Donnerstag, 20. Mai 2010

Next...!

So it's off again, this time a bit more closer to home than Australia.
Fingers crossed, eh?
Reg :-)

Mittwoch, 19. Mai 2010

Other Blog stuff.

http://boyfromthebay.wordpress.com/2010/05/19/blus-spanish-eyes/#respond

Shattered dreams…

Shattered dreams…


No, this isn’t a reflection on that annoyingly greasy 80’s boy band, „Johnny Hates Jazz“. The title refers to the state of my hopes and aspirations after my latest rejection.

Severed press sent me a very nice email which stopped dead my daydreaming about winning the Nobel literary prize.

It went like this:

Dear Richard,
Thank you for your patience while we reviewed Division of the Damned. Unfortunately we have decided not to move forward with publication. If it is any consolation, it was a very close call and basically came down to small press finances rather than a reflection on the quality of your work. We wish you the best with your quest to be published.

Kind Regards


Severed have played it very fairly and though failure to be published is a heavy weight on my natural good humour, they did soften the blow by wording the rejection diplomatically. I know a refusal is a refusal but to the connoisseur of the written rebuff, this is a nice one. I’m good with it… sort of. Well as good as one can be when your life’s work has been told it doesn’t make the grade…

OK, I’ll stop with the dramatics, lol.

Anyway, it prompted me to write an email back saying thanks for giving Division the time of day and wishing the Socceroos good luck for the upcoming World Cup, (Severed is an Australian publishing house).



So it’s back to the drawing board… well, not entirely…
Being about as optimistic about Division’s chances as a turkey is of seeing the New Year in, I decided to look for the next address to send it to while it was “Antipodean”, as it were.
Duly found and saved in my favourites, I will the morrow be formatting the manuscript to their desired wants and needs and whizzing it off like a Frisbee in a whirlwind.

Right, next topic.

The interview on Struggling Authors is up and the link is:
http://strugglingauthors.co.uk/default.aspx



The link is to the homepage so you can also check out the poem on the right of the page as well… I know you’ve seen it a 1000 times already but bear with my bruised and cowed ego, he needs rebuilding. I'm not as bullet proof as I try to make out, ask my wife and kids, they think I'm soft as sh... butter.

I should be able to handle rejection by now; I mean I’m a chuffin’ expert at it I’ve seen so many, so why do I take it so seriously?

I don’t know either, grow up Jones.

Speaking of a person who hasn’t been rejected in her life, Tee is off and running with Night Publishing. They want to print all three of her books.

Good on yer Teester, go for it my girl!!!

Right, that’s it now, I’m off.
Tara.
Reg

Mittwoch, 12. Mai 2010

Father's Day

http://boyfromthebay.wordpress.com/2010/05/12/fathers-day/

This is from my other blog.
No news on the publisher yet but then again, it has only been about two weeks.

Struggling Authors have published my interview with Ian Weaver and when the link is finalised I'll put it up here.
The Sunday Times is doing an article on Struggling Authors so when I find out where it is online I'll put it here as well.
That's all for now folks
Reg :-)

Montag, 10. Mai 2010

Necrophagist

Necrophagist


Just finished a write up for the Technical Death Metal band, Necrophagist.
Three times I had to write it up because the boss of the Festival it was written for didn’t like it. Ah well, as payment I receive a VIP backstage pass so it’ll be worth the effort.

The problem is that my German grammar, although not useless, is not good either. So I would write something up and then ask a German speaker/writer to give it a once over.



Other than that, I have nothing to add.



Oh yes I have, I am now in possession of a second Blog. Not sure what I want to do with it, to be honest. I opened an account so I could read Blog I follow and suddenly I was the proud owner of a brand new Blog.

So, http://boyfromthebay.wordpress.com/ is the name to type in if you wish to have a read.

Prepare yourself for a disappointment though, lol.

Right, that’s it now.

I’m off.

Tara.

Reg.

Montag, 3. Mai 2010

POD and an interview.

POD and an interview.


My blogging buddy Tee, (Teresa Geering) has been offered a chance to publish her book, “The Eye of Erasmus“. The company interested are called Night Publishing and have a very positive mission statement, “Good books must be published”.
I’m over the moon for The Teester and I hope it all goes down well but I do have a couple of crungles about Print on Demand publishing.

Print on Demand is exactly what its name implies. You send your manuscript off to the POD Company and they hold it in data form until somebody orders the book. A copy is then printed and sent off to the person who ordered it. Amazon.com have their own POD press and it’s slowly making headway into being accepted as a viable form of publication.

However…

If you’re pants at formatting and editing your work you could end up with book that borders on the laughable; sort of like the Quasimodo-meets-Monty Python of the literary world. Spelling mistakes, chapters finishing and ending on the same page, pictures not reproduced properly due to the wrong format being used, blah blah fishcakes, I could go on.
So, although it would be nice to think of it as an easy way to publication and literary success, it does have its pitfalls and dangers.

In fact, apart from its accessibility, the only other positive with POD is the royalties, which are around 70% to the author, (compared to about 40% when one publishes with a traditional publisher).

Personally, I want to continue with the tried, tested and condemned method of, “write book, send book, receive rejection, ad infinitum, ad nauseum…” until one day a miracle happens and you’re accepted :-)



On a slightly different note, (actually, it couldn’t be more different if you put a scarf on it, shoved it in a Tardis and called it The Doctor) I’ve done my first interview.
It would be nice to write that because I’m so interesting it was I who was interviewed but alas, as grey and monotonous as I am, I was the interviewer. :-(

The website, Struggling Authors.com suggested I interview a very nice chap called Ian Weaver. Ian is an ex Navy and Air Force Tornado navigator who had a very bad accident and was medically discharged from the armed forces. A head on crash with another Tornado left him mangled and bed ridden for a very long time, (about a year I think, I’ll have to check the website). Now this would tempt most people to wallow in the easy misery of their self pity and misfortune until Gabriel boogies on his bugle; but not so Ian. He used his experiences in the military air wing to write a book which has been published on Paul Mould Publishing.

A very approachable guy, when the interview comes up I’ll pop it on the Blog.

Right, that’s it for now, off to peel some spuds and wash up.

A Welshman’s work is never done…

Reg 