“If you are coming to these elegant, truthful and sensuous stories for the first time I envy you. They’ll haunt your dreams, yes, but what fabulous dreams.”– Trent Jamieson
In September Twelfth Planet Press will publish a boutique collection of short stories by Marianne de Pierres. Glitter Rose features a tragically romantic set of interlinked fantasy stories set on an imaginary island on the Australian coastline.
The collection will be a signed, limited edition, hardcover with beautiful internal illustrations by Australian and American artists.
Details for pre-order can be found here: http://www.twelfthplanetpress.
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catsparx updated our logo:
I love it!
Including bios for all the contributors was always part of the project brief. It's a chance for each writer to take 10 secs with each Sprawl reader and tell them something about themselves, their writing and most importantly, where else that reader should go to find more of their work.
At Last Short Story, we have had the opportunity to read A LOT of author bios over our time. For something that seems quite flippant - one paragraph after maybe 7000 words of writing - it can be the most memorable part of the experience. There are times when the author bios are the most entertaining parts of an anthology or magazine. That usually says a lot more about the anthology or magazine than the bios but it brings forward something really crucial, I think.
I often ask for bios to include in projects and make no comment about what is submitted in return. An author is entitled to provide any information they like to promote themselves. But the key word in the last sentence was "promote". Afterall, these bios are directed at the reader. And as a reader, I love reading author bios. They can be entertaining and tell me the kind of setting the author lives in, who they live with, what kind of pets they have and whether or not they like to knit. And after reading a paragraph like that I might think, "Aww that's nice, isn't it? They have three furry cats and they're all called Bob. Cute."
Whatever. Because that author has missed a vital opportunity. If I enjoyed a writer's work, I am reading their bio to find out where I can find more of their work. And if I bought the work I am currently reading their bio in, chances are, I am more than likely to go away and buy something else, be that a collection, an anthology or a novel. I can't do that if all the author has told me is their favourite colour and whether they are a cat or a dog person. They have chosen to end our relationship because they didn't leave me their calling card. And more importantly, they have told me, as a publisher, that they do not take every single opportunity they get to promote their work.
Show Notes:
“One Saturday Night, With Angel” by Peter M Ball forthcoming in Sprawl.
Story read by Nick Evans.
And that led me to thinking about how many writers concentrate on making the sale. But that this is not the final stage in the writing and publishing process. A story is very rarely ready for layout on submission. I've had the chance to work with some outstanding names and none of them have ever not needed at least a minor copy edit of their work. A few names spring to mind where I've edited their work to add one comma in the whole piece but that is so very rare. Those writers are considered to be at the top of the local scene. Generally, the bigger the name writer I've worked with, the cleaner their work. But even then, they still need at least a copy edit, sometimes more. And every single time I work with a writer like this, I get a chance to watch (and learn) true professionalism. These writers never complain or whinge or write long winded paragraphs on why you are wrong. Sometimes, they do not want to accept one particular change or other, and they simply will say, "I don't want to change this." And as an editor, it's not my job to rewrite the work or change the style. As long as it's not related to house style or a spelling, grammatical or punctuational error, I tend to let that edit go.
Sometimes a work will have intrigued me and pulled me in but it might not work in one place or might lack a punch or the pacing might be off. And I enjoy the back and forth of the rewriting process, especially with pro writers. More often than not, they will agree with you that they know it's not quite working and they appreciate the new set of eyes. The better the writer, the less feedback you need to give and it always amazes me how I will give one or two lines of direction and the story will come back completely rewritten, sometimes with a completely new plot or maybe I can't even tell what the writer has changed and yet suddenly it works. But again, this process is fun because it's constructive.
However, this is not always how the editing process goes with writers. And what I think some, especially new, writers are not aware of is, that the way they behave during the editing process absolutely determines whether they will ever make another sale to that editor. Editors are very busy and the one piece of writing they are working on with one writer is not the only thing they're working on. There are usually many things coming in and going out daily for work and decisions and so on. The editor is working on a timeline that might not remotely seem obvious to anyone else - maybe the layout person is going on holidays or the printer has given a specific deadline for a specific turnaround, or the uncorrected proofs need to go out to review by a certain date. Essentially, the one writer in an anthology or magazine issue is not the centre of it all. And the more difficult that writer makes the editing process of their story, particularly when every other writer in the anthology is promptly and systematically taking their edits/reworks, working on them, handing them back, accepting their proofs, sending in their contacts etc and this one writer is still arguing over whether a particular paragraph is slowing down the pacing or not, the less fun that writer is making it. In fact, that writer is becoming what we like to call a Pain in the Arse. And the next time their name comes up in the submission pile, the very first thing the editor is going to recall is the pain associated with editing them. And then the editor is going to weigh up how good the submission needs to be in order to make the pain of dealing with that writer worthwhile. Now, maybe the next submissions is AWESOME! And if it is, the editor will probably take it. But chances are, unless it *is* AWESOME and requires the most minor of edits, the editor is highly unlikely to take a chance on this writer and their work again. That is, if the editor thinks, "hey this could be a really great story if..." they will be more likely to find a new writer whose work could be really great if ... and edit the unknown than to choose to go into a process that will take 2 weeks longer than everyone else to deliver a story which was not AWESOME! and which hurt a lot more than it should.
