August 10, 2009
Ok, so my latest, greatest hope that tied up the process for months is now a dead duck. Time to move on to next stage of the plan. It’s time to prepare for the possibility of going with the POD option. I have reached my target of 50 agent submissions. That was always the cut-off point I had in mind before considering the POD route. Some of those submissions still have to reply (if at all), and I actually have about another 15 on my list to submit to. So the strategy now is to submit to those final 15 agents, and while all those are working their way out of the slushpiles, I’ll plough ahead with preparations for a POD book, and initiate my own marketing plan that I’ve been developing for the POD-published option. There’s also a couple of small publishers I hope to pursue in a ‘publishing partner’ capacity first, which would be preferable to a total self-publishing POD option. And maybe, while I’m working away on that, some agent might actually come back with interest … today, I’m ambivalent at best to that possibility.
Feeling out of control of the process is what makes us unhappy.
One good thing about a rejection is that at least now I know I can take control … and be happy again.
Entry Filed under: Submission & Rejection
August 7, 2009
I turned on Tom Dunne’s radio show as I started to write this, and what do I hear - a woman describing how she published her own book. Someone up there is trying to tell me something, most especially because I sat down to write this post to tell you about the latest and possibly last agent rejection of Broken Evolution.
It all seemed very promising; hopeful words were coming from the agent. I also got affirmative feedback this week from two impartial readers, saying things like “it’s as good as any thriller I’ve read” and “I wasn’t prepared for how good it was” and “It kept me up reading at nights wanting to see what happened next.” Even the agent was full of praise and admiration for the novel in this ultimate rejection.
Now, my best chance yet has been shot down with the excuse of … the recession. It’s an environment that has become, quite frankly, hostile to new authors. And I don’t know if I can shift any longer the feeling that I am wasting my time with this traditional route. Time for a re-think.
Entry Filed under: Submission & Rejection
July 7, 2009
I’ve been quiet again lately. Busy with work, and repairing my back after an injury, and not much writing, alas … although I did dream about my work in progress the other night, which was a weird experience. I transferred my blog to a newer, faster server too.
The book submission had been stalled for a while, waiting for agent response. This week the book, like I, rose from dormancy. A senior agent is finally giving time to read the re-drafted version. By accounts, he is quite impressed with it, but I suppose the ol’ recession bugbear will determine if they can take it on or not. Either way, I’ve been promised a response in a couple of weeks.
Finally, wheels are turning. The big ones turn slowly!
Entry Filed under: Submission & Rejection
May 22, 2009
It’s Friday. I’ve spent this week coding screens and line-editing my revised manuscript. Hopping from one to the other breaks the monotony of both. But come Friday afternoon … I run out of steam … and don’t really want to do either. I just get that “break out and do something completely different” weekend vibe.
Is the working week just long enough so that it runs out when we get to that point? Or are we just accustomed to running out of steam at the end of a working week, no matter how long it is? I’m one of the lucky ones. I’m self-employed and can determine my own working hours, but in fact, for most workers the working week is now actually 6 days long, and getting longer every year. At the start of the industrial revolution, before labour laws, 7 day working was not uncommon. So maybe we have it good, you might think. Well, consider homo erectus.
On the radio this week, I heard an author discussing his book, and found it interesting to hear that in our hunter-gather days, the working week was only two days long. Spend two days making arrows, hunting some beasts, and you have enough to feed & clothe you and family for another five days. All that free time started humanity’s artistic journey, scratching out cave paintings. We sometimes look back in embarrassment at our unenlightened cavemen ancestors. But today, Friday, I look back at his two day week and think … boy, did he have it sussed … where the hell did we go wrong in the meantime?
Have a good weekend y’all!
Entry Filed under: Observation & Musing
May 9, 2009
You may have noticed that I like a nice metaphor. Here comes this week’s!
I’ve been editing for the past couple of weeks. It’s true what they say - it’s easier to edit with a little bit of distance between author and novel. I’ve left it aside for a few months and it makes me more willing to make the hard decisions to cut out the unnecessary fat that gets in the way of a story. It seems to be following the 10% reduction rule of its own accord. It becomes strangely liberating in a way, once I get used to letting go of those precious phrases that don’t really belong.
However …
There is a danger. I’m intensely careful of stripping the prose back too much, to some mundane, bland, anonymous thriller style that could be the output of any ghost writer. That brings me to my metaphor. Ask any chef - a little fat gives the dish more flavor in the cooking.
Don’t trim it back too much.
