contests – One Thousand And One Parsecs

Some quick news

So I figured I should post something here and give you guys an update before the next Tuesday rolls around. I’ve been neglecting this blog, but that will soon change, inshallah.

Last night, I was on pins and needles waiting to hear back from Writers of the Future. We’re almost overdue for the winners / finalists announcement, and my story has been “on hold” for about a month. What that means, I don’t know exactly, but I haven’t been rejected yet and it looks like…

…no, I’m not going to jinx it. In any case, they told us the results would be out before the end of the month, so whatever happens, it’s going to come soon. I hope. GAH!!!

In other news, I read an amazing novel this week, quite possibly the most perfect novel I have read so far all year (and that includes War and Peace, at least the first two thirds of it). It’s called Ali and Nino, and it is basically Romeo and Juliet of the Caucasus. Except…it’s so much more than that. So much more. Expect to see a glowing review in the next couple of days.

In other news, I have decided to put Into the Heart of the Nebula on hold for a while, and to focus instead on a new project…which I can’t really talk about because it’s connected to that writers of the future story. GAH!!! But it’s really, really awesome–seriously, one of the better stories I’ve come up with–and I’m really loving it so far. Except writing has been slow the last couple of days, for stupid reasons that would only bore you. Point is, things are finally heading in the right direction.

Speaking of which, I’ve earned enough money through my ebook sales to commission a new cover for Bringing Stella Home. I got in touch with Hideyoshi, the illustrator who did the cover for Genesis Earth and Desert Stars, and he’s really excited about this one. After seeing the first sketch, so am I! Not much else I can tell you, but you can expect to see some really cool artwork in the next few weeks.

Tomorrow is Georgian Independence Day, which means a giant military parade about fifteen minutes from where I live. And the opening of the new Parliament in Kutaisi. It’s going to be big. But it’s late right now, and my host family is about to hit the sack, so I’d better cut things short and get back to writing. With luck, I’ll put in another thousand words on the awesome unnamed project before going to bed.

Good night! Or, as they say in Georgia, ghame mshvidobis!

“On hold” with WOTF

I have some interesting news. My first quarter submission to the Writers of the Future contest has been put “on hold,” following the untimely passing of the contest’s coordinating judge, K.D. Wentworth. Here’s the email I received this morning:

Dear Entrant,

I wanted to let you know that we have a delay in the handling of the 1st quarter due to the loss of our coordinating judge, K.D. Wentworth to cancer last week. Please bare with us while we get over this difficult time and organize the continuance of the contest. We do have another judge that is taking over and will make that annoucement soon.

Your story was placed in the hold category while K.D. was reading the hard copy submissions. You will be notified in the next month where you stand.

I’m sure you can understand the delay and thank you for being patient.

Best,

Joni Labaqui- Contest Director

From what I understand, this means that K.D. read my story and didn’t assign it a rejection or honorable mention, but put it in a pile of stories to read leader. It’s possible, of course, that the story could still receive a flat rejection, but it appears that most of the rejections have already gone out, so that’s probably unlikely.

The story I submitted is the first part of a novel which I hope to publish as soon as I hear back from the contest. If it wins or makes published finalist, however, those plans might be put on hold. I’ll let you know more as it happens.

If I do win, I’ll probably end up spending all the prize money just to come back to the States to accept the award. My Georgian co-teachers think that’s hilarious.

Back to writing (and publishing)

I was snowed in again this weekend, so I took advantage of the time to work on my writing–specifically, to figure out what to work on next. Things have been kind of crazy these past few weeks, so I haven’t written very much, but now that I’ve settled into a new routine, it should be much easier to get back to writing again.

The plan is to finish Star Wanderers first, before April. After taking a couple weeks off, I think I’m ready to get back into that project and write through the wall that I’d run up against earlier. Besides, Stars of Blood and Glory needs more time; it’s only been about a month since I finished the last draft, and that’s not long enough to get a fresh perspective.

I’m a little past the midway point on Star Wanderers–around the middle of part III–so it should be about 20k to 25k before the whole novel is finished. I wrote the first part in a little less than two weeks, so three weeks should be enough to finish at least the rough draft. The main thing is to write every day and get some momentum going, which shouldn’t be too hard–I’m still really excited about this project.

