Lisa Jensen's Blog - Posts Tagged "publishing"
Coasting On Fumes
Whoever coined the phrase "hurry up and wait" must have been thinking of the publishing industry. If instant gratification is your goal, better get yourself another gig.
The lead time between making your initial First Contact—assuming you're fortunate enough to snag the interest of an agent or editor after weeks (or months, or years) of seemingly fruitless queries—and the time that something actually begins to happen on the agenting or editing front can be eternal.
First comes the high of an Industry Professional liking your book, which is pretty much unparalleled in the annals of human delight. Soak it in while you can! Because over the next several months, you'll be coasting on fumes.
In 2007, I started querying agents with an early draft of "Alias Hook." (Well, I thought it was a final draft at the time.) Three agents were interested enough to read it, two of whom worked with me extensively on subsequent revisions, but by the end of 2011, I still had no agent, or prospects.
In January of 2012, while sending out a batch of new, freshly rewritten agent queries, I sent the AH ms in toto to Snowbooks in the UK, an indie publisher famed not only for genre niche-marketing (fantasy, horror, steampunk), but for not requiring authors to submit to them through an agent. And then I went back to my life, figuring that, like all the agents I'd been querying lately, I would simply never hear back from them again.
Which I didn't for seven month—until the end of July, when I received the email authors dream of: Snowbooks was "in love with" "Alias Hook" and wanted to publish it!
Read the rest of the story here:
http://ljo-express.blogspot.com/2014/...
The lead time between making your initial First Contact—assuming you're fortunate enough to snag the interest of an agent or editor after weeks (or months, or years) of seemingly fruitless queries—and the time that something actually begins to happen on the agenting or editing front can be eternal.
First comes the high of an Industry Professional liking your book, which is pretty much unparalleled in the annals of human delight. Soak it in while you can! Because over the next several months, you'll be coasting on fumes.
In 2007, I started querying agents with an early draft of "Alias Hook." (Well, I thought it was a final draft at the time.) Three agents were interested enough to read it, two of whom worked with me extensively on subsequent revisions, but by the end of 2011, I still had no agent, or prospects.
In January of 2012, while sending out a batch of new, freshly rewritten agent queries, I sent the AH ms in toto to Snowbooks in the UK, an indie publisher famed not only for genre niche-marketing (fantasy, horror, steampunk), but for not requiring authors to submit to them through an agent. And then I went back to my life, figuring that, like all the agents I'd been querying lately, I would simply never hear back from them again.
Which I didn't for seven month—until the end of July, when I received the email authors dream of: Snowbooks was "in love with" "Alias Hook" and wanted to publish it!
Read the rest of the story here:
http://ljo-express.blogspot.com/2014/...
Write On
Last month, I was contacted by the lovely Clare Moore of the online mag, Ampersand Literary. She had just read Alias Hook, and invited me to do a Q&A for her site, which publishes fiction, poetry, photography, and artwork, along with occasional interviews with the purveyors thereof.
I was thrilled to do it, and the post is now up at https://ampersandlit.com/2016/06/08/i...
Clare generously invited me to blather on about my books, the writing process, my completely chaotic publishing history, and any tips I might have for emerging writers. It was a fun interview to do. And while you're there, surf around this diverse, eclectic site devoted to the creative process!
I was thrilled to do it, and the post is now up at https://ampersandlit.com/2016/06/08/i...
Clare generously invited me to blather on about my books, the writing process, my completely chaotic publishing history, and any tips I might have for emerging writers. It was a fun interview to do. And while you're there, surf around this diverse, eclectic site devoted to the creative process!
