February 2009

World in the Satin Bag

Interview w/ Chris Howard

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I recently reviewed Chris Howard’s Seaborn and asked him for an interview, which he graciously agreed to. Here is the result: First, thank you for doing this interview. Could you tell us a little about yourself (a bio, if you will)? I write science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories, and I also paint and illustrate in watercolors, ink, and digital. Seaborn is my first published novel–it came out last July from Juno Books, and I’ve completed two more in the same setting, Saltwater Witch and Sea Throne. In terms of time, I’ve been writing for years, but it’s only in the last five years that things have taken off, and 2007 is when it all came together. I got my first book contract, got an agent, won the Heinlein Centennial Short Fiction Contest (amateur division). I also love technology. I’m software engineer–have been for a long time–but as an author, I love the use of technology to get the word out. I love Twitter, Facebook, blogging, podcasting, web comics, all the ways technology can help readers–entire communities of them–find and interact with an author or illustrator. Do you have any upcoming projects you’d like to talk about (new books, comics, etc.)? Can you tell us a bit about them? Quite a few. I have pen and ink work in the next issue of Shimmer Magazine. After completing three novels around Seaborn, I’ve moved inland with a whole new set of characters, actually a new setting, new world, new time, new everything. I’m about twelve chapters into this one, expecting to finish around April. I spent the last couple months of 2008 writing short stories, mostly SF, and I’m submitting and trying to get them sold. There’s also my weekly web comic Saltwater Witch (linked from http://www.SaltwaterWitch.com), which allows me to move on to new stories, but keep my feet in what’s probably my favorite world and set of characters–Kassandra and all the others. Who are some of your favorite writers from the past and present? Were there any writers that had a significant influence on your writing? If so, why? Also, what are some of your favorite books? I have a lot, but to pull a few out and make a list: Frank Herbert, Lois Bujold, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Richard Morgan, Neal Stephenson, William Gibson, Neil Gaiman. Growing up, Frank Herbert’s Dune–and I’d include the next three, Messiah, Children, God Emperor–just blew me away. I wore out copies of the books. (Dune’s influence on the world building in Seaborn has been pointed out, and sort of stealing from one Seaborn reviewer, I’ve been using “Dune meets The Little Mermaid” as the high concept for the book). Favorite books–most of these are on my re-read every few years list: Neal Stephenson’s Diamond Age, Connie Willis’ To Say Nothing of the Dog and Passage, Caitlín R. Kiernan’s Murder of Angels, Lois McMaster Bujold’s Curse of Chalion, William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition. What are you currently reading, what did you just finish reading, and what do you plan to read in the near future? I’m currently reading a couple books, Paul Melko’s Walls of the Universe, Roberto Bolaño’s 2666, and I ‘m about to start a couple more: Marie Brennan’s Warrior, and Caine Black Knife by Matthew Stover. I just finished re-reading Dan Simmons’ Hyperion and Richard Morgan’s The Steel Remains, which was outstanding (I’m also a Takeshi Kovacs fan). You’re published with Juno Books, which, until recently, was a relatively small publishing venue (or still is). Did you always intend to send your work to a smaller press? What are some advantages you think come with being published by a smaller press? (What was your experience like with Juno?) Right off, I’ll say–so far–Juno Books is the best thing that ever happened to my writing career. For those who haven’t heard, Juno Books is now an imprint of Simon & Schuster’s Pocket Books division, still focusing entirely on fantasy novels with strong female protagonists. (http://www.juno-books.com). I didn’t really think of Juno as a small pub as much as I thought of it as a serious publisher, a publisher who would get my books on store shelves, who took the business seriously, who made room for new authors, room for something different, room for chance–taking good kinds of risks. I liked the books Juno Books editor Paula Guran was releasing. I bought them, I read them, and what I was writing seemed to fit. Juno’s part of Wildside Press, and I’ll add that everyone at Wildside, Prime Books, Fantasy Magazine–Sean Wallace, Stephen Segal, Cat Rambo, Tempest Bradford, and everyone else that I’ve met or worked with over the last couple years is passionate about books, publishing, storytelling, art, and there are a bunch of small and medium-sized publishers with the same passion, releasing great books, short stories, anthologies, and magazines. I think it’s really about the passion, the ability to push the edge, and the ability to get books into readers’ hands, not necessarily about the size of the publisher. As far as differences–and with my limited publishing experience, here’s what I think: with smaller pubs there are some clear advantages and disadvantages. Bigger publishers are just going to have more money, manpower, and clout in the industry, and that influences where and how books are reviewed, picked up by bookstores–indies to chain stores. A bigger pub in most cases means a bigger advance on royalties. With a smaller pub you may get more of your editor’s time. With a smaller pub you’re probably going to get from contract signed to the shelves faster, in my case a little over a year, in an industry where the norm is eighteen months and sometimes two years. There are outstanding editors in the smaller publishers, but there are more of them at the large pubs, with assistants, and publicists and contract copyeditors, and marketing channels wide enough to float barges of books down. Seaborn seems to take quite a lot of inspiration from

