B&A Writers: True/False Survey?

[Gemi]

Random true/false survey for writers:

1) If a writer describes his work as the next ___ (already existing work), it is likely a copy-cat version/fan fiction.

2) If you can't discovery write then you're more pragmatic than creative.

3) There should be a measure of book quality beyond critical reviews and the NY times best sellers list

4) Electronic publishing will flood the market with so much low quality work that publishers will begin to offer more money for better quality writers (This is clearly subjective and can't be measured by fallacy/fact but answer based on your opinion)

5) Your book is written/constructed at better quality than some notable writers who received critical acclaim.

6) It doesn't matter how hard a writer works, they should not be published unless it meets publishable quality. End of.

7) You are anxious to talk about your story to a trusted friend but hate listening to plot synopsis by over anxious acquaintances.

8) Writing is your winning lottery ticket.

9) You aged 40 years overnight and developed instantaneous Alzheimer's. Stumbling on your latest story that you don't remember writing, you read through it and see that it's not very good. You criticize whoever wrote it for the errors they made.

10) If you don't get your story out into the world, your legacy, your very individual thoughts and observations of life will be gone. That's a scary thought.

11) A publisher agrees to publish your book but printing mistakes are made to the point where the typos negatively impact your sales, and thus..impacts your contract (and how many future books they print). You would sue the publisher and find a new one.

12) Your book was finally published and did better than you ever expected. 7 months after your book's release, a competitor released their own novel and it has remarkable similarities to your own story. You would contact your publisher and agent to discuss potential copyright infringement.

13) You worked several years on your controversial story. It was finally published and received critical acclaim. But following its release, a very similar event occurred in real life, triggering outrage by readers (and conspiracy theorists who claimed you were somehow involved with the horrible event). Out of respect for the social upheaval and fan reactions, you take your book out of print.


Bonus Question:

1) If you could shrink a large animal into a lap animal, what would it be and why?
2) What is your favorite music era?
3) If something else could change colors in the autumn, what would you want it to be (other than leaves/plants?)

[Graham Giddy]

You are correct in quite a few of your assumptions. I am on my third book now and my second book had a chance of being published by an American publisher providing I cut it down by 20,000 words. I said no and published it and the reviews are great but the sales will be ordinary. The point am making is the fact I wrote it,then i should have it published the way it is, My next book out will be a huge success but this time I will self publish again but on my own. I don't write for the money, it has cost me a small fortune, I write for the love of it.

[Momoehoney]

1.)True
2.)True
3.)True
4.)True
5.)VERY TRUE
6.)True
7.)True
8.)Not quite true
9.)False
10.)Almost true
11.)Maybe
12.)True
13.)NEVER!

Bonus questions
1.)Any breed of giant cat
2.)The Classical period
3.) Animals and hair

[★☆ L⁴☆★]

1) If a writer describes his work as the next ___ (already existing work), it is likely a copy-cat version/fan fiction.

True. Maybe only in premise, not in actual plot.

2) If you can't discovery write then you're more pragmatic than creative.

False. Maybe some people don't know how to tap into that creativity
.
3) There should be a measure of book quality beyond critical reviews and the NY times best sellers list

True.

4) Electronic publishing will flood the market with so much low quality work that publishers will begin to offer more money for better quality writers (This is clearly subjective and can't be measured by fallacy/fact but answer based on your opinion)

True. It's already happening.

5) Your book is written/constructed at better quality than some notable writers who received critical acclaim.

True. But I am trying to match my story telling skills. Twilight, anyone?

6) It doesn't matter how hard a writer works, they should not be published unless it meets publishable quality. End of story.

True. That's like saying I should be a professional athlete just because I am dedicated and hard working even if I can't perform to the standard set.

7) You are anxious to talk about your story to a trusted friend but hate listening to plot synopsis by over anxious acquaintances.

True.

8) Writing is your winning lottery ticket.

Yes, and editing. Even if I don't become a published author, I will seek a career in professional editing. And if that doesn't work, I am going to use my English degree (I'm a junior in University) to become a high school English teacher or Creative Writing professor.

9) You aged 40 years overnight and developed instantaneous Alzheimer's. Stumbling on your latest story that you don't remember writing, you read through it and see that it's not very good. You criticize whoever wrote it for the errors they made.

True.

10) If you don't get your story out into the world, your legacy, your very individual thoughts and observations of life will be gone. That's a scary thought.

True. Writing and story telling is the one thing truly excel at. I've tried my hand at clarinet playing, dancing, gymnastics, cheering, marching band, and drawing. It's safe to say my strong suit is, without about doubt, my writing.

