June is an Expert!

So, I had a first and second chapter. And with Cal’s surprisingly good ideas, I was able to spice it up with lots of juicy details of my guy’s manly features. That brought the word count back up, but oh well. They say it's all about the plot, not the length.

“Wow, Auri…” June read through it after she woke up. “You…”

“What? Don’t you like it?” I asked.

“It’s…uh…”

“What?” I leaned toward her with a low brow. “Is it so good that you’re speechless?”

“Okay, don’t get a swollen head…” she gave me a disappointed look. “It’s great, actually. I think it's awesome. But, I have to ask. Who’s your target audience?”

“Oh…” I turned to Cal, looking him up and down really quick. “I guess guys who like warrior stuff?”

“Wrong,” June shook her head. “This might have a lot of action that boys like, but it reads more like a young adult romance for women. Especially with these generous, but shockingly realistic descriptions of Cal’s bust size. Then there’s his relationship with the princess too.”

“So, what does that mean?” I asked.

“I’m saying you wrote this for yourself. But that’s okay in this case,” June smiled. “Because there’s a market for young women who’ll love this. And honestly, you might catch a few men too.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said. “But why bring this up now?”

She highlighted a few points in the story with the yellow highlight feature.

“There’s probably a few things you’ll need to fine tune to really capture that audience. Auri, no offense, but nobody cares about what Cal ate for breakfast, or how many hours he sleeps. You’ll bore people with that mundane stuff.”

Oh… Maybe I should have been cutting that stuff away instead of the spicy details.

“You’ll need more feedback in the future, but I think you’ve got something here you can finally work with.”

“Great! I’ll write the rest and then we can mail it to a…”

June put a hand on my shoulder and shook her head. “No. Don’t go that approach. You’ll never get published that way.”

“What?” Cal and I both uttered at the same time.

Is this her betrayal arc?!

“Let me finish,” she said. “Unless you already have some support, you’ll have better luck making this into a web novel.”

“Web novel?”

She explained that a lot of amiture publishers and other types of small time writers are now heading toward self publishing or posting their work up as a web novel online.

“If you could get a deal with a publisher, that would be the quickest way to success…” June claimed. “But the reality is that it's very difficult nowadays to do that, because the publishers only want ‘sure-things.’ They wouldn’t risk something niche like this.”

“Young adult romance about a hot guy and gorgeous princess is niche?” I put a finger to my chin.

“Well, no… In fact it’s probably exactly what they’re looking for, but that also means it’ll be an oversaturated market and they’ll only be looking for the best of the best. No offence, Auri, but you're just starting out here and have no experience. They won’t take a risk on you.”

“Way to take the wind out of my sails, June…” I pouted.

“I find this quite depressing as well,” Cal added.

“Me too!” Octo shouted from the bathroom. “I may be evil, but I’d never shoot someone's dream down like that.”

June let out a disappointed sigh. “That’s why I think it’s best for her to go online and post this up on a web novel website and start there. You can make a name for yourself as Dragonlordess or whatever. Then you’ll have a chance at being discovered.”

That sounded easy. Like, too easy.

“I bet everyone’s doing that,” I guessed.

“Yes,” June nodded. “But, people are always looking for new things to read, and don’t underestimate how much they’re willing to burn through in an afternoon.”

She had a point. I could read through a 300,000 word novel over a week, and I was a slow reader. I could only imagine how much faster others are.

“But how do I get noticed if so many people are posting at the same time?” I asked.

“The more you keep posting, and the more the quality keeps going up, the more likely you’ll start to grow a following,” she smiled and patted the top of my computer. “A good cover and a blurb are essential too.”

“Whatever happened to not judging a book by its cover?” I asked.

“That’s not true and it's never been.” June said, matter of factly.

“How are we going to make a cover that captures my greatness?” Cal asked, standing in the evening sunlight coming through the window.

I picked up a digital camera from my desk and took a majestic picture of Cal.

“Done,” I said with a proud smile.

“Well, that’s one way to do it, I guess…” June chuckled. “We can edit it tonight.”

June sounded like a real expert on this. Almost like she’d done it before, but I knew for a fact she never published anything in her life.

“Where did you learn this?” I asked her.

“I couldn’t sleep, so I just looked up what people were doing online,” she stuck out her tongue. “Come on, Auri. Get those edits done. I think I have a place where we can post this up tonight. It's called...”