Yeah, these are good questions. I mostly don’t suggest people try to support themselves writing unless they already know they’re very good at storytelling, and even then it’s hard/rare. Instead, I think it’s good for people to experiment with it as a side-thing, ideally in addition to some useful technical work. (I’m very blessed that I get to work as a researcher at MIRI, for example, and then go home and write stories that are inspired by my research.) Don’t wait to be discovered by a literary agent; if you write something good, post it online! Only try to seriously monetize after you already have some success.
Regarding how to tell if your stories are good, I think the main thing is to get them in front of people who will be blunt, and find out what they say. LLMs are a good stepping-stone to this, if you’re hesitant to get a real human to read your work, though you’ll have to shape their prompt so that they’re critical and not sycophantic. Writing groups can also be a good resource for testing yourself.
With Crystal, I just slammed them out there with pretty minimal effort. I gave Society away for free, and didn’t make paperback copies until just recently. For Red Heart I thought the story might have broader appeal, and wanted to get over my allergy to marketing, so I reached out to a bunch of literary agents early this year. Very few were interested, and most gave no reason. One was kind enough to explain that as a white guy writing a book about China, it would be an uphill battle to find a publisher, and that I’d probably need a Chinese co-author to make it work. She estimated that optimistically I might be able to get it in stores in 2027. From my perspective that was way too slow, and since I already had experience self-publishing, I went down that route. Self-publishing is extremely easy these days, and can produce a product of comparable quality if you are competent and/or have a team. The main issue is marketing and building awareness; traditional publishing still acts as a gatekeeper in many ways. So I’m still extremely dependent on word-of-mouth recommendations.
Yeah, these are good questions. I mostly don’t suggest people try to support themselves writing unless they already know they’re very good at storytelling, and even then it’s hard/rare. Instead, I think it’s good for people to experiment with it as a side-thing, ideally in addition to some useful technical work. (I’m very blessed that I get to work as a researcher at MIRI, for example, and then go home and write stories that are inspired by my research.) Don’t wait to be discovered by a literary agent; if you write something good, post it online! Only try to seriously monetize after you already have some success.
Regarding how to tell if your stories are good, I think the main thing is to get them in front of people who will be blunt, and find out what they say. LLMs are a good stepping-stone to this, if you’re hesitant to get a real human to read your work, though you’ll have to shape their prompt so that they’re critical and not sycophantic. Writing groups can also be a good resource for testing yourself.
What was your experience of getting novels published?
With Crystal, I just slammed them out there with pretty minimal effort. I gave Society away for free, and didn’t make paperback copies until just recently. For Red Heart I thought the story might have broader appeal, and wanted to get over my allergy to marketing, so I reached out to a bunch of literary agents early this year. Very few were interested, and most gave no reason. One was kind enough to explain that as a white guy writing a book about China, it would be an uphill battle to find a publisher, and that I’d probably need a Chinese co-author to make it work. She estimated that optimistically I might be able to get it in stores in 2027. From my perspective that was way too slow, and since I already had experience self-publishing, I went down that route. Self-publishing is extremely easy these days, and can produce a product of comparable quality if you are competent and/or have a team. The main issue is marketing and building awareness; traditional publishing still acts as a gatekeeper in many ways. So I’m still extremely dependent on word-of-mouth recommendations.