Wednesday 28 April 2010

Slow progress

I've spent the morning trying to move books around, get shelves up, repot plants and tidy up - which means I have got nothing done this week on my novel.

The problem is, I look round at what I have done and it isn't as if I haven't accomplished anything. I just haven't accomplished what I wanted to!

So, here's my new counter and may it guilt me into getting the right work done:


I've also just realised that my numbering is out on the blog, so here's the details:

#1 - complete in drawer 90,000 words
#2 - half finished at 62,000 words
#3 - full with publisher (and that makes me grin like an idiot)
#4 - started for Nanowrimo, now at 64,000 words out of 90,000

Friday 23 April 2010

A new unicreature...

I have to say, when I first got the newly released Silver and fully evolved it, I laughed. Some of you can guess why:


Cute isn't he? And his ground crew aren't bad either

Thursday 22 April 2010

And more words

So, while I wait for feedback on No 3, Novel #4 just reached 64,000 words.

I'm trying to do 1,000 words a day. It may not sound like much but it's now at the stage of going through writing linking sections, rearranging events, checking continuity and so on, to make a working first draft. I find myself worried about something I had not considered earlier; the prospect of it going over the 90,000 target.

I also have an interesting problem with the ending, prompted by real events: the election. Large chunks of the book are political satire, taking an even handed swipe at most things. The historical precedent my current ending is based on may become irrelevant on 6th May (the joys of a possible hung parliament). Do I want to write something that could be a period piece before release?

Despite this, the query letter is written and ready for it, but I want to get the mauscript into final shape before I start revising query letters.

Having learned from my last set of submissions, I will probably just send this one straight overseas and see what happens.

Friday 16 April 2010

Another rejection

I have another rejection from an agency. This is a form rejection, so it isn't worth trying to decypher hidden meanings about plot, characterisation etc.

Meanwhile the full manuscript is still across in Canada, with the publisher, hopefully being read and enjoyed. What I really wish I had not read was that it can take three months for editors to get back to authors about manuscripts. I won't have any fingenails left by then!

However novel #3 got a re-edit and a lot of extra writing and is now on 61K. I honestly think it will top out at 90K, but I really am not sure what genre it fits into.

Friday 9 April 2010

A manuscript request

And finally we seem to have progress on the writing front!

Yesterday I got a request for a full manuscript from the publisher looking at one of my novels. After a few moments of complete shock, I sat down to write back. This proved harder than I thought, since the instinctive response is to agree to anything to get one step further towards publication.

Still after some work I think I had a few lines that did not make me look completely insane, and a copy of the manuscript all ready in their house format. It's gone now, out into the ether, and now I just have to wait to hear. And as many authors already know and I just found out: waiting on a response to a full is actually worse than waiting on a query.

Unfortunately I have to admit, after being told repeatedly by various UK agents that there was no market in the UK for the adventure genre, it seems going outside Britain was the right choice. One thing I would be interested in finding out is whether the decline of young men reading and the decline in publishing adventure books (usually targeted towards them) corralates. After all if it does, would that be cause and effect by one upon the other, or a vicious circle?

Wednesday 7 April 2010

Hubpages - to write or not...?

I used my old hubpages account at the weekend and set up my first live hub, about USB Cell batteries. This was very much a test to see how it would work.

The good.
It's quick and easy to use - in some ways easier than Squidoo.

The bad.
It's less flexible, with a smaller range of modules and a limited amount of embedding allowed.


The issues
Now to get down to the problem: I do these pages to raise money for charities I support.

Squidoo gives a payment for lenses that attract visitors and a share of affiliate income and the chance to embed donate modules or your own affiliate, while Bukisa gives a straight payment-per-visit for articles. Hubpages does neither - any revenue raised must be raised through membership of affiliate schemes or advertising by the owner. To me this means there's no real benefit to writing good content, particularly as you then have to stuff it full of distracting ads and hope someone clicks on them. If you've been following the blog you know my opinions of Infolinks when they turned up on Squidoo...

For anyone doing this for income, there's a bigger problem: Their affiliate setup only works if you are a US citizen - the UK Amazon account I tried to link does not work as the tags aren't acknowledged. I tried embedding links directly, but apparently that is not allowed by their HTML editor. So far the only one I've got working is Kontera, and that's too similar to Infolinks for my liking.

Would I continue doing Hubpages? To be honest, my initial impression is not entirely positive. I'll probably do a few to promote my articles and lenses from bukisa or elsewhere. They are quick and easy to create but the failure to embed affiliates means they produce no income or charity donation, and I get more traffic elsewhere.

Tuesday 6 April 2010

And progress is made slowly...


Over Easter I got two more rejections - one at 1am Easter Sunday. Both were form rejections, so no useful information or advice unfortunately. On the other hand that is the last of the UK ones for that manuscript, so hopefully the genre's not as dead overseas.

I've had the book on the left recommended to me, and when I checked out whether it was good as claimed, I found it was also highlighted on the howpublishingreallyworks blog. Hopefully that's a ringing endorsement.

On the garden front the cress and mustard I grew have gone, and the lettuce is now seriously taking route. I also have seven dwarf bean plants taking over the kitchen.

And on the article front? I've just added another article to Bukisa, and am looking forward to them getting the bugs out of their topic pages, since one of their topics is the GWR. I have also published my first hub on hubpages, but may well not do another one. I'll blog here once I've got my thoughts together on it, but it's another US/non-US issue.

Thursday 1 April 2010

And a happy easter to my readers...

And that's it really. The house sale is progressing slowly, as these things do. I'm still waiting on hearing about the manuscript, and the plants are growing fine. Although the problem with growing cauliflower on a window sill just became apparent - I had forgotten how big they get.

I need a larger windowsill, and someone to eat the cress forest I accidentally grew.