Bloggers With Book Deals
I'm a bit late in blogging this, cos the intervening period got all taken over by my new book and the like. But a week and a half ago, I went to a lovely sort-of-blogmeet in London, where I met a whole bunch of really interesting and talented fellow writers. And bloggers. Writer/bloggers, if you like.
It's a strangely solitary pursuit, being a writer. Not just because you spend hours on your own in front of a computer, but also because it never seems to occur to agents, publishers and the like to introduce their authors to each other. So meeting up with a large group of people who also happen to write books was a particularly pleasant experience - especially with them being such a nice bunch.
It all started before Christmas, when I started to realise just how many bloggers out there were getting book deals. And how hard it is to blog about various aspects of the publishing process, but how useful it is to have people with similar experiences whose ears you can bend.
So I set up BloggersWithBookDeals, which is a Yahoo! group for, er, bloggers with book deals. And in case you had already heard about us and were worried that we were all getting together behind your back and plotting your downfall... well yes, of course we are. That's what private forums are for. We also have secret initiation rites involving home-knitted balaclavas and bowls of fruit.
Yes, it is closed-membership. Sorry, but how else am I going to get everyone to tell me their deepest darkest secrets, and then gather them all together for a book about books about blogs? Richard & Judy, here I come...
Ahem. Anyway. If you know of any published / soon-to-be-published bloggers, send them in my direction. Fiction or non-fiction, we're not fussy. I've set up a few of these things, and they work like a kind of trade organisation. When we're not bobbing for apples in our hand-made woollen head gear, we have many tedious conversations about stuff that nobody except us would be remotely interested in. It's useful to have a place to go and natter about all that stuff without having to worry about boring you all to tears.
___
It's a strangely solitary pursuit, being a writer. Not just because you spend hours on your own in front of a computer, but also because it never seems to occur to agents, publishers and the like to introduce their authors to each other. So meeting up with a large group of people who also happen to write books was a particularly pleasant experience - especially with them being such a nice bunch.
It all started before Christmas, when I started to realise just how many bloggers out there were getting book deals. And how hard it is to blog about various aspects of the publishing process, but how useful it is to have people with similar experiences whose ears you can bend.
So I set up BloggersWithBookDeals, which is a Yahoo! group for, er, bloggers with book deals. And in case you had already heard about us and were worried that we were all getting together behind your back and plotting your downfall... well yes, of course we are. That's what private forums are for. We also have secret initiation rites involving home-knitted balaclavas and bowls of fruit.
Yes, it is closed-membership. Sorry, but how else am I going to get everyone to tell me their deepest darkest secrets, and then gather them all together for a book about books about blogs? Richard & Judy, here I come...
Ahem. Anyway. If you know of any published / soon-to-be-published bloggers, send them in my direction. Fiction or non-fiction, we're not fussy. I've set up a few of these things, and they work like a kind of trade organisation. When we're not bobbing for apples in our hand-made woollen head gear, we have many tedious conversations about stuff that nobody except us would be remotely interested in. It's useful to have a place to go and natter about all that stuff without having to worry about boring you all to tears.
___
8 Comments:
Thanks, Clare for telling me about my lack of linking power! I think I have changed it now. Continuing nods and empathies on the Big Wait. I have candle voodoo going today. It does feel kind of empty, too, when the novel is done and off, the kind of daily nervous tick to go to it and get on with it after such a long, long time writing it, is difficult to get rid of. The knowledge that dreams of success and fears of failure are now meeting in the middle is just excrutiating. GOOD LUCK!!! And keep on going!
Well, I'd love to be a part of it Clare, and I AM, in fact, writing a novel...
Not sure how much interest I'll have from publishers, but technically I am already published (at age 12 in a book about the internet; writing about sex, drugs and homos in free-distribution magazines) so what do you think? ;)
Morgan, I'd dearly love to have you on board, but I fear your pre-teen publication may be pushing it slightly...
Seriously though, if you want any help / tips on finding a publisher when you finish writign it (or before), email me and I'll do all I can to help.
Amanda, I know exactly what you mean. It's that tension / constant swinging between optimisim and pessimism that utterly does my head in. I move constantly from Wild Excitement to Abject Terror...
you must breeeeeath deeeeeply, clare darling! and distract yerself with something kind of absorbing like .... i dunno .... swimming or shoe shopping. you're brilliant to have finished on schedule (though i was looking forward to that video ...)
Well, I didn't exactly finish on schedule... seeing as I originally planned to finish it last October... and before that I was supposed to have finished it a year earlier...
Hello Clare,
I'm a struggling writer blogging about writing in Ireland from an English perspective. Any piercing insights into getting a British publisher to say yes to my agent, greatefully received.
Oh EW I'm sorry, my only advice would be to get an agent, and you seem to have already done that! It's a horribly difficult business, getting published. Sorry I can't be of more help.
Cheers
Clare.
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