writing

About six weeks ago I released my first novel, Aure the Topaz, book 1 of the Aglaril Cycle.

Since then I've gotten feedback from readers (friends of mine) who say this is a gaming novel. And while I understand that fantasy RPG players will probably pick up a few ideas on how to play and react to situations (GMs too, btw), I don't know that I would call it a gaming novel.

The argument for it being a gaming novel is that the characters have classes like in D&D. But ...

I recently had an interesting lesson on how much description is enough.

My writing group reviewed the first chapter of my novel. One of the reviewers suggested that I start with the dialog I had, skipping all the description I had written to set the scene.

I then posted the chapter in several places on the web and got the same reaction. Given this, I decided there was something to these comments so I revised the first three paragraphs and reposted the chapter.
...

As my work on my first novel draws to close, I've begun to look at the options for publication. One of the things I discovered was that even if I can sell the book to a publishing house, there's a good chance I'll still need to promote it myself because money is tight and, as I understand it, many houses aren't promoting first-time authors as much.

That said, it seems to me that I need to be novelist, marketing guru, artist, web designer, cinematographer, podcaster, blogger, and several ...

That's the question. I guess the answer is it depends. It depends on who is writing, whether readers can find it, does it have anything interesting to say.

I will be interested to see if this one works, if I get comments back, etc.

I ask only because I've been thinking to publish my first book as blog if it doesn't sell. I suppose that putting the horse behind the cart. I'll investigate that possibility if it comes to that.