reasons i suck

That was the weekend

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Apparently, I live in a world where I order checks from my bank but the checks never come. Yes, world, I know there are these things called electronic payments, but some stuff still wants a check.

Anyway, did you know that Monday morning is supposed to be the busiest web day of the week? We self-promoters are supposed to save “big” posts for now, when they’ll get the largest audience. Me, I’m writing about a box of checks that should’ve arrived already. See the famous author ply his craft.

In other vital news, for you weekend non-readers, I had a fun Saturday and Sunday, sort of. Sat was great, with a trip to the local Lego convention, BrickCon. Pictures here. I also received a ton of family-friendly rpg suggestions on my blog and LJ. Thank you to everyone who chimed in.

Sunday was quiet for various reasons. I set my laptop very high–on a stool on top of a table–so I could write standing up. The reduction in leg pain at the end of the day was startling; I’m going to try it again today.

If I were the sort of person who wanted to tie all this disparate stuff together (and I am) I’d link to Michelle Sagara’s posts about writerly self-promotion. Here’s part one. You can click through to the rest if you’re interested. I was and am.

She pulls together a lot of interesting ideas and presents them in a more coherent way than I would, and she also makes me realize that I’m okay with not being an internet celebrity a la Scalzi. Yeah, he sells a lot of books and has tremendous name recognition, but do you know how much time he must spend reading through his own comments, wielding the Mallet of Loving Correction?

I swear to god, I’d never have time for anything else.

I’m really lucky in that it’s extremely rare for me to get a nasty comment or annoying visitor–it hasn’t happened for months. Everyone who drops by here has been really kind to me, and I’m grateful for that. What I really need to do, mentally, is to separate my enjoyment of my own little space online with my desire for ten million people to read my books and Sam Worthington[1] to be cast in the movie version.

I’m off to make coffee and write now before the rest of the family wakes up. My wip has been coming together in my head in a rather sudden way, and I need to finish this scene and jump back to outlining. See you online.

[1]I’ve actually never seen any of the dude’s movies, but I assume he’d be great.

Writers do it while sitting

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But not this time. I’ve stacked a table on top of a table and I’m working on my wip while standing. The usual pain I’ve been used to has become much too intense lately. I’m hoping a change in position will make things easier on my legs.

Which puts me in the odd position of reducing knee, ankle, and muscle pain by getting up. What the hell. Variety is the spice, right?

Request for recommendations

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I used to be immersed in paper and dice role playing games, but lately not so much. The social groups I used to play with broke up, then I moved across the country. I expect it would be trivially easy to find a gaming group here in Seattle, but I barely have time to be a writer, husband, and father anymore.

But I’m not looking for help in finding a gaming group. I am looking for help in finding a game. I have the chance to turn some portion of family time to game night. Here are my requirements:

1- Relatively simple game mechanics, esp character creation. If each character has 12 stats and every attack needs six calculations to determine a hit, my 8 yo son (and adult wife) will be bored.

2- Family-friendly. No ultra-violence. No cyborg hookers. No nihilistic grime-topias.

3- It shouldn’t have too much moral ambiguity in the setting. My son, he’s not a fan of that. When he role-plays, he’s the good guy only. His mom will be the same.

4- Nothing too elaborate for the GM, either. I don’t have a lot of time as it is, but it will be difficult for me to work up elaborate scenarios for them.

5- Not too expensive. A $45 sourcebook is like a BMW–it may be gorgeous, functional, sexy, and fun, but I can’t afford it. It’s not a question of value, but one of cost.

Here are my preferences (as in would be nice but not required):

1- Something with monster-hunting or superheroes.

2- Uses lots of different kinds of dice.

3- A setting that is familiar to extremely casual fans of the genre (such as my wife). Modern day, medieval fantasy, old-time space opera will not have a steep learning curve. Fluffy Cthulhu will require a lot of explanation before we start the game.

4- Specifically designed to be played by young kids/newbies.

I wish I could find my old source books for Metagaming’s The Fantasy Trip; that’s what my friends and I played while everyone else was playing AD&D (yes, I’m old). I’m not even sure I still have them. Most of the old game books I have are Champions (too complex), Call of Cthulhu (not newbie-friendly) and the Pacesetter/Mayfair Games versions of Chill. I’ll be using the Pacesetter ed. if I can’t find something else. A previous short runthrough of the Chill 1st ed. went over pretty well.

Any ideas?

I’m wearing a sandwich-board sign that says “Harry Connolly, author”

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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.

WTH is wrong with me?

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You’d think a writer, who worked his whole life to be a published novelist, would be aware enough to mark the first anniversary of his first published novel.

You’d be wrong. It’s only because Nick Kaufmann mentioned in his review (linked in my previous post) that Child of Fire came out exactly one year ago today that I’m even aware of it. Yikes! Way to not commemorate things, Self!

I think I’ll celebrate by getting up super-early and writing before my day job. Then, later in the day, I’ll hang with my family and do some writing business that needs doing.

FAQ

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It’s long past time I made a FAQ, right? (That’s not one of the questions.) Here goes:

Q: What does 20 PALACES mean? Will we find out what each palace represents and why?

A: Two questions in one, but that’s okay. The Twenty Palace Society is a group of sorcerers who have appointed themselves the magic police of the planet. They’re pretty much ruthless bastards, but their cause is for the good. And yes, I’m planning to show some of the palaces themselves, at some point. The palaces don’t represent anything, though; they’re the homes of really rich people.

Q: Your stance on fanfiction is the first thing that comes to mind here (due to the latest hoopla on the topic.) =)

A: Well, by the time I post this, the hoopla will have died down. In fact, I pretty much can’t remember which particular hoopla we’re talking about. But here’s my “stance:” I consider fanfiction a sign that a property has a devoted following. It means a particular storyline has a healthy following. That said, I don’t want to read any of it, ever. I would find it distressing, so please don’t tell me about it. And don’t try to make money from it (or hinder me from making money), please. Aside from that, have fun.

Q: Where can I get one of those ghost knives?

A: Each one costs a mere $50 million. As soon as your payment clears my account, I’ll send you one. (You might want to wait for book three before you decide if you really want one. Just sayin’)

Q. Are Ray and Annalise using black magic or white magic?

A. Let me first state outright that you will never read the words “black magic” or “white magic” in my books. I’m not a fan of those terms for the obvious reason.

However, there is no good or evil magic in the Twenty Palaces setting. Magic is simply power, and like any kind of power it can be used responsibly or irresponsibly. Whether a spell is good or evil depends entirely on how it was used. In a way, spells are like guns: always dangerous, sometimes threatening, often put to evil purposes, but intrinsically evil? Not to me.

Q. Do you like gladiator movies?

A. Only if they have a. monsters or b. Woody Strode.

Have more questions for me? Let me know and I’ll include it in the FAQ.

I was your puppet; you made me dance

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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 live right now.

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.

State of the self

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I don’t want to talk to anybody.

Jesus Christ.

“On this planet, we are surrounded by danger and MADNESS!”

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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!

“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!