The present is a present

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As of a couple of days ago, I have five books ready (if there is such a thing - editing never ends) for publication. Because I like talking about my books, and because I have pity for those who have to listen (you can just stop reading, which is different), here's where they're all up to:

Realist novel: it's in the Dundee International Unpublished novel competition (which will take forever to judge), and I can't send it anywhere else at the same time. Editing-wise, nothing comes to mind, except I'm learning about characterisation lately, so I bet next time I look at it I improve it a fair bit. (You know, IF I don't win that major international competition worth ten thousand pounds.)

Children's novel 1 (of 3): This novel has improved a huge amount this year, and within the next month it really will be as good as I can do as of July 2008 - though there's a section in the middle I dislike (I'll take a bit of time to figure out if it's just me or if the book is weak). At present the full manuscript is being looked at by Random House (but I don't think they'll publish, because I edited it a bit hastily before sending it to them). I've also sent the (perfect as possible) first three chapters to Penguin - and I think there's a good chance there (but it'll be at least six months before I find out). In the next week I'll send the opening chapters to ABC Books, and various others. This is the book that most deserves publication at present, and I'm going to focus my energy on getting it published ASAP (especially since it's the first in a trilogy, and chronologically comes before the Young Adult trilogy set in the same world).

Children's novel 2 (of 3): This is my favourite, for the simple reason that it has my absolute favourite character in it - Salty the Sea Princess (who's a psychotic pirate). It was rejected by Allen & Unwin earlier this year for poor characterisation (I disagree, but I've already improved it a bit since then), and uneven pacing (I can fix this by showing that having a person sitting talking to Salty IS a dangerous act). I think it's very good, and needs only a light edit - say twenty hours' work. At present it's entered in the Australian/Vogel Literary Award (worth $50,000 *sigh*), but it hasn't got a good chance because it's a kids book. I can't send it anywhere till the Vogel is over. After that I'll send it to Omnibus, because Omnibus takes a long time (and doesn't allow simultaneous submissions) but is big enough to be worth attempting with something non-urgent.

Children's novel 3 (of 3): This is my most recently-written book, and as such it will probably become the best of the five, but isn't there yet. It's pretty good, though, I think (I only wrote it a year ago, so it feels young and inexperienced to me). Tomorrow I'll send it to the text publishing award, which I don't think it will win (it's technically long enough, but longer books will have a better chance - and the competition is for young adult books, not children). After/during that I'll send it to Driftwood manuscript assessors (expensive but good) while also sending the first three chapters to a publisher or two. After I get the assessment and improve it again, I'll send it to Allen & Unwin (who let me send them the full manuscript even when closed to submissions). It's reasonably likely they'll publish it, since I've been extremely close to Allen & Unwin publication before, and this book is better than that one.

Young Adult novel 1 (of 3 - though the other two need rewriting): This is my best short-term chance, even though I'm sure I could significantly improve the middle 100,000 words (that's 200 pages of line by line obsessing *sigh*). It's currently being read in full by Penguin (they requested it after seeing the first three chapters), and it's been there just under 5 months. I could hear back from them any day in the next three months. This book has come extremely close to publication twice, despite its faults, and I've improved the noticably-weaker third quarter of the book since then (but have since had an idea of how to improve it more). I really need to hurry up and edit it, but I'm soooo sick of this book (I wrote it in 2004 and rewrote it in 2006). Hopefully Penguin will just accept it. That'd be nice :)

In conclusion: I need to quickly edit the 3rd kids' book and send it to the Text competition, then face up to the YA book and get it sent out to more places in case Penguin doesn't accept it. In fact, the first three chapters are shiningly brilliant, so I can send them off this week. (The only hard part is picking publishers, since it's had fourteen rejections. Oh well.)

At present, Penguin is my best hope. Next is Allen & Unwin, once the third kids' book is good and ready for them. Third is Random, if they can see the goodness in the almost-perfect first kids' book (they should reply at the end of August, but presumably they'll take longer - everyone does).

Image by Pierre Pouliquin
Courtesy of Creative Commons