Kelly McCullough's Blog, page 65

Happy Geek Pride

According to Wikipedia, today is Geek Pride Day.

So... what are YOU going to do to get your geek on??

The Long Book

I get questions from new authors, as I think all professionals do. When I get them I strive to answer to the best of my ability, both the question asked and the questions not asked but implied by the rest of the message. Today I answered some questions about guidelines for novel submissions, I also wrote a long digression based on the fact that the person asking mentioned that their first book came in at 564,000 words. Since I've run into a number of people over the last few years who've written quite long books I thought I would put my thoughts on the subject our where people could see them, so that the next time someone asks, I can point them at this post.

The question you didn't ask, but probably would have had you known you needed to. Book length. And this one is a good news/bad news kind of answer.

Bad first. 564k is going to be a problem for pretty much all of the traditional paper publishing houses. A typical paperback runs from 80-110k and selling longer than that is really really tough for a new writer. Up to 150-170 is possible if you've done something that everyone agrees is amazingly commercial. I know of sales up to 250k for established professionals whose name isn't Martin or Rothfuss or Stevenson, but other than late series books in huge commercial block-busters, I don't know of anyone selling over that. It's mostly a production problem in that manufacturing costs go up a lot for anything over about 125k. If you could find a good way to break a long book into two or three or however many smaller books, you might be able to sell it that way, but you'll have to really make book one outstanding and fully complete in itself. I don't know what kind of book you've written, so I can't say whether that;s possible or something you even want to try.

Now for the good news. The advent of e-publishing is, imho, going to create options for books of that length, though I don't yet know what those are going to look like. If I were just starting my career at this point and had written something of that length I'd be looking very hard at self-publishing it directly through Amazon, B&N and other venues. If you'd asked me if I thought that was a good idea even two years ago, I'd have said a flat "no," but the industry is changing so much and so fast, that's looking like an increasingly promising option, and one that I might take myself with a few older books that I haven't yet sold to any of the mainstream presses. If you do go that route, please take some time to read Kris Rusch and Dean Smith on the topic, they've both been doing major blogging on the changes. Kris: Dean Think Like a Publisher and Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing.

Kelly's WisCon Schedule

Here's my schedule for this coming weekend at WisCon

Sat, 1:00–2:15 pm Great Lakes Urban Graverobbers, Inc. Reading, Michelangelos
Saladin Ahmed, Will Alexander, Barth Anderson, Douglas Hulick, Kelly McCullough
Readings by writers from the shadowy hoodoo-holes and soggy nether-reaches of the Upper Midwest.

Sun, 8:45 pm–Mon, 3:00 Wyrdsmiths Publication Party: Among Thieves: A Tale of the Kin by Douglas Hulick and Resurrection Code by Lyda Morehouse, Room 634
Eleanor A. Arnason, Douglas Hulick, Naomi Kritzer, Kelly McCullough, Sean M Murphy
Members of the Wyrdsmiths writing group are going to publish four novels in 2011. We'd like to celebrate this, and especially celebrate the publication of Doug Hulick's first novel.

Mon, 10:00–11:15 am Being a Resilient Writer, Conference 5
Moderator: Eleanor A. Arnason, Douglas Hulick, Kelly McCullough, Catherine M. Schaff-Stump Writing is a line of work full of setbacks. What are these setbacks? How does one bounce back and keep writing? How does one find ways around setbacks and blocks in the road?

Mon, 11:30 am–12:45 pm The SignOut, Capitol/Wisconsin
Alex Bledsoe, K. Tempest Bradford, Richard Chwedyk, Alan John DeNiro, Moondancer Drake, Timmi Duchamp, Pamela Dean, Carol F. Emshwiller, Matt Forbeck, Valerie Estelle Frankel, Hiromi Goto, Anna Black, Eileen Gunn, Andrea D. Hairston, Jacqueline Houtman, Douglas Hulick, Deborah Lynn Jacobs, Vylar Kaftan, Ellen Klages, Josh Lukin, Kelly McCullough, Neesha Meminger, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Sarah Monette, Nancy Jane Moore, Pat Murphy, Nnedi Okorafor, Mark D. Rich, James P. Roberts, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Mary Doria Russell, Catherine M. Schaff-Stump, Fred Schepartz, Nisi Shawl, Jennifer Stevenson, Kathryn Sullivan, Lynne M. Thomas, Sheree Renée Thomas, Amy Thomson

Cover Art

Since Tate usually speaks for me, I thought, this time, I'd speak for her! Tate's Februaruy 2012 release ALMOST EVERYTHING can haz cover art. Check it out:



The back copy says:

Whoever said vacations were relaxing?

