WordPlay

posted on Wednesday

Call it an experiment.  Little bits from the books.  But I admit it: the ego is fragile.  And I do watch the numbers.  So if it turns out that the Grand Snippeting Experiment isn’t truly of interest in the long run…well, you’ll know why you aren’t seeing them any longer!

From the first chapter of The Reckoners….


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Sklayne stretched his awareness into their new location, sheltered by an unfamiliar spreading bush. ::green sharp smells, twittering dry feathers, hard glossy beetle–::  A satisfying crunch and swallow, beetle no more. “Think cat,” Trevarr said, his tension battering at Sklayne’s edges.

Actually, that had better rhythm in my head than it does on paper. Oh well. Can we pretend I’m clever?

Truth is, all my clever is being sucked up right now by other things. For it is proposal season! Two different series, four different books…the muse is set to Warp 10 (“Cap’n, that’s all she’s got! She’s gonna blow!”)

Unlike some, I don’t talk about my proposals in process–it’s a superstition thing. It’s also a greed thing…the muse likes to keep it all to herself. The more to wallow in, y’know. But it does mean I’m particularly immersed right now. Very absent-minded professor.

Just shy of drooling, however.  Not quite that far gone.

Still, it’s a good time for my current production request–to ponder cover particulars for STORM OF RECKONING, which I think is coming out in December. Maybe. (The author is often the last to know for sure…) And the reason I have to think specially hard about it is that the cover artist who did my beloved RECKONERS cover is already booked.

So to speak. (Don’t hit me!)

That means I’ve got to come up with druthers for a new cover artist. I’ve got some ideas–oh, I do love good cover art!–but want to look around a little more.

So who do you like for cover art these days?

posted on Sunday, of all things

W00t!  The Fresh Fiction Valentine’s Day contest is over, with many thanks to those who came over to WordPlay to read and comment.  And it’s a round of WHEEE! to Lexie, whose name fell under the magic cursor and who will be receiving a copy of THE RECKONERS, newly released from Tor this month (in spite of Amazon, thank you very much).

WHEEE!

posted on Wednesday

I know, I know.  You thought I was going to say “giving good–”  Well, something else. And someone has, I’m sure–in some other blog…

This one actually is about good reviews.

But ho! It’s a trick! Because “good review” doesn’t equal “reviews of high praise.”

Don’t get me wrong–those are highly cool and to be worshiped accordingly. But this is about those short reader reviews that help other readers decide if a particular book is for them. In other words, the same reviews I want to read when I’m looking at a book.

I didn’t like this book. This book sucked. This book was too [insert mad lib here].

Ugh!

Everyone evaluate books from his or her own head space. No one’s in the reviewer’s head, rooting around for context. “Ahh…Yeye said this book was too X, but I see here that X is actually a hot button for YeYe.”

Because X isn’t a hot button everyone. Some people even like X.

Okay, I really, really don’t like first person POV. So sue me. Still, if a first person POV book is written well in all respects, that element isn’t an issue. However…if it’s written in a way that the POV introduces problems, then those problems REALLY PUSH MY BUTTONS!

But what I say in comments is that while I found the POV to be problematical, those things might not bother someone who enjoys first person POV in the first place…unlike me.

It’s even helpful to do it the other way around. Ooh, I love Patricia Briggs’ recent work. I love that she does nothing with the animal form of her shapeshifters that makes my naturalist self go snortysnort. So I mention it in comments, because maybe I’m so beguiled that I gloss over things likely to bother other people.

So if the point of commenting on a book is to help someone else choose reading material they’ll delight in, then think beyond, “Ugh!” (or “glee!”) and offer the context of the things you on which you comment.

Oh, what the heck. Skip the ugh! It’s enough just to say it was a problem, y’know?

Course, if the point of commenting is to get a power rush from slamming a faceless author in an anonymous online context, then, um…oh–hey! Look over there! Lots of shiny stuff over there!

*runs away*

….

At this point I bet someone’s wondering if I’ve just gotten slammed. Though I tempt fate, I say nope! In fact, SingleTitle.com just put up a RECKONERS review with lots of words like mesmerize and captivating and my favorite phrase, will fuel your imagination. I am all a-glow!

