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Back twenty years ago, I made my first professional fiction sale: a story titled "Skins" to Sword and Sorceress XII (1995). It wasn't anything particularly special or daring--shapeshifters (at a time before shapeshifters had become an urban fantasy cliche) in a vaguely medievaloid secondary world, where transformation was achieved with songs and cloaks made of animal skins. That story had its inspirations in the intersection of a poem I'd written about transforming into an owl and an odd little dream involving the opening scenario's frantic chase.
One of the emergent quirks of the Sword and Sorceress anthology series was a tendency for authors to run continuing characters and series over multiple volumes. So the next year I ventured to submit another story in the same world, continuing the adventures of the characters in the first one. This was "More Than One Way" (Sword and Sorceress XIII, 1996), which introduced several of what would become recurring themes--the making of bargains and the refusal to accept the restricted choices that fate seemed to be offering--as well as introducing Ashóli, the character who would thereafter become the focus of the series. The following year I added "By the Skin of Her Teeth" (Sword and Sorceress XIV, 1997) and the next, "Skin-Deep" (Sword and Sorceress XV, 1998), following the adventures of Ashóli and her friend-then-lover Eysla, who had not been born to the shape-shifting people but proved that the skill could be given to anyone.
And then I stopped writing for a while. Or rather, and then writing my PhD dissertation consumed my brain entirely for the next half-decade. I knew Ashóli's story was far from finished, but I didn't return to that world until I'd finished my degree, when MZB (the original series editor) had died and the new editor Diana L. Paxson included me in the invitations to submit to the continuing series. That next story, "The Skin Trade" (Sword and Sorceress XXI, 2004) brought my characters to the city of Wilentelu and the service of its governor, which provided the inspiration for a possible grand finale for the series. I knew it would involve travel to foreign lands and the negotiation for a bride for the Marchalt of Wilentelu, but at that time I knew little more than that. In the mean time, I explored more of the integration of my skin-changer people back into human society in "Skin and Bones" (Sword and Sorceress XXII, 2007), the darkest of the stories so far.
At that point, DAW had dropped the series. (I assume that once MZB was no longer available to lend cachet, the series no longer had the knee-jerk sales figures that her name could command. Or maybe they had always supported it just to humor her? I don't know.) It had been picked up by Norilana Books, a very small press with essentially no distribution, and it no longer seemed like a good venue to focus my efforts. In addition to which, I was realizing that the concluding story that was taking shape in my mind was going to be significantly longer than the short story length the anthology accepted.
That final story "Hidebound" has, in fact, come in at 17,100 words. Right at the top end of the novelette length, and in spitting distance of becoming a novella (at 17,500). It turns out to be an awkward length to find markets for. Even markets that take novelettes often have a much shorter cut-off, and markets that take novellas tend to be looking for something significantly longer. But I've identified a first choice, and a couple of back-up choices. "Hidebound" is finished, beta-read, and revised, and I'll be sending it out on submission tonight.
But that's not the end of the story. Although "Hidebound" is carefully designed to be a stand-alone, I've long had in mind to gather up the entire series into a single volume. (Working title: Skin-Singer.) The older volumes in the series are almost impossible to find (though I pick up used copies when I spot them, to pass on to interested parties) and by the time I got to "Skin and Bones", reviewers were starting to comment that they felt they were missing something by not having the whole set of stories. Now, I don't have the name recognition for anyone to be interested in taking a chance on a collection like that, and current market conditions mean that an e-book only format would probably be the most viable option. That means that I'm looking at making my first serious venture into self-publishing. (I've done non-fiction desktop publishing before, and I've been learning the e-book formatting process with some short stories, but a whole book to be sold online is a different matter.)
It won't happen for a while. I definitely want to get "Hidebound" into some existing publication venue, not only to raise potential interest for the eventual collection, but because getting short fiction into existing markets is one of my best ways to grow some name recognition among SFF readers. In the mean time, I have some decisions to make and work to do.
I want to do significant revisions to the previous stories before putting the collection together. There are some continuity and world-building issues I'd like to smooth out. And--not to put too fine a point on it--I'd like to think that I'm a much better writer now than I was twenty years ago, and I'd like the series as a whole to be a bit more consistent in quality. Beyond that I'll have to think about things like commissioning cover art and whether I want to include any extras outside of the stories themselves. (I have a lot of material on the kaltaoven language that conlang geeks might be interested in.) There's also the question of what sort of project model I want to use.
A lot of self-published projects of this type are being done with Kickstarter-type fundraising, complete with bonus levels and donor extras. I'm going to be bluntly honest here and say that, thanks to my day job, I have no need to do any outside fundraising to put Skin-Singer out, even with commissioning a cover artist and pulling in an outside editor and whatnot. But Kickstarter campaigns aren't only about money; they're also a powerful way of generating advance buzz about a project so that, when it appears, not only do you have an existing set of people who have pre-subscribed to the book, but you have a further set of people who are aware of its existence.
That might be a good enough reason alone to use a Kickstarter model. There are several down sides. If I went the Kickstarter route and got little to no response, it would be a major emotional blow. The sort of blow I've been trying to avoid setting myself up for. And if I did it, it failed, and then I went ahead and produced the book anyway, that sort of rubs in the point that it was all just for show and publicity in the first place. So I don't know. I need to think about this longer and solicit some trustworthy opinions.
The question of distribution is less fraught. There are several options that don't involve dealing with selling e-books through my own website. I've explored some of them in general terms already.
