This is worth a blog post. Just a few minutes ago I finished my YA Novel – finished the first draft (although a lot of it has had a lot of iterative editing treatment). This is critical for me as it allows me to submit it to the Text YA competition – I am giving it a big go.
Now I have about two weeks to give it the editing treatment it deserves.
Wish me luck friends!
For months I have been wondering if running the self publishing wing of IFWG is worth it. Randy questioned it today and we agreed to cease it.
This is goodness of immense proportions.
As you may have read in earlier posts, and in other forums, we chose a ‘hybrid’ model of publishing that basically meant we published traditionally as well as self-publish-assisted, but on the proviso that the quality had to be of a certain standard, and we would provide strong support/assistance post publication. We still believe in it, but unfortunately this sent confusing signals to the writing public, and it can’t compete with self-publishing companies that simply publish any shit for a price.
For me, the dilemma was in the area of editing/proofing. If a book did make the grade, it nevertheless had to be edited and proofed, and the model basically said that the author had to pay for those two elements as well. This just doesn’t feature in the minds of writers – the result is stalemate with regard to publishing.
Our move to pure traditional publishing fixes this. Completely; and this is why it is goodness.
We have a long road ahead of us, but it is minus the dilemmas.
For those of you who aren’t born and bred in Australia or New Zealand, or who aren’t familiar with the ANZAC history, this might be a confusing blog entry. Perhaps I should start with a very brief, and possibly too shallow, treatment.
Australia became a nation in 1901, and while the various states had already their own identity to some extent in the Nineteenth Century, we were a very young nation, and not born from struggle. New Zealand had a longer, cohesive history and became a dominion in 1907 – NZ too was a young nation. Ties to Britain and the Empire were profound. With the advent of WWI, just like the rest of the nations comprising Empires and confederacies, Australia and New Zealand joined in, and formed the ANZACs (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) and contributed valiantly to the war effort and suffered disproportionately high losses of life, in terms of population. This savage loss, and the continuing formation of nationhood, lifted the ANZACs into legend status, and it was further consolidated with the soldiers’ efforts in WWII. To respect those who paid the ‘ultimate price’, and to honour those who served and survived, ANZAC Day was conceived. On the 25th April 1915 a large expeditionary force landed in Gallipoli in Turkey as part of the war effort, which turned into an Allied Forces disaster of epic proportions. Nevertheless, the efforts by the ANZAC troops was truly heroic and sacrificial and in 1916 the 25th April was celebrated in remembrance of their efforts. Eventually, this turned into a public holiday, celebrated in Australia and New Zealand, as well as some other island nations, and a number of traditional practices, including a dawn ceremony, marches in the city and town streets, and the playing of a (normally banned) gambling game called Two Up.
The diggers (another name for troops, and often referring to the original ANZACs) are disappearing, and the marches are not as populated as they used to be, although not to a point where they are trending to nothing. New wars are fought and returned soldiers will often march on the 25th April, and with regard to the two Great conflicts, children and grandchildren (now adults) will march instead of their ancestors.
Hmm. I made this intro longer than I planned – but I realised on the fly that this isn’t a simple thing to describe. ANZAC Day is part of Australia and New Zealand’s psyche, although there are some rumblings of discontent – and in fact the taboo of questioning the sanctity of ANZAC Day can be traced back to the 1960s. I was reading a blog yesterday where a friend of mine, Sophie, was somewhat incensed by several strong comments that were anti-war, anti-ANZAC, etc. Without trying to oversimplify her point, but in essence she was saying that the young men who died in the theatres of war were not instruments of cynicism – they simply were lives snuffed out early, and many had noble intent.
