12 Books in 12 Months

Now that I’ve written the bare bones of twelve books, every publisher and their granny have announced their intention to accept manuscript submissions from un-agented newbies.  Well, maybe not all of them.  But a few. 

Angry Robot books, who you may remember I interviewed towards the end of last year, are looking for classic fantasy novels.  This means questing, elves, olde worlde type stuff.  Alas, my fantasy novel was modern and aimed at children.  But if you have such a thing on the go, you can submit it between April 16^th and April 30^th this very year.  For full details, go here: http://angryrobotbooks.com/opendoor

Strange Chemistry are the YA imprint of Angry Robot, and they are after Young Adult Science Fiction or Fantasy.  Their doors are open for submissions from new writers between April 16^th and April 30^th too.  I would be inclined to spend the next two months furiously reworking my SF book, had I not recently joined Goodreads and discovered that someone has already written and published it.  Curses.  If you have an original tome, have a look at the conditions here: http://strangechemistrybooks.com/opendoor/

Bamboccioni Books are a new indie publishing start-up who have so far produced a book of short stories including one by yours truly, and are now looking to publish a novel ‘too niche for mainstream publishers’.  If that sounds like you, their contact details are here:  http://www.bamboccionibooks.com/news.html

Finally, The Dundee International Book Prize is now open for submissions.  They aren’t looking for any specific genres, and previous winners have submitted crime, fantasy and historical fiction set in Dundee, Dublin and Soho.  I had actually thought about this competition last year when penning my western, but the deadline is March 1^st and there’s no way I will be able to rework the manuscript enough during February to submit it.  I have a job, after all.  If you are a bit further on than me, find out more about it here: http://www.dundeebookprize.com/pressdundeebook.htm

The trouble with writing a draft a month is, you feel like you’re getting yourself into a position where you can take advantage of opportunities like this pretty soon.  Then you realise this is not the case.  I work better to deadlines, sure, and maybe I can get one of the 12 towards some semblance of a workable first draft across a month if I don’t do anything else much – but transform it into a finished manuscript?  I think not.  And anyway, some things it is better not to rush.

In other news, this weekend I intend to finish putting together a review of 12 Books in 12 Months which will go live on Monday.  I expect there will be bullet points, and perhaps a note of things to take forward in the year ahead as in all good reports.  There will also be a definitive word count, which will be significantly lower than the original projection of 600,000 (I made the 50k a grand total of 2 out of 12 times).

Then when February rolls around next Wednesday, I embark upon the 28 Drawings Later challenge… and consider cracking open some word documents from last year to witness the grim and terrible truth of my writing a year after the fact.  It’s going to be emotional.