of here first.

    They're based on the scripts, the two ebooks, so mostly dialogue, perhaps to add some more prose here and there.

    It's been suggested you should reach out to potential followers before you finish your story, otherwise you'll be leaving it late in the day. By giving out some free samples to attract a subscriber's list is essential too.

    As scripts are mostly dialogue that is no real problem for me then to simply adapt it into an ebook. Easy peasy.

    It's been known that if you can gain followers and sales then publishers look upon you more favourably...
  • I think you missed the point, Liz. I said my story doesn't extend itself to a full novel. And these two are the pared diwn versions for people who like drama but not complicated language.. That one is for later. The crossover version. All i can do is experiment to se what works. Certain people at a certain strutum in life are crying out for good moral tales to inform them of the 'good life'. That's how i see myself. An educator of life and relationships...
  • So, your immediate plans are:
    1. Produce/get someone to produce your writing as ebooks;
    2. Get sales and a following;
    3. Attract a publisher/agent?
  • LizLiz
    edited August 2016
    IThat's how i see myself. An educator of life and relationships...
    i don't think this should be the reason to write a novel, or a script. Or indeed anything unless you are writing a pamphlet for the NHS., perhaps. People hear someone doing that in between the lines.

  • I'm completing all my tales, will get them assessed, then reedit if necessary. Upload them into Amazon and send the scripts out to agents. Planning as most people do.

    'Kes'the film and the book it was based on illuminated a certain way of life that resonated with many, including me. Believe me, youngsters are crying out for moral guidence, something lacking everywhere. If this can be done in a dramatically entertaining way, where's the problem in that?

    I think you might br coning at this from a completely diffeent angle hence your inability to see this desperate need from youngsters. 'Too much pressure'sums it up... Take the foot of the gas folks, let the kids have some slack..
  • I totally agree re youngsters, I don't think they should be given homework for instance till at senior school, and scrap the tests. But - is that what your writing is about?

    We made a film with Ken Loach's daughter in it. He came to see it.
  • I think there are more experiences these youngsters are having that is having a profound effect upon there psyche other than school homework.
  • Ah, Yes, that also.
  • Getting teens to read can be a challenge, and they don't like to be lectured! You have to employ clever means to get a message through unobtrusively whilst hooking them with a great story. Good luck!

    I have noticed that US writers (Goodreads, self-published) often talk about a duty to provide a moral message. Not sure that you are necessarily talking about morality when you make your point about educating, Lydia, but personally I don't/wouldn't read to be lectured. It's about escapism for me.
  • I have never seen myself as purveyor of literary morality
  • Well, you'd have to have some first ;)
  • You'll get frown lines, sm.
  • To quote 'Kes'again and films like that, they provided a moving story while conveying the difficulities of life for a young lad with his life mapped out all before him. It's not unlike that what i am wanting to achieve with my writings. Subtlety done with finesse.
  • That's not a morality story though - it's a depiction of working life as it is, there was no morality as such in the story. Far from it.
  • Lydia, just wondering - have you written anything shorter than these novels/ebooks you're talking about? Many of us here have gone through the 'apprenticeship' of writing short stories, and learnt a huge amount from taking the ropey first drafts through the editing process and (hopefully!) eventually ending up with something of a publishable standard.

    Obviously, short stories and novels are very different beasts, and not all novelists can write a decent short story (and vice versa), but speaking personally spending time working on shorter pieces has had a hugely beneficial effect on my writing. Plus it gives you a great way of "testing" your writing and finding a market - find a magazine or website that has a similar readership to the one you want for your books, and write something that fits its submission guidelines. If that doesn't work, write something else and try again.

    There's no better promotional tool than a published piece of writing, after all.
  • Not trying to blow my own trumpet but i have written my million words and had apprasail done on them. Have learnt my craft. As i said. Let's just wait and see before making assumptions. Huh...?
  • Who's making assumptions - and what assumptions are you alluding to?
    Did you take out that subscription to Writing Magazine? I've just read an excellent article in the latest issue by James McCreet which gives yet more sound advice to new novelists: in addition to all the sound advice people on this forum have generously given you.

  • Do you have any snippets on your website, Linda? Would love to read some :)
  • Yes i can seek out advice for myself actyally but thabks fir the suggestion. And i'm still dealing with my website etc so no no snippets for you...
  • It's alright, Linda, I already found it! Thanks anyway :)
  • Not trying to blow my own trumpet but i have written my million words and had apprasail done on them. Have learnt my craft. As i said. Let's just wait and see before making assumptions. Huh...?
    I'm sorry, what assumptions? I've only got what you've said in your posts on here to go on, and I doubt I've read all of those so I may well have missed something. If you already have several published stories to your name, then I apologise; you're obviously farther along the road than I thought. I didn't mean to patronise you.

    If you haven't, then to be honest that's quite a hostile reaction to me suggesting you might like to seek publication of some shorter works before plunging in with a full novel. I wasn't saying you have to do it that way, just that it's an approach that worked for me, and has worked for a lot of authors who are now pretty famous. But - as with so many of these things - it's horses for courses. No single method suits everyone.
  • As you've just suggested. Different strokes for different folks. If i fall flat on my face with these efforts, then sure, do remind me of the advice you have given me here. But i really don't understand why people are determined, it seems, to try to undermine my own efforts for success. If you have all made a great succes out of your offerings then i'm happy for you. Just give me some slack here, don't you think...
  • edited August 2016
    No one is trying to undermine you. People have been offering you advice that you appeared to have asked for. Whether you take it or not is of course up to you, but if you don't want advice then don't ask for it and certainly don't then criticise the people who have been generous enough to offer it.
  • D’you know what – I’m getting a bit tired of all this.
    No one has been trying to undermine you, Lydia. We are doing nothing more than attempting to offer you sound advice based on our experiences: advice you keep demonstrating that you don’t want to hear. That’s your prerogative – but please don’t accuse people of trying to undermine your efforts. The people on this forum are wonderful at supporting each other’s failures and celebrating each other’s successes.
    Your inability to accept reality is clear from your website. I looked at your blog again and found it’s changed since I last looked.
    I clicked on your home page and was amazed at the claims you make about selling your e-books on Amazon on your e-book page.
    http://lhthorn.com/e-books/3766621
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