Tag: writing

Young Adult novel to be published

It took eighteen months longer than planned, but I have completed my Young Adult novel, Guardian of the Sky Realms.This story has an amazing origin, starting off as a short story inspired by a painting, and now it is a polished novel of 62k in length.

It only needs final proofing and a cover – I have been in touch with the artist who painted Wings in the past, and I am now trying to negotiate the use of her painting as my cover. It is only fitting, and it will look spectacular.

Well, I am guessing this will be published in October. Wish me luck!

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Turning Points

This title isn’t meant to be an oblique and very ‘in’ joke referring to my friend Jack Eason’s novel in progress. Rather it refers to something real happening to me and my co-owned company, IFWG Publishing. It amazes me how often when something important happens, or not happens, it seems to clump together with other things following the same pattern. I suppose one could call these punctuated moments on someone’s time line, as being a turning point.

Over the last week some ugly things happened in my day job (‘day jobbe" as Jay Lake would call it), but not in terms of job security, more in terms of forces majeur affecting professional outcomes. I was assigned a six month job with an engineering firm to put their house in order, but unfortunately internal politics will probably unravel all of my work. We will see ( 🙂 )

I didn’t get short listed in the Text YA Writing Contest. This was disappointing, but hey, am used to it. It is a long journey to get regular acceptances – have to deal with it. I will, of course, now actively try to get Guardian of the Sky Realms published, or actively represented.

In terms of my company (my night jobbe), had a big breakthrough yesterday – Paul Goat Allen, an excellent and respected spec fic blogger-reviewer, actually reviewed Jack Eason’s Onet’s Tale, and provided good words, a mix of positive and constructive statements. This also reflects on the company, and this is all very good for all of us. I am hoping we have an ongoing relationship with Paul.

Finally, the company has matured sufficiently where we had to make decisions about the scope of our work. We chose to narrow our genre focus to non-fiction, children/YA stories, and spec fic – with some narrowing in that field as well. Of course, we are, and will continue to, support those authors we have committed to who are outside of this new scope.

So…a lot happened and I guess I could last week a turning point.

Finally

Finally completed polish of Guardian of the Sky Realms. Jenny will post to Text Publishing for their YA Contest tomorrow. Friday is the deadline.

Took longer to write due to distractions, hence the small margin for error… but very satisfied with the results. 60k of what I think is original, exciting adventure – now to convince others!

Will do a little editing this month and then… wow, back to my Evyntyde novels!

A Good Day

Yes, a very good day.

My short story, David Rorshach’s Dream Comes True, was published today in Silverthorn Press’ eZine. While I have had a few stories published before, this was satisfying as it is my first scifi story being recognised. While the zine is not huge in readership, I respect Silverthorn and its owner Corbin, immensely.

Another reason why I consider this a good day is because I actually had a coffee with one of IFWG’s authors – Paula Boer. Her novel will probably be published by us in a few months – a very nice travel adventure novel. She and her friend were great company and it was pleasant to actually be face to face with one of our authors, instead of the usual (and necessary) virtual form. I learned something from this experience – how important a role I play in ensuring that an author’s dreams come true. While cognisant of it, talking to someone in the intimacy of being face to face, highlights it. Humbling and something to be proud of.

Yes, a very good day.

A crying shame

Just had a twitter conversation with someone who viewed IFWG Publishing‘s website and came up with some wacky conclusions. And statements. This exchange is hardly worth repeating, or for that matter, thinking about for more than five minutes, but it does symbolically represent the state of the publishing industry. Wacky.

It seems to me that there is so much disruption and confusion, and misinformation (deliberate and unintentional), how does the average Joe Bloggs have a hope to have a decent idea of the state of play. And if Joe Bloggs wants to be a professional author, or even a small press publisher, then we have a serious set of obstacles in the way.

I don’t want to state the truth about publishing here – there are very good bloggists who can help you – Jay Lake, JAKonrath, Doctorow, Don Linn, etc, and following them you will get a much better idea of the state of play. However, with their help or not, for me the real issue is being able to tap into the correct intention, the morally correct.

While this person who twittered with me wanted to argue every point, this person also doesn’t know that my effort in my company is first and foremost to make the authors successful. Can’t easily prove that in a fledgling small press. Just have to watch this space.

Just to make sure the message has gelled with commentators, the following are facts:

  1. IFWG Publishing is a traditional small press. Nothing more or less. Authors don’t pay a cent to submit, and we take 100% financial risk to publish. As per usual.
  2. We  believe in epublishing and its growth, and its value for new writers. All our publications simultaneously publish in print and eprint.
  3. We are generous with royalties for the author.
  4. We publish speculative fiction, but are happy to publish almost any genre if its good.
  5. We also publish magazines – a company has to make money, heh?
  6. We run a biannual short story and illustration contest called Story Quest. This year, we offer a leg up with a novel publication.
  7. We have a biannual magazine where it touches on our authors etc, but which also provides good short stories and articles in any genre.
  8. We enjoy doing this!!!!

Just for the record, folks.

Major Milestone Achieved

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!

The Monkey on the Back called Time

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.

My First Publication

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.

A Big Decision

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.

Commentary: I am an author – how do I get published?

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.