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Going pro?
Aug. 31st, 2018 05:31 amFic to pro advice especially welcome!
I've been working, for awhile, on a historical mystery set in NYC in the 19th century. I'm not making quite the progress I would like to, due to a) being initially more interested in the character interactions than the plotting, which I'm working my way through and am en route to solving and b) the black hole called "research" -- "but I NEEEEEDDDDDD TO KNOWWWWWWW" this, that and the other thing.
Because school is starting imminently, I finally did some of the field trips I'd intended to take this summer. My story is set in the context of two worlds meeting, so I visited both the Merchant's House museum, an upper-middle class residence, and the Tenement Museum, where I did just one of multiple available tours, looking into a specific apartment and family. I've mined some original characters I've created in fanfic for this, as well as, um, adapting one or two characters from the source material -- but they are very much evolving into their own selves.
The other day, however, a friend who has gone pro, from the same fandom, posted a call from her publisher. It's one of those small niche presses where they provide a minimum of services, so that it's not so far off indie, except you are part of a list, and have the resources of their blog and their built in audience. They are starting a new line called Women of Destiny, which is looking for novels about women in unconventional situations, professional and etc., in the 19th c. (they mostly, but not exclusively, do Westerns). My character, the one from fanfic and from the mystery, is a female lawyer in the 19th c. So . . . why not?
But instead of trying to finish the mystery for this -- I haven't even given myself a chance to try to find an agent or anything and as I live in NYC and have some familiarity with the industry (friends in it, freelance work on its margins) I still aspire towards getting traditionally published. Instead, I'm thinking of a romance based on a series of stories I wrote back in the 90s. So I've created one big file with the relevant stories, and I'm working my way through with changing-first-person-narration-to-third, and beginning to make major changes to make things flow better, figure out what I'm cutting out, adapting characters' situations, etc. (I'm not even bothering to change the names 'til later; I figure at some point these characters are going to tell me who they've evolved into.)
So I'm super-excited, really scared, have a deadline on an academic article for the end of this month, and I think I've just committed all my free time for the next few months at the very least to re-editing this and making it something I can submit.
Anyone who's converted a project? Or published with a small niche press? (They do hard copies, but it's mostly ebooks.) Luckily, the woman who publishes with them (she is amazing and totally deserves to break big) was happy to give me lots of advice and etc.
Also, *awkward* when I came back to the fandom, I reposted the series to AO3, and started writing new stories. I'm in the middle of several. But if I submit something that's substantially the same as the earlier stories, I'm going to have to pull the plug on all that -- take down the stories, stop what I'm in the midst of. On the one hand, the goal was always to go pro. On the other, some of the fans who discovered my stories online when I hadn't even been active in the fandom in forever . . . they really give me life, you know? I hate to let them down. I was thinking I could lock the stories down on AO3 to the members-only option, and just let people know. Or something. Help?
I've been working, for awhile, on a historical mystery set in NYC in the 19th century. I'm not making quite the progress I would like to, due to a) being initially more interested in the character interactions than the plotting, which I'm working my way through and am en route to solving and b) the black hole called "research" -- "but I NEEEEEDDDDDD TO KNOWWWWWWW" this, that and the other thing.
Because school is starting imminently, I finally did some of the field trips I'd intended to take this summer. My story is set in the context of two worlds meeting, so I visited both the Merchant's House museum, an upper-middle class residence, and the Tenement Museum, where I did just one of multiple available tours, looking into a specific apartment and family. I've mined some original characters I've created in fanfic for this, as well as, um, adapting one or two characters from the source material -- but they are very much evolving into their own selves.
The other day, however, a friend who has gone pro, from the same fandom, posted a call from her publisher. It's one of those small niche presses where they provide a minimum of services, so that it's not so far off indie, except you are part of a list, and have the resources of their blog and their built in audience. They are starting a new line called Women of Destiny, which is looking for novels about women in unconventional situations, professional and etc., in the 19th c. (they mostly, but not exclusively, do Westerns). My character, the one from fanfic and from the mystery, is a female lawyer in the 19th c. So . . . why not?
But instead of trying to finish the mystery for this -- I haven't even given myself a chance to try to find an agent or anything and as I live in NYC and have some familiarity with the industry (friends in it, freelance work on its margins) I still aspire towards getting traditionally published. Instead, I'm thinking of a romance based on a series of stories I wrote back in the 90s. So I've created one big file with the relevant stories, and I'm working my way through with changing-first-person-narration-to-third, and beginning to make major changes to make things flow better, figure out what I'm cutting out, adapting characters' situations, etc. (I'm not even bothering to change the names 'til later; I figure at some point these characters are going to tell me who they've evolved into.)
So I'm super-excited, really scared, have a deadline on an academic article for the end of this month, and I think I've just committed all my free time for the next few months at the very least to re-editing this and making it something I can submit.
Anyone who's converted a project? Or published with a small niche press? (They do hard copies, but it's mostly ebooks.) Luckily, the woman who publishes with them (she is amazing and totally deserves to break big) was happy to give me lots of advice and etc.
Also, *awkward* when I came back to the fandom, I reposted the series to AO3, and started writing new stories. I'm in the middle of several. But if I submit something that's substantially the same as the earlier stories, I'm going to have to pull the plug on all that -- take down the stories, stop what I'm in the midst of. On the one hand, the goal was always to go pro. On the other, some of the fans who discovered my stories online when I hadn't even been active in the fandom in forever . . . they really give me life, you know? I hate to let them down. I was thinking I could lock the stories down on AO3 to the members-only option, and just let people know. Or something. Help?
