Randomness for 5/28

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1) Darpa successfully tests the first bullet that can be steered after it was fired.

2) Geologists grill up stakes with lava… and ruin them.

3) Richard Prince Selling Other People’s Instagram Shots Without Permission for $100K Whenever I feel cynical about publishing, I think about fine arts and give my oil-painter wife a hug. (Of course, if he was skimming other people’s work from reddit, I wouldn’t be surprised…)

4) Feces rained down on outdoor Sweet 16 party. Dumped from a plane, obviously. Stranger than fiction

5) Nothing about this toy makes sense. Video. Don’t watch that without the sound.

6) Law & Order: Daredevil. Video. Also requires sound.

7) A Kickstarter for a horror video game about a blind woman. Cool.

Chasing the market into the midlist

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Today I share wisdom:

When I started the Twenty Palaces books, I wanted to change a bunch of things that were standard in urban fantasy: the protagonist who’s an expert in the setting, the supernatural elements that had been ported over from horror and folklore, the stories that focused on the concerns of supernatural figures rather than actual human beings.

When I started Key/Egg, I wanted to challenge myself to write an urban fantasy that was not just a string of violent clashes. I also wanted to move the elderly woman out of the traditional expository role and into the limelight.

When I started The Great Way, I wanted to move away from the lackadaisical travelogue pacing of epic fantasy and write it like a thriller. I also wanted to have a little fun with the idea of the Hero Prince.

I wouldn’t say these were attempts at creating a new subgenre. Continue reading

TV Season Finales

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Shows, man. Shows! This is a little late, but what the hell. I’m going to organize this by the order I would watch them every week, and this is going to be a little fast and loose.

Spoilers, obviously. Continue reading

Not forgotten

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Vietnam Veterans Memorial.jpg
“Vietnam Veterans Memorial” by Kkmd at en.wikipedia – Transferred from en.wikipedia by SreeBot. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

A personal followup to John Scalzi’s big deal

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If you missed my post about it last night, John Scalzi just landed a major deal: $3.4 million for 13 books over ten years. He doesn’t even have to accept basket accounting.

Shortly after, I tweeted this:

And look at all those RTs and Favorites! It hasn’t translated into new sales, though.

But because contrast is fun, I’m going to take a moment to update you guys on where things stand for me. Spoiler: I don’t have a contract with any publisher for any dollar figure.

So the Kickstarter was successful, and it paid for the five books I’ve released, plus. However, that was the fall of 2013. All of 2014 was a struggle. The StoryBundle I did last year helped a little but money, shall we say, was tight. In fact, I stopped taking deductions on my taxes because it was too much. That’s the problem when you earn in one year and spend in the next.

However, the Kickstarter is almost over. Just today I sent the second-to-last update, giving backers access to one of the last stretch goals.

Also, the last of the books came out in the beginning of March, and sales have been fading for weeks. To be clear, the books are selling better than most self-published authors’ works ever will (So far I’ve made about $40K from all my indie work), but I’m paying bills with this money, and putting some aside for Uncle Sam. What’s more, judging by the way things are going, the last 8 months of the year won’t be as good as the first four.

And that’s all fine, except this income has to hold me until my next book sells, and I haven’t even started writing it yet.

What’s the holdup? I have one more Kickstarter reward to fulfill. I thought I’d been super careful when I planned this whole thing out, but it turns out that I underestimated the amount of work I would be putting into the Fate Core supplements. What was supposed to be a few thousand words has turned into 45,000, and I still have to edit it. None of this is wasted effort, because it will be useful promotion for the trilogy, but yikes, I did not expect the worldbuilding to take up so much page space. I really, really need to cut this shit back.

Then, finally, I get to start my new project. After self-publishing six books, I’m aiming this next one at New York. I could use the marketing bump.

Anyway, the books are doing well enough that my wife hasn’t asked me to get a day job; we’re still homeschooling our son and I’m still hopeful about this dumb career. But I haven’t replaced my lens prescriptions from 2007 and I haven’t gotten my teeth fixed. We’re still in the crappy apartment. We still don’t have a car, or cell phone, or cable TV.

In short, I’m still aspiring to the midlist.

SJW Makes Good

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So, John Scalzi just signed a 13-book deal with Tor, worth $3.4 million.

