An honest question

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I try to produce good works. I really in truly think I tell a very good story. But something must be lacking and I am wondering what it is. As long as it isn't an attack, I am wondering where people think I come up short in my writing so that I can improve. I have vision of finding an agent and a publisher or at least being mildly successful on my own. My goal is to make $2000 a month so I can live off of (right now I make 400 and I wonder if that would last). I sell about 200 books a month (so by math i would need to sell 1000 a month) on amazon. I could change prices, but I don't know about that. In what ways do you think I could improve my writing. Be honest. What would you like to see more of? What would you like to see less of? What work or passages do you think I hit the nail on the head? What works or passages leave you shaking your head and vowing to never click a link by me again?

Enemies need not reply, I already know your opinion. :)

Comments

Katie, you write

the most wonderful stories. About the only things you might want to try is adding a few details about locations, vehicles, time period, and perhaps pictures.

    Stanman
May Your Light Forever Shine

Variety is the spice of life

Paradoxically, even more so when it comes to the very limited genre of TG fiction.

One of the reasons many authors can make a living doing one or two types of fiction or non-fiction writing is because of the mass audiences that those genres appeal to. Stephen King has hundreds of millions of potential readers for horror fiction, while Pratchett's Fantasy-Parody Discworld books appeal to young and old readers alike with their humor and easily accessible genre conventions, even when those get turned completely on their heads.

TG fiction, on the other hand, automatically limits potential genre interest to a very narrow strata of readers, and more so depending on exactly which subcategories your work appeals to.

You have those in our community who are into fantasy, or sci fi, or horror, or adventure, and so on and so forth. Readership is as varied within our small community as it is in the greater body of readership in general, which means that no work is going to have a chance of capturing the hearts of every reader within the genre. As such, to capture the most readers possible, an author would have to diversify their works so that they intersect with as many sub-genres as possible.

In your case, you have limited yourself to an even tighter band of available readers than many other authors with both your spiritual focus in many works and your often-used themes of emotional abuse. While there is nothing wrong with the presence of either one in a writer's work, they are worth note as contributing factors to limiting your work's ability to appeal to a larger audience.

The quickest way to increase your income from literary works would be, quite frankly, to abandon the TG theme entirely and to focus works on mainstream audiences. I would prefer not to see this, however, since the presence of TG authors outside of outright smut on most e-book platforms seems to be seriously lacking to begin with, and I would rather not chase away a good author by telling them to go elsewhere.

On the opposite end of the pole, though, is the fact that I don't see 2000 a month being a reasonable income to expect from an e-book endeavor with as limited appeal as TG literature carries. Even if you were to manage to write a whole slew of books that appealed to every possible sub-genre imaginable and convinced every person here to pick up a copy of their preferred genre's title, you would only be able to keep up a fair-sized income for so long before sales would peter out, and you would burn yourself out well before you could make a respectable living at writing that way.

So, in short, I guess my answer would be; diversify, diversify, diversify. This not only applies to broad genres, but to elements within your books as well. Not every book needs to be emotionally weighty, or deal with real-world issues. Sometimes a bit of a fluff piece is all that people really want, something to make them feel good and escape their own troubles. Being able to write both would be a great boon on your career as an author.

On top of this -- and I KNOW this is a touchy subject -- is the recommendation that, if you want to appeal to the largest audience, and therefore draw in the most income, you should be willing to have a range of work available that does not have a spiritual focus to it. I'm not saying to ignore your beliefs, but by not making them a focus of your work you could greatly increase reader interest from parties who would otherwise avoid your books. Your spirituality is important, and writing works that focus on it is a GOOD thing, but doing so is a huge limiter on your potential future market, and at least demonstrating the capability to write outside that frame of reference will expand your future audiences greatly.

Did I ramble too much? I think I rambled.

Melanie E.

I don't think you rambled

I don't think you rambled at all, Melanie. I think this is one of the most intelligent, insightful and well-constructed posts I've ever read.

I wish Katie every success, but making money out of fiction is and always has been something of a lottery.

I won't try to shove in my twopennyworth. As Todd Rundgren said, if I thought I knew what was good for you I would have gone and done it for myself.

Ban nothing. Question everything.

I Agree

This is a very insightful look into the genre and the problem with trying to make a living while writing. Mercedes Lackey one of my favorite writers once said when asked that she would not have a TG main character in one of her works. There simply is not a market and the book would not sell. Unlike us she writes so she can put food on the table and pay her bills. Distasteful, yes, but in today's world, that's the way it is.

I try to tell a story, that has TG elements but is not of itself TG. Sometimes I succeed and some times I fail. Unlike some here I have yet to put up a story on Kindle so I very well may be just blowing air, but that's my take.

Another writer I read, Ilona Andrews, actually posts her short stories online. They are her way of expressing her muse, while she treats, HAS to treat her commercial stuff with more of an eye towards writing what will sell.

It is after all a business and one that is very competitive given only about 30,000 writers world wide does well-enough to make a living off of their works. Of course the web, Kindle and E-readers are changing everything so who knows where it is going to go.

Hugs
Grover

Honestly (I hate how cliche

Honestly (I hate how cliche that makes this sound) there are only two things I can think of that would improve on your current writing, and only one of them that you can do by yourself. I, and I hope many others, find that a story, especially a fictional one, much easier and enjoyable to read if it flows easily. The better the flow, the easier it is to picture what is happening. Take "A Different Kind of Life" for example, for the most part it flows realy well and it is an excellent read, but there is the occasional bump in the road. Such as the scene after thanksgiving where Michael has had the talk with his dad and ends up in a foul mood. It might just be me, but I seem to lose place of when in the story this is happening, it actually felt like we'd been moved about a week forward. These sorts of things do tend to fix themselves after awhile, but sometimes it feels like you've missed something. For example, it's like you've been watching a TV series, but missed an episode mid season, you feel a little out of place though you eventually you get back up to speed. The only other thing I can think of is to continue to improve on the editing, as a well edited story is easier to read and therefore more enjoyable.

As for making a living out of this, I have to agree that your best bet would be to write some more mainstream stories, the TG fiction scene is just to closeted(yes I went there ;))" lol) and shrouded by prejudice to make much more than you are now, because the consumer interest is nowhere near as big as you need it to be.

Anyway, I hope this was a little helpfull, and good luck.

it may not be that you're doing anything wrong

remember that trans fiction has a very small number of fans in the first place, and most of those are used to being able to read trans stories for free online. To get them to pay for your stories, and more importantly get people who normally wouldnt read a trans story to pay to read yours is a tall order. Good luck hon. If you figure out the secret, pass it on, wont you?

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