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a question, a favour.

 
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Buster Newman
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Joined: 07 Jun 2007
Posts: 868
Location: The wild unknown of Kentucky

PostPosted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 12:25 am    Post subject: a question, a favour. Reply with quote

My friends, I have come to ask for advice. I am, for all intents and purposes...writing. a couple of stories actually. One of them is allready started, you can find it on Yiffstar and FA, but my other one is going to be my prize. and I ask for advice....How do I get my name out there? What could I do website wise? WOuld it be prudent of me to ask THe wonderful Mr. Regan for a place amongst the annals of Furry writing greatness?? I ask these questions in hopes that you, you who have walked the path before me, may guide me to my own recognition, my own little slice of glory.
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Rabbit
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Joined: 07 Sep 2005
Posts: 345
Location: Middle Tennessee

PostPosted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 12:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The best, most important part is to write quality stuff. Everything else is secondary to this. Almost wherever you post it, people will find it.

You should also note that almost nothing that is ever web-posted will ever be considered for purchase by a pro market. That's why I post so little stuff, except to mailing lists. Which are different, because they aren't open to the general public.
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Buster Newman
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Location: The wild unknown of Kentucky

PostPosted: Fri Aug 28, 2009 5:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

that is a good point, and I had thought of getting a small printing thing going on...or if in a pinch..simply do it myself.
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Rabbit
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Location: Middle Tennessee

PostPosted: Fri Aug 28, 2009 12:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Attempting to sell your work on the open market is, IMO, a good way to learn what quality means and how to improve it. If you can sell, you know you're doing something right. And, as I said in my last post, quality is the key to it all.

A good place to pick up tips from other furry writers can be found at http://shifti.org/wiki/Writer%27s_School
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Buster Newman
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 30, 2009 2:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dankeshoen!
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TwylaFox
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Joined: 07 Dec 2010
Posts: 54
Location: BFE, Califorlornland

PostPosted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 8:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There are countless answers to these age-old questions; all of them are right and most of them are wrong. Yes, it sounds confusing - because it is.

My own personal advice on the matter:

Don't worry about this at all until you have at least a dozen works under your belt that you believe with all your heart are ready to leave the nest.

Once you reach this point, go back over all your older ones with a fine-toothed comb. As with any craft, you improve by doing - and your newer eyes will spot glaring flaws in the wondrous gems you crafted earlier. This gives an idea of what professional eyes will see in your latest work. They see dozens (if not hundreds) of stories every day and have the experience to spot these errors at a glance.

The greatest challenge to every writer is learning to see their work as both the greatest masterpiece and the worst tripe simultaneously. It takes the passion of love to produce good writing and it takes the passion of hate to make good writing great. You have to be cruel when revising, sometimes amputating entire chapters that you dearly love. Leaving weakness in just because you love it is only a short-cut to Round File Cabinet, #13.

If you've made it this far, congratulations!!!

Now comes the issue of Rights - Copy and Publishing. Most people who will pay for your writing want First Publication Rights - even if they never actually publish it, this is what they'll want. Most will pay pretty well, but only if it has never been published anywhere else before - and posting it to a blog or other web medium counts as publishing. Also, they pay because of Copyright - because you can prove that it belongs to you. Despite what many will lead you to believe, the only way to cover yourself is by registering with the US Copyright Office.

Copyright registration costs $35 and can be filed online - longer works require individual registration, though short works can be grouped as an anthology for a single fee. This, of course, brings up the matter of how much you can expect your works to sell for. If you stand to earn $50 for a short or a few hundred bucks for a longer story, the Copyright is well worth it - when higher figures come into play, registration becomes far more crucial.

There are also market-specific registration services to look into. My screenplays, for example, are registered with the Writers' Guild of America West in addition to the US Copyright Office. In addition to extra security for my copyright, WGAw is also the go-to authority for the movie industry - some filmmakers will regularly comb through new registrations looking for the next Hollywood blockbuster. $25 for the exposure and $35 for the copyright is pretty damned cheap when you consider that screenplays sell for anywhere between $20,000 and $10,000,000.


Now that you've gauged the market for your writing (and taken reasonable steps to protect your work), you can start looking into the publicity aspect.

Try to select the work which has the least marketability and post that as your example piece. You're not out to sell this particular work, but use it as your business card. "See how well I write?" You're still protected by copyright (though it is now "published"), so you're not really losing anything and you're gaining exposure.

Now go through the rest and objectively select the strongest scenes - ones which can stand on their own out of context - and offer these excerpts to your market. Small portions like this announce "see what else I've written" while preserving its non-published status. Teasers, if you will, to prompt potential buyers to contact YOU.

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