Unconscious Plots

How Amazon Saved My Life

I am an author.

I still can’t get used to that title, but I suppose after having written seven books–five of them traditionally published–that’s what you’d call me. The funny thing is that I feel more like a real author now that I self-publish than when I had the (supposed) support of a publisher behind me.

How did I end up on my own? It began when I couldn’t get my first YA book, Relatively Famous, published, despite getting stellar feedback from editors and nearly selling the film rights to a teen pop star. I was at a loss for what to do. I couldn’t keep writing books without selling them. What if the next thing I wrote flopped? I took a risk, in many ways, and wrote Flat-Out Love. It was the first book that completely came from my heart, and it was a book that ignored all the industry rules. I knew in the back of my head that I could self-publish it, but at the time it seemed like that would have been an admission of defeat… [How Amazon Saved My Life]

External Content

vanished:

Stephane Suisse - Aqualorée

(via geologise)

Filmed Animated

331 notes

nationel:

Nomenclature by iamnatedunn on Flickr.

layered rock formation canyon overrun by creeping trees

Blog: Scribbling on the Computer ~ Twitter ~ Pinterest ~ Goodreads ~ Tumblr: Unconscious Plots

(via furples)

Photographed Illustrated

390 notes

queryquagmire:

That’s just embarrassing.

Okay, calling an agent “my manuscript” may be a bit too endearing.

Photographed Illustrated

8 notes

Scripturient

Possessing a violent desire to write.

A-Z of Unusual Words
Project based on an alphabet of unusual words. Bold graphics and visual wit are used to interpret and represent a collection of strange, unusual and lost words.
Prints are available in our online shop.

Photographed Illustrated

20 notes

“
[An] example of crossover is the Harry Potter series. This series is impressive because it not only crosses age lines but it also crosses gender lines. To me, the gender divide is a far more impressive one than the age divide. The age divide is crossed all the time. The gender divide is well nigh immutable. And this, I think, is the secret to a cross-over title. The thing is, Harry Potter breaks all the rules for what should commercially viable. The narrator is a boy, and everyone knows girls don’t read boy books. And the narrator is a child, and everyone knows adults won’t read books with child narrators. And it’s set in the UK, and everyone knows Americans only want to read books set in America.

But. Harry Potter’s secret weapon is its world. The depth of the world that Joanne Rowling wrote is stunning, and more importantly, it has something that speaks to nearly everyone. The broader your world, the more nuances you’ve stuffed into it — the more people you’re going to appeal to.
”

Maggie Stiefvater (In Which Maggie Debates the Meaning of Crossover Fiction, June 28 2012)

Notable Quotable

1 note

A Quick Look at Taglines

Problem 1: The writer is trying to summarize the novel in the tag line.

Wrong use for it. You just want to nail your plot catalyst. But great, we’ll talk about it tonight.

Problem 2: The writer is relying on reader’s previous knowledge of a story or fairytale.

Not a bad starting point but it’s not going to be quite enough to carry the cornerstone of your pitch. Will work on that tonight.

Problem 3: The writer highlights two necessary elements of the story but alas, in the tag line, they don’t have a relation or a cause and effect so mentioning both doesn’t quite make sense.

In other words, one doesn’t necessitate the other. I’ll just need to point that out and I think this writer will get it.

External Content