Noon and Midnight Lands

[asakiyume]

Poor Noon and Midnight Lands: I really doubt it’s going to find an agent. It’s been glanced at by a number of agents, and it’s not something any are wild about. Or perhaps it’s something they think isn’t right for the market, and if that’s the case, they may well be right. I had the good fortune to have an editor at a quite respectable publishing house look at it, and although she kindly said that she “read with interest, as it is imaginative and nicely written,” she went on to say, “Regretfully in the end I'm afraid my enthusiasms aren't strong enough to support a publishing offer.” So if any agent were to fall in love with it, perhaps they’d have an uphill battle persuading a publisher to take it.

I could change it to try to make it more palatable to the publishing world, but I don’t want to. If I’m going to spend time on a novel, I’d rather start a fresh one. And The Noon and Midnight Lands, just as it is, is the story I wanted to tell. Then too, even if I did revise it—made it start more expeditiously, removed the our-world main character so that it wasn’t a crossover fantasy, etc. etc.—it still might not appeal.

But meanwhile, in some ways, I feel really blessed in the success I’ve had with it. The people who have read it seem genuinely to have enjoyed it, which has delighted me no end. They have liked the world the way I liked the world—it seems like it’s been real for them, the way it’s real for me. Opening up new worlds for people—well, it’s wonderful.

Which is all by way of a preamble to say that I’ve set a deadline for how long I’m going to try hunting for an agent for this book. And if I don’t find an agent by that date, then I’m going to find a way of making the story available online—after first registering my copyright. I’ll probably do some combination of offering it free and charging for it, but I haven’t really thought that far ahead.

For me it’s not either-or with regard to non-traditional and traditional forms of publishing. I have no qualms about doing a little bit of everything.

And, too, consider this list of best-selling novels of 1910. How many works are familiar to you? How many authors’ names do you recognize? There are a few well-known works and well-known authors, but there are also lots that I bet I'm not alone in not knowing. This isn't to say they aren't good--they may be wonderful. They were certainly popular at the time. But now... forgotten.

Then there’s the artist and and poet William Blake. He eked out a living as an engraver, self-published his stuff, and we still remember him today.

…not that I’m ever going to be a William Blake. It’s just good to remember that there are all kinds of ways of doing things, and all kinds of measures of accomplishment.

Comments

[heyes.livejournal.com]

If you do publish it online, make sure to put a paypal link on the site, so that your adoring fans can choose or choose not to donate to the cause of you drinking more coffee and writing more novels.

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

If you want to publish from lulu
which is a good one, and can involve
amazon sale, retaining rights to close
down the book and give it to another publisher
until you isbn it, may I recommend a
friend in alaska barbarakelley
who has formatted and prepared several
manuscripts into lulu books. she is
also a good person whose journal come
to think of it you would enjoy in any
case...

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see now what you were talking about! How exciting!

Two Thoughts

[jtglover.livejournal.com]

I agree with you very much about the problems/quirks of publishing. There's no guarantee of the future, success doesn't necessarily mean anything other than money and contemporary acclaim, etc. Writing full time sounds awfully fun in so many ways, but the pressure of writing 1+ books per year doesn't guarantee anything but that, you know? Blake, or Lovecraft, or Mary Shelley, etc. -- we value them for a fairly small corpus of works.

Cherie Priest and John Scalzi (each in different ways, if I remember correctly) succeeded because they posted their novels online

[behindpyramids.livejournal.com]

*stares at the lists*
These were the best sellers?! I had a phase in my life where I went gaga over Pollyanna, Gene Stanton Porter and F. H. Burnett (the only people I've read on the list, and even then it was because I combed second hand bookshops and interlibrary loaned across the country for their works) but even then I realized they were weak books...I suppose the equivalent of today's Twilight? Pollyanna is ridiculous. I loved it, but it's ridiculous and I never reread it. Porter is insane. She's a compelling writer, but her plots are soap operas. Laddie made me wince, and other than her massively famous classics Burnett is no better.
anyway-
please let me know when Noon and Midnight Lands goes up. I'm really excited to read it (especially with that title! it's so delicate and evocative).
A lot of my favorite books are the ones that are going out of print/are out of print and not very famous. There are lots of real gems out there, but unfortunately the public likes a certain type of book (Pollyanna and Porter and Burnett all wrote in the same saccharine mode) so self-publishing makes a lot of sense.
I adore your lj, and your short stories, and I'm so excited to read something longer by you!

