One more and I’m out of here.

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Amazon.com is giving 4 weeks of free Bookscan numbers to U.S. authors. If you’re signed up for their Author Central, you can see sales not only for the Amazon.com site, but for all booksellers who report to Bookscan. Details here. Amazon.com’s FAQ here.

Anyway, Bookscan says their numbers represent about 75% of all book sales, but the real figures vary wildly from 15% to 75%. It really doesn’t tell you anything, and it isn’t important.

But here’s what it looks like, except you can mouse-over each region for more info. (Click through for full size)

Bookscan Nov

Why no love, Birmingham?

This is my surprised face

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How surprised are we to find that banks are foreclosing on people’s homes for no reason at all, and often on homes where they don’t even own the mortgage.

Of course, the criminal malfeasance of banks can barely be discussed in this country. I still hear economists blaming the recession on “spending beyond our means” rather than the credit default swaps. I still hear pundits talking about a culture of consumption but not a culture of institutional theft.

But hey, no worries, right? I’m sure the Obama administration will get right on this. He would never allow the American people to be robbed blind by huge wealthy corporations, right? Right?

Book marketing and book trailers as mini-docs

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Author Steven Pressfield posts about book marketing: what doesn’t work, what used to work, the book trailer he spent too much money on, and how little we know about what does work now.

The TV interview gone wrong was the most painful part of his story (who flies 3K miles for a book signing–unless he was already flying in for the interview and thought he’d arrange a visit, I guess?) but there’s nothing to differentiate his post from dozens of others by writers flailing to find a way to effectively market their work.

As he says, his trailer didn’t work (it’s more a mini-documentary than an actual trailer, but there you go) but it was terrific fun to do. To me, that means he’s doing things the smart way, even if he’s not really seeing sales from it. I wonder if he’d had more success marketing his book with a shorter trailer–more negligee, less bare skin, so to speak.

He also says that the only thing that truly helped sales of his book was a rave in the NYTimes. Naturally, this leads to a lament about the loss of the book review sections of the major newspapers and their ability to reach so many people at once.

And I sort of agree with him–not that the NYTimes would ever give a second glance to one of my Twenty Palaces novels. Book talk is very decentralized now. We get our recs from friends on Goodreads or Library Thing, we read amateur reviews on blogs, LiveJournal, Facebook, we… what? Read tweets? Stumble upon? There are a hundred different ways that we discover the books we read and love.

But that doesn’t mean there’s no way to reach a large audience. Scalzi’s blog gets 45K unique visitors a day, which is 500 times what I get, but still small potatoes compared to other folks. If Wil Wheaton, Felicia Day, or Neil Gaiman tweet how much they liked your latest, that’s a direct recommendation to nearly two million people. I know a great many of my sales have come from kind words by Jim Butcher, who has the ear of a great many people.

The difference is, of course, that these aren’t institutions you can contact cold. These are real people touched by fame, which means they have to guard their time and energy from users and crazies.

The easiest way to get a rec from someone like this is through dumb luck (ie: they happened to buy and like your book). Beyond that, you need a personal connection, someone who knows them well enough to say “You’ll love this!” without being intrusive. That’s how Jim Butcher read Child of Fire before it was published; Del Rey was publishing his DRESDEN FILES graphic novel adaptations, so my editor contacted him).

Or, if you have to do it yourself, well, that would be a whole different post, one that should be written by somebody else.

But what you can’t do is befriend people for the sole purpose of getting a review or furthering your career. That’s creepy and awful.

So it’s not that there are no avenues to get the word out to a whole lot of people at once. It’s that many of these avenues are people rather than institutions, and you can’t just call them up and say “I’m sending you a great book. Write about it, will you?” Because these folks need to protect themselves from the crazy.

How to market your books, then? Well, in a way, you can’t. You can’t pester complete strangers to rave about your work. What you can do is offer reading copies to the people who already have a relationship with you. You can ask them to help spread the word (hopefully, they don’t need to be reminded).

If they don’t? If none of your friends or acquaintances post rave reviews or give you five stars on Amazon.com, or link from their blogs? Then just forget about it. Brush it off. Drop the subject and never bring it up again.

Finally, if a stranger raves about your work, it’s cool to contact them to thank them and, if appropriate, offer them an early copy of your next book. But that is only for people who already know you or have a reason to talk to you, and you have to treat them with the expected social graces. Leave strangers alone, especially if you’re only going to stare at them the way a starving dog stares at a rib eye.

Randomness for 12/8

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1) The Avengers have a change in health care plans. Video. Pretty funny.

2) And, to switch to DC, Batman as life-size puppet stage show on Japanese TV. Video. You know you can’t resist a description like that. Via

3) Quality hate mail.

4) Ten comics-related gifts guaranteed to ruin your Christmas.

5) An alignment chart for DS9. Personally, I would switch lawful evil and neutral evil, but that’s me.

6) Seven horrifying cost-cutting measures.