As you may recall, I submitted Part I to Writers of the Future. From lurking on the forums, it appears that the first round of rejections and honorable mentions are starting to come out. I haven’t heard anything yet, so I’m still in the running. Since no news is good news at this point, part of me hopes that I don’t hear back for a while–but the other part wants to hear back soon, so I can go ahead and publish it!

Here’s the current plan:

Finish the rough draft of the complete novel.
Publish Part I at $1.50 (free to newsletter subscribers).
Get feedback for part II, revise and publish.
Repeat for Parts III and IV, with one or two months between each release.

As a teaser, here’s the cover that I made when I was back in Massachusetts. I decided to go with some NASA / Hubble images, at least for the first release. Here it is:

Everything is ready to go; I just need to hear back from Writers of the Future before I can publish it. I’m going to wait until the rest of the novel is finished, though, just to be safe. Expect to see it sometime in April (unless it’s a finalist for WOTF–hey, you never know).

Enough for now; I’d better get back to writing. See you around!

Why I’m not submitting to the 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest

Last year, I submitted Genesis Earth to the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest and made it to the quarter-finals. I’m pretty sure I could do at least that well this year, but after reading the contest rules, I’ve decided not to participate.

Why? Because of this:

5. GRANT OF RIGHTS. By submitting an Entry and if you are selected as a Quarter-Finalist or Semi-Finalist, you grant Penguin the exclusive first publication rights to your Entry. If you are selected as a Quarter Finalist, Penguin’s exclusive first publication rights to your Entry terminate when you are eliminated from the Contest (unless you are selected as a Semi-Finalist); and if you are selected as a Semi-Finalist, Penguin’s exclusive first publishing Rights to your Entry terminate after June 30, 2012.

But mostly because of this:

A. Grand Prize. If you are selected as the Winner in a category, you will receive one of two Grand Prizes each consisting of a full publishing contract with Penguin to market and distribute your Manuscript as a published book…you may not negotiate the publishing contract with Penguin, and you must sign it “as is” upon receipt of the executable contract.

The language is a little unclear as to whether the grand prize winner can elect to turn down the publishing contract, but considering how merely submitting to the contest constitutes a grant of publication rights, I’m guessing no.

So why is this a big deal? Because it gives the writer no room to negotiate. Suppose the boilerplate contract is unfavorable when it comes to rights reversion, non-compete clauses, or derivative works. Penguin could conceivably retain the rights to my book indefinitely, even if I’m earning less than $10 a year on it. With a non-compete clause, they could forbid me from writing or publishing any other books. Even worse, they could conceivably buy up rights to the world or the characters, making it impossible for me to write any other books in my own series without their approval.

But even if none of those unfavorable terms are in the contract, the standard royalty for erights is 25% of net, not gross. For those of you who know the difference between net and gross, that’s a red flag in itself, but even supposing Penguin does pay me the full 25% of the 70% it receives from Amazon, that comes to only 17.5% of the cover price. Right now I’m getting 70%. Is it really worth it?

I checked the sales rankings for the last three years of ABNA winners, and they aren’t all that great. The ebook versions for the 2010 winners have a slightly better ranking than mine, but they can’t be selling more than a couple of books a day. At the prohibitively high price of $9.99, that’s $.30 less per unit than what I’m earning for Genesis Earth at $2.99. And the 2009 winners? Their sales rankings are abysmal. Whatever Penguin did to market those books, it either didn’t work or they’ve given up and moved on to other things.

Now, I don’t expect to win the grand prize even if I submit to this contest. Most of the previous winning novels are either literary, mystery, or mainstream YA–no science fiction. Even so, by submitting to this contest, I would not be able to negotiate a publication contract with any other publisher until my book is eliminated. That’s a headache I could do without. And as for the consolation prizes, if this year’s Publisher’s Weekly reviewer is anything like last year’s, I already know what she’ll say: “science fiction is garbage.”

So yeah, I won’t be submitting to this year’s ABNA contest. If I win, I’m forced to sign a contract that I haven’t seen and have no power to change, and if I lose, I get an unnecessary hassle for all my time and effort. Thanks but no thanks.

To publish or not to publish?

That’s what I’m wondering about right now with my latest project, Star Wanderers. The full-length novel isn’t complete yet, but the first part forms a self-contained novelette that has been sooo much fun to write.

The story takes place in the Gaia Nova universe, about five hundred Earth years before the events of Bringing Stella Home. The main character is a 20-something boy who, as is customary in the outworlds, left his home to wander the stars, searching for a suitable place to settle down and start a family.

