Posts Tagged‘Quiet Americans’

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Thursday’s Pre-Publication Post: News from My Publisher

by Erika Dreifus on
1

Today’s post is not really about my book. Rather, I want to take a moment to share some news from my publisher, Last Light Studio, which has just announced the next title that will be published after my collection, Quiet Americans (which will be released in January 2011), and Jane Roper‘s novel, Eden Lake (coming in May). (Drumroll, please!)

Our books will be followed by a novel, The Edge of Maybe, by Ericka Lutz. The Edge of Maybe will be published in 2012, and it is being described as “a novel of possibility that encompasses both the sheer bigness and smallness — food, yoga, drinking, cooking, sex, self-cutting, parenting, motel-life, and finally going for broke — of middle class life at the edge of the 21st century.”

Congratulations to Ericka Lutz! She’s someone whose name I know from her Literary Mama bylines, and I’m happy to have her join our little Last Light Studio publishing family.

Thursday’s Pre-Publication Post: First Review Copies Out!

by Erika Dreifus on
4

The big news this week is that there are tangible copies of Quiet Americans out there in the world.

There had to be.

You see, in order to be considered for pre-publication reviews in trade pubs like Publishers Weekly, you have to get copies in as early as four months ahead of publication. In the case of Publishers Weekly, for instance: “”Submissions must be sent (3) months–preferably (4)–prior to the 1st day of the month of publication.” For Quiet Americans, “preferably (4)–prior to the 1st day of the month of publication” was yesterday.

Galleys could have been made, but fortunately, finished copies are also acceptable. I say “fortunately” because galleys would have added another layer of expense that would have posed a significant strain given the newness and size of the press with which I’m working. And there’s no guarantee that any of the trade pubs we’ve contacted will review Quiet Americans, anyway.

In any case, there is now a (small) inventory of copies, most of which will be distributed to other review outlets in the near future. (Alas, everyone else will still have to wait until January!)
It’s a bit surreal to imagine my book showing up at Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Library Journal, and Kirkus. Surreal—and a little scary.

Thursday’s Pre-Publication Post: Read an Excerpt from Quiet Americans!

by Erika Dreifus on
9

So, as I continue preparing the new website for its debut, I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to present there an excerpt from my forthcoming story collection, Quiet Americans. To that end, this week, I’ve been experimenting with some free services provided by BookBuzzr.com.

www.bookbuzzr.com

It was easy enough to paste code into a blog post to share the above “widget” with you, and as the book begins to appear on more distribution channels, I can embed relevant purchase info. (Right now, pre-orders are available only via BN.com.)

What’s most exciting, though, is that this techno-gizmo gives you a glimpse into the actual book. Including the entire opening story.

At least, it provides the entire opening story for now. I’m beginning to wonder if perhaps the excerpt should be more limited. Like maybe…to the story’s opening page?

What do you think? Would (much) less be more? Or in this case, would it be far too little?

Thursday’s Pre-Publication Post: E-books, Or When Seeing Your Work In Print Is Only Part of the Story

by Erika Dreifus on
6

For a long time, the dream was relatively simple. And focused. It involved seeing my story collection, Quiet Americans, in print. As in: a book. With pages one could turn.

But, as you may have heard, there’s a new kid on the publishing block: the e-book. Actually, he’s not just one kid. He’s got multiple platforms.

If I haven’t been linking here on Practicing Writing to lots of articles about e-books–how to publish them, how to read them, how popular they’re becoming–maybe a little bit of that is due to my not-so-subconscious desire not to have to deal with them insofar as my own work is concerned.

You see, I already have a full-time job, and getting my story collection into print has quickly become almost equally consuming. Getting the collection ready for e-publication that is far more sophisticated than the simple downloadable pdfs used for my old market directories seems to be one layer of responsibility too many.

But it will happen. My publisher seems to be pretty comfortable with the Kindle platform, so that may well be the first vehicle we turn to for Quiet Americans once the print version is complete. (In fact, literally just yesterday, my publisher blogged about the recent royalty-related developments affecting books published via Amazon/Kindle.)

But how many of you rely on the Kindle? How many use other systems?

And for those of you with experience transforming your words from docs on your screen to paid-for content on others’: How did you do it? Let’s leave aside those of you working with big publishers who can easily handle the task for you. Have you used Smashwords? Have you required the services of a freelancer to format and prepare your text? What do you wish you’d known then that you can share now? I’d love to learn from your experiences.

Thursday’s Pre-Publication Post: Anticipating the Worst

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

“Anticipating the Worst” may not be the most uplifting or optimistic phrase I’ve used in any of these pre-publication posts to date. Overall, it’s been a joy and a blessing simply to know that my story collection, Quiet Americans, is going to be published.

But this weekend, as I sat with a printout of the designed book interior, reading through the entire book (aloud) to catch any last glitches (yes, there’s a professional proofer at work as well), I became a bit queasy. What if these stories aren’t quite as good as I’d hoped they were? What if people begin reading and dislike the writing intensely? What if the reviews are uniformly negative?

Admittedly, some of this newfound nervousness may be due to two concomitant factors: this week’s focus on negative reviews in Janice Harayda’s #bkrev tweets, and my visiting a number of book bloggers’ sites and reading their review policies, many of which warn (fairly and honestly) about the possibility of negative opinions.

Then, too, I’m sure it’s natural that as a publication date approaches one simply becomes a little fearful about the book’s reception. Right? Right? Totally normal.

It may be normal, but it’s also nerve-wracking. I’d love some tips from other authors about managing this kind of pre-pub anxiety. Please share–and thank you in advance.