The Tenth Circle

Suzan

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9 days out from my book release and it's already shipping (and selling). Gonna need a few more drinky-poos this week. Oy. I'm kinda excited but mostly dreading it coming out. It's like knowing that my underpants are going to be ran up a flagpole on Tuesday.

LOL! Yes, it is...straight up that flagpole at rush hour, next to the busiest intersection closest to your parent's house. Gotta love it ; )
 

Irysangel

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Chaos, your book will be just fine. :) But yeah, I hear you. This is my 'reboot' under the new name so I'm going to be really sad if it does worse than my last series, which did not do so well in anyone's eyes but my mother's. ;)

And yeah, it's shipping according to my Pub Alley subscription. But 1 week ahead of time is not as bad as prior books. I've seen them ship up to 3 weeks early for other authors.
 

Tasmin21

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Finally got my latest statement, so I've shipped that off to the New Agent in the hopes that someone can finally explain to me if I'm doing good, bad, or otherwise. *sigh*
 

Tasmin21

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Random thought process for me this morning, and I don't know if any of you can answer it.

So, I was thinking about the JJD series, and whether it goes on or not, eventually I'll be writing other books/series. Most of which are different than my JJD stuff. (NoF&A, for example, has a gay protagonist) Do you ever worry that your subsequent books are going to disappoint your readers? Like... I'm afraid that people will pick up new stuff by me expecting more things like the JJD books, and they'll be disappointed or feel mislead because the new stuff isn't the old stuff.

Am I weird to worry about this?
 

ChaosTitan

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Do you ever worry that your subsequent books are going to disappoint your readers? Like... I'm afraid that people will pick up new stuff by me expecting more things like the JJD books, and they'll be disappointed or feel mislead because the new stuff isn't the old stuff.

Am I weird to worry about this?

Not weird at all. I'm going through this right now with Trance. It's still first person female protag, but otherwise it's very different from my Dreg City books. The protagonist is going to change with each novel, so I'm partly afraid people who really love Teresa are going to dislike having a diff't POV in book two.

Plus I want to branch out and try different things. It's a very real thing to worry about, because you want your readers to follow you to other projects and embrace them.
 

Anne Lyle

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So, I was thinking about the JJD series, and whether it goes on or not, eventually I'll be writing other books/series. Most of which are different than my JJD stuff. (NoF&A, for example, has a gay protagonist) Do you ever worry that your subsequent books are going to disappoint your readers? Like... I'm afraid that people will pick up new stuff by me expecting more things like the JJD books, and they'll be disappointed or feel mislead because the new stuff isn't the old stuff.

Am I weird to worry about this?

Not weird at all. My first book isn't out yet, and I already worry about what I'll write next if this series is a success. Will my fans want more real-world historical (even Elizabethan) fantasy, or can I have success with a different period, maybe dust off my notes for that 18th-century-esque secondary world I've been developing? Will they be disappointed if, by some chance or story requirements, my next set of characters aren't gay? I don't want to be shackled to a limited set of tropes, but I would like to continue to be published :)
 

Tasmin21

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Nah, it's okay. Just feeling down because we got yet another rejection on the YA sub. My poor male protags are getting closer and closer to being trunked. :(

Which begs the question... If you have a trunked work, has anyone thought about the big SP question that seems to be on everyone's mind lately?
 

ChaosTitan

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Which begs the question... If you have a trunked work, has anyone thought about the big SP question that seems to be on everyone's mind lately?

My agent brought it up as an option, and I don't know what to think.

On one hand, I want the contract. I want the advance. I want an editor I can work with to improve the story, an art department with experience to make a cover, a marketing department behind me to tell people about it. I want a freaking book on my shelf above my desk, to sit next to my others.

On the other hand, I hate the idea of trunking another project that I really love and believe in. If the editorial feedback was consistent, I'd know what to fix to make it stronger, but it isn't. My crit partner has given me some more excellent ideas to improve it, but not enough to resubmit to NY editors. And it's a trilogy, with a very definitive ending that I've had in mind since the beginning.

I just don't know. :(
 

Irysangel

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I've been putting up shorter, trunked works. I like self-publishing, but I like NY publishing just as much. :)
 

OL

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Tas, if you're crazy, then we all are. I worried about that A LOT while I was writing Book #2 (aka "The Book That Tried To KILL Me™"). Third person, very different protag than Ellie of RPT. Plus just a different sort of book. I was trying to write a fun little noir thriller, albeit one about the drug war and the corruption of the oligarchy and yanno, stuff like that. :D The more attention RPT got, the more I worried that this wasn't going to hold up critically, or that people who liked RPT were gonna hate it, or that people who hated RPT might like it but wouldn't read it because of the prior hatred. You know, every permutation of how Things Could Go Terribly Wrong, because I'm like that.

Le Shrug.

Re: the SP option...if I had trunked things that I was for sure certain I wanted to put out in the world, I'd do it. I have options right now because CB (agency) signed that deal with Pers3us/Arg0. But I feel like I'm too new in my so-called career to really make that move right now. The only thing I have is such a departure, and I'm honestly not sure if it's something I want out in the world.

If I were in some of y'all's shoes, with a number of works already pubbed and potential series that might be trunked otherwise, yeah, I'd look at it very long and hard. Spend some $ to make sure that the SP stuff is as shiny as the Noo Yawk stuff and go for it.

ETA: and what Irys said. I think a hybrid Noo Yawk/SP career is a really great model for a lot of us to consider.
 
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Irysangel

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Congrats, Chaos!! I'm excited!! Now comes the obsessive Amazon rank checking and store availability checking on B&N.

not that I do these things every hour on release day or anything...
 

Irysangel

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Also, the S&S portal where it lets you track sales as the publisher receives them? I am so curious how that's going to look compared to bookscan. SO CURIOUS.
 

Tasmin21

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Would definitely be interested to know how the b00kscan numbers compare. Keep us posted!