Wow. What a year. It’s best to just start out with that. This has been a watershed year in quite a number of ways, and will definitely stand out in my memory as I look back on my life in the future.

So, the big list:

Signed with a Literary Agent (Sara Megibow, Nelson Literary Agency).
Sold my first and second novels (Geekomancy and Celebromancy).
Signed with a media agent for Geekomancy (Jon Cassir of CAA).
Sold audio rights to Audible for both novels (courtesy of above agent of awesomeness).
First novel published (Geekomancy).
Wrote Celebromancy (my first time writing a sequel)
Got a new job (North American Sales & Marketing Manager for Angry Robot Books).
Moved from Indiana to NYC for the new job.
First trip to the United Kingdom (again, for the new job).

That’s a lot. Major milestones for my career in publishing and as an author.

On December 30th of 2011, I had recently finished the first draft of Geekomancy, and was hoping that with six months or so of revisions and edits, it might be ready for the market, and that if it sold, I might be able to expect the novel to come out in late 2013.

Things went much faster than that. Much faster. And as a result, all of the ‘you’ve sold a novel, now it’s time to become a Professional’ learning was compressed from the average 12-18 months into less than 6 months. I had a leg up already, having a number of published author friends and being a SF/F publishing professional, but wow was that a quick learning curve. I’m still learning, of course, and looking back over the year there are a number of things I’d do better if I could go back and give myself advice, but such is the way of things.

Awesome Things Read in 2012

I read a lot in 2012, especially the back half of the year, when I started working for Angry Robot. I’ve separated my list into AR books and non-AR books for clarity’s sake. The following is a representative, but not complete, un-ordered list of awesome books read this year.

Non-AR

Throne of the Crescent Moon
Shadow Ops: Control Point
Feed
Carrie
Nightshifted
Libriomancer
Fair Coin
Divergent
Bitter Seeds
Morning Glories Vol. 1 & 2
Saga Vol. 1
Very Near Mint Vol. 1 & 2

Angry Robot

Blackbirds
Nexus
vN
Between Two Thorns (2013)
The Lives of Tao (2013)
The Hammer & The Blade
Dead Harvest

Strange Chemistry
Blackwood
The Assassin’s Curse
Pantomime (2013)

I attended WisCon, GenCon, WorldCon, and NYCC, and got to meet more awesome people than I can count.

I count myself tremendously blessed, and the awesome has helped take the sting out of the less-than-awesome things (all non-writer/professional).

2013 has a high bar to live up to in terms of literary awesome, but I’m going to do my damnest to make this new year even better than 2012. I’ve got tons of notes and a more thorough plot outline than I’ve ever had for a novel, just waiting for me to dive in on Sekrit Project #5, which I will do tomorrow.

Happy New Year!