Monday, September 15, 2008
Melinda ate one too many crabby patties...
Do you ever get those days when you wish, when you would give just about anything (even your first born who is so over school right now that i am tearing my hair out), for something to happen or change. Something significant that will break you out of the morass of self doubt you are bogged down in. And deep deep down you know, right down in your DNA you know, this event is so unlikely and that yes tomorrow will look just like today and the day before, that you need some other way to try and move forward and change things yourself. I am so tempted to write a slew of rude letters/e-mails venting my frustration but of course the short term gain is not worth the long term pain. None of this is helped by reading about New Zealander Helen Lowe (www.helenlowe.info/ ) who after securing a US agent now has a YA fantasy book coming out with Knopf in the US (released here in october) and they have also contracted an as yet incomplete four book series of adult fantasy. This is fantastic stuff and i so wish her all the best but I can't help contrasting it with my own experience where I'm not feeling the love. That pointed stick i am using to push that runny poo uphill is NOT WORKING. Garrrr! And who decided to put fashion week in the middle of NZ Book month (or NZ book month around fashion week). This is New Zealand, a small country with a population you can count in one night (although it takes them several years to collate the results). Fashion week must distract people from book month. What were they thinking (oh, okay maybe no one WAS thinking or the right hand wasn't talking to the left hand cos there's a body inbetween). Double garrr!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
Oh yes- i could murder Maureen for sending that link about the lucky Helen. You should read the comment from Tania on my last post about grrr-ness. You aint the only one with the pointed stick-poo situation. xxx Fif
I'm sorry I'm Sorry I'M SORRY!
I feel for you all...(coz I'm in the same boat...shove over, stop nicking the oars...pass the chocolate...)
I just wanted to show it can be done from NZ....
The most interesting comment she made was the research she did to get the agent.
Tim is a member of the sci fi writers group and they face similar issues to the romance writers group...and all genre writers or Commercial Fiction as they are now calling it...
WE need to get our stuff overseas!
COZ we are damn good writers!!!!-our publishers are feeling timid because they see their jobs are on the line, recession wise..but without us they wouldn't have a job!
Plan your revenge! Come the revolution...
maureen...am I forgiven???? huh huh??
Ah yes...but Helen's situation is the exception rather than the rule. Overseas is just as fraught with difficulties as here I think. I wouldn't mind so much if the runny poo hadn't got so smelly (not so much the revolution as just plain revolting):)
Melinda
(just a thought)but is helens situation an exception?...how many of us even try...to get a US agent interested in our work...?
Are we believing the publishers who wont put our work through to other arms of the same publishing house because THEY believe it won't travel...it's too NZ...?
I think that's where the conference needs to focus...(my two cents worth anyway)meanwhile
back to the grindstone and the sharp pointed stick and gas mask...
maureen...cheering on the gas mask revolutionaries
As far as I know my publisher puts everything through to their foreign arms but very little gets picked up. I have a NZ agent so that puts a different spin on how it all works. Better? Worse? Just different? I don't know...
Melinda
o.k in the spirit of siters doing it for themselves as the song goes. Melinda, do what Helen did, research U.K/ U.S agents, find out their submission criteria- query letter etc, follow it to the rule and submit your work. It can't hurt and might just win. You can have more than one agent... don't do what I have done- a chatty little letter/e-mail etc to the agent trying to strike up a cosy relationship before submitting. Its not the correct form. our publishers are busy just coping with their too large list of titles to be actively pursuing international sales for us.
Sounds a bit scary...my fingers are crossed for you. Good thoughts.......international publishing.........
wooooww....channelling...good vibes.
Fifi - I thought having more than one agent was a big no-no, unless you'd got yer foreign one through yer local one?
Melinda
if your agent isn't making anything happen for your here...then cast the net wider. Fleur has an agent in the U.K- got by a chance meeting at a cocktail party whislt she was in Oxford. Her U.K agent made the U.K market possible for her. I thibnk it would be a problem if you tried to have two local agents. That would be a definate killer.
Post a Comment