A weekend of thinking about a new direction

Regular readers of my blog will know that I've been waiting, waiting, waiting for news about the new gadda trilogy – People of the Star. Yesterday, the news came.

My editor at HarperCollins has decided not to take the trilogy to acquisitions because at the moment, it would get knocked back – the sales of the first trilogy aren't good enough. It's possible that in twelve months or so, if the first trilogy takes off in the meantime, that it will be worth trying to get the company to publish PotS.

But for now, PotS is dead in the water at HC. It's disappointing news – I was so enjoying picturing myself having six books out within a few years and having a storming start to my writing career.

Last night I let myself sulk – my sister came over, we cracked a bottle of red and toasted my disappointment. Today, it's time to start considering the options so that by Monday, when I get back to work after weeks of being too sick to do so, I'll have a new plan to work on.

So what are my options?

Well, as far as PotS is concerned, there's a few things to think about.

I can just leave it and see if the other gadda trilogy takes off enough to warrant re-pushing it. This is a possibility – UK and US rights are still being worked on and foreign rights are being pushed at Frankfurt. I could also keep up promoting the books in Australia and see if I can't build the sales here too. I can pitch it to other publishers. They may not want to take on the second trilogy in a series, but then I'm not losing anything by trying. I can self-publish. This is my last resort option, but it's definitely something that I would do because I know there are people out there who love the gadda and want to read some more.

The postponement of PotS also affects the novella, Festival of the Star. But it also frees it up to be what it originally was intended to be – a thank you to the people who first fell in love with the Dream of Asarlai trilogy. I was going to use the advance from PotS to pay for professional editing of it – that's now hard to do. But I've got some people reading it and maybe I'll be able to find a cheaper way to ensure it's up to snuff and so I can self-publish it at the end of the year.

But what is there beyond the gadda stories? As my sister said last night, it's quite possible that the gadda books, as much as I love them, AREN'T where my future lies. This may well have been my learning curve and it's the next idea I have, or the one after that kicks it for me. Or maybe it's not even in fantasy that my path to success will be – maybe it's romance.

So here are some more options.

I've got one contemporary romance with a publisher now, and I've got one more plot just about ready to go so I can work on that. There's the scifi romance that I've been working on that I'm reading to start re-writing I've got an idea for a new urban fantasy – no relation to the gadda at all, and not romance based either, so I can start working that up.

There's also my short stories, the workshops I'm developing. One issue with all this is that the income I was hoping to have this year isn't happening, so I need to find other ways to turn my skills into income. Working how to do the workshops online so they can be offered to many others is one idea. Doing some freelance editing is another. Freelance journalism perhaps?

I hope that by the end of Sunday, I'll have worked out the pros and cons of these various ideas and will then have a plan that I can work on Monday morning.