First response to ‘Frozen’
June 27th, 2012
The new book, ‘Frozen’, has leapt the first hurdle in fine style … my agent, Margaret Connolly, says it’s ‘a knockout’ and ‘magnificent’.
*blushing*
She has sent it to Allen & Unwin, who will probably take ages to read it because they are always so busy. But I’m feeling a bit more confident about it now, after Margaret’s response, so won’t chew my nails TOO much.
Writing can be such a nerve wracking business. Really, it’s much nicer being in the middle of a draft, where all you have to think about is what the characters are going to do next, and you’re not worrying about whether people are going to like the book or not. I wonder whether all authors feel like this. I suspect most of them do.
Now I am taking a break from writing, while I ponder what to do next.
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About Lian
Lian Tanner has been dynamited while scuba diving and arrested while busking. She once spent a week in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, hunting for a Japanese soldier left over from the Second World War. Nowadays she lives by the beach in southern Tasmania.
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Yayyy!
It’s ME!
I am back on and ready to talk about FROZEN!
(Brr! )
I can not wait to hear what the publishers say !
Also please continue writing it makes ME want to cry over my keyboard !!
Please for me and all of your fans ,can you have a a small holiday because we need you!
Please reply !
From Lilli a very sad girl that just found out that her favorite author is having a holiday from writing!)
(In the background) NO!!!!!!!!
😛
*laughing loudly* Hi Lilli! What a nice message. Don’t worry, my holidays never last very long – another story always starts nibbling at me, and I have to take notice of it. But in the meantime it’s nice having a couple of weeks with nothing to do except potter round and read lots of other people’s books. The year will soon ramp up again, I’ll be writing before you know it, and then of course there’s the launch of Path of Beasts in October.
But I’ll let you know as soon as I get a response from the publishers!
Congratulations! That sounds fantastic!
Very pleased, Romi. After working on a book for a year, one feels very uncertain about showing it to someone, and very excited at the same time. So it’s wonderful when they’re enthusiastic!
Phew!!!
ALLELUIA !!!!!!
The heavens are singing!
Thx Lian I am so relieved that you can not stop writing !
Same with me I seriously can not get away from my Draft Writing Book.
Thank you!!!!
From Lilli (a very relieved little bookworm)
XoXoXoXo
😀 😀 😀 I suspect that writing stories is addictive. Or maybe it’s just books, whether you’re reading them or writing them.
yes, reading and writing books is a very addictive hobby! 😉
I agree, Laurel!
BTW, do you know about the character cards I’m giving away? I’ll probably do another giveaway next Monday morning, which is Sunday evening US time. So if you’d like a set, keep your eyes on the website.
I will tell all my friends about keepers!!!! Yes, i am in the US. My fingers are crossed!!!!!!!!
Wonderful. I hereby appoint you as one of my volunteer publicists!
yay!! all of my friends are really interested!!!!
Excellent! I can see that I chose the right publicist. 😀
Lian,to me it’s all of them above writing ,reading and books (also iBooks!)
Tee Hee 😉
Lilli:)
Lian, i think you are VERY quickly becoming my favorite autor!!!! you are so nice and SUCH a great author!
Can’t wait for october 9th!!!
Also can’t wait for the brizzlehound, slaughterbird, idle-cat trillogy!!!
Ice breakers sounds like a good read!!! do you know when it will be released? i hope soon!! 😀
Laurel, I guess if you’re waiting for October 9th you must be in the US. Is that right? The book comes out there a little bit later than it does in Australia. As for ‘Ice Breaker’, it’s coming out at the beginning of October 2013 in Australia. My agent hasn’t offered it to my American publisher yet, but will do so in the next month or so, when I’ve got this draft finished. So keep your fingers crossed. And if you REALLY want to see my future books published in America, then tell your friends about the Keepers trilogy! The more people who love it, the happier my publishers are, and the more likely they are to publish the next book I write.
Hello Lian,
Frozen sounds very exciting. Will be looking out for more news. Could you tell what your pathway to publication was like? How hard was it to get an agent and how long did it take? Where there many rejections and how did you get your US agent? Its such tremendous hard work and you really deserve all the goodies now. Such great writing, very inspiring.
Hi Tan, thanks for the message. The pathway to publication is always a tricky one, and full of difficulties. I was aware of this when I started out, so I went about it in a fairly sneaky fashion. 😀 My first children’s novel, Rats!, was published in 2004 after I won a mentorship with the Australian Society of Authors. They were offering mentorships for emerging writers – which I was at the time – to work with experienced authors in getting their manuscripts into shape, ready for publication. I chose to work with the well-known Australian author Gary Crew. His comments were invaluable, but even better was the fact that he sent my finished manuscript to his publisher at Lothian Books. So I bypassed the dreaded slush pile and got a reply within a couple of weeks, accepting the m/s for publication.
When I finished Museum of Thieves, I could have sent it straight off to Lothian, which by then had been taken over by Hachette. But I didn’t think they were the right publisher for the book, and I wanted to get an agent, someone who would advise me. Once again, I knew it wouldn’t be easy. These days, agents are almost as hard to get as a publisher. But I have a friend, Rachael Treasure, who publishes with Penguin, and I had heard her sing the praises of her agent, Margaret Connolly. So I sent the first three chapters of the book off to Rachael, with a note saying ‘If you like it, can you send it to your agent please?’ Luckily, she DID like it, and sent it to Margaret, who also liked it, and asked to see the rest of the book.
From there on, it was pretty easy from my point of view. Margaret has an American agent, Jill Grinberg, who she deals with all the time, so I didn’t have to do anything – Jill got the m/s and auctioned it in New York, and she and Margaret helped me choose which offer to accept. It’s kind of a dream story really, for a writer.
So knowing other authors helps, as do things like mentorships – very much so, if you can get them. But it also helped that by the time all this happened, I had a bit of a track record in smaller things – I had published a number of short children’s stories in School Magazine, had had two radio plays produced on the ABC, as well as several puppet plays. These things meant that I knew I was working at a publishable level and that people liked my work, which gave me a certain confidence. I think it’s very difficult if all you have written is a novel, for example, and you don’t really know if your work is publishable, or in which areas you need to improve. I don’t know what your situation is, but I always suggest to people that they start with something a LOT smaller than a novel, like short stories or poems or a blog, to get some sense of where their work stands professionally, and whether it interests people or not.
Hope this helps!