Pretty good for a guy whose career is over.

Actually, I’m sure there are people out there claiming that this is all a publicity stunt to get him in the news sell a few dozen copies, but those people are just sad.

Here’s more evidence, if anyone needs it, that an author does not need to hide their politics to have a healthy career. Be yourself. Speak out.

Feeding the wrong wolf: Tomorrowland and the wish for atom age kiddie movies

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TOMORROWLAND is a kids movie aimed straight at aging adults.

I know. You’re thinking So? Doesn’t that describe every summer movie nowadays? It sorta does, but very few movies are this blatant about it. You know those people who complain that there are no more gosh wow space adventure stories, because everything in entertainment is grim and dour and apocalyptic, and no one has hope for the future? This is the movie for them; it even includes silver rocket ships and jet packs.

It even makes all that grim/dour/apocalyptic entertainment a plot point: those writers/game makes, and filmmakers are a major cause of the END OF THE WORLD!

That’s right. The world is going to be destroyed, but instead of trying to make things better, they’re making totally awesome Mad Max movies. If only people were trying to fix our problems instead of being pessimistic all the time!

Enter our heroes, George Clooney, plus a 25-year-old teenager, and finally a truck driving, kung fu robot in the form of a 12-year-old girl. Clooney’s role is to a) grump a lot b) explain the plot and c) finally believe in our hero. The not-teen is there to protag her little heart out, and the 12yo is a pure wish-fulfillment character for little kids. Like I said, she drives. A lot. And she lays the kung fu on some grownup robots, complete with power poses.

It’s… weird to see a children’s movie that clearly wishes we could return to an atomic age aesthetic, like telling your nieces to shut up about Katniss and read some Heinlein juveniles.

But to say that it’s a weird jumble is not to say that it doesn’t have fun moments. It does. And yeah, I’m in favor of positivity and a focus on solutions rather than cynicism in real life. That’s real life! (Art and entertainment is a different matter.) So the film ends up with a (ham-handed) message that I appreciate. Like a lot of movies nowadays, there are terrific set pieces, but they don’t come together in a sensible way, even by the standards of the summer movie.

Kid’s might like it, though.

Author’s Big Mistake (or is it?)

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Way back in the misty dawn of 2010, the denizens of the Absolute Write fora (which is still an ongoing concern, but without me, because busy) folks used to talk about the ABM: the Author’s Big Mistake. What was it?

Responding to reviews.

Supposedly, arguing with readers who left reviews was one of the worst things an author could do, because no one ever changed their minds, no one was ever impressed, and it made the author look like a slow-motion train wreck. So much drama over one unhappy opinion!

Also:

Also, this guy and this guy.

Which leads to this review on the MilSF novella by [asshole author who self-Googles], called Big Boys Don’t Cry. Dude gets a negative review, dares the reader to lower it to one-star (which, if you have a bunch of five-stars, is better than the “meh” of a three-star review) and later goes all troll apoplectic on the reviewer.

Normally, I’d think the guy was being a fool, but in this case? Nope. [Asshole author who self-Googles] is busy marketing himself as an anti-feminist culture warrior; what better way to rally the troops than to have a public argument with someone on the other side? What better way to bring attention to his work than with a big, public stink?

(And yes, I know I’m “helping” him get more attention, but whatever. the author himself seems like a real creep, but maybe there are readers out there who would like it? Who knows.)

With books, you don’t need a huge readership to be a success. Even if badmouthing lefties drives away some potential readers, it will probably bring in even more on his side (plus, the ones he brings in are likely to be in his target audience). “So-and-so is being an asshole… for our side!”

Controversy! It’s not always a bad thing.

How to recognize when someone is drowning 2015

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Summer is about to start, so it’s time to repost my annual warning for 2015:

How to recognize when someone is drowning.

It’s not what you think. Before you take your kids or loved ones into the water, read this article.

Dudes Writing Rape Scenes

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I’ve been reading the Game of Thrones novels ever since I picked up the first one from a remainders table at the Jersey shore, and liking them pretty well. There are too many characters and the glossary doesn’t do a very good job helping me remember who’s who from one book to another (especially with years between the end of one book and the start of another) but I’m invested.

I don’t watch the show. Continue reading