Mark Terry

Monday, July 25, 2011

Yeah, um, Hi.

July 25, 2011
This has been one of my longer blog hiatuses with only sporadic postings. And yeah, it seems to be working for me.

Just some updatery.

- The Valley of Shadows is out there in the market place, no doubt weighing down the shelves at Borders... oh, never mind. (I see that it is ranked #926,334 on the Amazon bestseller list for hardcover and #151,459 on Kindle. Those numbers sort of say it all, I think).

- Lots of other e-books available, too. Check 'em out.

- I've been fairly busy lately with, you know, making a living. I recently flew to San Jose, California for a client, have been doing a fair amount of website copywriting for a variety of clients. I'm also up for a couple very promising regularly long-term gigs.

- I've started a blog aimed at physicians, www.terrycommunications.com or for people who want top medical stories. On Mondays I run a piece on medical practice management. On Tuesday through Friday I run links to stop medical stories. If you're not interested in those topics, you won't be interested in that blog. There's a long-term business strategy to this, but I'm not going to discuss it here.

- No word on the nonfiction book proposal except for my agent to say something along the lines of, "The publishing market is terrible right now and no one wants to commit to anything, and when they do they don't want to put any money up for it."

- No word on the fiction book proposal my other agent is marketing except say something along the lines of, "The publishing market is terrible right now and no one wants to commit to anything, and when they do they don't want to put any money up for it."

- Yes, I am writing fiction, although somewhat sporadically. I'm working on a tech thriller called CRYSTAL STORM. If and when I finish it it'll probably come out as an e-book in 2012.

- Yes, I may have something else published as an e-book this year. I'll let you know when it comes out.

- Yes, still lifting weights, running, biking, kayaking and studying karate. I teach a karate class in the summer with my son, Ian, on Monday nights, 6:00 - 9:00. Couple more weeks of that left.

- Yes, it's hot. I'm not complaining, although, man, it's really HUMID to go along with it this summer.

Yes, I'm having a pretty good summer. How about you?

Cheers,
Mark Terry

2 Comments:

Anonymous Eric Mayer said...

"The publishing market is terrible right now...." Gee , that's what our agent says too and has been saying. Do agents ever say anything else? Has the publishing market ever been good? Glad to hear you are persevering anyway. Good luck on those Borders sales. Mary and I, for some reason or other, are trying to outline our tenth Byzantine mystery.

8:25 AM  
Blogger Mark Terry said...

Eric,
A rather good point. In my 20+ years of being involved with book-publishing in some way or another (often just hammering away at its thick walls) I never once heard an agent or editor say, "Things are good, we're buying up lots of stuff, it's never been a better time to be a writer/editor/agent."

Nonetheless, with hardcover fiction sales down by 25% in the first half of 2011 and paperback fiction sales down by about 18% (but e-book sales way up), I'm not inclined to suggest that I'm positioned terribly well with a hardcover out and a trade paperback supposedly coming out in September.

8:29 AM  

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