Darien_Shields
New Member
Hi.
I, um, haven't been around here much before, but I was looking for some advice, and this seemed like a nice forum, so I thought I'd ask here.
I've written a couple of novels (about 70,000 words long), and had them sitting on my hard drive for a little while now, not sure what to do with them. I've tried looking into publishing, but I find it incredibly intimidating- I need to find an agent, and there are so many agencies, very few of whom, I think, will even give me the time of day. Most require print submissions rather than e-mail, and while I fully understand, I've never had good luck with printers, and could wind up paying a lot of money to mail manuscripts off to agencies who don't even want my genre.
I've been told that I should get my work professionally proofread, for a price. I am willing to pay money to try and work towards my book being published, but I just don't want to spend poorly, or wind up being scammed. I know there are a lot of unscrupulous people out there who will charge you an arm and a leg for proofreading they're never going to do.
I think genre is important to finding the right agent, so I'll give a little summary of the two books that I'm trying to get published. They are both science-fiction comedies, the first, Dread Pirate, revolving around the aspirations of a spacefarer who wants to become a pirate, but owing to his supreme bad luck, whenever he tries an act of piracy, he winds up on the right side of the law. The second is called "Bad Guys" and is an affectionate parody of superhero comics. The main character, Frank, is on death row, but an accident in his would-be execution accidentally grants him super powers. Despite his best attempts to remain low key and small time, he becomes drawn into a life of supervillainy, murky plots and backstabbing.
... I read those summaries back and think they sound absolutely terrible. I've had a fair few people read through these and gotten quite good feedback, but a lot of that was from family. Make of that what you will.
One last thing- I published something on Lulu.com before, and I thought it worked out fairly well. But a couple of people have warned me that if I do that with a story I may not be able to sell it on to a publisher, because there'll be a bit of a mess with the rights. Is that correct? I have thought of publishing one of these stories on Lulu before, so that I could have more to show for myself and try to get my name out there, but if it meant never being able to publish, that'd be rather a big drawback.
Anyway, I'll stop blabbing on. I really want advice, and I'd be incredibly grateful for any you would be willing to give me. Thank you very much.
I, um, haven't been around here much before, but I was looking for some advice, and this seemed like a nice forum, so I thought I'd ask here.
I've written a couple of novels (about 70,000 words long), and had them sitting on my hard drive for a little while now, not sure what to do with them. I've tried looking into publishing, but I find it incredibly intimidating- I need to find an agent, and there are so many agencies, very few of whom, I think, will even give me the time of day. Most require print submissions rather than e-mail, and while I fully understand, I've never had good luck with printers, and could wind up paying a lot of money to mail manuscripts off to agencies who don't even want my genre.
I've been told that I should get my work professionally proofread, for a price. I am willing to pay money to try and work towards my book being published, but I just don't want to spend poorly, or wind up being scammed. I know there are a lot of unscrupulous people out there who will charge you an arm and a leg for proofreading they're never going to do.
I think genre is important to finding the right agent, so I'll give a little summary of the two books that I'm trying to get published. They are both science-fiction comedies, the first, Dread Pirate, revolving around the aspirations of a spacefarer who wants to become a pirate, but owing to his supreme bad luck, whenever he tries an act of piracy, he winds up on the right side of the law. The second is called "Bad Guys" and is an affectionate parody of superhero comics. The main character, Frank, is on death row, but an accident in his would-be execution accidentally grants him super powers. Despite his best attempts to remain low key and small time, he becomes drawn into a life of supervillainy, murky plots and backstabbing.
... I read those summaries back and think they sound absolutely terrible. I've had a fair few people read through these and gotten quite good feedback, but a lot of that was from family. Make of that what you will.
One last thing- I published something on Lulu.com before, and I thought it worked out fairly well. But a couple of people have warned me that if I do that with a story I may not be able to sell it on to a publisher, because there'll be a bit of a mess with the rights. Is that correct? I have thought of publishing one of these stories on Lulu before, so that I could have more to show for myself and try to get my name out there, but if it meant never being able to publish, that'd be rather a big drawback.
Anyway, I'll stop blabbing on. I really want advice, and I'd be incredibly grateful for any you would be willing to give me. Thank you very much.