Making a Living as a Full Time Fiction Writer

    Many of us would love to make a living writing fiction, and only fiction, full time.  Aspiring authors find whatever spare time they can muster to write. Would you need to write a bestseller or could you settle for a spartan existence if it meant doing what you love?   No day job, no boss (except maybe your agent or publisher).  Is this a realistic goal?  Realistic, yes.  Worth the sacrifice, maybe.  Only you can decide that for yourself.
 
    Over at BubbleCow they discuss Chip MacGregor's suggestions that the blueprint for becoming a full time writer is complex and is based on a three rule system.

1. You need to have four-to-six books earning you a royalty.
2. You need to have 18 months to 2 years of book contracts.
3. You need to have a plan in place.

Curiosity Quills Kindle Giveaway

For those of you who love free stuff, here's a great contest from Curiosity Quills.  Visit their site for more details, but here is their post with the details.

"In case you haven’t heard, Amazon has recently announced their new Amazon Kindle Fire - a 7″, color, Android-powered successor to the respected and ubiquitous Kindle family.
As someone who bought two third-generation Kindles for my family, two more as gifts, and use the Android Kindle application extensively, I can safely say that the electronic reading experience is getting better and better with every iteration.
Needless to say, the whole Curiosity Quills Press team is excited. And to celebrate, we’re throwing a GIVEAWAY! Yes, one lucky winner will be receiving their very own bundle of fiery book-loving joy. Drawing will take place on December 1, 2011, so hurry and get your entries in! We hope you’ll participate and win!"

Why not take a chance.  Enter and win!

Curiosity Quills Now Open For Submissions

Curiosity Quills is now accepting submissions.  The following announcement is taken from their website:

Curiosity Quills Press is the publishing arm of Curiosity Quills, a boutique publisher of hard-hitting dark sci-fi, speculative fiction, and paranormal works aimed at adults, young adults, and new adults. We are also a purveyor of anthologies thereof. We provide our authors with a flexible array of quality premium services, marketing support, and technical know-how, while ensuring that these literary marauders are truly the cream of the crop through a highly selective acquisition process.

Curiosity Quills is now taking submissions.  The following announcement is taken from their site:

We’re Looking For
Thought-provoking, mind-twisting rollercoasters – challenge our mind, turn our world upside down, and make us question. Those are the makings of a true literary marauder.
Serialization Potential - If your work was made with serialization in mind, we want to hear from you. If not – that’s okay! We still want to hear from you.
Agented submission are not required, but will receive precedence over unagented ones.
Length Guidelines: Keep in mind, these are just guidelines – we DO make exceptions.
Novellas: 15k-45k words
Young Adult: 45k to 75k words
New Adult / Upper YA Novels: 60k-100k words
Adult Novels: 70k-120k words

Instructions
To submit a manuscript for consideration, please send an email to editor@curiosityquills.com with the following:

A one-page query letter containing your genre, title, wordcount, and a brief blurb about the book.
The first five (5) double-spaced pages
For serialized works, please include information about update frequency, update length, and projected series duration.
Established authors are welcome to query with a standard proposal package of three chapters, a synopsis, and a query.
PLEASE DO NOT INCLUDE ANY PERSONAL WRITING CREDENTIALS, AWARDS, REVIEWS, OR PROMOTIONAL LINKS

Format Requirements
If your manuscript is requested, please make sure to format it according to the following:

RTF files only
12 pt Times New Roman font
double-spaced
.5″ indents
Note: Unless we request a revise and resubmit, full manuscript rejections are final.

Note: In addition to published works, we are also interested in blogger contributions to our literary portal.

Good Luck!
http://curiosityquills.com/submission-guidelines/author-submissions/

Ebooks and Self-Publishing - A Dialog Between Authors Barry Eisler and Joe Konrath

This is a live Google docs discussion. It examines the history and mechanics of the publishing industry as it exists today, analyzes the way the digital revolution reflects recent events in Egypt and the Maghreb, and considers a completely inappropriate YouTube video featuring a randy monkey and an unlucky frog. It clocks in at 13,000 words, and reveals some pretty startling things.

We encourage everyone reading the conversation to comment, and to tweet and otherwise link to it. You also have our permission to copy all or any part of it, provided you link back.

If you'd prefer to read this on your ereader, you can download various versions for free here. This zip file (you need WinZip to open it; a free trial is here) contains doc, pdf, epub, and mobi formats, so it can be uploaded to Kindles, Nooks, Sony Readers, Kobos, and pretty much any other device.

You can also go to Smashwords and get various formats for free, or to Amazon or B&N to get those formats for 99 cents (they wouldn't allow us to post for free.) It's also posted in full on Barry's blog.

Our goal is to get this information out there, because it benefits authors and could theoretically make legacy publishers smarter. Please help us spread the word. Thanks.

Joe: To the casual observer, you appear to be heavily invested in the legacy publishing system. They’ve been good to you, they helped you get onto the NYT bestseller list, made you wealthy with several large deals, and seem to have treated you fairly.

Self-Publishing Success Story

I may be late to the party for Amanda Hocking. Partly due to recently stumbling over her blog post from last August. While I have never been a proponent for self-publishing, her comments seem to lend some legitimacy to the trend. Her candor is refreshing as she describes how her success began and what she has learned during the process. Amanda shares her self-publishing success:

"Also on Monday, I released the fourth book in my vampire series. It peaked #25 in the entire Kindle store. If you're wondering how many sales it took the book to get that high: 150 in a two hour period. Also on Monday - in one 24-hour period - I made $1200. Working at my day job full time, the most I'd ever made in a month is $1000. I just made more in a day than I used to make in a month.

Things that should be noted: I just released a book people were excited for. That isn't my average sales. That fourth book is already about to slip out of the top #100 and it's only been in it for four days. So don't think that's usually how awesome my sales are. It's not. I know that. I don't expect days like that to happen very often. But it was still an awesome day."

While poking fun at her clichéd topics and characters, her self-publishing success is real. Yet, she tempers it with the knowledge that it isn't necessarily going to continue at the pace it has. Her use of Twitter, facebook, goodreads, Amazon and writer's blogs to spread the word of her e-books should read as book promotion 101.

Not bad when you consider she started with a love of writing, but her self-publishing success was spurred by the desire to earn a couple hundred dollars to go see the Jim Henson exhibit coming to Chicago.

Check out her article here, it is genuinely interesting and a good read.



Edit:  After reading more on Amanda, I found an informative article by Nathan Bransford (most of you should know him, if not bookmark his blog now!).  He talks about Amanda's success and the breakdown of traditional vs. agency e-book vs. self-published e-book.  You can read his appraisal here.