So first kc_heath asked about the difficulties of selling a series, based on one of the articles I listed in this post. I'm not zipping off to reread and I was semi-brain dead when reading them the first time, so I'm just going to say what I think of series selling, though my guess is that she read it on Shanna Swenson's blog (shanna_s).

I think in fantasy (and I'd include all forms of fantasy including paranormal romance), that it's easier to sell a series (or trilogy) rather than not. But back up a step. I'd say easier to sell the first three books than not. Part of that is because publishers are looking for trilogies and series. They like them because they can build readers as the story progresses. That means your names gets established  and your sales increase with each book (footnote on that below). They really don't want a one book author that much, because they want to build your name and build your books so you make them regular money. Makes perfect sense.

They are willing to risk usually a two or three book deal on a new author and a lot of that has to do with building momentum and timing. Think of it this way. You write a book. You submit it and it is accepted. Now that book won't be released for a year (usually--the exceptions are that recently publishers have been doing rapid release for some authors--Naomi Novik and Jennifer Stevenson are just two--where they try to release the first books of a series or a trilogy within a few months of each other.) So while your book is waiting to be published, guess what you're doing? Writing the next one. And it won't be turned in usually until right around the time that your first book is published. And they won't have any concrete sales numbers for at least six months--halfway to when your next book will hit the shelves.

What this means is that because of timing, they are willing to take a chance that your books will take off and so have your next book in the pipeline to achieve momentum. If they only bought one and waited to see how it did, then the second book might not hit the shelves for a minimum of two years after the first one, and people have forgotten your name.

So you can see that it's in a publisher's best interests to buy 2-3 books. But they usually don't go for more until they at least see the numbers for the first book. If you hit the bestseller charts, then chances are they want to lock you in and will come offering a contract for some more books in the series--Patti Briggs' Mercy series anyone? But most of the time they'll wait until you turn in the third book and can have more solid numbers.

Now, if they look at the first three books in a five book series and think the numbers are meh, they might offer for one more book to see. They might ask for something else from you all together and drop any idea of any more books in that series. Which is painful.

So it's probably better to plan a three book arc (trilogy) for your first books, than plan a series. If I had to guess, I would say that that is why Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books were usually in threes--because that's what the publisher would commit to.

Now the footnote on usually sales build:  The truth is that most often the first book in a series sells better than the next books because it is on the shelves longer, and because some people will pick up a first book but decide not to read the next books. That isn't universally true, but often occurs.

And now a word about numbers. The ability for authors to sell books to publishers is based entirely on the numbers. Sometimes they look at sell through (what percentage of books sold compared to how many shipped). Sometimes they look at other metrics. But when it comes down to it, if you aren't selling books, then bookstores don't order them in good numbers, so that you don't sell books and so bookstores don't order as many, and so you have the slow death spiral/slow dwindle of death. 

Now that the economy is looking so ugly with a gallon of gas so much, people will probably back of buying books. That's bad because there are authors who will not be contracted again because of it. So if you can, buy new books (used books don't count at all as far as numbers--authors and publishers don't get paid for them). Recommend favorite authors everywhere you can. Get your local bookstores to order in their books and keep them on the shelves. Tell booksellers how great the books are so they will handsell them (recommend them to customers). Ask your library to order them. Blog about them. Keep telling people.

Anybody have more cents to toss in here on this subject? Elucidation? Argumentation? Anything?

Montana NPR interviewed me a little while ago and if you go here, there's a link so that you can listen. Enjoy!

I haven't written much today. Instead I've been reading the manuscript thus far. I still haven't found what I'm looking for, which is a bit of description. I may not have put it in anywhere, though I thought I had. But here's what I did discover about The Turning Tide. It doesn't suck.  It's actually not bad.

Okay, you may think that's the oddest thing for a writer to say, and maybe even me looking for kudos. Not so. The thing is that all three of the Crosspointe books have been challenging for me. In The Cipher, I found myself struggling with developing the action and tension the way I wanted, and creating a character who I liked but who was not particularly likeable overall (waves at Marten). In The Black Ship, the struggle was with getting certain elements right in the plotting, making the characters work, and having only one point of view to work with--and a completely miserable scene that Would. Not. Go. Right. (remember to remind me that we're going to have a contest to see if you can figure that one out). Again, I have a character who is not particularly likeable at first (I adore him though).

