I’m not a fan of writing two distinct stories and just “saying” they are in the same world either as I don’t have a world developed. Christopher Heath, as I understand it, has put a huge amount of time into world building, and that’s time I just don’t have at the moment.

From now on, for my Pankea stories, I need to remember “that neat little trick” Chris uses. I kept wondering why he did that.

Thanks for dropping in. For the readers, John writes the Jack Brand stories that have been appearing in Raygun Revival, one of this author’s favorite zines. His latest can be found here.

There is hope for great writing though. Most publishers have a few “prestige writers” like China Mieville that they keep around so that they can say, “see, not everything we publish is trash”.

Nice site.

Name recognition is important in this racket. Developing a series character is one way to get that recognition (at least I hope so). My Jack Brand character has appeared in four stories in Ray Gun Revival and the good folks there are still willing to take some more. If I’m lucky, I hope more and more readers will get familiar with Brand and his Space-Western world. End of plug.

On the marketing issue, I think it’s unfortunate that today writers not only have to write, they have to be part of the sales force. A certain amount of meeting the public is good, but its getting out of control. The sales depts. of the majro publishers are basically dictating what’s getting published in the first place. Editors take second place in the decision making. Marketing is the major and sometimes the only concern in deciding what does and doesn’t get published. This trend is forcing writer to turn out some pretty awful trash. And then they’ve got to spend weeks, if not months, on the road promoting the stuff. With big publishing in the hands of a few congolomerates, the outlook for the future is really pretty grim.

John

That’s one good thing about the small press and the internet publishing explosion—there are a lot of good markets that will take things the big guys wouldn’t touch.

I think :”Tiger Dawn” would be a memorable name. Plays off the “Tiger Woods” sports figure and actually >feels< like it should have meaning (but doesn’t).

Anyone else have a cool idea for a pen name?

I do think being recognizable in some way is important…I’m kinda hoping that two middle initials (that’s “T. M.” as in “trade mark”, ma’am) will give me a boost ;). Sometimes I think I should change my name to Isaiah Romanov or Solomon Black, though.

I hope you enjoy the site and I look forward to reading your piece in Black Sails!

I also see, in addition to being ToC buddies, we’re also fellow WordPress users. Gotta love good ol’ Ocadia 1.1.

-JM