While it’s worth trying to get the attention of big publishers, it’s a long, tough haul and there are certainly no guarantees. This is not to say that you should give up on the dream — many authors have succeeded despite multiple rejections — but remember that you do have other options and, believe or not, those other options might be better for you. Continue reading
Congratulations! You’ve written a book. So … now what?
Getting that book published is going to be tough. Big publishers are likely to reject new authors or drop authors who don’t sell large numbers of books, while small publishers can only produce a handful of books per year and likely cater to very specific audiences. Self-publishing will give you the most artistic control, but it can be expensive and will require you to do your own marketing. So what is the best way to get published? Continue reading
Previously, Ira Nayman took us on a little tour of the more unexpected side of online publishing — who was doing it and why. Contrary to some commonly held opinions, writers who put their stories online are not a gaggle of no-talent hacks but may be established writers looking to cut out the middlemen or simply seek feedback from readers and fellow writers. Now, more authors than ever are self-publishing or working with small and mid-sized publishers. But what drove them away from large-scale traditional publishing in the first place? Continue reading
Last year, a conversation with an author got me thinking about the publishing industry in general and the Canadian industry specifically. Why are so many Canadian authors stuck in the small-fish pond — is it just the general difficulty of getting your name out there, or is the Canadian industry a particularly tough nut to crack? Has the shift to self-publishing and electronic media helped authors or hurt them? Continue reading
I like to write. Editing is a great career, but writing has been a wonderful hobby and sometime escape. Nonetheless, I go through long periods where I don’t write at all or can’t finish a paragraph before give up on what I have concluded is a defective story, essay, or poem. In fact, I don’t publish blog articles half as often as I should because I’m ridiculously critical of my own writing. (Sound familiar?) However, I’ve decided to pick up the pen once more. Continue reading
This past April, I spent a weekend at Ad Astra, where I met a number of Canadian authors and a publisher or two. I spent a lot of time around the SF Canada table, where I met the affable Ira Nayman who gestured towards the various vendor tables and noted that there were so many interesting books by talented Canadian writers, and yet few Canadians seemed to notice them. Continue reading
Back in May, I attended A Dark Night of Canadian Fantasy, a reading put on by five talented local authors, where I met Nicole Chardenet. Nicole is a transplant from the United States, but I’d say she fits in pretty well with her colleagues up here — she’s intelligent, irreverent, and utterly hilarious. Her book Sumer Lovin’ is much the same. Continue reading
When Vanessa Ricci-Thode of Thodestool Literary Services asked me if I would do the “blog hop”, I agreed, and here we are.
The concept is simple: answer these four questions and tag three writers to do the same. Writing about writing (“second order writing”) is a great way make yourself write something, and the “hopping” encourages others to do the same. Continue reading
All right, we’ve talked about themes and things, purposes and settings, and still we haven’t drawn any definite conclusions about what constitutes a genre. So what is the real problem here? Frankly, it’s us. Continue reading
Quills and Queries Editing 