If you know and love the book Goodnight Moon (and who doesn’t?), you should enjoy this!
(Or view it on Youtube here.)
Goodnight iPad!
posted in: publishing, quirky
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Neptune Crossing Makes the Top 100 Free Books at Kindle!
posted in: Uncategorized
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It’s amazing what you have to go through to give a book away for free. I’ve been working at doing that on Neptune Crossing (first of the Chaos Chronicles), and I’ve now mostly succeeded. The thing is, you can’t just do it—not in the Kindle store, or the Nook store. What you can do is make it free at Smashwords, then wait for the free price to migrate out to Sony, Apple, and so on—and then get your friends to visit the Kindle store and report a lower price elsewhere. If you’re lucky, Amazon will pick up on it, and your book goes to free in the Kindle store, the most popular by far of all the ebook stores. (So far, the Nook store hasn’t picked up on it; still $.99 there.)
Why go through this? Well, it’s no secret. I’m offering it free in hopes people will like it, and will want to go on to read the rest of the series, and then perhaps some of my other books, for which they’ll pay me. (Though they’re all pretty inexpensive.) Neptune Crossing: gateway drug.
The other thing is, if a lot of people take your free book, it improves your ranking at, for example, Amazon. The reason that matters is that Amazon gives better exposure to books that have higher rankings—and by association, more exposure for all your others, too. So it can be really good for business to give away a lot of books. A few hours ago, I checked and Neptune Crossing was in the top 100 free books in the Kindle store! It was also #2 in free science fiction!
So if you haven’t already downloaded Neptune Crossing from the Kindle store (or the Sony store, or Apple, or Smashwords), now’s the time! You’ll be helping me out by taking my free book! And send your friends!
Because, you know, I really don’t want to have to carry all these ebooks home after the sale!
More International Ebook News
posted in: ebooks, publishing, Sunborn
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E-reads, publisher of nine of my backlist novels, recently announced a huge joint venture with Gollancz of England to add many of their SF titles to the Gollancz ebook list—something like 400 titles. Gollancz has long been one of the premier publishers of SF in the British market, and this will further enrich their list even while it offers a new look and imprint to the E-reads books. The hope, of course, is that this will also boost UK sales for the books being added to the Gollancz list.
Because my own E-reads books (From a Changeling Star [nice plug at E-reads], Down the Stream of Stars, The Rapture Effect, and six others) are a part of this deal, I’m also hoping that this will help those books find a new audience among the British readers.
On another front, my own Starstream Publications edition of Sunborn finally has its finished cover, which you will see on the World Edition on sale in Kindle UK/DE/FR, in the iTunes store outside the U.S., and at Smashwords, where it’s offered to non-U.S. readers. (Inside the U.S., the Tor edition is the one to look for, available pretty much everywhere else.)
Here’s the cover Pat Ryan created for me:
And here are some links to help my friends outside the U.S. find it:
If a Tree Falls on the Bike Path
posted in: personal news, quirky
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Something happened today that made me think of the old question: If a tree falls in the forest…
I wasn’t in a forest, exactly, but Captain Jack and I were walking on a wooded section of the Minuteman Bikeway, and we’d paused while Jack sniffed something. I heard a sudden, very loud CRACK-K-K-K! and turned to see a large, full-grown tree crash down across the path, about fifty feet from where we were standing. I just stood there with my mouth open, wondering, What the—? and feeling extremely grateful that I’d been standing here and not there. A woman on the other side of the tree no doubt felt the same way. From what I could see of the base of the trunk, it appeared that the roots had rotted or broken away or something, and the tree had just been waiting for the right moment to fall.
A minute later, a group of bicyclists rode up, saying to each other, “That wasn’t there an hour ago!” I told them it wasn’t there five minutes ago. I called the police to ask them to notify the town tree people, and then I took these pictures.
For the rest of the day, I mulled the event over, wondering what dreamlike or theological significance I should give to it. The only thing I’m sure of is, there was definitely a sound when this tree fell.
My New Galaxy Tab!
posted in: personal news, technology
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My birthday was over a month ago, but I’m reveling in a belated gift that’s cool as hell: my new Android tablet, a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. I was offered a choice, and I spent a while looking at the iPad and various other Android devices, and this one rose to the top. Why this over the iPad, especially since I have quite a few friends who own and love their iPads? It was mostly the more open operating system. Apple designs great devices, no question; I just don’t like their closed, control-freak approach to everything. The Android system is a little more like the Wild West of outer space—room to move, and plenty of expansion going on. Also, Angry Birds is free in the Android store.
It took me a while to figure out the ropes, but now that I’ve settled on some good apps and learned some of the quirks, I can say that it’s great for all these things:
- Ebook reader, with a variety of ebook apps (so far I like Aldiko best, ahead of FBReader and Kindle app)
- Portable way to read the Boston Globe (which recently introduced a new online edition)
- Web browsing, especially in the Dolphin browser, which is speedier and easier than either Firefox or the included “Browser”
- Movie player (I look forward to enjoying this little reward on my next writing retreat. I’ve been converting a bunch of my DVDs for future watching.)
It’s okay for checking email and syncing contacts and calendar with my laptop. I haven’t messed with that enough yet to give it a proper evaluation.
