Stumbling Towards Publication

Went to New York City ... and DC ..., and the one thing I didn't expect was no internet connection.  Had access to computers but the signal was too weak to use where I could sit without my hip throwing a tantrum.  So, no blog.  Sorry.  Didn't even get much of a look at my emails ... so I didn't know what was happening with the WolfSinger cover art.

WolfSinger Publications has sent "Taking Vengeance" to an artist for a cover art!  It's enough to warm the cockles of a pessimist's heart.  I'm working with her now.  She has drafted an okay picture, but my Half-Elven are much darker than Tolkien's elves.  She drew Mariah as a "sweet young thing" ... which she definitely isn't.  [From the prequel partials, I doubt if she was a "sweet young thing" when a child.]  I'll be getting back to the artist today, once we finalized the last details of my nursing-home friend's funeral.

Also, the contract is in process for the trailer.  I've got to sign and send money.  I've read several comments lately on blogs and in forums that writing is much more expensive than it used to be.  I can remember when I only spent money on paper, postage, envelopes and miscellaneous.  

Now?   Having a computer is just the starters.  Where do the trailers, websites, editing, and marketing campaigns ... figure in your writing?  My hat's off to any reader who has landed a traditional publisher for their book.  {Of course, I don't wear hats.  Not since Vatican II and before that, I wore a mantilla.} 

Also, "Dark Solstice" came in at 76,500 words.  Probably, another reason it won't sell.  It's too short.  Novella, anyone?  --  I should have never removed the redundancies and passives and incomplete revisions.  Nothing like shooting yourself in the foot.

Trivia:

Last year sometime, I wrote  a review of The Ghosts of Crutchfield Hall, and gave the book to a step-grandkid after he said he like to read about ghosts.  He ignored the book.  

Two weeks ago, his non-reading, school-hating sister devoured the book.  When she started talking about Sophia doing this, and Sophia doing that, it took her mother a day to realize the kid, who doesn't read, had finished the book.  She immediately launched into Wind in the Willows, which she thinks is the funniest book ever.  --  Can this be an argument for giving free books to kids just to have them sitting on a shelf and accessible?