More News from Bridge House Publishing

We soldier on. I have now picked all the stories for the “Two Sides to Every Story” anthology. It takes a finite amount of time to email everyone with the results. I have to put my academic and my own writing work ahead of that, but actually, in a bizarre way, all of it relates to the academic work anyway.
There were a couple if interesting points about the submissions: possibly the very best one of all was one we can’t possibly use. It gives the point of view of Michael in the Peter Pan story and has brilliantly conceived ending. Alas, I don’t think we dare touch it with a barge pole. The copyright issues are so complex. Another submission failed to have the contact details in the footer as requested. It was a shame, but I felt we had to stick to our guns. It was just too much extra work.
We are now getting more submissions than I can comfortably handle. Our administrator is now going to edit one of the books. It will be great once the other two partners are working full time.

Becoming a Publisher

So, now I am a publisher as well. I have advertised for short stories for my “Advent Calendar” of short stories. I got about twice as many as I needed. I then had to make those sorts of decisions that editors and publishers have to make all the time. And I only had a small slush pile. I have to confess to being irritated by people who did not read the guidelines correctly. That even includes some people who were accepted. I had asked for contact details to be put on the bottom of each page, for instance. Some didn’t. Then it was quite a job fining out who they were in order to accept or reject.

Still, we’re up and running. Twenty-four stories have been chosen. This includes one of my on, four by one lady, and one – in fact the lead one – by a very good friend of mine. Hers shines out as the story which is the signature of the book. Another person I know has also got a contribution going in. She, and our star, were members of a critique group I joined in when I was in North Wales.

The cover is being designed. I’m just about to start the editing.

We’re all set for it to launch on the 13^th of November 2008.

Coping with Rejections

Rejection is just part of life when you are a writer. It doesn’t stop hurting, though. It is definitely the down on the roller-coaster. Or is it?

At least when you’ve had the rejection you can move onto the next submission. I have my really beloved baby, The Prophecy, out there now. One publisher has the first three chapters and a synopsis. They’ve had them a couple of weeks. They haven’t acknowledged them and I have a creepy sort of feeling that maybe they didn’t get them: they were emailed as an attachment. But I don’t want to ask yet, as it might sound like nagging.

I did send another query letter yesterday, again by email, and the answer came back: no they don’t publish YA. It didn’t say that in their guidelines and they looked just the zany sort of publisher who would. Oh well!

I’m not hurrying this one. I’ll go for likely looking people as I see them and only proactively seek new opportunities as the rejections come in. I’m really waiting on my first publisher as being published with them would be so appropriate. Meanwhile, I’ll get on with other writing.

I know another writer who just calls rejections “rewrites”. I guess that is an optimistic way of looking at them. I can see that that works for those rejections where you get some feedback. I’m not sure that it works for the ones which are just standard slips. I guess, though, that you make a mental note of the fact that that imprint doesn’t quite fit the style and content of your writing. Can you make it a better fit? If not with this piece, then with another?

Hopefully, the more you write the better you get.

In any case, I can’t not write. It seems to be in my blood now.