Our Changing World

I’ve decided to separate my two blogs. If you want to read the author blog go to: sageseedchronicles.wordpress.com. This blog is for the eco friendly furniture business. I have to say that since both come from me, my Science Fiction books have a strong eco base. Hey! They are a world of my creation! Why not!

I want to share what we have begun. Until last October we had a “brick & mortar” (a store) downtown. The economy being what it is we decided to close it and pulled back to one location. That being the small showroom with our furniture making wood-shop. Since then we have been expanding our web presence.. reaching out to the world of clients we had never touched. It is slow but is beginning to grow.

The first step was to form a network of willing customers that we could concentrate on and offer our best deals- lavishing our expertise and talents for this group most willing to receive our knowledge and services.

Then we began to reach out to select marketplaces on the net. First we found www.zecozi.com. They have many of our accessory pieces left over from our brick & mortar days. Now we have our beautiful exotic wood bracelets on the fantastic site: www.20besttwenty.com. Wow what a treat! Look under the “jewels” category!

There is another site that will feature some of our custom furniture. When we get on that site I will let you know. This is a step into the world and into the future. The net is where Gen X and GenY are as well as a number of other age groups. That is where we are and will be!

The Traditional Road for Authors

The traditional road to becoming published goes like this: You write a book- edit and refine it then go through the process of writing and refining a query letter. You go to some very good Query sites, find the agents that are accepting queries in your genre and start sending out queries.

Literary agents are beleaguered with queries and are dealing with a constricted market. Form rejection letters are often the norm. Publishers have lost capital with the economic crunch  and are not as willing to pick up the unknown entity (a new author) because they don’t know if they will get a good return on their investment. New authors are really facing an uphill battle to find representation and getting their baby launched. The process has been fun and interesting even if it has, so far, fallen short of being successful.

I have met and am networking with great people who are also querying. (See Luke’s blog:http://allyourstarsareout.com/) It is a fascinating process and more so if shared.

One of the interesting things I have learned is how little authors earn. It is fascinatingly logical. The publishers do the editing, printing, distributing as well as a myriad of other tasks. They take the lion’s share. They are also throwing much more of the marketing on the shoulders of the author.The agents also work hard for the authors: editing, charming the publishers and working on the legalities, to list a bit of their job, earn 15% of the net. That means the author will earn somewhere between 4 and 8%. If the book sells for $10 that means the author earns, maybe eighty cents per book.

I would really like to hear from any of you that have experience or information on this. Feel free to jump in. My next few posts will be on what I have learned about vanity press publishing and e-books.

The Road Traveled by the Unpublished Author

It has been awhile since I have posted. Life sometimes throws us a couple of curveballs that we need to adjust for. Though this blog has been a forum for eco concerns with homes and furniture, I am going to switch gears. Now it will reflect more of my life. The eco concerns are still a part of me and I will still post blogs about that.. but now I am also creating a new life for myself. I am creating in different ways.

I have been writing for sometime. I started writing articles in 2001 for local publications. Some were research oriented and others were opinion pieces. In 2007 I was asked to write guest columns for a wonderful trade magazine: Home Furnishings Business. But in April of 2009 I began to write fiction.

I started what turned out to be a series in the Science Fiction genre. I have four books completed in the series and others in draft or early chapters. The series is called: The Sage Seed Chronicles. I had an agent. She is a very nice local lady with a background in the literary field. Things were going fine until she had a whole series of accidents with the resulting health issues. She quickly reverted to a non communicative mode, canceling meetings, not returning my calls or faxes and generally avoiding me. In February I started querying for a new agent. It has been an interesting and educational experience.

This blog will be my forum for sharing what I have found. Feedback is welcome.