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The Beatles, 10K Hours of Practice, Arrogance, and more.

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So, Malcolm Gladwell has (in)famously accredited The Beatles’s success to the fact that they put in 10,000 hours of practice while they were in Liverpool and touring in Germany. It’s a nice, tidy idea but it isn’t correct. In fact, they were also very talented. In fact, they were also persistent. In fact, they had more than their fair share of arrogance.

To quote the article:

I don’t mean that in a pejorative sense. Arrogance—a kind of foolish, adolescent self-belief; an ignorant, intuitive certainty that your way is the right way—is the root of all great art.

If you read the article linked above (and if you’re a creative person working in a creative field, you should) you learn about the times The Beatles were turned down standard opportunities. The biggest was the offer to record their first song, something someone else had written, but they insisted on “Love Me Do”. Because of that (and a million other choices) they became The Beatles.

However, one thing the article dances around but never explicitly lays out: They were a group of friends. It wasn’t just one person, struggling away at their art. They supported each other, taught each other, and listened to each other when one of the others said they should stand firm.

How many times has a proto-John Lennon found himself among dilettantes, their passion to create slowly undermined by the fact that no one in their circle shares it? How many of those people get discouraged, give up and find jobs at insurance companies or whatever?

That’s why it’s important to have a circle of friends who are passionate about the same things you are and who are creating that you think is amazing. Foolish self-belief is a delicate bubble for most rational people, and it helps to have a community around you to help protect it, because the world is full of people who want to shred the happy arrogance of creative people.

About the scene I call “The Sentence”

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A reader requested that I write a bit about the climactic fight in the food bank in GAME OF CAGES. On the off chance that you haven’t read that book and don’t want it spoiled, here’s a cut: Continue reading

Happy NaNoWriMo. Once again, I won’t be taking part this year.

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But this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t! Go to town, have fun with it, and if it seems that 50K is a lot of words to write in a month, use this as an opportunity to stretch your boundaries. Some writers do that much in a week, and if you want to be more prolific, you can work on that.

I’ve written about NaNoWriMo before; if you want to read my thoughts on it (and links to other people’s thoughts that I think are worth looking at), please do.

Don’t judge a genre by its covers

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Or should we?

Over a week ago (was it really that long?) I has a Twitter exchange with author Sam Sykes. (Longish rant after the cut) Continue reading

Things that can go wrong with your new book release

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Nick Mamatas is an author and editor known mostly for writing unusual books and being acerbic online. I enjoy his writing (even if it can be a little didactic at times) but haven’t been able to keep up with everything he’s written.

With his latest book, he breaks away from sf/f and moves to mystery (a genre I really love) and the book sounds terrific. Let me do that Amazon link thing:

The protagonist is a teenage punk in 1989 Long Island who has “crafted an outsider’s life combining the philosophies of Communism and Aleister Crowley’s black magic.” When her friend and mentor is found shot to death, she’s convinced that there’s more to it than simple suicide.

Not exactly your typical homicide detective with a dying wife, and it got a helluva review on NPR. You can click the cover image above if you want to buy it.

But I’m not writing this to push a book I haven’t read yet. That’s all just context for this:

Let’s talk about marketing. Marketing isn’t a science, nor is it an art. It’s basically a series of stories marketers tell themselves. One story marketers tell themselves that is that there are four “Ps” to marketing. They are product, place, price, and promotion. As marketing for books is of great concern on the Internet these days, thanks to ebooks and self-publishing, it might be worth looking at Love is the Law based on these four Ps. First thing to realize: authors really have very little control over product marketing. Publicity, on the other hand, yeah, that we can do. Publicity is all about getting to know me, and if you’re here, you do. But marketing and those four Ps, that’s largely up to the publisher. So how has the publisher been doing?

Also:

Anyway, this is pretty much a recipe for the destruction of a book.

Yeah, the marketing for his new release is going wonky in interesting (I can call it that since it isn’t happening to me) ways, and it’s instructive to read about. It’s also pretty painful, since the book sounds like it would be unusual and compelling but might fade all too quickly just to become another entry in the author’s backlist waiting for a new book to hit the market in a big way.

