Re: Re: consequences of shift to ebooks

>
>  I've never understood why publishers pay an advance. Books are works
>  of art created on spec, however good or bad they may be.
>  Let those works generate sales -- or not -- according to their ability
>  to motivate readers to buy.

I agree with the second sentence but not with the first. Not all books
are created to "spec."

Written to spec means that someone else is dictating what the finished
product will be, before you start writing...creating a mold that the
finished product will fit into so as to stream into the mechanism it's
being written for. It's literally writing to the expectations someone
else forces upon what you will write.

I don't write to spec. I write the story I do and then shop for the
market that best fits what I have created. That is not spec. If
anything, I am looking for a market with the specifications to be a
good showcase for my work...not the other way around. I'm not writing
with the market in mind...most days. I've written for calls before,
but when I do, 90% of the time, I end up making something unsuitable
to the call and abandoning that spec to allow the story to become what
it will be...then sell it somewhere else.

That said, SOME writers do go into writing a book by researching what
a particular publisher buys and then works backward from there to
create their own "spec" for the book, molding it personally to fit
that market. Some who aspire to category markets do this, for
instance.


Brenna
-- 
http://www.brennalyons.com http://www.myspace.com/brennalyons
All dreams have a meaning, even those that cannot possibly be true.
Mollie hopes so, anyway.  Is she losing her mind or learning her
destiny? FAIRY DREAMS -Mundania Press, LLC.


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