While visiting a remote space station, he unwittingly gets roped into marrying this girl, whose father is trying save her from starvation by sending her away. The problem, though, is that neither the boy nor the girl speak the same language.

So basically, he just wants to drop her off at the next port and be done with it, while she thinks that she’s his wife and is trying to live up to those expectations. Over the course of their voyage, though, they gradually fall in love and become a couple. That’s where the novelette ends, and the second part of the novel begins.

Because I’m a total dork, I looked up all the major tropes in Star Wanderers on tvtropes. Here’s just a few of them:

So yeah, I’m really excited to share this story with people. The only problem is I want to submit it to the Writers of the Future contest, and I’m not sure if they’ll consider it if it’s already self published. The contest guidelines say that all the rights remain with the author, and defines “professional publication” as something with >5,000 sales/downloads, but that doesn’t say whether it’s okay to publish the piece you’re submitting. I’ll probably have to shoot someone an email or something.

In any case, I’ll probably put up the first part of Star Wanderers before I publish the novel. For everyone who’s signed up for the newsletter, I”ll probably give it out as a free ebook. If Writers of the Future is okay with it, I’ll do that in the next month or so; if not, I’ll submit it to the contest first and wait to see what happens.

But either way, I really want to share this story!

Part I of Star Wanderers is finished!

That’s right–I was up until about 2 am last night finishing it. Man, time goes by fast sometimes. This is probably just the first part of a much longer novel, but I hit a good stopping point so I’ll probably put it on the back burner for now while I finish Edenfall and do a final polish for Desert Stars.

What I really want to do is submit this first part to Writers of the Future, since it falls just under 15k words. I might be a little biased, but I think it’s got potential. 🙂 It’s going to need some work, though; the story literally sprung out of my head one day, and while that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s bad, it’s probably missing a couple of scenes and needs some work with the transitions. Also, the tone completely shifts midway, from a happy go lucky space adventure to something much more serious. Not sure what to do about that.

So yeah, I’ll probably set this story aside for a little while so I can come back at it with fresh eyes. It’s not too long, so the revisions should be pretty quick; hopefully, I’ll have it ready to submit to Writers of the Future before January. If it doesn’t make the contest, I’ll shop it around the short markets for a year while I finish the novel-length version. At some point I’ll probably epublish it, but I’m not sure when.

In other news, my short story “Decision LZ1527” just went free on Amazon, so if you want to pick up a copy or tell your friends, go right ahead! It’s right around #200 in the Kindle free category now, but for some reason hasn’t hit any of the lists. Hopefully that’ll change before the ranking drops back down.

“Decision LZ1527” first appeared in the December 2009 issue of Leading Edge, and was my first traditionally published short story. Basically, it’s about a college freshman working up the courage to ask out a girl he likes, as told from the perspective of the little men inside his head. Like Star Wanderers, the story just sprung out of my head one day. It was a ton of fun to write, and I’m glad that so many others seem to enjoy it too.

In other news, I just got back the edits for Sholpan, so I’ll hopefully have that up on Amazon and other eretailers over the weekend. More on that as it happens, but it’s happening soon. I’d also like to put together a blog tour for Bringing Stella Home and Sholpan both, so if you’d like to have me on as a guest blogger, shoot me an email at joseph dot vasicek at gmail dot com. More on that later as well.

And that’s just about it for now. Take care, and I’ll see you around!

How do you know when you’ve succeeded?

With books and publishing changing so quickly, a lot of writers are wondering how they can tell when they’ve actually “made it.” It’s a valid question, one that I think we all need to answer if we want to write seriously. For myself in particular, as an indie writer, how will I know when I’ve achieved success?

The question made me think about my experience as a Mormon missionary in California, and the definition of success that my mission president (the ecclesiastical leader and father figure for the missionaries) often quoted:

Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.

— John Wooden

This definition taught me that success isn’t just about external things that may or may not be in your control (for example, the number of convert baptisms per month), but is more about doing the things that are in your control to stretch yourself and reach your full potential. To be sure, external factors are important measures of success, but at the end of the day, it’s not just about the numbers.

That said, for a writer like me who hopes to make a living at it, the numbers are pretty dang important. At my current standard of living, I need to sell between 550 and 750 ebooks per month priced at $2.99 and $3.95 to accomplish that goal. Right now I’m doing about 30 to 50, so I still have a ways to go.

