1) A new type of cloud is recognized. And it’s beautiful.
2) Manly men = Straight men, now and in the past? Not so.
3) Cops have their water hoses, but what do protesting farmers have?
4) Paul Krugman answers readers’ questions about the economy.
5) Facebook status updates from comic book superheroes. So damn funny I can’t stand it.
1) Origami as done by a master. I can’t wait to show this to my son.
2) An alternate history that I’m glad is alternate: The speech William Saffire wrote for Richard Nixon in the event that the first men on the moon could not return safely.
3) Steve Harvey: Relationship guru. All I need to know is that the book his advice is taken from is titled: Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man. Pass.
4) The gender wage gap, state by state. I’m sorry to see Washington state looking so pale.
5) Win free manga!
Andrew Wheeler discusses the pricing of e-books, especially the widely-held contention that they should cost less than ink-and-paper books because they cost so little to create.
As Wheeler points out, creating the file is a lot more complex than “Print to PDF” or a quick bit of copy pasta. It’s also not free to store or sell after the file has been created.
As an additional datapoint, someone on my LJ friends list (not named here because it’s a locked post) linked to this news report about the launch of Amazon.com’s Kindle in the UK market. Is that a good thing? Maybe not for authors, since breaking down the various rights for different markets into “World English” reduces the money writers get. (For the record, I sold world english rights when I signed my contract). Also Amazon.com has worked hard to force huge discounts from publishers, which limits my payments (assuming I earn out).
At which point I say “Hrm.” In the years leading up to my sale, I tried to learn as much as I could about publishing, but I skimped on ebooks. I don’t read them and I know sales are still quite small, despite the noise people make about them. Plus, every time you scan a discussion of electronic texts, somebody starts waving the skull and crossbones, and I’m not interested is chewing that meal for the thousandth time.
Always something new to learn.
1) Suburban fantasy. Heh.
2) Chris Sims writes up another issue of the Anita Blake comic. Double heh.
3) “Is this a typo or are you being experimental?” Comments written by actual students extracted from workshopped manuscripts at a major university.
4) This is the best use for a droid I can imagine: R2D2 as mobile gaming unit.
5) I laughed while reading this: “Shitasmia,” or the first Mac/Windows/Linux rant worth reading, ever.
6) Who is HOBODARKSEID? And Why Should You Care? This, along with Shit My Dad Says, make me want to sign on to Twitter.
7) The true nature of Superman’s powers. Warning: pdf file.
So!
Today is Book Day. The thing I’ve spent the last 35 plus years working for has happened today. It’s crazy and wonderful and terrifying all at once.
A couple notes: later today, I’ll be having a chat with Betsy Mitchell, editor-in-chief at Del Rey (also my editor), on Suvudu. Start time is 2 pm EST/11 am PST, and everyone reading this is welcome to drop by. Also, you can email a question ahead of time to info@suvudu.com. The main focus of the chat will be my journey from unpublished to published writer.
Also, today my Big Idea essay went up at Whatever, John Scalzi’s blog. I talk about constructing stories out of creative choices I wanted to avoid.
Next, my interview with Sherwood Smith is up on her blog, too. She asked me some really chewy questions and I tried to do justice to them. (At some point I’m going to have to blog about fantasy and atheism.) If you don’t read Sherwood’s books, you’re missing out.
I revamped my website a bit. I put links to online booksellers in the right margin, along with a cover, and I broke them out by country. I’ve had a number of people ask if my book would be available in England or Australia, and it took me until now to realize I could simply look up which sellers would be listing my book and link to them. Duh. It’s not an exhaustive list, but it’s what I had time for.
Long time readers know I’m something of an NPR junkie–we supported our local station by purchasing a day sponsorship. I’ll be loitering by the radio before noon and 9pm to listen for our message.
I’ve also changed my default LiveJournal icon to the book cover. I don’t care if it’s tacky! I don’t care today, at least.
The Amazon.com page for Child of Fire has a number of reviews on it already, courtesy of their “Vine” program. Of the twelve reviews posted there, eleven are four or five stars. That gives me a warm, happy feeling.
Anyway, after my chat, I’ll be heading downtown with my wife and son to admire the book on the bookshelves. Expect pictures later! And in true Seattle fashion, rain clouds are rolling in. Until then, I’m going to log off the computer and spend some time with my family.
Folks: if you read the book and you like it, let people know, okay?
