new posts in all blogs
Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: author panic, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 6 of 6
How to use this Page
You are viewing the most recent posts tagged with the words: author panic in the JacketFlap blog reader. What is a tag? Think of a tag as a keyword or category label. Tags can both help you find posts on JacketFlap.com as well as provide an easy way for you to "remember" and classify posts for later recall. Try adding a tag yourself by clicking "Add a tag" below a post's header. Scroll down through the list of Recent Posts in the left column and click on a post title that sounds interesting. You can view all posts from a specific blog by clicking the Blog name in the right column, or you can click a 'More Posts from this Blog' link in any individual post.
STATUS: All my Texas blog readers, Kristin Callihan's FIRELIGHT is going to be included in the romance round-up on Good Morning Texas tomorrow, Wed. May 2. Station WFAA-TV channel 8. It's the ABC affiliate in Dallas/Fort Worth. How cool is that. I wish I could tune in.
What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? DOMINO DANCING by Pet Shop Boys
When I was at the Pikes Peak Writers Conference last week, I had a writer rush up to me in a panic to ask a question. She was incredibly worried that she had not established her social media platform for her novel yet.
If her release date was in 4 weeks, then I would say she had cause to panic.
But given that she hadn't actually finished writing her work-in-progress (let alone begin querying for her agent search), I found her concern a little premature.
*grin*
I advised her that at this point in her professional career, she should focus on writing the best novel she possibly could. Plenty of time to get the social media cranking while it's on submission. I personally don't know any agent who would say no to an author for a project they love just because the publicity platform isn't there yet.
I can build that with an author. I imagine most agents feel the same.
STATUS: Today we made a debut author’s dream come true as we sold her first novel. Man, that’s the best feeling in the world.
What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? DREAM CAFÉ by Greg Brown
What news to start my Friday. I’m not here 10 minutes when an agent friend sends me the news that Dorchester is ceasing mass market publishing and switching to electronic. It’s a testament to how linked in we are as the news didn’t officially hit until 2 hours later via PW’s daily news email blast.
I’m just shaking my head. We agents have known for the last year (at least) just how precarious Dorchester’s financial position has been but I must say I was not expecting this announcement.
We ceased submitting to them awhile ago. As an agency, we have three former Dorchester clients (that have moved on to other publishing houses) so for us, only our clients’ backlist titles will be impacted. I really feel for any author who might have signed a deal with them recently as this is not what they signed up for.
STATUS: Sorry about no blog entry on Friday. The whole day got away from me.
What’s playing on the iPod right now? A KIND OF MAGIC by Queen
No doubt, I’ve been on a ranting streak for awhile. For a nice change, how about a blog entry on a midlist series getting a second life. Let’s talk about something positive today rather than more of my righteous indignation. Grin.
Here is Mari Mancusi. Author of the YA BLOOD COVEN vampire series—originally started years ago, before the craze, but now have new covers and a new floor display in Borders.
Never Give Up…Never Surrender!
I know I can’t be the only author who mutters the Galaxy Quest creed every time the publishing industry throws me a curve ball. This particular time was three years ago, when I got an email from a fellow author, published by the same publishing house that did my Blood Coven Vampires series.
“They’re not picking up anyone’s options!” she lamented.
Shocked, I frantically called Kristin and she started to do some digging. Turns out, the author was right. My publisher was basically fading out their YA line and concentrating more on their core business of adult romance.
My series was basically DOA before the third book had even come out.
I was devastated. Though I’d written other books, none meant as much to me as my little vampire series. And I hated disappointing all my loyal readers who, after Book #3 - Girls that Growl - was released, kept begging for more. But what could I do? Kristin went back to the publishing company to ask again and again, but they kept saying no.
Of course, I could have given up then and there. After all, I’d just gotten a new children’s publisher and was under contract for two hardcover books at a much higher royalty rate. I could have easily moved on and said goodbye to my blood coven vampires. To my twin heroines, Sunshine and Rayne.
But the series meant too much to me for that. And it meant too much to my readers who kept begging to know what happens next. So I kept pushing. I started a “Save the Blood Coven” campaign in which I got readers to help spread the word and get bookstores and libraries to stock it. I did videos, I enlisted a street team, I encouraged my readers not to let the big corporations decide what they got to read.
And so the sales continued, slow but steady, over the next two years. And every day I’d have new teens write to me and say they’d just recently discovered the series. But though the publisher kept reprinting the first three books, they also kept refusing to buy book #4.
Then, out of the blue, something strange happened. My editor from Germany wrote me an email, asking about book #4. She said she didn’t care if the US published it or not. Would I consider writing it just for them?
