Paper and Ebook copy bundling

As you may or may not know, Amazon is launching something called Kindle MatchBook, where the paper copy of a book will be bundled with a discounted or free copy of the ebook.  This launches in October some time.

I saw no strong reason not to participate (I don't usually like to advantage one retailer over others, but my paper sales are very small compared to my ebook sales), so for those of you who buy paper copies and like to have e-copies, I've signed my books up for the ebook to be bundled free with the purchase of physical books available through Amazon.

One Thousand Stars

After two years and two months, nine books and two compilations, I've hit one thousand ratings on Goodreads*!   I consider this a bit of an achievement, since it's no easy task getting people to read a complete unknown self-publisher, though from a trade publishing point of view - when a new release can easily hit a thousand ratings in two months - it's nothing spectacular.  Heck, some books get a thousand ratings before they're even released!

At the same time, I'm still a "slow and steady" sales type.  To give an idea of relative successes, Goodreads recently posted an article about the Goodreads recommendation engine.  The most interesting point was this:

In late April, the Goodreads Recommendation Engine picked up the book. On average, a book needs to have several hundred ratings before it starts to be included by our algorithm. From that point forward, it became the dominant way that Goodreads members discovered the book. That's the blue section you see in the graph.

So even with Stray's 228 ratings, I have a long way to go to even start to be recommended.  The recommendation engines over at Amazon are even more complex (with participation in Select, sadly, being extra helpful).

With And All the Stars only two months into release, it's not really possible for me to say how successful it is or isn't.  It had solid sales on release as my small established audience picked it up and devoured it, and has now settled into a 1-2 books a day sales pattern.

It's very difficult to tell whether the decision to place the book on NetGalley was worth the expense.  I now have many more book blog reviews for And All the Stars than I have for all except Stray, and it's certainly a much more graceful and pain-free way to get the book out there available for reviewers than emailing reviewers individually.  I'm sure I've picked up a few readers thanks to the various reviews I've received (all but a couple of which have been positive or very positive) and there is a chance that the gradual weight of these reviews will combine into genuine "buzz".  But the impact is still absolutely nothing compared to the sales I receive by making Stray free every six months or so,  Periodically making Stray free remains my best way of picking up new readers, with a small fraction of Touchstone readers moving across to my other books.  I probably won't use NetGalley again unless something changes, and just enjoy the smaller amount of reviews I gain naturally.

Hunting is more or less on track to be released in February.  I've changed quite a lot since I wrote this particular book, and in the editing process have so far removed two extraneous characters and spent more time on worldbuilding.  Hunting is actually the first in a series of four books, but I'm in two minds about publishing the rest of them - there's a plot development in book two which some people will hate, book three is only half-written, and book four is this endless sprawling and self-indulgent mass.  So, lots of work if I want to put them out.

Next year will be catching up on sequels to earlier-released fantasy - Bones of the Fair, which is a companion to Champion of the Rose, and focuses on Aspen and a new character.  BotF is almost complete, but needs thorough editing work.  Then The Sleeping Life, which is a sequel to Stained Glass Monsters and about half-done.  I'll also consider whether or not to slot Wellspring (my magic as a non-transportable commodity book) in at this point.

After that I'll be back to writing fresh stuff - Pyramids of London for a start - I've been doing some elaborate mental worldbuilding for that one and am looking forward to getting some of it on the page.  Then another book started thanks to Goodreads - talking about books generally gives me ideas about books, and in this case I ended up deciding I wanted to do some form of Space Opera MMO trapped in a virtual reality novel.  Very over the top space opera with space elves and a beginning section called The Drowned Earth and, well, I'm trying not to think about it all too much because I'll start writing it and throw my schedule out again.