World in the Satin Bag

GRRM: Tired of Your Crap

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…and for good reason. This was brought to my attention by a friend (whose blog I would mention here, except I’m not sure he or she would like me to for very complicated reasons):Apparently GRRM is pretty much sick and tired of all of you out there yelling at him about the lateness of his next book. In fact, what I thought were a few fan complaints here or there are actually massive whiny fits by people who a) don’t know what it’s like to be a writer, and b) are selfish, rude jackasses. In GRRM’s words: Some of you hate my other projects. You don’t want me co-editing WARRIORS or the Vance anthology or STAR-CROSSED LOVERS or any of the other projects I’m doing with my old friend Gardner Dozois, and you get angry when I post about them here. For reasons I don’t quite comprehend, the people who hate those projects seem to hate WILD CARDS even more. You really don’t want me working on that, “wasting time” on that, and posting about it here. Some of you don’t want me attending conventions, teaching workshops, touring and doing promo, or visiting places like Spain and Portugal (last year) or Finland (this year). More wasting time, when I should be home working on A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. There’s plenty more at the link I listed above, but these are good examples of the kinds of crap GRRM is dealing with in comments, at message boards, and in emails, the latter of which, to me, seems exceedingly rude. His response was basically a friendly way of saying “f*ck off,” showing us that GRRM loves his fans more than they seem to love him (or are those folks who are ripping on him really his fans?). My response to all this is somewhat less friendly: STFU. That stands for “shut the f*ck up,” in case you were unaware. I know this may be hard for all of you out there to understand, but GRRM does have a life. He is allowed to watch football and have friendly bets with friends. He’s allowed to travel, to visit his family, to hang out with his buddies, to have a few beers here or there, to go out for a smoke (or a nice waltz in the sun), and he’s allowed to have marital relations (assuming he’s married). And you know what? He doesn’t even reserve a lot of his time for that. He spends a lot of time teaching, going to conventions to visit YOU, the fans, editing books, and writing short stories, etc. The man has a career. He doesn’t owe you anything. I may not be a reader of his books, and I certainly have opinions on the whole wait thing, as outlined here, but I’m not going to get on this man’s case for trying to have a life and trying to maintain a career. Writing a book isn’t easy. It’s not something that takes a few months to churn out, especially not works like GRRM’s, which are complex and long. It took me almost a year to write WISB, and that book is in rough shape at best (plot holes, grammar and spelling errors, etc.). And it’s taken me a lot longer to get SoD written for probably the same reasons that GRRM is taking his time. Plots don’t get simpler as a series progresses: they get more complicated, especially because as the series closes you are forced to begin sealing up all the holes. An author like GRRM has a lot to think about in regards to his characters, his themes, and his world. And all authors are different. Some may be able to churn out a decent book in three months; others may take a year or two. A lot of authors start off having an entire series already written. GRRM is going into this somewhat cold, I presume (well, as cold as you can be several books into a series). And you know what? All this pressure, this pushing and prodding and bitching and fighting with him over how long it’s taken him to write it: it’s making it worse. He’s not going to write this book faster if all you, his supposed fans, can do is bitch and moan over it. Sending him emails telling him he sucks and should stop having a life probably makes him unwilling to want to continue writing. He’s already got editors breathing down his neck about this. They’re not there to support him so much as push him to give them a product they can sell (he may have a good relationship with his editor/s, but that doesn’t mean that the publisher isn’t pushing). The last thing he needs is for the people that he cares so much about, who have made his career what it is today, to start throwing temper tantrums over his desire to maintain his sanity. I hope this is one of those instances where karma comes into play. What goes around, comes around, right? To conclude this rant, I’d like to reiterate: STFU. Leave him alone if all you’re going to do is bitch. If you don’t like waiting, then read something else. He’s not the only one writing books. Jackasses.