This leads to my views. I find it fascinating that it is a human predilection to generalise, to simplify, in order to convey and clarify a point. Done well, it is a powerful tool; if done badly, it either is foolish or turns into a malevolent form of propaganda. The irony is that some who feel there is no compromise on anti-war sentiment, will resort to distorted language and logic to try to make their points. Having said this, those who respect, and partake in the celebrations, can and will distort the history. For example, I cringe when I hear people talk about our ANZACs who sacrificed their lives for "your freedom" in both World Wars – not. At risk of being branded an oversimplifier myself, I see WWII as a war for one’s freedom, but WWI definitely was not – that was a positioning of cynical juggernaughts, and the Allies won.
Yes, war is cynical and often fraught with moral dilemmas, but back in the first half of the last century the typical Joe Bloggs from Adelaide, South Australia, didn’t understand all that stuff. They loved their Mother Country (England) and were strongly nationalistic. The propaganda machine had already been churning out stuff for years and it was easy to accuse the other party as being rapacious. These young men were vital and fit, and also felt there was glory in the battlefield, just as it was reinforced in the stories they read in "Boys Own Adventure" or any number of novels from the past. The glory was as much socialised into them as was their nationalism. The majority of them, if they survived the war at all, had very different views within weeks of their service in the battlefield.
I suppose what I am trying to lead to is that it is not wrong to view war as evil and cynical, but is it right to use that sledgehammer logic to slam the ANZAC tradition in its entirety? For me, when I watch those marches and hear the odd interview with a digger, I think about THEM, not the war itself. God knows that the old diggers – the original ANZACs, most long dead now, knew how wasteful WWI was – but that wasn’t the point. How could two sovereign nations institute a celebration of a military defeat? It was about sacrifice.
I’m not a rabid nationalist – but I am a proud Australian and I recognise how important ANZAC Day is – it is an important thread in the fabric of my nation’s psyche, and consequently, my own identity. I hate war and I intellectually know that WWI was one of the most wasteful losses of human life in history – with no cause other than power and positioning, and yet I shed a tear for those countless lives lost, all with the best of intent.
I intensely respect those who sacrificed their lives.
"Lest We Forget."
Yeah. TIme is the killer. Even when conscientious, it forces one to compete with priorities. It gnaws at one’s feet. I swear at it as if it is human, a bizarre anthropomorphic ritual. At times, I feel despondent.
April promises to be a good month but I wont have time to do everything I want. I have a new job within my company, which is better for free time, but it is a very good job (as day jobs goes) and I have to perform with a modicum of continuous brilliance to make the powers to be feel justified in allowing me to permanently transfer to Melbourne.
What I want (dare I say need) to also do is: have a semblance of a family life with the two most important people in my life; continue to ply my editorial/publishing skills for IFWG Publishing, which is just now bearing the first harvest of all our efforts over the last quarter; finish my Evyntyde short story anthology, which I am keen on progressing, finish my YA novel in time for the Text YA Contest – have to say, this goal is REAL important to me; and continue refining/redefining my novels and complete my next one. Whew. Lots and lots of work.
Panic aside, it is a case of prioritization, and chugging along, achieving one milestone at a time.
Just venting my spleen folks. It helps to sometimes unload on one’s friends.
March 2010 seems a good month for me (perhaps it immediately follows my birthday).
We decided to live in Melbourne a few months back, and it appears work is starting to settle into an arrangement with me so that there is more security. This is obviously good.
It looks like 3 novels will be published this month by IFWG Publishing, and all three were edited by me. This was a gigantic task, and it ate heavily into my private time as well as my own creativity.
Creatively, I have never felt better. My capabilities have improved and I believe I can take on anything. This is wonderful for my self-esteem.
Erin has mild autism, but the services to help her move into mainstream development are lining up now – the major reason for staying in Melbourne, by the way.
All is good!
Change can happen quickly. Or at least appear rapid. Over a fair number of months Jenny and I have been discussing the possibility of moving to Melbourne from our home near Canberra – yes, we have lived in Melbourne a year, but I am talking selling up and moving the last of our possessions. This process was slow, sedentary, having its own yawny pace. Then my company tells me that we have to make the decision early, and we bit the bullet – and in the space of several weeks, our home is about to go on the market, and we have already put down a holding deposit on a block of land and a new house – in Cook’s Point, Melbourne. The sad bit is that it wont be available until February 2011.
