Although Amazon staff publicly stated they were conceding to Macmillan in the big battle over ebook pricing, they still have not restored Macmillan/Tor titles to their listings. Is this a continued tantrum against Macmillan, to punish them for their negotiating position? Does Amazon care how many authors they’re harming? (I think we know the answer to that one.) I am a longtime Amazon customer and Amazon Associate, but I don’t plan to send them any more of my dollars as long as they continue this senseless war.
Since Amazon is no longer selling new copies of Sunborn, let me post some purchase links here to stores that will sell it to you. (Betterworldbooks.com is a retailer I only just became aware of. Part of their mission is to actively support literacy programs around the world. Worth checking out.)
And let me join John Scalzi in urging you to support other Macmillan authors by buying their books from other outlets!
[Edit] Here’s a new message from Macmillan CEO John Sargent, who seems to feel that the situation may be nearing resolution. (I’m not sure I agree with his reasoning on the changes coming to publishing, but there you have it.) Meanwhile…
The war, or at least the battle, between Amazon.com and Macmillan publishers (corporate parent of my publisher, Tor Books) ended Sunday night when Amazon conceded that it would have to accept the new terms for selling ebooks. Last I checked, my own book still wasn’t back up for direct sale, but I trust it will be soon.
One of the best (short) commentaries on the matter is on E-reads.com, by Richard Curtis, literary agent and ebook publisher. (He happens to be my agent and ebook publisher, but that’s not why I’m recommending his column.) He’s been in this business for a long time, and has a pretty reliable nose for what’s happening.
Author Tobias Buckell outlines the situation pretty well from the author’s point of view. That’s a long post, but if you’re interested in learning more about how this crazy business works, it’s a good one.
Me, I’m still annoyed at Amazon for using bombs as a negotiating ploy, especially when I’m close to one of the targets. Actually, I’m annoyed with Amazon on several counts, including their continued failure to get my books into the Kindle store. The hell of it is, though–I actually agree with them that cheaper ebooks will make more money for everyone, or at least for most of us.
It’ll be interesting to watch what happens when Apple truly enters the ebook business, and then there will be two gorillas in the ring.
…and a few thousand other books that happen to be published by Macmillan (of which Tor is an imprint). That’s right, if you click one of my many links to Sunborn’s page at Amazon.com, you now will see it for sale only from Amazon partners, not from Amazon itself.
According to this article from the New York Times online, Amazon has pulled Macmillan titles as the next escalation in their dispute with publishers over ebook prices and timing. (Ironically, I am more or less on Amazon’s side in that argument. But for them to do this, which they have to know is hurting authors at least as much as it hurts the publisher, seems like an act of callous arrogance.)
I’d been bugging my editor to find out when the Sunborn ebook was going to become a reality (you can still download my own ebook edition from my website), but it’s looking like the Kindle store isn’t going to be a place to buy my books anytime soon. (A side note: Amazon has been apparently unable or unwilling to process my E-reads ebooks into the Kindle store, the better part of a year after their release.)
All of which just makes me, for the moment, throw up my hands.
I do hope you’ll all encourage your friends to buy Sunborn from outlets that actually carry it on their shelves. For which I thank you.
Picking up the thread I began a couple of months ago, I’m going to continue spinning out some of my recollections of the writing of each of my novels—how they came about, what sticks in my memory of the creation process.
I talked before about my first novel, Seas of Ernathe, which was also my first novel of the Star Rigger universe—but not the first story set in that realm. That was “Alien Persuasion,” a short story that I sold to Galaxy magazine and which appeared in 1975, prior to the novel. (Jim Baen, years before he went on to found Baen Books, bought my second published story.) That was a joyous breakthrough for me. The joy was tempered by my discovery that Galaxy‘s publisher was seriously behind in paying its writers. Nevertheless, they did publish it, and paid me for it, if somewhat late. (I was still waiting for payment for my first story, to Fiction magazine, at that time—so Galaxy was, I think, the first publisher to actually send me a check.) The story came out with lovely scratchboard illustrations by Freff, one of which I later bought from the artist. It’s hanging on my office wall right now.
