A very happy new year to everyone. I hope that 2009 brings you everything that you hope for.
Emma x
Wednesday, 31 December 2008
Saturday, 20 December 2008
It's time to kick it baby
Right it's the end of the year and there's nay a publisher in freakin sight. I haven't captured an agent... ok there might be one or two in my scope but no capturage as yet. So it is time to up the ante.
Gawd I can't even tell you how much I loathe the whole-everything-is-out-of-my-hands feeling. I'm sending out my submissions and waiting and waiting and biting off my electric blue/emerald green/pulsating purple/blue me away/risque red etc nail varnishes and developing a worrying nervous tick. It's time to try and wrestle back some control.
I sat down today and thought okkkaayyy, I can write, I like my books, I love creating them, people DO want to read them - I have a list of buyers, I have my teen readers e-mailing me and moaning for copies... something's got to be done. So I drank quite a bit of diet coke, ate too many celebrations and played 'Listen' by Beyonce about twenty times and then I decided on a plan of action.
When it comes right down to it an agent takes on your project because it will make them money, as of course they should. That is their job, they need to buy food for their cats and pay their book store bills just like the rest of us. Ergo an agent will take you on if you can show them that baby you can ring those tills. A publisher will publish your book because they want to sell lots of copies and make lots of money - this you see is how awful celeb autobiographies end up taking up space in our bookstores.
So it's obvious right, I need to show said agent and then said publisher that I can produce the dollars.
How to do so? Well here comes my plan of action... dem dem dem... reader-recruit.
Now I'm coining this as an official term, reader-recruit will henceforth be known as the strategy undertaken by an unpublished authour to collect such a vast amount of future readers that an agent's eyes will pop in glee and a publisher will sign her to a five book deal instantly whilst bouncing around in a state of hyperactivity. The author will show gleeful agent and bouncing publisher an excel sheet containing thousands and thousands of names (real ones) all of readers who have been recruited to the cause. These readers will all be salivating for a copy, they will be waiting and ready to buy on release date... and there you have reader-recruit.
Now I'm not going to go into my reader-recruit strategies in detail - 'cause they're techy and kinda boring but suffice to say they involve a banging website, an OH-SOMEONE-HELP-ME kinda blog, Bebo fan groups, Facebook sign up to the cause groups, Myspace bulletins and various other web-related publicity tools.
So far reader-recruit is at 476 people (web addresses harvested from my site, fans from the Immune group on Bebo and fans from the newly launched WE WANT IMMUNE PUBLISHED' Facebook group)and baby it's gonna rise - the target is 1000 by Jan.
So c'mon pledge yourself to the list - join the cause - be part of reader-recruit.
P.S. I have a rather fab GothEmBlack varnish I want to wear, my pale nails are crying out for it - only with your help may they wear varnish again!
Gawd I can't even tell you how much I loathe the whole-everything-is-out-of-my-hands feeling. I'm sending out my submissions and waiting and waiting and biting off my electric blue/emerald green/pulsating purple/blue me away/risque red etc nail varnishes and developing a worrying nervous tick. It's time to try and wrestle back some control.
I sat down today and thought okkkaayyy, I can write, I like my books, I love creating them, people DO want to read them - I have a list of buyers, I have my teen readers e-mailing me and moaning for copies... something's got to be done. So I drank quite a bit of diet coke, ate too many celebrations and played 'Listen' by Beyonce about twenty times and then I decided on a plan of action.
When it comes right down to it an agent takes on your project because it will make them money, as of course they should. That is their job, they need to buy food for their cats and pay their book store bills just like the rest of us. Ergo an agent will take you on if you can show them that baby you can ring those tills. A publisher will publish your book because they want to sell lots of copies and make lots of money - this you see is how awful celeb autobiographies end up taking up space in our bookstores.
So it's obvious right, I need to show said agent and then said publisher that I can produce the dollars.
How to do so? Well here comes my plan of action... dem dem dem... reader-recruit.
Now I'm coining this as an official term, reader-recruit will henceforth be known as the strategy undertaken by an unpublished authour to collect such a vast amount of future readers that an agent's eyes will pop in glee and a publisher will sign her to a five book deal instantly whilst bouncing around in a state of hyperactivity. The author will show gleeful agent and bouncing publisher an excel sheet containing thousands and thousands of names (real ones) all of readers who have been recruited to the cause. These readers will all be salivating for a copy, they will be waiting and ready to buy on release date... and there you have reader-recruit.
Now I'm not going to go into my reader-recruit strategies in detail - 'cause they're techy and kinda boring but suffice to say they involve a banging website, an OH-SOMEONE-HELP-ME kinda blog, Bebo fan groups, Facebook sign up to the cause groups, Myspace bulletins and various other web-related publicity tools.