11) A publisher agrees to publish your book but printing mistakes are made to the point where the typos negatively impact your sales, and thus..impacts your contract (and how many future books they print). You would sue the publisher and find a new one.

I'm not sure. On one hand, an author has to proof their novel one final time before it hits the shelves, so that would fall upon them not to have noticed the mistakes. On the other hand, a publisher should never be that neglectful and I doubt they would take on a project that is full of errors.

12) Your book was finally published and did better than you ever expected. 7 months after your book's release, a competitor released their own novel and it has remarkable similarities to your own story. You would contact your publisher and agent to discuss potential copyright infringement.

True. It also depends on how similar it is. If its things like universal plots, then no. If it is something specific to my novel, yes.

13) You worked several years on your controversial story. It was finally published and received critical acclaim. But following its release, a very similar event occurred in real life, triggering outrage by readers (and conspiracy theorists who claimed you were somehow involved with the horrible event). Out of respect for the social upheaval and fan reactions, you take your book out of print

False. I am not responsible for such things.

Bonus Question:

1) If you could shrink a large animal into a lap animal, what would it be and why?

An orca, maybe.

2) What is your favorite music era?

I love all music, really.

3) If something else could change colors in the autumn, what would you want it to be (other than leaves/plants?)

The sun and sky.

[Dynamicable564]

1. False, though I do automatically assume it sucks. In my experience, arrogance is rarely followed by something that is good cause for said arrogance.
2. False. Just because you like to plan doesn't mean you aren't creative.
3. False, but only because I don't care what critics and the public say about the things I enjoy.
4. True, I suppose. Sounds plausible. Of course, I know next to nothing about the publishing market.
5. False. I think my writing pretty much sucks.
6. True. Hard work doesn't make up for bad quality, and no one seeing the book in a store is going to give a darn how hard the writer worked. Of course, there are always exceptions, but I don't care to get into those at the moment.
7. False! I'm always interested in others' ideas! I find them fascinating.
8. False. Completely and utterly false.
9. True, probably. Like I said, I think my writing is kind of terrible.
10. False. I don't need the world to know me. I write purely for my own enjoyment. Not to say it wouldn't be wonderful to be published!
11. True, except I likely wouldn't sue. I dislike the idea of suing.
12. True. Though I might end up doing nothing about the "copycat," it never hurts to be prepared.
13. True, in most situations.

Bonus:
1. A deer. How great would it be to have a perpetually tiny deer living in your house? Especially one with itty bitty antlers (though it would be rather unpleasant when they fell off every year...). I just think deer are adorable, I don't have much other reason why, haha.
2. The sixties.
3. Rocks. I think it would be great if when the leaves started turning red and yellow and brown, rocks and dirt would start turning into cool colors, like greens and blues. It would be a nice contrast.

[Joss]

1) No. It depends on the context in which the writer is describing. Does it has the sense of humor as current hit? Does it have the writing style of current hit? And, many authors say 'it'll be the next Current Hit' to mean they think their book's sales will be just as great if not better, not necessarily that the books have anything in common.

3) Best sellers list isn't a measure of quality, just a measure of sales and i've never heard anyone say XYZ is a NYT or USA Today best seller so that means the book must be great quality. Otherwise, no, I think reviews, especially academic reviews, can be a good measure of quality. depends though, on who's doing the review.

4) No. Publishers are already paying writers less money, but mostly due to the economy. there will always be the writers who'll want the advance and editing (and sometimes marketing) publishers give without the author coming too much out of pocket, so I don't think there will be a shortage of writers who want to commercially publish. And it can be measured because authors and literary agents will start noticing when they're getting less money and literary agents can pin point the problem by talking to editors who'll tell them why less money is being offered. & epublishing does not = self-publishing. Trade publisher publish ebooks too and some have ebook only imprints. But, self-publishing has always been flooded with bad books, hence the bad rep, but since it's much easier to self-publish an ebook, more great writers are choosing to self-publish their books, so publisher's will eventually have to be more open to self-published authors, but I think it'll still depend on sales, and they'd have to really offer something to the more successful self-published authors if pubs want those authors to choose them over self-publishing, and I know of some authors who turned down traditional pub contracts because the pub didn't offer enough iincentive for the author to give up everything s/he build self-pubbing.

5) No, or I'd be published right now.

6) The publisher decides on publishable quality and it might be different at each publisher. But, more goes into and money is always the bottom line, so no. If I owned a publishing company, I wouldn't care if a book met my publishing quality if I thought it could be a huge success. Plus, if the book is really bad, then I'd make an agreement with the author to have it ghostwritten. But, really, no one has a crystal ball to know when something will be a success.