Entry Filed under: Editing
April 21, 2009
I’ve been meaning to try out the print on demand process, to see what it’s like (not for self-publication, but for an idea I have as part of my marketing plan).
Anyway, two weeks ago, I discovered a genuine excuse to try it out. I have a couple of beta readers lined up to gauge opinion on a novel. I planned on giving typescripts, but having given one out before, I know how cumbersome a ream of printouts can be for a casual reader. I also feel that casual readers would treat the manuscript more honestly as a book for review if it is actually presented to them as a book.
Aha! Now that’s a use for print on demand!
One reader was heading on holidays soon, so giving him a “holiday read” copy would be ideal (it’s probably the only time he’d find time to read it anyway!) So I chose Lulu because they can do private projects (where only the author can see and purchase them, and author retains all copyright). For safety, I retired the project after shipment. I’m sure publishers might balk at this behaviour, but - hey - I ain’t got that problem yet! This is my solution to ARCs for the unpublished! The trim sizes are a little limited, but I picked a suitably bookish one. For the cover, I left it all black with no title, no text .. nothing. I figure he’d love the kudos of reading an all-black mystery book in the airport lounge. A copyright notice figures prominently too, in case he leaves it there (that’s the disadvantage of giving less cumbersome review copies - maybe too portable!)
I can see why so many frustrated authors get sucked into POD vanity publication. It so damned seductive. Shiny black novel arrived this morning. Now, getting it to market - that’s not so easy, and not “on demand”! As a way of generating review copies though, it’s perfect, and seeing one copy in print might be a good catharsis to keep the impatient author submitting to agents just that bit longer.
A triumphant success. Just one problem - my reader left for holidays three days ago.
Yet again, “on demand” it ain’t. It takes up to five days to print, as I learned, and then there’s delivery time after that.
Oh well, maybe next holiday …
In the meantime, I’ve got a copy of my very own novel on my desk … to keep me going that bit longer.
Entry Filed under: Publishing Industry
April 17, 2009
Look at the jibberish I just wrote in my day job:
public void doTransform(ITransformer Transformer) throws ParseException{
if(_join != null) _join.doTransform(Transformer);
Transformer.doSource(this);
_node.doTransform(Transformer);
if(_condition != null)
{
Transformer.doBeforeCondition(_condition);
_condition.doTransform(Transformer);
Transformer.doAfterCondition(_condition);
}
_next.doTransform(Transformer);
}
That’s the other side of what I do. Is it any wonder that I retreat to writing stories after hours? Makes me feel human again.
Actually, it’s not really jibberish. It’s just a language, called ‘Java’ instead of ‘English’. Its syntax and grammar are suited to communicating with a machine, rather than a person. I used to think that machines were less forgiving than people about incorrect syntax and grammar, but after hearing opinions on writing from beta readers, editors, and authors, it’s clear they can get more heated about grammar than a machine can.
Machines tell you where to get of if they don’t understand the meaning. And even if they do it, and get it wrong, they resort to the child-like refrain of “I only did what you told me to!”
With writers (and readers) it can be less clear what’s acceptable. For people it becomes about a third, softer issue called style. Sometimes those opinions become personal doctrines: “Though shalt remove all adverbs and adjectives.”
Programmers too can get doctrinal about choices in writing code. The bits that the machine really doesn’t care about become grounds for many a heated debate about coding style and readability: “Thou shalt have a comment line for every procedure.”
Languages differ, but people remain the same in any profession - the same in that they differ. The trick is to always look at it from the other side too. The other persons view. You don’t have to agree with them, but as a writer you are obliged to understand them. Surely no one would argue with that!
I think I need to sit down in a darkened room this weekend and write some prose for a while!
Entry Filed under: Observation & Musing
March 31, 2009
A relative gave me a wonderful birthday present this week. She bought me a book of Seamus Heaney’s poetry. Inside was a personal inscription from the author who must have been told of my writing ambitions before signing it, because I never met him. I’d like to share it with you; I hope Mr. Heaney won’t mind.
For Brendan -
Keep your eye clear
As the bleb of the icicle -
and keep going -
Encouragement.
It can’t be bought, or sold, or wrapped, but is nonetheless a wonderful gift to give … and receive. Also, given recent posts about the changing form of the book, it is a reminder of the unique value of the printed book - it can be personalized.
Seamus also publicly celebrated his birthday this week. He will be 70 in a couple of weeks. I wish I could give him such a precious gift too, but all I have to offer in return is hope - hope that his encouragement will lead me to that place one day (when I am 70) where I too can present such potent encouragement to the hopeful young talent of the next generation.