World in the Satin Bag

Royalties: Should Used Bookstores Pay Them?

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I’m sure this is a subject that has been discussed over and over in the past, but it seems to have been mildly revitalized in the last few months by the blogosphere (such as at Teleread). What has probably driven it out of the wood works, if it was ever there in the first place, is the crash of the economy and the rippling effect that tore through the book industry. Used bookstores, of course, have been hit hard by the economic crisis, with many of our favorite indie used bookstores shutting down and some we thought were secure due to their popularity now shivering in their boots. But what about those used bookstores that are still around? They’re selling loads of second-hand books, tossing around cheaper prices, and undercutting the big guy, right? Sure, but should these stores have to pay royalties to the publishing houses for selling second-hand? Or should things remain as they were? Of course, this excludes stores that also sell new books, since obviously they would have to pay full price for those books anyway. Then again, we don’t generally expect to pay half price for a brand new book (well, maybe some of us do). My personal opinion is that used bookstores shouldn’t have to pay royalties for the following reasons: I’m selfish and if I can get an older book for dirt cheap, I’ll jump on it. Trying to charge royalties to these stores will shift the cost to the consumer, will shut down most, if not all, of the second-hand industry, and will drastically change the entire structure of the book industry in general, which will have adverse effects on everyone. I see this as a way of latching on to profits that have been lost due to poor marketing or the failures of the industry to sell books. But this is something illogical that is stuck in the back of my head and I am, as of this moment, incapable of quantifying it. The cost of applying a royalty-payment system (for tracking, etc.) will trickle down from both the publishing and second-hand industries to all of us, which could reduce the attractiveness of used bookstores–most will go out of business. Teleread points out that a lot of people will stop buying books altogether when the cost rises due to economic reasons. This is probably true, at least for a segment of the population. What will most likely happen is that readers will buy fewer books, which, in turn, will cause a fallout in the book industry as independent bookstores drop off the face of the Earth, more people lose their jobs at publishing houses, etc. Perhaps in more economically stable times this would have seemed a “good idea,” but I wonder if the folks proposing royalties for used bookstores in the U.S. have considered the ramifications of these ideas in today’s society. All this isn’t to say that I don’t understand the reasoning behind wanting second-hand stores to pay royalties. I completely get it. But it’s also problematic, and I think trying to problematize the book industry further will be far worse than simply adjusting with the times. Besides, second-hand bookstores are already concerned about a future where there will be fewer dead tree books and more electronic books. Sooner or later, I suspect, the second-hand industry will dwindle as newer books fail to get into their stores some ten years after publication. But that’s just a guess. What do you think about all this? Do you think used bookstores should pay royalties?

