I’ve been reading about how bad the market is and how hard it is to get published right now.
I don’t particularly care.
If the market or my writing style or a smudge the mailman left on my query envelope keeps me raking in the rejections….
Fine.
I’m working on the prequel to the series, and I can try my hand querying it when the economy’s better.
But just because the economy is bad, it doesn’t mean I’m going to use that as an excuse to give up. I’m not going to stop querying and deathgrip my agent list in the hope that the recession will end.
Suck it up, people, and get back to your keyboards. These stories aren’t going to write themselves.
There are two modes of publishing. The traditional publishing house and the more modern “do it yourself” variety.
Some people, like my dad, take “do it yourself” to the extreme and print the book themselves on an actual printer and ship it out per order. This can work, as my dad has proven to me.
Most self-published books are through vanity publishing houses, print-on-demand, or pay-to-publish services. You pay them and they give you a nice book all bound up to do with as you will.
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This is very interesting.
Glass says that when you start working on creative projects, you have excellent taste but your work isn’t as good as you want it to be. It takes years to bridge that gap, but a lot of people quit in that period. The only way to get past it is to keep putting out work until your creations reach the level that your taste expects.
I think this is the “horrible first book, decent second book” thing. Every writer has projects stuffed away that suck.
Ira Glass is the host of the national radio show, This American Life.
I’ve been reading some fanfiction lately (don’t laugh at me), on X-Men: Evolution. I’m a fan of Rogue and Gambit in particular, thanks to the original cartoon when I was a kid. There’s just something beautiful about how starcrossed they are. As for the cartoons, I just prefer the art style of Evolution. I also wouldn’t understand all the references of real X-Men fanfiction and, frankly, X-Men: Evolution is for teens and that’s the age group I gravitate toward, as far as entertainment goes.
The show itself was kind of moralistic — it tried to teach lessons about being a true friend and how family always forgives and how you should talk things out. That was okay, but it did get in the way of plot. The best episodes were the ones that delved into the characters’ canon comic backgrounds, because that added surprising depth to a show that leaned too far toward after-school-special. My favorite of these depth episodes was (obviously) the one where Gambit gets Rogue to help him out with something in his old hometown: “Cajun Spice.” I won’t spoil the plot, but it’s the first (and only) real interaction the two have (the show got canceled soon after).
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Query
Definition: The 1-page single-spaced letter that makes the agent go “Ooo! I want more!” Think of it as a persuasive note.
Synopsis
Definition: The summary of your complete book, condensed into only a few pages.
Outline
Definition: Listing of all your plot points in order.
Cover Letter
Definition: The letter that accompanies the pages of your manuscript or partial.
Bio
Definition: Your writing experience and interesting (relevant) facts. Similar to a resume but not quite. This is where agents decide what about you is marketable.
What Not To Do
