Mikira, I didn't mean to make you feel bad. Let me make it up to you by designing a cover for you. For free.
Let me know.
dags
Hi dags, Please don't feel bad. I know you didn't mean to make me feel bad.
Makira. I remember you from the early days! Horses and a fantasy novel. You were one of the first people I reviewed. It's really good to see you're so close to a complete project.
I haven't any money and don't have the time to review right now either (school! finals & papers! etc.) but I wanted to stop by to offer a forum hug and my best wishes with this project.
Keep your chin up. x
Hi Corra, I'm so happy you're still here. Yes I may have gotten a bit down by a few comments on this thread, but I never stay down for long.
<Big Hug> Right back at Ya.
I see no problem at all with someone who has developed their book on the site and spent the time to help others (as Mikira has done) putting out a call for some help promoting their book. In fact, I encourage it.
Let's worry about 1000s of promo threads if that happens. We can always find a solution.
Sol
Sol, thank you for responding. I appreciate all you do for aspiring authors.
Hey, Mikira - I don't understand your need for funding. If a publisher is demanding money up front, that's a publisher to avoid.
Jack
This isn't to pay a publisher, the project is to get funds to help me pay for a professional editor, cover designer and a list of other things such as both paperback and hard cover books, plus money to help me promote the book once I publish it, because I will probably look at self-publishing this novel.
And in fact the idea to use Kickstarter to get the funds I need to do this wasn't my idea at all, it had been a co-worker of mine who had suggested that I tried doing this. Because she knows my financial situation.
I will pray about all this tonight. Because I am feeling very sad right now.
I had asked SolN - I really didn't want to have to bring him into this. - but it appears that I have to - if I could let people know that I had started this Kickstarter project. And he had graciously said that I could. But even though I had asked I was hesitant to write a post about it in the forum. While Tom and I communicated about this, he on his own, after checking out the project for himself decided he wanted to start this thread to help me spread the word. I think he had figured out that even though I had asked SolN if it was okay, that I would be too self-conscious to start the thread.
Even though some of you think that all I've done was self-promotion, since I've returned to this site. You are sadly, mistaken. In fact it's too bad all - well at least I think all of the very old posts are gone - when SolN migrated everything to this new and improved website. Because you would have realized I had been very helpful to many people during my past membership, in fact so much so that I didn't have time to write the novels I was working on at that time. And it was the forum that we had used to call for reviews.
Thank you Bill - oops I mean Tom for posting this in the forum. I really, really appreciate it.
By the way, since I work from home on Tuesdays and Thursdays I posted two more chapters of my novel.
I want to add that I have loved the tNBW community since I became a member back in 2006. I know some of my original friends are no longer members of this site. But everyone, from the people who reviewed the stories I put up back when I started on the site, to the people I was able to review, had helped me become the writer that I've become today. You may never understand how truly grateful I would be if you decide like Tom decided, that this novel I want to get published, deserves to be published and make the decision to help fund my campaign.
Oh and Tom didn't mention I designed some awesome gifts to send all my supporters if I get successfully funded.
Here's a link to my novel if you'd like to leave me a review: http://www.thenextbigwriter.com/content … /version/0
I'm in. I only have two questions: 1st how will we get breakfast to everyone in the group. 2: How will we set up those 10 minute time slots to talk about your grandchildren?
Oh and Tirzah, I'm so happy that you are still a member of tNBW.
Welcome, mikira. No, you won't. I usually finish the entire book before making major corrections. I will most likely edit the first three chapters of the one I plan to put in the strongest start, but once I post the rest, it might be a year before I make revisions.
Thank you Janet, it's good to be back. And thanks for letting me know that it's okay to wait to finish writing the entire novel before doing any major edits to it. I have considered doing edits to the first three chapters to get it ready for the strongest start competition. I'll have to see if I can get finished writing it in time to get it submitted before I do that. Because I'm also running a Kickstarter campaign to help me gets funding to help me get it published and get the funds I need to help me market it. So I have a major deadline to keep in the hopes to getting people to want to support me.
I agree with Janet. Unless you recip, you probably won't get sustained reviews.
This is what I'm most afraid of happening, even if my reviewers start to fall in love with the story I wrote.
Aside from writing, most of us are probably reading ten other people's work. It requires a lot of time. Although I don't love everything I read (who does?), reading other people's work makes me a better writer, as do their critiques. I work hard to sustain the most helpful reviewers (I usually read more than I'm read), but have to let the rest drop off.
Yes, this is what happens on this site that we are reading and reviewing more then posting new stuff. And this site has always been in my humble opinion the best site I ever found to workshop a novel to help people become better writers. I adore Sol for creating tNBW.
I also remember how bad I felt when I would give a person a review and then never get a reciprocating review in return. And I don't anyone to feel upset that I didn't give them a review. In fact I had started feeling bad when I got behind in reciprocating on my reviews.
The sustained feedback I've received has greatly improved my writing as I go along. I don't see myself going back to writing an entire draft with little or no feedback. Simple suggestions from good reviewers have resulted in major new character arcs or plot changes mid-stream that I wouldn't otherwise have thought of.
Yes it does help in doing this too. However I have a bout 10% of this novel left to finish writing the first draft and I have it broken into 61 completed chapters so far (Most likely that will change when it's fully ready to be published) so yes I want to workshop this novel to find out if there are different plot changes I should implement, but it's going to take a while to do that. In fact I figure it's going to take more time to workshop the entire novel then it will be for me to finish writing it.
That leave my main dilemma, and that's how to figure out a way to not get too far behind on reciprocating reviews.
My first thought is to only have the first three chapters up for review until I get finished writing the first draft of the novel. And to maybe give a time frame in my reply to when I will have time to give the reviewer a review of something they wrote and maybe even ask them what they'd like me to review for them. Does that sound feasible?
Reciprocation is a courtesy that most of us afford those who review us. It must be nice to have enough points to post a whole novel. You've put your situation up front, but I think a lot of folks won't give you more than 3 chapters if there's not some reciprocation. I have so many folks marked to read that I can't get to them all. I try to give at least one review in return and then more as I can get to it.
It's a luxury and a curse all at the same time. I'd never ask Sol to take them back so I can completely start over, because I had worked hard to earn those points with good solid reviews. For a while all I had done was review and not post anything new when I was on the site before.
In fact I was like you I had so many people marked to give a review to that I couldn't keep up.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply and advice. It gives me a lot to think about to help me find ways to juggle everything I have to juggle right now.
I know I should have looked to see if there was a thread about this subject already, but it's getting late so I decided to start my own thread. I'm like that. Okay what are everyone's thoughts about reciprocation?
The reason I'm asking is because I usually like to reciprocate when I get a review from someone, but I don't have much time right now and I want to finish writing my novel before I put my editors hat on and start concentrating on editing and reviewing. So I don't want anyone to worry that I'm not doing any reviews right now. I promise that I will once I get my novel finished.
Full disclosure I have enough credits from the last time I was a member on tNBW to post most of my novel. And I signed up for a yearly membership. I'm just letting everyone know, so everyone who reads this will understand what I'm planning on doing, so there's no misunderstandings.
I'm glad I found this thread, since I'm not quite finished writing the novel I'm starting to work shop on here. And I don't want to put my editors cap on too tightly yet. But I wanted to start getting the feedback for when I complete the writing of the novel so I have a place to start making the corrections I know I need to make to this novel to make it even better. So I'm happy to learn I won't offend anyone if I don't make the corrections right away.
Hi Sol, I'm loving how you revamped the site. I learned so much when I first joined the old site so I look forward to honing my skills even more on this new and improved site.