I decided to do it. Namely because it allowed me to continue writing my beloved series. And Kristin and I schemed for alternative ways to get it to a US audience. Maybe a small publisher would see the Bookscan numbers and see it as an opportunity. Maybe we could sell it POD since I already had a fan base. Or I could give it away as an e-book. Somehow – someway – I was determined to get that story to my readers, no matter what!
But before pursuing those more drastic options, Kristin decided to go back one last time to my US publisher, to see if they’d changed their minds. After all, the Twilight movie had just swept into theaters and vampires were hotter than ever.
And low and behold, they said yes. Not only yes to a fourth book, but also that they would reprint the first three books as well, with shiny new covers for a whole new generation of (vampire hungry) fans!
I think I cried when Kristin told me the good news. She, in return, said that
STATUS: Slowly working through emails, negotiations, contracts and whatnot. I’m particularly fond of the whatnots (aka the chocolate jar).
What’s playing on the iPod right now? ROCKY MOUNTAIN WAY by Joe Walsh
The week before last, I posted a blog entry on a crisis averted in the publishing world when the ARC of my author’s book (instead of the corrected final proof) was submitted to the printer for the actual publication.
And how wonderful the editor was in terms of getting right on that, trashing the initial print run, and getting the book done right (Kudos J! You know who you are!)
Well, as I mentioned then, it’s rare occurrence but it can happen. An editor friend couldn’t help but share her story. She asked to remain anonymous so I’ve respected that request but otherwise, here is her story in full. She works at one of the major houses in New York.
Hi Kristin--Was just reading your blog. Hope you're enjoying Maui. I’ve attended and they always do throw a good party. And it's Maui...
I got a laugh out of your story about your author's finished book being the ARC version. Well, not a funny ha-ha laugh, because that really sucks for her and her publisher but more a knowing laugh. When I was a 23-year old assistant editor, my executive editor boss got fired and I wound up taking over a bunch of her books. One was a book by a medium-size celebrity who was nonetheless a major-sized headache. After I'd been on the case for a couple months, the celebrity's paperback comes out. I get the usual three hot-off-the presses copies from the bindery, send one to the author, one to her extremely powerful agent, and stick the third on my shelf. I think nothing of it for a couple hours until I'm taking a phone call, my eyes wander over to my shelf, and I realize that--holy f**king shit!--the printer HAD MISSPELLED THE AUTHOR'S NAME ON THE SPINE! I leap out of my chair, seize the book in my trembling hands, and run down the hall to the managing editor's office, whereupon I thrust the book at her, point to the spine and burst into tears.
God bless her, she kept her cool, but it was a MAJOR error. We wound up having to pulp something like 40,000 paperbacks at 65 cents apiece. We were lucky that I'd noticed early and the books had only shipped to the warehouse, not to the stores, or we would have had to recall those and lose the shipping money on them. I then had to call the high-maintenance author and her extremely powerful agent and explain the situation, but since none of the copies had gone out, they weren't too perturbed; and interestingly, neither of them had noticed the error on the spine when they received their copies. Still, it was probably the most freaked out I've ever been in my entire career, and that was 10 years ago!
Feel free to share the story, just to show that publishers do screw up sometimes, but we always try to make it right in the end! Would be great to see you if you're back in NYC sometime soon. Really do want us to have a book together!
XXXXX
STATUS: Crisis averted!
What’s playing on the iPod right now? SELF ESTEEM by The Offspring
Yesterday I talked about an author of mine who had found two uncorrected errors in her acknowledgement page. But now there is more to the story. Concerned, my author continued reading and discovered, to her horror, that the copy of the book she was reading was the first pass used in the ARC.
As many of you know, the ARC is the uncorrected proof—as in the author still needs to get the final page proofs from the copy editor, review, make corrections, and then return to the publisher by that deadline. That becomes the “final” copy that heads to the printer.
In this case, there had been a huge snafu and the wrong document was used for the final printing. Ack and double ack. This is a really costly mistake because the publisher is going to have to trash the initial print run and redo it.
Which they are doing (and unfortunately the release date is going to be pushed back a couple of weeks because of it). An instance of a Publisher behaving wonderfully!
When a book is about to release, often the editor will send out a copy or two of the soon-to-be released book just hot off the press, and thank goodness my author opened up what was supposed to be the final book and gave it a close read. And double thank heavens that she did this right away, the minute the book had arrived in her mailbox because the error can be corrected right now as none of the books have shipped from the warehouse.
One or two weeks later and it would have been a real disaster.
So when that first copy arrives, absolutely admire your final work in print but you might also want to open the cover and give it a read just to be sure.