But find myself braced for the slamming, sooner or later. I think we all do, these days…
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OBLIGATORY SNOW PICCIE

Just beyond this giant snag of a deadfall, the ground plunges away into the small arroyo of the pasture area (beyond which is the truly profound arroyo slashing through the back third of the property).  The roots of this tree anchor the area’s fragile soil, and for that reason–although the snag blocks a crucial little portion of land–we’re not removing it.

Plus, isn’t it pretty?

The Friday Post

Look!  I’m a product!

Sort of.

And hey, not only am I a product, I have a monopoly on me. Oh, the shame!

I never expected it. Truly. I thought I could just write my books. And before the Internets, there was even some truth to that. But now, with the Internets in full swing and a beloved new book on the shelves, I’m doing things I haven’t considered before.

Never mind the postcards (which I adore making and then use for bookmarks my own self) or the book signings (which I now do rarely since the year of I don’t think so that included being denied the use of the bathroom and, at a different store, being searched.  You know,  in case I had shoplifted books while I was signing.)

No, this year it’s the RECKONERS  book trailer.  And now, it seems, I have a tag line.

Me!  Imagine!

It wasn’t something I planned. I’ve got a thing going over at Fresh Fiction (wavewave to Fresh Fiction)–a couple of contests and some ad banners. One of their suggestions was for an author brand banner. In another area, they asked for author info…including a tag line.

Author brand. Tag line.

Uh wuh?

So one afternoon while I was so very happily playing with graphic goodies to create that there banner, I ran head long into the notion of these things, and I thought, what’s my tag line, then?

And my muse said, “For paranormal romance, your tag line is this:

“Finding the Other; Facing the Other…Loving the Other”

And I said, “Are you sure? That came pretty fast.  I’ll think of something else. Something way better. Something way more clever.”

And then I didn’t.

So my muse said, “I told you so.”

At which point I threw my hands up and said, “If people laugh at us, it’s all your fault.”

So for what’s it’s worth, there it is.  (Hey, I dare you.  Tag line your work…see what you come up with!)  And if you laugh…talk to the muse. She has a monopoly on me, too!

Also:  Total Bonus Piccie of Miss Belle, Picturesque
(Cheysuli’s Silver Belle, CD RE PAX MXP4 MJP3 OFP EAC EJC CGC)

The Monday Post

Look, it’s a muddy Monday!  On all counts.  Mud in the yard, mud on the roads, and oh, look.  Amazon muddying the waters for authors again.

Not really a huge surprise.  Lots of things live in the murky Amazonian rivers.  Things that will EAT you.  Things that will eat authors, anyway…

Amazon has a bottom line.  It’s not authors; it’s not readers.  It’s not building a more stable future for books in print or e-version.

No big shock:  it’s market share and profit.

Also no big shock:  Macmillan publishing has a different bottom line.  They want to protect their own interests–among which is making sure the book marketplace remains robust overall.

I can get on board with that.

And, of course, I can understand how these bottom lines differ.

But what Amazon might not have realized is that since there are sharks in the waters of those muddy rivers (the bull shark, if you’re curious),  it is possible for Amazon the company to yes indeed, jump the shark.

Whether they’ve done it this time, I don’t know.  It’s the second time they’ve pulled this particular bullying tactic–yanking every listing of certain books from their ranks on a Friday night, leaving the results to resonate through the weekend.  In this case, yanking every listing of every Macmillan book, including Tor books, because they don’t like the direction of ongoing discussions over ebook pricing plans–new plans inspired by the emergence of the Apple iPad, in which–can you imagine!–the publisher would have the right to set the cost of their product.

(Want some obsessive clicky-links?  From the Tor site, a primary source.  From Falconesse, who has a skill for pulling complexities together.  And oh, I do not have the willpower to not list Laura Anne Gilman’s reaction to Amazon’s whining announcement.)

I know that something in me feels that enough is enough.  It’s time Amazon the company learned that behaving like a bully–and especially behaving like a bully for the world to see–is not the way to do things.

(You may excuse me if I think it is especially not the way to do things when I have a book releasing in one day via Tor.)

For readers, this is about whether one retailer is allowed to gain a monopoly, and control the cost of publisher product–and what effect it will ultimately have on reader costs and availability.  For publishers, it’s about whether it’s healthy for the marketplace, short- and long-term, to allow that to happen.

For me, it’s about both of those things.  As I said in my previous post, I swing both ways when it comes to books.  But as a writer, it’s very much especially about how this will mess with my livelihood, and the how it might interfere with the success of a book I hold very near and very dear.  And, as a writer, I am very much not happy.

