1) Logan’s Run as a Lego diorama. For you younger readers, Logan’s Run is an old book and movie. This picture isn’t from BrickCon, btw.
2) Celebrity Twitter accounts reviewed.
4) Baby Monkey Riding Backwards on a Pig. This is my new favorite song. Video.
Did you know there’s a new drink product called “Vacation in a bottle”? And that it comes in a can?
I know, doesn’t it sound great? I have never tasted it but I wrote an absolutely, completely, totally serious review on Amazon.com. I encourage you to do the same.
Yesterday (the day before? omg–must get handle on life) Sherwood Smith linked to and discussed Sarah Prineas’s rant against authors who market their books (titled: “I will be your friend but I won’t be your fan”). I recommend reading both, including the links comments (corrected).
And yeah, I get it. I do a little marketing here and there: I’ll retweet a nice review, or give books away on my blog. I try not to be obnoxious about it, but everyone has different tolerances and I’m bound to annoy someone.
That said, I know very well that there’s little I can do to affect my own sales beyond write a book people want to read. The number of copies I’ve given away and whatever effect that might have, is a drop in the bucket compared to the number of books I’ve sold. But I do it anyway; don’t ask why.
I have my limits. This blog will never turn into all hard-sell all the time. First of all, because it would annoy me even more than it would annoy you. Second of all, because that’s not my job. Third of all, because even if it was, that job would suck and I’d quit. I won’t be sponsoring complicated contests where you have to type out a long string of book titles. I won’t be sending Facebook “fan” requests.” I don’t plan to do any readings. I won’t be asking people to give my 5-star reviews on Amazon.com or anywhere else. I won’t be asking people to call all their local bookstores and ask if they have have my latest in stock.
I will do other things, though. I’ll keep sending my books to reviewers (anyone want to recommend some? I don’t want to duplicate efforts from the first round, but I’m interested in finding new review venues). I’ll still donate books to charity auctions; this is my favorite thing to do, because it does a slight bit of good for the world at large. I’ll still sign bookstore stock. I’ll still have giveaways. I’ll still mention that most people can ask their libraries to stock certain books, hint hint.
Probably the most effective thing I’ve done is contact folks I know online who have large followings and offer the book to them in the hopes that they’ll review it. I try to emphasize that it’s at their convenience and I wouldn’t ask them to gin up a fake positive review. That doesn’t always work, of course. Sometimes they never get around to reading it. Sometimes the review is middling. That’s fine by me–I’m grateful for their time. But when they really like the book, that’s a big deal.
I mean, basically it’s all about word-of-mouth, but when we’re talking about online reading communities, some mouths have access to more ears than others. For ex: According to his figures, John Scalzi’s blog gets 35-40 thousand unique visitors a day. My blog? 52, and that’s on a pretty good day.
Maybe it’s just that I don’t want to leave everything up to other people. Maybe it’s just that I want to do my part in making the book succeed.
What do you guys think? Is there a level of promotion you like and expect (“You have a new book out? Why didn’t you tell us?”) and where do you get exasperated and turned off? Was there a particular author promotion you thought was effective? Have you ever bought a book because of an author’s marketing?
And just because, if you want two copies of Game of Cages leave a comment on my main blog or LiveJournal saying so. I’ll choose a random winner sometime tomorrow morning. The extra copy is so that, if you like the book, you can give it to a friend; if you don’t like it, you can give it to an enemy.
As you guys know, I’ve been taking part in Suvudu’s reader-driven chain story, “A Glimpse of Darkness” (quick summary for those who don’t know what I’m talking about: five authors (Lara Adrian, Stacia Kane, Kelly Meding, and Lucy A. Snyder) are writing a “chain story.” Each week, one of us posts part of the story and at the end of the segment is a poll allowing the reader to choose what will happen next. A clear, full explanation is here.
Well, Lara Adrian’s first section went up last week, and the poll closed on Friday. I spent the weekend (skipping Foolscap) writing the next section, and guess what?
It’s, erm, longer than I’d intended, but that’s because I wanted to put in as much good stuff as possible. I gotta admit, it was fun to write (also stressful, because those other authors are way more experienced than I am, and I wanted to do good work).
