Ann Brandt’s Journey to Publication

An interesting journey to publication that starts with self-publishing, travels through mainstream publishing with HarperCollins and ends as an ebook. Ann Brandt tells how she published Crowfoot Ridge”

Of the eight agent responses from my submissions, seven were encouraging, but rejections none-the-less. One was a request to send fifty pages of “Crowfoot Ridge” to Jillian Manus. Three months later her rejection arrived. I did a lot of rewriting after the conference, then proceeded with a small press in NC and self-published. The jacket photo they wanted to use belonged on a Mad Magazine cover. I contacted DeWitt Jones, a photographer/speaker at Maui and asked for a mountain scene. He provided one for four hundred dollars. When the book came out I sent a few copies to him as a thank you.

He sent one to his good friend, Jillian Manus, who read it and called to ask if she could represent me. She had no memory of our previous encounter. I signed her contract and she put the book out on auction giving the publishers eight hours to respond. HarperCollins won the auction. They put me through months of rewriting with editors from many disciplines: story, dialog, grammar, and legal. Jillian asked once how I’d gotten a DeWitt Jones photo and went on to tell me he can receive $10,000 for one. In fact HarperCollins said they could not afford one of his photos and provided an in-house painting for the jacket they published in 1999. “Crowfoot Ridge” was sold in several countries, translated into German and French, and we had a few nibbles from the film industry. The e-book debuts on Kindle this month.

Jane and the Damned – Book Trailer of the Day

Three minutes plus — on the long side. I didn’t watch it all the way through the first time. But I did come back to it, because it’s well done.

This uses a technique of “pseudo-animation”: A series of cartoons or illustrations that accompany the text, or, in this case, voice over, at a sentence-by-sentence pace. Unlike a random jumble of stock images, the succession of cartoons gives the trailer a unified motif, holding it together with greater style. A few stock photos are thrown in, for instance, a shot of Bath. It works okay. The color scheme is simple but striking. The cartoonish b&w drawings are highlighted by red. A nice way to quietly shout: Hey! Vampires!

The voice over and sound effects really carry this trailer, even when the cuts could use a brisker pace. I laughed my head off when the ridiculous French accents began at 1:39. “Those English bastards! They cut of my…!”

The premise of the book is also a riot. Here we have the Jane Austen and the Undead craze joined with the Use Famous Writers as characters craze, and hell, a little Alt Hist thrown in for jolly fun. At least, when I last took my Survey of Modern European History Since the French Revolution, I don’t remember the French invading England twice. That alone made me want to read this book.

Jane of the Damned, by Janet Mullany.

Dumb But Hilarious Writing

“I did it with my last baby and it wasn’t totally accurate.”

— referring to a test that predicts the gender of a baby

Hm. It wasn’t “totally” accurate? Either it was accurate or it wasn’t, riiiiiight? Unless what you really mean is, “Well it predicted a male, but my baby boy is suspiciously fond of Tinky Winky.”

(The real answer, in case you were wondering? The test is a scam.)

Harry Potter Trailer

There are some people who assume that just because a book is popular, it is well written. There are other people who assume that just because a book is popular it is poorly written.

Don’t make assumptions.

Facebook Down!

“OPB BREAKING NEWS: Facebook is down,” read a message on Oregon Public Broadcasting’s feed. “Worker productivity rises. U.S. climbs out of recession.”

But not really, because Twitter and Blogger are still working. 😉

Twelfth Planet Press

Whenever I find a new small publisher, I’m going to just toss it up on the ‘ole blog, mostly so I don’t forget it.

So here’s Twelfth Planet Press, “an Australian indie publishing company focussing on publishing innovative, fresh and exciting speculative fiction projects.”

Books:

Anthologies
2012 edited by Alisa Krasnostein and Ben Payne
New Ceres Nights edited by Alisa Krasnostein and Tehani Wessely
Sprawl edited by Alisa Krasnostein (September 2010)
Speakeasy edited by Alisa Krasnostein (April 2011)

Collections
A Book of Endings by Deborah Biancotti
Glitter Rose by Marianne de Pierres (September 2010)
Twelve Planets (starting January 2011)

Novella Series
Angel Rising by Dirk Flinthart
Horn by Peter M Ball
Bleed by Peter M Ball (September 2010)

Doubles Series
Roadkill/Siren Beat by Robert Shearman/Tansy Rayner Roberts
The Company Articles of Edward Teach/Angaelian Apocalypse by Thoraiya Dyer/Matthew Chrulew (October 2010)
Above/Below by Stephanie Campisi/Ben Peek (November 2010)

Novels
Robot War Espresso by Robert Hood (April 2011)

Submissions:

Right now they’re looking for novelettes and novellas. And fantasy short stories set in the Roaring Twenties. Cool beans.