World in the Satin Bag

Inside the Blogosphere: Book Marketing Favorites

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John recently asked if anyone would like to host the “Inside the Blogosphere” series on their blogs and I volunteered. Of course, I’m later than I expected on this, but in any case, here is this round’s question: What is your favorite form of book marketing? And what form of book marketing do you find most convincing? The question is based on John’s Tor article. Here’s what everyone had to say: Lisa (Danger Gal): I used to work in television and now I’m a web designer, so I’m often drawn to the visual nature of book trailers. When done well, they do tempt me to at least find out more about a book. Ultimately it’s the cover, book blurb, and first few pages that convince me, though. If those don’t hold up to what I expected from the trailer then I don’t buy. When I’m perusing in a book store, certainly the cover is what grabs me. Often I’m in that store looking for a specific title, though, after having read a review. When it comes to covers, a depiction of a strong heroine will always interest me. Internet ads do draw me in, and I have in fact purchased a few books from clicking on Internet ads, but they function for me similarly to how book trailers function. I think Web sites are a critical tool in maintaining a connection to an author’s core audience. It might only rarely draw in new readers, but it will harness the pull of existing readers and may capture the attention of a reader on the fence about a particular author. It’s a great way to build a mailing list and use that mailing list to drum up anticipation of new releases. As a reader I’m not so interested in blogs where authors talk about the mundane details of their lives, though I may be in the minority on that — and it does seem to depend on how entertaining an author can make the post. I’d rather read some insight into their research methods, what inspired some of their stories, or other topics that directly relate to their books. Author interviews can be useful, but I don’t often have time to read them. Twitter is fun, and if an author is particularly witty in this format then it’s a great tool. FaceBook does seem to be able to reach audiences in ways a web site often doesn’t. I think FB can be a useful tool to push audiences to an author’s Web site. John Markley: I like a nice, extensive publisher website, especially if it goes beyond just listing the books available. I love reading background info on books and authors, author interviews, fan discussion, and things like that. If the website is interesting, I’m a lot more likely to spend some time exploring it and end up stumbling on new books that seem like they might be interesting. It’s a strange irony that with a few exceptions- principally Baen- SF publishers really seemed to lag behind on this until fairly recently, and in some cases still do. Ace, a name that’s been a Titan of science fiction publishing longer than I’ve been alive, has an official Internet presence consisting of a three-paragraph historical overview and a bare bones entry for each book on the Penguin Group Inc. website. It doesn’t seem to be a question of resources; indeed, my experience is that smaller publishers often seem to put more into this than bigger ones. Night Shade Books is a small company but has a nice site, while Ace is an arm of a huge publishing conglomerate and yet has less info online than the cereal I had for breakfast this morning. I’ve bought books that I would have most likely overlooked from learning about them on some of the more interesting publisher websites, so I’m hoping that more publishers will take advantage of this form of promotion. Elizabeth : Personally I find the cover as the biggest marketing tool. Probably fickle, I know. Even had I never heard of Peter V. Brett’s The Painted Man, before buying it, I would have bought it. Purely for the fantastic artwork on the front. I’ve picked up many a new author because of the illustration on the front cover and similarly, there are books I won’t touch with a pitchfork because of the lurid covers. I also like continuity in covers – for instance, the new covers done for Robin Hobb genuinely appeal to me. I have read all of them but am keen to own them all over again, purely because of the emblematic covers. Similarly the new covers brought out for James Barclays books – genius marketing. Another author whose work I admire greatly is Charles de Lint – recently his older novels are being re-done and the artwork is indicative of the magic within the books. Something which Orbit is doing – as I’m sure many others know – is doing behind the scenes peeks at how front covers are put together. Visit the Orbit blog to view what they’ve done for Joe Abercrombie’s newest novel – it is very much an eye opener. Press releases – very few readers see them. As a book blog reviewer, I love them! I keep all of mine tucked into the books I get sent. I do read the sheets as a lot of times it has more information about the author and the novel than just the blurb on the back and at times they make mention of the marketing they have in mind for the book – and that is something I find very interesting. Book reviews – I have a few other bloggers whose sites I visit to catch up on reviews on books I don’t have and I have been swayed to buy loads this way. I will however not read reviews on books that I have got to review myself. You have to keep an open mind and

