Hunting the elusive poetry market

I have three full volumes of poetry of which I've published a few in Mrs. Everywhere and Bagatelle but most of which has not seen much light. Because I have chronic illness problems I am very disconnected from the poetics community. So every so often I go around trying to find either contemporary poets I can relate to, or poetry publishers/magazines which have exciting material. Thin pickings. I have a slew to go through this weekend -- no luck so far. I did pass a friend this great poem by Billy Collins though, the very charming Another Reason Why I Don't Keep a Gun in the House. (If that poem were a dance single it would be aka 'Barking, Barking, Barking'.)

Tea Master now available for international (and Canadian) download

The excerpt of the Tea Master is available from Amazon here for all readers now, not just US readers. Amazon had a glitch with this from mid-March until today, March 25, but has unglitched. If you downloaded the excerpt from my alternate site, I hate to ask, but, please go to the Amazon site for the Tea Master and download it again. I know, I know. But on the bright side there are also hundreds of other excerpts there for you to graze on free of charge, thanks to valiant outcries put on by the hundreds of writers located outside the US.

Tea Master doing well

Can't complain about being #17 out of #500 for most number of times one's excerpt is downloaded, especially since it doesn't count the healthy additional number of times it's been grabbed from here. (I could use more reviews - post them here but I'm genuinely not complaining. I know non-Americans are having trouble posting.) I would be posting more myself but I injured my writing hand pretty badly yesterday and am having trouble typing. Overall, though, thanks. Oh yes, what I meant to say is, if you like The Tea Master, there's a whole monster archive of my work at Hypercube Industries, both writing and photography (and mixed media of both).

MP3 of CBC radio interview on The Tea Master, March 20, 2009

Here we go:

CBC Radio interview on The Tea Master, March 20, 2009. 7 min, 46 sec. Includes a reading from the first chapter of the book.

CBC Interview this morning

I just did an interview on CBC radio, which I will post as soon as I can figure out how to save the sound file in a useful format. Went as well as these things do and I read a bit of the book. If you heard the interview and want the excerpt, you can download the first chapters of The Tea Master here and then go to Amazon to rate what you think of The Tea Master. (If you're in the United States and are here because of the phlap.net post, just go straight to the Amazon page for The Tea Master to get the excerpt and rate it there.)

Author's note in the International excerpt

I placed an author's note in the International version of The Tea Master excerpt -- which is the only difference. So that Americans don't feel the impulse to download both for completeness, I'm posting the note here:

Author’s note:

As of just after midnight, on March 19, 2009, Amazon.com is still not allowing “interational” readers to download and rate the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award quarterfinalists. This is a big problem for me because I’m Canadian, and a lot of the people I would call on to promote The Tea Master are Canadian. I hope they’ll fix this, but, in the meantime I decided I could host my own download, solicit comments on my own blog, and have my American-based husband John post those comments to Amazon for me. International readers CAN still rate The Tea Master at the Amazon link, so please rate there and comment at my blog.

The Tea Master represents four years’ hard work plus nearly another year of fruitlessly trying to get notice from the publishing industry. This is not an unusual situation or a reflection on the quality of my writing; recent New York Times bestseller Water for Elephants was rejected seventy-eight times before it found a home at Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. William Kennedy o’Toole killed himself after ‘only’ sixteen rejections of Confederacy of Dunces, which subsequently won the Pulitzer.

The publishing industry is based on a 400 year old model and it is falling apart. The Tea Master has already beaten nearly ten thousand other books to get this far, which shows something about the situation of the dozens of agents who told me it was good, but that they didn’t know how to find the market for it. If you have ever enjoyed my work in the past, the market is you, and the best way to say that, is to say it. If you’re American (what are you doing reading this, you should be getting the official excerpt!) please download it from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001UG39TM

and post a review there. If you’re not, post your review as a comment at:

http://fille.camilledumas.com/

Be as brief or as detailed as you want with your written review.

I have never been in good health. Writing books is the only thing I am good for, and I must find a way to bypass the publishing industry’s old-fashioned, decaying methodologies. Penguin has shown itself future-sighted in sponsoring this contest, and the more attention I get, the more likely I’ll find commercial recognition whether or not I win. This means the difference between whether or not I continue to struggle in poverty, illness and obscurity, and whether you are able to lie back next summer with a glass of iced tea and a copy of The Tea Master… or even my next book, Common Wealth. Would that all our ethical choices were so simple: for only a few minutes of your time, you can save me from the situation of Warren’s wife Mira, who was fired from the Jerry Springer Show, for ‘creative differences’.

Camille Dumas, March 19, 2009

(That’s: Camille Dumas / Gabrielle Taylor / Antoinette / Satin /
Gabrielle Barrett / Camille Vanessa Johnson-Taylor-Nickles /
Auntie Dynamite, from Holistic Artists, Pandemonium! Online,
The Net Net, computerpages, the Northwest Comic News,
Pulp Culture, Moonfarmer, Mascaret, Clean Shopper, Shiny Shiny,
Tech Digest, Hippyshopper, and beyond)

What is 'The Tea Master'?

From my Amazon BNA pitch:

The Tea Master is full of thrilling adventures, capital-R Romance, modern intrigues and personal tragedies that would be at home in any Three Musketeers novel. Warren is born in tragedy and becomes a genius of tea. His nemesis is Victor Fishfire, whose film was so great, it killed Warren's mother. Their lives are complicated by billionaire Andrei Grattecon-Swyve, a tattooed tribesman who intends to live forever.

