The good morning, good night thread

[desertwomble]

Looks like the British Western Fiction world continues as normal - just with a different publisher. Just had an acceptance from Crowood Press who have bought out Robert Hale Ltd. So one day in about a year's time my fifth Western: "Dead Man's Eyes" will hit a library near you  :-))

"Rollin', rollin', rollin'; keep them Westerns rollin', rawhide!"

Congrats, Derek.

DW

[marc_chagall]

Excellent! 

[Geoff_N]

Yee hah! Good to hear, Del.

[marc_chagall]

Happy Christmas, you lot! 

[elay2433]

Merry Christmas to you too, delph.  Hope you had a good one. Merry Christmas everybody.

[Ed]

Looks like the British Western Fiction world continues as normal - just with a different publisher. Just had an acceptance from Crowood Press who have bought out Robert Hale Ltd. So one day in about a year's time my fifth Western: "Dead Man's Eyes" will hit a library near you  :-))

Congrats, Del -- that's great news

Merry Christmas all  I've been off on my hols to Gran Canaria for a week. It was good, but now I've got this all inclusive belly to work off at the gymn

[delboy]

Happy New Year, one and all - couple of days late I know, but what the hell. Hopefully you're all still on track with your new year resolutions?

[Ed]

Happy new year, Del, and everybody else

No resolutions here. I tend to decide on a course of action driven by necessity rather than the date. I think it's a good idea to contemplate exactly what you want to achieve in the year ahead at this point, though. It's always good to have a plan, even if it later changes as you go along. I'll give it some thought -- thanks for the reminder

[Rev. Austin]

Belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, folks!

Congrats on the Western finding a home, Del!

Geoff-  who knows, maybe for reasons completely unknown to me I'll find myself back in that cafe the exact time you pop back haha

If I've learnt anything from 2015 it's that the future isn't set in stone. Every single one of my plans fell through, except for my wedding/two visits to the States. I'm currently waiting to hear on a green card application, although it's with Texas and they take bloody ages to process that sort of stuff.

I did manage to finish a novel though, and I've sent it off to beta readers today. I've eyeballed a few publishers but if that all falls through/doesn't pan out, I may...may...dip my toes into the murky waters of self-publishing 

[marc_chagall]

Rev, I was never a fan of self-publishing till I did it - and found my self-pubbed book selling faster than my trad published books. So who knows    The self-pubbed one is paperback only, so I can't even put that down to e-book sales.

[Ed]

Hi Rev, sounds like exciting times for you. Have to agree that nothing's set in stone. Last year was a real roller coaster ride with lots of things changing that I didn't see coming, things that seemed certain to stay the same.

Can't imagine you moving to Texas from Scunthorp -- that's quite a change. Good luck with the novel. I bet it's a good read

[delboy]

Anyone use Duotrope now that it has a subscription fee? I used to find a few potential markets there in the old days but I'm a bit out of touch with anything that doesn't involve a horse and a Colt. I'm revisiting a few older pieces and am wondering if it's worth the subscription fee?

[marc_chagall]

Depends what sort of market you're looking for. I paid the fee for a year, but didn't feel I got my money's worth as I tend to end for the lit fic and poetry end of things, and they're easy enough to find without using Duotrope.

[elay2433]

I paid for a year, too. I didn't really get my money's worth either, but that's due more to me not taking advantage of all the market listings rather than it not being of any value. I can see it being worth it if you're writing and subbing a lot. Otherwise, there are a few other sources for market listings out there. One of my favorites is http://www.darkmarkets.com

One of the things I liked most about Duotrope was the statistics. If I was subbing to an anthology it was fun to watch the stats roll in and update daily. I could see how many new subs came in for the market, how many rejections had gone through, and if I hadn't received my rejection yet, I could fantasize that my story was being held for a second read.

The other thing I liked was the calendar feature where they organized themed markets by closing date. That way you could just browse through and, based on you own writing/editing speed, pick a market/theme that would fit your schedule and tastes.

I typically find enough to keep my busy with the Darkmarkets site, but if I can't find anything there that interests me, I just google search for open markets. A bit more tedious, but between the two I'm not wasting any money. If I wrote more and subbed more, I'd probably kick up a subscription to Duotrope. I do occasionally drop the five bucks for a single month subscription.

[desertwomble]

That's a great looking site, Elay.

Here's one I've just come across that needs the author to subscribe to the site:

https://winningwriters.com/the-best-free-literary-contests

Strangely enough, this site came to me along with an editorial about being wary of anything that's 'free', i.e. giving your book away for free on Amazon, and a customer's expectations of quality of anything that's free.

DW