Will iconic images recorded in the grooves of an ancient vase unite the Holy Land or rip it further apart?

THE VASE

A novel by Mark M. DeRobertis

Muhsin Muhabi is a Palestinian potter, descended from a long line of potters. His business is run from the same shop owned by his ancestors since the day his forebears moved to Nazareth. The region's conflict saw the death of his oldest son, and rogue terrorists are in the process of recruiting his youngest in their plot to assassinate the Pope and Israeli prime minister.

Professor Hiram Weiss is an art historian at Nazareth’s Bethel University. He is also a Shin Bet operative on special assignment. With the help of fellow agent, Captain Benny Mathias, he plans to destroy the gang responsible for the death of his wife and only child. He puts a bomb in the ancient vase he takes on loan from Muhsin’s Pottery Shop.

Mary Levin, the charming assistant to the director of Shin Bet, has lost a husband and most of her extended family to recurring wars and never-ending terrorism. She dedicates her life to the preservation of Israel, but to whom will she dedicate her heart? The brilliant professor from Bethel University? Or the gallant captain who now leads Kidon?

Harvey Holmes, the Sherlock of Haunted Houses, is a Hollywood TV host whose reality show just flopped. When a Lebanese restaurant owner requests his ghost-hunting services, he believes the opportunity will resurrect his career. All he has to do is exorcise the ghosts that are haunting the restaurant. It happens to be located right across the street from Muhsin’s Pottery Shop.




Monday, December 13, 2010

Contracts

When you're offered your first publishing contract, you want to be happy. But there are too many things to consider before breaking out the champagne. Is it the right contract? Is it the right publisher?

Hopefully, you did your homework and submitted your manuscript only to those publishers who are acceptable to you, and that's what I did. I made sure that no publisher to whom I submitted was a self publisher, or a vanity press, or a subsidy press.

And when I submitted, I did the multiple submission thing. I can't submit and wait six months to get rejected before I submit again and so on. Who knows how much time would go by before I finally found a publisher. At that rate, it could be several years. No way.

Fortunately most publishers allow multiple submissions, and that's the only way to go, imo. Rejections trickle in but some of them request the full manucript. And when one of them says yes, you wonder maybe you should wait to see what the other publishers will say, and if they also say yes, you wonder how their contracts might compare.

That's where I am right now. I don't want to jump for the first contract that is offered. I'm glad I have one, and I am glad that THE VASE is on a sure track to be published. I must remind myself to be patient. And I am glad that the publisher is not putting me under any pressure with a deadline. That's a point in their favor. So I am proceeding with their expectations, but if I have alternatives I need to know what they are.

That's all.

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