Tag: June

Status update: Ready or Not

Published on by JayeLeave a comment

Well, Love or Lust is holding strong as an Amazon bestseller and hot new release (for category, but hey — it is a bestseller list — says so on the label).  Which is lovely.  Even climbing charts globally.  A ping on the German radar and some love from Down Under hath come my way as well — thank you.

In the meantime I’ve got back to work on Ready or Not and am nearly half through it.  So far it’s not quite the disaster I was thinking, but I also don’t think I’ve hit the bits I wrote during NaNoWriMo or Camp NaNoWriMo.

I’ve a horrible, sinking feeling when I consider what I can recall of them.  They’re actually great parts — by themselves.  I’m just terrified that, when I get there, they won’t fit and can’t be made to fit.  If that’s the case, then that’s about one third of the book down the drain and a lot of work to get to before I can have the next book out.

If I’m wrong — things are going well enough between my own read through and my editor’s pile of work to do that she ought to be sitting down to attack it with her mighty Red Pen of Death which I swear is filled with human blood — possibly magically siphoned from the author upon whose work she applies it — instead of ink.  We’ll have some lovely conversations regarding my dyslexia, my inability to grasp various minutia of English grammar and orthography and then I’ll give it one more read for ‘now how in Hell did this get by both of us!?’ moments.

Should the universe be benevolent and kind (please do stop laughing, please) I might have book 2 out by Christmas.  Realistically speaking, I’ll say don’t expect anything before Easter 2014 and I might even wind up so close to 29 June 2013 that I may hold off to release on the 1yr anniversary of the first book.

All told I’m impressed with this first half, really.  There’re some very touching moments, and a good tear jerker in there.  I’ve managed to have some really good humour bits.

For fun I’ll post the only part, aside from a poem from late in the book which has already been released here, I’ll give you a sample of the only other part I’m willing to present to the wider public:

Disclaimer

The story which follows contains people:  Tall people, short people, fat and skinny.  It will contain intelligence, stupidity, ignorance and knowledge.  It will contain people ambulating, masticating, respirating, and articulating.  It will contain people who are homosexuals.  It will contain heterosexual people.  It will contain males, females, and God help us all, humans.

It should be known that the author is not promoting anything.  This story is for enjoyment, entertainment and, if the author might be permitted a moment of vanity, inspiration.

Reading it will not make you gay, straight, masculine, feminine, feline, canine, richer or poorer (well, maybe a little poorer as I hope you bought a copy, but I hope not significantly poorer).  It will not make you smarter or stupider, more or less violent.  It will not send you to Heaven or Hell (I think).  It will give you super powers if read while being exposed to cosmic rays*.

If you like it, fantastic.  If you hate it, I’m sorry.  Just know that you’ve been warned.

Yours with love,

Jaye Em Edgecliff

*Please use cosmic radiation responsibly and only according to the direction of a scientific genius or similar.  Author cannot be held responsible for injury or disfigurement caused by exposure to strange solar emanations.

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Mounting anxiety

Published on by JayeLeave a comment

The end of Love or Lust is in sight. Saturday is on the horizon. I feel sick to my stomach.

Publishing a book is quite easy, from a technical standpoint. I could have done it a year ago today. I had the book typed, and myriad places would have taken a PDF or DOC file. But, that’s not good.

First there’s editing. My but what a knock to the ego to see all those mistakes! And even the technically good sentences and paragraphs that leave you thinking, Good God! What in Hell was I thinking?!

Once that’s done, the paranoid among us must proofread it again, and the perfectionists among us (sadly, that’s me – I’m lazy out of self defence, once I elect to do something …) can’t just look for spelling errors, we must reread the text and tweak dialogue and word choice.

Somewhere in here is agonising if you wish to publish this yourself or give it over to another to do. If you elect the agented route you have the headache of query letters and heartbreak of rejection after rejection – or increasingly more popular, no response whatsoever (silent rejection). Should you luck into an agent (or unluck, depending one’s philosophy at this juncture) there’s the agony of waiting while she (ever notice how many agents are women? I wonder why) shops it to publishers, then waiting for them to put you on a shelf.

Even on your own, you aren’t done at editing. God no. Formatting! Do you want a print edition? Better learn about gutters. Do you want page numbers? The title and author in alternating hearders? Layout is a wretch. You get better at it with practice, learn to preset as much of that before you start typing (and styles are my best friends). Exporting to MOBI and EPUB.

Personally I don’t care for the method Smashwords uses to convert documents. I make them in Pages, Adobe InDesign, or PubIt (Barnes & Noble epublishing service) then edit them with a text editor (Komodo is my favourite for this) because it never fails that SOMETHING will be wrong. The only thing I trust to get my MOBI files (Kindle) correct is Adobe InDesign with Amazon’s Kindle plugin.

A cover! Good Lord, you forgot a cover! Image searching! Find an artist! Can you afford an artist?! Creative Commons search? CreateSpace image library and cover creator?

