Jay Lake: Fun and Games with Novels 7/27/07

Mary Rosenblum

Welcome to our Professional Connection live interview.

Tonight we're fortunate to have a return visit with Jay Lake, who is simply a LOT of fun as a guest. :-) As many of you know.

Jay Lake has been the Writer Guest of Honor at MisCon 21 as well as Toastmaster at Westercon 60. His short fiction has been published in 'Year's Best SF', 'Realms of Fantasy', and 'Subterranean'. He has edited Polyphony 6, and TEL: Stories, as well as Spicy Slipstream Stories. Now he has moved into the novel form with

Rocket Science, a fun gee-whiz SF nostalgia novel out from Fairwood Press last year, and Trial of Flowers due out from Night Shade Books in September. Mainspring, a fantasy, will be released by Tor in July of next year. Visit his website at: www.jlake.com  Visit his blog at http://jaylake.livejournal.com/

I really enjoyed Rocket Science and I recommend it. So what have you been up to?

Jay Lake

I've been a busy boy.

I think  I have shortest career arc EVAR as a novelist, I swear...

made a deal spring 2005 for ROCKET SCIENCE...

that hit the stands Sept 2005 with a starred review from BOOKLIST...

which helped get me a deal from Night Shade Books for TRIAL OF FLOWERS...

which, when I turned it in last spring, the publisher said,..

"That was much better than I expected it to be"

(it's due out in September)

meanwhile, with two contracts, Tor came calling last December --

got a two-book deal from them in February

Mary Rosenblum

That's a fantasy yes?

Jay Lake

yes

High concept fantasy called MAINSPRING about a clockwork earth orbiting the sun on a brass track

Mary Rosenblum

So who's your editor there?

Jay Lake

Beth Meacham

who's been wonderful.

Stephan Martiniere will do the cover art, btw.

Mary Rosenblum

Oooh, cool. Do they have a concept yet?

A sketch?

Jay Lake

It’s going to be a two book series, maybe more.

Well, they showed me a sample he'd done for a Daniel Abraham book

said "this style"

and told me which scene

The world has a 100 mile high wall around the equato

where the Earth's gear ring is located to mesh with it's orbi

and there's a long sequence in the book where one of Her Imperial Majesty's zeppelins is making the ascent

with Our Hero aboard

and they visit a bamboo city which stretches vertically for mile

completely abandoned.

That’s going to be the cover, a low angle view of the zeppelin and the city with the Wall towering above.,.

Jay Lake

I'm pretty stoked

Mary Rosenblum

Oh, cool. :-) Sounds like a lot of fun.

Jay Lake

oh yeah

The Night Shade book...

is a decadent urban fantasy

think Mieville or VanderMeer

they've asked for a sequel too.

Mary Rosenblum

What makes it decadent, Jay?

Jay Lake

So I have two books delivered, and sequels for each contracted.

Oh, gosh, the setting and the tone of the language I guess.

It's ginned up from a short story of mine which was recently reprinted online at the Fortean Bureau

if anyone wants to check that out.

"The Soul Bottles"

The city in the story is a combination of 19th century Paris and New Orleans with a dash of declining Rome.

Mary Rosenblum

I'm prodding you on this a bit because 'decadent whatever' gets tossed about rather blithely...I've never quite decided on a definition.

Jay Lake

in this context it refers to a mood of the fiction -- word choices, plot elements.

That's how I interpret it

I didn't know I was writing decadence until after I'd finished it, tho

Mary Rosenblum

That seems to be how it's used. Ha...the reviewers will tell you what it is. :-)

xana

Paris with levees and hurricanes?

Jay Lake

No, more like Paris with syphilitic dwarfs and swamp magic.

Mary Rosenblum

LOL that's the decadent part.

Jay Lake

Lots of running around in the sewers, heavily armed clowns riding giraffes, that sort of thing.

xana

The Seine floweth over

Jay Lake

More like inSeine in this case.

janecj333

Tell us how you approached Fairwood Press and got accepted there.

Jay Lake

Hey Jane...

Well, I'd sold Patrick a short piece for Talebones a while back.

Then I'd pitched him back in 2003 or so on doing a chapbook for me

of my RUSHES cycle which ran on STRANGE HORIZONS

so we'd worked on a couple of other things together.

