All posts filed under: Novels

Books I’ve written (or am in the process of writing.)

Wandering in with a Starbuck’s Cup

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Hey, what’s up? So…it’s been uh *checks the calendar* three years. Wow, it really has been three years. Okay…so I guess I haven’t been updating, have I? All right, let’s do this. What’s been going on in my life? The obvious answer, as it has been the obvious answer for everything, is “living in the age of active pandemic.” Which has been heartbreaking on many levels, not least of which because it turns out that ‘I told you so’ stops being a lot of fun when millions of people have died. On a personal level? I finished a five-book epic fantasy series for Tor Books. Yeah, that’s right. That baby is DONE. The last book in the series, The Discord of Gods, comes out on April 26th (which means you have not missed your chance to pre-order!) It’s a tremendous accomplishment and a strange feeling of loss all the same time. Because it’s not just that I’ve written four books in the last three years (each over 200,000 words), but I have been involved with …

The Name of All Things

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So here’s an excerpt and the cover reveal for the next book in A CHORUS OF DRAGONS. (Thank you, Barnes and Noble!) Pre-orders are a go! So while I had gone to sea and was thus incommunicado, I received a few comments on the blog that were interesting. So let me clarify a few things: Yes, we changed the name of the series from when it was originally announced. No, I can’t really discuss why. All I can say is that is was for legal rather than artistic reasons and honestly, that’s the end of that. It happens. Serendipitous, I actually like the new series name better, so sometimes we have, as Bob Ross liked to say, “happy accidents.” Unfortunately not everyone seems to have gotten the memo, so there are still the occasional references to the old series title lurking around on the internet. All we can do is keep asking them to update their information. The series is on a nine month release schedule. That means that, should everything go to plan, Tor …

The Tantalizing Promise of Hollywood

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One of the things I’ve learned about the publishing process is that very often you cannot talk about your triumphs until months or even years later. Contracts might be signed, but announcements happen on a strict schedule. This business moves slowly…right up until it doesn’t. Or, to put this more bluntly: The Ruin of Kings has been optioned to become a TV series. But…what does that mean, you may ask? Good question. Truthfully, books are optioned all the time, and while it’s a lovely bonus to the author, it rarely results in, well, a TV series/movie/whatever. That’s because an option is just that — it’s a given studio paying a premium to have the option to develop a property. It’s not a guarantee that the studio will actually do so, only a guarantee that no one else can while the studio is making up its mind. Clearly I hope that in my case the studio WILL move forward, but I have to imagine every author with an optioned work feels exactly the same. Still. This …

Hello Again

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So, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? And boy, stuff has changed. My whole life has completely changed. I figure it’s a new year, so I might as well try to do at least the occasional blog update. Where I currently stand: in less than 30 days, The Ruin of Kings will go on sale. It’s been an extraordinary journey. A few interesting stats, for folks playing the home game. Number of queries submitted: 42 (should have been my clue) Time from blind querying with my agent (yes, it was a blind query) to actually signing with him: 18 months. Please note this included time for Revise & Resubmit. Time from selling the novel to publication: 21 months. Add those together and you’ll quickly realize that reaching this stage has taken over three years from the point when an agent was actually interested until the book hits the shelves. Of course, it’s been far longer than that in terms of of all the agents who said no previously, the timing spent writing, etc. And it’s …

Photo credit: Dim Horizons Studio

Everything Changes

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While this won’t be much of a surprised to the more experienced, time moves slowly in the publishing world. Right up until time moves fast. And that was last month. A few weeks ago I signed with an agent, and I assumed–given the time it’s taken to get to this point, the years of work–that it would probably be months before I had any real news, that it would be a slow but steady knocking on doors as he tried to find a good fit for my manuscript. I couldn’t have been more mistaken. Today, I have a book deal. Now, to give you a little bit of background on this, if you had asked me to name the one publishing company that I wanted to work with the most, my answer would have been Tor. I wouldn’t have hesitated. Tor. And if you had sat me down with a list of editors that I could work with, and let me chose (and I admit that I didn’t really follow editors before this, so I would have had …

Cover Reveal: Fractured Days

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When I asked to help out with the cover reveal for the new book by Rebecca Roland (one of my fellow writers at World Weaver Press) I thought: absolutely! Rebecca’s a sweetheart, as well as an amazing talent. So a little about the new book: Malia returns home the hero of a war she can’t remember. The valley burning under the Maddion’s invasion, the fate of her late husband, the way she resolved the long-time distrust between the Taakwa people and the wolfish, winged Jegudun creatures–all of it has been erased from her memory. Malia hopes to resume training as her village’s next clan mother, but when the symbiotic magic that she and the Jeguduns used to repair the valley’s protective barrier starts to consume more and more of her mind, she’s faced with the threat of losing herself completely. A powerful being known as “the changer” might hold the solution to her vanishing memories. But the Maddion’s new leader, Muvumo, also seeks the changer, hoping the being will cure them of the mysterious illness killing off his people. Meanwhile, Muvumo’s bride …

Copyright 2013, Jennifer Williamson

The Art of No

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So remember that publishing deal I was gushing about just last week? The one I wanted so desperately? I’m walking away from it. What? Insanity! I know, I know. I can hardly believe I’m doing it myself. The company seems like a good one. I adore the person who was my contact. (For legal reasons, I’ll be naming no names.) I was so exited. I was going to be published! I celebrated when the contract arrived in my mail box. Tonight I turned it down. There are a lot of reasons why. Some I won’t go into. I will however address the reasons that were independent of the publishing company themselves (or which would be true of any small indie press, which this was). On investigating the contract and doing some hard analysis of risk/reward and ROI, I came to some conclusions regarding my own personal situation. I’m a graphic artist. Technically, I used to be a graphic artist, but I did it professionally for twenty-years. A print graphic artist. I know layouts, typography, pagination, …