Until the contract is signed and payment made, an editor is not obliged to take your story. If agreement cannot be reached on edits, an editor has the right to pull the story from the project. I have done this myself, and never regretted it. Usually in this case, it's because I bought a story that I thought needed work and made the sale on this provision. The writer might have thought, "Well, I'll say yes but then I won't change anything" or they might think that the work needed was less than the editor is suggesting. In the times this has happened to me, the writer in question has tended to refuse any and all editorial feedback, which as far as I was concerned was a breach of the agreement for the sale in the first place, and at this kind of a stand off, I'd rather pull the story than print something that I don't believe I can honestly sell to my readers.
I personally have a list of writers I won't work with again. And editors talk to each other and they swap names on their lists. As my workload gets bigger and deadlines get tighter, I just have less time to give to writers who are too precious to work with. No work is perfect on submission. No work would not benefit from the input of an editor. And very very few writers will ever make it in the business if they think that they are the brilliant exception to the rule. And those writers who do despite how they behave, do so BECAUSE they ARE brilliant. And when brilliant sells thousands of copies, no editor/publisher is going to mind the Pain in the Arse that much. But until then, I just don't really have the time for pain that doesn't deliver.
I have a second list too - a list of writers of extreme professionalism and consistent quality who take deadlines seriously. These writers can be trusted to help pull me out of a jam if say I suddenly have a space to fill in a project. They are also the writers who when they come to me and suddenly need an extension on something, and have a valid reason, I know that I will see the work on the new agreed deadline date. And these are the writers who I am more likely to save spots for in projects or allow extensions to submission deadlines. These are reliable writers who turn in polished pieces of great work. They work to brief, to deadline and with the editor. They make working with them fun and a desirable repeat performance. And some of them have become very close friends of mine through the experience. These are the writers who keep me enthused and motivated and who remind me why I do this on a daily basis. And these are the writers whom I proudly believe in and make it a joy to promote their work.
catsparx).Video here.
But this year, I was a little nervous because for the first time I'm not coediting, I'm editing all the projects on my own. And that alone is a very big job - 6 projects for 2010, and not sharing that workload with anyone. I don't have anyone to doublecheck decisions. And I don't have anyone to share the driving force behind any of the projects. That makes it easy for any one project to get forgotten, or to be thought of as too hard, and procrastinated on. Especially if I'm still very busy working on others. And on top of it, being both editor and publisher is also a big workload. They are very discrete roles and both are equally time consuming. So balancing the publishing and editing is a finely tuned task in itself.
And I think maybe I thought that this would make working at Twelfth Planet Press both completely overwhelming (workloadwise) but also solitary. It turns out that it has been completely the opposite case. Firstly, my good friend Tehani has not completely abandoned me for her new FableCroft venture. She is still working at proofing and advising and reminding and marketing and promoting and throwing ideas at me. And she's still there for bouncing ideas off. And polishing all the final drafts till they shine. And Tansy is also still around for editing advice. And the awesome Amanda has come on board as the Art Department, as I like to call her. So from the production end, there is a lot of hubbub and tooing and froing.
And then there's this big jump that I'm trying to make in more of a hop, skip and a jump rather than one giant leap. I'm in the process of growing Twelfth Planet Press, taking it further in the direction that I would like for it to go. That's meant some changes in the way that I have been doing things - most importantly in terms of cash flow and timelines.
Up until now, the way I have operated is that initially we put seed money into the first projects and then when enough sales had returned enough seed money for a new project, a new project went ahead. And as more projects came online, and the long tail was still coming in for older projects (sales for a book project have preorders, the ramp up of sales on release, and then the long tail of the rest of the sales over time), more projects could come online sooner. And so it was that I did electronic projects (which never returned seed money), and then two titles in 2008, and four titles in 2009. Six titles are scheduled for 2010.
