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Hey Jen - At some point come the end of the year I hope to venture into the heady world of hardcopies, at which point do give me a nudge and I'll send you one; alas at the moment http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10... is only in e-form, or I'd be mailing you one on the spot !
Watch this space....
JAC
Very exciting! Present blurb about the book assures me it'll be up my alley. If the hardcopy publisher provides, pre-pub galleys for review, that works for me. Congrats all the way around and kudos for being pro-active about your publicity.
heheheh well swapping my author's hat for my publisher's hat, I think that we at WGP (the royal we you understand) can manage a copy or so... though be aware that it is self-published so if that puts you off, no worries.Alas, time to put my publicist's hat on again now; alas, there's only me to be pro-active about it, along with various kind reviewers!
It'll probably be some point around November time, so if you're still up for it, give me a shout...
So, back onto the subj of fantasy - Liveship Traders - up to the standards of Assassin series or a bit below par?
JAC
I saw that your book is self-published (and that you look forward to publishing the work of pets in the future). Thus far I'm feeling brave. The risk is primarily on your end (cost of sending the book to me). The gripe I've had with self-published work in the past is that it's unrefined--it could have used an editor and copyeditor before going to readers. If I venture into your book and feel that's the case, I'll probably let you know that I'm not going any further and prefer not to review it.As for Hobb's set of trilogies, I prefer them in this order: Tawny Man, Assassin, Liveship (which happens to be the order in which I read them). I know some people prefer her Liveship trilogy but none of the characters really grabbed me in them. The ideas were interesting (politics of the town, the whole toxic thing, her concept of dragons and liveships) but there wasn't anyone I really latched onto--not even the part the Fool played and he is one of my all-time favorite characters. I have Dragon Keeper on my shelf but haven't read it yet.
Excellent! We like openmindedness - there are a lot of people out there who aren't up for giving self-pub a chance, and a chance is all we're asking for! On the other hand, I prefer to be open about it so people know what they're getting and don't then feel they were somehow tricked into reading it.
My view is that if I've done the best with it that I can, (and with the help of 2 editors, I have) and am reasonably confident about the quality, I've done my bit; but as to whether you like the story / style / whatever, that's entirely subjective and beyond my control. If you have a look and it's really not your thing, fair enough; I'll be just as happy if you give it to someone else who might like it.
Heheheh you've been to the WGP website haven't you?! Updating that is on my list for when I've finished moving house. Yes, my family's dogs are very cunning. I expect Lyra to take over the world some day. She's very shrewd, that one; on command she does various tricks including my favourite, which is that when the postman comes, she goes and picks up the post from the hall, fetches it into my mother in the kitchen, and shuts the door behind her. Comes in useful every day, that one!
On the other hand, if she decides she wants a treat, she goes and stands in the middle of the floor, waits till she has your attention and then runs through all the tricks in her repertoire, just about: high 5, touch your nose, bow, stand on your back legs etc, all at high speed until someone gives her a treat.
It's exceedingly funny to watch but does make you wonder who's training who on that score ("My humans give me treats on command you know")!!
Well the other thing is that if you come to have your doubts you can read the sample of it on the GR page - I know you don't want to do the whole thing in ebook form but should you wish to double-check, the first 10% or so should be previewable here:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10...
I find samples are a great plus when looking at indie and self-pub, and have read some cracking books because I liked the style in the first few pages - and indeed avoided some horrors and been glad I checked!!
Re Hobbs, the first one I picked up was the Liveship Traders; thought that was quite good and read the rest of the trilogy, then went back to Assassin trilogy, which blew me away and then forward to the Tawny Man, which we eagerly awaited year by year. I liked Dragon Keeper as well - but the Fool is one of my fave characters and wasn't there...
Interestingly, what this means is a) that I read them out of order and b) that I then missed all the Assassin refs in Liveship Traders and didn't know about the Fool. I need to read them again in order - but I need to do it at a time where I can just drop off the map and binge-read for about three weeks, which is why I still haven't done it yet!
Do love a bit of Robin Hobb. I like her Megan Lindholm stuff as well, though not as much; but not the Hobb forest ones, oddly, which left me cold.
JAC
I'm curious, is there a reason that you didn't go the traditional publishing route? Had you given it a try?
No, I never got as far as trying the Trad-pub route, though I researched it a fair bit over a period of about ten years, on and off. Basically, from all I could see, they weren't buying books because they were good or well-written or interesting; they were buying in trends. Da Vinci Code came out and the market was flooded with Dan-Brown-alikes. Twilight came out and it was flooded with vamp-romances.