I've actually written quite a bit of space opera/space adventure, but for some reason I always hit a wall and stop around chapter 12.  There's Surrogate, my "space naga smut book".  And Runes, which is rather plainly influenced by Andre Norton's Forerunners - lots of space archeology and ancient working tech.  And Solitary Stars, where a survey pilot gets kidnapped off on a hunt for, again, a Forerunner planet.  And then there's the one which I think I actually called Space Elves, with blue-skinned, pointy-eared people insisting on fighting duels all over the place, much to the dismay of this long-suffering space station cop.

I love non-scientific, over-the-top space adventure, but damned if I ever seem to finish it.

Anyways, here's to the next thousand stars**!

* [26 of these ratings are for a book which I haven't even released yet, but oh well.]
**[Technically it's more like four and a quarter thousand stars, but that's not so catchy a title.] *

Portal-keeping

I don't usually indulge in the rah-rah-down with gatekeepers blah-de-blah which so many people associate with self-publishing.  Trade publishing has brought me many good books and I hope that it continues to do so.

But.

Reading this discussion about portal fantasy on Rachel Manija Brown's livejournal has made me at least briefly pick up the pom-poms and start cheering.  Ms Brown starts the post out with:

Yesterday there was a fascinating discussion of portal fantasy, in which a character from our world is transported to another world. The classic example of this is Narnia. I can’t link to the post, because it was filtered (the “portal fantasy” discussion was in the comments) but I offered to make a public post on the subject. I invite the participants to copy their comments to it.

There was a Sirens panel in which five agents, who were discussing their slush piles, mentioned that they were getting quite a few portal fantasy submissions. Two of them said those made up about a quarter of their total YA fantasy submissions.

I said, "This intrigues me, because I haven't seen a single one in the last ten years. Is it that editors aren't buying them? Did you pick any up?"

The agents replied that none of them had even requested a full manuscript for a single portal fantasy.

They explained that portal fantasies tend to have no stakes because they're not connected enough to our world. While in theory, a portal fantasy could have the fate of both our world and the other world at stake, in practice, the story is usually just about the fantasy world. The fate of the real world is not affected by the events of the story, and there is no reason for readers to care what happens to a fantasy world.

One agent remarked that if the protagonist didn't fall through the portal, there would be no story.

And, of course, I was thinking Stray.  I never submitted Stray to any publishers or agents, not because it was portal fantasy, but because it was in diary format, deliberately rambly, and written originally in blog form.

I had no idea that the biggest bar against it was that it was portal fantasy.

An entire sub-genre.  A sub-genre which is the basis for some of the most popular and enduring stories we have (from Narnia to Oz).  And both levels of 'gatekeepers' were automatically not interested, had declared the sub-genre dead - and not told anyone.

I've had plenty of opportunity to fully appreciate the frustrations of the submission-go-round, and I'm so glad that this particular bullet is one I dodged.

The Touchstone Trilogy remains my most popular story.  People read it end to end, and start over.  I had one reader tell me it got her into reading science fiction.  She went on from me to McCaffrey!

So, yeah, rah rah self-publishing.  Here's to having multiple options, to that internet-wide hole in the fence beside that gate.

The Power of What Happens Next

My main interest in reading is plot.  I like to find out what happens next.  I read stories where the blurb suggests a story I will enjoy, or where it's an author whose other stories I've enjoyed.  I do re-read, but I have to be drawn by a love of a particular character or facet or the writer's voice or some such to revisit a story (though it helps that I have a shockingly bad memory).

There was one particular book - fifth in the latest series of an author I'd followed for years.  She wasn't an absolute favourite, or a re-read author, but I'd enjoyed all the books so far.  The blurb told me this latest book was about two characters - one who is kidnapped by zealots and has to survive, and the other who is blamed for the kidnap and has to mastermind a rescue.

So I read.  And read.  And I'm feeling bored, and wondering why.  And I read, and I'm irritated, and I'm halfway through the book, and by this stage I'm skimming, and I end up flipping through in big chunks, and was left dissatisfied and annoyed.

