Recent content by Svrtnsse

A lot of writers would. There's this saying going around about how if you want to be successful, you need to treat it professionally, or as a job. There's probably a lot of truth in that, and I see variations of the sentiment a lot. I've given up on that kind of success, or I realized I don't...

I don't have the exact number, but the money was spent on advertising, and I probably spent about five to ten times more on ads and marketing than I made back in sold books. The actual publishing cost was tiny. I was able to get a friend who enjoys the task to proofread for a symbolic $50 per...

This is where I'm at now. Originally, I had a notion I could find financial success with my books through self-publishing, but after wasting tons of money to find out that I have no understanding of marketing (and don't care enough to learn), I gave up on that. Now, I write and publish the...

I look for two things: 1. Does the author take the cover seriously? Does it look professional, with nice graphics and typography, or does it look like they just grabbed an image they liked and put some words on it, without considering what it says about them or their story. I'll definitely judge...

You also need to be true to yourself. There's a lot of talk about pushing yourself and going outside of your comfort zone, but there's also something to say for creating something you're proud of and that you believe in. To answer the original question: colourful language isn't needed to add a...

After a few moments of thinking... I use violence as a threat, to build tension. Violence is dangerous and painful, and my characters mostly want to avoid it, but the possibility that it can happen at pretty much any time is a threat hanging over the story. Once it does happen, I try to keep it...

The first series that comes to mind is Keeper Chronicles by J.A. Andrews - epic fantasy, character driven. It's a trilogy, telling one overarching story, but each book features its own main character, and it's own completed story. This means each can easily be enjoyed and understand on its own...

Neil Gaiman recently let it be known that he wrote Coraline at 50 words per day: https://twitter.com/neilhimself/status/1468485218373812224

This sounds like a slight misunderstanding. The basic principle is that each month all* money paid for KU subscriptions goes into a pot. It's a pretty big number as KU has many members. Once the pot is decided, the money is divided by the number of pages read by KU subscribers. Usually, it ends...

I'm reading Kingdom of Essence, by Holly Karlsson. It started out as a rather ordinary fantasy story, but things took an unexpected and chilling turn, and now I'm curious to see what else is going on with it.

The book I'm currently reading has some issues with pacing. On their own, the sentences and paragraphs flow easily enough, but the story has a tendency to repeat its descriptions. Once something is described, the same thing is often described again a few paragraphs later, using slightly...

That sounds like it might be a bit of a chore to read, or does it work? (I haven't read it myself)

I mused a bit more about this, and I'm thinking it might be a little like with people working in the arts these days: musicians, actors, writers, painters, poets, etc. Some get famous and become superstars, others manage to make a living out of their art, and others yet have to rent out their...

I have not given the different races different speech patterns. Early on in the worldbuilding process, I decided that language and communication would be an issue, and that there wouldn't be a Common tongue. Once I actually started writing the story, I conveniently forgot about it (no sarcasm, I...

I'm not writing in the real world, but in a fantasy setting where the stories take place in a time period roughly equivalent to the real world of today. So there's elves and magic and a lot of other fantastic things, but there's also cellphones, office commutes, and tabloid magazines. The...