Works by Eric
Eric San Juan
February 27, 2009
There is a lot of stuff they don’t tell you about getting a book published. You hear about the process of writing, and crafting cover letters, and how to approach agents and publishers, and on and on and on, but what about all the stuff the happens after you secure a deal? No one tells you about that. By this point I had done a pretty good job of educating myself on The Process. Thanks to loads of reading — books, articles, and blogs — I knew what to expect at almost every step of the way. But I had no idea what would come after we had gotten a contract. Well, here’s what happens: You still have a whole helluva lot of work to…
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Eric San Juan
February 23, 2009
(If you’re joining me in progress, this is the 5th part in a series devoted to outlining how my co-author and I managed to get our book, A Year of Hitchcock, published.) So here’s the part where the joy of getting a contract is smothered in the giant pile of WORK no one tells you about when you first start writing. Because make no mistake, writing is not what you think it is when you daydream about a career as an author. It’s WORK. Never forget that. As noted in my last post, it took a full year from the moment we first made contact with a publisher interested in our work to actually getting a contract. And getting that contract meant agreeing to a…
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Eric San Juan
February 19, 2009
Welcome to part 4 of a series detailing from start to finish how A Year of Hitchcock went from a neat idea to a published book (Scarecrow Press, 2009). Every step of the way, from writing to pitching to all the work we had to do after it was sold. If you’re an aspiring writer, hopefully this will help give you some insight on the process as my co-author Jim and I experienced it. The query letter was the subject of my last blog post. If you’re not familiar with what a query letter is, go read that post. I’ve even included the text of the letter that helped us grab the eye of a few publishers. So in our first batch of six queries…
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Eric San Juan
February 16, 2009
Chances are, if you like to write you’d also like to be read. While you can throw things onto the Internet and be read instantly, it’s not quite the same thing as a publisher saying, “I like your work. I’d like to invest our time and money into it. I’d like to publish your book.” Because let’s be honest with ourselves: Blogging is nice, self-publishing is interesting, but the majority of aspiring writers know being picked up by a legitimate publisher is key to making a career of it. I was fortunate enough to get exactly that response to A Year of Hitchcock: 52 Weeks with the Master of Suspense (Scarecrow Press 2009), a book I co-authored with my friend, Jim McDevitt. How did the…
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Eric San Juan
February 6, 2009
How about an airy wall of sound to soothe the savage soul? Some guitar tones, feedback, and soundscapes? I’ve previously posted the two most recent albums from my m2 project, which is noisy, ambient, walls-of-sound music I record at home. So I figured why not roll it back to 2007 for the second m2 record, eight times alone? I like this one. If you’re into this sort of thing, maybe you will, too: 1) Preparing A Resume (6:43) 2) Creative Endeavors Abandoned (10:32) 3) Tea Leaves (4:55) 4) At Room Temperature They Leave, Don’t Call (6:28) 5) On Air (6:14) 6) Beast From Forbidden Planet (6:05) 7) It’s Lonely Here (2:42) 8) The Ramifications of Answering Machines (13:33) (For previous postings from this music project,…
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