I suspect I’ll like it for typing quick notes to myself, etc. I haven’t really tried writing on it. Hard to see how that would work too well without a separate keyboard. But I could see using it to review and proof and do light editing.
Sadly, I can’t watch Netflix movies—not because the device can’t do it, but because my Netflix plan (2/mo.) is too cheapo to allow it. That’s all about to be history anyway, I guess; I’m sure not going to subscribe separately for DVD service and streaming movies at 3-4 times what I’m paying now. The one place where the Android, sadly, is behind iPad is Hulu streaming. That hasn’t arrived yet. I’m sure it will.
This whole field is really taking off, with all the Androids and especially the new Kindle Fire. (Too small for much of what I described above, but I’ll bet it’s going to be a really fine reading device.)
Now, if only ebook sales would take off with all the new hardware to view them on!
On Writing Retreat Again
posted in: personal news, work in progress, writing, writing retreats
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This week I’m in beautiful Gloucester, Mass., for a few days to get away from it all and try to wrap my head about this elusive book. Allysen set me up with a B&B overlooking the harbor. Here’s the view from my window:
Not bad, huh? The waterfront is actually a lot closer than it looks in the picture. It’s about a five minute walk. The Cape Ann Brewery and Pub is a ten minute walk. (Their fish & chips are good; their beer is excellent.) My next seafood foray will probably be Gloucester House Restaurant, tonight.
When I drove in yesterday, there was an enormous honking cruise ship anchored in the harbor. Here’s a fuzzy picture of it (I really should set my cell phone camera to a better resolution, if I’m going to keep using it for these things):
When I got back to my room, I hopped online to marinetraffic.com, where you can identify just about any ship anywhere in the world at any given moment. You just zoom in on the map, click the icons, and learn—for example—that this cruise ship is called the Eurodam, and it was anchored, but ultimately en route to Bar Harbor, Maine. Indeed, shortly after I took this photo, it moved out of the harbor and headed north.
Writing-wise, it’s taking longer than usual to settle in. My mind is still all over the place; but slowly, slowly, some important issues about the story are starting to ooze back into focus. Here’s hoping it all comes back soon.
25 Years and Going Strong!
posted in: personal news
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A few days ago, Allysen and I celebrated our twenty-fifth anniversary! She took a half day off work, and we went to Massage Envy on our moped/scooters and got hour-and-a-half full body massages. What a great way to relax! That evening we took a couple of gift cards Allysen’s brother and sister-in-law had given her a while back, and visited a very classy restaurant in downtown Boston, called McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood. Fabulous food and great service. (We also mutually agreed not to step on the scales the next day.)
In a stroke of genius, as we were walking back to our car past historic Faneuil Hall, I asked a woman who was taking a picture of the hall to snap an anniversary photo of us, using my cell phone camera. Then, in a stroke of idiocy, I forgot that on this stupid Motorola phone you have to press a couple of buttons to tell it to save the picture. So… fffft… no picture to commemorate the event.
Nevertheless, we had a wonderful celebration, and we’re looking forward to the next twenty-five years. Here’s looking at you, kid!
Sunborn World Edition (epub) — At Last!
posted in: ebooks, publishing, Sunborn
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This has really been a long time coming. If you’re outside the U.S., you can now get a legit ebook of Sunborn, the fourth book in The Chaos Chronicles, in epub format. I got the Kindle version up in the Kindle UK | Kindle DE | Kindle FR stores a few weeks ago, but the epub version (for Nook, Sony, Stanza, iBooks, and a plethora of other platforms) has finally hit the stores. It’s been approved in the Apple iTunes stores in Canada, Australia, the UK, France, and Germany, in DRM-free editions. You can also get it from Smashwords, though I’m contractually obligated to say: If you’re in the U.S., you should buy the Tor edition instead, available from the usual outlets.
Edit: Here are links to Sunborn in the iTunes international stores:
Edit: the above cover was the placeholder until the final cover was done. Here’s the new cover:
Irene Passes
posted in: personal news
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Here outside Boston, we were all prepped for Hurricane Irene. Batteries on hand, everything secured outside, lots of jugs of frozen water in the freezer against a possible loss of electricity, gas in the car, and—most importantly for our state of mind—a large pitcher of margaritas in the freezer. Oh, and Captain Jack the energetic border collie heavily exercised the day before, in the pouring rain.
(I’m aware, of course, that if we lived in a more vulnerable location, we would have been taking way more serious precautions. I have a relative in the military, and I understand they had to do some fast work to secure their ship, which happens to be undergoing refit in a drydock in the path of the storm. I hope they stayed dry. And my sympathies to those who actually got hurt by this storm.)
For us, not too much happened as the tropical storm formerly known as Hurricane Irene passed to our west. Wind, rain, some fallen trees around town. We were lucky. Reports from friends and relatives who caught more of it indicate everyone came through in good shape. For that we are grateful.
The margaritas were excellent, by the way.
The Way Science Really Works
Here’s another a bit of art to entertain you if you have a little to much time on your hands: How People in Science See Each Other, created by @biomatushiq.
See it bigger.
It’s hilarious, and undoubtedly accurate.