Hardest part about writing a book?

TheSportsPredictor · Apr 6, 2009

Moderator1 said:
Unless your publishing company pulls a SportsPublishing and goes bankrupt. Then NO ROYALTIES FOR YOU!

Saw someone buying my book a couple of weeks ago. Wanted to go up and say, No, no, buy one of the one's in my trunk. That way I'll get some money for it. But I thought that would be crass.

Was it her?

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Moderator1 · Apr 6, 2009

Well, take away the chest and the hair, add about 50 years and a pecker, and, yeah, it's pretty close.

friend of the friendless · Apr 6, 2009

Sirs, Madames,

Short of the Bible, a very good book with a very bad cover disappears for a writer without killing rep and advertising/publicity budget. But you have virtually no say in it.

The other thing that is tough (at least sometimes) is going through page proofs and edits on 100,000 words or so. The one second draft I did cut 20,000 words (including one section that I loved and surely the funniest thing in the book) and rewrites/restructures, eight to 12+ hrs a day 7 days a week for three weeks. Couple of days in there I woke up, sat down and edited until I went to bed ... thankfully I can still edit with two beers in me tho' I wasn't much as far as company goes.

Runnig down people in Russia by networking was hard but it might be easier in a facebooked world.

o-<

stix · Apr 6, 2009

Barsuk said:
I haven't written a book (though I've written several small excerpts of the book I'll one day write) but I think the hardest thing for me, being a newspaperman, would be the lack of a daily deadline. I find it hard enough to focus on stuff that won't run for a week or two, so if the light at the end of the tunnel is months or even years ahead, I think I would struggle.

Yeah, this is the problem for me.

I've tried to start books two or three times and have gotten good chunks going, but then I always seem to lose my motivation or get too busy in my actual jobs to keep working on a book. The ideas always seem fantastic, the writing and limited reporting I do to start the book seem great, then I get sidetracked. I'm such a procrastinator that my personality is bad for book-writing. It's so hard for me to sit down every day and work on something that won't be finished for months. By the time I motivate myself enough to sit down and write again after not doing anything for weeks, my book ideas would seem untimely by then and I suddenly wouldn't think it was such a great idea anyways and just forget it.

I'm almost built for writing on deadline. In fact, I actually enjoy it.

blueview · Apr 6, 2009

Researching it with a limited budget, if you haven't gotten any kind of advance - especially the travel part, if you're writing about a location that's not driveable (the Internet can only cut it so much).

Also, trying to find time to work on it, when you're already working full-time. You have to designate time to work on it, on top of everything else.

buckweaver · Apr 6, 2009

blueview said:
Researching it with a limited budget, if you haven't gotten any kind of advance - especially the travel part, if you're writing about a location that's not driveable (the Internet can only cut it so much).

Also, trying to find time to work on it, when you're already working full-time. You have to designate time to work on it, on top of everything else.

That's where I'm at. My research is focused on areas that are 1,500 miles from me. You do what you can, always knowing in the back of your head that you could do more if you were there.