Fiction, mostly. I haven't made money yet, but I did just have a piece put into my college archives. For Nanowrimo, I'm working on a YA about an atheist teen whose life is a wreck. I think we need to have more out there for secular teens, as there is an explosion of Christian type literature for them.
Are you a writer?
by Hortensia 30 Replies latest social entertainment
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applehippie
I have a knitting book in the process of being published, worked on it by myself for a couple years before I realized I had something viable to submit and was shocked when it was accepted first try. Publication release date is set for June 2013. Organizing my thoughts to start work on another one soon.
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TMS
After 50 odd years as JWs, my wife and I settled into a city of 250,000 on the U.S./Mexico border with the typical problems of poverty, political corruption, border violence, immigration issues, etc. We eventually gravitated toward a political watchdog group focused particularly on voter fraud, corruption, nepotism in the local community. When the watchdog group splintered into factions, I checked out Google blogger, finding the setup easy even for someone with limited computer skills.
With our area suffering from a weak, frightened print media, the blog took off from the onset. I wrote about politics, getting frequent tips from locals, but I included several articles on cults, both political and religious(always including Jehovah's Witnesses in the mix), atheism, pacifism, war, human interest. Almost immediately, my wife and I were invited to almost every political function which we always documented with pictures, video and commentary. While we did not seek notoriety, it came to us. We are recognized everywhere we go. Our blog and three others are must reads by many in the community. Two of the other blogs sell political advertising, with one blogger writing articles for money($700 for a short blog article). We have resisted that to preserve our objectivity but do make a few hundred a month with AdSense.
The freedom to write about anything is exhilarating. Since August 4, 2011, I've written 606 articles with nearly a million pageviews. Perhaps, I should mention that two of the other three bloggers are professional journalists with long newspaper careers, while the other is a lawyer. None suspect that I'm an ex-cult member with a high school education.
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Hortensia
TMS -- Way to go, man! How wonderful that your blogs have turned out to be popular and useful for the readers! But I've got to ask, do you really pay $700 for an article? That sounds way over the usual pay, but maybe it's because of the special talents and expertise of the writer. I am so proud of you. I wish we could have a link to your blog.
Applehippie -- I LOVE knitting, have sold a few patterns on Ravelry. I hope you let us know the title of your book so the knitters among us can buy it. Who is the publisher? I know Interweave publishes a lot of knitting books and there are some other specialty publishers out there who publish knitting books. I am so proud of you!
New Chapter -- I enrolled in Nanowrimo last year but didn't get very far. I had other work I had to do. And fiction isn't really my talent. I'm so impressed with people who can write decent fiction. It's halfway through the month - how far have you come in writing your book? I agree there asn't enough secular fiction for teens.
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Hortensia
Phizzy -- I've noticed that writers write, whether they are published or not. I have a feeling we are drawn to writing the way others are drawn to other arts, sports, careers. I have always written, even as a kid. Pretty much always non-fiction, too. (I was the one who wrote everyone's papers in school.)
Coco - editing is what makes the difference between good and great. I have learned that editing is vital, especially if a person wants to be published or to self-publish. I had to laugh at what you said about the Friends of the Library bookstore. It's so true. Lots of books out there, more than a person can imagine.
Cedars, I like grammar and punctuation although I can't say I'm perfect at it. I liked Coco's grammar thread, and I like stuff like the AP Stylebook, because I can't seem to remember all the rules.
Glander -- my experience is non-fiction, not technical manuals but still instruction.
Flipper -- I'd love to hear your songs. Will you sell the CD or post some songs on youtube?
Talesin -- you're right about that thread, a nice bit of writing. You're another editor, which is great. More editors = better-written books.
OODAD-- thanks for sharing. Editing a magazine sounds like a lot of hard work, but still interesting and worth doing.
Onthewayout -- There need to be more JW books. There are so many books about growing up Catholic, but that's nothing to growing up JW.
Tec -- you're in the right genres. My agent says those kinds of books sell more than anything else. The people who read them have an endless hunger for more books.
James Brown -- your journals sound like the basis for some really good books. Getting motivated is hard. It takes some discipline to write every day whether you want to do so or not. And the other odd thing is, once you have a contract and a deadline, all the fun goes out of it. Then it's just work.
Mamochan13 -- biographies of which authors? So I can go to amazon and try to find out who you are, heh heh.
Old Goat -- you are also a teacher, aren't you? I remember posts you have written with good information about literature.
Kurtbethel -- I agree that people with some kind of expertise can write books based on what they know. I started publishing by writing down my lectures and compiling them. I had to organize them and rewrite quite a bit -- talking isn't quite the same as reading -- and I've sold several guides. Some self-published (made more money there) and some published by a large textbook publisher (takes longer to make the same amount of money I made self-publishing.) -
Qoo_Kumba
Yes.
I write about anything that interests me, Science, Astronomy, Reason, Religion, Evolution, Health et al.
My blog is where I let my flow go......
Love to see you there!
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applehippie
Thanks Hortensia for the kind encouragement! My publisher is Storey Books, and my book is on knitting socks on straight needles. I can't announce it yet- they haven't given me the go ahead but I've noticed place holders on Amazon already. Search "socks on straight" and you'll probably find it; although the marketing dept may decide to change the name again before they're done! I think how-to books must be one of the hardest things to write; it was so much work to make sure all the technical stuff was correct- still catching some minor things even now. But soon it will be out of my hands and at the printers for better or worse.
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Hortensia
Storey publishes some really good stuff, all how-to. I've bought some of their books on lots of different topics. Congrats to you and I hope you sell lots of books.
Any kind of instruction is difficult. You have to make sure you think of every little question a person might have so you can answer it in the text. You have to be clear about the level of difficulty and what skills are needed and what background knowledge is needed. It is hard work to write that sort of thing.
Now I'm off to amazon to see what I can find!
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Hortensia
OK, found it! Linked it to Facebook, too. It looks interesting. And reasonably priced -- that's important.
Now, to find the work of some of the rest of you.
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compound complex
Great thread, Hortensia!
CoCo l'Ecrivain