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Writerman
Disappearing Cheshire Cat
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 Posted: Wed Oct 14, 2009 9:24 pm Post subject: At last - the sequel |
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Some of you may recall my posts, earlier this year, about my search for a publisher for my Alice sequel. Well, I didn't exactly find one. He found me.
According to the publisher's reader, "I have Lewis Carroll's voice". I certainly hope so. That is what I was aiming at.
"Wonderland Revisited and the Games Alice Played There" is now available on Amazon.com and Amazon.org.uk or you can order it from any good bookshop. For more details, or to read the first chapter, visit my web site at http://www.Writerman.org.uk
If anyone has any feedback, I'd love to hear it. Publicity for first time authors is difficult to come by so please tell every Alice fan you know. Above all, buy the book!
As I say in my blurb, ALICE IS BACK!!!
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Writerman
Disappearing Cheshire Cat
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| Posted: Wed Oct 14, 2009 9:26 pm Post subject: |
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I should have added, "Wonderland Revisited..." is being simultaneously published in the USA, UK and Eire.
Illustrations are by Cynthia Brownell.
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Lenny
Webmaster
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We'reAllMadHere
Lewis Carroll
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Lenny
Webmaster
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Writerman
Disappearing Cheshire Cat
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| Posted: Thu Oct 15, 2009 4:08 pm Post subject: |
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>>Amazon UK says the book is unavailable at the moment though so I can't read it.<<
It seems to change by the minute. When I looked earlier today I got the same message. A few minutes ago (4:50pm UK time) they had changed their tune and were saying "usually dispatched within 1-3 weeks". I tried going through the order process myself and they do now allow you to order one.
I think the 1-3 weeks is overly pessimistic. As I understand it, copies will be dispatched pretty much immediately, direct from the printers in Milton Keynes. My author copies arrived within a couple of days of ordering. However, I don't fully understand how it all works. That's what publishers are for!
Alternatively, if you click on the "3 new" link, The Book Depository are saying they actually have stock.
If all else fails, I have stock of my own. I am intending to have a "buy now" button on my web site but I've not yet had a chance to check out postage costs. If you email me (there's a mail-me link on my web site at www.writerman.org.uk) I'll quote you a price and you can even have a signed copy if you wish.
Thanks for your interest.
Keith
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We'reAllMadHere
Lewis Carroll
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The Queen of Hearts
Lewis Carroll
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Writerman
Disappearing Cheshire Cat
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| Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2009 9:07 am Post subject: |
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To WAMH, the reaction of _some_ literary agents was along the lines of "we prefer the original" (how did they know that? that particular agent never read mine) or other shades of why bother, but I found most were at least willing to give it a try.
One of my best responses was from one of the biggest UK publishing houses whose reply can be summarised as "very well written, accurate pastiche, witty..." (you can sense the "but" coming, can't you) "unfortunately, as you are not a celebrity we don't think it will sell".
In the end, my publisher found me rather than the other way about. I had decided self publishing was the only solution but I was active in a number of Lewis Carroll discussion groups and always careful to leave my web address. One day, out of the blue, I got an email from this guy who had read the extract on my web site, loved it, and wanted to know if I had a publisher. At first I assumed it was some sort of vanity publishing scam but no. It was a small press but proper publishing (ie. publisher financed, author gets royalties).
The first time we spoke on the phone was when he told me I had "Carroll's voice". The publisher is a complete Lewis Carroll fanatic (who else would publish Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in Esperanto?) and I must confess it was he who insisted on the Carrollean spellings like ca'n't and traveling, as well as correcting some anachronisms in my original manuscript.
What I have realised now, though, is that getting published is an important milestone but not an end in itself. Now the real hard work starts - getting the word out (with no advertising budget) so that the book-buying public actually know my book exists. I think that's going to be quite a slog so I am grateful for any spreading of the word that anyone can do.
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Writerman
Disappearing Cheshire Cat
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| Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2009 9:11 am Post subject: |
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To the QoH, thanks for your support.
Re. "Life, what is it but a dream"
When my daughter was very little we used to sing to her the rhyme "Row, row, row your boat", which included the line "life is but a dream".
She always heard and repeated this as "Life is butter dream", which has kind of stuck with me as an excellent, if slightly bizarre, philosophy ever since.
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The Queen of Hearts
Lewis Carroll
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We'reAllMadHere
Lewis Carroll
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Evertype
Fish-Footman
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I throw much jealousy in your direction. Your own book PUBLISHED?!!? That's amazing! Well done! Amazon UK says the book is unavailable at the moment though so I can't read it. 
): what did the editor say when he/she received the manuscript? It's a very interesting idea, to write a sequel to a book that's over 100 years old - I think the same thing happened with Peter Pan not too long ago - but what was the publisher's initial reaction? It's just that I've always dreamed of getting a book published and I'm interested to see how they treat work sent into them. Did they say at first, "God, a sequel of Alice in Wonderland? How crap!" I always got the impression they were rather impatient people who toss aside most manuscripts after reading the first paragraph.
).