Still, it’s not as though the book is doomed. As Nick says in his post, there’s still word of mouth, and there’s no force more powerful in bookselling once a critical mass of enthusiastic readers sharing a book they love. Every author depends on their readers in that way.

Anyway, out of habit I put a request into my library to pick up a copy for me (I should have linked to that NPR review for them) but since I might be coming into a wee bit of money soon, I’ll ask the local bookshop to order one for me.

Added later: A second, completely different story to the same effect.

Want a free copy of one of my books?

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Are you a reader who writes reviews on your blog? Or maybe Goodreads? Or somewhere else?

Well, you can get an early copy of KING KHAN just for the asking, and when you do, you’ll also get a copy of Stephen Blackmoore’s KHAN OF MARS, the prequel to mine. That’s two books about the adventures of a fussy Oxford professor who’s also a gorilla.

All you have to do is sign up at the publisher’s site before September 30th. They’ll pick 15 names from the people who contact them, and send out both books.

You guys know Stephen Blackmoore’s work, right? His debut novel was one of Kirkus’s “Best of 2012.”

Free books, you guys. Check it out.

I know I keep promising to talk about the stretch goals for this, but I just need a little more time to nail things down.

Buy Books, Do Good #NotRothfuss

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Hey, it’s just about time for Pat Rothfuss’s Worldbuilder fundraising to begin again, and if you’re like me, you like the idea of little kids having food and families taking care of their own. Not Facebook “like” but actual like.

Well, as the first volley in this year’s drive, Barnes & Noble is holding a bookfair to benefit the charity. When you buy any book (not just mine!) at any B&N (even online) and use the right Bookfair code (11162161) Worldbuilders will get part of that money. If you’d like to have a piece of paper to carry into the story with you, there’s a printable here (pdf).

We’re not talking about a small piece, either. Worldbuilders will get 10% of each sale, unless they go over $10K: then they get 20%.

Does that sound good to you? It sounds good to me. The bookfair lasts until September 2nd in physical stores and until September 7th if you order online.

New page on my site: Kid Reads

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You know how some parents are always talking about what prodigious readers their are? “My little eight year old just loved 100 Years Of Solitude! Now she’s moved on to Russian poetry, but that’s fine. She’s entitled to her beach reads.” What books their kids read and how many they consume are like ornaments for their parents.

My kid, he’s not like that.

He’s fussy, easily-bored, and emits a high, uncanny keening when forced to read something against his will. That noise isn’t a whine; it goes beyond whining into a kind of shared pain that only parents truly understand. He doesn’t impress people with his books. He just enjoys them.

So we often have people ask us what he reads. I’m guessing they think that, being the son of a writer, he will walk away from a Minecraft session of his own volition for his love of books.

Nope. He wants books that are fun, funny, and fast-paced. So when people ask what sorts of books we recommend for their own reluctant readers, those are the books we recommend.

Anyway, to make things easier on us, I’ve put together a page called “Kid Reads” which contains lists of books he really enjoyed.

Check it out.

Randomness for 8/12

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1) A really wonderful webcomic. Seriously. Check it out. You might have to scroll down a little.

2) 28 things that happened in the Harry Potter universe after the books ended. (according to JK Rowling)

3) Whale nearly swallows divers. Video

4) Comedian hides funny/absurd messages in hotel rooms.

5) Ten coolest things you can make with a 3D printer. Yeah, it’s a slide show, but this one’s worth it.

6) Copy machine changes numbers when making copies. h/t Making Light.

7) Very interesting: Husband takes photos to convince wife that her hallucinations aren’t real, but wife sees them in photos, too. After being put on a new drug, the hallucinations mostly go away, except in those photos.

Look what arrived last night! My newest book!

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THE BOX:

 

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THE BOOK:

 

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The insides are even prettier, but you’ll have to buy a copy to see those. You can pre-order it now from:

Amazon | Indiebound

Or, you can win one of the copies in that box. I’ll be holding a giveaway AFTER Stephen Blackmoore’s Khan novel comes out in August. (King Khan is a standalone sequel to his Khan of Mars.) Of course, you can order his book too: Amazon | Indiebound

In case you don’t know Stephen’s work, his debut urban fantasy novel City of Lost Things was one of Kirkus’s Best of 2012. Recommended!