Have I mentioned lately that I was writing a book? Yep, little, old me. Saturday, I finished it. It's written, proofed, noted, biblographied, illustrated, and captioned. Then I tied it up with a virtual bow and shipped it off to my agent. It weighs in at a petite 88,592 words. This morning I heard back from her. She thinks it's satisfactory, or, as she put it, "You are amazing! Not many first time authors (or seasoned ones!) can deliver so complete—and to my quick perusal—excellent, an enchilada on such a tight timeline." I am rather proud of my enchiladas.
Now you wait for it to actually get published. And wait. And wait. And wait. :)
ReplyDeleteIt's supposed to be on the winter list next year. On the proposal I said I could finish it in six months. The publisher asked if I could do it in four. I said sure. The only other offer I had, said it would be out in summer 2018.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's pretty much how the dead tree publishing industry works. They get it all nicely packaged, then it goes into Library Journal and other such publications that have multi-month lead times for reviews and advertising (or at least listing). Then libraries look at the lists of upcoming publications for 6 months from the publication of said lists and decide what they want to order. And then, and only then after the preorders start coming in, do the publishers actually start printing books and shipping them out. It's no wonder that there's some folks who've said "f**k that s**t" and self-published on Amazon instead, but that's really not an option for your genre because most of the buyers will be institutional buyers in your case.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations, John! I can't wait to order my copy.
ReplyDeleteOne for my Christmas 2017 list then, do you think?
ReplyDeleteHope it's not going to be priced for institutional buyers.
I'm really looking forward to buying and reading this.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations, sir.
So what are you going to do while you wait ?
If you're suddenly without preoccupation, either O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin seafaring novels or Sayers's Peter Wimsey mysteries or Dunnett's Nicolo and Lymond series are excellent summer reading.
Well done, John!
ReplyDeleteNow you create the dog and pony show with which you will spend the next little while crossing the country from book store to con to NPR station.
All in the service of selling books!
--ml