I've never read that author again.  And it wasn't even her fault.  It was the blurb.

In as much as I take writing advice, one of the pieces of advice I seem to have taken to heart is "The beginning of your story is the event - large or small - where your character(s) life changes".  So Medair starts when Decians interrupt her sulking fit on Bariback Mountain.  Champion begins with the discovery of a new rose, transforming Soren from curiosity to someone required to be important.  Stained Glass Monsters is the moment when a woman in white appears mysteriously in a field.

The first line of the blurb for Stray is: "On her last day of high school, Cassandra Devlin walked out of exams and into a forest."  The first line of the book is Cass's reaction to being on Muina.

Now I could have spent some time establishing what Cass was like at home first.  Fun scenes of Cass and Jules squabbling over the remote control, and Cass and her best friend plotting to win Nick's heart, and Cass preparing for exams.  Cass sitting her English exam.  Cass trying to decide what university she wanted to go to.  Cass sitting her Geography exam.

Imagine that going on for half the book.  Longer.  How long till you started skimming?  In the book of that now-abandoned author, the kidnapping happens three-quarters of the way through the book.

Blurbs can make or break a book - not just for selling the story in the first place, but for setting reader expectations on what the story is about.

Although I'm not outstanding at writing blurbs, every time I remember that kidnapping book, I'm endlessly, boundlessly glad I can control what goes into mine.
The blurb for And All the Stars is a prime example:

Madeleine Cost is working to become the youngest person ever to win the Archibald Prize for portraiture. Her elusive cousin Tyler is the perfect subject: androgynous, beautiful, and famous. All she needs to do is pin him down for the sittings. 

None of her plans factored in the spires: featureless, impossible, spearing into the hearts of cities across the world – and spraying clouds of sparkling dust into the wind.

Is it an alien invasion? Germ warfare?  They are questions everyone on Earth would like answered, but Madeleine has a more immediate problem. At Ground Zero of the Sydney spire, beneath the collapsed ruin of St James Station, she must make it to the surface before she can hope to find out if the world is ending

And this (still to be polished a little) is how the story opens:

Madeleine Cost lay on her side, wedged between an upright and a diagonal. Dull pain marked upper shoulder, hip, thigh. A different hurt pounded her skull. She felt dusty all over, grimed with it, except her lower half, which was wet. Getting wetter.

With a jerk Madeleine came fully awake, cracking her head against the diagonal above. Stars blossomed in the dark, and she lay and gasped until she could dare to do more.

Her world was a tight, close space: a triangle tilted so that her head was lower than her feet. A glimmer of light reflected off metal, not enough to give any details. There was barely room to squeeze one hand past the slick surface, to cautiously explore her face, her skull, and find powdery dust and a throbbing lump.  Free-flowing liquid was draining past her head. She could hear it falling. 

She could smell blood.

The blurb introduces you to the main character, tells the reader something which is learnt in the second chapter, and drops you right into the situation as described.  So, can you tell me what's going to happen three-quarters of the way through the book?

Seriously.

The Internet is not a private conversation

As a user of Goodreads, I've been following the recent spate of "Goodreads is a cess pit of negative reviews" comments from authors with bemused surprise. Not because it's unusual for authors to not enjoy negative reviews, but that in 2012 so many people don't seem to realise that the Internet is a public space. Anyone who has any sort of public image and uses the internet should surely know by now that:

- An email can be forwarded to anyone.
- Not only your fans can read your Twitter feed.
- Google alerts work for more than just authors.
- Google cache means you didn't delete it as much as you thought you did.
- Screenshots are forever.

I gripe about negative reviews all the time. To myself. The mute ratings, with no explanation of why, bring an instant plunge of spirit, but the sting doesn't linger. The easiest to dismiss are the "just couldn't get into it" reviews, or "this is trash", with no further explanation. These reviews often boil down to "I like chocolate, you like vanilla". The difficult reviews to swallow are the detailed, reasoned reviews, written with care, often pointing out aspects of the story that the author didn't realise someone might find problematic.

