Tag: publishing

Half Year Report: New Year’s Resolutions

Oh dear, the dreaded report card. Let’s see how I went:

  1. Be a more tolerant dad. My daughter has High Functioning Autism and, well, anyone who knows what I and my wife goes through, knows what I mean. Report: I think I can say I am making headroom here. It’s about education – the more I learn about the condition, and the more I interact with other families who have an ASD child/ren, the more I can adjust my own behaviors. I can say, a big part of this whole process is about the parent’s behavior, not the child’s.
  2. Be a great dad and husband. I hope this is the case – this is one my wife can only answer 🙂
  3. Lose weight. I have never been heavier, and so my goal for the year is to lose 20kgs. That’s a tough one. Very tough. No comment, which suggests I am doing badly. I have a big job ahead of me over the next 6 months 😦
  4. Read more. As a writer I need to read – one of the cornerstones of being good at the craft (target: 24 books) On track 🙂
  5. Outline Bitter Creek by December 2011 (or perhaps do much more). Not done, but still in schedule.
  6. Revise The Scepter and the Orb by September 2011 (first Evyntyde novel). Ditto
  7. Write 3 additional short stories and finalize/publish my Evyntyde anthology, Tales from the Chronicles of Evyntyde – by June 2011. Wrote 1, 2 to go. This tells me I have to pull my finger out.
  8. Complete first draft of my second Evyntyde novel, Crystal Peak. Not done, but in the schedule.
  9. Write at least 12 short stories in 2011. Ahead of schedule 🙂
  10. Qualify for membership of the SFWA. Always going to be difficult. Zero so far. We will see.
  11. Addendum – write and complete YA Dystopian novela, The Comfort of Beanbags. Stalled. Will have to work hard to get this going.

What can I say? The ones that really really mattered are on track, except weight loss, and I have some ambitious goals that still need hard work. I will report again September 1.

Cover Reveal for Anthology of Ichor III: Gears of Damnation

It would appear that Anthology of Ichor III: Gears of Damnation, will be released on time in April 2011. My short story, The Happy Mouth, is one of the 14 short stories contained therein (along with 2 full length novels) totaling to 550 pages. A large tome (tomb?) indeed.

Thanks to Unearthed Press for including my Mythos story into their project.

So here's the cover – pretty full on; I like it.

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Published: She Has Been Here

A revamped short story of mine, She Has Been Here, has been published by The Fringe Magazine (ezine, and it has been chosen to be published in pdf format at a later date). This has two important features to it, for me. Firstly, She Has Been Here is one of those stories where I have a a special love for, and so I am pleased indeed to publish it. I had trouble publishing it over some time, in part because it is very hard to classify – is it a love story? A fantasy? A ghost story? Historical Fiction? Maybe all, perhaps even more. I also have to admit that I have become a better writer (hey, practice makes perfect), and with a small polish, it is a better story – I can thank a few editors from other magazines who rejected my story, and taking the trouble to say a few words of constructive criticism.

The second reason why I am especially pleased is because The Fringe is an Australian magazine – remarkably, my first Australian publishing effort.
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Editing Progress: Ian Hall’s Opportunities: Jamie Leith in Darién

In my role as editor in IFWG Publishing, I have the pleasure of working with new titles coming through our pipeline. I certainly can add Ian Hall’s Opportunities: Jamie Leith in Darién, as one of them. I’m at just over 80% through the copy editing phase, and then we turn it over to the proofing cycles.

IFWGP is a speculative fiction specialist publisher, but we don’t mind delving into other genres, on occasion. Ian’s work is quite long – around 200k, but this is not uncommon for historical fiction.  There is a tendency for historical titles to have a bit more meat to it, and oh, what a delightful repast it is! I have to say it is difficult indeed to refrain from divulging what happens in detail – but let may say this: it has it all. "All in what way?" you may ask. My response is simple – "what do you expect to happen in an adventure set in 1699 with a heck of a lot of sea voyaging?" In the Caribbean. *smirky grin*
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Aurealis Magazine – Poor PR

Something interesting for you Australian specfic writers, or those who are interested in Aurealis Magazine. Their editor has retired and they are closed to submissions. Those who submitted prior to the closure are totally in the dark – every query gets a stock standard blurb which makes no statement on the status of pre-closure submissions.

Their PR is poor indeed.

I sent an email query to the editor email address as well as another, generic address. When I got the following, I sent an email back to a ‘Stephen’, and got exactly the same blurb back. They are clearly not reading their email AT ALL.

Here is an image of the blurb. Try to work out how it responds to a query about what the status of pre-closure emails are about:

With the retirement of current editor, Stuart Mayne, the publishers of Aurealis, are taking the
opportunity to restructure and improve the magazine. The new look Aurealis will be in place by the end
of 2011. In the meantime, AurealisXpress, our monthly e-bulletin for subscribers will continue. We
will be open for story submissions again around the middle of the year. Updates will be published in
AurealisXpress and on the website http://www.aurealis.com.au.

All orders (books, back issues etc.) will continue to be processed as usual.

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Submission Acceptance: The Bond

Nice turnover.

My steampunk short story, The Bond, has been accepted by Rune Wright, in their Penny Dread Tales Vol 1:  Gears, Coils, Aether & Steam anthology. Their cover is pretty amazing – you can catch a glimpse in the submissions page (they are still asking for submissions) – http://www.runewright.com/submissions.html

I wrote the short on 8 March.

Next 😉
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Growth of ebook sales

I found this interesting information regarding ebook sales – a definite trend here.

Got this via @namenick on Twitter, who in turn, got it from Infographic

Note that 2010 and 2011 figures are estimated, but on good data. All data is based on reports from 14 top publishers, to the Association of American Publishers.

Year US$M
2002 5.7
2003 7.3
2004 9.5
2005 10.6
2006 20.0
2007 31.8
2008 44.5
2009 165.8
2010 439.2
2011 724.2