Oolite Bulletins

Bit of a big day for me this Friday. My contemporary novel (six years in the writing) is FINISHED.

I'm printing out and submitting to agents on Friday, and I must admit, it's making me pretty nervous. I'm no fainting violet, but deliberately opening myself up to professional criticism is something else.

Shields to full, ECM primed, energy banks hot.

Escape pod stocked with Evil-juice and Anlian Gin... check!

Wish me luck as I try to write on, Commanders!

Cheers,

Drew.

I wish you luck, if nothing else so that at some point you can tell a snooty literary type after having topped the bestseller lists that you started out writing fanfics for a computer game.

Flight feathers crossed.

Apologies for lack of feedback...

Might I suggest, to fire a few flares on such a hot subject. That a few excerpts on youtube might be in order (provocative ones) then when you have ONE person complain about it run the tag line "the book that creationism tried to ban."

Easy, kill. Easy press.

You may have to go to a number of publishers however, (the nature of the game) still, good luck. Know that many people think your an Excellent writer. All YOU have to do is convince the ******s with money.

Could you maybe spin a copy by Richard Dawkin? A single word from that man these days is like a license to print money.

drew wrote:

Wish me luck as I try to write on, Commanders!

I very much wish you luck, but I am probably the last person on Earth not having a facebook account, so I'm doing it here!!!

Thanks for the encouragement folks, hugely appreciated.

...and Clym, I like the way your mind works. Great ideas. Will implement.

Cheers,

Drew.

best of luck. i write screenplays, got nowhere at all

if you don't already, absolutewrite.com is a canny bunch of forums to hang out in.

All the best! Hope for a rapid success but be prepared for the long haul, as it's worth it in the end ... see these, for example!

ClymAngus wrote:

Know that many people think your an Excellent writer. All YOU have to do is convince the ******s with money.

There's an old joke in publishing: "if we wanted to make money, we would just sell paper."

Bookshops take 50% of the retail price as their share. After subtracting costs from the other half for production, print, distribution, overheads for running the business (like salaries and rent) and of course author's royalties, the publisher is not left with much.

Sadly, the author's royalty itself is a tiny percentage of the retail price, and publishers are blamed for this iniquity.

Booksellers are the true villains. Major chains will often not take a book without a 50% cut, and may demand further incentives if you want promotional material in the shop.You have to pay to have your book on the table, rather than on the shelf! Even Amazon makes substantial demands on the wholesaler, though they do at least discount the retail price.

Drew, I wish you all the best with the agents. (Almost no publisher accepts unsolicited mss these days. Shame. A nice job used to be "reading" such scripts.)

Commander McLane wrote:

drew wrote:

Wish me luck as I try to write on, Commanders!

I very much wish you luck, but I am probably the last person on Earth not having a facebook account, so I'm doing it here!!!

In that case I'm probably the last bug off-Earth who also doesn't have one...

And so a likewise wish of luck.

Farcebook... no, I don't have an account either... good luck, Drew!

I do have a one. The only thing on it is my RL name, and the only reason I have it is because an old friend who now lives abroad seems to use Farcebook as his sole means of communicating with the outside World.

SOFA… the Society Of Farcebook Abstainers.

Good Luck I'm getting ready for seeing your book in the 3 for 2 section of Waterstones

I do have a account, but I have friends in Oz and for that, it's very good for keeping track of their lives and them mine.