Cue Hysterical Giggling

:cue hysterical giggling:

So, apparently yesterday, Brandon Sanderson decided to do a kickstarter for, I believe, four unpublished 'secret' novels of his.  He raised 14 million in one day.  Say it slow with me... FOURTEEN MILLION DOLLARS.  In one day.  And it's still rising.  (Go here to watch his $ counter and backer counter roll like the tote board at the Labor Day Telethon.  It's mesmerizing.)

A month before my own fantasy novel is set to go out into the world.

Now, there are people who would rejoice over a coincidence like that.  My name being Sanderson, after all, means people could get confused and one-click my book thinking it's HIS book.  I could reap the whirlwind there.  But I don't WANT to.  I've never ridden anyone else's coattails and I'm not about to start now.  

Besides, think about how pissed those of his readers would be when they realized this book was not his book.  I already got tagged once because of my name, where someone intimated, after WISH IN ONE HAND went live with that tragic first cover, that I was a hack trying to riff off the dude's name.  

And there are plenty of people out there who do exactly that.  Some chick decided to write romantic suspense under a name so very similar to a friend of mine (bestselling author of romantic suspense) that the similarity had to be on purpose to suck off her reader base.  I don't do that.  Even the implication that I would makes me nauseous.

The only thing worse would be if one of those books is in any way similar to my book.  Cover?  Title?  Premise?  No clue if they are because he's keeping all that a secret.  With my luck, everything about them is similar to SONG.  

The only thing I have going for me is that I already went live with the cover and title, so I couldn't possibly be riffing off his, which aren't public yet.  And my book is already in the hands of two people who could vouch for me that I didn't 'steal' from him.  

How could I steal from him?  I have purposely never read a single title of his.  And I was out in the world as B.E. Sanderson before I'd even heard of Brandon.  

Ahem...

I'm seriously considering changing my name.  For these books only.  I am proud to be a Sanderson, after all.  Hubs made me one and I am proud to be his wife.  But yeah, it's a liability right now.  I need to do some research, though, to see if I can legally use another name or if I have to go get a DBA (doing business as), which costs money.  And then I'd need to change the cover.  Which, thankfully, isn't that hard.

Gah.

So, yeah, I'm over here giggling like a maniac.  The timing for his thing couldn't have been worse for me.  I mean, go him.  That's an incredible feat.  And his readers must really love him to be shelling out all that money to get all the goodies he's offering.  I wish I had half that love.  Hell, I'd be happy with a tenth.  But not at the cost of my integrity.  

Stay tuned.  This book will be published and it will go live on April First, barring unforeseen difficulties.  Whether it's as B.E. Sanderson or B.E. Meissner, who knows?  Would you buy Bes Anderson?  :shrug:

Updates and Decisions I'm Not Ready to Make

Well, I finally finished the edit notes for Untitled Fantasy.  And I counted them, finally.  30 pages of notes - college rule, single side - for roughly 97000 words.  Or 1 page of notes per approximately 3200 words worth of story.  

As always, some are as simple as noting that a comma needs to be inserted or removed.  But I really try not to hit the simple stuff on the first draft.  Most of it is bigger stuff - rewriting a line, etc.  Some of it is huge, like rewriting an entire scene.  

All in all, though, this is a solid book.  Nothing that makes me want to scrap a whole chapter or anything.  

Okay, so maybe I'm unsure about whether to leave a large chunk of the end to the next book.  I'll either figure it out myself or let my readers tell me what they think.  But that's down the road a ways.  

I'm also playing with the idea of adding to the beginning because right now, it just sort of throws the reader into the thick of things without a whole lot of set-up.  (Not the main thick, but sort of the beginning thick.)

I had hoped to have this phase finished by the end of October, but somehow it reached the friggin' 18th of the month and finishing this phase in the remaining 13 days seems problematic.  We'll see how it goes.

And I need a title.  I had a list of potential titles, but I just looked at it and they all suck.  I'm not sure what in my head thought 'Time of the Twins' would've been a good idea... There's a Dragonlance book with that title already.  Nope nope nope.  Not riffin' off that series and don't even want a hint it's anything like those books.  Derp.  It's bad enough I've already got my name lending the impression I'm nursing at the Brandon Sanderson teats.  

Speaking of which, I might publish this under my maiden name.  B.E. Meissner worked for me when I was a maiden, so why not now?  

And I'm playing with the idea of trying to get this published through Baen or something.  Gah, the idea of querying makes me want to hurl.  But they have resources I don't have, so going with them would get me a better cover than I can afford.  It would definitely get me better exposure.  The question is whether they'd want an old self-pubber like me.  :shrug:

Decisions, decisions.  On the upside, I have a lot of work to do before I have to make a decision of any kind.  Yay for turtle speed.

What's in a Name?

What's in a name?  Would an author by any other name write as sweet?

Years ago, when Wish in One Hand was newly birthed and out in the world, I stumbled across a website that trashes bad book covers.  (Yes, my original cover for WIOH deserved to be there.)  Only problem was one of the people trashing my book's cover went after my name, too.  

They accused me of trying to riff off of Brandon Sanderson.  Like this was some kind of name I made up to lure unsuspecting Brandon fans.  I posted about it on my blog and then went on about my merry way, because it's not like I was doing what they accused me of, we don't even write the same genres, and it wasn't like I was going to change my name.  

I'm kind of proud of my name.  After all, I chose to be a Sanderson when I married Hubs.  I could've easily kept my maiden name.  I chose not to.  I use my initials because it gives me some small measure of anonymity in this weird world.  And while I do like my first name, it doesn't necessarily say AUTHOR.  Some of you know it, most of you don't.  (Yes, it does begin with a B.  No, it doesn't rhyme with witch.)  So, B.E. Sanderson.  Tada!  (For the record, before I got married, I was B.E. Meissner online and in print - LTOE's and whatnot.)  

Five plus years later and I thought this issue was done.  But once something sticks in my head, it's in there.  So, lucky me, when I was laying in bed thinking about this fantasy novel I'm writing, the old criticism jumped out of my memory banks and slapped me across the face.  If you're not familiar with Brandon, he writes fantasy.  If I got tagged for being a Sanderson with an urban fantasy, which he doesn't write, how will people react to seeing my similar name on a fantasy novel?  

Blerg.  And since I have never read anything by him, now I'm wondering if what I'm writing is even a little bit close to what he's already written.  How gauche would that be?

Since I don't want to stop writing this fantasy, I'm debating on whether to switch back to my maiden name for this venture.  But I like my name... :whines:  And writing under a pseudonym is such a pain in the ass.  I'd have to go get a DBA registered and find some way to market that name without linking it to my name and... :collapses:

The really stupid thing about all this is that the need for any of this is so far away I really shouldn't be letting it hamper my writing.  But, sure enough, it derailed me.  Of course, I've already talked about this book using my name and I've posted snippets of it under this name and if I really wanted to divorce the book from the name I should've already started that process so there'd be a clean break.  :shrug:

It is what it is.  

Have any of y'all read Brandon?  He's like a big best-selling author and junk.  I so do not want to ride his coat tails, even a little bit.  I also don't want to get smeared as being someone who's trying to make money off his name, even if it isn't true.  He's got money for lawyers and stuff.  I don't want to get sued, but I don't want to stop writing my fantasy either.

I'm probably worried over nothing.  But on the off chance it's something...  Gah.

Yep, neurotic writer is in residence this morning.