Happenings

So it's been a while since I've posted anything about what's been happening with Branded. Sadly there's not too much to tell. All 3 of the agents who requested partials decided to pass for one reason or another. There was only one of those who I was pretty bummed about. I still have about 12 agents I am waiting to hear back from who I sent query letters to. I'm guessing I will only hear back from about half of them, even to get a rejection.

I follow a lot of different literary agents blogs and within 2 days, 2 of them announced they are going to stop taking queries for new writers and one announced she is shutting down completely to look for employment in another field. The writing market is having a heck of a time in this new economy and it seems with so many people loosing their jobs everyone is writing books! JK But seriously, another agent who's blog I follow posts her stats every Friday for how many queries she reads. It's usually around 250 she reads every week and of those she will maybe request a partial/full on 1!!! Those are not good odds, and that's how most all the agents are these days.

So in light of these horrible odds, I've started to look into self publishing options. After looking at several different companies I think I am going to go with Amazon's company, called CreateSpace. It automatically gets you onto Amazon to sell and it costs me no money up front. I can order copies of my own book for around 5 or 6 dollars. The sad thing, and this, from what I've learned, is how it is with most publishers, the royalties are only from about $0.05-$5, depending on where you sell at. With their expanded distribution program, I would only make about $0.61 a book but if someone buys it from my eStore through Amazon, I would make about $5. Good things and bad things.

I think I'm going to get going on this option. If I still get an agent, then great! But it's not looking likely. I still need to have someone else do a good solid edit for me, get a cover designed (and find someone to do that for me), and figure out how to buy an IBSN number. Hopefully I'll be ready to get this thing going in about a month or so.

Also, I am debating if I want to make a good push to try and get to the editors desk on www.Authonomy.com. This is a website for new authors to post their finished and works in progress. The problem with it is in order to get people to comment on and back your book, you have to put in a LOT of time doing the same thing. With my not having the Internet at home, and having 2 very little kids, this is a little hard to do. It's kind of political and a bit frustrating. But I do get really good comments and feedback. HarperCollins, who puts the site on, takes the top 5 books every month and their editors review them, giving feedback and such. On their blog that I read they also tend to pick about one of those books a month to publish. Still, not good odds there since there are several thousand books on it but I have a bit more control over it. I just don't know if I have the time to commit to it.

I am slowly working on the second book to Branded. I'm just over 10,000 words into it (Branded is 94,000). I'm still trying to figure out a title for it but I think I'm going to have to wait till I'm a little further into it. But I'm happy with what I have written so far and the plotting, though what I have written is in dire need of a lot of editing. I probably won't do any of that though till the book is done. That's what I did with Branded and I think I prefer doing it that way.

Anyway, this turned out much longer than I intended it to be but that is what is going on with the writing now.