I’ll break from my fiction advice series for a moment to tell you that I’m still hard at work on subsidy publishing my first three novels, The Stardrift Trilogy. I’m not absolutely certain that I would advise subsidy publishing after what I’ve been through, but on the other hand, I’ve run up against a great deal of unfortunate flukes in the process that people with normal luck might never encounter.
I’ve actually had to switch publishing companies in the middle of everything. I’m pretty sure we’re getting back on track, but I imagine it won’t be until at least December before the trilogy is finally released. This process is supposed to take about four months and it’s taken me over a year. Typical.
My enthusiasm to see my work made available to the public is undiminished, through it all. This blog is going to get a bit more meaningful, (and hopefully, a bit more traffic) once I can start using it to discuss themes and nuances of my novels.
It will be really fun when I start publishing other books as well. I may or may not get bold and try to traditionally publish A Hand with Five Fingers. You know something I realized about that title? It’s a lot like The Beast with Five Fingers. But in my defense, I didn’t know about the creepy old movie until a while after I had named my book. And it isn’t nearly as bad as the two classic books, The Invisible Man and Invisible Man. I mean, really, that’s terrible.
Just musing along. Do you know what I think could be a problem for me if I tried to publish traditionally? My books are totally not commercial enough. They always have you define your target audience. Who is my target audience? Like with Stardrift, for example, it’s classified as sci-fi, but it really isn’t sci-fi. The sci-fi audience expects laser blasters, light-speed, robots, technology gone rouge, and women in metal bikinis. Most of the fighting is done with steel-bladed weapons, light-speed is technically impossible, technology is strictly coincidental, robots are cliché, and I don’t believe in bikinis, metal or no. I don’t even know if my audience is male (it is sci-fi, after all) or female (the protagonist is a girl.) I imagine it would be considered young-adult reading, but it isn’t necessarily as fluffy as you might expect for that age-range.
I consider myself a speculative fiction writer. That’s kind of vague, but that’s probably good, since it makes it so basically all my books fit into the genre. Even Rhapsody Threnody could be considered spec-fic for the supernatural undertones, (though it’s technically more on the Christian fiction side.) A Hand with Five Fingers, what with the time-travel involved, could also be included, as could, of course, the new sci-fi/fantasy trilogy I recently started called The Art of Lightplay.
Anyway. This is a rather disorganized post. I may be posting again as soon as tomorrow or as late as two-weeks from now. I think you’re getting used to my inconsistency. Thank you.
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