It seemed to me that if you were on big Brother you could get your autobiog published at the age of 23, but if you had no name-recognition in place, and your book couldn't be neatly categorised it wouldn't even get past the slush pile.
Well, I was in no hurry so I figured at first I'd wait...but then the economy fizzled and the new-books-list got even leaner. So when it came to epublishing, I did another year's research and it appealed to me.
I don't need the validation of having a trad publisher judge my story because I don't necessarily agree with their criteria; I think the opinion of readers or reviewers will give me a clearer picture.
I'm not expecting to hit no 1 slot tomorrow so am not sure how much of a chance I'd get if I had to play by trad publishing's criteria and time-frames; and I'm too realistic to go into it to make money. Maybe I'm not ambitious enough, but I want to share the enjoyment I've had in writing the story with people who will be entertained by reading it. If more people like it than hate it, that's good enough for me; and if the feedback gives me ideas as to how I can improve my writing, lucky me!
I don't know, I'm quite independent and contrary, and this is something that I feel I can do well. I trust my writing instincts and to be told to alter the story to make it more saleable is fine up till the point where it makes it less of a good story...I don't think I'd take to that very well.
I think it depends what you're in it for and what your priorities are. I'm happy to trickle along selling a few here and a few there and actually have some interaction with my readers; I'm not hung up on kudos or status stuff. Having my book available doesn't mean I'm a better writer than all the other people who want to writer a book; it just means I'm more persistent (and a bit of a technogeek!).
Besides, I like the individual nature of e-publishing. I like the people, and I like the contact, and if I can bring someone a few hours where they have a break from all the worries that are hassling them and circling round their brains like vultures - well, that's a gift that has been given to me by various authors over the years, and I really value that. To be given the oppportunity to try and pass on that gift is a really special thing for me.
It's funny, a lot of people try to hide the fact that they are self-published or are embarrassed about it, but the more time that passes, the cooler I think it is. I wrote a book! And then I (and my editors) put a lot of time and effort into making it as good a book as we could. Then my cover artist helped me to make a cover that I think is rather good. Then Kindle and Smashwords allowed me to make it available to the general public; and all you kind reviewers are helping me to find any weak points in my style so that while I'm editing the second book I can make it even better.
Readers get what I hope is a quality book cheaply; I get to share my enjoyment and maybe pay a bill or two; and my characters get to go out into the wide world and make some friends.
Don't know whether that's arrogance or contrariness on my part or just an overlarge dose of independance in my mind-set, but the whole deal seems utterly cool to me.
But then I do know that there are people who do feel the need for the validation, and I can quite understand why they'd want to go the trad route. I just don't think it's as flexible or has as much potential - unless you ARE a celeb or are writing a Twilight-alike or something - which is not to say that they were all bad, as there are some very good books that have managed to get published when their genre became fashionable - but I can't write according to what's in. I have to write the story as it evolves (damn story is contrarier than I am, and that's saying something) so I could attempt it but I couldn't do it well - it would be lacking in genuineness and that always shows through in the text, imho.
So if I could write according to the vagaries of the market I might well have tried trad-pub. However, given that that doesn't work for me (you might say that the story writes itself and I just hold the pen!) trad-pub seemed to work along lines which would have meant that even if I had been published, it wouldn't have been telling my story with my voice, which is the main joy of the writing and sharing.
No, this way whether it stands or falls, at least it will be my own personal success or failure. I'd much rather have it that way than spend the rest of my life thinking "I bet it would have worked if they hadn't changed the heroine to a werewolf!" or something!!
What-ifs are fine by me; if-onlys are not my thing...
Sorry, that's a bit of an essay but it is a pet subject...
Do you write? And which way would you play it (or indeed have you played it?)
JAC
Julia, that's a real pity. May I make a suggestion? Why not read the ebook sample before buying your paperback? It's a really useful functionality.Guessing you don't have an e-reader, btw, but it's possibly worth knowing that there's a downloadable app for PC - you can download the app onto your PC and then download the sample of any book available on Kindle.
Usually this is the first 10% but I certainly use it to gate-keep my own book-buying whether I'm going to buy the actual book in paperback form or for Kindle. It's a really useful tool.
If you're interested I can give you the link?
JAC
Also, if you have books you don't like, I give mine away via BookCrossing which is basically either leaving them somewhere with a note that says "Free book, take me home" or sending them to someone that wants that particular book.I agree about throwing books away - be it never so terrible there will be someone in the world who might like it, so I'll go to almost any lengths to pass it on!
