If you’re anything like me, you usually don’t bother making New Years’ resolutions, because you never keep them. But for me, this year’s different.
Finally, I got an answer from a publishing house that wasn’t a straight up “No Way!”
As I mentioned in my last post, a small publishing house liked A Lamentation of Sirin and is considering for publication. But I won’t get a final answer until May at the earliest. Knowing the vagaries of the publishing business, I might not hear anything until June or July.
At first, I was a little disappointed. But this is an opportunity, for me and for you. If I can convince the publishing house that I won’t be a financial liability, they’ll be more likely to take my books on. How do I do that? This is where you come in.
You may be surprised to find out that good writing and an exciting story are not guarantees of publication. (I know, I was surprised too!) Publishing is a business, and a business that’s not doing very well. In fact, this past year, there was no breakout new author that hit #1 on the bestseller lists (like the previous year’s The Girl on the Train, which no, I did not read).
New authors are risks. No guarantee that they will sell a single copy, much less make money for the publishing house. There’s one exception though. If the author has a good “platform,” he or she has a much better chance of getting signed on.
What does that mean, exactly? Well, for our purposes, that means a decent-sized group of subscribers.
It’s the reason I have a sign-up form at the end of every blog post. No, it’s not so I can spam you. The reasons I ask you to sign up for my mailing list are:
- so that I can keep in contact with you and let you know about my books being published
- so that I can show a publisher that a large number of people are interested in my books being published.
That’s it.
So. If you all want to see my first novel published soon, here are 4 things you can do:
- Read my blog posts
- Share them on social media
- Sign up for my Readers’ Group
- Tell others so that they can also sign up
In fact, I’m going to make this even more appealing.
If you get 5 people to sign up for my email list (make sure that when they sign up they mention that you referred them), I’ll send you a special gift: a copy of two illustrations of an early scene from A Lamentation of Sirin. The originals are pencil drawings in the style of Ivan Bilibin and other folk artists. Really beautiful stuff. Something like this:
If you get 10 people to sign up for my email list, I’ll add a signed first edition of Lamentation.
On the day after Pascha (April 16), I’ll see who referred the most people, and I’ll send that person a custom-framed collection of original (not copy) illustrations of scenes from A Lamentation of Sirin, with my hearty thanks.
So, please share this blog post to as many people as you can. Tell them about my blog. Get them to sign up to my Readers’ Group (make sure they message me that you referred them). Let’s see if we can help convince the publisher that it’ll be a good idea to publish A Lamentation of Sirin.
Here’s the sign-up form, if you’d like to start helping out now. With your help, I’ll be able to accomplish at least one New Year’s resolution: to get published this year.