Today , author Charlie Stross , fromthis calendar month ’s book clubselection , get together us for a Q&A , where he filled us his thought on how new writers get traction , the skyrocketing of ebook sales ( from 1 % to 50 % of his sales in the last five years ) , and gave us the first line of his raw playscript get along up in July .
https://gizmodo.com/the-io9-book-club-is-in-session-lets-talk-about-neptu-1475904875
https://gizmodo.com/author-charles-stross-is-here-today-answering-your-que-1480440155
CommenterRM Ambroseasked about how new writers can build their life history , and Stross share these thoughts on the line of writing and publishing :
In 2008 , maybe 1 % of my sales event were ebooks . Today , make that 50 % . We ’re in the middle of a mammoth formatting shift as the mass market paperback dispersion organisation withers and dies but the ebook organization explodes . Meanwhile , ebooks make self - publication quite easy … if you know what you ’re doing . clew : authors are source , not editors , typographer , cover designers , marketing expert , and accounts clerks . ( This is why I do n’t ego - publish — I ’ve have publishers to do the boring material for me . It ’s this quaint honest-to-god - fashioned matter called “ variance of confinement ” . )
[ Robert J. ] Sawyer is quite right that it ’s getting very hard for novel writers to gain traction . All writers face two problem : how do you maximise your readership , and how do you maximize your revenue ? These are orthogonal problems , and a strategy optimized to solve one may not optimally solve for the other .
Having said that , I do n’t think thing are necessarily as cutting as all that . I keep seeing new writers who have somehow broken through all the obstacles that are so daunting to us sure-enough - timer , often with prominent success . The primal thing to remember is that , however much you may be devoted to it as an art contour , writing is a business . It ’s definitely not a lifestyle . ( If you want to hear sarcasm , get a chemical group of well - lubricated writers forgather together over a bottle of vino or two and inquire them what they think of the aggregate medium depiction of novelists , as opposed to the world ! )
Stross also gave a outlet engagement for his next book , “ The Rhesus Chart ” , due out in July next twelvemonth — along with the first line of the coming novel :
“ Do n’t be silly , Bob , ” tell Mo , “ everyone lie with vampire do n’t be ! ”
I , for one , am not holding out high hopes for Mo ’s lot …
Image : Ronnie Pitman
BooksCharles Strossebooks
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