Occasionally, I take a bunch of time to type up a comment on someone else’s blog or LiveJournal, and think to myself Why don’t I ever put stuff like this on my own blog? Andrew Wheeler promotes the occasional comment to a full-fledged post, so why not me?
So, over on Kate Elliott’s* space, an aspiring professional writer asks a question that I won’t quote, because she had permission to reprint but I didn’t but it essentially boils down to: How does a person know when their writing is good enough? with a side of I want to write bestsellers.
You can click on the link above to see other peoples’ answers; many of the respondents have much more knowledge and experience than I do. But I thought that many of the answers focused on which skills to attain or which goals to shoot for, not to mention the theory of writing for bestsellerdom. There wasn’t a lot of process a writer could use to judge their own work.
So I wrote this comment:
My take: The questioner should grab a book off the shelf that is reasonably similar to the writer’s own work. It should also be someone who has reached a level of success the writer aspires to (as best they can tell, anyway).
Then retype the first chapter of that book. Just sit down and retype it. Pay attention to the mix of sentence lengths and structures. Pay attention to the amount of dialog, scene description, physical action. How much is narration to the reader? How distinctive is the voice?
Then reread one of that author’s books, while creating a plot outline. When are the main characters introduced? When is the main problem established? How long are the big conflict scenes, and how many are there? How is exposition handled.
Armed with all that information, the questioner should sit down at a clean table and lay out the successful author’s first chapter and their own side-by-side. Are the questioner’s sentences as vivid as the pro’s? Are they as economical? More concise? Does the story start as quickly?
Etc.
I don’t see anything wrong with wanting to write bestsellers. It’s not something a writer can completely control, like their genre, but there are things a writer can do/not do that that will improve their chances.
As an added bonus for readers of this blog, I learned a great deal about analyzing prose by seeing Sol Stein do it in his book Stein On Writing and seeing James D. Macdonald do it in his long Learn Writing With Uncle Jim thread on AW.
That’s how it seems to me, at least, and I know I still have a lot to learn.
* Spirit Gate=terrific book.
1) B&N demands authors link to their site or they will not order their books. Which… really, people? I should say that, months ago, my editor emailed me asking me to link to as many online booksellers as possible on my bookpage, which I had already done. However, unlike Amazon.com, B&N makes you go through Google to set up an affiliate account, and in general is a pain in the ass.
Still, link to our site or we won’t sell your book to our customers? What if their customers actually want that book?
2) Thorin Oakenshield as Nigerian phishing scammer.
3) Powell’s Books has only one copy of my book “left in stock at $5.50!” … four days before it is published.
4) Who knew? The London Review of Books has personal ads… and some are hilarious.
5) Our local library is having their semi-annual Friends of the Library book sale. I will not be going. Part of the reason I’m learning to read faster is to clear off some damn shelf space.
6) Finally, a confirmed sighting of Child of Fire in a brick-and-mortar bookstore. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1) Entrepreneurship and health care. “You’ve heard of learned helplessness? This is learned corporatism.”
2) Giant stuffed microbes. Just in case you wanted to cuddle up to the swine flu.
3) Want to receive free advance reader copies of Del Rey books to review on your blog? Fill out this form.
4) Limits of human endurance: in the muscles or in the brain? Crazy-interesting, and my wife will love this. via Jay Lake
5) Do you guys like these link roundups? Anything you want less/more of?
1) qotd: “I don’t mind hidden depths but I insist that there be a surface.” — James Nicoll
2) Best Fiction Generator Ever.
3) Reverse image search. Pretty cool.
4) What are the effects of killing all the pigs in Egypt? via Jay Lake
5) “Writers want to write short fiction and they’re going to keep finding ways to get them to readers. Writers seem willing to keep writing, even in the face of comparative commercial indifference.” Short fiction as loss-leaders for novels? As hobbyist activity? via matociquala
6) Real estate agent sends listing to sf/f lit agent for two and a half million dollar mountaintop retreat, because of course her millionaire genre writers will want to snap that right up. I wish she’d linked to the listing; I’ll bet Castle would look great perched on a rough wooden bench, staring thoughtfully into the morning mist.
6a) How to get rich as a writer? (geniusofevil, skip this part) Donald Maas’s free e-book has some interesting conclusions about the things writers do and don’t do to make a six-figure salary. I can’t help but wonder if he’d get the same results if he ran that survey again.
7) International Beard and Moustache Championships. Honestly, some of these make me a little sick.
8) Homes with cats 8 times more likely to contain mrsa. Not that it isn’t totally worth the risk!!! More interesting are the things listed that do not increase the germ risk.