Wow! I published my book!

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I had this posted at random discussion and was told I needed to post it here...so here tis.
That’s right, my book Who Better To Play the Devil?, a collection of short stories will go on sale at bookstores everywhere and at Amazon and Barnes and Noble online by Christmas. I am so excited! I've sold individual shorts or essays before but this is the big time.

I have also arranged with my publisher that part of all sales will go to Autism and Asperger’s related charities. I’m in WNC but if you know a good deserving charity or service let me know and I’ll try to add it to my list. (No promises, tho. I only get 15% of all sales and that can only be divided by so much.)

I sincerely want to thank all of those of you here who helped me with problems, issues, and so forth so I was able to maintain cohesion long enough to do this.
I don’t log in here often, my computer only logs at 14.4 and I am insanely impatient but this site and you all of you have been a tremendous blessing to me. So thanks, and if you can, read my book and let me know what think. Buying is optional but would be appreciated and I’ll sign copies for the interested.

D. Elaine Calderin

Congratulations! This is huge. As a fellow published author, I can relate to the excitement. Good job, and I hope sales will be great!

Also, it's nice to see that you're getting a 15% royalty rate. That's quite good (assuming that's the rate for the print, rather than an electronic, edition), so it's exciting all around.

Please keep us informed about further developments and remember us "little" people as you achieve the big-time fame!

Congrats!! !! !

Any tips for someone who has a novel they wish publish?

Wow! How long did it take you to write it?

Congratulations! Who's publishing it? Did you have an agent first, or did you submit directly to the publisher?

Sorry if I'm being nosy... I'm a writer myself, trying to get a book published, so I'm curious about these things

Wow, that's really cool! Congratulations!! !

Congratulations!! !

That is so great! I just read your myspace blurb and I'll watch for your books, sounds interesting. Congratulations! I've thought about writing an autobiography but that's all I've done so far, thought about it. The hard part would be getting it published and I would rather wait and see what the next chapter in my own life brings me before I start it. Well, good luck to you and hope you prosper.

Congrats from a fellow writer. I haven't published anything of significance - just some chess analysis in a regional magazine - but I'm working on a novel. Someday...

I wanted to take a moment to answer some of the people who congratulated me on my new book and to answer the questions I remember – and I will happily answer more but be patient because time is something I do not have a lot of…
Oh, and I am in Western North Carolina and my publisher is James A. Rock Publishing aka Sense of Wonder Press (with Tor looking at a potential pickup as well although that is far from certain, so I am laying no absolute claim to that one…)
Finally it took about a year to write and collate the book and will take about four months of editing and production – which is hard work in and of itself.
For those asking for advice or tips…
1) I did not have an agent. I will probably look for one to help me with my second book, tho. I found my publisher by sending out query letters to all those who published my particular genre as listed in the awesome book – The Writer’s Market, and in the corollary book, The Short Story and Novelist’s Market (unsure on second title and sitting in an airport so can’t check the shelf, but it’s close I think. A word of warning on that, however, a lot of publisher’s including the big name ones like Random House and Penguin are now asking that new writer’s pay part of their costs up front. The money is then returned out of sales. The reasoning behind this is simple. Most Americans don’t read anymore or only read their favorite series author (Sue Grafton, Janet Evanovich) or someone really well known like Stephen King. Publishers ask for part of costs to protect themselves from total loss in case your book bombs. Also it is never a good idea to send your full manuscript. What the books and sites I visited advised an what I did was
Send out a lot of general query letters – Dear Sir/Madam, I am a writer of/would you be interested in
With copies of:::
my business card ($9 a book from Carol Wright Gifts catalog)
a brief resume – I published at/and brief bio
a 1 page sample of my work
And a self addressed stamped business sized envelope so they could return my stuff and their promo material
On that level it was very much like a lottery with me gambling my work against their attention span
2) DO NOT mistake a vanity press (where you pay all the printing costs and other costs and get nothing back) or a subsidy publisher (where you pay part of the costs but never get anything back) for the real thing. (Xlibris for example). Publishing your book that way can actually keep the bigger publishing houses who pay you from ever considering your work.
3) Do not expect an advance unless you are Stephen King and know that 10 to 15% percent is about what you can expect back on your work. 15% is actually considered very good.
4) Look for a publisher with a amazon.com and Barnes and Noble distribution account at the very least, make sure they copyright the book, and provide an ISBN and LOC number.
5) ASK about promotion fees and obligations, posters, flyers, advertisements, advance copies, and reviews. Find out WHO is responsible for book signing expenses, travel and so forth. In fact, ask about everything and make sure that the publisher is willing to answer all of your questions. And I do mean all of them. If they are not willing to address your concerns, you do not want to be dealing with them.
6) Make sure that you have at least some rights to your book afterward. There are publishers who make you pay them to use material from your own book which means you could not resale excess copies, use illustrations in promo posters, or even quote passages from your own work.
7) If like me, you suffer from dyscalculia, hire or find SOMEONE ELSE trustworthy to do the math for you, to check the accounts, percentages, and to look over all the contracts BEFORE you sign anything. Don’t assume you can do it yourself, embarrassing as that may seem.
And in my opinion, most importantly, learn as much as you can in advance – talk to other writers, join writers and publisher groups, read the trade magazines, and learn the language. The more familiar you are with what a potential publisher does, and the fewer questions they have to ask you, or which you flub, the better. Be patient, do your research. I’ve been writing for over a decade and submitting things for four years but this is the first big success I’ve ever made. (I’m not counting smaller, single story sales.) And for the record, the research, the letters, the waiting – all were absolute agony for me, I am shy, terrified of being judged, impatient and impulsive, but this was my one big dream so I hung in there.
9) Oh and my fiancée adds that one needs to make damn sure that your support person knows how hard and scary this can be for you (or even for NTs – read about how Stephen King and his wife almost divorced over personal and professional differences, time and space needs and so forth if you want a vivid example) and prepare them in advance for the inevitable crashes you will experience when those rejection letters come in, or when something else goes wrong. My fiancé has stuck by me for years now but we have broken up twice, had to seek counseling several times, and so forth.

And now they are calling my flight – took longer than I thought but that is probably good considering how much I’ve rambled on. Any way best to fellow writers of all stripes, good luck, and keep writing!
Bye for now –

DEC