So far reader-recruit is at 476 people (web addresses harvested from my site, fans from the Immune group on Bebo and fans from the newly launched WE WANT IMMUNE PUBLISHED' Facebook group)and baby it's gonna rise - the target is 1000 by Jan.
So c'mon pledge yourself to the list - join the cause - be part of reader-recruit.
P.S. I have a rather fab GothEmBlack varnish I want to wear, my pale nails are crying out for it - only with your help may they wear varnish again!
Thursday, 11 December 2008
Vampore Bore...
I love vampires, I mean really - they're my favourite ever mythical creatures. The fangs, the good looks the whole broody element... sigh.
However it seems to be really difficult to create an original vampire novel. You write about a ass kicking heroine and she's compared to Buffy, you write a smouldering hottie and he's compared to Edward Cullen and accents... nuh hu you're entering Dracula territory here.
So what's the solution? Well I am going to have to write a vampie novel - just gonna have to. I won't be happy till I do but how to make it original? I cannot have a weepy, wimpy heroine, nope my female heroes have to be strong and tough and a bit rebellious (I have to set an example here) and I cannot have an fugly vampire hero, he simply has to be hot and smouldering and a bit tortured whilst of course still chugging down the blood - and they have to be mortal enemies who will fight each other to the death whilst being overwhelmed with desire for one another.
A bit copycat, a bit generic - it kind of seems that way doesn't it... so how about I make my heroine another mythical creature - a Fairy or a Furie or something similar. And how about I make my vamp hottie a prince about to be crowned the vamp king. And let's throw in that she's been trained her entire life to hunt and kill him and that he plans to torture her to death before swilling her mythical blood. And then they meet and whoa hoo... the chemistry.
Throw in a mutiny so that they're set on the same side - having to depend on each other for survival, loathing each other whilst falling into the abyss... how is this sounding, am I exciting anyone here...?
However it seems to be really difficult to create an original vampire novel. You write about a ass kicking heroine and she's compared to Buffy, you write a smouldering hottie and he's compared to Edward Cullen and accents... nuh hu you're entering Dracula territory here.
So what's the solution? Well I am going to have to write a vampie novel - just gonna have to. I won't be happy till I do but how to make it original? I cannot have a weepy, wimpy heroine, nope my female heroes have to be strong and tough and a bit rebellious (I have to set an example here) and I cannot have an fugly vampire hero, he simply has to be hot and smouldering and a bit tortured whilst of course still chugging down the blood - and they have to be mortal enemies who will fight each other to the death whilst being overwhelmed with desire for one another.
A bit copycat, a bit generic - it kind of seems that way doesn't it... so how about I make my heroine another mythical creature - a Fairy or a Furie or something similar. And how about I make my vamp hottie a prince about to be crowned the vamp king. And let's throw in that she's been trained her entire life to hunt and kill him and that he plans to torture her to death before swilling her mythical blood. And then they meet and whoa hoo... the chemistry.
Throw in a mutiny so that they're set on the same side - having to depend on each other for survival, loathing each other whilst falling into the abyss... how is this sounding, am I exciting anyone here...?
Wednesday, 10 December 2008
All about the emotion
I've often wondered how the emotional state of the author affects the emotional state of the writing. Can you ever truly write about heartbreak unless you've had your own heart pummeled? Can you ever really convey the dizzying effects of love unless you've fallen yourself?
When you are a bit depressed is it better to write the black parts of your WIP? If you're all happy and loved up does that make the love scenes all the more poignant - more meaningful?
It's a tricky area and I guess I only have my own experiences to answer it. I know that when I am feeling a bit bleak I cannot write a happy cheery scene, when I'm in love I want to write about that and not about anything depressing. So does it therefore mean that happy people can't really ever write a really dark book and that chronicly sad types can't really get away with writing an uplifting story?
I honestly don't know. It may just be that this is a very personal thing - something that is different for each writer. Maybe like how some writers can get away with writing about an area they've never visited and some can research a certain profession and then sound like they've been pickling gherkins since the year dot.
Prehaps when you get right down to it it's the emotions themselves that matter, whether an author has experienced them or not - if they can make you believe they have then is that job done?
When you are a bit depressed is it better to write the black parts of your WIP? If you're all happy and loved up does that make the love scenes all the more poignant - more meaningful?
It's a tricky area and I guess I only have my own experiences to answer it. I know that when I am feeling a bit bleak I cannot write a happy cheery scene, when I'm in love I want to write about that and not about anything depressing. So does it therefore mean that happy people can't really ever write a really dark book and that chronicly sad types can't really get away with writing an uplifting story?
I honestly don't know. It may just be that this is a very personal thing - something that is different for each writer. Maybe like how some writers can get away with writing about an area they've never visited and some can research a certain profession and then sound like they've been pickling gherkins since the year dot.
Prehaps when you get right down to it it's the emotions themselves that matter, whether an author has experienced them or not - if they can make you believe they have then is that job done?
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