Getting Published with Mark Leslie

The Writing Show is a wonderful podcast which covers issues of writing, creative, fictional, non-fictional, from the quest for ideas to the end product including publicizing and making money from the pen. I cannot keep up with all of the issues and in addition there is this fabulous backlog, but I want to keep posting from time to time about this great podcast. One of the most exciting rubrics is the 'reality show'; every now and then host Paula Berinstein speaks with writers Jean Tennant and Mark Leslie about their slippery and meandering road into getting published.

Last week, February 7th, Mark Leslie was on again. Mark is in the process of writing his novel A Canadian werewolf in New York, which once started out as a short story, but is now developed to a full novel taking the narrative further and deeper where the short story left off. Just as the other reality show writer Jean Tennant, Mark has been distracted by other projects in the past months. He has received a rejection regarding another product of his and on the podcast he analyzes the wording of the rejection, trying the various interpretations. Is the included praise a token phrase or a genuine encouragement?

Mark works in a book store and as a result has a more than average understanding of the publishing industry. In this interview he explains the concept of remaindering. (Dutch: ramsj) The bottom-line is, this is a scheme which makes money for book stores, cleans up storage room for publishers and if the writer doesn't make money, at least he may win more following. Apart from these side steps, there is a lot of attention to the comments Mark received on A Canadian werewolf in New York from a listener to the podcast.

More Writing Show on this blog:
Psychological Aspects of Writing,
Getting published with Jean Tennant,
Self-publishing,
The art of coherence,
Book design.