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Today I am a Novelist.
My books arrived today, via the good people at UPS. They sent me 29 copies, which takes care of all the preorders placed before April 15. Any orders placed after that are not going to be signed by me unless it is sent to me by the purchaser. I'm still baffled that anyone wants a signed copy, but I did sign them all and stuff them into shiny red envelopes for sending. Hopefully I'll get a ride to the post office in the next day or so. Any volunteers?
The books themselves look really good. My photo on the back cover is small and looks cute. The bio on the back is good as well, I'd forgotten. And some of you are in the acknowlegements, which I imagine will be a pleasant surprise for you's. The book paper has a nice weight to it and the binding is nice. I'm very pleased with the work Lightening Source did for us. You know what though? I signed all the books on the inside cover. Only then did my buddy Steve mention that I should have signed them on the cover page. So sorry about that everyone, but what's done is done!
The man we call![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
madush69 mentioned the novel on the radio today. I didn't get to hear it because if you can believe this, we don't have a radio anywhere in our apartment. I literally would have had to sit in someone's car in order to hear it, which I didn't. So hopefully Dan is saving me a copy of my mention. Then I can podcast it at my seldom-used podcast site.
I decided to send my own actual Mom a copy of my novel. I went back and forth about this for a long while and finally opted to go ahead and do it. I even put my return address on the envelope, not that she'd use it for anything. I imagine the book will come back to me unopened, but you never know. H thinks I'm sending it to show my Mom that I'm "successful" despite her. I don't feel particularly successful, more lucky. I dunno, I guess this whole getting published thing is not as validating as I thought it would be. I just feel pressure to sell a lot of copies so people will think my books is good. Which is odd, because plenty of people have already told me the book is good. Anyway, I wouldn't mind hearing my own actual Mom's opinion of it, but once I did hear it, it would probably just make me mad.
One week from today is my appearance on Paranormal Women League's Blog Talk Radio. I will, of course, be talking about the book. This show is hosted by the legendarykissdbyagnome.
The books themselves look really good. My photo on the back cover is small and looks cute. The bio on the back is good as well, I'd forgotten. And some of you are in the acknowlegements, which I imagine will be a pleasant surprise for you's. The book paper has a nice weight to it and the binding is nice. I'm very pleased with the work Lightening Source did for us. You know what though? I signed all the books on the inside cover. Only then did my buddy Steve mention that I should have signed them on the cover page. So sorry about that everyone, but what's done is done!
The man we call
madush69 mentioned the novel on the radio today. I didn't get to hear it because if you can believe this, we don't have a radio anywhere in our apartment. I literally would have had to sit in someone's car in order to hear it, which I didn't. So hopefully Dan is saving me a copy of my mention. Then I can podcast it at my seldom-used podcast site.I decided to send my own actual Mom a copy of my novel. I went back and forth about this for a long while and finally opted to go ahead and do it. I even put my return address on the envelope, not that she'd use it for anything. I imagine the book will come back to me unopened, but you never know. H thinks I'm sending it to show my Mom that I'm "successful" despite her. I don't feel particularly successful, more lucky. I dunno, I guess this whole getting published thing is not as validating as I thought it would be. I just feel pressure to sell a lot of copies so people will think my books is good. Which is odd, because plenty of people have already told me the book is good. Anyway, I wouldn't mind hearing my own actual Mom's opinion of it, but once I did hear it, it would probably just make me mad.
One week from today is my appearance on Paranormal Women League's Blog Talk Radio. I will, of course, be talking about the book. This show is hosted by the legendary
kissdbyagnome.
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(Raises hand)
Me! Me! Me!
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I'm not working until 3pm tomorrow, and I'm off on Saturday.
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Congratulations!
I'd almost forgotten how cool it is to see your book for the first time. When I picked up 2000 copies of "Rockets of the World" (I wasn't picked up by an actual publisher, so I had to self-publish, which is a reasonable option for niche non-fiction, if not for a novelist), I felt so authory to have the physical object of my book in my hands.
And yes, it's good that you are sending your mother a copy, whatever your motivation.
It took me a while to stop feeling absolutely silly signing my books. I'm no celebrity, and I knew the people I'd been signing them to for years. First I had to overcome the notion that it's a sin to write in books. I really hated to ruin the lovely, pristine volumes with my scrawl.
Then I decided to take a different perspective. Signing your book is like signing your name to a legal document or a letter--you're saying "Yes, I wrote this book, and I stand behind it, and, yes, I'm proud of it."
Nobody ever teaches you the protocol for signing books when you are the author, do they? It was a few years before I came across a Miss Manners column on the subject. It is indeed correct to sign the title page. If you include a note, signing the book to someone, you sign the dedication page if there is one.
I came this close to sleeping with my personal copy of Rockets of the World the day I brought the books home.
Enjoy being a novelist, and take pride in it. It's something not many people accomplish. And for all I'm using this comment as a cheap excuse to say "hey I'm an author as well, so I'm cool, too" I'm never going to be a published novelist myself. This is going to be on the list of cool things about
Re: Congratulations!
I'm really going to try to enjoy this phase of minor success, and see what I can parlay it into. ;-]
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Yeah, if it was all about money, I'd just pose for Juggs. ;-]
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If you've ever heard of WAAM, 1600 AM, that's where I work.
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Here's a larger version of the picture, taken in April of 1997:
http://members.aol.com/petealway/Hale-Bopp-dish-small.jpg
(I drive by WAAM every couple of months on the way to the Red Cross to give blood.)
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I was a fanatical astrophotographer back in the early 198o's. Here's my astrophoto page with some examples: http://members.aol.com/petealway/Astrophotos.htm
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I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to sell a lot of copies. It says nothing against your integrity as a writer; it's just a practical concern. I'd surely want my first book to sell like hotcakes! :)
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I guess that's true, I just have to keep reminding myself.
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heh.
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For example when I was 5 I drew a picture when I was in school. It was supposed to be 'things that make me sad'. I drew a stick figure (me) with a smaller stick figure and its head falling off. It was supposed to be my doll breaking, its head falling off. My mother obsessed with this picture for a few years at least, thinking it was of her beating me. Which she never did.
Mothers think weird things.
So its totally possible.
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