ramblings

And after all I said last time, I have decided I’m going to use a penname after all. To be honest the decision isn’t sitting well with me yet, I need some time to mull it over. A writer / publisher friend of mine made a really good point though, some of my work is YA and can be read by very young people, I don’t want them picking up my rather sexually explicit or very gory books thinking that it’ll be similar.

Still, the idea of having to build up a whole new reputation… it makes me want to drink in the morning. So the erotic zombie story ‘Come Back to Me’ I sold will be published under the name C. North. I decided to at least keep elements of my name in there. At first I was going to go with my maiden name C. Peeters, but Daan made a pouty face when I did. I like North better anyway.

Having said that, when I asked Daan what to do about the ‘Even Hell Has Standards’ series, he told me to just stick with Chantal Noordeloos. The cover for the book is advertised in the back of Deeply Twisted, and since people were full of praise of Deeply Twisted, he thought it would be better to stick with the known name. This series might be harsh, but I haven’t made it too explicit… so maybe that’ll work. I believe my Haunted House novel will be published under C. North.

And speaking of the haunted house novel (she said changing the subject to something nice, that doesn’t make her want to crawl into a fetal position and suck her thumb) I’m over 30.000 words in. It’s challenging, because for the first time I’m juggling characters. I tend to not have too many different points of views in my stories, and I rarely show more than three different viewpoints. It’s fun, but I have the feeling I’m going to have to do a lot of cleaning up during the edits. Using multiple characters makes it challenging to really crawl into their skin too. And because it’s a haunted house story, it has a slow build up and a turning point. The turning point needs to be very smooth, so… again… I’ll get that in the editing round, I’m sure.

I have decided to sell this novel rather than publish it with TMH. Since the big 5 are notoriously uninterested in horror, I’ve decided to go Indie / Small press with this one. For the record, I consider any press that’s not in some way linked to one of the big five publishers ‘Indie press’. I know a lot of people think Indie is the same as self published, but I disagree. Not that there has to be a big difference between the two, there are a lot of Indie presses that are basically the same as self publishing your work. But I see self published as ‘the author makes all the decisions and puts the work out under her or his name’, the rest is Indie.

Of course I have a publisher I would like to publish with, but I will need to research the rest of the market, in case that one doesn’t like my work. I really want to place my work with people who are passionate about publishing. Who will hire good editors, formatters, etc. Who will spend money to promote my work. There are too many presses that don’t use proper editors, who do their own shabby formatting and will do almost nothing to promote you. I would rather go with TMH in that case, at least there I know my work will be loved.

Coyote will remain with TMH, and I’m excited to say that the first draft is with the Beta Readers. As soon as I get notes back from them I can start my own edit and find an editor for my baby.

The bad news for Coyote is that my very talented cover artist is on an art sabbatical, so I’m going to have to change both the first and the second cover. It breaks my heart, because I loved it so much, but I want all the books to fit together.

Things just don’t always go smooth, and I can tell you it’s been a turbulent time. I’m looking forward to publishing again. I have to admit, the thrill is a little addictive.