Photo taken by moi last Friday night at Pine Mountain through my 8" dobsonian telescope. 25mm eyepiece. Polarizing filter on the eyepiece. Creative Commons -- meaning you may use my photo as long as you credit M. Pax. Click on it to blow it up. It came out awesome. Honest.
Please Note: This blog has moved to http://mpaxauthor.com/blog/ Please join me and your other bloggy friends there. This coming Friday will be the last simultaneous post.
Happy IWSG. Every month writers gather around the blogosphere to offer encouragement and garner support. Hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh, it's not too late to join in. Go on! You know you want to.
I was tagged some time ago by the lovely Tara Tyler with the magic eight ball meme. Maybe I'm getting this wrong, but I'm supposed to ask all of you to be my magic eight ball. My current dilemma isn't with writing [although I could use two more of me to finish up the manuscript by August 13th, gah!], it's with the marketing. So my first question is about categories and genres ...
I wrote this one more for women and it's women I want to target. So, I don't want to sell under sci-fi this time. The most accurate description is speculative fiction -- a combination of contemporary fantasy, contemporary sci-fi, and plain strange. The focus is more on Hetty and her issues. While she's trying to figure herself out, she encounters a lot of strange, including her parents. However, no site lets you choose speculative fiction as the genre.
Some sites will let me select general fiction, which I've noted Margaret Atwood sells under, but others won't let me be so vague.
Basically, my main character gets pulled farther and farther into a hidden world on our world which is cloaked. There's an Area 52. There will be superhero-ish elements. Can I market it as fantasy? Or what would you do with it?
OK, that was a bit long for one question.
Second question, much shorter: This is the first in a new series. It'll end up around 70,000 words. My local crit group insists it's too good not to sell. They say it's my best work yet. But it's targeted to a different audience than Backworlds. And I still need to be seen and discovered. At what price would you sell it?
Any thoughts on my marketing quandries welcome.
Announcements:
Fight Club Begins! Hosted by the talented, DL Hammons. I signed up so I can vote. Best of luck to the contestants.
Tyrean of Tyrean's Writing Spot has a poem published. Congrats Tyrean!
Stephen Tremp is having a blurb bloghop on August 15th, where we work on blurbs and tweet each other. Fabulous idea, Stephen.
L. Diane Wolfe is sponsoring the Supportive Blogger Extraordinaire Contest. Nominations are open until August 5th for whoever you'd like to nominate. It was tough coming up with just one for me. You've all been so incredibly supportive. I'd rain riches and praises on all of you. Anyway, it's a great way to pay forward acts of kindness and support that make you all warm and fuzzy inside.
And keep September 17th open! A first for me, into which I'm dragging a few other blogging writers. I hope to say what next week. :D
OK, thanks for listening to me ramble. Time to get back to work. The clock's ticking and Hetty and the invisible people are waiting ...