I dislike most a four-star review of one of my books - because it suggests I wrote about something incorrectly which I happen to think I have right. The tone of that review is very condescending, and I've bit my lip over it more than a few times, but I don't see any value in arguing with the reviewer (let alone organising campaigns against her). And - as those reasoned reviews so often do - I was spurred to spend the time to question myself over my treatment of that item in the books.

But any name-calling I might want to do happens entirely in my head. Because an author having a public brawl about a review they dislike will only draw more attention to that review. Because it's impolite. Because people are allowed to have different tastes to me, or to see issues that I didn't consider, and to state their views. They're allowed to add snark. They're even allowed to be 'wrong'.

Being a professional author is a very public thing (even for us obscure self-publishing types), and I can Google the substance of internet flame wars which happened more than ten years ago. Comments on Twitter or blogs attacking reviews or review sites make me think of nothing more than someone standing at a counter of a bookstore, ignoring the customers in store while talking loudly on the phone about the horrible customer over by the mystery shelf.

Except with an audience of everyone in the world.

A question of exclusivity

Like many other self-publishers, I've had to make a decision over the past day whether to take up Amazon's KDP Select offer.  Amazon's offer is basically this:

• If you opt in, your ebook(s) will be included in the Kindle Lending Library (where Amazon Prime members can borrow an ebook a month for free).
• During the opt-in time (a minimum of three months) those ebooks must be exclusive to Amazon.

In return Amazon is offering:

• Money for each time one of your books is borrowed from the library (the amount depends on how many KDP books are borrowed overall, so potentially you could receive $1 a borrow, or 1c a borrow).
• The ability to set your ebook as a free ebook for 5 days during those three months.
• The possibility of having your book announced as one of the most-borrowed.

For self-publishers who already only publish through Amazon, this is a no-brainer of a decision.  For self-publishers who earn a sizeable percentage of their royalties outside of Amazon, this is also a no-brainer.  For self-publishers like me, who earn 90% of their royalties through Amazon, but also have their books available elsewhere, it's a decision which requires some thought.

The Gain

I doubt that anyone except the most popular self-publishers will earn any significant money through the Lending Library.  It is, however, like all libraries, a valuable promotional opportunity.  I discovered the vast majority of my favourite authors through libraries (which is why libraries are wonderful and good).  Additionally, many publishing houses have chosen not to opt in to the Lending Library (those publishing houses are not required to be exclusive - they just don't want their books there at the moment).  This means self-published books have a greater chance of standing out in the Lending Library than they do through the standard Kindle store.

The bigger advantage is probably the ability to briefly set your books to free.  As I've discussed previously, riding the free train is without doubt the most powerful promotional tool available to a self-publisher.  I gained the vast majority of my readers because I set Stray to free during October: I received a great deal of feedback which made clear that many of my new readers would likely not have checked out the book otherwise - readers who don't usually try fantasy or science fiction, but found that this particular series worked for them.  Since setting a book for free on Amazon currently involves jumping through a number of hoops, control of this function is a very nice carrot.

The Loss

During the past year I've sold maybe 150 ebooks through Smashwords, and 150 through the various other channels Smashwords distributes to.  I've sold over 3000 via Amazon.  That's not only because Amazon got into the ebook market early and drove it hard - it's because Amazon simply treats self-publishers better.

Amazon's algorithms will suggest a book to a potential reader because it matches buyer's trends (people who liked this, liked that) irregardless of whether the book is self-published.  Amazon has multiple methods for readers to discover books they'll probably like, from bestseller lists to those also-boughts.  And, unlike certain other ebook distributers, they don't separate self-publishers out of the best-seller lists, or artificially lower their rankings.  While Amazon doesn't give self-publishers all the advantages of publishing houses, they've apparently recognised that self-published authors can provide their customers with something they want.

