Comments on: What then should we do…?

By: glenda larke

glenda larke — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:35:59 +0000

Thanks for this post, Alma. True indeed. Although Kelly has a valid point. I’d be over the moon and back if I got that much in an advance.

I am another author who shared a publication date (for The Last Stormlord in Australia) with Dan Brown, alas. Even my sister in my home town had a hard job hunting down my book. She chided the booksellers about the stacks of Dan Browns all over the shop with: ‘Why aren’t you promoting a home town writer?’ and got very blank looks. They hadn’t bothered to unpack the distributor’s box of my book – just the Dan Brown ones.

I also TWICE shared publication dates with Harry Potter…I am doomed.

By: Doug Hulick

Doug Hulick — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:28:58 +0000

Excellent, excellent post. I know I will be referring back to it frequently since I just sold my first novel and will soon be facing the mountains you mention. I especially appreciate the advice on how to go about searching out sites that speak to you, even if they may not “pay off” in terms of exposure. You should at least like what is going on there if you are going to take part in the conversation.

I’ve always prided myself on keeping my internet and blog distractions down, but now it looks like I will have to wade deeper than in the past. The trick, as you say, is going to be balancing the writing with the reading/blogging. Something tells me a hobby or two may bite the dust along the way, but I suppose I’ve been needing to cut back on this a bit anyhow. When you are answerable to a publisher and a schedule, things take on a different focus.

By: Kelly McCullough

Kelly McCullough — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:59:42 +0000

50,000? Heck I'd be delighted to be getting 20,000 at this point. The median advance for a first novel is 5,000.

By: Adele

Adele — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:36:40 +0000

I completely understand the comment about a lot of blogs not feeling so approachable, in part it’s because once we get any momentum going we are trying to fit full time reading and web maintenance schedule in around our day job. I guess a little like authors trying to fit a web presence in around writing if they are lucky enough to not be trying to fit both around a full time job. Also like any job failing to meet the commitments we make is not good for anyone and something to be avoided.

Anyway, in the name of bad form and shameless self promotion, i’d like to say Un:Bound is always happy to have guest appearances from anyone who wants to drop by and chat, authors, other bloggers, editors, whatever. We’d be delighted to have any of you over to play.

By: Elias McClellan

Elias McClellan — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:36:33 +0000

Excellent, excellent, excellent, post Ms. Alexander. I’m both scared silly and furiously taking notes. An acquaintance of mine, (name not mentioned as I’m not trying to use this site to pimp for myself or anyone else) took the initiative to self-publish his first book as he couldn’t sell it to a publisher. He then spent the next 18 months pimping it across the chitlin’-belt, while writing his 2nd.

Based on his sales or more importantly, his following in book-clubs and in the blogosphere and an invaluable mention by Zane, he got a contract on book 2. The publisher got him an end-cap in MOST of the projected markets and a quarter-page in the trades. Then they dropped him after his sales failed to set the world on fire.

I’ll never have the guts to self-publish but the advice he gave me, as little as he would spare, was to push, sell, push, sell. He said any advances in the beginning is your travel budget to independent bookstores and events. While he now has a new publishing deal and four books in print, I don’t know if he has an internet/blog presence but I know that he no longer relies on the publisher to promote him.

Any other words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated by this wanna-be/will-be some day.

Thanks again.