Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Well, so I start work this week, as soon as Deltina sends me the necessary files to begin.
I am largely a research assistant. Interestingly, I'm not doing much work for the magazine at this point -- I'm actually going to be working more with Deltina's small publishing company and the marketing plan for the poetry book she recently released. (I've read most of it -- it's a really raw, psychological book of verse by one of the editors of the Austin Chronicle, who is also Deltina's senior editor for the magazine.)
Anyway, so basically what I'll get to do, through the course of this first assignment, is learn how to market a book and get it out there in the world. Who to talk to, where to get reviewed, what lists to be on, what distributors to approach, where to get the book circulated, etc. etc.
This is ever so cool.
Also what's cool is Deltina's plans for Dalton... she wants to make it a somewhat specialised publishing company that focuses on the experience of reading not only as black and white words, but as a rich, tactile, visual thing, heralding back to a tradition of, for example, illuminated manuscripts. This excites me, not only because I enjoy both reading and visual art, but because it may (depending on things go with her vision and success) open up an avenue for what I personally want to do with my writing.
I have mentioned that I want to write and illustrate novels before, haven't I? People always look at me askance and say, "Oh, you want to do children's books?" And the answer is no, I don't. I want to write adult (perhaps young adult) books. With illustrations. You know, kind of like Mervyn Peake. And then people laugh at me, because adult writers just don't do that kind of thing. You write a novel and it gets someone else's cover art -- maybe chapter illustrations at the top of the page -- but other than that it's just black font on white paper.
I'm not saying anything yet -- particularly as I don't have a manuscript to illustrate in the first place -- but since I will know first-hand the kind of stuff that's going on to market her books and get them listed with distributors and reviewed by reviewers and into places like Barnes and Noble, and since I will be able to see what sort of things are lined up for the company in the next few months, and since I will know what kind of success she experiences -- one day, I might be able to get published right in my own backyard. It would be through small publishing, which certainly has cons -- but man, I'd get to have so much control over it...
It's a thought for the future. I'll see how things percolate over time.
| 12:42 PM |
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