Novelty

So this is the post I've been meaning to get to for ages. I've just realized it's the second half of 2013, so it really is time, and if I write it all down here, I'll have to do something about it.

For those of you who don't know, there are these novels I've written. Four of them so far, out of at least five. (It was supposed to be a trilogy. Insert Douglas Adams joke here.) They describe the adventures of the employees of a time travel company doing contract work for the government and other clients in the 2170s, and in particular those of Olivia Lake, graduate student in English literature turned time jumper with the secret intent of discovering the whereabouts of her vanished husband, and George Merrill, who isn't terribly good at being her mentor. You can read the first three chapters of the first book, Time for Tea, here. These are cast-of-hundreds novels, full of smuggling and sword fights and music and art and time paradoxes and jokes and tragedy and warfare and politics and poetry and fairy tales and semi-sentient machines and love affairs over rather more than three separate continents (not to mention centuries). I've had a blast creating all of this and I'm confident that at least some other people will enjoy reading it.

I started writing the books in 2002 and have been typing and editing and rethinking and fiddling ever since, and now I do actually need to do something about publication. I still have a bunch of research to undertake, but at this point I'm leaning rather heavily toward self-publishing. When I started out, going that route was the kiss of death - it shouted rejection and poor writing and poor sales - but things have changed in the book world in eleven years, and despite the cries of my long-suffering beta readers that I'm good enough to deserve "real" publication (and, you know, I agree with them), I think this is probably the answer, unless any other possibilities spring into view in the near future. Here's why:

a) They're long. I haven't done a word count recently, but earlier drafts of Time for Tea clocked in at about 200K, which is long for publishers to look at for a first novel. And no, I can't trim any more; I can and will strip a few more adverbs and modifiers, but it isn't going to make a whole lot of difference. I just think in long, complex stories, and that's the way it is. And the third and fourth books are even longer (I think the second is a little less).

b) They don't fit easily into a genre. I mean, yes, time travel=SF, but that's not my primary mode of thought here, and they're certainly not romance novels in the traditional sense (the first one sets up that way a bit, but the further in I get the less the romance matters), and they have far too many literary quotations and corsets to be straight-up adventure stories. They're what I like in a novel, which probably means they're what a bunch of other readers like too, but I don't know where they'd be shelved in a bookstore.

c) Most significantly, I am almost 51 and not getting any younger, I've wasted enough time already, and I'm realistic about how long it would take to go the traditional route. Really, I just want to get the books out there so people can read them, because they rock and I'd like to share and make a little money in the process. If that's all that comes of it, I'm fine with that, and one never knows.

So here's the plan. This month I'm going to further investigate publishing options, join some groups, follow up leads, make decisions. I know some of you have looked into this before, so please throw links at me if you have them. Next (maybe August, maybe earlier if I don't freeze and end up with a really clean house and organized garden instead) I'll do that gazillionst editing pass on TFT, fix whatever formatting I need to, set up a website and whatever else I need (Twitter? Tumblr? An author page on Facebook, for sure, to supplement my personal account), start reaching out and promoting. And then sometime in the fall actually get the thing out there. And then start final edits on Time and Fevers (seems to me it would be good to have the first two out there within six months of each other, and then I can settle back a bit. I do have to write the fifth one at some point, too).

The thing about self-publishing is that you have to do all your own marketing (though really as a newbie professionally-published author you have to do nearly as much, and you make less money per sale), so consider this the start of it, and... I will be asking for help as I go along, to get the word out. I'm hoping that people who enjoy reading my fanfic will be willing to spend a few bucks to read my original work and write fanfic for it no don't jinx it but really the George/Halsey writes itself and will tell their friends. And please comment and talk to me and muster up any encouragement you possess. And thank you for being there.

Okay. *deep breath* *jumps*