Mind, I suspect as a writer I'm allowed to be a bit obsessed with books....!
JAC
JA-I understand all of your reasons for self pubbing. I have been trying for a couple years now to get an agent or a publisher to get my book.
It is hard when you are a new writer and are not a celebrity b/c a lot of the big houses want a 'sure thing' and the only way they get that is with a name people know.
I really feel like so many great books are getting looked over because of that. It is very frustrating. :)
I agree. It's frustrating for authors. Many good authors and good books out there not being read. this epubbing is a wonderful vehicle for indies.
Cambria, is self-pub something you wouldn't consider? Do you mind if I ask why? (though by all means don't answer if you'd prefer not)With Amy editing you, I'm sure that between the two of you you'll have come up with some quality text. What's the upside of trad-pub?
JAC
What a great discussion! Yes, the big publishing publishing businesses are profit-driven (smaller ones too though they may preserve more idealism) and there are up sides and down sides to that. One of the upsides is that they have the money to put a lot of publicity behind the books they choose to publish. One of the down sides is the tendency to grab after trends (of course, writers do this too or the publishers wouldn't have anything to publish). However, keep in mind that any editor/publisher wants to find the next big thing and I believe they know the next big thing from the next same thing, the latter being a compromise. Also, we wouldn't have all the vampires if a traditional publisher hadn't first took a risk on vampires (Ann Rice was it?), or the first urban fantasy, or decided there was more to comic books, or that maybe this kid with a scar on his forehead has a future. As an author, I see two advantages to going the traditional route. The first is the publicity power mentioned above. To me, this is doing the most for my story, giving it the best chance of thriving. The second is that it's the writer's job to write. Granted the first year after publication, the publishing house is expecting you to put as much effort as possible into helping them publicize the book (what one can and can't do in that regard is generally a part of the book proposal). But in general, I'd prefer to leave those details to someone else and stick to writing the next book.
As for the fear of loss of control of the final product, I wouldn't worry about that (me personally). My understanding of the traditional publication process is neither an agent nor an editor is interested in work that requires major revision. Part of the profit-motive demands that things go as smoothly and quickly as possible and major revisions aren't part of that formula. They let it go and pick up the next manuscript in the pile. Both an agent and an editor must like a work enough to argue on its behalf (the agent to editors to sell the work, the editor to the person in charge of purchasing, promotions, etc on down the line to get as good a treatment as possible for their book/project). An editor at a publisher is a project manager, not a line editor or copyeditor or teacher (some people bemoan this change in the publishing industry). Now when the editor presents the book to the marketing team, that's when you begin to encounter marketability issues and possible market-oriented suggestions for change. But if your agent was careful with your contract, you should have some veto power.
I have a friend who co-edited two anthologies (both editors were pretty much no-name, though both had gone through an MFA program and one had been published in a big-name magazine, the Altantic or New Yorker). She had an agent and dealt with the publishing house mostly through him (though she was flown into NY to meet the editor--which seems frivolous at first but I suspect was their way of sizing up her "presence" in terms of lining up publicity). The only thing she felt unhappily out of control over was the cover. When the book came out, she was flown to a few book bookstore signings and even was interviewed on National Public Radio. The first book was not a great success and the second got virtually no promotion. Though the publisher honored the contract for a second anthology, they clearly didn't feel the concept had the draw they initially thought and so they put nothing into publicity. So yes, there are pitfalls. It was a bit hard on my friend to go from being primed for success to bare minimum treatment. But that concept was given the best run it could have gotten the first time around.
I could go on with other anecdotes but I'll save them for later. Time to get on to other things and this post is plenty long enough.
Everyone--traditional or self-publishing (since that makes you both the agent and the publisher of your work) should be aware of and learn from watching what goes on at Publishers Lunch:http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/...
Be sure to check out the "rights listings" tab (a place to find out what agents are representing what kinds of work). The job board is also interesting in terms of reading the job duties of editorial positions.
J.A., I agree with most of what you say about trad pub. I tried that course for some years, with a few false starts and broken promises from some vanity publishers who tried to tell me what a wonderful story I had, "just pay us and we'll make it a best-seller".What I realized pretty soon was that there was a reason no one in the trad world wanted to publish me -- the story wasn't good enough. So, with every rejection I went back and tried to polish or change things, watching little items like continuity and even punctuation. This was hard for me, since I'm not a good proof reader. I like to read the story, not get lost in the technical bits.