So what do you think? Would you be interested in a collected Skin-Singer volume? What would you like to get from it other than having all the stories available and in one place? Do you think I should leave all the original stories as is or do you agree that I should revise them all? Who would you pick as a cover artist if you could pick anyone at all?
One of the emergent quirks of the Sword and Sorceress anthology series was a tendency for authors to run continuing characters and series over multiple volumes. So the next year I ventured to submit another story in the same world, continuing the adventures of the characters in the first one. This was "More Than One Way" (Sword and Sorceress XIII, 1996), which introduced several of what would become recurring themes--the making of bargains and the refusal to accept the restricted choices that fate seemed to be offering--as well as introducing Ashóli, the character who would thereafter become the focus of the series. The following year I added "By the Skin of Her Teeth" (Sword and Sorceress XIV, 1997) and the next, "Skin-Deep" (Sword and Sorceress XV, 1998), following the adventures of Ashóli and her friend-then-lover Eysla, who had not been born to the shape-shifting people but proved that the skill could be given to anyone.
And then I stopped writing for a while. Or rather, and then writing my PhD dissertation consumed my brain entirely for the next half-decade. I knew Ashóli's story was far from finished, but I didn't return to that world until I'd finished my degree, when MZB (the original series editor) had died and the new editor Diana L. Paxson included me in the invitations to submit to the continuing series. That next story, "The Skin Trade" (Sword and Sorceress XXI, 2004) brought my characters to the city of Wilentelu and the service of its governor, which provided the inspiration for a possible grand finale for the series. I knew it would involve travel to foreign lands and the negotiation for a bride for the Marchalt of Wilentelu, but at that time I knew little more than that. In the mean time, I explored more of the integration of my skin-changer people back into human society in "Skin and Bones" (Sword and Sorceress XXII, 2007), the darkest of the stories so far.
At that point, DAW had dropped the series. (I assume that once MZB was no longer available to lend cachet, the series no longer had the knee-jerk sales figures that her name could command. Or maybe they had always supported it just to humor her? I don't know.) It had been picked up by Norilana Books, a very small press with essentially no distribution, and it no longer seemed like a good venue to focus my efforts. In addition to which, I was realizing that the concluding story that was taking shape in my mind was going to be significantly longer than the short story length the anthology accepted.
That final story "Hidebound" has, in fact, come in at 17,100 words. Right at the top end of the novelette length, and in spitting distance of becoming a novella (at 17,500). It turns out to be an awkward length to find markets for. Even markets that take novelettes often have a much shorter cut-off, and markets that take novellas tend to be looking for something significantly longer. But I've identified a first choice, and a couple of back-up choices. "Hidebound" is finished, beta-read, and revised, and I'll be sending it out on submission tonight.
But that's not the end of the story. Although "Hidebound" is carefully designed to be a stand-alone, I've long had in mind to gather up the entire series into a single volume. (Working title: Skin-Singer.) The older volumes in the series are almost impossible to find (though I pick up used copies when I spot them, to pass on to interested parties) and by the time I got to "Skin and Bones", reviewers were starting to comment that they felt they were missing something by not having the whole set of stories. Now, I don't have the name recognition for anyone to be interested in taking a chance on a collection like that, and current market conditions mean that an e-book only format would probably be the most viable option. That means that I'm looking at making my first serious venture into self-publishing. (I've done non-fiction desktop publishing before, and I've been learning the e-book formatting process with some short stories, but a whole book to be sold online is a different matter.)
It won't happen for a while. I definitely want to get "Hidebound" into some existing publication venue, not only to raise potential interest for the eventual collection, but because getting short fiction into existing markets is one of my best ways to grow some name recognition among SFF readers. In the mean time, I have some decisions to make and work to do.
I want to do significant revisions to the previous stories before putting the collection together. There are some continuity and world-building issues I'd like to smooth out. And--not to put too fine a point on it--I'd like to think that I'm a much better writer now than I was twenty years ago, and I'd like the series as a whole to be a bit more consistent in quality. Beyond that I'll have to think about things like commissioning cover art and whether I want to include any extras outside of the stories themselves. (I have a lot of material on the kaltaoven language that conlang geeks might be interested in.) There's also the question of what sort of project model I want to use.
A lot of self-published projects of this type are being done with Kickstarter-type fundraising, complete with bonus levels and donor extras. I'm going to be bluntly honest here and say that, thanks to my day job, I have no need to do any outside fundraising to put Skin-Singer out, even with commissioning a cover artist and pulling in an outside editor and whatnot. But Kickstarter campaigns aren't only about money; they're also a powerful way of generating advance buzz about a project so that, when it appears, not only do you have an existing set of people who have pre-subscribed to the book, but you have a further set of people who are aware of its existence.
That might be a good enough reason alone to use a Kickstarter model. There are several down sides. If I went the Kickstarter route and got little to no response, it would be a major emotional blow. The sort of blow I've been trying to avoid setting myself up for. And if I did it, it failed, and then I went ahead and produced the book anyway, that sort of rubs in the point that it was all just for show and publicity in the first place. So I don't know. I need to think about this longer and solicit some trustworthy opinions.
The question of distribution is less fraught. There are several options that don't involve dealing with selling e-books through my own website. I've explored some of them in general terms already.
So what do you think? Would you be interested in a collected Skin-Singer volume? What would you like to get from it other than having all the stories available and in one place? Do you think I should leave all the original stories as is or do you agree that I should revise them all? Who would you pick as a cover artist if you could pick anyone at all?