Whew, we have a cover. Is its resolution correct? What do you mean the image size needs to be A x B on this service, but D x F on this other one?! ~sob~ Second guessing time! Oh, God, does this cover actually work? No, it’s stupid … no, no, it’s okay …

Then the anticipation. You’ve got it all done. The day is approaching. Th publisher says 29 June, or you picked it. It’s like waiting for Christmas, but not the excitement of what Father Christmas will bring, but the horror of just what monstrosity is lurking in that package from Aunt Phillis. You are equal parts terrified the book won’t sell a single copy, your own MOTHER didn’t buy it! That it will sell hundreds of copies in an hour and the next day a flood of criticism, negative reviews, peasants carrying pitchforks and torches beating on the door demanding your blood! Or, God help you, it sells, it ACTUALLY SELLS! Well, even. God help you, you’re a celebrity! Nightmares ensue of paparazzi being eaten by you dogs, and pictures of you in the bath showing up in National Enquirer …

Publishing a book is very hard on the psyche.

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Reminder: looking for readers

Published on by JayeLeave a comment

I want to try something different for Ready or Not.  I’d like to select some … in fanfiction they’re often called “Beta-readers” but I seem to recall there’s a niftier and classier term for it that most fiction writers use, but it escapes me right now.  I’d like to select 3 people to be my guinea pigs for book 2.  Given that the series is written such that one book flows to the next to some degree a selected reader will get a free ebook copy of Love or Lust to give them some reference and establishment.

How to be selected?  Nominate yourself.  The means to do this?

  1. Comment on this post
  2. Go here and send me
    1. Your name
    2. Your email
    3. Your file preference — ePUB, MOBI, PDF
    4. Your three favourite scenes/lines/parts of the sample chapters and what it is you liked about them  (if it just tickled you or some other thing that boils to — I don’t know, I just do — fine, you just do.  Say so).
    5. Why?  (Just answer whatever you think I mean by asking this.)
  3. Wait until 11am EDT the 2nd of June for me to announce the ones selected.
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A decision, of sorts, and not reached lightly

Published on by JayeLeave a comment

After much thought, and thanks to some very thought provoking conversation — both in the commentary, as well as among friends — I’ve reached a decision, kind of.

I am going to look carefully at the agents I’ve discovered through http://querytracker.com.  I owe myself the investigation of those agencies, at least, as well as owing any of you excited about seeing these books out — simply put, I’d rather you had more ways to get them, unless I get an overwhelming response that you’d rather have them now from one e-store than a year from now in 1000 stores physical and online alike.

I’m being highly selective.  I’m carefully considering the agent‘s “what I accept” list juxtaposed to her list of titles and clients to be sure that what they think they mean is what I think they mean.  Also, there’s the inescapable fact that all too many agents seem to say “oh, it’s most important that it’s a great story!” but their client list indicates they’re looking long and hard for “the next best way to cash in on the latest hit trends”.  I don’t believe any of the agents I queried before are as bad as that, or bad at all, but such agents exist and I intend to skip them over.  I’m also being selective on another front:  I’m going to try to see how well known, how well selling their client list is.  I’m not looking for an all-star cast, who’s who of the NY Times Best Sellers list, but if she’s got 50 titles under her belt and they’re every one of them the picture of obscurity … I can do obscurity tomorrow and keep the 15% commission for myself!

If I find a promising agent, I shall query further.

I reached this decision after much agonising and arguing with myself and others.  I was finally won over on this ground:  I want this book to be accessible.  If I can reach more hand, more eyes, and more minds with an agent and a publisher, then I should like to have an agent and publisher.  If I could convince myself, or if I could hear a compelling argument from another, regarding that visibility from self-published I’m certainly open to it and would self publish the story June first.  I will say I don’t believe it matters if I’m on a Barnes & Noble shelf or exclusively with Amazon, iBooks only or in every ebook seller offered as part of Smashwords‘ premium catalogue.  I mean, the whole word of mouth matter.  Suffice to say, with an agent and a publisher I’ve got more mouths saying more words on my behalf and any words I can pass on my own.

I do and don’t want to do this.  Frankly I hate writing query letters.  It’s tedious, it’s also terribly difficult — I’ve no self-esteem where they’re concerned.  I also hate waiting; I’ve got a story, and I’m anxious to share it.  I still may self-publish.  For one, I may decide against querying any more agents, if that’s the case … I’m giving myself until 31 May to have queried even 1 agent.  If I have, then the publish date will move to either 1 September, or the “hear back by” date of the last agent submitted a query — whichever is longest.  I’m going to give them time to make up their minds before I make up mine.

I’m sorry.  I know if I said:  if it’s not picked up by 20 May it’ll be published 1 June.  Still, there also hasn’t been any voices crying out in disappointment and sorry “No!  Jaye, please, stop this horrible internal contention and give us the rest of your story!”  I suppose that means I’m not really disappointing anyone but myself by changing my mind.

In the mean time, I want to try something different for Ready or Not.  I’d like to select some … in fanfiction they’re often called “Beta-readers” but I seem to recall there’s a niftier and classier term for it that most fiction writers use, but it escapes me right now.  I’d like to select 3 people to be my guinea pigs for book 2.  Given that the series is written such that one book flows to the next to some degree a selected reader will get a free ebook copy of Love or Lust to give them some reference and establishment.

How to be selected?  Nominate yourself.  The means to do this?

  1. Comment on this post
  2. Go here and send me
    1. Your name
    2. Your email
    3. Your file preference — ePUB, MOBI, PDF
    4. Your three favourite scenes/lines/parts of the sample chapters and what it is you liked about it (if it just tickled you or some other thing that boils to — I don’t know, I just do — fine, you just do.  Say so).
    5. Why?  Just answer whatever you think I mean by asking it.
  3. Wait until 11am EDT the 2nd of June for me to announce the ones selected.
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