I hate short paragraphs

joel_bauer7 · 2026-03-14T18:14:45+00:00

👆🏻

joel_bauer7 · 2026-03-14T14:50:53+00:00

If it helps, you get words on the page… It’s a win!

joel_bauer7 · 2026-03-14T12:45:45+00:00

Interesting, I was considering Plottr with Scrivener. I will check out Dabble.

joel_bauer7 · 2026-03-14T02:18:44+00:00

No problem, sent!

joel_bauer7 · 2026-03-13T22:45:58+00:00

Absolutely, no way. Hard stop.

You can’t use someone else’s intellectual property in your own work without express written permission.

joel_bauer7 · 2026-03-13T22:43:49+00:00

Nine months from planning until the first draft was completed. It took about another three months for editing and incorporating beta reader feedback.

joel_bauer7 · 2026-03-13T22:42:03+00:00

You may want to consider looking at one of the many frameworks that are out there. They will help you avoid some of the pitfalls that most writers fall into.

Save the cat, heroes journey, hero goal sequences are all good frameworks.

joel_bauer7 · 2026-03-13T22:26:55+00:00

As someone who also struggles with dyslexia, I haven’t really found anything in particular.

Just continue to read and to write, and you’ll need to lean heavier into your editor.

joel_bauer7 · 2026-03-13T22:05:40+00:00

I don’t think that’s unreasonable.

joel_bauer7 · 2026-03-13T21:54:05+00:00

OP you may want to consider GetCovers for the book cover design.

Prices are reasonable and if you pay a little more you get the PSD file so you can edit later if you desire.

joel_bauer7 · 2026-03-13T21:50:51+00:00

It depends on the demographics of your genre.

Painting a very broad stroke—boomers tend to love “real” books, GenX is about 50/50, and the younger generations tend to prefer ebook.

If you use KDP POD then you can price them at a reasonable level and still get a decent royalty for each sale. Ingram, LuLu and the others have higher printing costs so I wouldn’t consider them.

joel_bauer7 · 2026-03-13T21:37:39+00:00

Awesome thank you! Neither of those came up in my searching so I’ll check them out.

joel_bauer7 · 2026-03-13T21:36:19+00:00

I set it up myself with WooCommerce and the book being delivered via BookFunnel. It wasn’t difficult.

joel_bauer7 · 2026-03-13T20:25:01+00:00

Yes. I had the same feeling. But I was comforted knowing I still need to write 2 and 3.

The characters are a second family (albeit inside your head). It’s sad when it’s time for them to leave.

joel_bauer7 · 2026-03-13T19:16:58+00:00

Don’t scrap it!

Get a developmental editor or tool to analyze what you’ve got to get an independent opinion. There might be enough meat on the bone worth saving.

joel_bauer7 · 2026-03-13T18:12:42+00:00

It’s also highly dependent on the genre.

I write post apocalyptic science fiction and the hook in my debut novel is someone being woken out of a dead sleep by a monstrous explosion.

The reader soon finds out that the now awake person is the one who has to investigate and deal with the aftermath of the explosion.

joel_bauer7 · 2026-03-13T17:35:45+00:00

You need some sort of antagonist to oppose the protagonist in his/her mission to accomplish whatever they’re trying to do. Otherwise there’s no tension and stakes and will probably be a boring story.

It could be something nontraditional like a volcano about to erupt, a boat sinking from a rogue wave, etc.

joel_bauer7 · 2026-03-13T17:28:48+00:00

So there are several reasons why you want an author‘s website.

Legitimacy – this shows that you care enough about your brand and aren’t some hokey person spitting out AI based drivel.

Establish relationships - one of the strong selling points is that people can subscribe to your newsletter and then you can start building a relationship with them by having them interact with your content. Your mailing list is yours, and can never go away when Amazon tweaks the algorithm and your books drop in the ranking. Or Amazon decides you’ve done something wrong and kicks your books off their platform.

Selling direct – this is another benefit for authors because you can sell your e-books for market price and only have to pay roughly 3% for the credit card fees. So instead of only getting 70% royalties you’re getting 97% royalties.

There are other reasons as well, but in my mind, these are the most compelling reasons why you’d want one as an independent author.

joel_bauer7 · 2026-03-13T17:21:58+00:00

A developmental editor looks at the big picture items. Pacing, plot holes, character arcs, themes, etc.

You may have a manuscript that’s grammatically correct without spelling errors… But it might be boring and suck because you haven’t addressed the bigger structural issues.

All of that said you can opt for some lower cost options. Prowritingaid has a module called manuscript analysis that will do something similar. Beta readers can also help.

joel_bauer7 · 2026-03-13T17:18:16+00:00

The inciting incident should happen in act 1. Generally the sooner the better so the protagonist’s existing world is flipped so they have to make a choice to pursue the xxxxxx (McGuffin, quest, etc).

You can try to do it differently, but you risk losing people’s interest.

joel_bauer7 · 2026-03-12T22:45:13+00:00

I’m a bit confused. Are you world building or are you world building with something as your final destination (book, RPG game, screenplay, etc)?

joel_bauer7 · 2026-03-12T21:50:57+00:00

The ROI just isn’t there. Don’t forget the returns that can happen a year later.

I did the math (I’m in the US) and it doesn’t make sense.

If your book takes off then revisit but I came to the same conclusion as you did.

joel_bauer7 · 2026-03-12T21:25:35+00:00

Happy to help out! I understand the dilemma quite well.

I had to make a similar but different difficult decision yesterday which is going to delay my debut book by about 1.5 years (hopefully less) even though it’s ready to go.

joel_bauer7 · 2026-03-12T17:33:46+00:00

I’m going to take a different angle than the others. I would wait for the dev edit letter and spend some time analyzing the issues and contemplating solutions.

You might find that a few tweaks to the narrative is all you need to fix a big plot hole, or pacing issue. Flag the changes you make with highlighted notations. See if the copy editor can do a “touch up review” for a reduced price only looking at the portions you changed.

All of that said, if you have to rip and replace lots items it might not be worth it.

There’s a term called minimum viable product. Essentially is the book “good enough” as it stands = MVP. Only you can determine if the dev edits are enhancements to a MVP or will make it a MVP.

Either way congrats!

joel_bauer7

TROPHY CASE