And in the post today, a bound proof of Iain Rowan’s One of Us:
Monthly Archives: February 2012
New: print edition of Kaitlin Queen’s “Essex noir” One More Unfortunate
We’re delighted to announce that the print edition of Kaitlin Queen’s murder mystery One More Unfortunate (described by one reviewer as “Essex noir”) is now creeping out into the bookshops.
Today it’s become available at CreateSpace, and in a few days it’ll be on Amazon and then starting to appear elsewhere. Here’s what one Amazon review said about the e-edition:
“There are twists and turns galore before finally the murder is solved… The characterizations are vivid, and in a couple of cases really quite affecting; the taut tale-telling rattles along at good speed; and the solution to the mystery is both startling and satisfying. Recommended.”
There’s also an extract up at the infinity plus website.
(Hint: while it’ll be great to have wider distribution, the author gets the best royalty if you buy direct from CreateSpace. Just so you know.)
Our first print title
Just received in the post today:
This is the first bound proof of what will be our first print title. Very exciting!
Micro Sci-Fi: Night of the Garlic Bread
Writer of weird fiction and Guardian columnist Damien Walter is featuring what he calls “Micro Sci-Fi” on his website: single sentence stories bringing together at least two current developments in science, technology or the humanities. Here’s my stab:
World’s first lab-grown meat restaurant franchise features man steak on menu, as another city quarantined in zombie apocalypse.
Why do we do it?
We work long hours – and for most of us those hours are squeezed in around a full-time day job, so we can end up working ridiculously long weeks.
We use our weekends and holidays. What is this thing they call ‘leisure time’?
We make those around us compromise to accommodate this thing that we do. And, making that worse, we can see their sacrifices, and god but that feels selfish sometimes.
The money? Hah, the money. For most of us, every pay cheque is the bonus, not the salary. Most writers can’t make a good living from what they do. They rely on other sources of income to pay the bills. Calculate the hourly rate from your writing income. Go on. It’s not even close to minimum wage, is it?
The recognition. Well yes, a good review is nice, but most books get a flurry of attention and then, at best, stay in print and available. And while the positive reactions are great, every book, every story we put out there is setting us up for a slap. Sometimes the slap is well-deserved, but often we get slapped by people who have agendas or petty jealousies of their own. And all too often it’s the negative whiners who are more motivated to comment than the many who read and enjoy our work.
We’re all too aware of our own shortcomings. It’s a rare writer who is satisfied with their latest work. We see the straining plot, patched over and flimsy. We see the characters and settings that just don’t quite take the shape we had seen in that initial flash of inspiration. We always know we could, and should, do better.
And more…
So: why do we do this writing thing?
We work long hours because we choose to, because anyone dedicated to their art would do nothing else. How could we not write?
We compromise on many aspects of our lives, and we’re aware of the impact this has, but then the people around us love us for who we are, and a central part of that is that we’re writers. Sometimes it’s tough, but then that’s life.
And sometimes the money is good. Some of us can do this thing full-time. Sometimes a movie option pays for the good things, or a book advance pays off those debts and that’s a bonus most people never get.
Recognition is good. Interaction with readers can be incredibly rewarding and stimulating. That fan mail from a teenager about to start one of my books for the third time is one of the most positive things that’s ever happened to me. The tweets that tell the world how much someone has liked your story. Writing should never be an ego trip, but hey, we all have egos, don’t we?
And if we weren’t aware of our own shortcomings how would we ever improve? I really would hate to write the perfect story. I always want to write a story better than I ever have before. And I want the next one to be better. I want to create something new, something that no one else has ever experienced, and I want to share that with people – I want other people to get some of the magic of creating something new.
That’s why we do it. And I wouldn’t have it any other way*.
* Okay, a few more movie options wouldn’t go amiss, but apart from that…
Simultaneous release, or not?
It’s a simple question: as infinity plus starts to release both print and ebook editions of some* of our books, should the two versions be launched simultaneously or not?
The ebook edition is so much speedier to produce: we could release ebooks of our next books from Iain Rowan and Eric Brown within a few days if we chose to. The print editions take much longer: right now we’re waiting for physical proofs of these two to be delivered; when we finally give the go-ahead for distribution, it’s likely to take a few weeks more until they’re widely available.
So: should we delay the ebooks so that both editions can come out together, or should we just plunge in as and when the different editions are ready?
* Why will only some of our books have print editions? We decide on a case by case basis. In many cases, we have electronic rights but another publisher still has print rights, so we can only do the ebook edition. In other cases, while the print rights may be available, if a print edition has already been produced that format might be less viable for us to re-release. Our first three print books have never had a print edition before, and only one of them has been out as an ebook: Ghostwriting, a new collection of psychological horror from Eric Brown will be published for the first time in ebook and print editions, as will Iain Rowan’s Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger-shortlisted novel One of Us; Kaitlin Queen’s adult crime debut, One More Unfortunate, appeared in an ebook edition just over a year ago, but has not previously had a print edition.