internet

My April Fools Day promise

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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.

Randomness for 3/26

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1) How great entrepreneurs think.

2) A flowchart guide to the Affordable Care Act.

3) Ten supposedly sexy super-heroine costumes that really aren’t.

4) Every new social media offering, now online. (This is pretty funny, and it even includes a certain cat)

5) Author Ryk Spoor responds to my hypothetical vampire child question of a few days ago.

6) I know there are a lot of people who don’t like Rachel Ray, but I think everyone will accept that she deserves a comma or two here.

7) J.K. Rowling’s next project, courtesy of collegehumor.com

“Things and that Magic is a byproduct of their presence but also a channel between their home and us: their pantry”

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It’s fun to run foreign language reviews of my books through Google translate.

Question for the hive mind

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What’s the modern version of The ClueFinders?

Randomness for 3/6

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1) A smart way to promote science education. Also.

2) At no point does this stop being awesome: Sheen Family Circus.

3) Frank Herbert writes a children’s book: Goodnight Dune

4) Baby laughs at ripping paper. Video. Watching this is good for your soul.

5) Children read to dogs.

6) Please do not submit my name here.

7) Those amazing personal stories you hear on radio call-in shows? They might be actors reading a script.

Best sf/f novel of the decade?

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Here’s the thing: I like John Scalzi. I’ve never met the guy, but he comes across very well don’t you think? He seems smart and reasonable and I’m pretty sure the wife and child he loves are actually real people that he’s genuinely nice to.

What’s more, I’m grateful to him. The Big Idea essays he let me post on his blog were invaluable. Quite a few people who contacted me after they read my books said they’d discovered them through his site.

So, he’s a nicer guy than I am, he works harder, and he does more good for all of humanity than I do. These are things I believe to be true.

But is Old Man’s War the best sf/f novel of the decade? Um, no. It’s a good book, absolutely. It’s a fun and accessible book, with terrific characters. But the best?

I know, I know. It’s a Tor.com poll and, while I don’t for a second believe the Tor.com folks stuffed the ballet for one of their own, there’s almost certainly an extra helping of Tor readers there.

But come on.

(For the record, CoF got 2 votes, which is 3 more than I expected. Thank you, two crazy voters. Me, I voted for Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke.)

The agency model

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So, Random House has switched over to agency pricing for its ebooks. I can’t say I’m surprised but I am sorry to see that the price of my ebooks has been raised to the price of the physical books.

I understand why RH is doing this, but I think it’s too bad. It’s also not something I have any control over; if I’d knows this was coming, I’d have suggested folks buy ahead of the price change. Sorry, guys.

Hit a roadblock on the new project

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It was unexpected, but unavoidable. I’m trying to figure out how to fix it within pre-established parameters, and I think I just about have it handled.

It’s funny, though. I used tear my hair out over this stuff, but today it looks to me like a pleasant little puzzle (more fun than the Minecraft obstacle course my son designed for me, at least) and I know it’ll be stronger for being fixed.

Anyway, I put up a couple of posts over the weekend. I suspect you guys saw my joke post about Pat Rothfuss (I’m just trying to help the guy get his name out there), but I’m surprised no one wanted to talk about the super-low pricing on ebook backlist titles–prices set by a publisher, not an author who’ve had their rights reverted.

I think it’s potentially a great thing for midlist authors and may cement price windowing as a professional publishing business model. It could also hit very hard against indie authors who have been hoovering up all the ultra-low priced impulse-buy ebook sales.

If you are writing a series, would you ask your publisher to release an ebook of book one for $0.99 to help promote book four?

The heavily-discounted backlist

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Check out this article about a best-selling backlist title.

I know authors are already doing this with titles that have reverted to them. The interesting thing here is that it’s the publisher who’s pricing a backlist title like an app and surprising the hell out of themselves by hitting the NYT Bestseller list.

Obviously, this is not going to work as well as the practice becomes more common, but a surprise like this (and I’m certain that it is a surprise to everyone involved) will almost certainly cement teh idea of windowed ebook pricing: Full(ish) price when it’s a new release and a heavy discount (mumble mumble) months later.

I like it.

Will guest-blogging for a popular author make me popular too?

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My last post at antipope.org went up overnight (well, it was overnight for me, morning GMT) and it examines the question of whether guest-blogging on his site, which gets over 10K visitors a day, resulted in a lot of sales of my books..