I'd been fishing for a novel market

had an agent but no deals

when Patrick approached me and asked me if I had anything.

He’d done well with a book by James van Pelt, BEGGARS AND STRANGERS

and he wanted to do something else with a new writer with decent name recognition

(which I seem to have)

I pitched him on this real dark stuff I have called DARK TOWNS

had 5 or 6 of those in print as short fiction.

Wanted to do a fixup...

He was too squicked.

So I pulled ROCKET SCIENCE out of the drawer.

It was too short for what my agent wanted to represent

but it was a good length for Fairwood.

Patrick took it with some rewrites

so it was a relationship sell, in a way, but the relationship was a professional one of prior sales and projects worked

and of course, the book.

A good relationship is irrelevant if the book doesn't hold up. (I'm big on the value of networking...it's one thing I talk about a lot on panels and interviews)

Mary Rosenblum

Yeah, I think that's important to mention her

that it wasn't because you knew Patrick that he bought Rocket Science.

Jay Lake

Not at all.

Believe me, if you start publishing in genre fiction -- fantasy/SF -- it will take you about two years to meet 3/4 of everybody

but that doesn't sell anything.

The work sells. What does help is being known as someone who's easy to deal with...

janecj333

squicked?

Jay Lake

Um, grossed out?

It was pretty dark stuff --

right on the line with horror fiction.

It's all about the work, guys.

Trust me, I have a very boring life.

I write, a lot.

Mary Rosenblum

Has working in long form been different for you than doing shorts? You're a write and send it off writer, mostly, aren't you?

Jay Lake

Oh yeah

that's been a real issue for me

I shall elucidate...

as Mary said, I've been a write-it-and-send-it-off guy for some years...

done pretty well with that...

finally started slowing down...

and long form work has really pushed me.

TRIAL OF FLOWERS was written in a very short amount of time...

rewritten over six weeks...

then turned in.

The sequel, MADNESS OF FLOWERS

I'm working on right now (was typing on it right before this session)

so I can wrap it up by WorldCon

put it in a drawer for six months

then rework/revise before turning it in next year.

The reason for the change

is the first Tor book, MAINSPRING

was something I wrote 2, 3 years ago

so when I got the editorial direction from Beth

and hauled it out of the drawer

the experience of revising at such a distance from the original effor

was new to me.

The book wasn't in my head anymore.

Made it much easier to see both the flaws and the strength

and I went: "duh, this is what everybody's been yelling at me for fifteen years about"

My process evolves all the time

Mary Rosenblum

So hold on a a sec here, Jay.

Jay Lake

ok

Mary Rosenblum

What do you mean by that? That 'this is what everybody has been yelling at me about...' comment? What did you see?

Jay Lake

Well, I've been workshopping seriously since about 1990 --

made my first short fiction sale in 2001...

have been walloping along since...

and I have been pounded and pounded all those years...

about not taking enough time with the story, not rewriting, not revising...

My point of resistance was always this:

I CAN'T write slow.

It’s like trying to ride a bicycle at walking speed, for me.

So revising felt like slowing down, getting in my own way.

I finally got good enough to sell without good rewriting habits

because my drafts got good enough.

I'm a 'voicy' write

and strong voice often comes through best in fast drafts, where the internal editor isn't active

but the missing piece

was realizing I could write as fast as I wante

then hide the mss from myself until I forgot it

THEN rework it.

xana

Just today Doris Booth (authorlink.com) told us the same thing: to put the manuscript aside for a couple of months and then take it out and revise it - BEFORE sending it out

Jay Lake

ya

It took dumb old me fifteen years to figure it out.

I can tie my shoes now, too!

And it took novels to teach me that

Mary Rosenblum

LOL, so has this changed your short fiction writing? Are you...gasp...revising?

Jay Lake

Well, I might be if I were writing more short fiction right now

heh

so far I've written TRIAL

revised TRIAL

revised MAINSPRING

am now writing MADNESS

janecj333

Yeah, but can ya get the tongues into the proper position??

Mary Rosenblum

That's after his next novel.

Jay Lake

Wow. So many answers to that question

Mary Rosenblum

Yeah and some of them don't belong on a 'family channel' LOL

Jay Lake

I have to write another novel this year, too

xana

I see why you are using the word - madness

Jay Lake

eh?

