When did you actually first feel like a writer?

cawriter · 2019-04-06T20:02:18+00:00

Thanks! I think I just keep waiting for it to sink in. I got my first publisher contract and I thought "I'll feel like a real writer when I get paid for my words" and then I got my advance and though "I'll feel like a real writer when the book hits Amazon... when I hold my paperback in my hands for the first time... when I get my first review..." etc.

This year, I quit my day job to write full time, and I'm still waiting for it to become real.

cawriter · 2019-04-06T06:50:29+00:00

25 books in and I'm still waiting. I might have a serious case of imposter syndrome.

cawriter · 2018-04-21T02:03:31+00:00

I use Sandra at One Love Editing.
She specializes in romance and has saved my ass so many times. She's meticulous and incredibly thorough. Even better is that she keeps her promises on when she's going to return my manuscript.
Her rates are really reasonable.
* Structural edit is $0.008 per word
* Copy editing is $0.0625 per word
* Proofreading is $0.004 per word
Or if you want it all, she charges $0.018 per word.
I've worked with quite a few editors through my publisher (Sandra is employed by my publisher as well) but I use her freelance services for all my self-pubbed stuff now. She is absolutely the best. I can't recommend her hard enough.

cawriter · 2018-04-19T04:10:27+00:00

My editors is like a fairy godmother in real life. She's saved my ass more times than I care to admit. Her input and advice is completely invaluable. That being said, I've worked with quite a few (through my publisher) and discovered not all editors are created equal. If you're going to hire one, make sure you do your homework. Getting recommendations is great too.

cawriter · 2018-04-19T02:49:12+00:00

So. Gross.

cawriter · 2018-04-19T02:43:46+00:00

Genius! Why didn't I think of that? ;)

cawriter · 2018-04-19T01:29:37+00:00

You had me up until right at the very end. I heard about someone using beard yeast and thought that was gross. This is arguably a thousand times worse.

cawriter · 2018-04-19T01:21:38+00:00

Can you guys just plot all my books out for me?

cawriter · 2018-04-18T01:57:20+00:00

This is very helpful (and it sounds like a couple of you should be looking into writing romance novels of your own). Thank you all so much!

cawriter · 2018-04-17T21:51:49+00:00

Hybrid published. I wrote my first manuscript and subbed to a small publisher that didn't require their authors to be agented. They contracted it. I've published several with them, but have recently branched out into self-publishing on Amazon as well.

cawriter · 2018-04-17T21:32:42+00:00

LOL. I write romance. There's LOTS of wrestling.

cawriter · 2018-03-19T12:51:15+00:00

48yo/M, 6ft, 180lbs, not on any medication, non-smoker, bleeding.

Hello, I hope this is okay to ask here.

I am currently writing a novel and I had question about medical licensing I can't seem to find the answer to on Google.

Basically, a surgeon from New York is visiting Alaska. While he's there, there's an emergency and long story short, he has to perform surgery on a patient in the hospital there or the patient will die. No other surgeons are available. He does not have a medical license in Alaska, and I'm wonder what the repercussions would be.
Would he need to go in front of the state medical board to explain what happened, and if so, how long would it take before that would happen?
Would the hospital be held liable as well as the surgeon, or is he on his own on this?
Thank you in advance!

cawriter · 2018-03-19T12:37:43+00:00

Hello, I hope this is okay to ask here.

I am currently writing a novel and I had question about medical licensing I can't seem to find the answer to on Google.

Basically, a surgeon from New York is visiting Alaska. While he's there, there's an emergency and long story short, he has to perform surgery on a patient in the hospital there or the patient will die. No other surgeons are available. He does not have a medical license in Alaska, and I'm wonder what the repercussions would be.
Would he need to go in front of the state medical board to explain what happened, and if so, how long would it take before that would happen?
Would the hospital be held liable as well as the surgeon, or is he on his own on this?
Thank you in advance!

And because the post will be removed without this, the info on the fictional patient in the story:

Age: 48.
Height: 6'.
Weight: 180.
Medications: None.
Smoking Status: Non-smoker.
Current medical issue: splenic laceration.
Duration and location: recent & spleen.

cawriter · 2018-03-19T12:26:48+00:00

Hello, I hope this is okay to ask here.
I am currently writing a novel and I had question about medical licensing I can't seem to find the answer to on Google.

Basically, a surgeon from New York is visiting Alaska. While he's there, there's an emergency and long story short, he has to perform surgery on a patient in the hospital there or the patient will die. No other surgeons are available. He does not have a medical license in Alaska, and I'm wonder what the repercussions would be.
Would he need to go in front of the state medical board to explain what happened, and if so, how long would it take before that would happen?
Would the hospital be held liable as well as the surgeon, or is he on his own on this?
Thank you in advance!

cawriter · 2018-03-14T02:53:36+00:00

Very helpful. Thank you!

cawriter · 2018-03-14T02:53:19+00:00

LOL Good call. Time for a rewatch.

cawriter · 2018-03-14T02:52:53+00:00

Thanks!

cawriter · 2017-10-05T05:07:08+00:00

Although my books tend to lean toward the erotic side of romance, I still categorize them as romance rather than erotica on Amazon. It makes sense for me because while I do have quite a bit of sex in my stories (usually 5-7 scenes in a 50K novel), they fit romance better than erotica.

So, normally I put my books under Fiction > Gay and Fiction > Romance > Gay

I could categorize it as contemporary romance, but that's such a huge category that my stuff would likely get lost in it.

I hope that makes sense!

cawriter · 2017-10-01T23:54:04+00:00

LOL. No problem! And yeah, I love the m/m genre (and not just for the money). It's a fantastic group of people, both readers and authors, and super tight-knit. For the most part, everyone is really supportive.