11) probably wouldn't bother suing the publisher, IF I'm able to - your contract indemnifies teh publisher and its associates, and I'm assuming in cases like this. So, you might not be able to even sue over this issue. I'm not too picky about it. Mistakes happen, and I've never heard of typos interfering with a book's sales. It's not just the publisher who's responsible for this, the author is responsible for going taking one last pass through his book for exactly this reason, so the author will also be responsible for a book full of typos. Charlaine Harris's editors didn't catch the discrepancies in her plots from book to book in the Sookie Stackhouse novels, so Harris ended up hiring someone to read her books and keep track of the plots for her. And I think plot flaws are worse than typos.

12) It depends. There's nothing wrong with it. I'd contact my publisher, though, not my agent.

13) Is this a question??? or a statement?? No, I wouldn't agree to have my book taken out of print. It would be solely up to the publisher anyway, but publishers don't bend too easily to peer pressure, and all the publicity might actually spike book sales because people will want to know what all the hype is about. But, I don't write those kinds of violent books anyway, so this probably wouldn't apply.

[cathrl69]

1) True

2) I have no idea what "discovery writing" is

3) Um, how? False.

4) They already do.

5) False. It's better constructed than some notable writers, but they're the ones who received critical panning.

6) True

7) False - I always feel bad, even if I'm asking them for specific information on an area of their expertise and not plotdumping on them at all.

8) False - I doubt I'll ever make a fortune from it.

9) True, I imagine, since I already reread my own work to try to find all the errors.

10) False - I do it for fun.

11) I wouldn't submit to a publisher whose booke were't high quality.

12) I'd expect my publisher to be making these decisions. I also know I don't own my ideas.

13) Honestly? If it was something extremely distressing, I might. Not because of fan reaction, though.

I did bin a story idea (it was about terrorists taking over a school and taking large numbers of small children hostage) after Beslan.

[Steven J Pemberton]

1) If a writer describes his work as the next ___ (already existing work), it is likely a copy-cat version/fan fiction. True if the writer says it (maybe not if someone else says it)

2) If you can't discovery write then you're more pragmatic than creative. (Discovery writing = polite term for making it up as you go along.) Maybe.

3) There should be a measure of book quality beyond critical reviews and the NY times best sellers list. Maybe. We already have sites like Goodreads.

4) Electronic publishing will flood the market with so much low quality work that publishers will begin to offer more money for better quality writers (This is clearly subjective and can't be measured by fallacy/fact but answer based on your opinion) True for the first part but false for the second. There's already a lot of crap out there, but it's hard to find unless you go looking for it.

5) Your book is written/constructed at better quality than some notable writers who received critical acclaim. I couldn't possibly comment.

6) It doesn't matter how hard a writer works, they should not be published unless it meets publishable quality. End of. False. It made sense in the days of physical bookshops, who had limited shelf space and so had to stock what they thought would make the most money. Online bookshops have no limit on shelf space, and the cost of adding a book to their catalogue is next to zero, so there's no compelling reason to keep anyone out. Had you said, "They should not be *read* unless they meet publishable quality," I'd agree.

7) You are anxious to talk about your story to a trusted friend but hate listening to plot synopsis by over anxious acquaintances. Not really.

8) Writing is your winning lottery ticket. False. I enjoy writing, most of the time, but I doubt I'll ever make a living from it.

9) You aged 40 years overnight and developed instantaneous Alzheimer's. Stumbling on your latest story that you don't remember writing, you read through it and see that it's not very good. You criticize whoever wrote it for the errors they made. Probably. I feel like that now with books I wrote ten years ago.

10) If you don't get your story out into the world, your legacy, your very individual thoughts and observations of life will be gone. That's a scary thought. True.

11) A publisher agrees to publish your book but printing mistakes are made to the point where the typos negatively impact your sales, and thus..impacts your contract (and how many future books they print). You would sue the publisher and find a new one. If I sued, I would probably lose, but if they wanted to print fewer copies of the next book, I would find a new publisher if I could.

12) Your book was finally published and did better than you ever expected. 7 months after your book's release, a competitor released their own novel and it has remarkable similarities to your own story. You would contact your publisher and agent to discuss potential copyright infringement. If it came out only 7 months after mine, he couldn't have copied me, unless an insider leaked mine. But why would anyone do that?

