Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Good News Travels Fast...

...Sadly, so does whatever I've got at the moment.

Just got home from work/trekking across town in a snowstorm; I've been sick since boxing day, and haven't really had any time off to recoup- this does not bode well for my paycheque, or my writing career.

Nonetheless, this is a celebratory post, for two reasons:

1. A shoutout to M. and C. (a.k.a. Emo Genius and K's BFF) whose shared birthday was today, January 12th- were the novel in real-time, they would have turned 27 and 24, respectively.

2. I met a fellow writer today at Chapters, and she gave me the name of an agency (the Sarah Freeman agency, I think it was) that is actively seeking new/unpublished writers and is interested in her book; she is a non-fiction writer, but she suggested that I check it out, anyway- if it hadn't been so busy at the store, I would have gotten her name.

-

This is the most development I've seen all week- now, for some tea and a nice, long snooze.

Cheers!

1 comment:

  1. Laura, try www.magellanbooks.com

    It's 'only' for E-books, but it's free, you retain all rights to what you have written, you get 50% of any sales (better than traditional book publishing rates) and if you manage to interest a traditional publisher, there is nothing to unentangle rights wise, cos you just make an acknowledgement of it being originally published via magellanbooks.com and that's it.

    Just a thought, since I, your online friend, whatever that is really worth (jobloffski at allpoetry.com and Will Ford at Facebook have just, via magellan, published my first collection and whatever it does or does not lead to, its a good feeling to have something published without going the self publishing route.

    If you check my facebook profile, you'll see the artwork Magellan did for me, and I'm pretty chuffed at it, and it didn't cost a cent. Whatever happens from now on, I have a book for sale and get 50% of the proceeds. So want to 'share the love' re the way it happened, since not to put too fine a point on it, it can get pretty hard as a writer being at the behest of traditional publishers. It's a bit like being continually told 'go fuck yourself'.

    With something like Magellan, you can have your work read, the publisher will either agree to offer your work for sale as it is, or give you honest feedback as to why they think it might need whatever changes, and you wont be messed around. Additionally, you'll know for certain someone in Australia is giving you the time of day as a writer, even if nobody else is!

    Your poems, your novel, anything else you have, bottom line is, if Rob Parnell thinks it might sell, he will publish it, he wont charge you, and if he thinks it needs whatever to be done to it to make it sell he'll tell you. You don;t have to agree with what he says and you don;t have to agree to any editorial comments he offers. So there's not a lot to lose, is there?

    Hope that yabbering in some way gives you food for thought, take care, etc,

    Will

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