So, I was making a Minecraft skin for Annalise, and I turned to Google Images to take a quick look at a fireman’s jacket. Clicking that link will take you there.
What did I see on the 12th line, third from the left? Marissa Merrill in costume as Annalise herself! It’s from this page on the Black Gate blog, where Marissa is turning and giving someone a very un-Annalise-like smile.
I dunno. I think it’s cool.
1) So you want to get published? A flowchart. Is it just me, or are flowcharts made of awesome?
2) “Don’t you have any vegetarian meat?”
3) A big discussion on selling stolen IP in the Kindle format.
4) Advice for writers who suffer the pangs of jealousy.
5) Nerf guns painted and modified to have that steampunk look.
6) How slavery really ended in the U.S.A.
7) Black Gate is having a sale on their back issues. I have stories in issue #2, #3, and #10.
What it says in the subject header (and tag).
If you’re reading this on Facebook, here’s the link.
April Fools Tip: If you think it’s funny when someone gets worried, angry, or upset at a prank, you’re doing it wrong.
Personally, I can’t stand April Fools Day; too many people think saying hurtful crap qualifies as a “joke.” It doesn’t. If you’re planning April Fools fun, it should be a) cruelty-free b) clearly a joke and not c) actually funny. If you want to break one of those rules, you should remember John Scalzi’s advice: The failure mode of clever is asshole.
So, if you’re planning a post announcing an unexpected divorce/death/cross-country move/mass layoff/new direction for your writing career, please reconsider. Please.
I will not be posting any pranks.
1) Canadian politics made fun by nitpicking about monsters. Via James Nicoll.
3) Jon Stewart on class warfare, without ever mentioning class. Video.
4) This is genuinely awesome. It’s better than GARFIELD MINUS GARFIELD.
5) This writer’s evening is nothing at all like mine. How to be a social writer. via James Enge
6) Are these the best D&D adventures ever?
7) Sixty completely unusable stock photos. This is hilarious wtf-ery, but it will take a while to load. Open it up in a tab and do something else for a while, then come back to it. Seriously, people, I can’t pick the worst one (okay, I can: it’s the blackface one).
Having received news that a distant relation you have never even heard of before has died and left you a house, you take a long weekend to investigate this unexpected inheritance. No one else can get away for the long trip, so you have to go alone.
There is, as you might expect, a quite unusual door off the kitchen. When you open it with the unusual key you’ve been given, you step through and find yourself…
You find yourself standing on a grassy hill on a beautiful sunny day. Stretched out below you is an archetypal futuristic city of many a utopian imagination. There are tall white buildings, shining white monorails and pavillions, etc. Not to mention people flying around with actual jetpacks.
Nearby, a robot trims the park grass, and some distance away you can see an family having a picnic. The family looks like quite ordinary people, except that they’re all wearing futuristic outfits.
You glance behind you and see that the portal is slowly closing. [added later] And your key is gone. You have maybe 4 or 5 seconds to decide if you are going to lose what may be your only chance at going home, or to stay here in what appears to be a futuristic utopia.
All you have with you are the clothes on your back, a week’s worth of personal medications (if you need them), and anything you would normally carry for a long trip, like your wallet/purse, phone, glasses, etc. All your luggage is still out in the car.
Do you jump back through the portal, returning to your family, friends, job, and position in society, or do you stay and explore?
This is an interesting article (found via @victoriastrauss on Twitter). I should already have knocked off working for the day, but I want to address this.
The article states that most ebook sales seem to be concentrated on bestsellers, not on the so-called long tail. The short version is that online sellers don’t market like works very well, while a physical store surrounds you with impulse buys.
Now, I know there are plenty of folks out there who impulse buy ebooks all the time, but so far the numbers seem to indicated that people buying online aren’t just snapping up books they’ve never heard of.
That’s my experience with online book buying, anyway. I use Amazon.com to buy things I already want, but I usually add them to my cart and buy them later, when shipping costs are reduced and my associate’s credit comes in.
With a physical store, I have this sense that I shouldn’t walk out without a new book. Even walking by one is like passing up on wonderland; there’s a physical yearning there that Amazon.com doesn’t provide.
Anyway, it’s an interesting point. How could the marketing be better?
A week ago (for you guys–I’m writing this the same day) I told you I had some good news that I wasn’t free to talk about yet. Well, I’m told the 29th is the day, so here’s the good news.
The Science Fiction Book Club is going to put out an omnibus edition of Child of Fire, Game of Cages, and Circle of Enemies as a Main Selection for their September catalog. The book will be called The Wooden Man: A Twenty Palaces Omnibus and the catalog will reach book club members in mid-August (although the book itself won’t ship until after 8/30/11… aka, the release date for Circle of Enemies. It’s also going to be offered online through the BOMC2.
It’s also going to be a “Sliver of Night Selection,” which is meant to highlight especially good urban fantasy novels, which means the omnibus will include a black satin ribbon bookmark.
Fancy! Almost too fancy for a scruffy guy like me, but I’m very happy they like the books. I hope their readers like them even more.
Yay!
1) Wayne (@skyfall_ranger) liked the Twenty Palaces books quite a bit: “Twenty Palaces is what you get if you take fairly high magic Lovecraft and make an action movie. Swimming in blood. And on fire.”
2) LiveJournaler brooke_hok had a mixed reaction: “Basically they’re fun, fast-paced books that you’ll probably enjoy if you like gritty Urban Fantasy with a mystery element.”
3) Bob Walch at bookideas.com gave Child of Fire four out of five stars: “If you like fantasy grounded in reality with some fascinating twists and turns coupled with edgy characters give this latest Harry Connolly novel a try.”
4) Douglas Justice (aka @TushHog5 — we don’t judge!) liked both books: “Just finished your books – in fact A game of cages last night …and loved ’em!”
5) Author Nicholas Kaufmann liked Game of Cages, but not as much as Child of Fire. “I’m enjoying this series immensely, and can’t wait for the third installment, Circle of Enemies, to come out this summer.” He’s not alone in thinking the cast of characters was too big. Much of the editorial work I did on this book involved identifying and delineating the characters.
6) Tim Gray (aka @timgray101) had this to say about Game of Cages: “A weird beastie and lots of people having bad days. Fun stuff. Kind of” I understand just what he means.
7) LiveJournaler jpsorrow (aka author Joshua Palmatier) liked Child of Fire enough to seek out Game of Cages at some point but he found the first third rough going. “… once the reader was given something to focus in on–a plot thread that was clear and easy to follow–it drew me in and kept me reading.” Folks in the comment section have quite divergent opinions on the quality of the book. He’s not the first reader to be somewhat disengaged by the first part of the book, where Ray and Annalise are not sure what’s going on in Hammer Bay and poke around trying to get to the bottom of things. It’s a pretty common storytelling style in mysteries, but quite a few readers didn’t like it; maybe it’s a matter of execution.
