Thoughts on a copy edit

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Responding to a copy editor’s queries is a whole different kind of thinking than revising my own work.

Reviews

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I keep forgetting to mention this: I’m not planning to link to reviews, good or bad. I’m grateful to the people who write them (tremendously grateful), but I think it’s intrusive for a writer to comment or link to it.

Just my opinion, naturally.

Oh! I forgot to mention…

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The podcast of the radio interview is available with Sohaib Awan is available right now. Give it a listen. Unlike the chat I posted previously, there are no embarrassing pictures of me, but you do get to hear me stammer and abandon perfectly good sentences.

Before you click and listen, though, I’d like to make one comment. This is the book I’m reading right now:

It has a female protagonist and sex, too. It’s also damn good. Just saying.

Yes, I am that sort of person

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It’s the fourth day that Child of Fire has been on sale. Yes, I am still visiting Amazon.com twenty times a day. Yes, I’m still checking for new reviews. Yes, I’m still glancing at the “sales rank.”

No, you don’t need to tell me that Amazon.com’s sales rank numbers are pretty much meaningless. Really, don’t. I already know that. But it’s one of only two ways I have of judging public interest in my book (all copies at my library are checked out or on hold) so I keep looking at it.

Before the release, the sales rank was in the low six-figures. On release day and after, it hung around 3K. At this point, it’s ping-ponging between 10K and 15K. I don’t care that it isn’t a good judge of how the book is selling. It’s the only input I can look at.

Am I the sort of person who makes an excuse to wander into Borders to see if there are fewer books on the shelf? (Apparently.) Am I the sort of person to linger by the shelf because a guy is standing right next to my book with a paperback in hand? (Yes.) Did I see a complete stranger carry my book to the register? (No. Congrats on the sale, Seanan McGuire!) Am I the sort of person who buys other books to hide the fact that I’m basically skulking around the store? (Oh, hell yes. And Mastercard is damn grateful). Were there, in fact, fewer books on the shelf? (Yes!)

Anyway, it’s weird. As Betsy, my editor, mentioned in the chat I linked to earlier in the week, Del Rey acquired my book with a pre-empt–before financial deregulation sent the economy into a nosedive. There are expectations for this book, and it has come out at a time of nearly 10% unemployment.

Which… okay. Perspective: millions of out-of-work people around the world is a bigger problem than the possiblilty that my book will underperform, but I can’t help but link them.

I keep wanting input but it’s slowly fading. I’m going to have to shrug it off soon and put it behind me. Soon. Don’t I know that it’s pretty much out of my hands now? (Yeah, in fact, I do.)

In other news, I hope to finish the rough draft of book three tomorrow morning before the signing. We’ll see.

Question re: book signings

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Last night at dinner, my wife and I went back and forth over a question of protocol for tomorrow’s book signing, and I promised I’d try to settle the matter by asking you, O Internet, for your opinion.

After tomorrow’s book signing, I have a couple of people who want to have a nice lunch. Friends I only know online or haven’t seen in years–that sort of thing. After lunch, my wonderful wife wants to be prepared to invite folks back to our apartment for a little socializing.

Me, I expect to have run out of extrovert by then. Flip side to that is that I expect the signing and lunch to interfere with socializing, and I’d like to spend a little time with these people.

As for my wife, she has been having trouble sleeping lately, and I do *not* want her to spend today cleaning up our small, dark, cluttered apartment in anticipation of socializing tomorrow. She’s exhausted enough as it is, and I can’t do a damn thing to help her from my chair here at the ole day job. Did I mention that our living room has been taken over by fort-building?

On the flip side for her: She’s an extrovert and doesn’t socialize as much as she needs to. Having people over might actually energize her, even while it enervates me.

What do you think, O Internet? “Party at my house!” after the signing and lunch, or is that Simply Not Done.

Update: Thanks everyone. I’m convinced. We’ll be out of the apartment for our socializing.

Quick reminder for Seattle area folks

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I’ll be signing copies of Child of Fire at Magnolia’s Bookstore on Saturday, 10/3, from 11 am to 1 pm.

Anyone reading this is welcome, of course. I plan to have my extrovert face on the whole time.

Hope is the mind-killer

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The last few days of ZOMG BOOK! have been crazy, but pretty soon I’m going to go back to griping about my WIP and posting links to mrsa cats, health care reform neepery, and DIY nerd coolness. But I’m still in a writing-post mood, so here goes:

This is going to sound weird, but I am anti-hope.

I don’t mean in some kind of “Don’t hope for it! Get out and grab it!” sort of way, in which hope is supposedly some kind of layabout’s daydream. I mean hope in that desire for something that is so strong you can taste it.

I hate hope. Continue reading

I promised pictures of yesterday’s trip to the bookstore

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I would have put them up last night, but when I got home I pulled the plug on the internet and hung out with my son. We had a blast.

Here are the pics:

Continue reading

Book Day followup post

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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?

Holy crap!

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Tomorrow is book day.

!!!!!

In a couple hours, my son and I will be going downtown for a little swim-time. After, I do not… not plan to drag his little behind to the Borders to see if the book is on the shelf yet. We’re planning to all do that tomorrow, on the actual day, and I don’t want my wife to feel left out (since she’ll be working at that time today.)

In other news, my pre-taped radio interview will air later today, if Fictional Frontier’s website is any indication. The radio station is WNJC 1350 AM in Philly, but the show will be webcast simultaneously starting 5pm EST. Here’s a link.

Don’t ask me how I’m doing, though. I’m feeling weird.