AprNoWriMo and Script Frenzy!

Caitlin Black

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Finally typed up the quotes from Jane Eyre. One-handed, because the book wouldn't stay open. *sigh* So slow!

But now all I have to do is write the essay - I've done all the prep work. :)
 

Silver-Midnight

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Well, I only have a few more weeks in school myself. I just have to get through those.

I tried writing a contemporary romance short, but that's really failing. The plot just feels...not there for me right now. I don't know if it's because I'm still burnt out from my previous short story or what.

I might take some of the ideas and turn into a fantasy story instead; I've had this comical thing roaming around in my head for a little bit now.

I'm trying to figure out if there are any "big" UF publishers, but so far, I haven't really found any. It's starting to worry me a little bit.
 
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Caitlin Black

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Try the ones who published Stephenie Meyer, Charlaine Harris, Claudia Gray, Melissa Marr, etc. They're big authors down here in Australia, so I'm assuming they're the top picks of what's popular elsewhere (that's how it usually works here (apart from local authors) for better or worse).

Not sure who their publishers are, but they've certainly got reach.
 

Silver-Midnight

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But you'll probably need an agent to get your foot in the door for any "big" publisher.

Yeah. By "big", I meant that the Urban Fantasy/Fantasy books are at least somewhat popular. Most of the ePublishers that I've seen that do it don't have large sections for UF, and require a large romantic sub-plot.


Nothing wrong with being a fantasy writer :) I mean, you can do a lot more with it then you can contemporary and get away with a lot more.

Yeah, that's true. There's also a lot of room for sub-plotting/sub-genre-ing I guess.
 

Caitlin Black

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Mmm. Well, if e-pubs aren't giving you what you need, there's nothing to stop you from shooting for the trad-pubs.

And yeah, I wasn't thinking when you said UF. I jumped straight into PNR...
 

Caitlin Black

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The ones I listed all have heavy romance elements, so I assumed they were PNR.

I get fuzzy on the distinctions though. Paranormal Romance vs. Urban Fantasy... Eh, both appeal to me, so it doesn't really bother me how such things are classified.
 

Caitlin Black

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Oh, and I have decided that, Damn it, I'm going to work on my novel. My essays are nearly finished, with a little over a week left to work on them, so they can wait a little while longer.

But I'm just so sick of living "around" mum's house. It's very much her house - I just have a tiny bedroom and access to a few other rooms, with none of my stuff in them. My bookcases are in the garage, along with my (still not set up because there's nowhere to put it) drum kit, my exercise bike is outside under a verandah... Everything else of mine is crammed into my bedroom.

And I keep wanting to do things which require space. But there's just nowhere that's "mine" which is spacious. And I'm sick of it.

Now, I can't earn enough money from a day job to get my own place if I'm studying at Uni, so writing has to pay off.

And that's where my "Damn it!" moment came from just now. I've got to be proactive. I haven't worked on my novel in over a week... It's getting close to submission standard, but I keep avoiding it. No more!

Viva la revolution!
 

Caitlin Black

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Finished typing up my outline notes, then typed a 1300-word synopsis. That might be a tad long, but I still need to figure out exactly what to focus on in the final edits.

Ahhhh, progress! It feels good. :)
 

TNK

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I'm trying to figure out if there are any "big" UF publishers, but so far, I haven't really found any. It's starting to worry me a little bit.

You haven't looked hard enough. The best thing to do is find some Urban Fantasy books and look to see who publishes them.

Here are three that I know of, and their guidelines say nothing about needing an agent to submit to them.

Ace and Roc are part of Penguine. They take Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Here's a link to their submission guidelines:

http://us.penguingroup.com/static/pages/specialinterests/scifi/submission.html

Then there's Baen who publish Sci-Fi and Fantasy only:

http://www.baen.com/submit.asp

I hope this helps you in your search. :)

Edit: I forgot Tor/Forge. You don't need an agent to submit to them either.

http://us.macmillan.com/Content.aspx?publisher=torforge&id=255#ctl00_cphContent_ctl30_lblQuestion
 
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Ok, I have just finished the scriptfrenzy script. I took a few days off the novel(s) to finish it off. Now, I feel like I am a little behind but I always said I'd write a movie script... not with the intent of selling it but just as a learning exercise.
 

Caitlin Black

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Wow, kicking butt Shadow!

TNK, thanks for the links. I know I wasn't the person asking about it, but I do write UF/PNR so, yeah, thanks. :)

Oh, and I decided to take a break and cook dinner. While doing that, I was playing on the Wii, which I set up today. Damn near broke my finger!

I was playing bowling, and when my arm went backwards, I kind of smashed my hand against a heavy wooden chair... *sigh* I guess I need to move the Wii into the other room, which I avoided doing because it would've been harder to set up.

But "harder to set up" isn't as bad as "will probably break a finger one day"... :tongue
 

FoamyRules

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I write UF as well, have been for quite some time now. UF can have romantic elements but it can't be the driving force of the story, whereas PNR being a sub genre of romance has to have that in there plus the HEA or HFN. Not all of UF's have romantic elements from my understanding.
 

K. Taylor

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You haven't looked hard enough. The best thing to do is find some Urban Fantasy books and look to see who publishes them.

Here are three that I know of, and their guidelines say nothing about needing an agent to submit to them.

