Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Hey, folks. Sold my four completed books.

I've known for a couple of weeks, but wanted to wait until I had the signed contract before I said anything.

I've sold Led to the Slaughter: The Donner Party Werewolves, as well as the three books of the Vampire Evolution Trilogy: Death of an Immortal; Rule of Vampire; Blood of Gold.  I sold them to a publisher who specializes in the horror genre, Books of the Death Press.

This is the publisher who I sent Death of an Immortal off to a year ago, and who told me he liked my writing but didn't think he could "sell vampires."  Nevertheless I kept him up on the ongoing progress of my writing, and I think Led to the Slaughter, and particularly the cover, got him to pull the trigger.

I don't know what the schedule for publishing will be.  I had already embarked on a rewrite of Led to the Slaughter when I saw how great the cover was.  I've just finished it.  Now it's going to my copy-editor.  The publisher was OK with waiting until I got it right.

In fact, I asked the publisher if it would be all right to give the three vampire books one more "clean edit" and he agreed.

Anyway, hopefully, they'll be out there soon.  I feel a little bad that the people who bought and read Death of an Immortal and Rule of Vampire will have to wait awhile longer for Blood of Gold.

There are supposed to be physical copies made of these books, as well as ebook versions, but I'm not sure how or when that is going to happen.  The publisher is in charge of all that, including formats and covers and print runs -- all that.  He did want the cover to Led to the Slaughter (how could he not?) but will be doing all the rest.  Covers, printing, all that.

So here's the thing -- I'd been planning to embark on being a publisher myself.  I can write the books, edit and copy-edit the books, format them, create the covers.  So I was excited by the possibilities.  But I have to admit to myself, that what I can't do, what I don't have any aptitude or inclination to do, it to promote them.

Books of the Dead Press has an established platform that is far more developed than anything that I could probably ever do.

I did want to get paid.  And I did want physical copies.  As long as the publisher was willing to do that, I was willing to hand them over. 

It's exciting -- but the biggest thing is that once we get these four books all squared away, I can go back to concentrating on writing again.  Since Faerylander was nowhere near finished, it wasn't part of the deal, so I want to finish it and then get Wolflander as good as it can be, and then write Ghostlander, and so on.

It's a great feeling.

4 comments:

Kevin said...

Congrats. I look forward to getting a signed copy of LttS. I actually think it would make a great premise for a movie.
But not on SyFy please...

Duncan McGeary said...

The one good thing about self-publishing was that at least I knew when things were going to happen.

Now it's completely out of my hands.
Hopefully soon.

Helen said...

Great news!!

Luci & Loree said...

Congrats!!!! GOOD for you!