To say half-vampire, half-witch Ana Parker has boy trouble is putting it lightly—something her text messaging bill can attest to. Her rocker ex-boyfriend Nikolai is trying to heat things up again, and high school hockey star Mathew wants her to try out with him for the Renaissance Festival. At least her sort-of boyfriend Elias isn't hounding her cell—considering the vampire knight is currently living in her basement.

Ever since her father banished Elias and Ana from the court of the Northern vampires, Ana has been trying to live a normal life. But when the Prince of the Southern Region vampires informs Ana that they're on the brink of war and she accidentally offers up Elias as a peace offering, the princess knows that she's going to need some help to get out of the situation.

With Ana's boy drama meter hitting an all time high, summer in St. Paul is heating up for all the wrong reasons…

Friday Cat Blogging

Wait, you woke me up to take my picture? %$#^* you!

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Wait, you woke me up to take my picture? %$#^* you!

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Wait, you woke me up to take my picture? %$#^* you!

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Wait, you woke me up to take my picture? %$#^* you!

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Plus Bonus Princess Cat

Look, I'm a gargoyle!

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Broken Blade Cover Art

I am absolutely in love with my cover for Broken Blade.



And no it's not just because the cover is beautiful. Which it is. It's not just because it could easily illustrate a scene from the book. It's also not just because it's very close to what I asked for when my editor asked me what I thought would be an ideal cover, but with some wonderful improvements. Though I love those things, I could happily have lived without them if the cover did one other thing really well.

Advertise the book.

More than anything else, a book's cover is a promotional poster for the book. It needs to attract the reader's eye. Most especially it should attract the eye of the sort of reader who would love the book the cover is fronting. Basically what you want is something that will express the contents of the book in a really eye catching way.

A cover needs to a tell a story that goes a little like this: This ___________ book is AWESOME with AWESOME sauce on the side! You want to read this! And that blank spot should be filled with whatever type of book it is. Big Machines SF, or Pulse Pounding Adventure, Or Noir Assassin Fantasy. Every other thing the cover can or should do is secondary.

The fact that this cover manages to do that while also being beautiful, accurate to the contents, and just exactly what I would have hoped for is why I love this one with a deep and abiding passion. And I owe everyone involved with a big thank you.

So, to Cover artist: John Jude Palencar, Art Director & cover designer: Judith Lagerman, and of course, my editor: Anne Sowards.

THANK YOU

Boo-yah!

Congrats to Douglas Hulick for going into a second printing for AMONG THIEVES: A Tale of the Kin in the UK a month after publication.

Dude!

Catch of the Day

"Imagine the publishing world as it might look in a dystopian universe in the distant future. In this world, college English majors—call them 'Englies'—aspire to write only one kind of book: the dystopian young adult novel set in the distant future. (Englies of a certain status are permitted to write about dystopias populated by vampires.) Another subset of the population—'the Fans'—provides a kind of slave labor, posting endlessly to dedicated blogs and recording podcasts, providing free marketing for an unceasing succession of aspiring best-seller trilogies."
—From the children's book section of today's
New York Times Book Review

Bits & Pieces

My new novel is mentioned very briefly (but favorably!) at the end of this post by Cheryl Morgan.

Resurrection Code is also reviewed at Teaholics Anonymous.

Look Ma: I'm on the Internets!

I'm guest blogging today about getting reviewed as a new writer over on Aidan Moher's A Dribble of Ink.

Roll on by and check it out!