I have my first interview tomorrow, over the phone, for these folks.
Nervous? Me?
I will try to be animated (ie: not drone) and try to avoid inadvisable jokes. We’ll see how it goes.
Oh, and I got my first review through the Amazon.com Vine program. It’s five stars.
“This is a great fantasy story plus a noir mystery with a complex plot. I read it in one sitting!”
Most writers hold some sort of contest when their books come out, yes? As a promotional thing?
I feel a vague urge to do the same thing, but I’m not sure what I should do. I’m not planning to give away a tooth, like that horror writer from a couple years back.
So I’m asking you: What should I do, and what sort of prize should I offer? I have copies of Child of Fire sitting around now, and could offer them as prizes, but that sounds… presumptuous. (I know, I know. I’m the worst self-promoter ever. Don’t judge me.)
I have other books and stuff I could give away. Alternately, I could convince my wife to make a sketch to include with the book.
Another option is to give away copies of the book in exchange for reviews.
If I were going to be honest, though, I’d admit that I’m dubious about the value of this sort of thing, and time has been really, really tight lately. What do you think?
Eeep!
At quarter after nine at night, no less!
It’s the real and final version of Child of Fire, fresh from the press!
I love that they added “A Twenty Palaces Novel” to the cover. Also, the top and right side of the letters in the title have a thin orange highlight to them. While I love the shadow behind my name, that orange highlight makes it look like you could cut your fingers on the corners.
Yay! (holy crap!) Yay!
Child of Fire will be getting a very nice review in Booklist. And, well, while I have no intention of discussing (or even linking to) every review I get–although the first few have been startling and noteworthy to me, no matter how routine others might find them–but there’s one thing in this review I really like.
As my editor said, this reviewer “got it.” A few of the early reviewers online were less than enchanted with the fact that Ray and Annalise (the two main characters) have a troubled backstory that is not explicitly described. Which is fine. I certainly understand being annoyed that there’s information you want or expect but don’t get.
But that’s how I wanted it. Child of Fire is structured like a mystery/thriller. It has scenes of physical danger (not all of them supernatural) mixed with scenes where people tell stories about their lives, or about the lives of their family or neighbors. Basically: magic, gossip, face-punching, to be glib about it.
The only major characters who do not tell their own stories are the two leads. They certainly have a difficult history, together and apart, but I didn’t want to write a story where the characters explored their pasts; I wanted one where tried to live with them.
And it’s nice to read a review that considered that a plus.
1) MightyGodKing’s latest Stab at Relevence, the card game.
2) F=MA? Or F=MAWill(MagicNecklace)? From a blog created by filmmakers planning their first hard-sf indie feature film.
3) RT Book Reviews gives Child of Fire four and a half stars. (I hope that’s not out of ten) Unfortunately, I can’t read the review because I don’t subscribe.
4) Don’t settle for cheap knock-offs! A dieselpunk ray gun commercial
5) Outrageous burgers across the nation. Starting with, you guessed it, a burger with a donut for a bun.
6) 20 Neil Gaiman Facts. Reader, I lolled.
Actually, maybe I have and just don’t remember.
Anyway, I thought people might be interested in seeing the query letter I wrote that caught the interest of my agent (and a couple others besides).
Here it is with the addresses stripped out:
Dear [Agent’s Name]:
Ray Lilly is just supposed to be the driver. Sure, he knows a little magic, but it’s Annalise, his boss, who has the real power. Ray doesn’t like driving her across the country so she can hunt and kill people dabbling in dangerous magic, but if he tries to quit he’ll move right to the top of her hit list.
But Annalise’s next kill goes wrong and she is critically injured. Ray must complete her assignment alone; he has to stop the man who is sacrificing children to make his community thrive, and also find the inhuman supernatural power fueling his magic.
Harvest of Fire is a completed 99,000-word contemporary fantasy in the tone and style of a crime thriller.
I have sold several short stories to the magazines Black Gate and On Spec. The latest is “Eating Venom,” due out in the next issue of Black Gate.