And then The Turning Tide is more a book of intrigue. We don't have any huge action sequences. And we have four points of view. And we have betrayals and every point of view sees things happen differently so only the reader can really understand the full truth of a situation as things progress. And we have very complex character relationships. So, with The Turning Tide, I haven't been able to tell if the pacing or the characters or anything was working. Part of that was I was really avoiding going back and reading so I wouldn't fall into the trap of revising before I had my draft done. Part of it was a bit of fear that I wasn't keeping the balls in the air and I didn't want to know *that* until I had a draft done also.

But wow. I'm now into the part that I'm most comfortable with--where the action really picks up--and looking back at the first part of the book, I'm actually feeling relatively good about how it reads. Wow. My hands are shaking as I type this. I didn't know I was going to be *that* nervous about the book.  Holy F***!  (Yeah, trucker mouth has set in for the day.)

Some highlights from this book--we get to see majicars in full action and get to see how the majick works. We get to see the transformation of sylveth spawn and the results--over a long term period. We learn a whole of secrets about Crosspointe. And other stuff that I don't want to give away before you read The Black Ship.

So, now back to work.

I am done with the copy edit on The Black Ship. It turned out to be a relatively clean manuscript, which was nice. I made some changes and tinkerings, and of course I had to deal with the speech pattern of character S mentioned in the last post.

What's very bad about receiving this now is that it puts me into editor mode when I want to be in creative crazy writer mode. It's going to take a bit to take off that hat and let myself sink back into the Turning Tide without constantly checking myself and saying no! That's crap! Stop!  Or that's the wrong word (who cares? After the first edit, that word may not exist. No one polishes words at the drafting level you stupid editor-ghoul on my shoulder).  Deep breath.  Okay, so that will take some time.

The good thing though is knowing that this really was a rough rough draft when I finally finished it and it took a lot of revision to get it into shape. Which gives me some more evidence that indeed I can do it so if The Turning Tide really is a huge steaming pile, I will be able to make it a book eventually. That does help, because I've reached the middle where all is dark and all is crap and all I can do is hitch up the hip-waders and grab the rubber duckie and try to get up the shit-river before I drown.

Some things the copy editor caught and I didn't. At one point there was a second ship sitting at harbor during a particular scene. I took it out. But there was still a random (and confusing) reference to it. Once I flipped the bow and the stern of the ship in the middle of a scene. Gerry started out as a girl and turned into a boy. He's all boy now. And many other things. Some smaller, some larger, some head-slappingly stupid. 

There were a couple of things that my editor wants (not to be confused with my copy editor--both marked this manuscript) that I do not agree with. But I tried to look at why she wants those changes and then shored up some weak spots to see if it works better for her.  I expect she'll let me know if it doesn't work well enough.

But that's a major step done. Next up are the proofs and then it's to ARCs and getting bound and sold and shipped . . . . Wow. Hard to believe it.

Well, must jet off to the grocery store.

It was a lot harder to hit my 2K quota today. Last night my daughter had a couple of coughing attacks and ended up puking, so she stayed home from preschool. Which meant I had to be a lot more entertaining. And then too, the scene I was working is a little bit slow pacing-wise. But oh well. I will figure out the revisions later. Now is about keeping my head down and putting one foot in front of the other and not stopping until I get to the end.

But I had a nice moment today when I realized that I had dropped in this little throwaway bit of description and that it made a nice link between two characters. I was pretty excited about that. You'll note that my goal is 120K. I'm afraid that may be a conservative estimate. The Black Ship and The Cipher were both around 125K and I"m trying to build in some space for some revision additions. But I have a bad feeling it will hit much longer than that. But really I don't know. It's all about getting it onto paper and seeing how it fleshes out.

I did a couple of minor/tinkering updates to my website today. But I need to go through and check the links and then also think about uploading more content. If I can figure out what. Hmmmm . . . I want to turn my dissertation into a PDF file and upload it.

4350 / 120000 words. 4% done!

