Hello again, old friends!

[AngryGames]

Hey, everyone. I just found this forum after finally getting back to work (severe life disruption, from house flooding, to serious illness, to very recent divorce). As I was browsing the old hangout (KB), I noticed it was very, very different than I remembered. After a bit of rooting around, I saw quite a few author posts from their blogs that said this is the new place for cool people to congregate.

I don't know if I'm cool enough, but I guess we'll find out soon enough. For everyone I recognize (or recognizes my username), I missed you all very much, even if we disagreed on this or that. I'm very excited to get back in the mix, though I'll be able to write part-time for the next 18 months as I've decided to return to school and finish my Creative Writing degree (and a minor in English).

Anyway, good to see there's a new place to call home, and hope to interact with everyone as the days go by!

Travis

[LilyBLily]

Welcome! We don't get as many absolute beginners as KBoards, or as many commercials, but otherwise we and they are probably two sides of the same coin. (Granted, it could be Two-Face's coin.) We're looking for answers to questions we don't know about yet. Some familiar names pop up in both places.

The fact is, life happens, and writers--especially those without external contracted deadlines--can't always act like machines and just churn out the work. I hope you're finding the writing part of your life smooth sailing now after so much turmoil.

[AngryGames]

Thanks for the welcome!

I'm a survivor, and even though life has been full of turmoil recently, writing and editing has been the one true constant (other than my 4 worthless cats!) that has kept me going through all of it. I am excited to finally finish my degree, something I should have done twenty years ago (or even a decade ago when I went back to school for the 3rd time). I don't feel that I need a degree to be competent and skilled at writing/editing, but I'm a firm believer that learning and practice will always improve my own abilities. Plus, almost every "dream" job I look at (video game industry, my secondary passion) requires a BA even though I meet all other qualifications.

I'm just happy to see a lot of my old forum pals (and even the nemesis? nemeses? arch-villains? heh) and hope to annoy--er I mean have a good laugh with them ;).

[PJ Post]

Sorry...life sucks sometimes, but it's good to see you again.

[Jeff Tanyard]

Hey, Travis.   

severe life disruption, from house flooding, to serious illness, to very recent divorce

Dang, man.  Sorry to hear about all that.   

[Maggie Ann]

Welcome! Always good to see a familiar face/name join us.

[Simon Haynes]

Thanks for the welcome!

I'm a survivor, and even though life has been full of turmoil recently, writing and editing has been the one true constant (other than my 4 worthless cats!) that has kept me going through all of it. I am excited to finally finish my degree, something I should have done twenty years ago (or even a decade ago when I went back to school for the 3rd time). I don't feel that I need a degree to be competent and skilled at writing/editing, but I'm a firm believer that learning and practice will always improve my own abilities. Plus, almost every "dream" job I look at (video game industry, my secondary passion) requires a BA even though I meet all other qualifications.

I'm just happy to see a lot of my old forum pals (and even the nemesis? nemeses? arch-villains? heh) and hope to annoy--er I mean have a good laugh with them ;).

Just FYI, but both my daughters work in IT, one of them in the mining industry (programming truck and equipment simulators), the other as an animator for computer games and movies. One has yet to finish her degree, the other was already working while she finished hers. They're 21 and 24, btw.

I only mention this because a degree might not be essential in all cases, but of course it'll vary depending on where you live. Doing the degree is still very useful because of the contacts, the opportunity to gain work experience while studying, and so on.

Anyway, being recently-separated myself, I sympathise. I'm treating it like a new beginning, and hopefully everything will work out for you.

[AngryGames]

About 98% of the jobs I have looked at so far in the gaming industry require a BA. The 2% that do not are generally the lowest paying jobs (game testers).

I have the writing qualifications, the gaming experience, but I don't have that degree, and it sucks. But I want to finish my degree because I'll be the first person in my family's history to receive one, because I'll finally have proved to myself and everyone else I have the discipline and drive to do it, and of course, because it's basically required for any decent-paying job these days. Sure, I could probably get my foot in the door without a degree if I was close friends with someone on the inside of one of these companies, but as of right now, I don't.

