Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site topaz.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!ihnp4!cbosgd!cbdkc1!desoto!packard!topaz!lah%ucbmiro@Berkeley From: lah%ucbmiro@Berkeley Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: Potpourri Message-ID: <2138@topaz.ARPA> Date: Wed, 29-May-85 23:54:04 EDT Article-I.D.: topaz.2138 Posted: Wed May 29 23:54:04 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 31-May-85 02:14:51 EDT Sender: daemon@topaz.ARPA Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 58 From: lah%ucbmiro@Berkeley (First Lieutenant Leigh Ann Hussey) Re: Publisher & Editor Reviews... >(Note that for a novel, you should send a query with an outline and >sample chapters, *not* the whole novel. You don't even need to have >the novel finished.) Sorry, but that's a bad piece of advice. I only hope that you haven't taken it already and suffered an unnecessary rejection. When you have five books or so out, then you can start thinking about sending outlines. Most of the writers I know, however, sent their first novels complete. When an editor knows for certain what he/she is buying from you, ie, will it sell, they won't care (much) what it's about. James Hogan said (Baycon '85) that the only myth-making he does these days is in the writing of his outlines; te subsequent stories sometimes come out very differently. Hogan, however, is an acknowledged seller. In addition, he sent HIS first novel in complete. Meanwhile, an editor can't be sure of what he/she's getting on the basis of an outline and a few chapters unless he/she's seen your work before. Send the whole thing, with return postage (unless you don't want it back), and hope for the best. I'm marketing my first novel, too. (By the way, the above commentator was right about stories -- having a short story of my own out does not seem to have made much difference; what HAS is going to conventions. Know your editors and colleagues-to-be, get your face seen and your work heard -- in that case, having a prior short story or two published is good, as it gets you into cons as a guest and you can meet more people that way). Re: The Black Cauldron I have heard that it will be a glomming-together, in typical Disney fashion, of more than one of the books in the Chronicles of Prydain series. I am hoping for the best, nonetheless -- those books are among my favourites. Re: Trade Paperbacks (the incipient flame) "...those silly, oversized, overpriced "TRADE" paper editions!" Well, that's a matter of opinion. There are many books out which one can only get in trade paper, and are therefore well worth the price. And again, there are some books whose trade editions are better than the mass-markets. I'm thinking specifically of the Bluejay edition of Mildred Downey Broxon's Too Long a Sacrifice. Nice interior illustrations, great centerfold painting (many of Bluejay's books have them; why, though, didn't Door Into Fire have one as its companion volume did? Too bad...), reasonable cover, good binding (sewn in signatures!)... I could go on for days, just out of sheer pleasure in Devil's Advocacy. Besides that, incidentally, it's a very good book, I recommend it (an Irish couple in the sixth century get involved with the Sidhe, leave a fairy mound after a seeming year and find themselves lost in modern- day Northern Ireland, separated. And something more than the usual conflict is afoot... For those who say, "Oh ye Gods, not another Northern Ireland book full of politics and bloodshed and hungerstrikes," I say, read it. You'll be surprised). Phew! Leigh Ann Hussey (lah@ucbmiro.BERKELEY (horatio@ucbmiro.BERKELEY)