I meant to post this earlier. Over at SFnovelists, I took up the 'difficult' subject of last week. You remember my post that that began the discussion and included serious spoilers? Well, the SF Novelist post does not contain spoilers, so go there and have a look. i incorporated some of the thoughts you guys brought to the table, but I don't think I'm done yet. I'm really interested in the way writers pursue and think about difficult subjects in their writing, things they'd never write and why, and how much the idea of a reader influences the way they develop story. So I'll be coming back to that soon. FYI

So today I wrote. Facing that white first page was daunting. Yeah, I know, nothing new. When I came up nothing, I went and folded clothes for a bit, and then was struck with an idea. So back to the computer and then off and running. Then things went pretty smoothly. I have no real sense of whether or not these words will make the final draft, but I don't care. One, they are on the page. Two, I'm in the scene and feeling like I can go on. Three, I'm not stressing over all of it. Tomorrow I'll start up and not spiral back to revise.

So if you're on the 70s Days of Sweat, how are you doing? And if you're not, get any good writing done today? Or read anything fun?

2300 / 120000 words. 2% done!

I thought I would share the (current) first line of The Turning Tide:

“If it would help, I could light Ryland’s coattails on fire and you could make your escape in the uproar of smothering his dainty royal ass.”

So today was spent working and watching young three-year old Princess Mussolini who was sick. Not bad, just a fever, some coughing, and snottiness (in attituded and schozzola).

I also managed to get work done. I was was working on sketching out some detailed narrative lines for for the various characters in my story. It turns out, The Turning Tide is quite a bit more complicated a puzzle than I first planned, And I'm adding in more pieces to place to further round out the story. It's going to have 4 points of view. I didn't want that, but I finally gave into the unalterable fact that this book won't work with the original three that I wanted to limit this too. But it will be a better book for the fourth pov, so I'm doing it.

I'm trying a technique for figuring out the narrative threads that I haven't used before. I don't know if it will work, and I am wishing I had a room full of whiteboards to make this easier. Ah well. I'm making do with lots of file folders. They aren't just for filing anymore.

Don't forget tomorrow is Snippet Saturday. Be ready to post something.  And if you don't have anything you've written, but have a bit from a published work, post that (with proper credit of course). I'll start with a snippet post sometime in the a.m.

Looking forward to it!

Di

First, Shanna Swendson, shanna_s , has a truly excellent post about pitching your books in person. Print it out folks. Keep it handy.

Second, after a flurry of emails and etc., the proposal I've been working on has been approved by my agent for submission and now she's doing her thing. Normally at this point I would start chewing my nails to the quick, but I have another book to write and I had some really cool ideas on it today . . . so I'm playing with that in preparation for 70 Days of Sweat. This is good, because, let's face it, I'm not going to hear back any time soon (by my writerly definition, which is tomorrow or the next day). I'm not good with waiting.

Third, I hate buying cars, and used cars are the worst. Yet we need a second vehicle, now that my husband has to commute 40 minutes to work and 40 back and he's working indefinite overtime. So we are perusing the classifieds. Ug.

I want to remind everybody that Saturday is Snippet Saturday and you should be gearing up with something to post here. And if you don't have anything you've written, but have a bit from a published work, post that (with proper credit of course).

Preditors and Editors is being sued for trying to keep writers safe from scams. Read more here.

ETA:  By way of kaigou  (shame on you)

  28

 

I sent The Black Ship back to my editor at 1.46 this a.m. I'm sure she was waiting by her computer with baited breath. I believe I successfully fixed all that was needed. The pain-in-the-ass scene (hereforeward to be knowns as pitass--I like the extra -s- so get over it. It doesn't have to make sense). Anyhow, I reworked the pitass and finally found a smooth way to make it happen.  When it comes out, remind me and we'll have a contest for all of you to identify just which scene was the big pitass.



And now I'm off to keep poking at this other project, which I will hopefully send to my agent tonight. It may be another late night. Dammit. Oh, speaking of which . . .

DRUMROLL.  I'd like to introduce you all to varkat who is new to ljay.  She is also my agent. She is also a very talented writer in her own right (with a new book coming out next spring or summer called Vamped, and she is a fabulous maker of bead jewelry (check out Diversions Jewelry there in my links to the left), and she's snarky. Wave hi!