But is that the best measure of commercial success? If I have 10 titles selling around 55 to 75 copies each per month, will those books be hitting their full potential?

Probably not. For that reason, I’ll probably end up signing a deal with a publisher at some point in my career; there’s only so much that I can do by myself. However, in order for me to do that, the terms have to be right; I’m not going to sell myself short just to see my name in print.

(This is one thing that bugs me whenever I hear writers discuss whether traditional or indie publishing best fits their goals. If all you want is “to see my name in print,” or “to see my book in a bookstore,” how is that any different from vanity publishing? If that’s really your goal, fine, but don’t think it somehow puts you above indie writers–many of whom have goals that are much more pragmatic than yours.)

Artistically, I think the best way for me to achieve success is to take on a new challenge with every project and still feel like each book is better than the one before it. Contests and reviews have their place, but going back to the definition, success is all about self-satisfaction and peace of mind. I don’t want to tie any of those to someone else’s opinion about my work–that way lies madness.

But really, I think it all comes down to the readers. Unless you stuff your manuscript in the closet, writing is never a solitary act: it is an act of collaboration with the reader. If I have any measure of success, it will be because someone took the time to read my words. To be sure, I can’t please everyone, but that doesn’t matter; it only takes one person to make a story come alive.

When I was a missionary, I constantly asked myself whether I was doing the will of God in the life of every person that I met. That’s how I knew that I had succeeded: when I felt the peace of mind that came from knowing I’d made that personal difference in someone’s life.

I expect it to be similar with my writing. Commercial success is great, but numbers aren’t everything. What really matters is telling a story that connects with people on a deep and personal level, transforming them in some meaningful way. If I can do that and make a living at it, that’s how I’ll know I’ve succeeded.

Disappointment and a shift in direction

So the latest round of judging for the 2011 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award came out today…and Genesis Earth didn’t make the cut.

Oh well, at least I made it to the quarter finals. Most of the reviews were encouraging, though the one from Publisher’s Weekly made me wonder if the reviewer had something against science fiction in general (or was perhaps underpaid and overworked, as seems to be common in traditional publishing these days).

I did notice that none of the previous years’ winners (or finalists, so far as I could tell) were science fiction–which is not to put down their quality, or the quality of the semifinalists. It does make me wonder, however, whether part of the reason Genesis Earth didn’t move on was because of the tastes of the audience.

I’m not discouraged though. My novel has garnered a lot of positive feedback, not only from alpha readers, but from agents and editors as well. I know it’s got potential; just hasn’t come into its own yet.

The thing is, Genesis Earth is a YA science fiction romance novel, and the YA market is much harder to break into without an agent than adult sf&f. I could probably find an agent if I queried around long enough, but after reading Dean Wesley Smith’s series Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing, I’m convinced not to go that route.

At the same time, ebooks are revolutionizing the publishing world much faster than anyone had predicted. We may pass the 50% mark in the next few months, if indeed we haven’t already. Combine that with increasingly unfavorable contracts with traditional publishers and some disturbing accounting discrepancies at the major houses, and self-publishing is looking better and better every day.

So I’ve decided to put up Genesis Earth as my first indie published novel. Expect to see it sometime this summer, probably in June or July.

If you’re an editor and would like to hire out your services, send me an email at joseph [dot] vasicek [at] gmail [dot] com. I’ll send out a few test pages and ask about your rates (preferably per word). I don’t have a whole lot of money, but I’m willing to pay for professional quality work.

If you have any ideas for cover art or a cover artist, let me know as well. I’ll be spending a lot of time trawling Deviant Art and old Leading Edge issues, as well as analyzing traditional book covers to get a feel for that end of the business. I’m a firm believer in the tradition of high quality science fiction and fantasy art, and want my own work to be a part of that, even if it costs a little extra.

I felt uneasy with going indie a few months ago, but right now it seems, if nothing else, like a very smart calculated risk. The worst that can happen is that it takes a long time to find its audience, leaving me out a few hundred bucks in freelance costs until it does. The potential benefits, on the other hand, are tremendous.

In the meantime, I’ll keep blogging about the process to share what I’m learning. And if you want to support me, feel free to pick up one of my short stories on the Kindle and review it / blog about it / share it with a friend. The links are on the sidebar. In the next couple of weeks, I’m going to put them up on Smashwords and B&N, so if you prefer those formats, they’ll be available soon too, I promise.