Still a lot of things to do (I wont even begin to explain about the finances), but we have now cast the dice.
This is a good feeling. I have written a lot of short stories, and to be honest, my efforts until recently have been poor in trying to get them published. I think this will change, given my recent submissions (cross fingers).
Anyway, via my good relationships in the StoryWrite web site, I have contributed 2 short stories toward this massive tome – over 400 pages, written by 41 authors. This is in fact my first publication – albeit this is a non-profit endeavour, and also this is produced via my own company (in fact I edited many of the stories). However, having read the quality of many of the stories, and the effort in producing this professionally made publication, I am happy to count this as a legitimate ‘first’ for me.
My stories are some of my best, but I deliberately steered away from my Evyntyde stories: Mariposa, which is a love/modern fantasy story, and The Sea Witch, which is a historical/horror piece.
This is non-profit – the price of the publication is for the stuff that had to be paid for to enter the marketplace – printing, ISBN, copyright, distribution and freight. So for such a big product, it is a good price. We could have spent more on the cover, and better proofing, but it would then have been too onerous a task, and would have inflated the price. It is still very good value indeed.
I hope that any who read this blog think about buying this – you WILL discover authors in there who WILL make it good in the industry (three are already publishing novels through IFWG Publishing).
If you want to order it (if you live in North America), you can go to the bio/title page of Page Dancers, or I will post in this site when it is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
I should start by wishing everyone a Happy New Year! I haven’t been blogging much for a while, which is mainly because of a holiday where I had some trouble gaining access to the Internet (only my Blackberry), but also just really busy with editing work for IFWG Publishing. Things are going well on that front.
I finished before New Year editing The Wicked Heroine, by Jasmine Giacomo – a truly excellent writer and a great fantasy novel. What sparked me to make a big decision was the fact that the novel was about 120k in length, and was part 2 of a duology. Now, I haven’t actually asked the question of her whether she originally wrote a larger work, and chose to split it, but her decision was right regardless. If there was a single universal truth about the publishing business, it would be that publishers (and consequently agents) simply don’t want to publish large tomes. Refer to this link that describes it succinctly.
So I got thinking. I always knew that my first novel, The Sceptre and the Orb, had an uphill battle, because it was 200k in length. Industry looks toward about 100k, and for fantasy, due to world building, up to about 140k. I got figuring that I needed to cut my novel into two, and do a duology, like Jasmine.
Of course, things aren’t that simple, especially if I am restructuring on the fly. I found that the obvious split point was 120k into my novel, leaving a small 80k for the second. This isn’t good. So I need to think about expanding my second half, without making it waffle.
This is my challenge. The consequence of a big decision.
Wow, just a few observations, mainly internally focused.
Last night I was doing my usual Twittering, and one of my followees retweeted something that shocked me to the core. A woman who Tweets, asked for everyone to pray for her baby who just died. I needed to know more, but I could barely make myself click the relevant links. It turned out she was in the back yard of her home and her two year old son fell in the pool and died in seconds. It absolutely killed me and I wept – hard. I can only barely imagine what she went through.
I know that since having my own child I can barely see or read about children who suffer. It wrenches my soul, because I can so easily superimpose what it might mean for me. This is what got me more than anything, but also the immediacy of it. This woman used Twitter to impart her grief, and perhaps, seek some sort of solace. I am sure it had mixed results for her, for surely nothing can give her solace, and if there is some comfort, it would be from her own family. Also, the negative side of social networking tools is that weirdos and downright evil people come out of the woodwork, and I believe this woman was hounded by a few such despicable individuals.
I suppose this blog is more about me. How I react. Tragedies occur every day, and this poor woman is one of many parents grieving due to tragedy or worse. But it showed something about me. I have become sensitive – super-sensitive to child suffering and death, and this is because I love my little daughter to bits.
