From: julie@pascal.org   
      
   On Saturday, August 30, 2014 3:22:13 PM UTC-6, Kevin C wrote:   
   > On Saturday, August 30, 2014 1:32:52 PM UTC-4, Nicky wrote:   
   >    
   > > I don't know why you would think your skills have necessarily plateaued or   
   declined. It is very difficult to get conventionally published these days and   
   not succeeding at that isn't always a comment on the quality of your writing,   
   though obviously it    
   can be. Anyway a new idea may have success where a previous failed just   
   because some ideas are more fashionable or commercial than others.   
   >    
   >    
   >    
   > People I trust looked at a few, and found errors I did not see. Not the   
   occasionally homophone error, or misplaces punctuation, but huge clinkers that   
   should have been obvious. Committing the same errors over and over again   
   indicates an inability to    
   learn.   
      
   Do you think that even big name authors don't make habitual writing mistakes?    
   This is what editors are for.  Copy editors to fix the small stuff and Editors   
   to catch the huge clinkers and structural errors. Fresh eyes, because the   
   author knows what they    
   wrote and often reads what they know they wrote, even if it didn't get on the   
   page.     
      
   The question is, is the story compelling?  Does the tension build and is the   
   resolution satisfying?    
       
       
   > > > One editor did suggest, out of the blue, going self-publishing in a   
   certain genre, and maybe that's an option, but at this point it seems useless.   
   >    
   > >   
   >    
   > > It is a bit of a faff I think, which is largely what is putting me off.   
   The idea of reformatting my mss fills me with horror but OTOH  you may get   
   some readers you wouldn't get if it stayed in the drawer. As writers we want   
   to be read and these days    
   you can be.    
   >    
   > >    
   >    
   > > I am considering self pub for just that reason. The work I have hanging   
   around won't set the world on fire, but is perfectly OK and some people might   
   like it. I worked quite hard in writing it, why not send it out there?   
   >    
   >    
   >    
   > This is an issue of genre. If SF and F are the ghettos of fiction, then   
   *Christian* SF and F are crates in a back alley. However, my first point   
   applies to these as well.   
      
   Christian SF would seem to be custom made for self-published ebooks.  Lars   
   Walker published a couple of Viking fantasies with Baen that are overtly   
   "Christian" and would never ever have made it through a "Christian" publisher   
   because of the level of    
   violence and other "earthiness", but Baen is an exception in a lot of ways and   
   I haven't noticed a whole lot of other religious fiction from them.  I've   
   talked to other authors writing Christian fiction who, and I'm thinking of a   
   particular YA author,    
   who complained that the publisher wouldn't allow the depiction of bad behavior   
   in the stories (drugs, sex, etc.) even though a story about redemption   
   required something to be redeemed from.   
      
   In any case, you're in a particular tight spot but it's one where   
   self-publishing ebooks makes a whole lot of sense.  If someone complains to   
   you because your main character is a street child supporting herself with sex   
   and drugs, so what?  The tighter    
   publishing spot you're in, the more sense it makes to find your readers   
   directly.   
      
   -Julie   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)