And don’t panic folks. This type of error is fairly rare but as you can see, it does happen.
STATUS: I’ve been working on a contract for most of the day—speaking of diligence.
What’s playing on the iPod right now? DON’T FEAR THE REAPER by Blue Oyster Cult
Which, let’s face it, I don’t tend to do much of on this blog. Sheesh, I always find the error the next day and I do appreciate when blog readers point it out in the comments section. It never offends me. Sometimes I write and post because I’m in a hurry, it’s too late at night, or I simply “read” it incorrectly in a quick skim.
But if you are an author facing your page proofs for the final read-through before submitting the final manuscript for the printer, well, let’s just say you don’t want to hurry or skimp on this proofread.
Two interesting dilemmas that just came up this week:
1. One author found two errors in the very first sentence of her acknowledgements page. Granted, she had actually corrected the errors in the pass but somehow the copy editor missed it. That is the worst feeling. We’ll correct it now but who knows how many books are out there with the missed corrections…
2. Just like scary movie... Just recently an author of mine caught an editor comment and question that was embedded in the narrative of the novel on page 110 of the work. She found the error in the ARC so we had plenty of time to correct that one but it still strikes me as terrifyingly funny that an editor remark could have found its way into a late-stage version and even though it didn’t happen, it could have slipped into a final copy.
Ack.
In other news, two fun things going on in the blogosphere.
Chuck Sambuchino at Guide to Literary Agents is looking for the worst logline ever for his The "Worst Storyline Ever" Contest. This is going on now until the end of August. A glory of sorts…
Lucienne Diver, client and fellow literary agent, is hosting Mystery Week over on her blog so if you write in this genre, you might want to pop by and check it out. Some great advice going on over there.
Oh dear, I've had three novels published and not set up my Social Media Platform yet. Nor panicked.
Platform-building is such a wonderful distraction from writing, though! Instead of working on revising ad nauseum, you can obsess over posting on every social network you possibly can, despite having very little to talk about and no one to talk to. Then you can wallow in the misery of knowing that your book will clearly never sell because no one is reading your blog!
...No?
....hm. Better get back to editing, then ;)
I would urge her to dip her toe into the waters, but not with the goal of building a platform to entice readers. I've found social media (blogging and Twitter in particular) to be an amazing source of encouragement and sharing with other writers. In this solitary road to publication, putting our journey online means we are no longer alone. Even just knowing other writers have shared my struggles helps. At best, we form meaningful friendships across the globe.
If we do achieve our goal of publication, the strategy will then need to evolve.
The post on our marketing blog today was the same advice. I know it's rude to pimp our site, but it's a resource we've put out to help our fellow authors.
Feel free to share - or delete this comment - as we explain the basics of creating the author persona to be prepared when there's a book to promote.
http://authormarketing101.blogspot.com/
I should be finishing my sci-fi WIP this fall, do you think I should buy a tux for the Hugo award ceremony, or can I just rent one when the time comes?
We do tend to get ahead of ourselves sometimes. :)
There's so much hype about social media these days I often wonder how much it really does work in terms of web exposure/platform. Of course there's no way to know for certain and we all have to do it. But I often think too much social media can hurt an author more than help him/her. Slam me with too many book announcements about a new release and I'm blocking you faster than you can say "facebook event." I think most people feel the same way.
Blog. (Check) Facebook page. (Check) Twitter account. (Check)Goodreads page. (Check) Pinterest pagre. (Check. Why? Don't know. I don't get it. Anyway, check) Facebook page for "virtual blog tour." (Check) Photos on Tumblr (or Flickr or some lol-cat site?). (Check). Checks rolling in from massive sales of ebook novel? (LOL)
Thank you for that. I've seen several blogs now suggesting than an agent would pass us "first timers" by if we can't show our ability to cultivate a following. Phew!
Love Steven not getting Pinterest. I-really-really-don't-get-it.
I come to your post again. It's so great that I like it very much. I also like cheap ray ban sunglasses. I want to introduce discount oakley sunglasses to you. You can go to know more about oakley sunglasses 2012.
I can relate to your nervious writer-to-be. Perhaps she read the current issue of a well-known publication for writers, which ran a feature article under the banner "Publishing Today." The author -- herself an agent -- states quite emphatically, "Over the past year, I have seen a distinct diminishment in publishers' willingness to take a chance on new authors, especially authors of fiction." She strongly advocates building a platform and even self-publishing to that end. So just dying of curiosity, which is it?
I too would rather devote my energies to perfecting that novel that distributing my effort across multiple social media :D