Shawn L. Bird

Original poetry, commentary, and fiction. All copyrights reserved.

waiting for the other shoe February 12, 2011

Filed under: Grace Awakening,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 2:46 am
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It felt too easy. No one else had a publishing story that went, “finished my book, pitched in to a publisher at a conference, she took it, seven months later she asked for more, two months later she signed it…”

Every other author I’ve met has a long list of rejection letters. I don’t. Grace has charmed everyone who’s ever heard about her. I know she’s loved, because those first beta-readers were ruthless enough to ensure the later beta-readers (delta readers?) loved it right off, without reservation.

But good though it is, publication coming so easily seemed surreal. Where was the challenge? the suffering for the art? the constant re-sending of the manuscript? I asked if perhaps we could move up release to the summer so I could get in a book tour before school started, and the editor was open to look at that, if the editing went well, when he started it in February. Everything was going just too smoothly.

Then the shoe dropped, and January 31st as I read the email that the publishing house was closing down and that the contract was voided, I actually thought, “Ah there we go. That’s what I was expecting would happen!”

Now Grace Awakening is off to meet a new publisher and the waiting game begins again. Hopefully only another week or two before I hear, and hopefully I hear that they love her as much as everyone else loves her, and is eager to have her out in the world representing their publishing house! Wouldn’t it be awesome if they fast tracked, and got her out by July so I can do a really thorough summer book tour?

 

metaphor for the publication journey February 1, 2011

Filed under: Grace Awakening,Poetry,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 7:22 am
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The sun is gleaming
so brightly that the snow is blinding.
The future’s so bright I’ve got to wear shades.

Every day another supporter, another booster,

another enthusiastic participant
in the waiting game asks, “WHEN?”
Soon, I assure them. Soon!

A flicker on the computer screen
“I hate to have to tell you…”
and a gleaming dream
is buried in a white out of
black uncertainty.
I don’t know now, I have to tell them
I can’t see anymore.

.

.

80 minutes ago I received word that the publisher for Grace Awakening is closing down in 30 days.  Grace was scheduled for release in 240 days.  That is 210 days too late, unfortunately.  Now we’re back to peddling a manuscript.  Poor Grace!

 

being a statistic November 10, 2010

Filed under: Commentary,Grace Awakening,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 7:24 pm
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Meg Tilley says in her blog (September 9, 2010) that of 1.5 million books published in a year, only 1.68% will sell 5000 copies in a year.  I’m not sure if she talking worldwide, English speaking world, US, Canada or what.  1.68% seems like an impossibly miniscule number.  My math is always suspect (i.e. please correct me if you are good at this!) but by my calculations that 1.68% of 1.5 million equals about twenty-five thousand books.  That sounds much more do-able.  I can be one of those lucky twenty-five thousand books that hit over five thousand in sales, right? Let’s do it together, okay? 

In Canada a best seller is 3000 copies a week.  Can we do it?

 

the longest month September 12, 2010

Filed under: Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:06 am
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I’m starting to feel like I’m nine months pregnant.  The ninth month of pregnancy is the longest month.  You mothers out there will know what I mean.  When you get to a few weeks from your due date, people start calling you up to see if you’re still pregnant or whether you’ve got a baby in the cradle yet.   As you pass your due date (as I did every time) you get even more concerned calls.  All the affectionate interest begins to get a little wearing.  You want that baby out more than anyone else, and every well intentioned question emphasizes the delay.  You watch the days pass on the calendar and when the next person asks if you’re still baby-less, you want to scream, “I will ensure the whole planet knows once junior has arrived, please leave me alone to agonize in peace over this miserable delay!”

Welcome to my experience with publishing!  I hear I am not the only one who has discovered that those in the publishing industry have their own time vortex.  They say ‘2 weeks’ but that really means ‘2 months.’   They say  ‘soon’ when they really mean ‘later.’  I hope having named a month, they don’t mean the one NEXT year, since the one named has already passed.  

I once heard of a writer who was waiting to hear back from his agent.  Being used to long delays and poor communication, he just waited patiently.  He didn’t want to be an irritating pest, after all.  Eventually he wrote, and discovered his agent had been dead for a year already!  Oh dear.

It’s a waiting game, and I’m in the longest month.  Pretty soon I’m going to have those contracts in my hands and the adventure will be undeniable.

Or maybe I’ll be sending flowers to a  funeral.

 

The publishing process August 26, 2010

Filed under: Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 3:37 am
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I was just asked by a budding novelist to tell something about the publishing process. Here was my rather abbreviated response:

The best suggestion I can give you is to spend a lot of time on www.writersdigest.com reading articles and chatting on the forums. A subscription to the magazine is also very worthwhile. It’s an excellent manual to the process of getting published in a variety of genres.

In my About Me section there are links to some writerly organizations you may want to check out.

My own personal experience with the process is given at https://shawnbird.com/grace   See the article (link at the bottom of the page) called The Story of Grace.

The simplified version of the process goes something like this:
1. write your novel
2. edit your novel 20 times, cutting 10% each time
3. leave the novel for a year
4. read it again, re-write all the parts you now realise are crap
5. send out query packages to agents and/or publishers (cover letter identifying your credentials and a bit about the novel, a one page synopsis of the novel, a 10 page sample of the novel)
6. get a lot of rejection notices in the mail- make particular note of any suggestions given by professionals about your manuscript, fix them
7. get an offer to publish
8. negotiate a contract, get a cheque for your advance
9 (at this point, the publisher may leave your ms in limbo for years. It might never actually be published, even though they paid you for it)
10. edit with the publishers’ editors. They will force you to make painful cuts
11. see a published copy!!!
12. work with the publishing house marketing team to publicize your novel
13. wait for royalty cheques to roll in! 😉 (One friend tells me he sometimes gets royalty cheques for amounts like $1.32)