Three day weekend (redux)

It's easy to lose a book. Something doesn't go quite right, the book is set aside, suddenly, two years have passed, and by now, you're a lot more interested in other books (like the one you're currently writing or the one that's coming up). Years pass. The characters turn into strangers. The book's gone.

I have a ton of books in the drawer. There's the financial trilogy which will likely never happen the way I imagined things in 2008/9. I think I have a novel and a novella there, and both need HUGE amounts of work. There's the menage and its prequel, there's the historical WWII novel (still around, still kicking, and still unfinished) and some other projects that are "cool ideas" at this stage and nothing more. I tend to be drawn towards the new over the old. Research books for the "new" are piling up all around me. You'd have to see it to believe it.

But above all, I'm putting work in to finish with the past and move into the future without guilt constantly dragging at my feet. I think I would be able to move faster that way. I might even tackle ROI again, the first book I did after "Special Forces". While "Collateral" saved me from burnout and from hating writing, ROI was what Germans call a "Befreiungsschlag" - a (violent) move to free oneself (usually from a superior enemy force). For that alone it deserves to be finished up properly. As it's not a romance in the conventional sense, I figure I might have to go down the self-publishing route, but that's OK. I'm done with conventional publishing, anyway.
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Published on May 29, 2011 03:21
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message 1: by Boycop (new)

Boycop I have not read all your blog posts, but I still have to ask, why are you done with conventional publishing?


message 2: by Aleksandr (last edited Jun 01, 2011 03:13AM) (new)

Aleksandr Voinov Basically, because I don't want to have to sell a book for 2-3 years to a publisher and then wait another 1-2 years for it to come out. Royalty rates are not good (3-7% versus at least 15%, if not 30-40% in epublishing).

Also, the way the author is generally treated (I've had somebody at the biggest German paperbackl publisher rewrite paragraphs of my book without consulting me first). And the contracts you're signing treat you like a commodity. It's really quite shameful.

I've done traditional publishing and found it very much lacking.


message 3: by Boycop (new)

Boycop That explains a lot. Thanks for the insight.


message 4: by Aleksandr (new)

Aleksandr Voinov Also, some genres (like m/m romance) simply don't have the mass appeal that the Big Publishers are after. I rather stay with the specialists there.


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