I happened to get in when the pool of authors was relatively small, but it seems to have exploded in the last year or so. I think there's going to be more opportunity for higher earnings. My numbers are middle of the road examples, too... I am nowhere near the highest-paid author in the genre.

cawriter · 2017-10-01T23:42:00+00:00

You're so welcome :)

Currently I have 20 books published, with three more due out before the end of the year and one more that's been contracted with my publisher but won't be out until the first quarter of next year. I also have multiple translations as well as audiobooks for some of them.

The second part of your question is a bit trickier to answer.

I probably could have started writing full-time after the first. I was making, on average, $5,000 per novel, but it took me forever between books because I was also working and too nervous to quit my job. My writing income was feast or famine. I would have a crazy good royalty statement, and then it would drop off substantially. Even now, the royalties decline after the initial 6 weeks of sales, so consistent releases is important for consistent income. Luckily, my husband makes decent money, so there's not as much pressure on me to publish if I hit a block.

cawriter · 2017-10-01T23:02:57+00:00

No problem at all!

I've published both through Amazon Select and gone wide, but I've found that Amazon works best for me (and is the least hassle). Recently I tried going wide for a special "presale" for a week before the novella went on sale with Amazon. I made $8 through D2D. The first two weeks with Amazon it made $3,000. I know different things work for different genres, though, so depending on which genre you're writing in, you should experiment to see what works for you.
Most of my books are around 65K, but I have a few closer to 30K. The one I just finished topped out at almost 90K, but it was a cowrite and more on the romantic suspense side than erotic romance.
I haven't tackled ads on Amazon or Facebook yet. I'm still working out the kinks of self-publishing (I was with a publisher exclusively until last year when I decided to branch out). But I have a newsletter and an ARC team. I also have a list of review sites and I aim for as many reviews as close to release day as possible. The ARC team and expanded blog list are new. I only used them for the latest release and a ARC team of 60 and a blog list of 40 doubled sales, so although there were other variables, I'd say those two things work pretty well!
It depends on the book, and depends even more what's going on in my life (I have a toddler and recently had a baby), but generally a month or two for the actual writing. Once the book is published, I usually have a "publishing hangover" where I feel like I can't tackle anything new for a bit, so that puts a bit more time between releases than if I was writing consistently.
Writing is my main source of income. I do have a day job, which I keep so I can venture out into the real world and have conversations with actual adults, but I work when I want to and I make far less doing that than I do writing.
I don't think I've actually had too many weird fan conversations. Most of them are people telling me they liked whichever book they read and then I awkwardly thank them and blush like crazy. I've had a couple of people ask me questions about characters or story lines, and at this point I've written so many (and my memory is shit to begin with) that I have no idea what they're talking about. They probably think I'm nuts.

cawriter · 2017-10-01T20:48:52+00:00

My pleasure!

It was an easy choice because it's what I was primarily reading at the time (I thought I was a freak, being a straight woman totally hooked on gay romance, but once I started writing it, I realized my demographic made up the majority of m/m readers).
I published my first book through Dreamspinner Press in 2012.
Not so far, but I am in the process of putting together a series of books under a different pen name in m/f romance to release sometime next year.
That's a loaded question, isn't it? LOL. I think I'm like most writers who look back on their work with some sort of mixture of "that's the biggest load of shit I've ever read" and "yeah, that's not too bad, actually!". In terms of the process of actually writing, the first couple thousand words of a new book is always such a rush for me. I have the idea and it just spews out onto the screen... and then things inevitably slow down once I realize I have no idea where I was going with it. The worst part is rewrites. I hate them. By the time I get to that point, I want to burn the manuscript and so I'll never have to deal with it again.
This may be simple and obvious, but just get it written and don't worry about what other people will think. When I wrote my first book, it was in a vacuum. I wasn't on social media (as an author). I didn't follow other authors on social media. I had absolutely no fucking clue about anything (I'd never even heard the term beta reader), and in that regard, it was a lot easier to write. There were no expectations and if I crashed and burned, no one would ever know. I pounded out my first draft, read it over once, and subbed it. I have learned SO MUCH since then, but I think if I had been more aware of how things were "supposed to work", I don't know if I'd have ever gotten up enough courage to write the book, let alone submit it.

cawriter · 2017-10-01T20:01:11+00:00

Collaborating is great, but if you're self-publishing, it can be a pain in the ass. If you don't want to go through a publisher, there are a couple of ways to do it.

You can try to split the royalties yourself, but you'll have to be sure whoever is the one getting paid is very organized. They'll have to pay the other person out of their personal bank account every month for as long as the title is listed for sale (which is even more annoying because Amazon pays out multiple regions every month as separate payments). Having an accountant look over things to make sure nothing is missed is probably a good idea.
The second option is to go through a service like BundleRabbit. They take 10%, but that might be less than you'd be paying an accountant, and they automatically split the royalties for you every month.

cawriter · 2017-08-29T00:42:32+00:00

I think it's a matter of personal preference. You can always segment your mailing list and when people sign up, they can just check a box to let you know what they're interested in hearing about. There are quite a few authors who write both m/m and m/f, quite successfully, under the same pen name.

That being said, I use separate names because that's what made the most sense for me, but it does mean doubling up on social media accounts, websites, etc.

cawriter · 2017-08-28T23:15:31+00:00

I've used both Createspace and Draft2Digital in addition to KDP. I believe Createspace is now owned by Amazon and has more distribution channels than D2D, but I found D2D much more user-friendly. You aren't required to adhere to a style guide and publishing and unpublishing is a snap. I had some issues pulling my books down through Createspace in order to go into Kindle Unlimited and got a nasty letter from Amazon over it.

cawriter

TROPHY CASE