Deborah Woehr

Prosperity

It’s been a while since I talked about Prosperity, but I’m happy to say that I’m finally approaching the end. Over the past two weeks, the ideas have been blooming. Then a humdinger for an ending hit me last night and stayed long enough to cement itself inside my mind.

I’ve got about 15,000 words left before I reach my word count goal. Whether the the story will fall short or a bit over, I can’t say. But I’m excited by the fact that I’m almost finished. I was hoping to get it done and published by the end of this year. That’s not going to happen because I need to do a final edit. So my goal is to have it available by the spring of 2007.

Lately, I’m bouncing back and forth between submitting the manuscript to traditional publishers versus self-publishing it. The big drawback to traditional publishing is (if I can get the manuscript accepted) the waiting time between acceptance and actual publication. A collegue of mine submitted his manuscript to Leisure, who decided to accept it, only to have it sit for two years before he pulled it and submitted it to another publisher. As of this date, the manuscript hasn’t seen the light of day.

This drawback has made self-publishing look more promising, despite its stigmas. I was very happy with the Lulu process until it I saw how clunky their ordering system was. For instance, I tried to ship a copy of the anthology to a friend in Canada, but Lulu wouldn’t allow me to ship anywhere inside that country accept for some military province. Then John told me that he couldn’t order the anthology directly from the site because his PayPal account name didn’t match with his Lulu account name.

On the flipside, I was very pleased at the speed in which the anthology got listed on Amazon and Barnes&Noble. Not only that, but it got listed on Tesco, which is UK’s equivalent of Walmart, I think. It’s a very popular retail chain, according to John.

I’ll make my decision once the final edit is done. In the meantime, I’ll check out Lightning Source, which costs a pretty penny ($500) to see if I have to establish my own publishing company first before I use their service.

Then I have to write a compelling synopsis, which I’ve yet to do. Would any of you be interested in critiquing it, if I post it here?

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9 Responses to “Prosperity”

Marti on 26 Nov 2006 at 2:29 pm #

Oh lordie, synopsis writing. I hate mine - LOL

I wish you well. Can’t you self-publish and still submit? (I’m strongly considering that for River)

I hope you’re having a wonderful weekend. I wanted to say hello to everyone on my blogroll, and wish them well, because this is Thanksgiving weekend, and I am grateful for my Internet friends!

Lee on 27 Nov 2006 at 1:58 am #

I’m often torn by this question too. I like the idea of self publishing, but think I would tire of the workload involved, on the other hand it would be nice to get a big traditional publisher and tap into their distribution networks.

Good luck whatever you decide.

deborah.woehr on 27 Nov 2006 at 5:41 pm #

Marti: I believe you can, although you have to sell about 50,000 copies in order to prove to the publisher that your book is worth buying.

Lee: The workload of self-publishing is a lot. Then add marketing to the fray. But if you can produce a great book and market it successfully, the payoff could be greater than going the traditional route.

Lee on 27 Nov 2006 at 11:27 pm #

I think you’re probably right, Deborah. But it would be hard work, and the payoff probably has as much to do with personal satisfaction as much as money.

Part of me likes to think you get a publisher, they market and promote it and send you the cheques, though I do of course realise this is probably only true for the absolute best sellers at the top of the game. Everybody else has to market their own work. Still it’s nice to dream.

deborah.woehr on 28 Nov 2006 at 5:33 pm #

Still it’s nice to dream.

Yes, it is, Lee. When I first started writing, I was naive enough to believe that publishers took care of every book they bought. Ten years later, I’ve learned that the majority of debut authors have to do practically all of the work themselves and expect pitiful advances and royalty payments.

John (Syntagma) on 29 Nov 2006 at 2:49 am #

I think you did a great job with the Anthology, Deborah. It’s virtually indistinguishable from a good trade paperback.

With Prosperity you could publish it yourself, while sending it round the trade publishers. Then when you get your copies, send a few to well-known authors asking for an endorsement. I’ve struck lucky a few times with this method. My new book, The Nirvaneans (formerly Cosmosity) has been endorsed by two major authors in the field.

If you want it to have an identity other than Lulu, you could use my Dial Publishing imprint to give it a better finish.

deborah.woehr on 29 Nov 2006 at 5:23 pm #

Thank you for the kind words, suggestions, and offer, John! I have a couple well-known authors in mind to send review copies to. The worst they can say is no thank you.

michaelm on 30 Nov 2006 at 5:03 am #

Hey Deborah-

I also think you did a great job with the anthology. It looks professional and I know it’s well written and creative.
As far as Prosperity goes, let me just say that I stop by this blog often and you are a great inspiration to me in terms of my writing.
Your tenacious perseverance is a thing of beauty.
As far as the synopsis goes, I’ve never written one but understand it’s incredibly difficult and time consuming.
The best of luck with the rest of the book.

deborah.woehr on 30 Nov 2006 at 6:38 pm #

Thank you so much for the kinds words, Michael. I tried writing a synposis for an earlier draft of this book and flopped. Perhaps I’ll sift through my earlier blog posts to get ideas.