Phew, 185,000 words later and Gateway is finally finished. I am meeting Matt and Oli tonight to observe the occasion in suitable style.
Meanwhile, the Hanbury Literary Agency now has a page for me on their site, side-by-side with Katie Price. Hope I don’t make her look too bad.
http://www.hanburyagency.com/authors/a-j-dalton.asp
Cool review of Empire of the Saviours in this month’s SciFi Now magazine. It’s pretty fair really, although I’m pretty sure they meant to give me five stars instead of four.
I’ve signed with the Hanbury Literary Agency, who represented JG Ballard back in the day. He did Empire of the Sun, Crash, etc. They also represent Katie Price.
Oo, and more signing events being confirmed. Got one for Waterstones Warrington (old and favoured stomping ground) on 2 June 2012. Might line up Bolton for the official launch, 18 May.
Kate Pool of the Society of Authors confirmed that new writers could expect an average advance of £10,000 around 20 years ago: “Now they’re lucky to get between £1,000 and £3,000.” Research by the society shows that 75% of writers earn less than £20,000 a year and 46% less than £5,000.
Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jan/16/ian-rankin-tax-incentives-authors
New page added to this site under ‘author advice’ on the nav bar. UK and US publishers of fantasy literature, init.
Well, Gollancz have now launched their web portal for scifi and fantasy. Over 800 titles available as e-books already, and more to come. The site also lets you access the Scifi and Fantasy Encyclopedia for free. The latter represents 3 million words of searchable content, albeit that certain parts are still in ‘beta’.
I’ve added a new page to this site under ‘author advice’. Oh yes, I’m an expert now you know. Look, if you don’t like it, just stick it in your pipe and smoke it.
After 25 years of trying to get a decent book deal, I’ve finally got one with the UK’s biggest publisher of fantasy. The weird thing is/was that the book with which I got the deal had been rejected by every other publisher and agent in the country.
So, Empire of the Saviours (book 1 of Chronicles of a Cosmic Warlord) will be out in spring 2012. A bit late for my taste, but the publisher has a ‘schedule’, you see. Still, it will mean the book’s properly edited and all that.
The deal is ‘global’, so I’m hoping to get paid trips everywhere to do signings. Gotta dream a little, eh?
Anyway, let the celebrations begin!
So there’s a one-day scifi and fantasy convention taking place in Bristol on 6 November 2010. The guests of honour are the mighty Joe Abercrombie and Paul Cornell (Dr Who and Marvel).
I have to say, BristolCon ’10 has a pretty slick website (http://www.bristolcon.org/). Far better than the FantasyCon one.
If you’re looking for more to do in Bristol fantasy-wise, there’s always the Ian M. Banks signing at Forbidden Planet Bristol on 2 Nov, 12.30-13.30, of course.
Not sure whether I can afford the pilgrimmage to Bristol or not. Will have to consult the bank manager.
Yeah, it was okay, but there was far too much horror, scifi and alt fiction and far too little fantasy. And, strangely, it was pretty much books only – no gaming, movies and so forth.
But there were some big fantasy names. I got severely led astray by James Barclay (www.jamesbarclay.com) in the bar on the Friday night – but a thoroughly nice bloke, from what I can recall. And then there was a cool panel debate led by Mark Chadbourn (www.markchadbourn.net) on the Saturday about how authors are increasingly having to be ‘professional writers’ to make ends meet (i.e. writing books and screen plays to order, like Torchwood books and so on). The editors of the big publishing houses pretty much lay down the law these days about what authors can and can’t write. If they have one book that’s a hit, they then pretty much have to write the next one in an identical manner. Scary. So much for creativity, artistic licence and imagination.
And then Peter F. Hamilton was there on the Sunday… if you’re into scifi.
There was an interesting panel about small presses too. They resolved to term themselves ‘independent presses’ from hereonin. Met some really nice guys from Eibonvale Press (www.eibonvalepress.co.uk), including Andrew Coultard, who’s got a new story out in Blind Swimmer, an anthology of Eibonvale authors. He’s based in Sweden and keying in to the great crime fiction coming out of that country at the mo.
Oo, and met David Moore, editor for Solaris (www.solarisbooks.com). On balance, I think his signature cowboy hat works. And Steve Mobsy (www.theleftroom.co.uk), crime author.
So what the hell are you complaining about, Adam?! The whole thing rocked!
You might find the following instalment of Radio 4′s Open Book programme interesting. Scroll across to 19:15 to hear the segment in which Tom McNab discusses how he has been forced to self-publish a new edition of Flanagan’s Run because his publisher wasn’t interested in anything it viewed as “old” (despite numerous editions continuing to sell very well elsewhere). There is also discussion about the changing face of self-publishing and the ramifications for the industry in the future. Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00sn9w6
