Many of you know of (some participate in) National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) which happens every year in November. One of those wild-hare! ideas that started in San Francisco some years ago and is now a world-wide phenomenon. The idea is to start from scratch on Nov. 1, try to write every day, and knock out 50,000 words by the end of the month .. that is sort of the lower bound for pages in a novel.In 2006 a bunch of us got together and agreed to give it a go. BL and I decided each to write about our time with rabbits and then maybe piece it together into a book. (This was at the Peak of Marley and Me and Disapproving Rabbits was on the way.) We spent about 2 hours almost every morning at it, and each finished our 50,000 words by end of November!
Then was spent a long time condensing and combining and we sent a draft (like the picture) to several friends and acquaintances who could give us critiques. A good friend and talented artist drew black and white renderings of all our bunns for the book chapters - that is Zoey on the cover! While waiting for feedback, we crafted many query letters to about 20 or so literary agents and publishing houses .. scoured up from the I-net and from a friend who attended a San Francisco Writer's Conference.
At about the time that the last, reasonably nice, and very helpful, critique responses came in, so did the last of the 20 or so rejection notices! This whole process took about a year.
We decided to stop, take a break, regroup, and consider how to re craft the book and maybe sometime try again. It sits in the big box, awaiting that new muse!
In the meantime, we did do NaNoWriMo again in 2007, but this time for fun with no expectations. BL did a nice book about her immigrant father and I did an OK rendition of my early life. Both received extremely limited distribution to interested family members with expected results!
We bagged 2008, but several of us are sort of thinking ahead to 2009 and by gosh fame may strike yet!
Our experience and situation is what prompted me to ask Bunny Girl to elaborate more on her writing and publishing method and her response is intriguing. We'll see where we go next!
Thanks .... in the meantime, back to slavery ...
11 comments:
Love the title! I hope the book gets published, I'd definitely like to read it :)
Uhhh .. thanks! ... how about sending $55 and a 11 x 14 self addressed stamped mailer????
just kidding .. maybe someday ...
This is fantastic...I'd like a copy too :) (and it could be an appropriate bedtime reading to the bunnies!)
(by the way, RG, there's something for you here but I will need your mailing address, please email to yowlyy at gmail dot com. Ta!)
What about offering it through Lulu, like Bunnygirl does? You could have links through different rabbit organizations and offer them a percentage. Looks like a hefty tome, or is that just the camera adding 10 pounds?
Thumbs up to the Bunny book!!!Would love to read it!
Andrew's Mum
I'd love a copy of the bunny book. Is it available on Lulu, perchance?
I highly recommend going POD (print on demand) with it. Setup is free and you don't have to make it publicly available until you're ready. Keep it a private project, order a copy to make sure it looks okay, upload any changes, then make it generally available.
Advertise it within the bunny community, such as on Bunspace. I bet all of us bunny bloggers would chip in, too.
If you have any copies available now or could get one ready for my Maelstrom Bunny Benefit Bash, I could give one or two away as prizes. Perhaps one to whoever contributes the most and another as a random prize (so as not to penalized the well-meaning but broke).
Let me know. This sort of book is exactly what POD is best for--books that appeal to a group that's too small and specialized to interest the big publishers.
I would buy a copy!! Go for it RG!
I love the title and the drawings! I hope you get it published one day so I can read it :)
Love the illustrations!
I too say go for it. I bet James Herriot never thought many people would want to read about the life of a country vet but look how popular his books turned out to be. There are alot of animal lovers out there so you never know.
Freckles and I would buy a copy! But only if you, BL, and all the Bunns autographed it! You could make little bunny print stamps with your stamp making kit! Are you getting the publishing itch yet with all this encouragement?
Post a Comment