13) You worked several years on your controversial story. It was finally published and received critical acclaim. But following its release, a very similar event occurred in real life, triggering outrage by readers (and conspiracy theorists who claimed you were somehow involved with the horrible event). Out of respect for the social upheaval and fan reactions, you take your book out of print. False. I would probably stop marketing it, or ask the publisher to stop, but probably wouldn't make it unavailable, as that would just fuel the conspiracy theories.


Bonus Question:

1) If you could shrink a large animal into a lap animal, what would it be and why? I don't know... I'm not really an animal lover.
2) What is your favorite music era? The 1980s, I suppose, as it was when I grew up.
3) If something else could change colors in the autumn, what would you want it to be (other than leaves/plants?) Buses. Just because.

[HP Wombat]

1) true

2) I don't know what that means

3) You mean like ratings on Goodreads?

4) False. Publishing companies will go the way of Hollywood and ignore quantity and quality and go completely for whatever will make them money. See "Twilight" and "50 Shades of Grey"

5) False. My book is unedited and unpublished.

6) I don't understand.

7) I don't understand this either.

8) Sort of!

9) I do this even without alzheimers lol

10) True? I mean, if I don't get published I'll self publish for my family and try to keep my ideas alive at least through them.

11) False. I don't think this could ever happen. You aren't the one who took the financial risk to publish, the publishing company did. They hurt themselves far more than they hurt you by making such mistakes.

12) False. I'd contact my agent, who would figure all this out for me.

13) False

[Hazel]

1) If a writer describes his work as the next ___ (already existing work), it is likely a copy-cat version/fan fiction.

False. When I hear the term "the next" I figure they mean it's going to be just as popular, or a new craze. Sometimes "the next" has nothing to do with plots at all.

2) If you can't discovery write then you're more pragmatic than creative.

False. Creativity works differently for different people.

3) There should be a measure of book quality beyond critical reviews and the NY times best sellers list

True. There should.

4) Electronic publishing will flood the market with so much low quality work that publishers will begin to offer more money for better quality writers (This is clearly subjective and can't be measured by fallacy/fact but answer based on your opinion)

False. It makes sense, I don't doubt it could happen. It's just easier to think things will just stay the same.

5) Your book is written/constructed at better quality than some notable writers who received critical acclaim.

False. I wish it was though.

6) It doesn't matter how hard a writer works, they should not be published unless it meets publishable quality. End of.

True. I have never read an awful book and then thought, "Oh well, I'm sure they tried really hard to make it interesting." I can appreciate how tough it is to write a novel since I've done it, but I don't think every writer should be published.

7) You are anxious to talk about your story to a trusted friend but hate listening to plot synopsis by over anxious acquaintances.

False. I do enjoy talking about my story to a friend, but I like listening to other people's plot synopsis.

8) Writing is your winning lottery ticket.

False? I'm not sure exactly what this means. But to me, it's not the same.

9) You aged 40 years overnight and developed instantaneous Alzheimer's. Stumbling on your latest story that you don't remember writing, you read through it and see that it's not very good. You criticize whoever wrote it for the errors they made.

True. I have always wished I could reread my novels without a bias.

10) If you don't get your story out into the world, your legacy, your very individual thoughts and observations of life will be gone. That's a scary thought.

True. I suppose. But that really doesn't bother me much, I'm a private person, so dying with all that a mystery wouldn't bother me.

11) A publisher agrees to publish your book but printing mistakes are made to the point where the typos negatively impact your sales, and thus..impacts your contract (and how many future books they print). You would sue the publisher and find a new one.

True/False. I don't know about the suing part. Sounds confrontational and drastic, two things of which I am not. Find a new publisher would be a must though.

12) Your book was finally published and did better than you ever expected. 7 months after your book's release, a competitor released their own novel and it has remarkable similarities to your own story. You would contact your publisher and agent to discuss potential copyright infringement.

True. Copyright infringement and plagiarism happens, no harm in making sure.

13) You worked several years on your controversial story. It was finally published and received critical acclaim. But following its release, a very similar event occurred in real life, triggering outrage by readers (and conspiracy theorists who claimed you were somehow involved with the horrible event). Out of respect for the social upheaval and fan reactions, you take your book out of print.

This greatly depends. True if it wasn't released to the public yet. False if it was already printed and read by many.

Bonus Question:

1) If you could shrink a large animal into a lap animal, what would it be and why?
Cheetah, because they're so darn cute, I just want to snuggle one.

2) What is your favorite music era?
Uh, I don't know. I like music from all times, I don't really have a certain time where I thought music was better.

3) If something else could change colors in the autumn, what would you want it to be (other than leaves/plants?)
The sky. How interesting it would be to look up into the sky and go huh the sky is pink, autumn is here.