Writing As a Side Gig...

pjericksim · April 22

Having maxed out writing skill, I can easily crank out two or more books per day. With maxed skill, I can determine the quality of book before I publish: poor, normal or a Best Seller.

Is there an optimum/proven process for selling books based upon their quality?

If I can only sell only one book per week to the Literary Digest... Should I prioritize my Best Sellers to be published by the Literary Digest?

If I write another Best Seller before the week re-sets, should I save that Best Seller for the next week or should I opt to sell it immediately to a Publisher or Self-publish?

Likewise, should I prioritize the normal quality to a publishing house or self-publish? And what should I do with the poor-quality manuscripts?

Do successful writers / authors maintain separate bookcases to store unpublished books apart from copies of published books?

As time passes, the published books "fall off the shelf" and don't produce royalties. Do any of the old titles ever make a come-back, like a cult classic?

Just asking stupid questions.

mightysprite · April 22

I haven't played with the Literary Digest enough to know how to optimize it.

For your other questions: there is no benefit to self-publishing once you're a strong enough writer to sell to a publisher, and there's also no drawback to publishing a poor book AFAIK, other than that the royalties are probably lower for a lower quality book. There's no limit to how many books you can sell to publisher, and the publisher royalties are so vastly higher than self-publishing, even for a poor book. The only advantage of self-publishing is that you can do it with much lower skill so you have access to it slightly earlier in the game. (I generally have my writers stockpile their books until they reach a high enough skill to sell to publisher, then sell all their previous work to publisher at the same time.)

It could be fun to roleplay something with a purposely unpublished manuscript. Maybe someone here has. I personally haven't. I'm sure people have all kinds of fantastic ways to organize their writers' output in their homes (or bookstores).

I've never seen an old book make a comeback, but that's a fun idea. Get Famous does have a chance card where a writer's recently published book gets optioned for a screenplay.

Simmerville · April 22

Oh, interesting! I have a couple writers, but never even heard about "Literary Digest". Didn't know these things are detailed at all. Now you tempted me to look into this profession more, thanks!

kerryemmiebeth · April 22

I never self-publish. At the beginning of skilling up my writing skill I save the books until I am able to sell to a publisher. I also save a best seller until I have one I can submit to the literally digest. Obviously, if I write more than one best seller in the week then I will submit the spare ones to the publisher.

GalacticGal · April 22

I believe there is a mod, much like the publishing of music that allows for no-cool down, which takes the restriction off of how many you can send out in less than a week. I have the one for publishing songs. Seemed prior to it, that week in between licensing was never reached. Just found it: Literary Digest No Cool Down is the name of it.

pjericksim · April 24

pjericksim wrote: »

If I can only sell only one book per week to the Literary Digest...

Thanks for y'alls input.
So here's how I decided to proceed:

I always make a copy of my manuscript and keep a copy in my bookcase. (I think bookcases are univeral storage access for your household books. So, you can't hold separate bookcases for different purposes.)
I sell all manuscripts to the publisher unless I produce a Best-Seller
Best-Sellers are sold exclusively to the Literary Digest.
If I produce another Best-Seller before the Literary Digest resets, I'll store the original manuscript in the attic (some place inaccessible) until the reset.

Cheers!

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Writing As a Side Gig...

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