Publishing Help!


Ace_of_Hearts

 

Posted

After my last attempt at creative writing I have to confess that I am hooked!

I have started to write a longer story than my last attempt and, having completed the first two chapters, want to publish. However I have one problem.

I find that posting entries on these forums difficult to read and edit and would prefer to post my work on another site with a link to the story on the forum. Trouble is I'm still a novice and dont know any sites that will allow me to upload what I write and share it with everyone.

I know that some of you publish their work this way. Can anyone give me some ideas how to do this please.

Thanks


Life is one big practical joke that we as the human race have yet to see the punchline to. Once you work that out the rest is easy.

 

Posted

The one site I know of and use is fanfiction.net, I am not sure its one of the best but it does its job and COH has its own section and so do a lot of other things. So its good if you want to try out some other fictional writing in another setting, anyway hope that helps


The end is just a new beginning, Goodbye all my coh friends and even the enemies, its been a blast I will miss you all. Thank you Paragon team, you gave me a home from home I will always appriciate it.

 

Posted

Again I'd recomend http://Fanfiction.net, it's free and baring forum software is probably the best one around for free.

If your interested in publishing original fiction then http://Fictionpress.com is fanfiction.net's sister site for original works. (I.e. Work based in a world you created.)

If you need any help contact me either here via PM as Bluedarky, or on either site as Bluedarkyugi.


 

Posted

I’ve played around with Fan Fiction and found the way the stories are presented isn’t much better than on here. Readership wise I’ve not picked up any feedback and only a few people have looked at the CoH stuff I’ve posted.

One place BurningFist got me on to was Writing.com which, again, isn’t that good at presenting the stories but I have got quite a lot of feedback from it (and some ratings without feedback). The free version of it is okay. It has a maximum of ten stories and people still seem to look at your stuff even if you’re not offering them anything (there’s a points system to encourage people to give you feedback, but it costs money to get points or you have to review writing by people who are offering points in return). BF will probably be able to tell you much more about it.

As far as presentation, I like using PDF as people can read the stores with a web browser or download them if they want to (everything I read on here I download on to my PDA so I can read it whenever I get a chance). I use Wordpress to hold the pages for these and my own web space to host the actual files. Wordpress is good, flexible and free allowing people to leave comments. It obviously lacks the linking in to lots of other writers that Writing.com has.

For the best feedback, that is both in depth and by far and away the most helpful, I would recommend the Orbiter groups the BSFA (British Science Fiction Association) have (I’m not sure if the Fantasy Association have a similar thing). An Orbiter is a group of four to six writers. You send a copy of your story to each of the members in the group and they in turn send you theirs. You have about two months until the next ‘orbit’ when the whole thing happens again and in that time you read all the stuff that’s been sent you and send out your feedback. The Orbiter network has been going for over twenty years and is generally populated by thoughtful, knowledgeable and, often, published authors. You’re obviously expected to give the same level of feedback as you get, but I have found them very accommodating to new and inexperienced writers. There are groups for short fiction and novels (as in you send out a chapter at a time).

The downside with Orbiters is that it’s really only for Science Fiction (obviously being run by the BSFA). Most groups will put up with a small amount of fantasy, but I’m not sure about fan fiction. The other thing is you have to be a member of the BSFA which costs 26 UKP per year. Having said that you get the benefit of a magazine of book reviews each quarter and a magazine for writers twice each year (I think).

(Apologies if this is slightly overstepping the bounds of the forum, but the BSFA isn’t really a commercial organisation. If the above bit about the BSFA isn’t appropriate, just delete it rather than locking a good thread. Thanks.)

If anyone wants more info’ send me a PM or email. I don’t want to incur the velvet gloved hand of GR or Mr K.

I’m always interested in finding more sites to use, so if anyone knows of other places I’d be interested. Friends are okay for spelling and grammar, but proper feedback, I find, is so much better from other authors or critics (friends just glance at it and then say, “Yeah, that’s okay.”)

Obviously, if you’re looking to take stuff to print there are an entire raft of magazines, self publishing options and agents out there.

Hope this helps.


 

Posted

Write in Word. Save as clean HTML.

Open in HTML editor of choice.

Save better version with decent markup in editor of choice.

Then save to some website (free from Geocities will do) and link here.

You get bes of both worlds, stories that are easy to read and space for people who are interested to comment. Plus you get to dictate 100% how the story looks, and ability to include images or media if you want. Personally I use my own web host and as many people get some web host space with their internet package that might be worth looking at. I, and many others here, can probably offer advice on the actual HTML section of the job...