But eventually it worked, and (hopefully) I'm on the way. The only advice I can pass on really is, never be satisfied with your story. Polish, polish and polish until it shines. Then polish some more.
Mod
A self published author must make their editing a number one priority, without it, your book will never fare as well as it could have.
That is just one of the differences, there are many others that people have mentioned along the way. You just have to find where you believe you can fit in the best. Saving money up for advertising is always a good thing to do too, no matter what kind of publishing you choose. You gotta spend money to make money - and even if you go through traditionally, unless you get in with one of the big houses, a little bit of extra marketing never hurt anyone!!
My view is that people who give me *constructive* criticism (and so far all my reviewers have been really good that way) are helping me to make my book the best it can be, so hostility is unwarranted and rude. I'll read and consider what they say, and if I disagree will put it to one side and see if anyone else makes the same comment; if several people do, I'll try to address it. Jenn, that's a really interesting link - thank you! I think the thing that really dealt the death blow to any thoughts I might have had of trad-pub was when someone told me about the guy who got right through the process and had his books in every bookshop in town - for 6 weeks. Then the publishers decided it hadn't sold enough, withdrew them and pulped the lot - and of course he was still under contract to them for another two years so couldn't take it anywhere else.
What offended me about that was them pulping it - that's no advantage to the publisher and means the poor guy didn't even have the opportunity to give them away or resell them himself. In business terms it makes sense, but if that was me and I'd gone through all that work to get there, the waste of it and the insult of it and the short-term nature of the chance they gave him would be a real slap in the face, and would just break my heart to boot.
I think that if you're not in a hurry, don't want to be famous, don't expect to dash up to the #1 spot NOWNOWNOW, you might as well go indie. And though I'd love to do nothing but write, I don't see THAT day coming for a long, long time...I'm thinking maybe this is my pension plan (just as well as by the time I get there, retirement age will be about 98 and there will be no state pension).
Short-term, I'm not expecting tremendous sales (though actually this has been my best month so far) but give me 30 years and I should have a few books on the shelf - apart from anything else, I have SO many stories to tell!
JAC
Mod
Why thank you m'dear! Actually at the moment I'm considering putting some extra bits in Book 2 and / or melding it with book 3. It will make it a longer book but that's hardly a foreign concept to fantasy fans, and I think the way it is at the mo, people will feel it's a bit dislocated from Book 1.
Fortunately I have the opportunity to fix that while I'm editing, thus saving myself a job later, and I can only do that because I have a fairly chatty relationship with a wide variety of people who have read it, from friends to reviewers to random readers, and people seem to be happy to discuss it and give me their opinions as we go along. And I'm lucky enough that quite a few of them are ending up as friends even if they started as strangers!
For me, that's the best part about this whole thing; that I can tailor my story to the readers' tastes. It's so gratifying; it's like the difference between buying a bottle of plonk for someone's birthday (because you have no idea what they like but it's a good bet), or alternatively of looking round all the little trinket shops until you find one of those small Japanese dolls you put notes in, and presenting it to them with a handwritten haiku inside about the embarrassing thing they did when they were seven!
By which I mean, it takes a deal more time and work, but can change the present from something bland but quite nice to something really special that they'll treasure. (Apart from the note, which made them laugh and then they burnt it!! heheheh)
But you see I already have my dotage planned as the Crazy Cat Lady / Witch of the locale, with a silver-topped ebony cane and a laugh to shatter glass, and I have to fund all that petfood *somehow*.....
Ah well, best get back to practising the cackle.
eeeeeeeeeeeheeeeheeeheeeheheheheheeh
eeeeeeeeeeeheeeeheeeheeeheheheheheeh
eeeeeeeeeeeheeeeheeeheeeheheheheheeh
JAC
My focus is admittedly rather narrow. I'm willing to review traditional fantasy (think Tolkien, Brooks, McCaffrey--Patricia McKillip and Robin Hobb being current faves) that has gone through the editorial process of a publishing house (doesn't have to be big name) and doesn't require a computer or other electronic device for reading.
Yes, this makes me feel very backwards, square, uncool, but there you have it. I'm a middle-aged woman who has no taste for any of the latest stuff (vampires, urban fantasy, paranormal). Sigh. Slipping into fogeyhood.
Feel free to contact me about your book (name, gist of it, and name of publisher). I enjoy reviewing (to date I've reviewed mostly poetry)and look forward to giving your work some press. I'll post the review here on goodreads and on librarything.
Again, congrats! And keep writing!