[judo100.livejournal.com]

Even finding an agent doesn't mean your book will be published - I've had two agents pick up my novels, but never sold any of them. If you put your novel on line, please be sure to tell us where - I'm eager to see it! The PayPal suggestion sounded good. All the best!!

[faerie-writer.livejournal.com]

So what you've been posting about with the pictures and the gorgeous prose is for a book? Is it more like a poetry/picture book than a novel? If so, one of your other options could be to write a fiction novel and filter that magical winter prose into the story. :)

[vg-ford.livejournal.com]

You could always do an audiobook and put it out on Podiobooks.com (http://www.podiobooks.com). They have the donate button as part of the program.

[88greenthumb.livejournal.com]

The title sounds like an invitation to adventure!

Hope you find a publisher by your deadline. If not, doing it online and having interested readers pay, sounds like a good alternative!

[westerling.livejournal.com]

I'll be interested in seeing it when it comes out, in whatever form that might be.

I worked in a bookstore for 15 years, and in my opinion, the publishing industry is between a rock and a hard place, as they say.

If your book is sf or fantasy, you might want to look into Small Beer Press (http://www.lcrw.net/). They are local and very good, if you haven't ever run across them before.

[slobbit.livejournal.com]

Well, I hope it doesn't come to that, but if it does, lead the way, sister. I'm pretty sure I'll be in the same boat, seeing my results with shorts.

You're right to not back down from your story for the sake of trying to sell it.

[janni.livejournal.com]

If you want to hear positive things about how several editors or agents passing on a book doesn't mean they all will, or about how the waiting game can sometimes be worth it, I can give that perspective ... though either way, the next step--working on the next book while following whatever course you decide to follow for this one--remains the same. :-)

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

There's another thing to consider--well, two. One is, few authors sell a first novel. If this one got some respect, then you are already way, WAY ahead of most, whose first one gets the pinched nose and dismissal.

So:

set it aside for five years, and then reread it. Could be, your craft will have leaped forward enough for you to see just where to give it a bit more dazzle.

or

Set it aside. It's done, it's what it is. You do not foresee changing it, in which case, you write the next. That one may be the one to get the agent . . . the sale . . . and the audience, in which case, when editor or agent say, "Is there a chance you have anything else ready, until you write your next?" you can say, "Why yes, I happen to have one!"

[marmota-monax.livejournal.com]

YA and/or fantasy are not my milieu, per se, as I deal strictly with board books to early chapter books, but ALL publishers are feeling the pinch in a big way right now. There are freezes on publishing new works at more than one publisher. I'm fortunate that my clients are still putting forth new titles, but I am seeing the frontlists cut down by one third to one half as many titles. It may just be that your timing is off.

Agents like to see that you have more than one ms ready to go, but I'm sure you knew that already, so it's good you've got another one in the wings. Work on more outlines, too, and consider an outline for a sequel to TNaML. Publishers LOVE books in series.

And this may be way off track, and I'm sure you already know about SCBWI, but the group that meets in Amherst is one of the most active in MA. It's been so many years since I was a member, I can't remember if YA is even considered a pertinent age group for members' discussions.

[kythiaranos.livejournal.com]

I know sksperry has had many people go to his site to read Darkside, so you may want to ask him about his experience.

I went through the same sort of frustrating experience with my first book--lots of 'I liked it, but--' comments. I hope you have better luck than I did.