Ace and Roc are part of Penguine. They take Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Here's a link to their submission guidelines:

http://us.penguingroup.com/static/pages/specialinterests/scifi/submission.html

Then there's Baen who publish Sci-Fi and Fantasy only:

http://www.baen.com/submit.asp

I hope this helps you in your search. :)

Edit: I forgot Tor/Forge. You don't need an agent to submit to them either.

http://us.macmillan.com/Content.aspx?publisher=torforge&id=255#ctl00_cphContent_ctl30_lblQuestion

This.

And if you want to write fantasy types, then do research in the Fantasy section of AW. Those folks know their stuff and the Cantina is a great place to hang out.

E-pubs are building their UF stock. Lyrical and Entangled jump immediately to mind. Takes time to become one of the big boys, but that doesn't undercut their value.
 

TNK

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TNK, thanks for the links. I know I wasn't the person asking about it, but I do write UF/PNR so, yeah, thanks. :)

You're welcome. :)

I read and write both Fantasy and Urban Fantasy, so when I started looking up publishers I just went to my bookshelf. :)

The novel I'm currently editing is Urban Fantasy.
 

FoamyRules

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You haven't looked hard enough. The best thing to do is find some Urban Fantasy books and look to see who publishes them.

Here are three that I know of, and their guidelines say nothing about needing an agent to submit to them.

Ace and Roc are part of Penguine. They take Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Here's a link to their submission guidelines:

http://us.penguingroup.com/static/pages/specialinterests/scifi/submission.html

Then there's Baen who publish Sci-Fi and Fantasy only:

http://www.baen.com/submit.asp

I hope this helps you in your search. :)

Edit: I forgot Tor/Forge. You don't need an agent to submit to them either.

http://us.macmillan.com/Content.aspx?publisher=torforge&id=255#ctl00_cphContent_ctl30_lblQuestion
Thanks for this list as well. The thing about subbing to these houses without an agent (except for Tor I think) is that your story will more than likely end up in the slush pile and may not get read. I hope I'm wrong about that though.
 

Silver-Midnight

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You haven't looked hard enough. The best thing to do is find some Urban Fantasy books and look to see who publishes them.

Here are three that I know of, and their guidelines say nothing about needing an agent to submit to them.

Ace and Roc are part of Penguine. They take Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Here's a link to their submission guidelines:

http://us.penguingroup.com/static/pages/specialinterests/scifi/submission.html

Then there's Baen who publish Sci-Fi and Fantasy only:

http://www.baen.com/submit.asp

I hope this helps you in your search. :)

Edit: I forgot Tor/Forge. You don't need an agent to submit to them either.

http://us.macmillan.com/Content.aspx?publisher=torforge&id=255#ctl00_cphContent_ctl30_lblQuestion

Yeah, when I was looking, I was really trying to find an ePublisher who had(or sold) a lot of Urban Fantasy. At that time, excluding Lyrical and Entangled, I didn't have that much luck.

I knew about some of the bigger publisher, but I assumed, you needed a agent for all of them, including Penguin Group. I know you need on for Random House and Harper Collins. So, does this mean that some divisions of bigger publishers don't necessarily require that you have an agent, or are the "Submission Guidelines" for the main publisher universal? I could have sworn that Penguin Group required an agent. Thank you so much for the list. I've only recently gotten into UF, and most of the books I read are with Random House(or its divisions). I've seen one with Avon Romance, and I think one with Penguin but I can't be certain.

But again, much thanks. So, for future reference, should I look to see if the imprint, not the main publisher takes non-agent books/queries. and do you have any advice for going about finding the Submission Guidelines for them? I always have a hard time locating them. I kind of know what publishers to look for, like you said, look at the UF books that I like, and try there. I could also look at the SF/F and UF-sub forums for publishers I suppose. Any more suggestions for finding one? I mean I'm nowhere near publisher ready, but it's nice to have an idea of what I should do(or be doing).

This.

And if you want to write fantasy types, then do research in the Fantasy section of AW. Those folks know their stuff and the Cantina is a great place to hang out.

E-pubs are building their UF stock. Lyrical and Entangled jump immediately to mind. Takes time to become one of the big boys, but that doesn't undercut their value.

I frequent the UF sub-forum more than the Fantasy forum, but I can definitely start going through the main SF/F boards as well.

I've heard of Lyrical and Entangled, but aren't both them small still? I can't remember. I know they take up a lot of of Fantasy though.




I found this, but you have to subscribe to it, i.e. pay :

http://www.writersmarket.com/

This one is free so far as I know:

http://www.agentquery.com/
 
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K. Taylor

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Small press doesn't = small money for the author, you know. That's not automatic.

Yes, you should look at the imprint's guidelines.

Another fantasy publisher is Pyr.

If you haven't read The Dresden Files yet, do so. Jim Butcher is one of the biggest names in UF. Ask in the Cantina for other recs. Some of those members already have books out.
 

Silver-Midnight

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Small press doesn't = small money for the author, you know. That's not automatic.

Yes, you should look at the imprint's guidelines.

Another fantasy publisher is Pyr.

If you haven't read The Dresden Files yet, do so. Jim Butcher is one of the biggest names in UF. Ask in the Cantina for other recs. Some of those members already have books out.

Sorry, I misspoke, what I meant was isn't Entangled Publishing brand new? Didn't they just start up, or am I confusing them for someone else?

So, I should check the imprint. Okay.

I have a lot of UF recs; some which are books by AWers (Stacia Kane for example). I haven't read The Dresden Files yet, but I have read one or two books in the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs, a book in the Night Huntress series by Jeaniene Frost,still reading that, and right now, I'm also reading the first book in the Fever series by Karen Marie Moning.