16/4/2014 The Arcane Publishing online shop is up!I have set up an Arcane Publishing online shop - very basic at the moment and only selling copies of I Am a Muse.
I still need to work on it and I hope to upgrade to a better version in a few months' time in order to sell my second-hand and vintage books on there soon. Watch this space! I have just uploaded a new extract of The Book of Thoth to the BOOK'S PAGE. It is not the same one as the previous extract; I have chosen the section in which Adam and Dimitri discover Vangelis Chronos's secret laboratory... Enjoy!
1/4/2014 The dreaded synopsisI have been spending the past week or so working on various documents, writing, editing, and formatting a presentation email, a one-page author biography and a two-page full synopsis. The synopsis has taken me two whole days.
Anyone who tells me that it is super easy to write a two-page synopsis for a Gothic Novel with a word count of 138,800 is a liar! I have spent the past three years writing the book, then the past four months editing it pretty much non-stop, and I am on draft 3. I thought I knew it by heart... I don't! 31/3/2014 Matt ArtPix's new designsI know that after having blogged quite a lot over the past few weeks, it's all gone quiet. This doesn't mean nothing is happening backstage!
I am working on one or two things to do with The Book of Thoth but won't put any detail on here - if I pull this off, then I'll blog about it, if not then I'll keep quiet... In the meantime, as I have mentioned before, Arcane Publishing and Matt ArtPix are taking a break from fairs and markets. We need to think our promotional strategy through and decide what our next move is going to be! My partner in crime (and everything else!) Matt ArtPix is working on a new series of images, Southend postcards... He regularly posts updates about the designs, so head to his blog to read more about it! 25/3/2014 Draft 3 finished!I have just finished draft 3 of The Book of Thoth, and I am quite happy with it now. The word count is still just under 139,000, and I don't think I will make any more substantial cuts.
In early April, I will be getting the final feedback from my reader, and draft 4 will therefore take her comments into account; I will also be preparing the manuscript for typesetting. Now that the writing and editing of The Book of Thoth is almost complete, I need to put my publisher's hat back on and get on with several important tasks: 1. Prepare my Arts Council Grant documents to fund the research and publication of my third book, The Right Place. I need to do a budget for that... I foresee headaches. 2. Get the Arcane Publishing online shop up and running, which is not a minor task for a technophobe like myself! 3. Research events and markets where I could promote and sell books! PS: The illustration is here in some kind of ironic way. I always say that if I had the opportunity to land an agent and a "traditional" publisher (with a nice contract!), I would give it a good go before I dismissed it as "not for me". I want to make a living out of my writing, and at the moment, the self-publishing path is not ideal. Also, I like the creative side of things, not the marketing/business one, which I tackle rather reluctantly. 1/3/2014 The Book of Thoth, draft 2 finished!Yesterday evening, I finished Draft 2 of The Book of Thoth. I've been on a mission to cut the word count, and I have ended up with 139,790 words - down from over 151,000! Still, it looks a bit long... An editor probably would pitilessly tell me to cut whole scenes, but at the moment, I do think that everything that's left is important to the story in some way. I still have a lot of work to do on this - for example, PART VI is far too long and I need to find the right place where to stop it and insert a PART V title.
