Ten Things We've Learned About Collective Self-Publishing
This month marks a milestone that's being celebrated all over the world: it has been six months since the idea of Turtleduck Press was first floated. Oh, and it's 2011. Happy 2011, readers! Here are just some of the things we've learned in our first six months:
1. When the time is right, things start to happen very quickly. The idea was first proposed on July 8. Within a week, we had our own venue for private discussion. In less than a month, we had three (already edited) long works going through our approvals process.
Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot?
Knight Errant is available for sale. Wow. It's hard to believe.
Taro has been with me a long time, you see. More than...wow. More than fifteen years. He first appeared under a different name and far more bland aspect, in the book about his sister Eve Marcori, former Marine. It wasn't until years later that he came alive.
Oh, I tried. I changed his name. I invented a background for him, more than just "Eve's long-lost adopted little brother." I investigated his family, and the years between Eve losing and finding him. I changed his name again. I said he was sneaky and mouthy, but I couldn't seem to make him be either. So I followed time-honored avoidance techniques, and I moved on. He didn't matter that much anyway. Minor character. No big. I finished the book. Over years, I edited the book. In my new novelist happy shiny glow, I sent that book off to DAW--all 249,000 words of it.
Guess what happened. It took them a week--and some of that was transit time.
I got angry. I got determined. I got to writing.
On The Origin of Turtleducks By Means of Writerly Selection
So you're probably asking yourself, "Turtleduck Press? Where did that name come from? And just what is a Turtleduck anyway?"
Don't feel ashamed of yourself for not knowing. The turtleduck myth is not widely known outside of the more arcane academic circles, although it has made some unexpected appearances in pop culture despite this obscurity. Today's blog post is to help spread the word about this stunning beast.
Don't Judge a Gift by Its Wrapping
I love Christmas. It is my favorite time of the year: family, friends, gifts, magic...the snow, the tree, the lights...
What isn't fun for me, though, is wrapping gifts. In fact, it is so not fun that my gift wrapping skills are legendary. Mind you, my gifts look fine, but I was born without the Gift Wrapper gene because my gifts are never wrapped perfectly. There's always some bumps and the seams aren't perfectly straight and sometimes my bows are lopsided. Sometimes, I use handmade tags (from the wrapping paper) and apparently that's not done. Oops. Anyway, my mom and I were discussing what else? but gift wrapping and how awful mine is. She and my sister have double the Gift Wrapper gene because their gifts are always wrapped perfectly. There are no ragged seams; the bows are perfect; there are no bumps. They're gorgeous. Works of art. See, they are into the whole "presentation" thing and it shows. And that's really cool...if you're them.