In unrelated news, my cousin Angela just got a publishing deal for her poetry chapbook! Awesome! I’m glad to see that someone else in the family is having some publishing success–good luck!

(Image courtesy postsecret)

ABNA reviews of Genesis Earth

Today I checked up on my entry for the 2011 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest, and saw that it garnered a couple of very encouraging reviews!

Here’s the first one:

ABNA Expert Reviewer

What is the strongest aspect of this excerpt?

I enjoyed the background of this excerpt immensely. The futuristic technology like images projected onto walls, transparent floors, milky skies, cryofreeze.

What aspect needs the most work?

I would avoid using the term “ground zero” as it has such a close association with 9/11.

The idea of generating a wormhole was popularized with Star Trek’s Deep Space 9 series, so this is not an entirely original idea. What is going to set this book apart from existing media on this idea?

What is your overall opinion of this excerpt?

This is a strong piece of work. Nicely edited. While the idea of going through a wormhole to explore new worlds is not an original idea, I am curious what this young explorer will find out there? And what will he find within himself and his co-explorer when they wake from cryofreeze? There is potential here.

Not bad! I’m glad to see the reviewer feels that the story is well edited–I certainly spent a lot of time revising it, and it looks like that’s paid off. As for the criticism about the wormhole, I’m not too worried about that, since it’s more background information for the story than a central element in the story itself.

Here’s the second one:

ABNA Expert Reviewer

What is the strongest aspect of this excerpt?

The idea of space travel and finding a ‘new Earth’ isn’t a new one. For years Sci-Fi authors have written about the non-sustainability of our planet, of the melting ice caps, the over population and crowding. This author has taken that concept and twisted it into something more unique and young. Our hero is a 17 year old who went on to school at 14 to become a Planetologist. You see his family and friends live in deep space, they’re trying to create an artificial worm hole and find a new Earth. The younger take on how Michael feels trapped both by his parents and the ghost of Earth is fantastic. I love the author’s voice through Michael on deep space, cryogenics and alien life form.

What aspect needs the most work?

The one thing to me that stood out was that it seemed rushed. I think the author knew this and that was why the author even addressed it in the excerpt through Michael and his mentor as he prepares to leave. They just found the other side of the worm hole, there might be alien life, and they send two people within a couple days into the wormhole, knowing they won’t be back for 80 years. I just wish there was a more valid reason then Earth people (who are light years away) would try to send the military first. There has to be away of not making it seem so pushed and rushed.

What is your overall opinion of this excerpt?

Overall this story got me; I really want to know when the full book comes out (or if it’s already out) and read the rest. What about Terra who has a slight sway to schizophrenia? Or the fact that 80 years is a long time and anything can happen, will there be alien life? Is it just another dimension and time? The hook was there and reeling me in trying to get me to keep turning the pages, long past the last word of the excerpt.

Wow, what a nice review! I was especially surprised to see this person wondering when the full book is coming out. I don’t have a deal for it (yet), but hopefully, it won’t be long. Also, it’s good to see that someone really enjoyed the narrator’s voice. Young Adult can be hard, not just from an artistic perspective but because of so many differing editorial opinions on what a “YA voice” is supposed to feel like. Good to see that someone thought I got it right.

As for the criticism, I can definitely see how it’s valid. Part of the reason for rushing Michael and Terra out so fast is to set things up for the sequel, but I suppose I could have them wait a few months before launching the mission. I thought that’s what I’d done, but I suppose I need to make it more clear.

If you would like to read the 3,000 word excerpt for Genesis Earth, you can download it for free here. You might need to download some software from Amazon if you don’t have an ereader, but it shouldn’t be too hard. Their Kindle for PC program is free, so I just use that.

So yeah, check it out. I hope you enjoy it!

Quarter Finalist? AAAHHHH!!!

Holy crap, Genesis Earth made the quarter finals for the 2011 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest!

That means that it’s one of 250 other entries that will go on to the next round of voting. The grand prize is a publishing contract with Penguin for a $15k advance.

I’m happy to see I’m not the only old time Quarkie to make the cut; Drek also made it, with his novel Fires of Besowin. We’re having something of a friendly competition with this contest, but I think it’s pretty dang awesome that the two of us made it this far. Best of luck on the next round; I have a feeling we’re both going to need it…

The 50 finalists will be announced April 26nd. Until then, wish me luck!