publishing

Randomness for 9/25

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1) For those who haven’t heard yet, the new OK GO! video. My son saw the goat the first time through, but I missed it. He had to point it out to me. And I seem to have missed this video from several months ago.

2) Health care reform explained, with timeline for policy implementation, subsidy calculators, etc.

3) It used to be that I’d have to send a link like this directly to my friend Jim, but now that he’s on Facebook, I can put it in my blog and hope he’ll see it in the RSS feed on my wall: A home-made coil gun blasts household objects. Video.

4) The paperback original: breakout opportunity or stigmatized format? I’m going with the former, since that’s how the Twenty Palaces books have come out.

5) Computer software judges attractiveness… of famous movie monsters. Well, famous except for “Bub” who I’ve never heard of.

6) The 14 best title cards for Batman: The Animated Series. This makes me want to buy the whole season on DVD.

7) Home circumcision kit. No. People, seriously, just… no.

“Now watch me amaze you!”

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Time is running short to read and vote in the Reader’s Choice Chain Story up at Suvudu.

Go! Read! Vote!

Secret Project revealed!

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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!

So many subgenres

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At our dinner on Wed, Kurt Busiek mentioned the story of Howard Moskowitz, a market researcher for food companies, and it reminded me that I wanted to post the TED Talk Malcolm Gladwell gave on him.

It’s a long one, about seventeen and a half minutes, but it’s worth watching. For one thing, it’s interesting. For another, it’s funny. For a third, it not only explains why there are so many different varieties of tomato sauce or mustard on the shelves, but why there are so many sub-genres in sf/f (not to mention mystery and romance).

Author photos and online dating profiles

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I’ve been thinking about author photos for a while. Mine is this one:

Author Photo Harry Connolly

Yeah. That’s me. It’s not a great photo, but it’s hard to take a good picture of me. At least it’s better than this one or this one. So it’s not great, but it’s the best of a long day of shots. However, look at this one. I’d love to have a photo like that. Hell, I’d love to have an empty, uncluttered table to work at.

And authors have to fuss a little over their photos. Catherynne Valente wrote a post a few months back about her own picture, and how people thought she looked “mean” because she wasn’t smiling. Jeff VanderMeer took a swipe at the “male author with his arms crossed” pose.

So, hey, maybe I should wipe the smile off my face and cross my arms. Or I should look at stats on what sort of photos are most attractive.

That’s right, that’s the blog for OK Cupid, the online dating site. I’ve linked to them before, because they have a huge data set to draw on, and some of their statistics are pretty interesting.

In studying their profile pictures, they’ve found that men are much more likely to post an unsmiling photo as women (by 61% to 35%). Let’s ignore that flirty Facebook kissy expression; writers, don’t make that face for your book jacket. What’s more, they looked at the number of contacts each user received, broken down by photo type. For women, the flirty face (and smiling) while looking directly at the camera were the best choices. For men, it’s looking away from the camera that gets the most interest, especially if he isn’t smiling. Forget about the abs pictures. I have abs, but you can’t see them under all this damn fat.

Now, obviously this shit doesn’t track one-to-one. OK Cupid users are looking for luuurrrve! (or sex, I guess) and, although OK Cupid has been better in other posts, those stats are all about the heteronormativity. Authors just want to look interesting–or at least, not so crazy that potential readers decided to give their books a pass. But it is an interesting way to look the photos we put out into the world, and the expectations people have for them.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to look over this post on taking an enticing picture. Golden hour, here I come.

Randomness for

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1) Ghosts in the Hollow, a record of abandoned buildings in the Appalachians. Video. Via Cherie Priest.

2) Have some publishing wonkery: “Sell-through” explained.

3) “YOU! The one who is moving now! ANSWER!” Video

4) Revolt in the Fifth Dimension. Video part one, part two. I loved these Spider-man cartoons as a kid, even the weird, trippy space episodes like this one. This clip is worth playing for the music alone.

5) In Legoland space, no one can hear you scream.

6) Do you love Legos and zombies? Well, this link is for you: Video.

7) Oyster beer? I’d try it.

A short, happy story

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The tale of my very first book sale is up on Jim C. Hines’s blog and LiveJournal. For new readers here, it’s not the usual book sale story: It’s a tale of quitting and shame.

Of course, I’m typing this on four hours of sleep so ‘asli lkasj mnfsi lasl jfasi back to bed. Hope everyone is enjoying their day.

Randomness for 9/7

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1) Author believes publishers ghettoize women readers and writers.

2) The Herald-Sun takes a necessary step. Has there been any doubt that this was coming, and had been coming for a long time?

3) Steam Trek, a parody. Video. Funny and cute. This is what people do when they turn off their TVs.

4) The Book Depository becomes even cooler than you thought possible. Live global tracking of book buying.

5) Common myths about good study habits, and how people (not just kids) learn.

6) Part of the 2008 economic meltdown explained in comic form.

7) This may look like a fake commercial from a horror movie, but it’s a real toy ad from the 1970’s. Prepare to feel your skin crawl. Video.

This is me.

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This post by Ally Carter comes at just the right time, because I’m having a bought of the crazies myself. Mine are probably not like yours–I tend to become quiet, lie in darkened bedrooms, and mutter to myself about all the ways I’ve screwed up.

I’m not fishing for encouragement; I’ve said before that encouragement makes me uncomfortable. Still, I’m going to have to come to some kind of balance, or work out a way to put marketing and sales out of my mind. I’ll find success the way every other writer does: by writing books people want to read.

It’s not going to happen by looking at Twitter traffic, or by skimming the Random House bestsellers to see where my book is rated, or by checking Amazon.com sales rankings, or any of that. I just have to work on my next book.

Randomness for 9/6

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1) While I have pretty much given up on DOCTOR WHO, the chances are you haven’t. In recognition of that, a link: Warren Ellis challenges artists to create a photograph/original artwork depicting the 13th (and final) reincarnation of The Doctor. It takes a while for the art to really start coming in, so be sure to skim through the pages to check it out. Some is pretty cool.

2) “Vampire” skull discovered.

3) 600 Hanna Barbera Characters This pretty much has to be viewed at the original size. And I reject the notion that “Snorkle” was the main character on The Banana Splits. I reject it!

4) Brazillian Legolas of the cell phones.

5) A quick summation of the problems inherent in our student loan system.

6) Seanan McGuire, this year’s Campbell Award winner, lays out the dos and don’ts for folks who want to support an author with a new book out. Like her, I would rather people not send me notes about Amazon.com reviews. Unlike her, it’s because I’ve already read them. The other stuff she says is pretty much spot on, too.

7) Oh. My. God. Why didn’t anyone tell me David Fincher was making an animated movie of THE GOON??!! There’s even a trailer already! Video. It looks incredible! WANT!!!