A Stalker’s Notebook – The Long Wait to Publication

I’m an aspiring writer, and hopefully some BSC Review readers share my passion for writing. My first international sale (i.e., book that you can purchase outside of the Philippines) was to the anthology The Dragon and the Stars edited by Derwin Mak and Eric Choi. It’ll be coming out on May 4, 2010.

Now to some readers, the short story, or even the novel, may seem immediate. The road to publication, however, can be a long (and difficult) process. Here’s the timeline of what occurred in my case (and mind you, this is for one short story; you can just imagine what the more prolific/long-form authors go through):

April 6, 2009 – I receive an email inviting me to contribute to the anthology. Deadline for submission is June 26, 2009.

May 2009 – Writing draft. Discarding draft. Writing a new draft. Rinse and repeat.

June 2, 2009 – I receive an email from the editors reminding me of the looming deadline.

June 9, 2009 – I submit my manuscript. Yay, two weeks ahead of the deadline!

June 18, 2009 – Editor sends me back my manuscript, asking for revisions. (Note: My story hasn’t been accepted yet at this point.) I submit my revisions on the same day.

June 23, 2009 – More revisions from the editor. 

July 2009 – Waiting. Maybe the editors didn’t like my story after all…

August 30, 2009 – I get an email notifying me that my story is accepted. Yay! I submit my author bio.

September 3, 2009 – Contributors receive a tentative Table of Contents (TOC).

October 25, 2009 – Editors email us final TOC and notify us that the official contract is on its way.

November 26, 2009 – Contract arrives by mail.

November 29, 2009 – I mail my contract to the publisher.

January 6, 2010 – Aaagh, post office returns to me my contract. Post office fail! I email a softcopy of the contract to the publisher.

Right now, I’m still waiting for the proofs to arrive. But as of today, the editors and the contributors are already planning on promoting the book. And this is for a May 2010 release date (that’s almost a year since I wrote my story!).

So, to aspiring writers:  be patient!

About Charles Tan

Charles Tan's fiction has appeared in publications such as The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories and Philippine Speculative Fiction. He has contributed nonfiction to websites such as The Nebula Awards (http://nebulaawards.com/), The Shirley Jackson Awards (http://www.shirleyjacksonawards.org/), SF Crowsnest (http://www.sfcrowsnest.com/), SFScope (http://sfscope.com/), Fantasy Magazine (http://www.darkfantasy.org/fantasy/), Fantasy Literature (http://www.fantasyliterature.com/), BSC Review (http://www.bscreview.com/), The World SF News Blog (http://worldsf.wordpress.com/), and SF Signal (http://www.sfsignal.com). In 2009, he won the Last Drink Bird Head Award (http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2009/10/04/the-first-annual-last-drink-bird-head-award-finalists/) for International Activism which is described as "In recognition of those who work to bring writers from other literary traditions and countries to the attention of readers in North America, the United Kingdom, and Australia…" You can visit his blog, Bibliophile Stalker (http://charles-tan.blogspot.com/), or the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler (http://philippinespeculativefiction.com/).