It's the title of the sequel

TRIAL OF FLOWERS

then MADNESS OF FLOWERS

onepozy

You were writing and sending short fiction, no queries?

Jay Lake

I'm sorry, onepozy, do you mean no novel queries?

(it is possible to query short fiction)

Mary Rosenblum

I think pozy isn't sure of how fiction is marketed.

Jay Lake

ah

ok

Mary Rosenblum

Not like NF where you do query.

Jay Lake

Well, let me make a couple of comments on that.

In genre fiction, you generally submit short stories unsolicited

as long as the market's open for reading.

There are some great resources to find market listings

like ralan.com

but in general genre short fiction has a pretty healthy scene

(genre in this case being SF/F).

Novels can be submitted unsolicited, but that's rare.

You generally query novels

aiming for agents and editors at the same time

seeking to break in from either end.

Does that help?

Mary Rosenblum

I think that's pretty clear. :-)

janecj333

Why are you writing so much now, or have you always produced a lot?

Jay Lake

Well, basically I'm kind of manic

I'm only half-kidding.

I've always been very productive, whatever I did.

In school, in my professional life (I still have a day job)

so when I got focused on writing, it became an increasingly strong focus

at this point it's a habit which I have no desire to break

grayalien

Is it possible to make a living as a SF writer?

Jay Lake

but really, anyone who's successful writes LOT

Mary Rosenblum

Yeah, no kidding.

Jay Lake

Hey grayalien, yes it's possible, but not easy.

I know people for whom it is their sole income

but that's rare.

Lots of people do it with a pension, or a working partner, or something.

If I were single and 21, I could probably live on what I'm making now

but I'm middle aged with a kid

so my idea of "making a living" has changed a lot.

Remember, SF is about 4% of all fiction sold. Romance is 55% or so.

Mary Rosenblum

It also depends entirely on your popularity with readers...your sales numbers. And it may depend on whether you want to write what YOU want to write or what will sell.

Jay Lake

What Mary said.

Stuff that sells big = big money for writer.

There's some big money fantasy writers out there

and a lot of big money romance and mystery writers.

Yeah, what Mary said, what YOU want to write.

I don't relate well to romance fiction

as a reade

so I'm not very interested in writing i

and the readers would know if I was faking it.

I need passionate commitment to my work.

Mary Rosenblum

I think that's really a key issue to that 'make a living issue'...

Jay Lake

Remember what I said a minute ago about writing a LOT?

I don't go to movies, clubs or parties

I write 5-7 nights a week

It's what I DO.

xana

What is the average income per book in the genre?

Jay Lake

That varies wildly, xana.

ROCKET SCIENCE had no advance

that means I was given no money upfront.

Not unusual for a tiny independent press.

Most established pros would turn down a deal like that

but I've made pretty good money off it.

The other books got advances against royalties

which I'll know in a year or two how well that went

but for independent press books for larger houses, a few thousand dollars

big New York houses, higher but not a lot.

Until you're established.

In that world you're only as good as your last book's sales figures.

xana

The average shouldn't vary wildly :-) What's the range?

Mary Rosenblum

You're right, xana...the range varies wildly, depending on your previous sales and track record from low thousands to six figures.

Jay Lake

Really.

I know someone who got $115,000  for their first book.

Trust me, I got a small fraction of that

it does vary wildly.

Mary Rosenblum

That wasn't in SF was it Jay?

That sounds more mainstream to me.

Jay Lake

No, it was South Asian themed women's lit

though she's an SF writer

so I guess that's not a fair comparison. With writers like Arundhati Roy tearing up they're starving for that.

Mary Rosenblum

Advances in mainstream are highest.

Thriller is a lot bigger than SF/fantasy.

Mystery is about like SF/fantasy.

Jay Lake

A little bigger, mebbe?

Mary Rosenblum

And romance is generally very low at the bottom, very high at the top.

Jay Lake

Romance is the 900 pound gorilla for upside.

There's a lot of romance advances of $3000

for these little tiny category books with a four week shelf life

but if you break up from that

it's a much wider field than SF or mystery.

I was talking to a romance writer and her agent recently.

We were hanging out after a conference.

She mentioned one of her early books had sold out the printing but they didn't think it was worth another run

preferring to market her more recent stuff.

