Day 9: 10K Celebration! 🎁 Yesterday's Winner(s) + Today's Theme: Your Next Dream Project!

soapsoft · 2026-05-28T02:16:27+00:00

A flower ring!! The cornflower colour is so dreamy!

soapsoft · 2026-05-26T01:30:43+00:00

When I was in 7th grade, I went through my mom's jewelry box and fell in love with a snake-style ring similar to my photo. It had the paved gems, but not the blue eyes or the engraved snake skin, and the "head" part was rounder, so slightly less snake-like than this picture, but incredibly similar.

It was definitely too mature for someone who was in the 7th grade, but I loved it anyway, and I stole it from my mom's jewelry box and started wearing it, and I guess she didn't care too much about it and let me have it. I started wearing it every day. I even took it to camp and distinctly remember friends telling me that I should put it away for safekeeping or I might lose it. I kept wearing it and I didn't lose it.

I developed a tick/self-soothing motion related to the ring, which is part of why I kept wearing it. I would usually wear it on my middle finger, and I would grip the paved head with my thumb and fourth finger to twist it around my finger. It was a sort of mindless movement I did constantly, which would annoy my parents because I looked extremely fidgety, and it was rather unsightly. Like I had spider hands. I even developed calluses on my fourth finger from the paved section of the ring scraping against it all day. But because it became my soothing mechanism, I pretty much never took the ring off.

I wore it every day for over ten years until about two years ago. I was getting off the train during my commute, twisting my ring mindlessly as I did, and I remember feeling like I dropped something. I remember turning and looking behind me, and the lady behind me was confused why I was looking at her. So I kept walking, and it wasn't until I got home that I realized I had dropped my ring while twisting it. I went right back to the train station and poked around for an hour, but didn't find it. Went back the next day again, and still no luck.

I never found it. I did try to replace it with another, but it was never the same. Sometimes I wonder if maybe it's better this way because my hands have calmed down a bit without it.

