Author Dorothee Kocks writes:

Writers often daydream about their first publishing contract, and in the States, that dream involves a trip to New York, a ride up some swanky elevator, and a welcome into the community of real writers: no longer an apprentice. 

My moment came in my own foyer. A manila envelope with New Zealand stamps announced that the Rosa Mira Books contract had come and I tore it open, expecting a sheaf of papers to sign, date, return. I had places to go and did not expect to pause but then the papers were sheathed in a pale green sleeve, the color of spring. And inside, a fine ribbon wrapped the document and I could feel publisher Penelope Todd reaching across the miles to say: here you are.

Now I am being contacted by newspaper editors who’ve received a review copy, not via email but by post: in a box with Christine Buess’s lovely cover design and inside, petals from Pen’s garden. A slip of paper gives the online address to receive the book.

What astonishes me most about the ebook revolution is how deeply personal it is. One expects machine worlds to be cold and distant and yet the opposite has been true as The Glass Harmonica has journeyed toward publication. Of course part of this is due to Pen’s personality but that is my point: we are fully here, on the e-frontier. We meet each other not face to face but somehow intimately. Publishing for the last 100 years or so required layers of bureaucracy: from the writer through agents to editors and publishers, then marketing departments and production houses and distribution centers and pulp paper mills. Now small gardens are springing up.

As the first Rosa Mira author, I find myself linked hand to hand with a public relations campaign that is refreshingly not about bamboozling but about finding neighbors in the book world, people who like the same kinds of places. The whole process feels local even as it is so effortlessly global. Here in Utah, I just returned from a walk with my dog and we navigated icy sidewalks and watched a father help his daughter on her bike negotiate a crust of snow. In Dunedin, Pen switches on her camera during our phone call over Skype and the flood of summer bird song enters my study. Meanwhile, in Berlin, Germany, a book trailer seems in the offing as the music museum there houses one of the last surviving 18^th century glass harmonicas.

The next step is for the intimate experience of reading to become electronic. I loathed the idea once. I love my paperbacks. I read in the bathtub. But now I have a reading device. I turn the page, and I am carried away. In the end, words are the technology and the magic together, and all else is just details. I hope to meet you here, on the even electronic plain. I'm at dorothee@dorotheekocks.com.

(Photo by James Rendek)

Changing dynamics

I started the day anxious. The old method of book launching seems less relevant all the time, but at least it was visible. Books on shelves. An ebook is not like a hard copy whose shelf life is immediately endangered without a great splash in the first crucial days or weeks. I went to Dan Blank for reassurance. And found it on the first page: 'How I learned to stop worrying and love the web'. Okay I'll never love the web like I love my garden or my bed, but I love the generous people I meet there, and I'm learning to trust the subversive new marketing ploy: sustainable chit-chat, leading to sustainable conversation, leading to the linking of like minds, the finding and sharing of books we love, and so on.

Today's list is too long to write here but it includes contact formatter: I sent off a Pages version of the finalised copy of The Glass Harmonica to Jason of meBooks. It was time to get professional formatting — Kindle conversion in particular was proving tricky and he's prompt, friendly and offers a seven-day turnaround.

Leaf. I have it now, set in a square and ready to apply to the RMB facebook Page. Check it out ... tomorrow, I reckon. That leads to further list items: link FB page to blog, Twitter etc.

Check out the good cents site where Tom is blog editor . . . thanks to The Distiller, we plan to exchange energies; he wants some copy advice (and I'll take any advice I'm offered) although what I see looks tight and enticing already.

There are 30 more items on the list. I've crossed off half. One of them is Yoga. I'll go and do a few stretches before dinner.

On and on

Lists and lists. I have pages of them. Each day I fill the diary allotment with another, then shape up a new list next day with the leftovers. Crossing items off has never felt so satisfying. But it's dawning on me that I'm never going to be done with these lists. Rosa Mira is a long-term commitment and I'm well past the point of no-return. The world of digital publishing and social media is continually expanding. The number of seminars I can attend, websites explore, links follow, online tools utilise, and media networks pursue roughly equals the number of currants on our bushes this year. It's a bountiful season.

I think the secret route through this maze of possibilities is to do what looks like most fun. Fun is energising. Anxiety (fear of too-muchness) is enervating. Is that too simple a formula? I don't think so. I need to survive this. Better still, thrive.

I love the ebook RMB is soon to publish. I enjoy editing and exchange with writers. I like writing this blog. I'm warming to Twitter, and I look forward to my evening FB exchanges. I love meeting enthusiasts who cheer me on and share their own challenges and pleasures.