The urgency to grow at this pace comes out of wanting to produce the full vision of the press as quickly as possible. As reviews and feedback come in with each new project, the audience forms an idea of who you are based on what you have done and I want to very quickly put out as diverse an array of titles as I can within my vision for Twelfth Planet Press in order to both brand the house and also to capture the attention of readers, writers and booksellers. Additionally, the bigger the backlist you have, the more chance you have of promoting your press to booksellers and distributors, and ultimately to a greater readership.
So there are six titles scheduled for 2010, spanning anthologies, collections, our first novel and more in the novella/novella doubles series. And the plan is to use Worldcon as a launching pad for the kind of sales you'd need to generate to make six titles released in one year viable. That all works except for one little important fact I forgot until very recently - cashflow. You see, you need to pay the printer, the authors, the artists, the designer, the table space at the con, the advertising, the merchandising and so on. And you need to pay for all these things up front. And that would be where the waiting for the seed money from the last project coming forward to pay for the next one kicks in. A quick sum would show I produced 4 books last year and 4 books is less than 6. Yeah. That hurt me, too.
And that's of course where presales come in. There are all kinds of consumers out there - there are early adopters and uber-organised people who like to buy things as soon as they are available or who like to buy things as soon as they see them and then can forget about having to organise to buy them later. These people preorder books (I like to preorder books - that way when the book arrives months later, it's like a gift from the you of the past, or a book bought with someone else's money). And then there are the people who hear about books from book reviews or from your promotion, or who see you talk at a panel or were at your book launch, or wander past your table at a convention and pick up the book or who hear about it from word of mouth. These people buy your book in person. And they help bump up book sales on release of your book. (Sometimes I'm this person too - I like to see the shiny and then own it!). And then there's the longtail - this is the sale that keeps on giving. These sales come from further word of mouth, more reviews, awards shortlistings or wins, bookstores and libraries and so on. (I'm also this person - I am currently providing long tail kick in for single author collections and feminist SF published before I was involved in the scene.) I kind of hope that I have hit close to break even somewhere after the initial sales of the book release (maybe a couple of months later but still close to), which makes the long tail meaningful because it's the part of the process that pushes the book into "viable" and also brings in cashflow to support growth in the press. This is the bit that I was banking on kicking in to take me over the line and into 6 books viability territory.
Except that I forgot one important thing! Timelines! I want to put all those books out at once so the long tail of book 1 can't pay the seed for book 6. And that would be where the balancing of my cashflow comes in. That was an *interesting* lesson to learn.
The other lesson I am learning is again related to timelines. If I want to better manage my long tails, and I want to increase my initial sales, I need to do better in terms of prelaunch publicity and marketing. And to do that, I need to have book galleys ready well in advance of the book release date and out to book reviewers well ahead of time. For example, to get a review in Locus, you need to send the book for review about 3 months in advance. And the same is true for a lot of the big newspaper outlets in the US. And many will only review the book galley and ahead of the book release date. Up until now, I haven't been remotely able to deliver on that kind of timeframe.
But I have to. So this year is all about working timelines so that we can do this from now on. And that means that I am currently also working on 2011 projects whilst simultaneously working on my 2010 schedule. And if you've followed along on my maths up until now, you'll have guessed that I have more than six projects in my 2011 lineup. And the bit I haven't yet wrapped my head around is that I probably need to be starting to think about 2012 projects and be working on an 18 month ahead timeframe. If I think too hard about this, it does my head in (though to be fair, I think I have two projects already pencilled in). And it certainly is quite interesting in thinking about how you remotely stay on the cusp of the industry when working this far out from release dates.
And so this would be the bit where it's really starting to feel like a publishing house around here. I have so many writers that I am in touch with now on a daily basis that my inbox is all abuzz with writing and ideas and concepts and so on. It's so much fun! I'm looking forward to talking more about the 2011 lineup which is looking really exciting but so much of it is in the initial planning stage that I'll wait until later in the year, when I have firmer details to release. But I will say that this is one of my favourite bits - glimpsing the beginnings of books and seeing new ideas start to evolve and form and grow.
It's a lot of fun!
Twelfth Planet Press is announcing a reading period for Speakeasy, a new anthology to be launched at Natcon50 in Perth 2011.
With Prohibition in full force in the US, speakeasies were all the rage, cocaine was still legal and the Charleston, the Shimmy and The Bunny Hog were in their heyday! Art deco influenced the faces of cities, jazz music was widely popular, eyeshadow was very heavy, the women's suffrage movement made major progress and movies got sound. The Roaring Twenties was the era of Charlie Chaplin, Joan Crawford, Albert Einstein, Greta Garbo and Niels Bohr. King George V was on the throne in the UK, Mussolini had power in Italy, Hitler wrote Mein Kampf and King Tutankhamun's tomb was discovered.