Go! Read! Vote! And maybe, if you enjoy it, you can tell other readers about it.
Well, the poll for chapter one of A Glimpse of Darkness has closed, and my favorite choice didn’t win. If this were politics, I’d be looking over Canadian and Australian immigration websites, but there’s no escape for me. I have a chapter to write.
Actually, I’ve already started it. It’ll be pretty damn good, but you know, we always think about the path not taken.
I must say, though, that I got a late start. I woke early this morning and, instead of rushing out to write, hung around the kitchen baking Biscotti di Regina for my wife (no link b/c the recipe I used isn’t online). After her vacation in Italy, this should be a last treat to ease her back into her everyday life. Too bad she woke up before I was finished and accidentally spoiled the surprise.
Now… Back to work!
Time is running short to read and vote in the Reader’s Choice Chain Story up at Suvudu.
Go! Read! Vote!
I’ve been hinting about a secret project for a little while now, and now I get to share the details.
On Suvudu.com, I and four other writers (Lara Adrian, Stacia Kane, Kelly Meding, and Lucy A. Snyder) are writing a “chain story.” The first author writes a section of the story leading up to a major decision for the protagonist. At the bottom of the page, there’s a poll allowing you, the readers, to decide what will happen next. When the poll closes, the next author in the chain continues the story along the path you, the readers, have chosen. After the last story, the whole thing will be released as an e-book.
Here’s the official announcement on the Suvudu site. The cover art is beautiful, isn’t it?
The first chapter, by Lara Adrian, is right here. As I’m typing this post out, I haven’t even glanced at the first chapter (just got out of bed, actually). But on Thursday, voting will close and I will spend the next weekend writing chapter 2.
Yeah, it’s a real-time choose your own adventure. And yeah, I’m next in line.
So go! Read! Vote! I am a puppet and you pull the strings!
There have been some brilliant, and touching articles posted online recently. These don’t deserve to be shunted to a “Randomness” post, which is for fun weirdness and simple beauty. These are deeper than that. So, here are some articles you might want to read:
First, everyone has been linking to Ta Nahisi-Coates’s post on “Compassion” and for good reason. If you haven’t read it, you should.
In this society, we view compassion as a favor, something along the lines of forgiveness extended to the humble and deserving. No. My compassion is utterly selfish, and is rooted in a craving for power. It is compelled by my curiosity, itself, just another name for hunger, for desire, for want of the great power of knowing.
Second, a post by Shweta Narayan called “Dissimilation”, about her experience as an Indian in British schools, and the way she was pressured to assimilate by people who would never really accept her.
My friends, in this period (maybe just the first 10 years of it) were the people who sometimes did not torment me, who sometimes let me sit with them without wrinkling their noses and edging away and tossing my books around the room, who sometimes called me Shweta rather than Pakkie or Shwetterpants or shitface.
Third, Myra McEntire writes “Speak Loudly – In Defense of Laurie Halse Anderson” about her Christian faith and her outrage that people are trying to ban YA books about troubling subjects from schools, in particular a book called Speak about a young girl who is raped and does not speak up about it.
Because for Christians, there is one Boss. Mr. Scroggins might need to surrender his Junior God badge.
Fourth, in the NY Times, Nicholas Kristoff sends a “Message to Muslims: I’m sorry.” If we expect moderate Muslims to apologize and denounce extremists, shouldn’t moderate American citizens do the same?
I hereby apologize to Muslims for the wave of bigotry and simple nuttiness that has lately been directed at you. The venom on the airwaves, equating Muslims with terrorists, should embarrass us more than you. Muslims are one of the last minorities in the United States that it is still possible to demean openly, and I apologize for the slurs.
That’s about it for today.
Behind the cut: Continue reading
In two and a half hours, the shuttle van will be coming to pick up my wife for her week-long trip to Italy. She’ll be gone about a week and a half, and I will be staying home with my son.
There will be much writing time claimed, much pizza eaten (and salad) and some small amount of computer games played. I hope to clear the final level of Swordplay Showdown.
By which I mean that I’ll be checking email, but not doing a lot of internet reading/socializing. At least, I don’t think I will.
Have a great weekend, everyone.
(Oh, and I did a “Take Five” piece for Suvudu. It’s funny. Check it out.