New Upcoming Books in 2011

[Sunny]

Thanks everyone. This book's been a long time in the making. It's nice to know folks are so receptive.

I think i'm going to be a record: it's ten years since i've started my novels 

[Alixz]

No record, there.  My friend and I began writing ours in 1980.  It has been 31 years since we began and it still sits in that proverbial bottom desk drawer.  Oh well.

[Sunny]

No record, there.  My friend and I began writing ours in 1980.  It has been 31 years since we began and it still sits in that proverbial bottom desk drawer.  Oh well.

Maybe mine will stay on my desk simply forever, for i'm too shy to try to puvblish them 

[blessOTMA]

I am so looking forward to Sarah's and Ilana's  books!...Both groups of sisters are very interesting to me of course ! but I'm  intrigued by others who say their books are collecting dust. Publishing is changing rapidly and in the near future one may be able offer the first chapter on line and then the reader down loads the rest for a price....it won't be necessary to go the usual " brick and mortar "route. I find the usual route is a narrowing channel. There seems less outlets and therefore I offer even more congratulations to Sarah and Ilana who have navigated it so well!

But because of the future of down load reading/ publishing , where there is no overhead or large investment for a publisher,  there will be more opportunity for what is considered a "niche " subject. I hope in future you dust your books off and those thinking about starting, do.

[Alixz]

I agree with Sunny.  I am not shy about publishing but I wonder just how much of a writer's own self is exposed in a work of fiction?  That is what bothered me when we were actively looking for a publisher in the 1980s.

I have asked some of the authors who post here about this and I have gotten various answers.

What I am looking for now is an editing program that will allow me to scan in the manuscript and then edit and correct for content.  I have asked at a local computer tech college about the availability of this kind of software, but I am told it is probably not the word program that would be a problem but the scanner itself that would make the work hard.  Most of us own what are called "low end" scanners that see the word in a manuscript as blocks of letters and not words.  That is why the scanned in product often makes no sense.  

I did buy Dragon Naturally Speaking which is supposed to let one read the manuscript into the computer's editing program, but for some reason I keep putting off trying it.  My son is an ITech and I would think that I would be braver and try all of this technology since he is around to help me and correct my software usage mistakes, but ...

Our manuscript is 425 pages and it was done on a typewriter with carbon paper for copies and there is no way I would ever want to have to retype the whole thing in order to get it into a word processing program to do the editing.  I think it would take far too much time but as a last resort, I just might have to do it that way.

As to how long it takes some authors to get published, I remember the book entitled And The Ladies Of The Club.  It was the only book the author ever wrote and she was in her 80s when she finally got it published.  She should be a role model for the rest of us.

[blessOTMA]

In the case of shyness, there is always  the solution of writing under a diffrent name! I totally agree the author who finally published in her 80's  should be a role model indeed!  However I'm the daughter of a woman who wanted to write her book for over 50 years...but  never could because of the fears ( would it be good enough?  what would people say? ) ...and now she's too ill. I urge others to not  expose yourself to that anguish.

[historyfan]

Oh well, since others are disclosing, I may as well too - my novel's in the editing/critiquing phase.  I've never published a novel before and I have every intention of going "all the way" with this...but I'd be lying if I said I didn't have any fear!  : P  I started writing it in Nov 2009.

It makes me wonder...is it possible to learn about the Romanovs and NOT want to write about them??  Their story's just so compelling, and all the undercurrents of the era and the extended family...!

[TimM]

I guess I'll chime in here, I too have tried to get published.  No luck so far.  One story is Bid Time Return, that had its origins here, however, the one publisher I tried sent it back (with a nice form letter that told me nothing).  I'm currently looking for another.

[Alixz]

Bid Time Return is the title of a novel by Richard Matheson.  It was made into the movie Somewhere In Time starring Jane Seymour and Christopher Reeve.

The book's original title comes from a line in Shakespeare's Richard II (act iii, scene 2), "O call back yesterday, bid time return."

[TimM]

Could that be why it was rejected.  Okay, both stories have time travel, but aside from that, they are very different.

[historyfan]

Could that be why it was rejected.  Okay, both stories have time travel, but aside from that, they are very different.

Just from my limited experience, I'm thinking it wasn't the title.  Titles, after all, can be changed (and often are).  There are lots of reasons why books are rejected that really don't have anything to do with the story - such as, it wasn't a good fit for the publisher, or the publisher has recently accepted a very similar story.

[jehan]

Could that be why it was rejected.  Okay, both stories have time travel, but aside from that, they are very different.

Just from my limited experience, I'm thinking it wasn't the title.  Titles, after all, can be changed (and often are).  There are lots of reasons why books are rejected that really don't have anything to do with the story - such as, it wasn't a good fit for the publisher, or the publisher has recently accepted a very similar story.

Many publishers (especially the larger ones) will reject any work not submitted by a literary agent, rather than directly by the author.

[blessOTMA]

The time is coming when authors will be able to offer their books on line for a fee and by pass publishing as we now know it. Simply perforce as fewer  bricks and mortar books( that is,  physical books )  get  published and publishing houses themselves provide books in this electronic manner.

[historyfan]

Could that be why it was rejected.  Okay, both stories have time travel, but aside from that, they are very different.

Just from my limited experience, I'm thinking it wasn't the title.  Titles, after all, can be changed (and often are).  There are lots of reasons why books are rejected that really don't have anything to do with the story - such as, it wasn't a good fit for the publisher, or the publisher has recently accepted a very similar story.

Many publishers (especially the larger ones) will reject any work not submitted by a literary agent, rather than directly by the author.

But their submission guidelines usually make their position clear on unagented submissions.

[TimM]

I checked into that and made sure that the magazine said you didn't need an agent to accept the story.  Of course, this is one story, not a book.