It had done only 80,000 copies, and so wasn't worth t he trouble.

Mary Rosenblum

They don't do a lot of reprinting in Romance except at the very top. :-)

Yeah, the Romance numbers are very large.

Jay Lake

Trust me, in SF, an early career book that does 80,000 copies would be cause for celebration

not yawning

write what you love, guys -- that's what makes it genuine and interesting.

janecj333

Why do you think your short fiction was published early in your career? Any particular trait/element that makes it stand out?

Jay Lake

Yeah, Elizabeth Bear talks about "the box it came in"

meaning everybody gets certain strengths in their writing for fre

as their natural abilitie

(as opposed to those things they have to learn)

My "box it came in

included good ability to describe settin

and a powerful if somewhat raw voice.

As it happens, decent setting and powerful voice aren't all that common

so I got away with lousy characterization and bunch of other stuff

because my stories were readable and interesting already.

speckledorf

Is your "box" what got you your agent?

Jay Lake

I like to think I've gotten better.

To some degree, speckle.

I have had an unusual career path I don't necessarily recommend to others.

Early on I did a bunch of reviewing (within SF/F)

which meant all the editors knew who I was

and name recognition has value

(this is distinct from social relationships as mentioned earlier

Reviewing has a lot of traps in it, which is why I stopped

but I also had a collection very early, thanks to a somewhat nutty publisher

who saw more than I did in my own work.

I was introduced to my agent by one of her clients who'd read my collection and thought it was really, really good

and by then I had some credible sales.

But that was before my Hugo nom or before I won the Campbell.

She was focused on my writing, some of which was still in that box

but mostly I'd already written and sold a lot, which demonstrated I was productive, and proved people were willing to pay money to read my work.

pthib

How do you juggle promotion with your day job and writing or does your publisher do most of that for you?

Jay Lake

heh

that's an excellent question, pthib

um

wow

Promotion isn't very well managed for newer writers.

No one has the budget for it.

If you go into the economics of a book, you can see why..

(Digression, Anna Louise Genoese, an editor at Tor, keeps a livejournal blog.

A couple of months ago she broke down book economics in excruciating detail.

If  you really want to know, go to her l

and track back to that series of posts)

So a newer writer needs to have some self promotional skills.

Promotion doesn't sell bad writing, but it can help good writing get recognized.

My day job is in marketing.

So I am fairly good at promotion.

one reason I have high name recognition

So the juggling

comes just like the writing.

A lot of careful time management.

A lot of energy.

But in my case, not much malice aforethought.

My entire career has in some sense been an improv performance in front of hundreds, and now thousands, of people.

There is no Master Plan

Mary Rosenblum

Is there ever? Maybe a few writers do that.

Jay Lake

hwh

I don't know Mary

but not me...

that's why god invented publicists, I guess -- not that I ever plan to have one.

pthib

Do you recommend small press publishers to those who write outside the norm?

Jay Lake

Depends on what you mean by "write outside the norm", but, basically, yes

Small press can take a lot more risks than big press.

Simply because of the numbers involved.

An independent press can make a profit on one or two thousand books being sold in a title

where in New York that would be a miserable failure.

So books which might not appeal to a mass audience

can prosper in the small press.

There’s more to it than that, but it's not a bad way to think of such things.

Mary Rosenblum

But let me break in here for a moment, Jay, and make a distinction between serious small press like Fairwood

and the 'quantity publishers' who simply publish any marginally readable book they get and make THEIR money on a few sales of every title in inventory.

Jay Lake

Oh yeas

vanity, too

yah, be very thoughtful about small presses

Mary Rosenblum

The serious small presses are respected and Jay

is an example of a big NY publisher who paid attention because of a small press publication.

But they do NOT look at the quantity publishers.

Jay Lake

yah, what Mary said.

One way to tell is by looking at who gets strong reviews in LOCUS, PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY, etc.

But rule number one...money always flows to the writer.

You pay nothing, ever, except postage.

If there's any fees involved anywhere in getting published, run, don't walk the other way.

Mary Rosenblum

Absolutely.

Jay Lake

ditto for agents

Mary Rosenblum

And a BUNCH of scams exist.

Jay Lake

No reading fees.

Mary Rosenblum

Predators and Editors

Jay Lake

cool