Entry Filed under: Observation & Musing
March 28, 2009
Previously, I bemoaned technology’s shrinking of attention spans and shrinking of the book form.
Size isn’t everything; there are greater threats for the book out there.
Prescient to this article is a hot debate that broke out on Litopia this week about copyright infringement on the internet. Copyright infringement could be the greatest single contributing factor to the demise of the book. The demise I talk of (as in Part 1) is the loss of cultural significance of the book and the loss of its artistic merit in general.
Here’s how it happens. Forgive me, but I’m going replicate one of my Litopia posts here, where it is openly accessible:
Copyright is the consequence of mass distribution technologies that began with the printing press. A world without copyright means the end of the profession of writer. Without copyright there is no legal mechanism to enable monetization of artistic effort. It leaves the world filled with only amateur artists, or with potential artists who opted never to create in the first place because the time demands are too great, and the bills have to be paid.
What this would mean for the quality of artistic output in general … I think you can guess.
This is why defending copyright is so important.
If writing a damned good book becomes no longer financially viable then fewer people will make the effort to hone their craft up to publication quality. Case in point: this week, I saw one lulu.com self-publisher advertising the book with a banner ad proudly stating that it “may be the worst novel ever!” Inept art now carries with it a badge of merit! Kudos for the marketing nouse in grabbing attention with that one, but trashing your own artistic merit as a starting point, proving that selling the book is more important than what’s between the covers, says more that I ever could about where all this is going.
In a world created by copyright pirates, fewer people still will bother writing at all. So fewer artists emerge, and the quality of available books diminish.
Alternative models of reimbursement won’t help the craft much either, because the book then becomes a vehicle to sell something other than itself. How many of us, of a certain age and older, have seen the instances of quality television programming decrease over the decades because TV programmes have transformed into something little more than scaffolding to support their advertising output?
Payment of artists is the measure of how a culture values art. If we’re no longer willing to pay for it, but just want it all for free, then what does that say about the place of art in our society?
There is no conclusion yet. The publishing industry is in such flux now that even Nostradamus himself would have difficulty seeing the outcome to all this. The conclusion will only reveal itself in its own good time - in the future. For the present, writers and publishers need to stay vigilant … and defend our beloved little story book form … lest we sleepwalk into a world where it is no more.
I hope all this talk of “art” doesn’t sound pretentious. Art and business always make uncomfortable bedfellows. But these things do matter, and if not - they should - and we need to remind ourselves and others why.
Entry Filed under: Observation & Musing
March 5, 2009
Image by Mr. Velocipede
Today is World Book Day (… albeitin the UK and Ireland only – what an oxymoron!)
With Amazon launching the Kindle 2, and sneaking Kindle ebook reader software onto the iPhone, it seems a good time to take the temperature of world opinion on the future of the book form that we celebrate so confidently this day.
Is the poor little book losing its cultural identity or – worse – its cultural significance?
In the same week that research showed social networking sites shortening children’s attention spans, Cory Doctorow warns that this aspect of the twitter generation could transform, if not destroy, the eBook.
What would The Lord of the Rings have become if Tolkien’s publisher’s son had said, “Yes, I love it Dad, and I think you should publish it … but I think he should rephrase it in 140 characters tweets that could fit on my iPhone screen.”
I fear the day when just such editorial demands will be made of authors. My feelings on the prevalent page-turning sentence fragment editorial thriller style is already documented, but how much more destructive will it be for the form when the dictates of the technology determine the style of the writing or – heaven-forbid – the form of the story? How can anything of significance or importance be constructed on such miniscule real-estate? Perhaps, as Doctorow hints, the internet and small-screen eReaders will cause a new renaissance of poetry.
Two years ago I started this blog and with it my journey towards the publishing world. The most important thing I have learned is that the publishing industry is changing – rapidly. Technological shifts combined with recessionary pressures are altering the publishing business of old. My publishing research coalesces my future approach to writing projects and even as I write this, it leaves me wondering am I getting this writing thing all wrong? Should I be reinventing myself as the world’s first haiku cyber-novelist instead?
Perhaps not.
The transformation of the book form may not be all bad. There is hope, but … I’m running out of the necessary cyber-spatial real-estate to complete my point. I’ve kept you here long enough and there are, no doubt, several important tweets demanding your attention at this very moment.
So tune in next time, brave reader, for the concluding bite-sized installment of “The Death of the Book”.
Entry Filed under: Observation & Musing