What does this have to do with my second novel, Star Rigger’s Way? Well, after finishing Seas of Ernathe, I was casting about for the next thing to write. I had gotten an agent, Richard Curtis, who was waiting for me to float a proposal. I thought about “Alien Persuasion,” a story about a human star-rigger and an alien rigger who had to learn to work together to survive. It seemed to me that what I had so far was the beginning of a story, not the full story. So I outlined a storyline to follow, noting that a rewritten version of the short work would form the first several chapters of the novel, and sent it off to my agent. Time passed. I had, during the writing of the first novel, moved from Providence, Rhode Island to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was doing odd work to keep body and soul together. (Eventually, I worked for UPS as a sorter on the night shift, a job I truly loathed.)
In 1976 or ’77, I was wandering around a local SF convention, Boskone, not knowing much of anyone. I had one novel published or about to be, and felt like a fish out of water—a pro, sort of, but not really. I eventually found myself in a quiet room, chatting with a writer and an agent. The writer was Joe Haldeman, whom I had just met at a SFWA business meeting. After a while, Joe and the agent got up to go to a publisher’s party, and I meekly asked if I could tag along. Sure, they said. We went up the elevator, to a room somewhere. They went in. The host of the party, standing by the open door, stopped me and said, “I’m sorry, this isn’t an open party.” (In those days, closed publisher parties were much more the rule.) Then he looked at my name badge. “Jeffrey Carver,” he said. “The star rigger story? I have your book proposal on my desk at Dell Books. I’m planning to call your agent on Monday to make an offer. I’m Jim Frenkel. Come on in.” And that’s how I got into my first publisher party and learned at the same time that I’d sold my novel.
I don’t remember much about the writing of it. I’ve written in “Of Consoles and Dragons’ Claws” some of my recollections. Mainly I remember that I was tentatively feeling my way into a career path of writing in much the same way Gev Carlyle, the hero of Star Rigger’s Way, was making his way into his career of star rigging. Rather similar, the process of writing stories, and of steering starships in the Flux through the power of imagination—as my friend Jane Yolen later pointed out to me.
I had no idea that I would be writing a series of novels in the star rigger world. I was taking things one day at a time, one story at a time. This was a good beginning. The Science Fiction Book Club picked up the novel, and that got it in front of many more readers than the paperback alone would have. Years later, Tor reprinted it, and I had the chance to do a thorough line edit of the text. And now, just last spring, I went through it one more time, for the Ereads ebook. And rather to my surprise—I really enjoyed reading it again.
If you get the chance to read it, I hope you enjoy it, too.
I’ve posted here about the new editions of my earlier novels, but I haven’t talked much about the books themselves, how they came about, and what they meant to me when I wrote them. Well, where better to do that than here on Pushing a Snake Up a Hill, which by the way is a pretty good summary of how my writing career has often felt.
Let me start with my first book, Seas of Ernathe. It’s not just my first novel, but my first novel of the Star Rigger universe, a future history that I’ve enjoyed writing in, and that seems popular with readers. It’s not the first story in the Star Rigger chronology, though. In fact, it’s the last! It’s set in a time long after the skills of starship rigging were lost to humankind. It’s about the rediscovery of the art of rigging.
How did that happen? Do I always do things bassackwards? No, not always. But in this case, I didn’t actually know much about the history at the time I was writing. I can’t say exactly why this particular story popped into my head, but here’s how it happened:
Go back to 1974 or 1975. I was living with some friends in Providence, Rhode Island, just off the edge of the Brown University campus (from which I’d graduated in 1971), working on short stories while waiting tables, teaching scuba diving, and diving for quahogs in Narragansett Bay to make ends meet (barely). I’d sold a couple of stories: the first to Boston’s Fiction Magazine, for a promise of $50 (collected years later), and the second to Galaxy. In both cases, the magazines went bust not long after publishing my stories—not my fault, I swear! In any case, the story published in Galaxy was called “Alien Persuasion,” and was my first expedition into the tricksy Flux of rigger space, where star-pilots navigated through a sensory web in a hyperdimensional realm that was objectively real, but that took a tangible form based on images projected from the rigger’s mind. (Remind me to tell you more about that when I write about Star Rigger’s Way.)
