The Third Moon's winding road
Today I uploaded my lastest novel. The Third Moon, to Amazon. It will be available shortly, for I've never know Amazon to take more than a few hours to process uploads. Yesterday, I worked on the cover with my many-talented son. The cover took about 7 hours. I was lucky in that Shutterstock had more or less what I wanted so we didn't have to start from ground zero. I had put in a bit of time in the preceding days searching for images with the right emotional fit.
So, both cover, and uploading were anything but time-consuming. A few days were spent on the front matter and blurb, and the blurbs for my other books, which exist as end matter, also took a few days to update. Key works ate up some more hours.
This last process of readying for publication and publishing, probably took less than a week, and yet, this book was complete by November 2014. So, why the delay?
The Third Moon was my first NaNoWriMo project, undertaken in Nov 2013. By Nov 2014, the manuscript was ready for pitching, and pitch it I did, and scored a contract with a small independent publisher. I was thrilled. I write Deep Fantasy, which is easiest to define by what it isn't. It isn't high fantasy, epic fantasy, dark fantasy, urban fantasy or dystopic fantasy, although of this lot, it's probably closest to high fantasy, although I've yet to write of elves, dwarves, mages or magic. Deep fantasy uses secondary worlds, with a small number of characters, and with a strong pyschological/spiritual (not religious) subtext.
Having a publisher 'get' what I was saying was great, and although I was well on the way on my Indie Publishing journey, I was keen to be hybrid, that is, keep a foot in each camp.
Unfortunately, as we all know, being a publisher of any type is a very difficult gig. The book staying in the publication queue, and the publication date went past, for all sorts of valid reasons. Meanwhile I was writing Angel Caste and occasionally revisiting The Third Moon, seeing where it could be improved, and feeling frustrated I couldn't make the improvements. It was also frustrating to have a novel 'ready to go' but going nowhere.
I the end, the publisher ceased operations, and in a very professional manner, reverted rights, files etc to the authors involved. So, The Third Moon came back to me, got another two edits, and is now in the process of joining The Emerald Serpent, Heart Hunter, Angel Blood, Angel Breath and Angel Bone as part of my ebook folio of works.
I haven't pitched any of my stories since. At present, fantasy is dominated by works that are definitely not Deep Fantasy and I'm disinclined to keep my stories confined to my files, while I wait 6-9 months for a reject. Things change though and I can remember a time when Steam Punk and Paranormal Romance really didn't exist. Still, the old adage holds true, that you should write what you love, and that's what I'll continue to do.
So, both cover, and uploading were anything but time-consuming. A few days were spent on the front matter and blurb, and the blurbs for my other books, which exist as end matter, also took a few days to update. Key works ate up some more hours.
This last process of readying for publication and publishing, probably took less than a week, and yet, this book was complete by November 2014. So, why the delay?
The Third Moon was my first NaNoWriMo project, undertaken in Nov 2013. By Nov 2014, the manuscript was ready for pitching, and pitch it I did, and scored a contract with a small independent publisher. I was thrilled. I write Deep Fantasy, which is easiest to define by what it isn't. It isn't high fantasy, epic fantasy, dark fantasy, urban fantasy or dystopic fantasy, although of this lot, it's probably closest to high fantasy, although I've yet to write of elves, dwarves, mages or magic. Deep fantasy uses secondary worlds, with a small number of characters, and with a strong pyschological/spiritual (not religious) subtext.
Having a publisher 'get' what I was saying was great, and although I was well on the way on my Indie Publishing journey, I was keen to be hybrid, that is, keep a foot in each camp.
Unfortunately, as we all know, being a publisher of any type is a very difficult gig. The book staying in the publication queue, and the publication date went past, for all sorts of valid reasons. Meanwhile I was writing Angel Caste and occasionally revisiting The Third Moon, seeing where it could be improved, and feeling frustrated I couldn't make the improvements. It was also frustrating to have a novel 'ready to go' but going nowhere.
I the end, the publisher ceased operations, and in a very professional manner, reverted rights, files etc to the authors involved. So, The Third Moon came back to me, got another two edits, and is now in the process of joining The Emerald Serpent, Heart Hunter, Angel Blood, Angel Breath and Angel Bone as part of my ebook folio of works.
I haven't pitched any of my stories since. At present, fantasy is dominated by works that are definitely not Deep Fantasy and I'm disinclined to keep my stories confined to my files, while I wait 6-9 months for a reject. Things change though and I can remember a time when Steam Punk and Paranormal Romance really didn't exist. Still, the old adage holds true, that you should write what you love, and that's what I'll continue to do.
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