Kristin Nelson posted today on hearing from an editor that BN will not be expanding their shelf space devoted to young adult fiction, despite the continued growth in the category.
This is depressing. Not just because I'm writing YA, which I am, but in general.
My ambitions of selling YA fiction aside, I think it's depressing to see how little shelf space there actually is for YA books. Don't we WANT kids reading? There is, in my opinion, a disproportionate amount of shelf space for adult fiction. Most nonfiction is geared toward adults as well. Young adult, when I've walked into BN and Borders, has a restricted amount of shelf space and little attention paid to it by the booksellers.
If they're worried about shelf space, maybe they should look at shrinking down their music and movie sections. We have stores for those products and they're usually cheaper elsewhere too.
Showing posts with label the biz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the biz. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Monday, March 19, 2007
Top 10 Publishers in the US of A
Michael S. Hyatt, President & CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, posted graphs showing the Top 10 Trade Publishers and Top 10 Christian Publishers in the US. See here if you're interested (come on, you know you are!)
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Of... The Day Job
Michael Bourret at Dystel and Goderich wrote a recent post suggesting that authors keeping their day jobs. He's definitely not the first; I'm pretty sure I've seen such comments on every agent blog I've read. Don't go into writing for the money; you won't make any. Don't quit your day job until you make enough money writing to cover what you make from your day job. Holly Lisle has a series of small articles on the subject too. I suggest anyone looking to quit their job and live off his or her writing read them first.
The problem with keeping the day job, especially where I am now (which is to say, working on the first, probably not publishable, novel) is that the paying day job has to come first. And right now (I wrote "write" instead of "right" there... I do that a lot) I'm out of my house from 7 am until after 8 pm. And taking a class. And then there's the whole matter of having to eat and, y'know, sleep once in a while. It doesn't leave much time for writing.
Most of the stuff I've read about writing professionally says that unless you can force yourself to come home after a long day of work and write, you'll struggle to force yourself to write if that becomes your only job. (Am I making sense here?) And there are the references to people staying up all hours of the night, or getting up early in the morning to write.
And it makes me question myself, because that isn't me. I just can't function on less than, say, 5 hours of sleep (usually need at least six if I've been missing sleep, which is often). I'll stay up til four in the morning on Friday and Saturday nights, but that's because I can sleep in on Saturday and Sunday mornings. But beyond that, I just can't write for more than an hour a day right now, and it leaves me asking myself if I "have what it takes." Y'know?
I know that some of y'all reading this are fan fiction writers. If you're diligently working on a story, how do you go about finding the time to write. Do you take your current project(s) seriously and force yourself to find the time, or do you write when you get the chance and whatever?
Un-published writer wannabes, you too. When do you write? How do you find the time?
Published authors (if any read this, those with and without day jobs), do you stay up all hours, get up a few hours before work all the time? Just with deadlines looming? What's your style?
The problem with keeping the day job, especially where I am now (which is to say, working on the first, probably not publishable, novel) is that the paying day job has to come first. And right now (I wrote "write" instead of "right" there... I do that a lot) I'm out of my house from 7 am until after 8 pm. And taking a class. And then there's the whole matter of having to eat and, y'know, sleep once in a while. It doesn't leave much time for writing.
Most of the stuff I've read about writing professionally says that unless you can force yourself to come home after a long day of work and write, you'll struggle to force yourself to write if that becomes your only job. (Am I making sense here?) And there are the references to people staying up all hours of the night, or getting up early in the morning to write.
And it makes me question myself, because that isn't me. I just can't function on less than, say, 5 hours of sleep (usually need at least six if I've been missing sleep, which is often). I'll stay up til four in the morning on Friday and Saturday nights, but that's because I can sleep in on Saturday and Sunday mornings. But beyond that, I just can't write for more than an hour a day right now, and it leaves me asking myself if I "have what it takes." Y'know?
I know that some of y'all reading this are fan fiction writers. If you're diligently working on a story, how do you go about finding the time to write. Do you take your current project(s) seriously and force yourself to find the time, or do you write when you get the chance and whatever?
Un-published writer wannabes, you too. When do you write? How do you find the time?
Published authors (if any read this, those with and without day jobs), do you stay up all hours, get up a few hours before work all the time? Just with deadlines looming? What's your style?
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