Audiobook for CHILD OF FIRE, if you can believe it.

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I’ve been sitting on this news for about two weeks as I tried to get some further information on it, but SDCC is this week and I’m not going to wait any more.

Child of Fire is out in audiobook right now.

Now, I didn’t know this was going to happen. I didn’t even know there was a audio deal in the works. I went back to my email and searched for the word “audio” and found that the only mention was back in September 2009, when my agent mentioned in passing that she had received a note of interest from an audiobook company, which she forwarded to the publisher (since Del Rey had retained the rights).

After that, I never heard a thing about it until last month when I went to Amazon.com to create a link to the book and notices a new line in the “editions” box. I know there are some authors who are pretty heavily involved in the creation of their audiobooks, but I knew so little about it that I’ve been telling people there was no chance of an audiobook because of low sales.

So! The question you might be asking is “What about Game of Cages and Circle of Enemies? Will they be out as audiobooks, too?”

Unfortunately the answer is still “I don’t know yet.” I’m still waiting to hear back, and I don’t expect an answer on the week of (or after) SDCC. However, when I do hear, I’ll blog about it.

I should also mention, apropos to yesterday’s post about whether book reviews actually sell many books, that the initial note of interest was based on early positive reviews, so reviews can have that sort of positive benefit at least.

By the way, author and bookseller Michele Sagara weighed in on the review conversation yesterday on my LJ. She’s a smart person and if you don’t follow her you should.

More evidence that reviews don’t matter much

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This time it comes from Publishers Weekly’s article about the effect of NYTimes reviews on non-fiction titles. Reading the article, it seems clear that reviews on their front page for books that weren’t already planned to be blockbusters were worth nothing more than a few hundred sales on the week it came out, with the exception of one book on economic inequality. That book not only sold well on the week it came out, but sales continued to go up.

What does it mean? Well, inequality is one of the more popular ways of talking about our political problems at the moment, so I’m guessing the readers who were prompted to snap up that book on the week it was reviewed started telling others about it.

In other words, the review was only useful because it helped spur the only marketing that really matters: readers talking to readers.

Unjuice fast, day 2.5

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My last (maybe) day of the raw veg only “fast” and I just took a very hot, long shower.

Normally that would trigger a massive hive outbreak and unbearable itchiness, but today I only have the ugly red welts. I seriously have more spots than a cheetah.

However, the itching is almost non-existent. I call that progress, but I don’t know if it means I should continue on or not. I’ll discuss it with my wife later.

Unjuice Fast, Day 1.5

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I’m part way through the second day of my “unjuice fast,” in which I partake of a juice fast that focuses on ingesting large amounts of green veg and nothing else, except without actually juicing them. Instead, I’m setting a large bowl of uncooked, undressed greens beside me and chowing down.

Yes, it’s been difficult. (Details, and some digestive TMI, behind the cut) Continue reading

Tomorrow is my not-birthday

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For new or forgetful folks, the not-birthday concept is pretty straight-forward: my wife and I have the same birthday, which sucks, so I moved mine back a month.

What this means: omelet with oven-roasted potatoes for breakfast, pizza at some point, possibly a bottle of quality beer.

Then, on Monday, I’m starting an unjuice fast. Health-related stuff behind the cut. Continue reading

Willpower is not a virtue

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And by “not a virtue” I don’t mean that it’s a vice or it’s something awful. I mean, it’s not a wonderful thing that people have or don’t have.

Okay, so, I’m an NPR-listener. Yeah, I often hear this expert or that being interviewed… so many of them that they sometimes run together. Sometimes I’ll hear something that sticks with me and I have to go back to find it again. Like this interview with David Eagleman.

What Eagleman said, for those who don’t want to click through to the show, is that our brains aren’t this unified thing. We, ourselves, aren’t a unified identity. Different parts of our brain want us to do different things: Lose weight, exercise, sleep in, work hard, order the fries, watch that TV show… We’re full of conflicting impulses.

This is certainly true of me. I have long battled with myself over all sorts of indulgences, and different parts of me fight in different ways. When I get up early to work on my book, I feel a sense of accomplishment. When faced with the opportunity to eat something I shouldn’t, I feel a sense hopeless despair.

And in recent years, it’s been a tossup which part of my brain[1] would win, except for the despair. Hopeless despair has been a trump card in my life; I have a hard time beating it.

However! Lately I have stopped looking at myself as a complete whole. Lately I have tried to recognize that there are several different personalities living inside me, and that my brain plays dirty tricks on my to make me do things I shouldn’t. In essence, I’m accepting the fact that my own brain is often my enemy.