Oh, as for the last post. I want to thank everyone for posting and I plan to follow up in a day or so when I pull together what exactly I want to say.

Di

I've been strangely cheerful all day. And in sort of a zen zone for about a week. That is to say, thinks haven't really been bothering me. It all just kind of rolls off. What I'm wondering is . . . why?

Have I . . .

Suddenly learned how to not let shit bother me?

suddenly realized on all levels that yes, I am on sabbatical?

Suddenly gone nuts and everybody is happy in crazyland?

Been the beneficiary of wacky happy drugs in my water?

Or just looking forward to getting out of town and going to Radcon this weekend?


Whatever the answer, I'm hoping it keeps up. I rather like being in a good mood and not letting life-crap bother me.

I'm faintly narcileptic, however (cold induced) and my eyes may spurt out of my head at any moment, driven by a seething dam of mucus. See what having walking petrie dishes (children) will get you?

Contest winners:  You guys rock!  And it was useful. We taped the interview last night. Probably won't air for months, but it will be on Montana NPR at some point.  Cherie (the producer) promises she'll make me sound good. Oh winners? kaigou   on The Cipher, and mela_lyn   on The Path novels. Send me snail mails, ladies! dpf AT dianapfrancis DOT com.

And then there's this from swan_tower   who needs some help AND it's a contest, so spread the word. She has a short deadline so go to it. The Gist of it is this:

I need people with calligraphy skills or at least nice handwriting to submit potential signatures for Invidiana, the faerie queen in my upcoming Elizabethan fantasy.  Deadline is tomorrow night at 10 p.m. EST, because my publicist gave me no warning on this.  There are prizes.

Sounds like it could be a cool deal. Yanno, if you can do something calligraphy-like.

Incidentally, I will be at Radcon next week end, if anybody is going to be in the neighborhood. That is, weather permitting. Mostly it's a problem if 90 between Missoula and Spokane gets too much snow, and that's mostly in the pass areas. Oh, and they closed 90 up there this week to blow up some cornices and prevent avalanches. So keep your fingers crossed for dry weather.

And now back to trying to be productive. In between naps of course.

Di


</lj>

As usual, we will have some friends over to watch the game. I'm rooting for the Giants, if only because they are the underdogs. But mostly I'm hoping it's not a blowout for either team--which is to say, I hope it's a good game. And I hope for good commercials. It's the only time of year I actually watch commercials (you don't know how long I went without seeing any advertisement for Spiderwick, and I wanted to see the trailer to see if I thought my kids could handle it. Still don't know, but I know I want to see it. Maybe at Radcon I'll sneak out to it.)

We always make cheese dip for SBS. It involves pureed jalapenos, velveeta cheese, pepperjack cheese, spicy pork sausage, andouille sausage and we keep some Tums handy. Oh, and some Ancho peppers go into the mix too. So far, it's hotter than in previous years and I'm pretty sure that letting it heat in the crockpot is only going to ratchet up the spiciness more. Should be tasty.  Our friends are bringing chilli and then there's a few carrots and celery sticks to cool things down here and there. Yeah, right.

On another note, I've got a blog up at sfnovelists today.  It begins:

What a writer can’t do–a ramble post

It’s annoying to me that I cannot capture facial expressions and body expressions for characters the way that I want to. Film does that. To do so as a writer the way I want to would be distracting and annoying, even if I could catch the nuances the way I want to.  Click to read the rest

And that's all for now. Off to see if I can't burn the lining out of my stomach.

Di

melissa_writing said this in a post today:

Things I've found curious abt this whole being a writer thing--

* people seem to think that we know what we're doing. (Maybe others do, but I'm mostly just guessing)
* people not knowing how the process works (several writers have blogged on this of late)
* people thinking writers all want movies of their books (and that we are in control of that)

The first two interest me. Lately I find that I've been . . . oh, let's say fearing the writing. Isn't that strange? I'm afraid to put words down and of course they all suck, blah blah blah. I know well enough to just keep going and write, but this is rather a painful experience. It's sort of a drag to write And usually writing is a refuge for me. I know a lot of it has to do with stuff in the rest of my life--specifically job related. Stresses and all that. But like I said, usually writing is a refuge. I think part of the problem is I've been thinking too much, letting myself think about the business, about deadlines, and so on. I know I have to stop that. I have to stop letting the rest of the world into my head while I work. Think garlic will keep it out? Vampire-world? Salt on the window sills and threshold? Hmmmm . . . .