7) The Penmonkey’s Paean. “I will not sing lamentations to my weakness.” Damn but I needed to read this today. Thanks, JJ.

A Glimpse of Darkness goes on sale today

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Here it is:

Cover

What is it, you ask? For those who missed it the first time through, earlier in the fall Suvudu.com held a round-robin audience-choice story game for several writer, and I was included in the fun. One writer would write a short chapter and at the end would be a poll to allow readers to decide what to do next. Once the readers made their choice, the next writer in queue would create the next section of the story according to their wishes. The authors were Lara Adrian, Stacia Kane, Kelly Meding, Lucy A. Snyder, and me.

Well, it goes on sale today, (for those of you who read ebooks). The novella is available for only 99 cents. You can order through Powell’s, Barnes and Noble, and of course, Amazon.com.

I’ll say this: it’s very different from the Twenty Palaces books. There’s a lot more magic in it, for one thing, and many of the characters are non-human folkloric creatures. For another, it’s fantasy alt-history. For a third, I didn’t write most of it.

But I think it’s a fun adventure story. Check it out.

Animated movie meme

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I got this meme from Andrew Wheeler at Antick Musings, and, as usual, it’s one of those long annotate-this-list things:

All the animated movies in the world, sort of

– X what you saw
– O what you haven’t finished/seen or saw sizable portions
– L what you loved
– D what you disliked/hated
– Leave unchanged if neutral
Continue reading

Reviews, part 22

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1) An anonymous reviewer at Daily Ebooks Reviews gives Child of Fire four and a half stars (out of five, it seems). “I found Child of Fire to be both an accomplished debut novel and an extremely enjoyable read.”

That’s a much more positive response than the Game of Cages review from last month.

2) Dr. Henry Leon Lazarus (pseudonym? real?) at Philadelphia’s Weekly Press liked both Child of Fire and Game of Cages: “Only the tattoos that protect him from bullets, his magic knife that can slice through anything, and grit and determination can keep Ray alive in this solid thriller. Impossible-to-put-down. I liked the tale well enough to find the first, Child of Fire (paper), at Amazon for my kindle software. It was just as much fun.”

3) Josh Vogt at Examiner.com gives five stars to both Game of Cages and Child of Fire. “A rare and greatly enjoyable set of reads, with exceptional potential for the next installments.” Nice!

4) David Marshall at Thinking about books weighs in: “In many ways, I think Game of Cages rather better than Child of Fire.” NB: He liked the first one quite a bit.

5) Charlaine Harris, being Charlaine Harris, has read and posted about Circle of Enemies declaring it “just as action-packed and thoughtful as the first two.”

6) Drey of Drey’s Library gave Game of Cages a Very Good rating: “Harry Connolly keeps you on your toes from the first page until the very last word as you ride shotgun with Ray in this rough-and-tumble read.”

7) Tegeus at Mare Nostrum calls Child of Fire a “This is a definite keeper and is recommended for fans of the Dresden Files and Anita Blake.“

Randomness for 12/4

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1) Every Star Trek episode explained in four panels.

2) “Speedflying” a new extreme sport that freaks me out just watching a clip on YouTube. Video. If I prayed, I’d pray for those dudes.

3) Fictional characters in need of a book deal. With covers!

4) This is why I’m a capitalist at heart.

5) Can’t remember what movie I certain line of dialog comes from? Do a search.

6) “Furthermore, only non-Christians can curse.”

7) If this is what it will take to be a successful writer, I’ll go back to answering phones.

Let me astonish and amaze you!

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… with my posts in other places on the web!

Over on Black Gate, I’ve posted a bit about the process of making the trailer (not “So we decided to use a key light” stuff, but the decision-making and such). Here’s part one. Here’s part two.

I think they’re pretty interesting, but I would, wouldn’t I? They’re also full of the sort of writer-thinking I never talk about in my own blog, mainly because I don’t feel comfortable being an instructor in this space (or most anywhere, really). I know other writers feel differently.

Over on the Official Kindle Blog, the five co-authors of Suvudu.com’s “A Glimpse of Darkness” novella (available for Kindle on 12/6 for only 99 cents, you can pre-order here) are doing a tag-team series of blog posts, just like as we did with the story. You can see the first one, by Lara Adrian here, and here’s mine. Read them all, I say. It’s interesting.

My son really enjoyed yesterday’s Minecraft survivor’s log. He’s already pressing me to write more. Me, I’m just trying to get these pages edited and the Christmas shopping done.

Tonight, we hang the tree. That’s right, we’re going to try to suspend it upside down from the ceiling. We’re like the Satanists of holidays.

I know. All that has you astonished and amazed, yeah?

Survivor’s Log, Day 112-120

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It is day… 112, I think? It’s hard to tell. The days are so short here, I know I miss some cycles while I’m underground searching for the coal, iron and other minerals I need to survive.

Yesterday I found some reeds beside a lake. After some time at my crafting table, I figured out how to make them into paper, then how to turn the paper into a book. So… this journal. I hope that when I am killed for the last time, this record will be of use to some other lost soul.

