All right then, all of a sudden, out of the blue, I have a publisher.

The Black Carnival is supposed to be published in December at Evernight Publishing, Ontario, Canada.

It seems just fitting that the publisher should be Canadian. It would appear that almost anything about this book has some Canadian connection. May be I should get myself a snorkel and a pair of flippers and go give a look to this Great White North.

After moping half the summer over rejections of the Dragon Tree, I submitted the Black Carnival to Evernight on October 7th. It was the first submission. I was undecided wether to send it out at all before spring, what with being offline most of the winter and things. They promised to reply in three weeks, and since we were scheduled to leave for Spain at the beginning of November, I thought, oh come on, let's send it, I'll get my first Black Carnival rejection just in time before leaving, it will speed me on my way so nicely.

Instead, within four days I got a positive answer.

Miracles do happen.

Here I am:

http://www.evernightpublishing.com/katherine-wyvern/

Six days from first submission to authour profile was freakish fast, which surely accound for the state of intermittent disbelief I am in. More news will be posted as they come in!

Self Addressed Stamped Envelope - a globetrotter adventure

Before introducing the "other" book, as it is often referred to in this household, I need to spend two words on this matter of submissions. Not submission, that pops up in the "other" book, all right, but submissions.

Submissions is what you (the quivering writer) send to agents and publishers (which at this stage look like nothing less than the allmighty lords of creation) to get them to read your work and consider the possibility of entering into a business agreement with you (i.e. representing and publishing your book).

Maybe I am a bit single minded lately, or perhaps writing the "other" book just gave a certain tinge to my vocabulary, but in my opinion the fact that this business of presenting your work out there is called "submission" paints a whole picture and some. It "has an effect on the landscape" as Mal Reynolds would say.

Anyway.

Burocracy was invented for city dwellers. Countryside dwellers can still manage if they have a car and lots of time. Or a slave and lots of money. But a tramp, or to be more "polished", a globetrotter, is doomed. There is no way you can deal with paperwork on the road. This would not be a problem if paperwork were limited to unimportant things like social security, tax returns, bank accounts, political elections and assorted official correspondence, but when you realize that you may need paperwork to get your fantasy book read, that is when the world comes apart.

I will explain.

I started to look up stuff on the internet on how to "submit" my book.

There are "submission guidelines", because submission is something you must do properly, or not at all. Abasing yourself on the mattress in a skimpy outfit with fluffy pink shackles will not do the trick here. Fonts, spacing and the choice of envelope, how many pages, words and paragraphs, a terse, competent prose are far more important. There are things you need to write in your query letter (your full name, for example), things you should not write (like "my mum loved it", even if she did) and you should always keep in mind that agents receive lots of letters every day, they have little time, tired eyes, and basically what they want is to go home and watch the football game. It all makes sense, and you read all this and feel warm and fuzzy inside and want to do everything perfectly and according to the rules. You have already written your perfect query letter in your head, put together the synopsis and polished your sample chapters to blinding unearthly brilliance... you are ready for action, "quivering in every limb".

Then you come to this part:

"You should enclose the same type of envelope as a SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope)."

Now if truth be told, already printing a letter is trouble for a globetrotter. But it can be done. You go to a printing shop with your USB stick if you get close to a civilized town, or buy a very cheap printer to use for just a season (I can't carry a printer on a pony cart... I can hardly carry the dog food). It's tricky, but it can be done.

But the self addressed letter is fantastically difficult. There is the problem of the address. I don't have one. I trot the globe. Ok, I could address it to my Mum. She wont be able to answer letters, but she can open them (anyway you don't have to answer rejections, I guess).

Then there's the problem of stamps.

The book is in English, so I am set on trying to get an English agent who can steer my rickety literary boat in the English book-market. Unfortunately I live on the Continent.

I am isolated.

To begin with, how much does Her Majesty want to send letters to the continent?

I look up the Royal Mail web page and after much surfing around I figure out the correct (?) amount.

Now, where the hell do you get English stamps in France? Online? But where to have them sent if you don't have a fixed address? Yes, I can have them sent to the Poste Restante. While staying for the Summer in the Dordogne I can have them sent to my neighbours. Or I can have them sent to my Mum, in Italy, and hope that between us we can set up a flying rendez vous with a spanish postman on the way to Figueres. Meet me at the second olive tree after Dali's house. Wear something sexy. I suppose that anything is possible.

Or I could get IRCs.

IRCs are international reply coupons. Cool. I actually went to the post office in Domme and asked for some. They told me nobody uses them anymore and that they may have some old speciments under alcohol in jars in the Post office in Sarlat, but here they don't treat them anymore. Gasp! No IRCs then.

Or you can pay postage online with your credit card, and print a code on the envelope. If you have a printer.

This is where the globetrotting writer goes and shoots him/herself.

As it turns out there are now agents willing to read e-mail submissions (duh! the 21st century catches up with the publishing world! Scoop!), especially for children books. So for the moment I am picking e-mail friendly agents for my submissions. They are also more ecological. I like these guys!

Very well, so here I am, starting a new blog, as requested by my good friend Tom/Daruma (I won't say my old friend, I think last time I did he was a bit hurt).

This blog is about my adventures in the writing and publishing world (two very different worlds, in fact).

I suppose these adventures will eventually tear apart whatever little shred of sanity I have left, partly because the world of agents and publishers seems to be built around the concept of making a poor bewildered writer jump through as many hoops as possiple, like a good poodle (please observe that you need to be somewhat bewildered to even think about becoming a writer, sensible people with a clear grasp of reality just go and get a job). This may be intended to sift qualitative work from less interesting material, or just to test the canditate endurance and malleability, I don't know. I will try and stick to first hypotesis. I want to believe.

The other thing is that I have two books at hand, one finished, the other finishing, and I am trying to get one published while tweaking the second into shape. This would all be normal as such, but one book is a fantasy novella for children, complete with dragons, dusty libraries and apple-pie baking granny, and the other is a full blown erotic novel well over the edge of BDSM, with whips, threesomes, gay lovers and even a scene with icecream (duh!).

To say that my brain feels a bit stretched sideways is a massive understatement.

Why two such different stories?

Well, what can I say, I am a complicated person (just ask my husband).

In the next posts I will tell you (?) about my two books.