As Warren's wife Mira Manchu grapples with sexist Hollywood and more-sexist tea growers, Hamadryad Botticelli makes us wonder how much we can do for smart pop stars who do drugs anyhow. Rounding out the cast is Stella Grattecon-Swyve, mother of Andrei and creator of the world-famous 'Guillermo Heterodyne' stories. She is the mysterious woman behind the Swyveland amusement parks loaded with everyone's favorite cartoon bear, Aloha Panda.

The Tea Master moves from the difficulty of exterminating unicorns, to the trouble in taking a real baseball bat to diet-pill-based hallucinatory flying reptiles, to the life lesson that it's never as easy to decapitate someone as you hope it will be. The moral? Teabags are bad. Read it as a popcorn adventure piece with explosions, pirates, and the occasional big dance number, or as the touching story of a man who was born so wrong he doesn't know how to get it right.

Juicy, sprawling and smart, The Tea Master will please fans of Neal Stephenson, Susanna Clarke or Neil Gaiman, as well as admirers of Joseph Heller, Michael Chabon, Mark Helprin, Douglas Coupland... and probably Tolstoy and Cervantes. These days the author mostly reads the better serial writers of material like Girl Genius, Sluggy Freelance, Accursed Dragon, Skin Horse, Dr. McNinja and Penny Arcade - and with friends like that you know you won't find The Tea Master boring.

'Tea Master' press release March 17 2009

For Immediate Release

Moncton writer Camille Dumas takes Second Prize with her book 'The Tea Master' in Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest

Moncton, NB - March 17 - Beating 9,500 other competitors to do so, Moncton writer Camille Dumas has seen her novel 'The Tea Master' take a Second Prize and advance to the quarter finals of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. To make it to the top, she needs your support. Visit fille.camilledumas.com before April 14 to download an excerpt and post your reviews of 'The Tea Master', a fairy tale of the power of art and revenge, and, of course, tea.

"Revenge is a Dumas literary tradition," said Ms. Dumas, "which we see in books like 'The Count of Monte Cristo' and 'Three Musketeers'. But I am probably the first Dumas to get revenge on the book itself. My father named me after 'Camille', which is a romance about a dying woman, and since I have been ill myself since I was a young girl I always felt it was my name that caused my sickness. So I got revenge by hating all Dumas writing, including my own! It was years before I realized he named me for the book, not the dying girl - whose name is actually Marguerite - because he wanted me to have the whole world, not just to be part of it. Suddenly I connected to my heritage as a Dumas, and myself as a writer. In 'The Tea Master' Warren has to find himself, and his route takes him a long time too, but it has more ninjas and explosions."

'The Tea Master' is about the death of Warren's mother, who was killed by the greatest movie ever made by the world's greatest living filmmaker, Victor Fishfire. Warren travels the world, swordfighting and buying up tea leaves with Bollywood/Hong-Kong movie star Mira Manchu - his wife - until his constant adultery drives her away.

"But when Mira marries again, to Victor Fishfire himself," Ms. Dumas said, "Warren's shell finally cracks, and he is forced to learn who he truly is, just as I did."

An excerpt of 'The Tea Master' is available online at fille.camilledumas.com.

Ms. Dumas, head writer for animated series 'The Wizard Circuit', is an alumna of Mount Allison University, Carleton University, and the University of Leicester. She studied creative writing with Tom Henighan, photography with Thaddeus Holownia, and painting with Gordon Smith.

The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award is an opportunity for emerging fiction writers to join a community of authors on Amazon.com, showcase their work, and compete for a chance to get published. The semi-finals begin April 15, 2009, and public voting for the top 3 finalists will be open from May 15 to 22nd.

Sponsored in partnership with Penguin Group (USA), Publishers Weekly and CreateSpace, this year's expert panel will be lead by mega-bestselling authors Sue Monk Kidd and Sue Grafton, kicking off the Breakthrough Novel Award finalist round with their reviews of the top three manuscripts. A-list literary agent Barney Karpfinger and Penguin Press Editor-in-Chief Eamon Dolan will also join them to provide careful critiques of the finalists' novels.

Contact:
J. A. Nickles
john at camilledumas.com

Download 'The Tea Master' excerpt for free

If you are in the United States go to Amazon.com to download your free excerpt of The Tea Master and post your comments at Amazon. Thank you!

If you are NOT in the United States, click here to download your copy of the first chapters of The Tea Master, then go to Amazon to post your review.

Why 'The Tea Master' excerpt is here for download

The deal: Amazon.com is still not allowing “interational” readers to download and rate the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award quarterfinalists. This is a big problem for me because I’m Canadian, and a lot of the people I would call on to promote The Tea Master are Canadian. I hope they’ll fix this, but, in the meantime I decided I could host my own download, and then international readers can post their reviews like everyone else on The Tea Master page Amazon.com and INTERNATIONAL readers comment here at my blog. Hopefully Amazon will fix this soon, but I didn't want to keep you from enjoying the first pages of my book as soon as possible.

Please DO NOT GIVE OUT COPIES OF THE PDF FILE. It is VERY IMPORTANT that I be able to track how many times the file is downloaded! Give the URL instead. Encourage others to download it, then rate and review it at Amazon (no matter what country you're in). Every review (even a two-worder like "liked it") helps boost me higher in the finals.