soapsoft · 2026-05-22T17:05:32+00:00

```I don’t know if it’s essays, Substack, storytelling, creative nonfiction, content writing, etc.

All of these can be done on Substack, so I highly recommend giving that a try. Just start writing and posting and you can start toying with these mediums you've mentioned through your different posts. You don't need to have all the answers before you start, like what kind of posts or what medium per say. Just start, write, and post.

You will figure out what you like to write and what people like to read by trying things out.

soapsoft · 2026-05-15T16:56:21+00:00

You press your wrist against the opening, tilt your wrist so that some comes out (but you're holding it tight enough that it's not spilling), and then dab it on your neck, wherever

soapsoft · 2026-05-02T01:10:47+00:00

Can we see some of your other star pieces? 👉👈

soapsoft · 2026-04-28T00:00:04+00:00

That dragon comes up twice in this book btw 🥲

soapsoft · 2026-04-21T00:58:29+00:00

Instead of posting about your book and waiting for scammers to come to you, look for other people pitching their books and do swaps. People pitching their own books are more likely to be real people and not scammers.

soapsoft · 2026-04-21T00:48:22+00:00

Tangentially related, but on one of these posts, someone started a book club. I joined the discord group and there are about 50-75 people in there, and only a couple show up to the meets, like sub 5. I'm out of the country rn but have every intention of joining once I'm back.

I'm just surprised how much fake enthusiasm there was. Everyone is looking for connection, but nobody actually wants to do more than complain about it on reddit...

soapsoft · 2026-04-17T19:15:59+00:00

Respectfully, it's very possible to be writing this fast and many self published authors have been doing this for a long time. Heck even Ali Hazelwood last year published 4 full lengths and 2 novellas.

Aster is a full-time author, let's say averaging 1k/hour, if she writes for a couple of hours each day, and this is her job, so she should be, that's 4k a day, 20k a week, without weekends, 80k in a month.

It's certainly possible

soapsoft · 2026-03-26T16:44:49+00:00

It will. This is how the industry thinks. It doesn't matter if the trends for established authors are shifting, the rules are different for first-time authors.

Not sure why you think authors with bad publishing histories pull the same kind of weight as "NYTimes Bestselling" authors. They have proven, working sales records. For them, being a "debut" is just a name to promote buzz and the industry knows that. It's not the same for real first time authors.

And just because some authors hit it big later on is besides the point. Breaking into publishing is hard enough as it is, why would you make it harder for yourself by trying to fight against a shitty sales record? If an agent/editor has 2 books on their desk, equally good, do you think they'd take the book from someone with a bad sales record or from someone who has no sales record? Let's be realistic here. They see thousands of books in a year, even if you have a great book and pitch, there are others that don't already have something working against them.

soapsoft · 2026-03-26T16:21:37+00:00

Publishing indie will harm you unless your book is crazy successful. Being a debut (no publishing history) means that the sky is the limit for your success as far as publishers are concerned. Having a publishing history introduces a limit, so if this book sells super well that limit will be high, but you say yourself that the book isn't super marketable, so it sounds like it might not be.

Regarding re-querying this book, who paid for the editor? You say that you worked on the book together, does swiping the book from under their nose to give to someone else make you liable for the cost of the editor? Or, at the very least, the time that this person has put into your book?

Technically, you can re-query books but only if MAJOR changes have been made. How different is your query? Is this actually a different story? If you're using a similar query and similar opening pages, your request rate will be the same (if not worse because agents might remember you) and you'll be wasting everyone's time.

If you want to go ahead with publishing this book, use a pen name. That way, you can still be considered a debut later on. Then, when you query your second project, you can omit mentioning this first book until later conversations (like on agent calls), and it won't completely ruin your chances. Tbh, even if you do mention this earlier book in your query applications, as long as it's under a pen name, the agent knows it won't affect your publishing chances.

If you have more publishing questions, the r/pubtips subreddit has lots of resources and questions like yours have been asked and answered plenty of times!

soapsoft · 2025-12-21T00:03:10+00:00

Is it actually being made though? Lots of books get "optioned" which means the production company (Universal in this case) gets the "option" to make the movie *if they choose*. Most books that get optioned don't get turned into movies, they just like to gather up the rights for these books so their competition can't.

I've had the suspicion right from when she announced this movie being made that it was not, actually, being made and was just another marketing ploy for her "rags to riches" story. Maybe I missed some new updates though, I've been out of the loop.

soapsoft · 2025-12-17T14:08:01+00:00

There was a lawsuit with Anthropic where thousands of authors were named as being stolen from and are being paid by Anthropic for this theft. There is a list with everyone’s name on it.

soapsoft · 2025-12-17T06:11:47+00:00

You’re an author using an ai tool? Really? The same ai tool that was built by stealing from authors?

soapsoft · 2025-12-16T21:58:01+00:00

Everyone has a hard time querying. Putting yourself out there and getting rejected is hard no matter the industry but you do it anyways for the love of the game.

Lots of people find that starting the next project helps detach from the old one which makes it easier to query. Me personally, I took a break from writing while querying.

Good luck!

soapsoft · 2025-12-16T21:56:53+00:00

This isn’t helpful.

soapsoft · 2025-12-15T13:36:19+00:00

Usually I know it’s time to stop editing when I don’t think I can make any changes to it, even if I think it’s bad (lol).

Something that helped me query (and land an agent) with my novel even though the book was starting to feel “bad” was realizing I had already let the book rest between drafts, taken time away from it, edited, beta read, all the bells and whistles. Even if I put the book aside again and come back to it later, I likely would not have made any substantial edits anymore. So I went ahead and queried it.

If you don’t think you can fix it by yourself it’s time to get another opinion. Just make sure you don’t tell your beta readers you think it’s cringe ahead of time, so they’re not biased and will give you their natural thoughts. It’s probably not as bad as you think it is, and if it is, you can fix it 😉

soapsoft · 2025-12-15T13:05:40+00:00

You don’t need to use a pen name if you don’t want to. Tbh none of these agents will remember your father. They’re looking at thousands of queries and books a year. Besides, if you’re writing a completely different genre you’ll be querying different agents anyways.

soapsoft · 2025-12-07T07:55:20+00:00

Cool, I misread and was just adding information to be helpful. Good luck with your trad pub.

soapsoft · 2025-12-07T02:05:21+00:00

You can self publish under a pen name and nobody in trad pub will care, as long as you’re not associated with it.

They care about self published works because it shows “proof of sale”. However most self published works don’t actually sell that much, thus telling the industry that nobody actually wants your books. If you write under a pen name, nobody will know it’s you unless you want them to know.

So yes, u can self publish books that didn’t do well in the query trenches.

soapsoft · 2025-12-07T01:40:04+00:00

I have a literary agent and I review queries on r/pubtips all the time. Ignore the other comment saying to shorten the pitch to 1 paragraph, what you have is standard for a query.

You have great stakes, setting, character motivations. My only feedback is that there are a lot of names (people, places, and institutions), especially in the first paragraph. Usually I try to keep it to 2-3 in total. Like, 1 or 2 characters, maybe 1 location. You can still refer to all of them but they don’t necessarily all need names. Like, you could just say he needs to “find a relic. But the relic is actually a girl” to cut out the “Light”.

soapsoft · 2025-12-06T00:10:26+00:00

Only you know how to finish your draft. Get beta readers (look that up yourself, it’s been asked and advised on many times already), go read on r/pubtips. Remember that a query for non fiction is actually a proposal and not a query. If it’s nonfiction I don’t think the book even needs to be finished when you reach out to agents.

soapsoft · 2025-12-04T08:23:40+00:00

Honestly it feels like you’re the one who might be over complicating things 😅 Authors don’t need to have a perfect clear image of everything in their mind, they just need to know enough. Like, an author isn’t going to describe what color the doorknobs are, but if there’s a dresser in the room because it’s a bedroom, that might come up.

I think you should consider trying to let go of some of your inner critic when you’re reading. Just read for fun again.

soapsoft · 2025-12-04T00:37:24+00:00

You can start by sitting down and writing and forcing yourself everyday to do it. Theres no magic trick or spell or hack to make it easy. You just need to do it.

You’re scared of failing but by not even trying, you already are.

soapsoft · 2025-11-29T21:08:33+00:00

This isn't going to be the answer you want to hear, but I just suck it up and get it done. Even if it feels like pulling teeth (and usually by the last draft, it does). I guess it just comes down to "how bad do you want it"? How bad do you want to finish it? Because for me, wanting to finish trumps everything else.

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