words

I’m not going to be around much today

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The family is heading out to the Apple store and Barnes & Noble so my technophobic wife can test drive some ereaders. She won’t like them, I already know it, but what the hell, right? I get to check them out, too. What I really suspect will happen is that my son will fall in love the the iPad and want one for himself, and that’ll get him off my damn computer every day.

Frankly, we’re more likely to come home with a bag of books than a gadget.

(And yeah, I though the iPad 2 was going to drop yesterday, not tomorrow. My wife doesn’t care about size, cameras or gyroscopes, though–she plans to be disappointed by it no matter what.)

Update: My son tells us that we will also be visiting The Gap so he can buy some new Tshirts.

Me: “All right, son. If you want to, we’ll take a look. Is this about a girl? It’s totally cool if it is.”

Son: “No. I just don’t want to look ramshackle.”

Me: “God dammit! If you’re going to be a member of this family, you’re going to look ramshackle!”

Followed by much laughing. Considering the glasses frames he chose (kinda fancy), the shoes he likes and the pants he asks his mom to make, it’s pretty clear that he’s going to be a dress-up person. It’s like Alex Keaton being born to hippie parents.

Randomness for 3/9

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1) Cognitive Scientist records 90K hours of his own child’s language development, then graphs it. Soon to come to a TED Talk near you.

2) Andrew Wheeler’s syllabus for his non-existent sf course. I think it would be better served to address some of what happened in the 19th century, even if it was just an overview in the first week.

3) The Muppet Alignment Chart.

4) I wish every review of a reality TV show was this good.

5) Organizing a bookshelf: Video. There are so many simple ideas that work magic as stop-motion. Thank you, computer revolution.

6) A nearly-incomprehensible map of science fiction.

7) The internet is full of wonderful things: Carl Sagan’s Old Spice commercial as an animated gif.

Bonus 8th thing! Soylent Green isn’t the only thing made of people! Now “castles” are, too! Video.

Espresso Book Machine

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If you haven’t seen an in-store book printing machine in action, you’re in “luck.” I ordered a book from the Espresso Book Machine at the UW Bookstore in Seattle and took a really mediocre video of the process. Watch it here.

Handy with a camera, ain’t I?

The whole thing took about seven minutes, so I don’t think we’re at the place yet where book stores stocked their shelves with cover flats readers can carry to the register/print station. Not without 20 more machines running full time. And that doesn’t include the 15 minutes it needed to warm up the glue before the process could even start.

Also, there had to be a store employee operating the machines terminal for almost the whole time; I’ve done my best to edit her out, per her request.

Honestly, the most difficult part of the whole thing was taking my laptop out of the store to find a wifi signal, searching the specialized web site for the book I wanted to buy, and copying down the info I needed to take back into the store. Plus, the books were kinda spendy.

It’s early days yet.

I shot this over a year ago (Procrastinate? Me?) but ask questions if you have them. I’ll answer as best I can.

What it takes

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Check out this blog post by a guy who just got his first book deal. There’s so much in there that he did right that any aspiring author could revisit it several times over the months and learn something new from it.

Randomness for 3/6

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1) A smart way to promote science education. Also.

2) At no point does this stop being awesome: Sheen Family Circus.

3) Frank Herbert writes a children’s book: Goodnight Dune

4) Baby laughs at ripping paper. Video. Watching this is good for your soul.

5) Children read to dogs.

6) Please do not submit my name here.

7) Those amazing personal stories you hear on radio call-in shows? They might be actors reading a script.

Best sf/f novel of the decade?

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Here’s the thing: I like John Scalzi. I’ve never met the guy, but he comes across very well don’t you think? He seems smart and reasonable and I’m pretty sure the wife and child he loves are actually real people that he’s genuinely nice to.

What’s more, I’m grateful to him. The Big Idea essays he let me post on his blog were invaluable. Quite a few people who contacted me after they read my books said they’d discovered them through his site.

So, he’s a nicer guy than I am, he works harder, and he does more good for all of humanity than I do. These are things I believe to be true.

But is Old Man’s War the best sf/f novel of the decade? Um, no. It’s a good book, absolutely. It’s a fun and accessible book, with terrific characters. But the best?

I know, I know. It’s a Tor.com poll and, while I don’t for a second believe the Tor.com folks stuffed the ballet for one of their own, there’s almost certainly an extra helping of Tor readers there.

But come on.

(For the record, CoF got 2 votes, which is 3 more than I expected. Thank you, two crazy voters. Me, I voted for Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke.)

Hit a roadblock on the new project

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It was unexpected, but unavoidable. I’m trying to figure out how to fix it within pre-established parameters, and I think I just about have it handled.

It’s funny, though. I used tear my hair out over this stuff, but today it looks to me like a pleasant little puzzle (more fun than the Minecraft obstacle course my son designed for me, at least) and I know it’ll be stronger for being fixed.

Anyway, I put up a couple of posts over the weekend. I suspect you guys saw my joke post about Pat Rothfuss (I’m just trying to help the guy get his name out there), but I’m surprised no one wanted to talk about the super-low pricing on ebook backlist titles–prices set by a publisher, not an author who’ve had their rights reverted.

I think it’s potentially a great thing for midlist authors and may cement price windowing as a professional publishing business model. It could also hit very hard against indie authors who have been hoovering up all the ultra-low priced impulse-buy ebook sales.

If you are writing a series, would you ask your publisher to release an ebook of book one for $0.99 to help promote book four?

The heavily-discounted backlist

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Check out this article about a best-selling backlist title.

I know authors are already doing this with titles that have reverted to them. The interesting thing here is that it’s the publisher who’s pricing a backlist title like an app and surprising the hell out of themselves by hitting the NYT Bestseller list.

Obviously, this is not going to work as well as the practice becomes more common, but a surprise like this (and I’m certain that it is a surprise to everyone involved) will almost certainly cement teh idea of windowed ebook pricing: Full(ish) price when it’s a new release and a heavy discount (mumble mumble) months later.

I like it.

Randomness for 2/26

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1) Five reasons so many movies suck.

2) Teacher tries to reach students via a book she writes, in which they are characters. School board objects to drug and sex references, not to mention the “Mr. Gay UK” stuff. You already guessed the rest.

3) Judgmental bookseller ostrich.

4) Hamster-powered walker.

5) Childhood pictures re-enacted. I have to admit, I love these, but I don’t think I could do it. One picture may be NSFW because it shows a woman’s breast.

6) Dance a dance designed by communist committee.

7) Predator, the musical. Video. What it says on the label, and pretty funny.

New at antipope.org

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My latest post has gone live at Charles Stross’s blog: “I dream of one day slapping handcuffs on a belligerent junkie.” about genre-reading and imagining yourself living in the book’s setting.