Siren on 25/2/2009 at 03:34
Pass on a thumbs up to the author for me :thumb:
I bought the book and will be reading it within the next 24 hours.
Corridor on 26/2/2009 at 07:34
Hey, could be worse. The novel could actually have been about Thief, like I thought it was when I clicked the link. Man that was a scary ten seconds.
Quote Posted by Jarvis
I wonder Queue how much you actually know about publishing.
One thing I do know is that you should never tell any 'real' publishers about this. Sorry, I mean YOUR FRIEND shouldn't. He will never be taken remotely seriously in the industry ever.
edit: Just noticed your update on the great things coming your pal's way. Um... I don't mean to be rude, but all the stuff you mentioned first up is stuff that's easy enough to get happening on your own. Book-signings and high-school speeches aren't exactly sought-after positions, nor are they even a good way to get your foot in the door, and the 'critic' could be an Amazon user for all we know. Great that you got the attention of an agent, seriously. If you consider all the money spent on the publishing to be well spent in hooking that guy, that good luck to ya. But I still strongly advise you to keep the 'vanity publishing' your special little secret.
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The fat has been trimmed. The editor, in fact, came back with nothing but compliments about both the story and the writing ability.
This made me laugh. :D
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The poor guy has been through agents and publishing company submissions. Do you realize how long it takes for a submission to take? 6 months is a generous time frame. Publishing companies will refuse to accept your manuscript if you submit it to multiple companies at once. It really bites to wait 6 months only to get a note saying "we're not taking this genre at this time, please submit it again in 6 months." That's the vast majority of the responses right there.
Welcome to the industry, baby. Having the determination to keep on submitting shit over and over for
x years is half the test right there.
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... go out and write a book and then try submitting it before you get all "literary-snobbish" about someone else's work (especially the venue through which they are trying to do something with their lives.) Wah wah stop being so mean it hurts my feelings.
Hey I've written stuff and sent it in to publishers and gotten rejected just like your buddy, does that make me qualified? Awesome, because someone really needs to tell you to chill the hell
out. If it really is your roomie's story and not yours then he'd better have a much thicker skin than you do, or working as an author is going to utterly destroy him. The higher up the ladder you get, the more scathing the critics are. Get used to it.
Jarvis on 26/2/2009 at 15:17
Hey pal, it's exactly because it's not my work that I'm so defensive of it. I'm defensive of it because it's a damn good story and I know it. I'm not trapped in the age old "self-critical" need to doubt the work, because none of my effort or self worth is invested in it. As a relative outsider, I just want the book to make it as far as it can.
You talk about scathing critics and so on and how about an author needs to be able to weather those. I'm not the author, but I eagerly await your blistering report on the quality of the book. Nothing would make me happier. My problem is that none of these critiques I see here are on the book. They're all on your presuppositions. That amounts to nothing.
As the book gets passed on to the major publishing companies by the agency, I'm sure plenty will reject it. That kind of feedback is valuable. That would tell my roommate how marketable his writing style is, and which markets are looking for this sort of genre of book. At least the publishing companies will read a sample chapter to get a feel for the story at the very least.
How about getting dismissed out of hand by a bunch of random people on the internet who haven't even picked up the book? There is no value in your critiques, and contrary to my defense of the book here I'm certainly not losing any sleep over it. I know Chad isn't either. So far this book is moving forward, making humble but acceptable sales for a self-published story, and getting put on the desks of the very people it needs to be in order to further break into the literary world. You all will be the first to know should it be picked up by a publishing firm.
The reason I brought this news here to TTLG in the first place is because I regard a decent portion of the people here as intellectuals who would enjoy this story. I want to hear what some of the people here think of the story, for good or for ill. If you want to berate the story for being the worst written novel you've seen, then I will have nothing to say but thank you for taking the time to read it. But only if you take the time to read it first.
As for this childish idea that it's really my book and I'm pretending it's my roommates... grow up a bit. If you really must be shown that we're all adults here, take a look at the link I put up several posts ago. If you're interested, you can check the forums of that martial arts site. You'll find an account under my same name, "Jarvis". You'll see that the belts don't match up, as I'm most definitely not a martial arts instructor (I'm also not that ugly;)). As he is.
