BOUNDARY to be in Science Fiction Book Club!

[seawasp]

Eric and I have been notified that Boundary will be in the Science Fiction Book Club magazine as a featured item. This weekend I'll be writing a draft of the blurb which will go with the book. This is fun -- my first hardcover and my first SFBC appearance!

In other exciting writing news, I just received my first "Advance Reader's Copy" -- of Boundary, naturally. ARCs are produced generally as trade paperbacks; this looks SO COOL!

Comments

[sub-musashi.livejournal.com]

Congrats, dude, that's awesome. Must be nice to know you'll be read by tens (hundreds?) of thousands of people.

By the way, did you publish short stories before trying to sell your novels, or did you jump right in? My wife is finishing up her first novel and isn't sure whether the short story route is still necessary.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I'm not convinced the short story route is much easier than heaving manuscripts through the transoms of publishing companies. There are not all that many SF magazines left and the general long-term trend for their sales numbers is down. This means a new short story author is competing for a very limited number of slots and if they do get in, their story will only be seen by a few people[1]. And then, if they do get a novel sale on the basis of their shorts, they may find the skills that worked at 20,000 words don't apply at 200,000 words.

You can also use the web, but while I can think of people whose careers started that way, they are the exception.

If it's any consolation, while the market for short stories in F&SF is dire, the market for all other kinds of short stories is even worse, for reasons that go back to the 1950s.


1: For example, have you ever heard of Howard Waldrop? He's one of the best F&SF writers around and has been for ages but he sticks most to the short lengths. At times, at least part of his sustanance has come from a hunter-gather life style.

The Web...

[seawasp]

You can also use the web, but while I can think of people whose careers started that way, they are the exception.

I sorta fit that category, in my own wierd way.

Re: The Web...

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

So do I, actually. I am the first person ever to get the job I have who did not have prior experience in the publishing industry and I am fairly sure it was my various online stunt reviews that did it for me.

Short stories are not my forte.

[seawasp]

In general, the sections of Digital Knight represent the shortest material I can write, and they're too long for most "short" venues. Short stories also don't pay worth crap compared to books, so for someone interested in actually making useful spare change out of their writing short stories are generally not the way most people go.

The SFBC is good for exposure, although I don't think it's nearly as large as you imply... and the number who will order Boundary will of necessity be a lot smaller. A few thousand would be very good, though.

Think of it as a filter

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Disclaimer: I work for the SFBC but I do not speak for them or represent them in any way.

The market for F&SF skews strongly towards the F end of the scale (1), around two to one. SF may account for perhaps 2% of the books sold last year.

The SFBC offers as many SF novels as fantasy. I don't know what the relative sales are and probably would attract the attention of the Bookspan Orbiting Laser if I did know and shared but I have good reason to suspect Joe Average SFBC Customer is looking for SF. There are fewer eyeballs involved but they are biased towards SF.


1: It would be very rude of me to speculate why this is but I will say it is not surprising, any more than the general tone of post-Imperial British SF was.