During this time, I’d been submitting short stories to some of the original anthology editors—in particular, Robert Silverberg for New Dimensions and Terry Carr for Universe. Both had responded with encouraging rejections. On one occasion, in 1974 (or possibly 1975), Terry Carr wrote back with another rejection—but with a twist. He asked if I’d like to write a novel. It seemed he had made a deal with a new SF line to sign up new writers and shepherd their books into print. If I could just send him an outline and three sample chapters…
I stood dumbfounded, his letter in my hand—then flew to my Olympia manual typewriter and began pounding out an idea for a novel—a completely new idea, one that had come into my mind just at that moment, when needed. It made use of my star rigger background, indirectly, and also my underwater experience as a scuba diver. The story was set on a watery world called Ernathe. Visitors to that world wanted to know what strange tricks of the mind enabled sea creatures of that realm, the Nale’nid, to focus on reality in ways that enabled them to travel instantaneously, and to manipulate matter in a variety of ways. Could this be connected to the secret of the lost art of star rigging? Perhaps, perhaps…
I wrote the novel in a little less than a year, if memory serves. By the time it was finished, I’d moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I was living with a different set of roommates and working the night shift sorting boxes for UPS. Seas of Ernathe was published by Laser Books in the summer of 1976.
I clearly remember the moment I first saw a copy—not, as you might think, an advance copy from the publisher. No, I was walking down Mass. Ave. in Central Square when I encountered Drew Whyte, an SF fan I had gotten to know during the previous year. Drew always had bags of books with him. On this occasion, he had a copy of my new book, which I had not yet laid eyes on. He passed it to me. There it was. My first novel. In print, at last! I had done it! It was real! Huzzah!
Cover art by Kelly Freas
I hated the cover instantly. Noted SF artist Frank Kelly Freas had been hired to do all the covers for the Laser Books series. Apparently he wasn’t given much money or much time, because to say the least, the Laser covers were not the highlight of his otherwise distinguished career. Lord, I didn’t know whether to cheer or weep. I settled on cheering.
Seas of Ernathe stayed in print for a year or so, and then it was gone. But it had set me on an important writing path, starting with making the transition from short stories to novels. The next two books were also star rigger books; more on those later. For now, I’m happy to say that Seas of Ernathe is back in print, from E-reads. You can get it as an ebook from a variety of outlets, including Baen Webscriptions and Fictionwise, both of which offer it in multiple, DRM-free formats, including for the Sony Reader, the Kindle, and the iThing. You can also get it as a trade paperback wherever fine SF trade paperbacks are sold! Here, I’ll make it easy. 🙂
A fine day, book-wise. My whole slate of E-Reads titles appeared today on Baen Webscriptions, along with two Rudy Rucker titles, as part of the E-Reads June package (11 books for 60 bucks). They are, of course, available individually as well. If you missed the Fictionwise sale (now over), this is a great segue: they’re on sale at Webscriptions for $6 each, for a limited time. And at Baen the books are always multiformat and DRM-free.
Meanwhile, I got word from E-Reads that the books at Fictionwise have been selling strong out of the gate, which is good news indeed. Before this big push and the free downloads program, my ebooks sold hardly at all. Now, we seem to be turning that around, and a whole new audience really does seem to be discovering my work, and picking up my backlist, as well.
Finally, I’ve gotten several really encouraging and heartfelt emails from readers who have done just that—found my freebies and gone on to read the others. (Some have made generous donations, as well.) It’s just so encouraging and restorative to have folks finding and bring the older books back to life!