World in the Satin Bag

SoD Chapter Four: Of Traditions Doubled

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Laura remembered falling, but she couldn’t pinpoint when she had struck the water. It had all happened so fast, and yet so slow at the same time. Where she was at one moment seemed ages from where she was before and in that time she found herself even more confused, for instead of striking the violent waters of the Sea of Loe, she had struck light. The pattern-less light approached her from the water as a narrow beam. She hit it and found herself not in the water at all, but someplace else, somewhere bathed in an ethereal glow that was warm and cold at the same time, and featureless except for the strange walls and pillars that made up the landscape. No designs, no markings to tell her what sort of place she was in. In that moment she thought she had died.Then a new light flashed before her, brighter and strangely terrifying. When it faded she found herself face to face with a creature, or a man, or both—she couldn’t be sure. He stood taller than anyone she had ever met in her life and was clothed in nothing but light except where metallic bands surrounded his wrists. Two glorious white wings were extended, presenting a massive wingspan. In her peripheral vision she imagined he had an eagle’s head, but when she looked at this creature, the face seemed human, with prominent cheeks and eyes that shined gold.And now she really believed she had died and gone to heaven. The revelation brought her to tears and she collapsed. She sobbed and was overcome by loss. She would never see her friends or her family again; this was the end.It seemed like an eternity before the enormous man-creature approached her. He lifted her to her feet with massive arms and stared straight into her eyes. Warmth came over her and her tears subsided as if commanded to do so. Fear and sadness fell away and warmth enveloped her like a cocoon.“Shed no tears, child,” the creature said. “Do you know me?”She nodded. “You’re an angel,” she blurted.He laughed. “Close. I am no angel, child, though perhaps where you come from you would know me as such. I am Nessian, the Father.”She sat dumbfounded.“Child, I am one of the Great Fathers that rules this land, or used to rule. But that is for another meeting. Now, time is pressing.”“I don’t understand.”He let go over her arms and she stood for herself. “I don’t expect you to right now. I’ll let James explain when you are brought back to the Luu’tre. Now, however, is your trying time, you moment of exposure to a world you have only begun to see. The world that inhabits something your people have forgotten.”“Magic…”Nessian smiled and flexed his wings. “Yes.” He paused as if in thought, then continued, “Be careful. Carelessness cannot be afforded, for Luthien hunts you. Beware his eye. Beware those that would claim to be your friends who do not know you.” He turned and started to walk away, the bright light suddenly warping around him.“Wait!” she cried, but he was gone.For a while she just stood there, unable to comprehend exactly what was going on. The white light swirled like a cloud around her. She wondered who this Great Father was. Who was Nessian, or who had he been once? She shook that thought away. The Great Fathers didn’t interfere with the mortal world. They were gods, creatures of magic and power, rulers of a universe bound by order and law. Nessian couldn’t be one of them.Yet, no matter how hard she tried to convince herself, she realized that Nessian was someone of importance, someone she knew Triska, Pea, and the others would be interested in hearing about, and possibly divulging informationg about. Maybe he was one of the Great Fathers. And thinking that startled her into a type of fear that she had never felt before: fear of the world gone completely wrong. If the Great Fathers are getting involved, then something worse than we expected is happening here. Loe is only the beginning.The light swirled again and reared up like a snake. It struck down at her. The brightness blinded and she closed her eyes, burying her face into her arms. Laura woke just as an enormous wave struck her floating body and pummeled her into the pink reef nearby. The porous, living creature cut into her sides and she jerked into action, trying desperately to swim away. Light erupted in the dark blue and something coursed through her veins—an energy, pulsing as if the veins were constricted. The water around her bubbled, becoming steam and rising until it exploded from the surface and disappeared from her view. Then, the energy coursed around her, through and into her, and, to her surprise, she rose up like a balloon. She broke the surface and gasped for air. Waves struck all around and a strong current tugged at her legs. Sea sprayed against her face as she kicked with all her might to stay afloat.Looking up, she could only see the side of the Luu’tre, tilted to the side and gently rocking as waves pummeled the wooden sides. A loud boom sounded and something crashed nearby, sending bits of splintered wood all around her. She covered her face just as an undertow dragged her under. She fought it and managed to get back to the surface to find that a hole had been blown into hull of the Luu’tre. The Luut’re leaned precariously to one side, jarred by whatever had struck it.“Help!” she screamed, but there was no response.Another boom sounded and this time she saw and heard something shoot through the air and strike the ship on her side, sending more bits of wood raining down into the ocean.What’s going on, she thought and tried to look through the misty swaths of vapor and the now forming fog. Another boom sounded, slamming into the water nearby. Cannon fire. The realization

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