Thank you for your time,
While I’m proud of those short fiction sales, I’m not sure they did much to catch anyone’s interest. At least, editor and agent both convinced me to publish my novel under a different name than those shorts.
Also, the synopsis covers only the characters, setting and the big plot twist that finishes the “first act” of the novel, which falls around page 30-50. That recommendation came from “Agent Kristin” who runs the “Pub Rants” blog (pubrants on LJ) and it really works.
For the synopsis, I described the whole book, right up to the end, ‘natch.
Notice also that I used the word “magic” three times in two paragraphs–word echoes are my enemy.
Anyway, I hope that’s interesting or useful.
Added eight years later: I don’t have a lot of analysis in this old post, but then I’m not sure it needs it. It bugs me (still) that I used the word “magic” so many times, but word echoes are one of the crosses I have to bear.
Many years ago, there was an account called Evil Editor who would read queries, snark about them, then give advice. The query I wrote or Twenty Palaces, the book before this one, is here. EE didn’t ask me to change much, but they still had fun at my expense (all in good fun). Apparently, “ruthless vigilante sorcerers” became a thing on the site.
I think that query is too long, but it didn’t matter because the book wasn’t ready. It wasn’t until I had my Road to Damascus moment while revising Child of Fire that I began stringing sentences together in a reasonable way.
I’ll be having a book signing on October 3rd, from 11-1, at Magnolia’s Bookstore here in Seattle!
Eeep!
Anyone reading this is invited! Please bring your friends! And your enemies! And your family! Complete strangers also welcome!
Yesterday, my wife paid for a day sponsorship at our local NPR station, to congratulate me on the release of Child of Fire. (It was supposed to be a surprise, but… oops!)
That pleases me, partly because I love our local NPR affiliate and I want to support them, and partly because it would be cool to hear my name on the radio in some other capacity than “Harry in Seattle writes to us…”
Here’s the interesting thing, though: The day sponsorship messages have to be ten seconds long, and that means 42 syllables. Interesting, huh?
I wrote this as part of the promotional stuff I’m doing for Del Rey/Random House, but they asked me to cut it way, way down. So I did, and now I’m posting the full version here.
This is what it’s been like for me to be a debut author.
It’s funny; years ago, when Miss Snark was blogging (all her entries are still online–every aspiring writer should read them) she made a point to tell people, several times, that signing with an agent would not make the agent your new best friend. It was a business relationship, not a personal/emotional one.
At the time, I thought that was weird. Is that really something people need to be told?
Much, much later, when I was about to ditch the whole idea of writing professionally–because a life of daydreaming about monsters and filing rejection slips was fine for a yutz like me, but my wife and son deserved so much more, and hello, grad school, I’ve heard you offer this thing called a “career”–at that point, I received offers of representation from a couple of agents.
Each one of them felt like a hug. Weird, but true.
(Quick note to my agent, in case she ever reads this: I don’t actually expect or want a real hug. I don’t much like hugs except in very specific circumstances, and like Miss Snark said, business, not personal. I hope that’s not creepy.)
Actually, that only covers the first few seconds and doesn’t really answer the question. For me, being an unpublished novelist was like being stranded on a desert island. I was stuck there for years, hoping that someone would see the huge “GET ME OUT OF HERE” messages I dug into the beach. Year after year I survived on berries and wild pigs while planes flew overhead and never circled back.
Then one day I looked up to see a helicopter setting down on the beach. Out jumped my agent with a set of clean clothes and a pepperoni pizza. “We’ve found you,” she said. “Now we can take you away from here.”
And then I was looking out the chopper window as we lifted off. I had put my new suit on, and the pizza was way better than the charred pork I’d been eating. The only reason I wasn’t weeping like a beauty pageant winner was because I was in total shock.
At which point the helicopter touched down on the mainland and someone slapped a shovel into my hands. “This trench has to be finished by the end of the year,” they said, and I stumbled off the helipad into a huge crowd of rescued castaways, all working with their picks and shovels in the blazing sun. Get busy! There’s digging to be done!
So what I’m saying is, it’s the most fantastic thing ever.