Knowing what fires me helps me discriminate. My lists look more enticing already.

And I'm not alone.

Did I say? January. Thanks, everyone, for your patience.

A pause for breath

Setting up Rosa Mira Books has been such an adventure. The work and learning  of the last year have stretched and heartened me, flattened and firmed me up inwardly, given me nightmares and days of quiet exaltation. I've met and consulted and worked with exceptional, generous, encouraging people all the way. No one has told me I'm a fool for doing this. I keep finding in the web community fantastically open-handed people sharing what they've learned and giving practical advice.

I'd hoped to launch at the start of December.

Coral wrote the other week that she tells her publishing students that every publisher's middle name might be 'slippage'. That was strangely heartening if (as I contend) slippage is part and parcel of publishing and not necessarily of the publisher's personality.

For various reasons, most to do with human capacity vs hours available in the week, not to mention the Christmas/year's end/holiday change of gears, I'm delaying the launch of Rosa Mira and The Glass Harmonica until late January. By then our Slightly Peculiar Love Stories should be well into production, all nearly all wrinkles ironed out, and those involved rested, eager, savvy and ready to roll.

Unsprung

Reaching the end of the manuscript — a proofread that was inevitably a copy-edit as well  — I felt like a piece of elastic released from its duty to hold the britches up. I sprang about, disconcerted and happy. Dorothee in Utah will make a last read-through then Christine across town will check the styling and create ePub and PDF files. Across the Tasman a Kindle-friendly version of the novel will be conjured up.

Meanwhile Eion in Dublin and Lorraine in Colorado are reading copies of The Glass Harmonica on Android and PC, in order to toss us a few choice comments to further entice our readers, and in Auckland and Salt Lake City, marketing strategies are being firmed up.  Today I was enticed to join Twitter. Twittering — the antithesis of my habitual self. But I will learn. Tomorrow I'll send a message.

All these things happen at the press of a button (or several). Hourly miracles.

I know I've tried to fix dates before but watch this one: December 2nd. Should be a good day.

Deep Water

We watched the doco of that name the other night — the Donald Crowhurst story: how he left port according to deadline but before he felt ready. How he sailed south with quaking heart. If he entered the southern ocean he would probably die. If he turned tail for home he faced financial ruin. Sad, sad, sad. But fascinating, too, to ponder what risks one is prepared to go on a limb for; what constitutes a risk, what a failure; and where is the point of no-return?


Helpful, too, for gaining perspective, No lives or livelihoods are at stake if Rosa Mira Books goes online before all doubts are quelled. However, we want the rigging sound, our crew confident, and all sailors to have a happy trip when they come aboard. We're running around checking the sheets, anchors and winches (okay, am about out of nautical terms here; you get the gist) and are casting a weather eye at this week's forecast . . .  We want everything just so — although the draft pages are looking sleek and lovely already. Hugh reckons it's his best design yet. I think he might be right.

 This week suddenly it seemed crucial to have an e-reader in order to test our manuscript. I needed a versatile device, so I went down to the Mac shop, stroked the iPad a few times and said, 'Okay.' On it I can download a zillion apps: Stanza, iBooks, GoodReading, Kobo, Kindle, B&N . . . (Best of all, the meowing cat piano app).

Meanwhile the little soft-covered, bendy e-reader is on the imagination's back burner. It'll turn up in due course. :)

Take a look

It's possible that the final paragraph of The Glass Harmonica: A Sensualist's Tale has at last been tweaked to perfection, just in time for the stylist and the proofreader who advance like lawn-mower and garden roller upon the author and editor.

And look!

The cover image was hand-painted by Christine Buess of Longacre Press fame, designed, more or less, from a description of Henry's waistcoat with its pièce de résistance, the tomato, or pomme d'amour.

Dani Wright has cooked up a marketing plan that includes Rosa Mira going seriously online. Soon. The inevitable is imminent and I'm almost ready for it. We have some plans on the front cooker in the U.S. too. Kind of exciting.

Meanwhile, thanks to Helen Heath's weekend reading round-up I've found a couple of expansive articles on Why Readers Hate DRM (digital rights management) and The Future of Publishing Takes Shape on Faber's blog, The Thought Fox. Points pondered in the latter include the editorial process which I am pleased to state will be Rosa Mira's strong suit in an industry that has been forced to reduce its editing TLC in recent years.

It's possible the website will go live this week. You'll hear it first here.