So you know what I am doing?

Playing my new character in Skyrim till all hours and imagining I am on vacation.

I better go to bed before I say something ridiculous. *snort*

Too late?

But here’s the sad truth about me. I keep buying books because somewhere I know there’s a magical story that will just restore every negative feeling about certain books. I just know there is! LOL (So far I’ve only found it in free fiction stories, but I’m hopeful. I’m ever hopeful).

I actually have read your stuff before a few times. I’m not an avid blog reader unless its a review site. I practically live on Dear Author and reviewsbyjesse and your review blog (also threeam) – oh hell, I read all the damn review sites. I’d be here all day listing them. Anyway, Veinglory had a link to your blog post and it sounded interesting/intriguing. (I’m not sure I want my novels put under barely legal – underage etc, but I guess I do get that people have that kink). I think you’re like me, we write characters at the age we write characters and it’s a little depressing(frustrating?) to have someone reduce the characters, and their relationships, to a kink. No?

Dang, I wish you had a plugin that let me subscribe to comments here lol.

Oh, I wondered if you get as angry/mystified as me when reading published novels where the author refers to the other character as “the boy”? “The boy” particularly bothers me unless it’s used by one of the characters as a central point in the story. For instance: in my second novel, one of the main characters is unsettled by his attraction to a 16 year old boy and it doesn’t get better when the boy is 19. He deliberately uses the word ‘boy’ to remind himself of their age difference. In that context, it makes sense to me. But then I’d expect character growth and in time the other character to not think of him as a “boy” by the end of the novel.

I really should be working… lol. Pesky self-publishing deadlines that I never meet. (one of the reasons I maybe SHOULD submit to a publisher. If they ever did accept me, I might be forced to follow a regular deadline!)

You make a good point. Perhaps I will ask for a sample chapter in future, or, if I’ve bought it anyway, read 3 chapters or something. I know I was generalising, but the problems with self publishing is in the majority, particularly with gay historicals. There are–you are one, FK Wallace another– fantastically well-edited books but they are far and few between, and frankly if you’d read the 3 I’ve just had to read, you’d be depressed over the state of the genre too.

It’s a sad reflection, but yes, the inference that most people take from self-publishing–or at least amongst my circle of authory friends, is that self pubbed books – particularly badly edited ones, are rejected manuscripts. Perhaps the authors need to wonder WHY they were rejected!

Some of us self-publishers have editors (like me). I not only have an editor, I’ve had three beta readers (the last two are going through the story after its third editing by me and second by my editor).

Also, there’s a helluva lot of epress published stories being thrown out there with little to no editing. I come across books that have an enormous amount of mistakes. Books I’ve paid for from DSP and Loose I.D. Typos that made me want to pull my hair out and stories that had sex sex sex and four paragraphs of actual plot >8(.

Please don’t blame just us poor self-publishers.

hy I (and the other reviewers) have to be punished because an author either can’t be arsed to go the normal route, or has been rejected and decides that their work of genius MUST BE SEEN BY THE WORLD ANYWAY

I have never submitted my work to a traditional publisher, so the theory of rejection isn’t valid =(. I wanted to experiment in self-publishing (since I buy regularly from Samhain, Loose ID, DSP and just about everywhere else – I think it proves I have nothing against traditional publishers). I wanted the freedom to write on my own schedule, edit on my own schedule, choose my own story lines and (yes, this is going to sound ridiculous) I also wanted to control the look of my cover.

I don’t have all ripped men in my stories. I have two heroes that are “built” but I also have skinny boys, short boys, average boys. I didn’t want two giant torsos extolling the virtues bodybuilding – it wouldn’t have fit the characters (though I do have a very ripped guy in one of my stories). So yeah, I wanted control over the cover. =D I’m weird like that.

I just thought you should know that some of us self-publishers try and edit, haven’t all been rejected by traditional firms and we don’t necessarily have exceedingly good reasons for self-publishing. Heh. We might just be a little whackadoodle.

PS: You can read my first chapter of my story on my website, I’m pretty sure it’s error free. Not positive, but /pretty/ sure. Just to prove that we /can/ edit =D