Which is great!  But Amazon offering incentives to self-publishers to ONLY publish through them is a far from simple step.

In the discussions which have been raging about this issue, it was quickly pointed out that an ebook could be bought from Amazon and then converted to other formats, or even emailed directly from author to reader following a purchase.  And that you didn't need to put ALL your books in.  And that three months isn't forever.

After you opt into the Lending Library, you have a couple of days to change your mind and then you can't opt out for three months.  Once the three months is over, you'll either be renewed, or can opt out.  So exclusivity is not necessarily permanent.  And so many self-publishers have been taking up the exclusivity option - whether for one book or all their books.

The Rub

Most of my book reading comes either from carefully-considered SFF purchases, or 'popcorn reading' cozy mysteries.  I buy almost all my books as ebooks these days - particularly those popcorn reads.  If the book isn't available to me as an ebook (whether through issues of regionality, or because there are only physical books), I do one of three things:

• Buy the physical book.
• Mark it on Goodreads to check later for an ebook.
• Forget about it.

"Forget about it" is by far my most common response.  Added to this is this new extra complexity of the book only being available if I purchase it through a particular vendor.  While I happen to own a Kindle and buy most of my ebooks through Amazon, I took the time when making this decision to put myself in the shoes of someone who didn't, to decide what my response might be.  This covered the range of:

• Never knowing the book exists because it's not listed at a store I use.
• Knowing the book exists, but missing the "purchase window" because it's currently being a three-month exclusive somewhere else when I go to buy it.  Forget about the book.
• Wanting the book, but being unable/not wanting to buy it from Amazon (for whatever reason, but most likely because there are still large parts of the world where Amazon charges an extra $2 for its Whispernet delivery).
• Resenting the hell out of any author trying to force me to buy through Amazon (which some readers dislike for various reasons) and refusing to buy ANY more books by that author.

I don't particularly think Amazon is evil for doing this - Amazon is simply being smart.  It sells a lot of self-published books and some of those self-published authors have big followings - and this massively bolsters the number of books in their Lending Library.

There are some who warn that this move by Amazon is dangerous for self-publishers, putting all their eggs into one basket and stifling the competition.  There are others who think this will be good for self-publishers because the various other vendors will have to step up and improve their approach to self-publishers if they want to retain their books.

Me, I just don't want to make it harder for that ten percent of my readers who don't buy my books through Amazon.  If a particular vendor offered me ridiculous amounts of money to be exclusive, I'd probably agonise over the decision more, but on the whole I just don't like exclusivity.

Labels

Touchstone ("Stray") is a space adventure, and is going to be a real challenge for me to market in a way where readers will reasonably understand the book.  My 'short short' blurb for it reads:

In this planet-hopping Girl’s Own Adventure, an Aussie teen must survive a world without technology, and then another with far too much. Rescue is only the beginning of her problems.

Given the current popularity of dystopias, I'll need to walk a fine line between showing the downsides of Cass' situation, and avoiding the dystopia label.  There are some un-fun aspects to Cass' experiences, some betrayals of trust, but the story is by no means dystopian.  A reader eager for a dystopian YA will be disappointed by the way this story runs.

Of course, my larger problem with Touchstone is the structure.  Not merely diary format, but the choice to write every day of Cass' life for a year (or at least those days when she's capable of writing).  This does fascinating things to the pacing, making the story feel very episodic, rambling, both breathless and long-winded.  Chapters are a structure which developed in novels for a reason, and "Stray" does not have them.

I once or twice have considered re-writing the entire thing as a more traditional novel, because I know I'm going to get negative flack for this story because of the structure.  But this story is one I love in its current form.  That Cass writes down what happens to her on the days where "nothing happens" is important to me.  That she mentions/names most everyone she spends time with, even if they're not important to the overall plot.  That Cass' character arc is more one of acceptance of her situation and the building of a new family rather than the more traditional "has faults" -> "overcomes faults".

