A letter to Baby Author Me

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On her blog, novelist Ally Carter wrote a letter she wished she could send to herself back when she was just starting out. I thought it was funny and interesting enough that I stole the idea. Being me, this particular letter might not have the wide applicability that Ms. Carter’s does but I’ll share it anyway: a letter to myself in 2008.

First of all, old self, today isn’t the day your agent sent your first book on submission. That was back in mid-January some time. So yeah, this is late. Then again, you’re the guy who received a birthday card that his sister had bought for his birthday the year before then never got around to sending. You’re a Connolly; you’re used to it.

Second of all, Twenty Palaces was not rejected because of the story. It was the writing. You haven’t realized this yet, but you’d be better off not sending it to your agent or editor. The truth is, you made a big leap in your understanding of the language while you were revising Harvest of Fire, and you haven’t realized yet how rough that earlier book is. Seriously. Keep it to yourself until after you have a chance to revise it.

Third, don’t bother scrounging for reviews. Interviews are great. Definitely do that Big Idea piece for John Scalzi. Guest blogging is also cool (in fact, ask around if anyone would like you to guest blog).

But that thing where you spend hours and hours looking for reviewers, working out what sort of books they review, try to judge their readership, contact them and mail off books? Just don’t even bother. You’d be better off spending that time working on new books or being funny online.

In fact, being funny and/or interesting online is really the best marketing you can do. Have fun with that and skip the reviewers. The ones that find and review your work on their own will be good enough, but beyond that it’s too big a time sink.

Fourth, you aren’t really going to find yourself joining a new community of writers and genre fans, the way so many others seem to. Don’t worry about it.

Fifth, and last, I’m not going to spill the beans about how well your books are going to do, but I will say this: Write the books the way you think they should be written, and don’t agonize about it too much. Whether you succeed or fail, you’ll at least be doing it on your own terms.

Okay, that wasn’t the last. Here’s the last: You’ve worked pretty hard to get to this spot, but you’re going to have to work even harder to stay there.

Randomness for 7/13

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1) The Avengers in 15 minutes. <-- FUNNY 2) The best Google search term ever.

3) To celebrate their 50th anniversary, Lego has created a life-size forest. via bedii

4) Superhero Economics: The Batman v Spider-man

5) Non-Euclidean Legos! Very cool.

6) Are you a booksnob? In convenient flowchart form.

7) I was a A-list writer of B-list productions.

I Heard Back From My Agent Re: Epic Fantasy With No Dull Parts

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She has notes for me (of course) but they are surprisingly light. And there’s no rush.

Can I just let out a huge PHEW! here? It’s sort of an odd book, and I’m glad she’s enthusiastic about it.

Now to work on King Khan so I can start Epic Fantasy With No Dull Parts 2.

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.