[Continue Watching?]

First, published recent books will give you an idea of what sells. Not that you can’t be free to write what you want, but many genres and categories have certain expectations that publishing keeps pretty rigid. Romance, for example, has some very rigid tenets that will benefit you to follow (at least until you publish enough books to start breaking them). Publishing also works on comp titles - you need to know what recent books to compare yours to in order to sell it.

This isn’t easy to hear, but if you are trying to get paid money for your work and don’t go the indie route, you have to learn what the rules are. “My book is too unique to be compared to anything else” or “my book doesn’t fit into any genre” never, ever works. Learn the genres, figure out how to make comparisons, and be willing to wait a while for things to go somewhere.

Second, pacing sins are forgiven in fanfiction. They are brutal in publishing. You can have those cuddle scenes, but they can’t get in the way of rising tension, and they certainly can’t last an entire chapter. Learning to balance quiet scenes with action scenes are something you’ll have to hone for publishing.

Third, yeah, editing is going to get you. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been through my current book and found at least five more errors per chapter despite having just gone through it, and I haven’t even turned it over to my agent yet. Augh. Fanfic readers are far more forgiving if I’ve repeated the same word within a paragraph.

I want to hear them laugh, chat, comment, speak, roar, cry, get irrationally angry, I need people to respond to my art and get inspired and need more.

If you think that way it’s not only toxic as hell it’s killing creators.

Creating isn’t easy. When there’s nobody to look at your work and say, “You did a good job. This was hard.” The drive and ambition disappears, then so does the work.

Give your content creators value.

so ok I've been seeing this more often than usual recently but please try to be normal when reblogging stuff especially creative works. avoid putting hateful tags on reblogs because the original poster sees that.

you wouldn't want a random person saying "#wow I hate this character but---" on your works, right? (and that is not the compliment you want it to be btw.)

and stop seeking content on this site just to shit on it. go make a post about it instead of reblogging something to put mean tags on. someone worked hard on that, don't be a dick.

don't spout community on this site while being the cancer that causes creators to stop sharing their works.

For starters the blogger can just delete and ignore it. And given tumblr’s penchant for eating asks I think it would drive some hate senders a little insane if they keep checking back in wondering if their ask got eaten.

For second the anon ask format guarantees the blogger gets the last word in every time. Even if anon sends a follow up message they will never get the last word. And tumblr for better or for worse seems to run on this currency of “whoever expressed the last opinion in a post is the one we’re supporting”