It's taken me a much longer time to edit than I expected, and I'm going to have to do another re-read after I finish this run through.  Good thing I like this story.

A Quarter Million To Go

The next thing on my to-do list is a final edit of "Touchstone".  It's a story I really love - practically a comfort read for me - but it is massively different to everything else I've written.  Character from this world.  Young adult.  Diary format.
The tone is very free-flowing, full of slang and Australian-isms, and I don't want to clean it up to the point I lose the voice which has emerged, but I do need to tune the lazier sentences, and strengthen the overarching theme.  Clocking in at more than 250,000 words, it's a daunting edit to embark upon.  Thankfully the decision to split it means I can work on it in two neat sections.

The story is such a significant departure from my other work it poses something of a marketing challenge.  Do I warn those who like my fantasy novels to look before they leap?  Will the diary format work against me?  In some respects this is the closest I will ever come to a "high concept" novel - tons of hot young men and women in tight black uniforms, the ghost of a love triangle and plenty of angsting from Cass.  But I can't see psychic space ninjas derailing the vampire/steampunk juggernauts.

Orbiting a Cover Survey

For the past couple of years Orbit Books has been posting a chart counting up common elements of fantasy novels.  Now that I have finals (or near-finals) for the six covers I ordered, it occurred me to count up which of these boxes I've ticked.  [I'm classing 'Stray' and 'Lab Rat One' as science fantasy, so can squeak them in.]

- Damsels (distress varying) x 6
- Sword x 1
- Castles/Citadels x 1 (arguably - there is a gorgeous hazy suggestion of one in the background of 'Champion')

The magic on the cover of 'Stained Glass Monsters' isn't quite 'glowy' (though Faille certainly is!), and I can't see any other categories I can mark down.  [I'm presuming 'headshots' are of the "Boom! Headshot!" variety and not simply a close-up of a person, though I don't have one of those either.]

As I read the chart, two things occured to me:

- Why is Orbit counting damsels but not dudes?  Seems one-sided.
- This survey is so ripe for silly categories.

My top suggestions for cover categories are:

- Would you like goggles with that?
- Ta-tas out.
- What is HE compensating for?
and
- I - I'm not sure what that IS.

ISBNicity

Today my block of ISBNs arrived - making me not only an author, but a publisher. Still a month or two to go before I use them, but it's a rather special thing to have them in my name.

More Than Pictures

While I wait (on tenterhooks) for the cover images to trickle in (and between a considerable amount of editing), I've been tackling the question of design.

What font? What title font? What chapter header font? How to separate scenes in chapters? Do I want Drop Caps? What font?

The font for the cover title is by far the hardest. It, just as the illustration, should convey something of the feel of the book - or at least not clash or detract.

I've found quite a few potentials, and must research more about licensing and usage, but am holding off on any attempts to put anything together until I have the main component - my much-looked for covers.

Swallowed Up

MMOs are magnificent timesucks. Final Fantasy XIV launched yesterday, and I will be buried in it for some time, but fortunately I usually come up for air after an initial period of concentrated devotion. If nothing else, it's a nice distraction during the last couple of weeks before my self-imposed deadline. That's been extraordinarily difficult not to obsess about lately.

Soon now.

Covering Cons

WorldCon is grinding to a close - only one day to go. I've been attending various panels where the discussion members have been cover artists, and their frustration at declining budgets and the rise of photograph covers was palpable.

While the cover is not the book, they have always been an important part of the book for me. I've seen some spectacular photographed covers, but I far prefer painted, and certainly sympathise with artists who are shut down by marketing people merely for asking a question, or daring to want to talk to the author. Fortunately this attitude doesn't appear universal in publishing, but it must be uncomfortable to work in such a situation.

The panels were also very informative regarding how the covers are laid out and composed. I do enjoy learning something useful.