But as it happens, you can find the purchase option–for any of my books–that best suits you by going to Indiebooks.org.  Or  AllBookstores.com.  They list new, they list used…whatever floats your boat.  Including Amazon.  Because…dude, check it out.  Not everyone believes that monopoly is good.

ConneryBeagle also has an opinion about the Amazon situation, which he will now demonstrate with his Posture of Woe:

Oh, okay… I confess.  He just fell asleep like this one evening.  Is he a very silly Beagle, or what?  But he would like to continue eating kibble, which is paid for by my books, so I’m quite sure this would be his actual Posture of Woe if he truly understood the situation.

In any event, like many others I’ve read about today…I won’t be renewing my Amazon Prime next month. The wishlist has become a tool, not something I’ll be using there on Amazon. And I’ll be following my own provided links to do my shopping through AllBookstores and IndieBound. Because, really…I don’t think bullies should get their way.  And I don’t like being jerked around by a company throwing a tantrum–not as a consumer, and not as a provider.

The Wednesday Post

It was the one thing I was never interested in doing.

Not because I felt there wasn’t intrinsically any point, but because I rarely watched one that…well, that I finished watching.

Book trailers.

At first blush, they seemed like an exciting opportunity…a chance to add some Shiny to web sites, and a way to reveal the true sense of a book.

Problem is, I tend to look at things from the inside out when it comes to the web. After nearly fifteen years of building web sites (yes, there were web sites way back then, smarty-pants), I look at shiny new things and ponder not just how shiny they are, but whether they’re robust across browsers.

Translated, that means how many people will throw their hands up in frustration, experience browser crashes, or stare blankly at a “missing plug-in” message.

The answer is, lots. Even now.

And then there’s the whole “added value” aspect of things. If a method of showing off a book doesn’t, in fact, reveal more about the book than previous opportunities, then its only value is the shiny. I like to play as much as the next person, but I’m also a little prone to peeking behind the yellow curtain.

Or maybe it’s the emperor has no clothes.  Pick your metaphor!

Point being, I wasn’t seeing book videos that captured my imagination, or that told me more about the book than I could learn by reading the cover flap/ looking at the cover (and at my own pace, at that). And the visual slideshow of image…text…image…text…

Not workin’ for me. As a reader, I mean (because shoot yes, I swing both ways when it comes to books).

So there wasn’t a whole lot of chance that I’d be getting myself a book trailer. La la la. Busy doing other things, kthanxbai.

Well, things change. Embedded YouTube videos are a decently stable format, for one thing.

And out there in promo-land, some book trailer folks are finally hitting the sweet spot–taking true advantage of the medium’s potential while offering some decent modest-budget packages along with their holy cow, you want what for that? services.

I stumbled across one such company last year, and instantly targeted The Reckoners for my first book trailer. I had fun with it, too–co-writing the script, tweaking the visuals…and getting all excited when the artists on the other end took my comments and came up with solutions I hadn’t imagined. I’m not used to being on this side of the fun!

And that, of course, is the point of this whole blog. TO SHOW OFF THE BOOK TRAILER, PEOPLE!

I hope you think it’s keen. I sure do!

The Monday Post

It’s a different kind of Monday this week…out of kilter, out of pattern, and full speed ahead!

(Okay, that last part…pretty much always that case.)

Coming off a holiday weekend of packing and moving stuff, it turns out that Demon Blade, the WIP,  is…well, it’s  DONE DONEDONE.  It’s time to dive right into second draft, of course–not to mention more packing, and wow,  I’m about to dismantle the stereo, so you know I really mean business!

This week, while I have some web work to tend, most of it is for little old me.  With books out in January and February, I’d darned well better get my act together, oh yes.

So this past weekend, I played with graphics.  It’s the best way I learn, because I’m on my own time–and by golly I’m not afraid to waste it!  And so, with “two-page” ads all the rage these days, I have made me one of those.  See it, over there, to the left?  Is it not so very pretty?  My very first shiny, annoying, two-page ad made by my very own self!

(I swear, the author banner I’m making for this same site will be a nice static little piece.)

Still, isn’t it fun?  Don’t you just get that same little thrill, looking at something you’ve put together from pieces of this and that, and finding the whole of it then sitting before you?