So, this is actually for my partner, who doesn't use social media at all, but she's written a book, and is working on more, but is really struggling getting anything at all from publishing companies. Rare to even get a 'no' response, mostly just ghosting.
Not sure if anyone has any kind of advice; she did set up a website, and has some of the first few chapters posted, and is perhaps considering giving the webserial format a try. But in general, struggling with mental health of having accomplished a cool thing, and now doing the 'business' side of it, and realizing how soulcrushing it all is.
A loooot of the authors we've seen talk about getting their start either knew a publisher already, or had a family connection, and its pretty hard to not feel cynical, even if the authors are genuinely good writers.
FWIW, genre is basically YA fantasy, but gayer.
Sounds like she knows what she's doing more than any of us clowns. All I can offer is this great blog post by John McCrae (known as Wildbow) who is the most successful web serial author out there. This person has been writing full time and living only off crowd funding for like 7 years.
https://wildbow.wordpress.com/2017/05/22/thoughts-on-writing-serials
I'm actually a huge Wildbow fan haha, though thanks a lot for the link; hadn't actually seen that writeup before.
They're a real GOAT in a lot of ways. I'm pretty deep into the Malazan series, so I'll probably get back to Pale when it's finished. I couldn't keep up with Ward or Twig when they were releasing, prefer to read them all when finished.
Ooh, good choice, rereading Malazan again myself.