Like it or not, unless you’re an author with a catalog of titles under your belt from a big, established publisher, if you do decide to pursue “non-traditional publishing alternatives”, then others in the field (particularly editors at aforementioned publishers) tend to see such efforts as… well, as inconsequential at best to outright harmful to a writer’s career at worse.

Of course, much of this concern is, in my opinion, justified. After all, if an author published under, say, the Tor imprint, that means that at the very least that they had to convince multiple people, all trained publishing professionals, that the work is good enough to be out on shelves. Agents, acquisitions editors and others had to vet the manuscript for quality and appropriateness for that particular imprint before a check was cut. Obviously this doesn’t assure that the work is good (just look at the heaping mounds of less-than-stellar works on store shelves distributed under major publishers’ imprints). When I worked with Paula, she really scrutinized the manuscript and suggested a bevy of changes, some minor, some not, but all of which helped the final product. Without that kind of editorial involvement, the book would have been worse off.

But that’s not to say that I wouldn’t consider alternatives to major publishers. Given the comments I’ve received from readers, the majority of which have been overwhelmingly positive, I’d just like to see the story get into as many hands as humanly possible. Telling stories that other people enjoy and think about after they close the book covers has been a lifelong dream of mine, and is why I write. The money I get as a dividend for my work (what little there is – I think I net about $.03/hour tops) is just a bonus. A bonus that keeps gas in my car and electricity flowing to my laptop, true, but…

And in the interests of complete complete disclosure, while Matt and I are now in the same writing group, when I wrote my review of his first book I didn’t know him. So I hope people don’t assume I’m praising the books b/c I know him.

But, really, none of that matters. The Blood Magic books aren’t urban fantasy. Just good fantasy (or possibly even SF).

http://bloodmagicbooks.blogspot.com/2009/11/blood-magic-on-web.html

Full disclosure: Jason is a member of Writeshop, the Columbus-based writer’s group of which I am a member. I swear, though – I did not put him up to this. Thanks, man! :)

And thanks, Paula for clearing that up with Juno. “Urban Fantasy” is definitely more inclusive than “Paranormal Romance”, I agree. Of course, in my day (you know, back when we had pterodactyls and not birds and cars had stone wheels… heh) “Urban Fantasy” was more about modernizing elements of classic “fairy tales” (think Emma Bull and Charles de Lint) and less about, say, stuff like the Anita Blake books. I’ll always be grateful for the confidence you had in me and in the series, and working with you has been the highlight of my (albeit fledgling) writer’s career. Best of luck to you over at Pocket/Juno!!

Thanks so much for your support of some great books I am proud to have had a hand in. I, too, hope Matt will find further success as a writer. (And he knows it!)

But allow me to set a few facts straight. First, Juno never published paranormal romance and does not now. We published a variety of fantasy and now publish a more closely defined type of fantasy. Further, Pocket was publishing romance before they picked up Juno. Pocket Juno very specifically does not publish romance. The label “urban fantasy” may not be accurate, but that seems to be what this sort of fantasy is commonly called.

So, yes, unfortunately Matt’s books did not fit into the Pocket Juno — neither did some other fine books we did — but that has nothing to do with paranormal romance.