Speakeasy is a roaring, lively and exciting new original anthology, edited by Alisa Krasnostein and published by Twelfth Planet Press. It will blend art deco with urban fantasy, the Charleston with the vampire and the flapper with the noir detective. It will be fast paced, action packed and well dressed. Stories in the vein of Dorothy Parker's "Flappers: A Hate Song" will also be considered.
Stories for Speakeasy should be original, unpublished fantasy stories of between 2,500 wds and 7,500 wds, set in the 1920s and fun.
How: send your submission in rtf attachment to submissions@twelfthplanetpress.com
Length: stories should be between 2 500 and 7 500 words
Submissions will open June 1 and close September 30, 2010.
Payment: AUS$50 per story
I’m very sad to farewell Shiny, but farewell it I must, as Issue 6 is to be our final issue. We’ve had so much fun and found this project so rewarding. I would like to thank Tansy, Ben and Tehani who have acted in various roles for this project along the way – slush readers, editors, proof readers, reviewers and layout designers. We have learned many things along the way and this little ezine has been more successful than we could ever have imagined.
Thank you, reader, for coming along and sharing this ride with us. This final issue sends Shiny off with a bang with Dirk Flinthart’s moving and thought provoking story (with pirates! and princes!), “One Story, No Refunds”, Patti Kurtz’s emotive “Language Lessons” and a reprinting of Deborah Biancotti’s award winning story “Scar for Leida”.
Shiny Issue 6 (see Shiny website for other issues)
I enjoyed both working on A Book of Endings and the finished outcome so much that I've certainly put single author collections front and centre as a serious line for future Twelfth Planet Press publishing schedules. For 2010, I have a boutique collection of related stories by Marianne de Pierres called Glitter Rose. And I already have several other single author collections in development for 2011 and beyond. This is not to say that I am not open to other collections on this timescale but that I have already given the subject much thought.
Working on A Book of Endings made me think a lot about the kind of product that I thought a single author collection should be. And
deborahb also had a lot of strong ideas about what her collection should look like. I certainly thought from the outset that she was one such author who was being collected too late. But even so, we were always very clear that not all her previously published work would make the cut. We always felt that this collection should cherry pick the very best of her work but also collect together the most cohesive pieces, those that best worked together and resounded with each other, to create a new, greater work. We wanted to present a book that had its own narrative, that strongly presented Biancotti and that gave a strong and clear commentary of her body of work. We wanted her debut collection to summarise who she is as a writer, and hint at where she might be going next (as done with 6 new works). A debut collection is a critical milestone in the writer's career. It's the first clear statement that the writer has a body of work to speak of and that this body of work is worthy of consideration as a whole. It stands as a historical archive of the writer's initial works, that's true. But what it should not be is an archive, collecting every piece ever published. Consider maybe the first 10 (but probably longer) years stretch of a writer's career. I'd say there would be very few writers who hit their stride in the first 5 to 10, dare I say 20, pieces of fiction ever published. At the beginning of a writing career thoughts are to getting published at all, to developing voice and style and narrative. To experimentation and to discovery of one's self. Some will be hits and some will not be. All will serve a purpose in the journey but not all should find a significant place in the Body of Work. I follow most Australian short story writers as they get published locally and then in bigger local and then international outlets. I watch their development of tone, style and hopefully proficiency. For most writers, I think it takes a few years to emerge with a clear individual subject/theme narrative. I can name the writers for whom I look out for their next work to see what else they are saying or have worked through on the issues they tend to be exploring in their work.
To me, a debut collection is almost a declaration, a promise. Of battles won and of wars to be waged. Or of lessons learned and skills developed and new challenges to be taken up. A debut collection says to the world "Here I Am!" It also says, "Judge me now." A debut collection is a calling card, a cv to submit to bigger and brighter job applications. It says, "This is what I can do, let me try that now..."
So, what am I saying? I think that when considering doing a collection, it should not (and it isn't for me) just be a matter of, "Well I've had 40 publications now, I'm ready for a collection." When I look at a collection, I look at number of publications, outlets for these, awards shortlisted/nominated/won, and cohesiveness of the work. I look for themes, exploration and development across these themes, depth/strength of message or a group of short stories that can be pulled together to show an examination of an idea or topic, maybe from different perspectives or an evolution of an idea. I look at whether I can construct a narrative by pulling together certain works.
I think at the point at which a writer is no longer working on reacting to editors, and at trying to get stories published, and rather is focussed on doing their own thing, and when that thing is interesting, this is the point where I am interested in reading their collection. Because that is the point at which they have become an interesting writer with potential. And that, to me, is sellable.
[1] And refers to the Australian Opposition Leader's recent statements about virginity being the greatest gift a woman can give her husband.
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