Gods in Jungle submissions update #9

To date: ten submissions to agents sent out; five form rejections, five outstanding - possibly lost in the post or festering in a forgotten slush pile somewhere. I need to email the outstanding agents to nudger them, but that'll have to wait to the new year now.

Also: no word back from the 2 publishers, from which I can only assume they have chosen not to offer a contract. So that brings the number of rejections to seven out of twelve.

The logical thing to do now is to prepare another batch of submissions to fresh UK agents, and also investigate US agents who accept submission queries online. The trouble is, though, this submissions lark has been going on for over 4 months now ("no time at all, Rik," I hear folks saying) and already I'm bored of it. I'm bored of friends and family and colleagues asking "When's that book of yours going to be published, Rik?" and then having to watch their eyes glaze over as once more I attempt to explain the publishing process to them.

Self-publishing begins to look tempting, even though I've barely scratched the surface of this complex and idiosyncratic business ...

... but maybe not just yet. What I am planning to do is to take down the current RikVerse book from Lulu.com - and publish a revised and extended version (with me listed as the publisher rather than Lulu) ... which in turn means setting myself up as an independent micropublisher. Exciting stuff, huh? I want the poetry book to be available in hardback, paperback and eBook formats. I'm not sure I need an Amazon.com listing as most sales have been generated via my website - and anyways I'm not happy with Amazon's (apparent) policy of demanding publishers offer a high cover price just so they can do their 50% off offers. In addition to the RikVerse, I also plan to finish and publish Snowdrop next year, and there's also SpinTrap, which I never see being published by a big traditional publisher (once it's finished and revised and polished and stuff) ... so maybe, maybe ...