I've not burned out from the writing, but I stopped being published traditionally some time ago and self publishing has not proved sufficiently viable for me to continue with it. I can make more money elsewhere, for less effort.
I am continuing to write short fiction and currently a novella, but otherwise will be writing privately, as a hobby rather than as a pro. My mother went through the same pattern, continuing to write although Robert Hale stopped publishing her after 12 or so novels, and is still writing daily at 88.
]]>Also I would not want to fall into the trap of assuming that, as a female writer and reader, gender is my only concern. Jack Vance's women tended to come to horrible ends and were often thoroughly stererotyped, but I love his worldbuilding and prose.
]]>SFWA is interesting: I would be curious to know what the international demographic is (English speaking or otherwise). This is purely anecdotal on my part: I joined SFWA towards the early 2000s, saw a lot of value to it for US writers (especially the EMF) but did not renew my membership because it wasn't serving me as a British writer. Not sure how many UK writers are members. Recent arguments in it seem to have put a number of younger writers off joining. So this is likely to skew the demographic.
]]>I must apologise if this point has been made before - I'm working with a badly cracked screen and have tried to read through all entries, but may have missed something.
One point I would like to make is regarding promotion. Most publishers don't do much of it, unless you're already well known: Game of Thrones will get promo'd much more than First Novel. First novels are usually expected to sink or swim, unless they have something unusual behind them like a big advance deal. I consider myself lucky to have had the run I had, which is typical oif a declining midlist writer: a set of standard paperback runs, a foray into hardback in the UK, and then deals with much smaller houses. Of this, we all know about Night Shade; of Prime, Paula Guran was very professional and Sean Wallace not at all. I'm grateful not to be dealing with either outfit.
However, I am currently reprinted by Open Road in New York, who describe themselves as marketers more than publishers and they have been excellent: they do more to market the Chen novels and to keep me informed than any other publishing organisation I've worked with, including Bantam and Macmillan. And I have higher royalties from them than from anyone else.
So books do sell if you promote them. Who knew?
]]>Dai, we're probably around the same age: there were a lot of women SFF writers in the local library, which was small and provincial. I must have read all of Andre Norton's work from there, just as one example. So this invisibility issue is curious.
]]>Ironically, I just visited the Wikipedia page for British SF writers looking for someone else, and I'm not on there, along with a lot of other writers, male and female. Neither is Tanith Lee.
It was Tanith's death which marked my own decision about my own career. I no longer consider myself a pro writer: I may continue it as a hobby, but it is not a career. I've had a decent run with it, and a lot of support from people like Gardner, David Pringle, Chris Priest, Harry Harrison, and Charlie, as well as many female writers and editors.
However, I'm not prepared to spend the rest of my life struggling with it. American readers won't be aware of this, but at least one article came out from a younger (female) SF fan last year saying, basically, that all the women writing in the UK were has-beens who should have the decency to pop their clogs and leave the field to the young women. At the time, I was 49.
And an editor who should know better suggested that the last year's Worldcon guest, Robin Hobb, had no relevance to the younger generation and should be replaced by a much younger woman. This is not only empirically rubbish, since Hobb has a big following, but I venture to suggest that this guy would not even think of making such a suggestion about a male GOH.
I could give example after example. However, I have things to do and people's eyeballs will give out, so I'll finish by thanking Charlie and Judith.
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