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Post by Angmar on Aug 19, 2009 3:43:57 GMT
Tonight I tried to find the "Cursed Queen" on Geocities, and she was not there. Vanished, disappeared without a trace. Looks like the curse finally got everyone in the story, and the story itself. The rest of Khazar's page worked. While it was nice to see the beautiful horses, still it was disappointing that the "Cursed Queen" is gone. I hope not forever. www.geocities.com/khazar_khum/cursed_queen.html |
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Post by khazarkhum on Aug 19, 2009 21:32:12 GMT
I had to take the text off of my site. It's still at Henneth Annun & Stories of Arda.
Why did I have to take it down?
Because it's in submission to agents and they don't want the text up for free on your website.
It's the version I modified to make it salable, not the fanfic. I have had an editor go over it once; he didn't make the full connection until I pointed him at my homepage. He warned me to remove it as some agents have an allergy to fanfic. Not all: some love it, and some of the best fantasy editors even write it. Since there is no way to know who will ultimately get it, it's best to not have it on the site. And publishers don't like you giving things away for free.
So far, 3 rejects, 1 partial request, 6 queries still out there.
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Post by Elfhild on Aug 20, 2009 1:36:18 GMT
Khazar, good luck on getting the "Cursed Queen" published!
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Post by Angmar on Aug 20, 2009 5:15:48 GMT
Khazar, I can understand why you had to take it off your site. Will you still be keeping it on Henneth Annun and Stories of Arda? I always considered your story one of the most unique and novel of any story I ever read in the Middle Earth fanfic vein. You were not afraid to "go where others dared not go," and maybe rock some people's insistance upon corpse Nazgûl interpretations. Your story will always remain a favorite of mine. As a matter of fact, when I think of all the many Middle-earth fanfics I have read over the years, yours, one by Ottis on OSA, Thundera Tiger's "Mirkwood Solstice," and of course Elfhild's work are the only ones which stand out in my mind, and the rest have faded away, forgotten. Anymore, I seldom read any Middle-earth fanfiction. Many stories have a staleness about them and seem to float in some world of unreality. Too much author fantasy and idealism. I prefer grittier works.
Good luck on getting the book published.
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Post by khazarkhum on Aug 20, 2009 20:03:29 GMT
Thank you both. You have no idea how much it means, coming from you.
It's also at Open Scrolls, which I should have mentioned yesterday. It'll stay in those archives. I have it archived here, too, but until I get it sold it's best if it stays off my own site.
I agree with you, sadly, about the fanfic. It's the same old same old, with no new insights or thoughts.
What worries me a little is that I tend to be way off the curve when it comes to trends. Tasha, the chick-lit vampire, is now considered the first of the subgenre--and her stories first came out in 1994, and haven't been considered publishable since. Her friend, the vampire priest? Well, those are just now coming into fashion.
I just hope I'm not too off the curve this time. 8)
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Post by khazarkhum on Aug 21, 2009 1:19:17 GMT
I meant to add something.
If you ever want to feel like you are jumping through hoops & being yanked around, go into publishing. You used the wrong format/typeface? REJECT! Wrong genre even though the website says we represent it? REJECT! We wanted that last month! REJECT!
And those are the ones that respond in something resembling a timely manner.
You wait a minimum of 3 months before worrying about the query. Then add 3 more moths. And once an editor says yes, it takes another year before it hits the shelves.
Working at the little tiny epub, where I've managed to alienate the boss by not liking her 30 year old feminist fantasy manifesto starring her Mary Sue, I thought I would learn something. I've learned, all right. I've learned that most people have no idea at all about what they are doing, or what's going on. I would like to think bigger publishers are more together, but frankly I don't think so.
And that worries me!
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Post by Elfhild on Aug 22, 2009 7:58:48 GMT
Keep trying. The publication of "Twilight" is proof that there is a publisher out there who will publish anything, and I do mean anything. However, why is it always the crappy stuff that gets published?  |
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Post by khazarkhum on Aug 26, 2009 0:28:19 GMT
Someone has to like it. They're all looking for the next Harry Potter, Twilight, Dan Brown etc. But they don't know what that looks like, so they print things more or less like them in hopes that they're right. Or they print garbage by celebrities. And the Clinton books were given huge advances as a form of "soft money donations".
I just need to find the right combination of people.
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