Sharing my newly-gained knowledge of the publishing world with you.

Song of the day: Definitely Happiness is overrated- Airborn toxic event ;)

Quote of the day: "I'll sign the book for 22$. If you don't want it signed, it'll be 25$"- Ross Murphy

Thoughts: LMAO. Well, that was interesting.

What I should be doing right now: Blogging to ya'll about the writer's thing I just went to. Maybe writing some D.D. Oh, and doing my homework *nods*

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Ok, guys, you'll never guess what I did today. I got off my butt and made a step toward being a published author.
No, despite my slightly-leading blog title, I'm not getting published. Still a 14-year old loser, remember? XD No, I just went to a writing confrence with Ross Murphy, author of You will never dance alone and professional manuscript reader (Aka: the guy who reads your submission and sends you all those pretty rejection letters XD).

That, in case you were wondering, is Ross's book <- He was very nice, and very funny XD All the while telling us that our dreams of having millions of people line up at big signings was never going to happen. But, I did find out lot's of very, very interesting things today ^-^ Such as the fact publishing companies to little to nothing.... 

That's right, you heard me ^-^ You're on your own, homies. Even if you get published, you have to pay someone to do all your editing (publishers don't provide people), cover designs (they don't provide those either, you've got to hire someone to make you one) and you've got to go to the managers of bookstores and convince them to buy a few copies; your book doesn't get any real attention until you sell about 5,000 copies 0-0 Yikes. That's... a LOT of bookstore managers to talk to. I'm already shaking; ABNA better come through for me ;)

~~~But, I learned some cool things. Those pesky copyrights. Worried about people stealing your stuff? Worry no more; the instant your ideas are written down, they're copyrighted. So long as you can prove it's yours, you're good.

~~~~You also get a lot of free reign for the book. You want to design your own cover? Go right ahead. You want to draw crappy pictures for the inside? That's fine too. You're the one marketing yourself, so have fun with it ;)

~~~~Also, it's a bad idea to self publish if you want to get picked up by a big publishing house. It get's rid of your "natural" market, and in result you've pretty much ruined that big pick-me-up publishing is supposed to get you.

~~~~OH, AND WHEN EDITORS READ your first page better be epic. Because it's all they read before they start eliminating your manuscript.

Yup, you heard me right. Those people who read your book traditionally read the first page to see if your writing style is any good or not. If they say not... well, you're screwed. Pardon my language, but it's true. So make that first page count so they look again.

What else did Mr. Murphy say *thinks* OH, he said booksignings don't work well either; he's been there for four hours and gotten 8 people to buy books. Meanwhile, 75 people walked up to him and said "I've been thinking about writing  a book." and tried to get him to help them get a deal. HOWEVER, he writes general fiction set in Ireland; cool, but not really the strongest market over here. So it might be different for teen market.

Anyways, that's all I can remember without my notes =) Hope this helped, and if you're feeling discouraged, don't =)

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ABNA Tomorrow. Wish me luck ;)