Better Late Than Never
Jul. 13th, 2010 10:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sinanjuI finally got my second novel shoved out the door today. I'd planned to have it in circulation by the end of June, but what with fighting a recurring cold throughout the month of June, I lost quite a few days to brain-fog. Still, I did finally get it finished, had my lovely and talented wife read it, took most if not all of her suggestions to heart, revised it somewhat, and hammered it into final form.
As of tonight, it's either in the hands of two publishers (submitted by email or webform) or winging its weigh to three others (snailmail). Getting it to one publisher (Baen Books) was a chore because they want manuscripts uploaded in RTF format*. Which wouldn't normally be such a big deal except that OpenOffice sucks at converting any other format into RTF. It's a known problem of some years duration, apparently. (I know other users of OO who claim not to have this issue, but it's not just my imagination--there are help forums out there where this is discussed, sometimes hotly.)
I ended up having to save the document in .doc format, then opening it on my laptop (running Word under WIndows XP) and saving that copy in RTF format. Then I could send it to Baen. What a pain in the butt. I also had to resort to doing edits on my Cobblestone Press sales on the laptop as well, because OpenOffice doesn't work and play well with Word's comments feature. I think when I eventually upgrade to a new PC I'm gonna have to bite the bullet and get a Windows machine. I love me my linux, but the rest of the world is mostly using Windows and Word, and I may have to go along to get along.
I also need to figure out what my next novel is going to be. Pop quiz, hotshot!** I can't do a real poll, so just pretend:
POLL: WHAT SHOULD SINANJU'S NEXT NOVEL BE?
1. Romance
2. Science Fiction
3. Urban Fantasy
4. Young Adult
5. Some combination of the above.
6. Cake!
7. I wish to register a complaint about this poll.
Stories in Circulation: 11
Rejections: 45
Stories Accepted: SEVEN
Stories to Resubmit: 0
Novel Queries: 2 Novels in circulation, 8 queries out
Novel Rejections: 7
*Yeah, yeah. I know I'm writing "rich text format format". Shut up.
**If you instantly replied, "I shoot the hostage!" you win a cookie for being an 80s Keanu Reeves/Patrick Swayse movie geek.
As of tonight, it's either in the hands of two publishers (submitted by email or webform) or winging its weigh to three others (snailmail). Getting it to one publisher (Baen Books) was a chore because they want manuscripts uploaded in RTF format*. Which wouldn't normally be such a big deal except that OpenOffice sucks at converting any other format into RTF. It's a known problem of some years duration, apparently. (I know other users of OO who claim not to have this issue, but it's not just my imagination--there are help forums out there where this is discussed, sometimes hotly.)
I ended up having to save the document in .doc format, then opening it on my laptop (running Word under WIndows XP) and saving that copy in RTF format. Then I could send it to Baen. What a pain in the butt. I also had to resort to doing edits on my Cobblestone Press sales on the laptop as well, because OpenOffice doesn't work and play well with Word's comments feature. I think when I eventually upgrade to a new PC I'm gonna have to bite the bullet and get a Windows machine. I love me my linux, but the rest of the world is mostly using Windows and Word, and I may have to go along to get along.
I also need to figure out what my next novel is going to be. Pop quiz, hotshot!** I can't do a real poll, so just pretend:
POLL: WHAT SHOULD SINANJU'S NEXT NOVEL BE?
1. Romance
2. Science Fiction
3. Urban Fantasy
4. Young Adult
5. Some combination of the above.
6. Cake!
7. I wish to register a complaint about this poll.
Stories in Circulation: 11
Rejections: 45
Stories Accepted: SEVEN
Stories to Resubmit: 0
Novel Queries: 2 Novels in circulation, 8 queries out
Novel Rejections: 7
*Yeah, yeah. I know I'm writing "rich text format format". Shut up.
**If you instantly replied, "I shoot the hostage!" you win a cookie for being an 80s Keanu Reeves/Patrick Swayse movie geek.