The final two titles of the new Ereads push appeared yesterday on Fictionwise! Now available in multiple, DRM-free formats are The Infinity Link and Seas of Ernathe. (And for a limited time, they’re 40% off.) This is the first time in over thirty years that Seas of Ernathe has been in print. The Infinity Link has been unavailable for close to twenty years.
With the exception of Alien Speedway (see post of a few days ago), all of my novels are now available in ebook format. A number of them are, or soon will be, available in trade paperback, print-on-demand format, as well.
If you were thinking of giving some of these novels a try, now’s the ideal time, while they’re still discounted! See my ebooks page for all available titles.
“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” —Benjamin Franklin
The one book of mine that’s been missing from the ebook reprint schedule has been an odd little number that in a way is one of my favorites: Roger Zelazny’s Alien Speedway: Clypsis. It’s a borderline YA novel (actually written as YA, but published as regular SF), the first volume of a collaborative project between Roger Zelazny, author Tom Wylde (who wrote books 2-3), and me. I wrote it quickly, based on a background and outline that Roger had created. (I know: Me? Write a book quickly?)
I had a lot of fun with it, filled its cast with minor characters named after friends and family, and it drew a great response from the audience. For a couple of years, I heard from more readers about Clypsis than about any of my other books. And then it went out of print, and that was that. Ever since, I have been looking for a way to bring it back.
The problem is, I’m not the copyright owner. Byron Preiss Visual Publications was, because it was one of their many concept creations. Then Byron Preiss died, in a tragic traffic accident, and not too long afterward, his company went into bankruptcy. That left this book as a very small fish in a big, sad pond. But, in time, the assets of BPVP were bought by Brick Tower Press. And I have just received word that Brick Tower plans to republished Speedway, in both print and ebook format.
No indication of a date yet. But I’m most pleased.
I’ve been promising for a while now that a whole bunch of my books will be showing up soon in new or revised ebook format. Well, I got word yesterday that some of my new eReads titles are now up for sale on Fictionwise.com, as well as all the older ones that have been reproofed and reformatted. That’s right, you can get ’em now. As new titles on Fictionwise, they’re 40% off for a limited time. These are multiformat, DRM-free—and the formats were recently expanded to include epub.
(Several of those gorgeous covers are courtesy of the artists—David Mattingly, Shusei, and Jael—who allowed me to reuse the artwork from the original print editions.)
Still to come, early next week I’m told: The Infinity Link Seas of Ernathe
All these titles will appear shortly, as well, in the Kindle and Sony stores (though they will not be DRM-free from those sources). In addition, if I understand this correctly, they will appear soon at Baen Webscriptions, where they will also be multiformat and DRM-free.
With any luck, I’ll never have to call a real Mayday—but it is May Day! I guess I’ve lost my marbles, because I’m giving away the store! That’s right, everything must go! Come and take it away! Come now, before I come to my senses! Yes, folks, I’m talking about Eternity’s End:
Eternity’s End (Tor Books)
That’s the novel that got me nominated for a Nebula, and took me so long to write, it knocked the Chaos Chronicles on their ass by so many years I had to give away free ebooks of them to remind people—no, wait wait wait wait wait—wrong script! [Dammit, who gave me that paper?]
Let’s try again. Eternity’s End is my Nebula-nominated novel about a star rigger named Legroeder who sets out in search of the lost ship Impris, Flying Dutchman of the stars. And along the way, encounters interstellar pirates and some deep-cyber romance. This book is free range, free running, cage free, up on the web for you to download for free! That’s in multi-format, DRM-free ebook format. Come catch one and take it home with you. And check out the other free ebooks while you’re at it.
Paypal donations are warmly welcomed, as always—but only if you want to, and only if you think it’s worth it.
Come check it out. Trust me, you’ll like it.
And—very important!—kudoes and thanks to Anne King, for undertaking the huge task of proofing the manuscript and wrestling the book into the many ebook formats! Thanks, Ann!
