internet

Wha? “Sponsored Reviews?”

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Even though it’s been five months since Child of Fire came out, I’m still contacting reviewers, hoping to get a little more exposure. I’ve slowed down quite a bit, but I still mail off the odd book now and then.

So, as I was looking over N.K. Jemison’s new book on Big River dot com to see if it’s a hardcover (and thus too spendy to buy at my local shop) I saw a review posted there by sacramentobookreview.com.

Interesting! So I pop over to their site and poke around. No they haven’t reviewed CoF before. Yes, here are there guidelines for authors who want to send them a book. And here are their prices for a sponsored review.

Cue needle-scratching-an-LP sound. A “sponsored” review?? Well, yes. You can pay to have a review “expedited” which costs $99 for a Standard Turnaround (9-12 weeks) up to $299 for an Expedited Turnaround (2-4 weeks).

They don’t promise a positive review, only a “professional” one, and they don’t promise that a paid review will appear in the paper. However, if they don’t, the author will receive an advertisement instead and the size of the ad depends on which “turnaround” price they pay.

They also promise to put the review into their “publication pipeline” which apparently means Amazon.com, their syndication service, and their website.

As I said above, there’s nothing on the site (that I could find) that promises a rave review. I also didn’t find a disclaimer specifically explaining that cutting a check is no guarantee of a positive review. Still, it strikes me as fishy; I wouldn’t send them anything simply because a reader might wonder if I slipped a couple of bucks into the book, and jeez, people, I’d send a copy to your sickly grandmother if she had a blog.

Vaguely uncool. I’m going to email writer beware about it.

Oh, and because I should make this clear, I am in no way suggesting that N.K. Jemison wrote a check for the review they gave her. In. No. Way.

Well, we didn’t go to watch the tsunami come in

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Mainly because there was nothing happening. So instead, I published my son’s website.

He made it with his buddy, and it’s all their own (with one or two extremely minor assists from me). Check it out… if you dare!

I think parents around the world would find this word useful.

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Per this thread on Making Light, I proposed a definition for the word “darf”. I re-post it here to secure my place in the glorious history of the English language.

“Darf” v. to claim to be engaged in and winning a non-existent fight or contest against a more powerful opponent. Usage: “That’s when I discovered my son had been darfing me in a potato chip-eating race.”

Yes, I’m aware that there are a couple of “definitions” (picture air quotes here) at urb*nd*ct**n*ry.c*m, but the misogyny and trollish excess on that site makes me sick. Therefore, I pretend it doesn’t exist.

As a side note: anyone reading this who works for Random House… warning! Click that first link above!

As an other-side note: I’m still mildly sick, but I’m at work today. What the hell; I might as well be miserable here as at home.

It can finally be announced, Part 2!

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My franchise agreement with the Lego Corporation continues to be a fruitful source of revenue for both of us. The Child of Fire Lego set sold well beyond expectations, and they’re coming back for another round (naturally).

Here’s the cover for the new novel, coming out in August:

Game of Cages

And here, revealed to you for the first time ever, is the early concept art for the box the Game of Cages Lego Set will ship in:

Game of Cages Lego Cover

I like how they made the lightning shoot sideways, like it’s coming out of the house, although I *told* their designers last time that they had Ray’s hair color wrong, but did they remember to change it?

Ah well.

The good news is, this deal is making me filthy rich, and pretty soon I’m going take of from rainy, miserable Seattle and settle down with my family in an Italian vila. Mediterranean, here I come!
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Once again, just joshin’. This image was created with Lego Digital Designer, a CAD program (of sorts) that lets you design a Lego model virtually, then upload it to their site and have the pieces mailed to you. The nice thing about the LDD joke for this second book is that I’m such a big cheese writer now that I can offshore the actual creation of the image to South Korea my 8-year-old son. He did a great job, and it would have taken me hours to do it myself.

Chatroulette

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Here’s the “Safe For Work” version–an article in the NY Times describing the program. Short version: it’s social networking with complete strangers. You and your webcam get onto video chat. You click “Next”. A completely random person from anywhere in the world appears in their webcam image. You chat with this stranger.

Of course, you could be looking at a guy in a cat suit (see link above). Or a naked fat guy. Or some dude’s penis. Or a woman sitting on the toilet. Or someone in a freaky mask.

Here’s the NSFW version, with screencaps of unlikely/unfortunate/basically weird interactions between strangers.

Seriously, that’s NSFW. Don’t even open that link with kids in the room.

Randomness for 2/22

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1) Part two of the screenwriter stalker story! with bonus Brad Pitt at a urinal. And here’s Part 3. (Here’s part 1, in case you missed it.)

2) More OKCupid data crunching: this time about “older” women.

3) Remember the American version of Godzilla from 1998? Well, an early draft of the script was written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, the guys who wrote PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, SHREK, MASK OF ZORRO and ALADDIN, among others. Although their script was very different from the version that was filmed and released, some elements were kept and they ended up with credit. Sometime in the last 12 years, they posted their final draft online so people could compare the work they did with the finished movie. Well, someone has taken it upon themselves to turn that script into a webcomic. It’s not finished, but it is pretty cool.

4) Hot dog salad dressing??? 20 Unholy Recipes, Dishes So Awful We Had To Make Them. via Jay Lake

5) An insider’s guide to writing for Mills & Boon. Interesting stuff.

6) That “Ten Rules For Writing” article in the Guardian Part one, Part two. Those are fun to read, even the ones I disagree with.

7) Bertie Wooster as Bruce Wayne.

Dang-it

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I was about to post a link to a one-star review in honor of John Scalzi’s latest post on the subject, but I see I already have, way back in November. Ah, hell.

So instead, I’ll post this: The book I’m reading is The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston. It’s an interesting book–excellent in a lot of ways, and mildly disappointing in others. I get the impression it’s made for readers with buttons in different places than I have.

But that’ll have to wait until after I finish reading it. What I wanted to mention was a scene about two-thirds in where Protagonist’s Best Friend is talking to Screwed-Up Protagonist about his screwed-upness. SUP has a Mysterious Terrible Event in his past that has him acting like a contemptuous jerk throughout the book, and PBF takes the brunt of it. Eventually, PBF says this:

I read these books on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, they described you pretty smack-on.

And I was immediately thrown out of the story. My brain went straight to “Author did research. Research in book” and suddenly it was like I was smelling plastic flowers.

Which isn’t fair to the author, because the scene is completely earned and totally in character, but who ever said reading is fair? It was a clunker moment, and it hurt. I’ll want to write more about this book later.

Let me wrap up with this: After I wrote my “Review-down” post on Saturday night, I started feeling pretty rotten. Wisely, I announced this to my family and went to bed at 10. By 4 am, I was up again, thanks to muscle aches and a sore throat. I gargled with Listerine, took some Tylenol and played Meebling until the drugs kicked in (no link to Meebling, because your life is made of time, and both are so very precious). Then it was back to bed until–no kidding–ten am when my wife dragged me out of bed. Sleep! How good to see you again!

I still feel sorta awful, and I’m going to see if my good buddy Bed Rest can do anything about that.

Blog to LJ/Facebook/whatever

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Unlink your feeds, a manifesto. I wonder what folks think of this, especially folks on Facebook. Is it too much? Should I unlink my own feeds?

Apropos of nothing at all

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How to fold a fitted sheet:

Watch me

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via Jet Reid Lit Agency