sci-fi | Michelle Proulx - Author

Posts Tagged With: sci-fi

Working against my own interests …?

Posted on September 23, 2012 by Michelle Proulx

Once again stealing someone else’s idea, I present to you The Living Notebook’s latest blog post. Basically, Harper Voyager (the sci-fi/fantasy subsidiary of Harper Collins) is accepting un-agented sci-fi manuscript submissions from October 1 – 14th. They’re looking for about a dozen new manuscripts, which they will publish digitally (not in print, although the site does say they’ll think about it if your sales are good enough). Anyway, click your way over to The Living Notebook’s site to get the link to the Harper Voyager contest.

So … is spreading the word of this awesome opportunity actively working against my own interests? Oh, absolutely. But I figure that, hey, if you have a sci-fi manuscript better than mine, then you deserve to get signed. So polish up those manuscripts and start submitting!

My one qualm with the Harper Voyager contest is that, while I would *love* to be traditionally published (talk about street cred!), they’re only doing digital publication (at least at first). I want to see my book in print. So in the extremely unlikely event they actually choose my story for publication, does that mean I’d have to give up my dreams of seeing Imminent Danger in print? I’d probably lose my copyright rights once they pick it up, so I wouldn’t have the option of printing the book myself. Thoughts?

My other qualm (okay, so I lied about only having the one qualm) is that I don’t want to put my self-publishing plan on hold on the extreme off-chance that Harper Voyager picks my manuscript out of thousands. What would happen if I self-published my book, and then discovered three days later that Harper Voyager wanted to buy my book? I mean, again, traditional publishing yay! But I would have already gone through all the effort of self-publishing (which I already paid for), only to have to cancel everything after a few days/weeks. The Harper Voyager website states that they will accept self-published books, no problem, and I suppose I already have paid for the self-publishing, so there’s no real point in stopping the self-publication process. Still … can you imagine? “Hey guys, remember how I finally self-published yesterday? Yeah, just pretend it never happened. Trololol.”

Anyway, head over to The Living Notebook’s blog and check out that Harper Voyager link. Best of luck to all of you who decide to submit a manuscript!

Random graphic of the day:

D’awwwww! Source: http://i.imgur.com/Fex5Q.jpg

Categories: Self Publishing, Writing | Tags: author, books, dinosaur, ebooks, harper voyager, imminent danger, sci-fi, self-publish, writing | 17 Comments

Greetings, Earthlings.

Posted on May 19, 2012 by Michelle Proulx

Welcome to my blog. For a long-winded explanation of what you’ll find here, check out the FAQ. If you’d rather not slog through several pages of increasingly-ridiculous dialogue, keep reading.

So six years ago, I wrote a book. It’s about alien abduction, romance, flashy laser gun battles, aliens with a shaky understanding of logic and morality, and a high school girl named Eris trying to find her way back home to Earth. After innumerable edits and revisions, Imminent Danger and How to Fly Straight into It is finally ready for publication. Since traditional publishing houses are wary of first-time authors, I’ve elected to go the self-publishing route via iUniverse. This means I have to pay them money, instead of them paying me, but that’s the price you pay for self-publication.

This blog is about that book. Well, currently. If people like the book, and buy the book, then I’ll hopefully make enough money to afford publishing a sequel. And then another sequel. And so on. Maybe start a different series entirely. But right now, the focus is on Imminent Danger.

It isn’t published yet, so you can’t buy it right now. But it should be ready to go by the end of Summer 2012. Check back here every few weeks to learn of any new developments. And if you’re an author looking to self-publish, I’ll be describing each step of the self-publication process as it happens to me, so stay tuned.

Talking to people is awesome. As such, you should definitely talk to me. Leave comments, email me, facebook me, anything you want. Honestly, it doesn’t even have to be related to the blog. Read a good book lately? Tell me about it! Heard a hilarious, slightly inappropriate joke? I’m all ears (not literally – that would be strange). I have a Facebook page for the book that you can also check out. If you really want to get in touch with me, I suppose that stalking me down and slipping creepy letters under my door is also an option, but I’d prefer that you take the electronic route if at all possible.

I’m new to all this, so if you think of ways to improve the blog – polls, book excerpts, contests, videos, whatever – please let me know. Oh, and for people new to WordPress.com, there’s some sort of Subscribe button you can press that will let the site email you whenever I write a new post. I promise I’ll keep them to two or less a week so that I don’t spam your inbox.

I look forward to meeting you!!!