My career is officially croaked.
Mar. 29th, 2006 02:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydamorehouseWell, I just got word from my editor at Roc that Apocaylpse Array is being remaindered. You can no longer buy any novel length fiction by Lyda Morehouse (in this country, anyway).
My writing career is far from over, but I feel like this is a kind of major milestone.
My books are dead.
It’s funny, because I went into writing with a pretty good sense, or so I thought, of how the publishing industry works. I understood that getting a book published by a major New York publishing house was a miracle. I knew I’d have to do most of my own publicity, despite the major publishing house’s support. I’d heard was nearly impossible to make good on an advance. Yet, somehow I thought things would be different for me.
For a while, they were. Archangel Protocol had a bit of good fortune. A late-breaking review in Romantic Times. Two awards -- staggered over a two-year period (one early – the B&N Maiden Voyage Award, followed by the Shamus at the end of the year). I earned out my advance, which I’ve been led to believe is fairly unheard of for a first time novelist. And, I guess, since that book lasted the longest of nearly all of them, it continued to garner some butt-kicking viral marketing.
The second book did less well.
And so on.
And, even though the final book in the tetrology won second place for the Philip K. Dick not enough people continued to buy it to make housing it in a warehouse in New York cost-effective.
I always knew that was a possibility. Yet, here it is, a mere five years after I started and all my books are gone.
It’s not that I expected things to be easy, I just thought, somehow, it wouldn’t be quite so fast. I thought my fifteen minutes of “fame” would last a bit longer.
Plus, I feel like I did everything right, you know? I put out a book a year. I wasted a lot of money on advertising my own work. At the end, when the publisher didn’t even want to spent the penny it costs them to put out a galley, I MADE MY OWN and sent them out so the book, at least, would get a few advance reviews. Plus, and perhaps more importantly, I worked my fingers to the bone trying to make sure each book not only could stand alone, but that each successive book was stronger and better written than the last.
None of it helped.
The only reason I’m surviving at all as a writer (though under a different name now) is because I was willing to say, “Whatever it takes” to my editors and to roll with the punches. I never acted the diva. I never cried. I never wailed or gnashed my teeth. I never demanded or tore my hair. And, I think that’s why when things were bad my editor was willing to say, “here’s what we can do....”
So, I say:
My books are dead!
Long-live my books!
My writing career is far from over, but I feel like this is a kind of major milestone.
My books are dead.
It’s funny, because I went into writing with a pretty good sense, or so I thought, of how the publishing industry works. I understood that getting a book published by a major New York publishing house was a miracle. I knew I’d have to do most of my own publicity, despite the major publishing house’s support. I’d heard was nearly impossible to make good on an advance. Yet, somehow I thought things would be different for me.
For a while, they were. Archangel Protocol had a bit of good fortune. A late-breaking review in Romantic Times. Two awards -- staggered over a two-year period (one early – the B&N Maiden Voyage Award, followed by the Shamus at the end of the year). I earned out my advance, which I’ve been led to believe is fairly unheard of for a first time novelist. And, I guess, since that book lasted the longest of nearly all of them, it continued to garner some butt-kicking viral marketing.
The second book did less well.
And so on.
And, even though the final book in the tetrology won second place for the Philip K. Dick not enough people continued to buy it to make housing it in a warehouse in New York cost-effective.
I always knew that was a possibility. Yet, here it is, a mere five years after I started and all my books are gone.
It’s not that I expected things to be easy, I just thought, somehow, it wouldn’t be quite so fast. I thought my fifteen minutes of “fame” would last a bit longer.
Plus, I feel like I did everything right, you know? I put out a book a year. I wasted a lot of money on advertising my own work. At the end, when the publisher didn’t even want to spent the penny it costs them to put out a galley, I MADE MY OWN and sent them out so the book, at least, would get a few advance reviews. Plus, and perhaps more importantly, I worked my fingers to the bone trying to make sure each book not only could stand alone, but that each successive book was stronger and better written than the last.
None of it helped.
The only reason I’m surviving at all as a writer (though under a different name now) is because I was willing to say, “Whatever it takes” to my editors and to roll with the punches. I never acted the diva. I never cried. I never wailed or gnashed my teeth. I never demanded or tore my hair. And, I think that’s why when things were bad my editor was willing to say, “here’s what we can do....”
So, I say:
My books are dead!
Long-live my books!
no subject
Date: 2006-03-30 07:44 pm (UTC)So, no. They still retain the copyright on the AngeLINK series.
However, my agent is clever. She's already mentioned considering persuing other avenues for my books to continue -- like an Omnibus edition or some such. I'm sure they will come back "into print" in some format or another. Just not for some time.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-30 09:58 pm (UTC)