I’ve talked about this before: It can be hard to say no to food when the despair hits. It can be hard to get up early to work when I know I need sleep, too. But for the past few weeks, I have not been using willpower to win these internal battles. It might look like willpower, but it’s not. What I’ve been doing is keeping my goals in the forefront of my mind and treating all impulses that get in the way as an enemy attack. It’s not willpower to refuse to go over to my enemy camp.

It’s been working, too. For me, I mean. I don’t know how well this would work for anyone else.

[1] If you’re thinking of “parts of my brain” in an anatomical sense, you’re being too literal. I’m talking about competing impulses.

Keeping the internet at arm’s length

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Back in 2010 when the health care debate was going on (and before it) I kept pretty careful track of the health care debate. In truth, I stressed out over it to an unhealthy degree. I couldn’t contain my disgust when Ben Nelson demanded the end of the public option, and I was livid with hate when Joe Leiberman revenged himself on the liberals who primaried him by ending voluntary Medicare buy-in for folks over 55.

In short, I spent a shitload of my time following reports on the legislation, annoyed and alienated friends with my arguments, and generally made myself unhappy. In the last few weeks, I’ve been following the news in only the most general way, trying not to let myself get distracted.

Now that the Supreme Court has (rightly, in my view) upheld the individual mandate, the ACA is going forward. This is going to be a very good thing for me, personally, because the health care plan my family has (bought as an individual) is outrageously expensive. Obamacare will ease that burden. I mean, I have health insurance right now, but I won’t go to the doctor to have my foot checked (I have a possible stress fracture) because my outrageous deductible means the expense would all come out of my pocket.

Anyway, people are saying dumb things on my Facebook feed, and on Twitter, and everywhere. Me, I’m going to stay offline and keep working, to preserve my sanity.

Story Seeds

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1) Title: THE ELF-SKIN SHIELD

2) Classically, zombies won’t die except through violent head trauma but their bodies still rot. What if the zombie urge to devour flesh survived the dissolution of the flesh? What if it survived being devoured by scavengers, or worms, or being used as fertilizer. The entire biome would be taken over by the desire to consume all flesh. Oh, wait…

3) Ash Ketchum is… The Punisher! What about a Dark Age Of Comics version of Ash Ketchum, the incredibly talented and optimistic Pokemon trainer, in which terrible personal tragedy turns him–and his pocket monsters–into remorseless vigilantes.

4) A young woman shaves her head and discovers a pirates’ treasure map tattooed to her scalp. — This is the joke movie pitch I entered into a screenplay contest on Twitter. Not only did it advance (while “After a toddler loses a pinkie to a splinter, a vengeful father declares war on unsanded wood” inexplicably did not) but I received a script request from a small but legit company for it.

5) This one is inspired by the old Neverwinter Nights game: what if, every time you looked at someone, the universe/the gods/whoever let you know whether you will have to kill them or not? When I mouse over NPCs in NWN, a little dagger appears over the people I’ll have to fight, and a talking-face icon over the friendlies. But what if that happened in real life?

6) Lord of the Rings as it would have been written by [Author X] (Richard Stark, V.C. Andrews, John Cheever, etc)

7) Why should vampires only subsist on human blood? What about the blood of angels? I’d think that angel blood would sustain the undead for quite a long time, but hunting them would be quite a challenge.

Randomness for 6/27

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1) If you’ve played Minecraft, this will crack you up. Assuming you have a soul. Non-Minecraft players might also be amused. Video.

2) A picture book you hope you’ll never have to give to a little kid in your life.

3) Nessie is real, the KKK were good guys, apartheid was neutral, and other lessons taught in tax-payer funded “Christian” schoolbooks.

4) What filesharing studies really say.

5) R-rated movies re-imagined as children’s books.

6) I’ve never worn a hoodie, but I’d be tempted by this, no matter how stupid I’d look.

7) Investors sue movie producers for fraud over “One of the Greatest Box Office Flops of All Time”

Lloyd Alexander

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I was in the second grade when I discovered epic fantasy, and I discovered it through Lloyd Alexander. Our school teacher had a shelf of books we could borrow, and being a fan of Dr. Shock’s Mad Theater and Horror Theater (old-fashioned host-in-makeup monster movie shows back in the Philly area–yes, I’m old) I really wanted to read The Black Cauldron.

But it was part of a series, which we were required to read in order, so I picked up The Book of Three first. It was my first exposure to epic fantasy and I loved it. I’ve never looked back.

That’s why I backed this Kickstarter project: It’s a documentary on the author’s life, and I’d really like to see it funded. If his books meant something to you, too, take a look. It might be something you’d like to support as well.