As with all the best sequels, there's been a bit of time between our last post and this follow-up. Call it being a tease. Call it building suspense. Call it being downright slack...
But we're back now, folks, with this, our first blog post of 2010. To be honest, I've held off for a reason. The back end of last year was stupidly busy, with us publishing our first book, me finishing writing and then doing publicity for The Manx Giant, and then there was a short break away, the usual Christmas panic and mayhem. You know the sort of thing.
However, the overriding thing was this - we needed to wait for confirmation on cool news part two, and indeed, cool news part three.
Part two is now in, and here you have it. We have been approached by an acquaintance who is very supportive of what we're trying to do, which, for new readers of this here blog, is get an indie publishing house off the ground from a standing start. Absolute ground zero.
Anyway, this acquaintance/benefactor has offered to support us financially on a project by project basis - which means, in a nutshell, that as and when we need it, we can call in extra funds. This might be to secure a larger than usual print run, should we feel it warrants it; or it could be to secure a book where the design and print work is complex.
It's a good position for us - we retain full control of the business, including the decision on whether or not to publish a book, and the only proviso is an obvious one - if we put a particular project to our benefactor, and they aren't convinced, then they step away from it. No problem.
Ultimately, what this does give us is a bit of flexibility. Without it, we would have had to work from the ground up, with each book (potentially) having to do well before we could move up a grade in publishing terms.
With the benefactor in place, we can climb a couple of rungs on the ladder, which is what we are doing for our third book, which will follow the first issue of Vertigo, now set for an Easter launch.
Book three will be a biography. And that, of course, is where cool news part three comes in. But you'll have to wait for that. It won't be as long a wait as it was for this post, I promise...
And don't get me started on cool news part four. That's just too much.
Showing posts with label The Manx Giant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Manx Giant. Show all posts
Tuesday, 12 January 2010
Friday, 14 August 2009
It's crunch time. Big time
It's been a long gestation period for Nemesis. Three years, or thereabouts. Sometimes feels like ten. We've had to wait for the right moment, taking work, weddings and babies into account, but we've kept beavering away behind the scenes.
The submission process for the Vertigo anthology brought in 40-plus stories, which were whittled down to ten, followed by edits for each, meetings with the authors, rewrites and more editing. Meanwhile, we agreed to publish a book marking the 175th anniversary of our local school, Arbory, which the young fella attends, and Mrs Q has been heavily involved with the school's PTA to gather the extensive research together. I guess 'facilitating' would be a better word than publishing in this instance; we're looking after design and printing, but all profits from the book will go to the school.
But now the waiting is almost over. Both Vertigo and the Arbory book have to be with the printers by mid-October at the latest (although Vertigo can probably wait a little longer) and there are just two months to go.
Work on Vertigo is, generally, on hold until I've finishing writing the final draft of The Manx Giant, which is being published by the Manx Heritage Foundation. However, there have been a couple of cool developments in recent weeks.
First, the template for the Nemesis website has been agreed with the designers, and it looks excellent. Once the pages have been created, they'll be handed over to us to insert the text ahead of the site going live. I'm hoping that will happen by mid-September at the latest.
Second, an up-and-coming author who is creating some serious buzz with a series of crime novels has provisionally agreed to write a foreword for Vertigo. He's asked to see a couple of the stories to give him a taste of what the anthology is about, and they should be with him in the next week or so after further edits. But I'll keep our power dry until then as to his identity...
It's an exciting time. And also a bloody daunting one. There's no time to waste now. For the next two months, it's going to be all hands to the pump. Late nights and early mornings. And yet finishing the design and getting the manuscripts to print is only half the battle - the publicity campaign for both books will start to roll into action over the next month and gather pace towards Christmas.
Meanwhile, we still have one eye on next year, and how to follow up what we hope will be a successful end to 2009. Watch this space.
The submission process for the Vertigo anthology brought in 40-plus stories, which were whittled down to ten, followed by edits for each, meetings with the authors, rewrites and more editing. Meanwhile, we agreed to publish a book marking the 175th anniversary of our local school, Arbory, which the young fella attends, and Mrs Q has been heavily involved with the school's PTA to gather the extensive research together. I guess 'facilitating' would be a better word than publishing in this instance; we're looking after design and printing, but all profits from the book will go to the school.
But now the waiting is almost over. Both Vertigo and the Arbory book have to be with the printers by mid-October at the latest (although Vertigo can probably wait a little longer) and there are just two months to go.
Work on Vertigo is, generally, on hold until I've finishing writing the final draft of The Manx Giant, which is being published by the Manx Heritage Foundation. However, there have been a couple of cool developments in recent weeks.
First, the template for the Nemesis website has been agreed with the designers, and it looks excellent. Once the pages have been created, they'll be handed over to us to insert the text ahead of the site going live. I'm hoping that will happen by mid-September at the latest.
Second, an up-and-coming author who is creating some serious buzz with a series of crime novels has provisionally agreed to write a foreword for Vertigo. He's asked to see a couple of the stories to give him a taste of what the anthology is about, and they should be with him in the next week or so after further edits. But I'll keep our power dry until then as to his identity...
It's an exciting time. And also a bloody daunting one. There's no time to waste now. For the next two months, it's going to be all hands to the pump. Late nights and early mornings. And yet finishing the design and getting the manuscripts to print is only half the battle - the publicity campaign for both books will start to roll into action over the next month and gather pace towards Christmas.
Meanwhile, we still have one eye on next year, and how to follow up what we hope will be a successful end to 2009. Watch this space.
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