[Radthorne]

As the others have noted, we are all with you, and share the intensity of your feelings; I'm sure most of us have traveled the same roller-coaster of emotions. It does certainly help us to reflect on what it means to live a life well-lived, and what you leave behind for others, and what you take with you wherever you may go.

[KatG]

Ideally, publishers like to put out one book a year from an author, no more, no less. But in sf/f, where they started off doing short novels from multiple novellas from sf authors and then launched the broken down Tolkein titles at once, they are a little less strident. So many sf/f writers were so prolific -- and running off to other publishers to do other series -- that they may publish things closer together, especially as production has gotten faster and faster. The children's publishers are used to doing series where books come out every quarter of a year as well, but those are fairly short. Then there's Gary's publisher, which is taking the long sagas their authors are writing and publishing clumps of books at once for a maximum shelf space strategy. So it can vary, but a year separation is pretty normal, especially if they have some sort of marketing cross U.S.-U.K. strategy going.

I spoke of Kelley Armstrong in the Writing and Family thread and that reminded me that I noticed her publishing schedule with Bantam Spectra is quite prolific -- she has two series, plus more coming, and Bantam seems to be launching them very close together. I believe they are all paperback publications. Also, I read David Gemmell's "Sword in the Storm" which was published a good number of years back, but what I noticed from the after marketing stuff in the book is that they then released the next two books in the trilogy within five months of each other, all paperbacks again. So it may be over the last several years, publishers are trying fairly ambitious publishing schedules for prolific authors as a means to rapidly building their fan bases, which was also something they did in the past occasionally.

[Writerman2255]

Hello. I have been reading your thread with interest. I don't belong to any writer groups, so listening to you speak is informative. Alison, what is your vision for breaking into the American market?

Love and Light, Tom.

[alison]

Hi Tom, I fear I'm a pretty witless author. I don't have a vision at all, I just write the books and hope they will do ok, and the rest is up to the publisher (Candlewick, in my case). They are children's publishers, and seem pretty cluey about their market, in terms of covers etc. (I haven't done any promotional stuff for them, aside from when I was a visiting scholar at USC briefly and did a signing at Borders and something else.) I seem to be the last to find out what happens with my books, in any case...:rolleyes:

[Writerman2255]

Alison:
How has that worked for you so far? I mean, in terms of getting your work
out to the public? I know that everyone has some idea of what they want to
have happen, maybe subconsciously.

Love and Light, Tom.

[alison]

The books are beginning to make me a decent living (fingers crossed, and hoping that continues). I guess my ambition would be to get rich! :D Whatever Candlewick does seems to be working fine, so far as I can tell. Sales are steady and rising and the publishers are very pleased, although I haven't hit best sellerdom by any means. There have been no huge marketing campaigns, just the usual listing in catalogues etc, and quite a number of reviews. The publishers are well known in their field and get them into the bookshops, which is the first thing! Also there have been good library sales. I feel very happy with Candlewick; they are committed to the books, and take a lot of care in the publication. What mainly seems to be working for my books is strong word of mouth, which is kind of slow but also quite solid.

[Writerman2255]

Alison, I tried to Google your publisher so I could see the title of your book, and the only Candlewick that came up was based in MA. Is this your publisher? And how do I find your book?

Thanks!
TB Wright

[alison]

Tom, I feel a bit bad talking about my work on Caitlin's forum... there's plenty of info, including links to all the publishers, at my website alisoncroggon.com (http://alisoncroggon.com)

[Caitlin]

I feel a bit bad talking about my work on Caitlin's forum...
Please don't worry, Alison! This thread, in particular, has been one with many contributors.
I started a reply, two days ago, to your initial response to Tom. The one in which you refer to yourself as "witless" and lacking in vision. I was trying to formulate something about how "just" writing the books belies those estimations - but I was, of course, irrevocably sidetracked (I believe it was something to do with Easter eggs). I know you were making reference to the marketing side of things, so the reply would have been a little disingenuous!
Marketing and motives are much on my mind today (as, apparently, is alliteration). Just got my latest "royalty" statement from Penguin Canada. While these no longer send me reeling, they do continue to make me wince. Funny thing: I tend to insist that my publishing hopes have always been fairly modest, but when I'm confronted by these pieces of paper I realize that this assertion, too, is disingenuous...

[alison]

Hi Caitlin - nice to speak (write?) again! I don't understand my royalty statements, I find them very confusing, and that's one reason I'm very glad I have an agent. But I do understand the cheque.

Yes, I too was being a little disingenuous. I figure writing the books is hard enough, and in any case I have no talent at all for the business end of things. And it does seem to me that writing a book with a marketing "vision" in mind or something is putting the cart before the horse.

After years of writing poetry, selling anything in more than double figures is a buzz for me. But that doesn't mean that I think that the poetry is unimportant - far from it, it's the centre of who I am as a writer. I like to think that writing has a value that isn't to do with its value as a commodity, and that that value is about a certain richness of experience (to put it very vaguely). I think all of us write in the hope that someone will not only read our work, but connect to it, and that can't actually be measured in numbers, or maybe measured at all. And I also continue to believe, against all reason sometimes, that quality will out. Hang in there!