So yesterday I cleaned up puke and tried not to get coughed on and I sanitized my hands a lot. No, I don't expect I'll get away without having been infected, but I tried.

I've been working on the proposal and I think I'm liking it so far. I finished the first chapter and I think it came together well. Really well. Now to write two more. Hopefully they come easier. What's hard is deciding point of view. I'm telling this in third person. I didn't want first. I wasn't sure I could pull it off the way I want to. Second, I think I am going to have three point of view characters. This is urban fantasy and that doesn't often happen. In fact, off the top of my head, I'm not thinking of any--do you know any? I am sure I want two of them, but I"m really toying with the third. I think it would give the book more depth and will do a better job of telling the story I want to tell.

I'm really having a hard time getting my life organized. May have something to do with the fact that I'm lazy (as in I don't want to clean or do the day to day things that ordinary people do, including shower, though I hasten to add I may not like bothering, but am aware that I HAVE to). So crap is piling up and I"m trying to ignore it.

The hives are mostly gone. I am mostly not itchy.

It's about to start snowing again and the wind is whipping.

The soundtrack to There Will Be Blood is Amazing. Seriously.

My son has taught my daughter to yell "Oh, my nuts! My nuts!" Because he's a boy and it's fun to say with appropriate dramatic covering of said body parts. This comes up every time he's horsing around. She of course, has no nuts and I wonder when her preschool teacher is going to comment on this. Hmmmm.

That's all for the day.

So I am done with The Black Ship revisions . . . again. I think I told you that I had sent it back with one problem scene and my editor said she wouldn't be able to read for awhile and gave me until she was ready to work on it. And of course, I worked on that scene, but then I wanted to work on this one too, and then that, and then this and then that . . . . I rewrote and twiddled with that problem scene at least six times. I thought it was okay, and then last night as I was giving it just one more read through, I realized no, it wasn't right. I think, I think, it's right now. And the problem of course has been making sure that this works within character. Now I'll probably get another shot at it if my editor disagrees (yeah, another shot. Di--fix it better now).  And even as I type this, I realize there's another thing I could tweak . . .

But I sent it already and it's done and I have to let it be done and move on. This has been the most difficult book to date for me to write. I am hoping the next one is, not necessarily easier, but at least more comfortable, comes to me more smoothly and a little bit less like plucking out my toenails.

And then a little advice:  Apparently the Denvention (worldcon) hotel rooms went on sale today and the word is they are going to be in very short supply. If you're going and want a hotel room, get them now.

I didn't actually go to sleep until around 5:30 this a.m. (thank annoying little scene that wouldn't mend) and am tiiiiiiiired. It was -12 when I jumped in bed.

And now, onto the other stuff I have to get done . . .

Di

So that scene that's been busting my ass is starting to come together. Here's part of it. It will probably modify some more, but I think I'm on the right track.

I finished (sort of) my revisions in December and sent them off to my editor. The Qualifier is that I had a scene that I hadn't been able to fix.  It's a small scene, but pivotal.  But I needed to be done and the rest of it seemed pretty okay. I still wondered about the end, but hoped I could do a little tinkering.

Cut to early January. Talked to my editor. She wouldn't get to the novel for a couple of weeks and sure, she'd let me work on it and send in a fresh copy.

Cut to yesterday. She's ready. Wants it Friday.

Now if all I'd done was tinker with that little scene, that would be fine. But I also have been tinkering with the end and then some stuff at the beginning. It's really getting to be a book I really like, but crap! I still have to figure out how to fix that small but pivotal scene.  So if I'm really spammy the next few days, I'm procrastinating. And if I'm quiet, I'm actually working. 

Chances are I'll do both. Little spurts of spam interspersed with bouts of writing, and yeah, fuck, shaking and stirring all the metaphors, but you're getting the picture, right?

From our discussion of the last post, you guys said some really interesting things. 





And that's about it for me today. I like hearing your thoughts on fantasy, so keep it coming!