On New Year's Eve: The Experiment, An Update

Last week, a couple of days before Christmas, I recieved my contract from Publish America. So I looked it over, Angel looked it over, we discussed it and decided we were satisfied.

I signed it and mailed it on December 23rd.

I am officially an author, slated to be published in the coming year.

I've had most of the week off, and with the marvellous Christmas Present from Angel of a new office chair (Which I love immensely), I have had my ass parked in front of the computer, dilligently pecking away at the "publishing rewrite" of The Unearthing.

At the same time, I've been mulling over several different plans for the marketing of my novel, some of which I will discuss here in greater detail in the future. My main goal is to raise money for the marketing venture in time to do this. In other words, if you've ever thought of donating to the K Space Universe, now would be the time.

I do have other sources of revenue to throw at this, though: My annual February bonus; my recently-acquired-and-coinciding-with-my-fifth-year-of-employment-with-the-company stock options (Which only pay out in December 2006) and my credit card, if I manage to get a sizeable chunk of that paid off.

Likewise, I have also decided that, as I am literally a month ahead of my delivery schedule, I'm going to take a couple of weeks to read over The Unearthing one last time before they send me a proof copy, in order to make sure that I've not left in any superfluous text, typos or punctuation errors.

However, before I do that, I need to take a break. This coming week I will be working on another couple of writing projects that were sidlined while I prioritized The Unearthing. Understand, if you would, that this is because I have been working on The Unearthing in one form or another, since 1997. That is eight years of my life. I don't think I've worked on anything else I've written as intensively or as constantly as I have this book.

And a lot's happened to good old Steve Karmazenuk in those eight years; Eight years is a life lived. I've been in two different relationships. I survived the Ice Storm. I lost some good friends, made others. My grandmother died. My god-daughter and one of my nieces was born. My friends Kevin and Tammie celebrated the births of two (or is it three--I can't keep track) beautiful children, increasing their brood to four offspring in total. I moved to Ottawa. I moved back to Montreal. My cousins got married. I started working in telecommunications. I got married. My wife's grandmother died. My uncle died. My cousins gave birth to two more beautiful babies. My parents' family dogs died. My parents moved into a new apartment and I wrote three other novels besides The Unearthing, including one that was briefly e-published at http://jumpgate.technomages.net

So as I look back, this early morning of December 31st 2005, I'm not only looking back on this last year. I'm looking back on these last eight years.

In July of 1997 I started with an idea for a story. Look how far I've travelled with just that one idea. Look how much farther I still have to go.

Never doubt the power of a single idea.
Never doubt the power of a single idea to change your life.
Never doubt the power of a single idea to change your life, if you only have the wisdom to follow it as it wends its way along the darkened path of the unknown future.

J Michael Straczynski, the creator of Babylon 5 and one of the men who gave me the inspiration to write again after having abandoned writing after college, said it best:

Write the story you want to read.
Live the life you want to live.
Do what gives you joy.
The rest will attend to itself.

JMS, thank you.

To everyone: Happy New Year.

These chronicles will continue in 2006.

Until then I remain your faithful narrator,

Steve Karmazenuk,
The Keeper of ){ Space.

News From All Over

So I'm taking a break from my hectic schedule (re-formatting The Unearthing) to give a quick update. First, I have opened up a new dimension in K Space: the K Space Movie Reviews. I assume you're all astute enough to figure out what's going to happen over there...

And, the gossip mill at my office means that I'm a minor celebrity, or at least an idle curiosity; so far I'm averaging 3 people a day asking me about the book. My email campaign is progressing, and thanks to all my well-wishers for, well, wishing me...umm...well.

I'm also hapy to report that my publishers mailed out the written contract today, so I'll be signing that in a week or two. Likewise, they asked me to forward them some info on the local papers so that they could send out a press release about me signing--I get the impression this is standard protocol on their part, but it's thrilling nonetheless.

Okay...not much of a blog entry, and probably not that educational for you--but hey! At least it's writing-related!

I promise to have some more "content driven" posts in the near future...probably after the holiday madness dies down.

No need to report that until we have something to report

Once again, let me apologize for the long delay between posts. I have spent the last two weeks going through communications with my soon-to-be publishers, Publish America.

Mainly, because of some sort of email server issue for which of course my email provider, Bell Sympatico of course denies all responsibility. And we believe them, don't we boys and girls?

Anyway, I digress: I've completed an agreement in principle to publish my novel! My contact at Publish America had sent me a sample contract last monday, and that's when I started reviewing it and doing some research.

The first concern I had was with the seven year duration of the contract; seven years is as long as it took me to write the book. But my friends in Toronto Kevin and his wife Tammie did a little research and found out from people who work in publishing that 7 years is a pretty standard length of time.

TerishD who also publishes with Publish America told me I'd have input on the cover design, which was another concern of mine.

My friend Tom wanted me to find out about the ebook and audiobook rights, which I found out from Publish America I retain 100% full rights on.

The other concerns I had will be addressed at a later time, mainly because much will depend on the time it takes the book to be produced and the page count the finished book will have when produced.

So now I have until February 1st to reformat the book according to Publish America's requirements. When that's done I'll send it off to Publish America, and The Artifact, which will henceforth be known as The Unearthing. This last because there's already a number of titles published by PA that have the word "Artifact" in the title.

Either yesterday or on this coming Monday, a written contract will be in the mail for me to sign and return.

Now, as I still retain ebook and audio book rights, this is another means for me to make some money and spread the news about my book and I am already working on ideas on marketing and promotion.

How to describe how I feel? Happy, accomplished and already looking ahead. Because Publish America doesn't get much respect from the big bookstores, I'll have to fight an uphill battle for sales and recognition. I don't really care, though. I'm officially a published author, and my success is now up to me.

This chronicle will continue.