And I'm still writing books, but with the market flooded by a billion authors and spammers, with Amazon changing their algo, the near impossibility of getting a BookBub ad (I've had 1 in 4 or 5 years)... I'm not really making a living even with 30 titles, and without a steady income, I can't afford to spam all of the minor promo sites to get some traction. I've got a Barbarian ad on July 3, and a Butterfly ad 14-23, so that will hopefully help, but those two pretty much drained my slush fund as I've been left the house and I absolutely have to keep up on the bills. I could always sell the house, it's worth 2.2x what we paid for it (and we put $62k down payment so I'd come out waaaay ahead), but mortgage is only $794/mo and I can't even rent an apartment here that is 1/3 the size for less than $1200/mo.

Anyway, just babbling, trying to stay motivated. Guess I better go and change all my prices to $.99 for this promo that starts tomorrow ;).

[Simon Haynes]

I know where you're coming from - I have just over 20 books out there, and I make ends meet but then I live pretty frugally. (By choice, I should add.)

I've had three bookbubs in the past 8 months, two of them worldwide, one international only. The first, with the boxed set, was really big, the other two not so much. There's no magic handshake, I just apply every month, cycling between different books. After something has been rejected 2-3 times, I change the blurb and the cover and try again a month later.

I also write under a pen name, with four books in KU, and I'm about to do a couple of paid promos on one of them for the first time ever. Not expecting much, but then I wrote and published these and basically ignored them. I still refresh the covers and blurbs now and then, but I'm interested to see whether the promo does anything.

[notthatamanda]

About 98% of the jobs I have looked at so far in the gaming industry require a BA. The 2% that do not are generally the lowest paying jobs (game testers).

I have the writing qualifications, the gaming experience, but I don't have that degree, and it sucks. But I want to finish my degree because I'll be the first person in my family's history to receive one, because I'll finally have proved to myself and everyone else I have the discipline and drive to do it, and of course, because it's basically required for any decent-paying job these days. Sure, I could probably get my foot in the door without a degree if I was close friends with someone on the inside of one of these companies, but as of right now, I don't.

And I'm still writing books, but with the market flooded by a billion authors and spammers, with Amazon changing their algo, the near impossibility of getting a BookBub ad (I've had 1 in 4 or 5 years)... I'm not really making a living even with 30 titles, and without a steady income, I can't afford to spam all of the minor promo sites to get some traction. I've got a Barbarian ad on July 3, and a Butterfly ad 14-23, so that will hopefully help, but those two pretty much drained my slush fund as I've been left the house and I absolutely have to keep up on the bills. I could always sell the house, it's worth 2.2x what we paid for it (and we put $62k down payment so I'd come out waaaay ahead), but mortgage is only $794/mo and I can't even rent an apartment here that is 1/3 the size for less than $1200/mo.

Anyway, just babbling, trying to stay motivated. Guess I better go and change all my prices to $.99 for this promo that starts tomorrow ;).

Good luck on your promo.

Side note: Would a game company pay for a tester to get their degree?  Back when I worked in corporate there were two CAD designers who got Bachelors in Engineering with the company paying for it and then went into the EIT program when they were done.  I know a lot of people who got their masters paid for that way too.

[AngryGames]

I doubt they would pay for a degree while working as a tester. Game testers are at the bottom of the ladder, and receive the lowest wage. Here in Boise, I did get an offer from a local company but they wanted to pay $7.50/hour, which is absolutely ridiculous (and they seemed offended when I said no thanks, I need to make more than that). For companies based out of Seattle / LA / Bay Area, the wage generally runs $15-23/hour, but that's basically the equivalent of $7.50/hr here in Boise as those places are outrageously expensive to live in.

The jobs within the industry I'm interested in are purely writing-based (scripts, plots, dialog, quests, etc). They won't even look at my application without a BA. The one company that I was able to submit an app to is ZeniMax (Fallout / Elder Scrolls), but I haven't heard back from them in a week so I'm assuming they weren't interested.

To be honest, I just want to finish my degree after 20+ years of multiple stints in college. Got my FAFSA approved and am selling off all of my musical equipment (developing arthritis in my hands/fingers so that stuff is pretty much useless to me now). Even if I don't go into the game industry and decide to teach/tutor instead, I'll have that piece of paper that says I finished college. Plus, just about any job now requires a degree, even if it isn't a degree in the subject matter they want. It's more that they're sure I have the discipline and dedication to finish what I started.

Anyway, sorry again for babbling. Filling out all kinds of apps and submissions for editing/proofreading jobs to generate some extra income. Even made a thread here in hopes sci-fi editors are still a rare breed as that genre is my passion ;).

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

Welcome back to the fold