Always great to hear what you folks have to say. I agree, less is more. Since my books are travel adventures, I do want some description of the place my character is visiting, but I tend to eliminate a lot during the editing. Kids especially do not want a lot of detail and description.
I would think a few vivid descriptions of key places or things would be most effective.
I’m glad you enjoy our chats, Darlene. They’re totally unscripted (as you may have guessed. 🙂 )
• Life, work, writing balance. What’s your take on how much time “do you” / “can you” dedicate to each of those sectors of your existence. (Context: if you’re working full time, your life and writing take a hit. Do you admit this and hope that you can eventually write later in life? Do you fight it and write no matter what, to the detraction of the other two?)
• Investment in external services to get your indie writing published. Editing, beta-readers, cover creation, marketing, web/blog support, how much do you invest and was that investment critical to your success (or lack of)?
• Translation. Maybe one’s stories might succeed in other countries, other languages. Do you ever consider having your novels translated with the intent to have them available in other markets?
Those look like topics for future chats!
Right now, though, I’ll say that I wrote more intensely when I was still working, at least the first book. (But then the whole experience was new and delightful then.) I’ve spent little on the whole publishing effort. Cover images for the 4-book series was the biggest single expenditure. I’ve re-tooled my ideas about success to the point where it feels right (most of the time). Haven’t thought about translation; audiobooks would be more likely, but because I don’t use them myself, it’s only a theoretical possibility. If I had the right tech setup, I might consider turning TFoM into a podcast, but…
I wrote something I ended up calling a series, but not as a marketing strategy. Characters and a premise that attracts a significant number of readers (purchasers) would be worth turning into a series, as long as there was enough variety to be interesting without drifting away from the magic formula.
Have I done that? Nope.
How much money should a self published author budget for to produce a professional product — i.e. edited, proofread, cover, etc? Rates and quality varies, of course, but in general, how much would you think an author would need to do a book right?
I’ve never paid for editing or proofreading, and only once for beta-reading. I did pay a designer more than $1000 for a set of 4 cover images.
I think it depends on what areas an author can’t handle themselves, and what their expectations are. Editing, proofreading, formatting, and covers for a single book might cost a couple of thousand dollars, but that’s just a guess. Then there’s advertising, which I haven’t done at all.
A very interesting discussion. I enjoyed it. I tend to write a lot of description in the first draft because I need to be fully-grounded in the characters’ world before I can go any further. In subsequent drafts, I cut out quite a bit. The other consideration is that I mostly write with a third-person close point of view, so I need to only describe what the character is experiencing. (At that moment, would she be noticing be noticing the couch is upholstered in a floral print that was popular in the 1940s? Nope. It’s just a place to sit. A) She has other things on her mind. B) She wouldn’t know what upholstery patterns were popular in the 1940s, in the first place.)
There’s what the character is experiencing, but there’s also what the writer knows about the situation and the character. So the character wouldn’t describe the upholstery, but the writer may know what it looks like (from experience or research) and so could slip in a casual observation to add detail about the couch or the character’s taste in upholstery. But only if those details are needed.
I think my approach is sort of like yours–visualize the scene and throw in all the details, and then remove the excess in subsequent drafts. That’s better than fretting about it at the first draft stage. And it helps to up the daily word count. 🙂
Writers Supporting Writers 
Always great to hear what you folks have to say. I agree, less is more. Since my books are travel adventures, I do want some description of the place my character is visiting, but I tend to eliminate a lot during the editing. Kids especially do not want a lot of detail and description.
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I would think a few vivid descriptions of key places or things would be most effective.
I’m glad you enjoy our chats, Darlene. They’re totally unscripted (as you may have guessed. 🙂 )
LikeLike
• Life, work, writing balance. What’s your take on how much time “do you” / “can you” dedicate to each of those sectors of your existence. (Context: if you’re working full time, your life and writing take a hit. Do you admit this and hope that you can eventually write later in life? Do you fight it and write no matter what, to the detraction of the other two?)
• Investment in external services to get your indie writing published. Editing, beta-readers, cover creation, marketing, web/blog support, how much do you invest and was that investment critical to your success (or lack of)?
• Translation. Maybe one’s stories might succeed in other countries, other languages. Do you ever consider having your novels translated with the intent to have them available in other markets?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Those look like topics for future chats!
Right now, though, I’ll say that I wrote more intensely when I was still working, at least the first book. (But then the whole experience was new and delightful then.) I’ve spent little on the whole publishing effort. Cover images for the 4-book series was the biggest single expenditure. I’ve re-tooled my ideas about success to the point where it feels right (most of the time). Haven’t thought about translation; audiobooks would be more likely, but because I don’t use them myself, it’s only a theoretical possibility. If I had the right tech setup, I might consider turning TFoM into a podcast, but…
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Series, serials, or stand alone books — which do you like to write, and which do you think has the best chance of selling?
LikeLiked by 2 people
I wrote something I ended up calling a series, but not as a marketing strategy. Characters and a premise that attracts a significant number of readers (purchasers) would be worth turning into a series, as long as there was enough variety to be interesting without drifting away from the magic formula.
Have I done that? Nope.
LikeLike
How much money should a self published author budget for to produce a professional product — i.e. edited, proofread, cover, etc? Rates and quality varies, of course, but in general, how much would you think an author would need to do a book right?
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’ve never paid for editing or proofreading, and only once for beta-reading. I did pay a designer more than $1000 for a set of 4 cover images.
I think it depends on what areas an author can’t handle themselves, and what their expectations are. Editing, proofreading, formatting, and covers for a single book might cost a couple of thousand dollars, but that’s just a guess. Then there’s advertising, which I haven’t done at all.
LikeLike
A very interesting discussion. I enjoyed it. I tend to write a lot of description in the first draft because I need to be fully-grounded in the characters’ world before I can go any further. In subsequent drafts, I cut out quite a bit. The other consideration is that I mostly write with a third-person close point of view, so I need to only describe what the character is experiencing. (At that moment, would she be noticing be noticing the couch is upholstered in a floral print that was popular in the 1940s? Nope. It’s just a place to sit. A) She has other things on her mind. B) She wouldn’t know what upholstery patterns were popular in the 1940s, in the first place.)
LikeLiked by 2 people
There’s what the character is experiencing, but there’s also what the writer knows about the situation and the character. So the character wouldn’t describe the upholstery, but the writer may know what it looks like (from experience or research) and so could slip in a casual observation to add detail about the couch or the character’s taste in upholstery. But only if those details are needed.
I think my approach is sort of like yours–visualize the scene and throw in all the details, and then remove the excess in subsequent drafts. That’s better than fretting about it at the first draft stage. And it helps to up the daily word count. 🙂
LikeLike