I know I would trade my life for hers without hesitation.
I wrote the following in answer to a fairly similar question posed in a writing forum that I am a member of. I wrote it quickly, but when I reread it, I realized that I said a lot, with relatively few words. So, here it is!
It all depends on what you want to do with your story, and with your career.
1. You can try to publish your work through small presses – some are more picky about quality and polish than large presses, but there are also fringe/specialist presses that aren’t fussy. If you find and befriend the latter, you might be able to publish quickly. If all you want is to see your work printed with limited market penetration, this is one way to do it.
2. If you are dead keen on getting street cred in the publishing world, without compromise, you have a long journey and you should just keep trying until you get the break. In that case, it is NOT smart to show more than a few pages of your serious material in public access Internet sites (like this) – otherwise you lose what some publishers consider important – "first publishing rights".
3. You can self publish. There are options here. You can do it all yourself, buy your ISBN, get copyright, go through services like Createspace and end up spending fairly small amounts of money and you have something someone can buy through Amazon. It doesn’t market your product – that is up to you, and there is no professional polish, formatting, editing, done. For the vast majority of people who do this, they will have sub 100 units sold, the majority by you, family and friends. But you might think this is ok
4. You can self publish through a self-publishing company. They use Createspace, Booksurge, Ingram and other services, depending on how the company is set up, and many of them are mercenary. They will charge quite high for the services and they will not be fussy about the quality of your work. If your work is unpolished or (forgive me) crap, they wont care, and it will be reflected in the product. They will not edit your work unless you pay for it, and the editor isn’t always THAT good. If you pay for cover art, they will provide it. If you want it marketed, they will do it for money, otherwise, the vast majority will do nothing. Sales are rarely good, much like doing it yourself. Again, this might be what you want.
5. There are a few companies out there that offer a form of hybrid service – you pay them to publish you, and they look after full service, and may even refuse to publish you until a minimum standard is met, despite the client’s willingness to pay. This is the best of both worlds. Again, sales are not necessarily great, but at least you are given the equipment to optimise your chances.
With regard to self publishing, it has a lot to do with the final product. How good it is. Traditional publishers will openly say that a self-published work spells the doom of the title ever transferring into traditional publication. Bullshit. Matthew Reilly, Christopher Paolini and Grisham are examples of the contrary. The fact is that if you sell between about 2000 and 5000 units, agents and publishers will start showing interest. Having said this, boy do you have to work to get your stuff marketed, and also… it has to be good. There is no quick way there.
Also, those of you who want to hold out to get the traditional path break – think long and hard about that too. Luck aside (hey, I would like to win Lottery too), it is a long journey. Most specialised small presses will publish you but is it success? Look at the quality of their work – many are as nearly appalling as most self-published works. Limited. Almost worthless.
Now to dispel the biggest myths. First, if you actually get the break and publish your work through a tradpublisher, don’t give up your day job. On average, a successful writer needs about 10 novels drawing in royalties before a reasonable income can be got. Secondly, when a traditional publisher offers to publish you, they will probably invest about 50K worth of print run (about 5000 units) and spread it among the 120,000 outlets (work that out) and then they will wait and see. Most outlets will try a new author/title out for about a week or two, and if no sale, they will return it for pulping. If it isn’t received well within about 2 weeks, a publisher will simply let the title go to pasture – and the publisher owns the rights to the novel, so the author can’t do anything with it, except try to drum up interest. That’s it, you see, tradpub or not, new writers need to do the work. Publishers will not invest marketing money (beyond about 10k) if your name isn’t Dan Brown.
So where do you go? I think it is relatively simple. You give yourself every chance possible to get your name out there, and do it smartly. Most self-publishing activities, if handled well – the right publisher, the right polish, the right marketing, and the right product – has to be good, will never harm your chances to get traditionally published, but at least you get a foot into the industry and you LEARN from it.
Research every step of the way.
The Chronicles of Evyntyde 