I am going to leave draft 3 in the drawer for a week and get back to it a bit refreshed. I need to read it first without stopping for corrections, to get a general sense of the flow of the narrative. Then it will be back to corrections. It's funny how your brain works: now that I am on draft 3 of The Book of Thoth, it seems to have turned its attention to Book 3, The Right Place, without any prompting on my part. This morning, I woke up with an idea for the story which I had to write down immediately, as it could end up being crucial to the structure of the book. I have to admit that I am getting slightly worried about Book 3; to write it, I will need to spend quite a bit of time in Dorset and at the moment, I do not have the funds to pay for accommodation there. My intention is to apply for an Arts Council Grant; therefore, this spring, I am going to start putting my statements and budget together and hopefully, I can send my application in the summer. If I get the grant - which will not be very big, as I do not need that much money really, it will be game-changing and The Right Place could get published within two years. If I am not successful, then I would have to look at alternative ways of financing it, which I haven't really considered yet... I loathe seeking permissions. In my previous job as senior editor for an educational publishing company, I spent over six months chasing up people, invoices, copyright lines, even got threatened by some venal French hippies (!). So when I became a freelancer, I decided that I wouldn't do any permissions. My sister though was brave enough to take up the title of "permission editor" and has been working on quite a few things over the past few years. When I decided to include the lyrics of the PJ Harvey song "The Wind" in my third book, The Right Place, I first thought that it was a terrific idea, as I got the inspiration for the book partly from the lyrics... My sister has been given the job to seek permission to print the lyrics, and I am waiting with trepidation to hear about the results of her work. In the meantime though, I've found this EDIFYING ARTICLE ABOUT THE COST OF QUOTING LYRICS IN A NOVEL and it's made me slightly worried. Especially the bit below: I still have the invoices. For one line of "Jumpin' Jack Flash": £500. For one line of Oasis's "Wonderwall": £535. For one line of "When I'm Sixty-four": £735. For two lines of "I Shot the Sheriff" (words and music by Bob Marley, though in my head it was the Eric Clapton version): £1,000. Plus several more, of which only George Michael's "Fastlove" came in under £200. Plus VAT. Total cost: £4,401.75. A typical advance for a literary novel by a first-time author would barely meet the cost. I am an indie author who publishes her books on her own indie imprint in print runs of about 100 copies, and there is no way I can afford that kind of fee. For The Right Place, I am going to apply for an Arts Council grant, but the chances of my getting it are pretty slim...
I wanted the permission to print the whole song, and if too expensive, just a few lines, but even that might prove to be too prohibitive... *sigh* 14/2/2014 The Book of Thoth, draft 2 updateWhen I am not wandering around London - something I will need to do a lot for Book 4 which will be set in the capital - I edit The Book of Thoth.
I am being quite ruthless and some sections are being drastically cut - I am already down to 145,000 words from 151,000, and I am about half way through the book. Draft 2 is still on schedule for early March, I am happy to say. For this book, I hope to be able to find a reader - not an editor, but someone who can spot a few things for me. I expect the typesetting to take place over July/August, so we're still on schedule for a December publication date! In the meantime, I need to make a decision about attending The London Book Fair in April. It's £30 and I would only go there for one day, but it would have to be worth it! Decisions, decisions... I have been thinking about it for a while... Now, I have decided to actually act upon it!
I would like to start posting on this very website interviews with authors and publishers: about their inspiration, their writing processes, how they self-published (for self-published writers) or their journey towards traditional publication for those lucky enough - or not! - to have been snapped up by an agent/traditional publisher, how they set up their publishing company (for indie publishers), etc. It will be very much focused on their current and future work. I will try and keep the articles short enough to be read online - I personally cannot read long texts on a screen and need them to be printed! What I have in mind is to do email interviews with people who are not your "traditional" writers/publishers, but people whose road to publication has been a little bit different. I am also interested in people I consider more interesting than your average writer; most certainly not the "Oxbridge/MA in creative writing/bestselling writer" journey to being published. I will be honest, it will be based on my personal taste, as I want to interview people whose books I have actually read - and I do not read books I don't want to read. There won't be any literary stars here - only potential future ones -although if I could get Michel Faber to answer a few questions, I would be over the moon! I was going to post them as blogs, but I think those will require their own section on the website, so I might fiddle a bit with the structure of missgish.com when I am ready to post the first interview. I am happy to say that so far, the three people I have contacted have expressed an interest, so thank you to them. I hope to start the series in the spring, hopefully the first interview will be available by the end of March. I might post one every month or two months, depending on people's (and my own) availability. I already have a few more people to contact and add to my list! 31/1/2014 The Book of Thoth: a sneak preview!Matt ArtPix has been hard at work on the style sheet for The Book of Thoth.
We still have a few things to sort out, but it is looking good... I love it! More to come soon... |
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March 2024
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