Cover Pipe-Dreams

I've been working on cover ideas lately - mere mental amusement at this stage since I have no books in production. Since covers are generally not something authors have much say in, I've always assumed that I would be very lucky if I ended up with an image I even liked, let alone an ideal, and for many years I've never put any energy into covers.

Thinking about what would be exactly right has made me realise how important covers are to me. I don't want just any cover, I want something which truly encapsulates the story.

Medair's cover has been with me for the last year or so - an image of her collapsed in a dark room, caught as ever between action and inaction, guilt and despair, while a fire burns outside the door.

Champion's followed along - Soren, made puppet by the Rose - and then Stained Glass Monsters, which wants to be about a sunlit Faille, instead of either Rennyn or Kendall. And now I have the covers for Cass's tale (and some new titles) which revolve around that typical schoolgirl's backpack.

As the year grinds on, I grow ever more eager for these stories to be tangible things, to have them on my shelf, to have something people can read.

I've never been a patient person.

The Readerly Text

This was a concept I was introduced to in university: a book is a construction between writer and reader, and is different to every person who experiences it.

Reader reaction to my work often surprises me, and today I had feedback on "Stained Glass Monsters" which completely floored me since it was not a description which I would ever have applied to the story.

When receiving 'surprising' feedback on a story, I find it always important to take a few steps back and weigh up what factors made the reader come up with that response. Then I generally debate adjusting the story to prevent anyone else having that response.

In this particular case, the feedback still feels very off the mark, and though there are a few word dinks I'll probably make, I think in this case it's a matter of someone with very different tastes - or using stronger words to get a point across.

I'm well aware that in writing something which appeals to my specific tastes, I am never going to approach 'high concept'. At what point do you sacrifice writing the story you want, to its highest possible quality, and start trying to write what's marketable? Urban or dark or whatever the current fashion is?

I think, when I was younger, I would be tempted to follow the trends, but I am fortunate to have come to understand that my reason for wanting to be published at all (outside of the very human desire to preen and join a semi-exclusive club) is to share my particular worlds and stories, to have other people love these tales which I enjoy.

It's possible this may make me unpublishable, of course. But I push on with making the stories the best that they can be, and attempt to place them with a publisher who shares my tastes. At least until my October deadline.

Forward Momentum

My train trip to and from the city - isolated as I am from the internet - is a very productive time for me. Wellspring, my "magic as a non-transportable commodity" piece, is taking off and I've worked out what I want to happen for the first half of the novel. I also dinked Stained Glass Monsters, making subtle adjustments to the relationship development to emphasise the continuing hurdles.

As usual when I turn my attention to the publishing aspect of being a writer, I'm gripped by impatience and torn between what I consider polite submission behaviour (submitting to one agent at a time) and what is widely advised (submitting to many agents at once). I'm distracting myself by continuing to research the current state of writing and submitting. There's a great deal more quality information out there these days, and some very interesting agent blogs.

So far I've discovered that there's a much slower market for high fantasy than there was back when I last pushed for publication. Which is a pity, since I rarely write anything else, and I suspect there's even less of a market for space naga smut, which is the only non-high fantasy thing I've worked on recently. Many agents who include fantasy in their genres really mean urban fantasy, which I've never been inclined to write even if I planned to jump on a bandwagon which has already almost passed. Nor am I drawn to steampunk, no matter how fabulous I think "Girl Genius" is.

I also discovered an agent blog that listed things required before submitting to an agent and as well as the obvious (complete manuscript and query letter) included a web site. How fortunate that I only recently created one! A web site has always been on the horizon, but it seemed egotistical to create one before I had any books available. But my deadline and the resolution to take publishing seriously conveniently pushed me ahead and I'll be maintaining it whatever the year brings.

The Google Spiders haven't found the site yet, so I don't pop up as a result - ironic given that Google now owns Blogger.

I get a kick typing andreakhost.com. That won't go away in a hurry.