This place… It’s hard to know where to begin describing this strange land I’ve appeared in. The physics doesn’t make any more sense than the biosphere. There are no birds here except chickens, no mammals except cow, pigs and sheep. No reptiles. Nothing lives in the water, as far as I can tell.

There are no insects here, either. How do the trees and grasses survive without insects? The only bugs of any kind are the giant spiders, each one larger than me. They’re dangerous, too, once the square sun has gone down; their feeding frenzies begin at night.

I have to be careful of the spiders. They can kill me, and did so once–I’ll talk more about that later, when I’m ready. I’m not… I’m not ready yet–but I don’t hate them. The zombies and skeletons are less dangerous. They are easy to kill and immolate in the sunlight anyway.

It’s the creatures I’ve begun to call “creepers” I hate most of all. They’re ugly and silent hunters. They emerge at night and persist unharmed in the daylight, jumping at the edge of my fenceline as soon as they see me. I know what they want, too. If they can get close enough to me, they explode.

They’re suicide bombers, like the antibodies of this world, sacrificing themselves to destroy me. What manner of beast sacrifices itself in the destruction of its prey, I dare not ponder. Three times have they destroyed me, but after each death I reappear again in the same spot on the beach, naked…

More later. The square moon is setting and a glow in the “east” tells me the square sun is about to rise. I need to venture past the fenceline to collect more wood to extend the fence and find feathers for my arrows.

Day 113

I’ve decided to stick with this numbering system for the days. I have no way of knowing if it is accurate, but it doesn’t matter, I don’t think. God, I hope it doesn’t matter.

I found a giant spider on top of my High House this morning. Can’t understand how it got past the fence line. I know they appear in very dark places, like unlit caverns and hilltops, but I have seeded my whole property with the strange, unquenchable torches I make–it shouldn’t have been dark enough for that. Maybe the trees are too overgrown?

No matter. At least it wasn’t another creeper. I shot it with arrows until if fell over and vanished in a puff of smoke, the way all the living things here die. All it left behind was a couple lengths of string. Even my arrows have been transported away.

As stated, all living things here expire in the same manner: they vanish in a puff of smoke and leave some small object to fall to the ground. The chickens and zombies leave behind feathers. The skeletons, arrows. The creepers, gunpowder (which I have plans for, oh yes).

The farm animals are the same. The first time I killed a cow, I was shocked to discover that the entire carcass vanished except for a strip of leather suitable for protective clothing. Nothing else, nothing else that could be called a comestible–an entire cow! The sheep leave wool (without dying, unless attacked repeatedly) and the pigs vanish, leaving behind nothing but a large chop. So far, that’s the only food I’ve found here. Good thing I’m not a devout Jew or Muslim.

Not that I’ve ever been hungry (or sleepy, but never mind that now). The only use I’ve found for the steaks is that, once cooked, they will heal me of the wounds inflicted by my enemies, or the damage I take falling in treacherous places.

Which means it is not food I am eating. I am replacing damaged parts of myself with the meat from these weird ghostly pigs. What am I becoming? What has happened to me?

I have not yet seen a calf, piglet, chick or lamb. The chicken lay unbreakable eggs which I collect but are nothing more than paperweights. I strongly suspect that, each time I am killed, I vanish and reappear just like these creepers, cows and spiders.

I live as a dead thing, but without burning in the rays of the square sun as the zombies do. If these creatures vanish and reappear when killed, as I do, how am I to win my war of survival? All is futile.

Yet I dig, and chop, and build. Somehow I will find a way back to my own world and my own body. I will be reunited with my wife and children. I will.

Day 119

After several days of planning and work, I have constructed a house out in the bay. It is made of glass and barely extends above the water, and the glass-covered walkway that connects it to my fenced compound is well below the water, and even deeper once it reaches land.

It is a simple, humble structure, but I felt I needed it. I was feeling too like a prisoner and needed a place beyond the fence where I could stand and look at the stars. I needed a place of my own that was beautiful and defiant of this abominable situation.

Still, while I was digging the walkway through this strange rock, a zombie wandered about on the glass roof of my Water Room. The creature’s moaning filled me with dread; I knew it could do nothing from the other side of the thick glass, but if it had been a creeper, I suspect my house would have been exploded and the weird, viscous water of the bay would have flooded in on me.

Thus, while I am proud of my low glass room, I can find no peace there when the stars are out, nor when they are not. My defiance was perhaps ill-advised.

Still, at night, when I stand in the doorway of High House, the torchlight flickers prettily beneath the waveless water. Perhaps I should learn to be content with this.

Day 120

Attempted parlay with a zombie this morning, just before the sun came up. It is, after all, a man, is it not? In reduced capacity, I’m sure, but active, aware, and perhaps not immune to reason?

I spoke to the fellow in as frank and unthreatening a manner as I could devise, but it was no use. It could only moan and attack me, so I slew it.

I am truly alone here.

The rest of the day was spent in furious physical labor to forestall such morose thoughts.