LindaNagata

My first several novels were published in the 90s, when books often went out of print (OOP) with remarkable speed. One of the (few) things I did right in my early career was to immediately demand the reversion of rights when the books were no longer available. By the time the self-publishing revolution started, I had the rights back to all six traditionally published novels. In the meantime, I'd been working in web development -- and an ebook is essentially an HTML/CSS document. I knew how to do that. So I decided to create my own ebooks. There is a saying -- No one cares as much about your work as you do. I had a chance to take control of these books, and put them out under my own supervision -- and it was great. The Nanotech books had never been available as ebooks before, so it was really a pleasure to bring them back into availability, both as ebooks, and as print books.

You're welcome! Thanks for stopping in.

I tend to think in terms of favorite books. A few that have really impressed me in recent years are Claire North's THE FIRST FIFTEEN LIVES OF HARRY AUGUST (I always want to write "Harry Potter" but of course the novel has nOTHING to do with HP.) Also, I was quite enthusiastic about Richard Kadrey's Sandman Slim books. Ramez Naam's NEXUS, and Greg Bear's WAR DOGS.

Regarding an editor, yes! Judith Tarr edited the original version of THE RED, and there were only minimal changes to the manuscript when Saga Press republished it. Judy is a very strict editor. I sent her the manuscript after several beta readers had given me big thumbs-up. Judy returned the manuscript to me with over 700 comments on ways the story could be improved. Honestly, I was devastated, and intermittently furious. But I took a deep breath and set about considering each comment individually, and while I ignored a fair number, I addressed the concerns brought up in the majority, and in the end I added around 10K words to the manuscript and ended up with a greatly improved novel.

Generally I start with a very simple outline. I need to have an idea of how the story starts, hopefully some of the major events, and some way in which the story can end. When I first started learning to write fiction, I often wrote stories for which I had not ending and those were always disasters. Ever since, I insist on having an ending before I start, even if I don't use it.

With all three of THE RED books, I started with this sort of loose outline, and kept revising the outline as I advanced with the story. It was essential to have a timeline as well, since events take place over a fairly limited timespan, and use specific dates.

There's been interest in THE RED, but nothing close to development. Still, fingers crossed!

I loved writing the two Puzzle Land books (The Dread Hammer and Hepen the Watcher). Writing isn't usually fun in the moment, but these were fun. I would have been happy to keep writing them, but for me, fantasy doesn't sell as well as science fiction.

I do LOVE writing science fiction though. I like the challenge of it, and especially, dipping into real world technologies. So to answer your question, I'll probably be staying with SF for the immediate future.

Well, unless you're a really big name writer, or really big things are expected of your novel, you're going to have to self promote regardless if you are self or traditionally published. I am not doing less promotion now, than I did when I first self-published THE RED. The advantages to traditional publishing that I've noticed are better distribution, and more book reviewers who are willing to consider your work. But in either form, it's a crowded field.