Hara-Kiri at Dark’s Last Otakon
*This guest post is Part 3 (of 4) of Dark Angel’s Otakon 2010 Con Recap, over at Free/Roam/Soul~
Otakon was a surprising year for Team XenoPhoenix, mostly due to all the recognition we are still receiving about our book. We haven’t done anything to promote in months, and we didn’t come to Otakon with any formal plans. But I was personally greeted by quite a few individuals that remembered us. It was something special let me tell you. It’s the fans that got this project to where it is, and the fans that keep it alive.
The biggest question we’ve got at the con (have gotten since our Dealer’s debut in ‘09) is when exactly we plan to release more books. It’s a question as valid as it is complicated. For starters a lot of the setbacks & changes the group has faced are (I‘d like to think) not typical for most writing processes. Since our first publication, I personally had to relocate 3 more times, was shot and left for dead, and lost some of the most crucial files when my old laptop was stolen. And I’m just the head editor. Thankfully those files were backed up. We’ve also had other creative staff move, and some even married. We want this book as bad as any fan or supporter, but our lives will not stop anytime soon.
These events alone do not even begin to describe what this group has been through in order to get more books out. Additionally, we decided to get [fully] published, as opposed to self-publishing ourselves again. We could self-publish this second, but the sad reality of our personal lives is that we don’t have the time to distribute properly or go to cons and promote ourselves. So the biggest part of the wait has been prepping everything for the publishers, because for them, it has to be absolutely perfect. Otherwise we have no product to show for you, the readers, the fans.
Now that said, the book is not a work in progress; meaning you guys are not going to be waiting for the next 5 years until version 2 comes out. This entire year we’ve been in talks with several literary agents. There are gatekeepers that want to pick us up, we’re just not 100% ready yet. Content-wise, we’ve tweaked everything that’s been addressed by some very major, if not very possible (but not official…yet) literary agents and distributors, and right now the only real thing we’re waiting on is finalizing the index and the book art. There may be 1 or 2 more things to fix depending on who decides to publish us, but as far as we can tell, according to everyone we’ve talked to, we’re 95% ready. And while perfection may be time-consuming, the end result all but assures we’ll be on shelves sooner than later.
What we got right now is great, but when it’s done, it’ll be gold. I’d love to tell you guys more, but right now we all have to play the waiting game.
-Dark
