19 Dec 2010

Book Takes Wing, and So Do We

posted in: ebooks, Flying, personal news, science fiction | 0

I’m typing this at 32,000 feet out of Charlotte, North Carolina over a beautiful cloud deck en route to Miami. (Oops, we just flew back into the clouds! Later: a stunning sunset above the cloud deck, just as we started our descent toward Miami. Layered clouds against a crimson horizon band.)

The last few days have been insane, but I’m about to rest. Aside from the usual trip prep, I was busy getting one last book up at Kindle, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords. This is a new one, in a way—an omnibus collection of the first three Chaos books. Called simply The Chaos Chronicles: Books 1-3, it’s got a gorgeous new cover by Pat Ryan. I enjoy omnibus collections myself—I’ve just finished reading through a series of Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan omnibuses that I bought from Baen Webscription. So I thought, why not make an omnibus of the Chaos  books myself, and maybe give the publishers a hint by example? Here it is:

Chaos Omnibus at Kindle | Nook | Smashword

I got that up just in time to see it go live before dropping everything for the trip. No time to make formal announcements—so this will be my first, whenever I have time to get online and post it.  (That would be at my brother’s house in Florida.)

Starting this evening, we’re with family, and kicking back a little. I hope Chuck’s hot tub is still working! 

16 Dec 2010

My Computer Celebrates By Dying

posted in: personal news | 0

Maybe it couldn’t stand knowing that I’d done most of the work on my last ebook on my laptop. Or maybe its time had come. But on the very night I got the new Eternity’s End ebook up for sale, my office desktop computer Orion kacked. Really? Did you have to do that? (It was six or seven years old, so maybe it did.)

On top of that, my website was down for pretty much a full day (Monday, I think it was). No connection between the two, unless you think forces we aren’t meant to know about were at work. Something kacked at SFF.net the service that hosts me, and they spent pretty much a full day getting Verizon to fix their end so that service could be restored.

I’ve got a new computer up and running (typing on it now). I hope I like it. The budget’s tight, so I went for an econo model on sale at MicroCenter. It’s not like I do gaming or anything, so I didn’t need to go for power, particularly. But I did want a full-sized tower unit, so I could put in a couple of extra drives salvaged from the old one. It seems uninspired, but I’ve named it Orion-2, mainly so as not to confuse Allysen, who already has trouble keeping the names of the computers on the home network straight!

We’re hitting the stretch here, at the Starrigger Ranch. In just a couple of days, we wing our way south. My brother’s getting married, in Miami, and that’s where we’re spending Christmas. Then to Puerto Rico for a little while. Can we get everything done before we leave? Sure. We eat problems for breakfast around here. Don’t you?

13 Dec 2010

Eternity’s End Gets Kindled (and More)!

posted in: ebooks, personal news, publishing, science fiction | 0

Until now, Eternity’s End has been my only book not available in the Kindle ebookstore. That changed a few hours ago, when a new ebook version went live, complete with this new cover. I had this one designed by a pro, and I think it’s great.

Eternity’s End in the Kindle | Nook | Smashwords stores

I’m excited to have this novel, which was a Nebula finalist, up for sale as an ebook at last. As I write, it’s working its way through the conversion queue at Smashwords; maybe it’ll be done by the time you read this. (The Smashwords edition will be of interest for folk who prefer an ePub or PDF version, or any of several others. And eventually for those who’d rather buy at Sony, Apple, Kobo, Diesel, etc. However, even if you buy the book in the Kindle store, it’s DRM-free—so you can convert it to any format you like with Calibre, my favorite free ebook software.)

This has been a long push, and I’m very happy to hit this milestone.

EDIT v.2: I had problems getting it through the system at Smashwords, but now it’s up at Barnes and Noble (Nook) and Smashwords, as well as Kindle. In due course, it’ll be in the other locations, too.

2 Dec 2010

Busy Day Yesterday

posted in: ebooks, personal news, publishing, science fiction, Sunborn, writing | 0

My downloads page took on a whole new look yesterday. I spent the whole day pounding the keys, revamping and reordering the page to reflect the shift in emphasis from a whole bunch of free stuff…to some free stuff, plus purchase links for my new, low-cost ebook editions. Dreamweaver and the html got a workout, and so did Word as I created new sample PDFs of all the Chaos books, plus Eternity’s End. I’m now giving out excerpts of the first 8-10 chapters, which I hope will let folks decide if they like the story enough to drop a few bucks on the whole story in their preferred format.

Eternity’s End isn’t quite ready for upload of its ebook yet, but it’s close. I’m working with a cover designer on this one, and I’ve been working hard at trying to nail down the concept and the art pieces that will go into it. I hope to have the book up for sale in the next couple of weeks.

To celebrate all that work getting done, I took another crack at something I started a couple of weeks ago—writing a new afterword for the Sunborn ebook from Tor. They’re fixing some typos for me, and letting me add some value to the for-sale edition of the book while I’m at it.

And finally…some work on a particularly thorny subplot in The Reefs of Time, which—fear not—I am still hard at work on.

If you haven’t visited my downloads page in a while, I invite you to take a look.

Oh yes—I had a nice dinner with my family, too!

2 Dec 2010

Holiday Special on Autographed Books!

posted in: personal news, science fiction | 0

Last time, I promised some specials. Here’s a Christmas special for you, also good for any holidays you celebrate this time of year. Did you know that autographed books (especially hardcovers) make excellent gifts for the readers in your family? You didn’t? Well, they do. And I’ve got ’em. Boy, have I got ’em. You can have ’em, too!

Now through December 14, you can order any of my hardcover science fiction novels for 25% off, and paperbacks for 15% off. Choose from any of the books listed on my Autographed Books page (note—some are sold out, and I have no way to get more). Tally up your order, apply the discounts—but not to the postage, please!—and send it to me. I’ll sign the books and get them out right away.

One exception: the four-volume set of Chaos Chronicles hardcovers is already discounted. I’ll apply the 25% discount to the list price, so that set will be $75 instead of the regular discount price of $85.

I need to have your order in my hand by December 14, or I cannot guarantee shipping for the holidays. I’ll be traveling myself after that, and this is a one-man operation.

The quickest and easiest way to order is to click the Paypal button and email the details. If that doesn’t work for you, the good old Postal Service and a check will do, too. Note: If you don’t see anything about the special on the ordering page, don’t worry. Just mention the discount when you send it.

If you want the books personalized to somebody, be sure and let me know!

What better way to save yourself a shopping trip?

28 Nov 2010

Free Downloads Ending. Wait—What?

posted in: ebooks, personal news, publishing, science fiction, Sunborn | 0

It’s true. Driven by my insatiable desire to keep a roof over my head, I’m cutting back on my free-download offerings. Starting this week, I’m shifting my website to samples and purchase links for the Chaos books, and the same with Eternity’s End. I’ve already got my own Starstream Publications editions of the first three Chaos books—with new afterwords—for sale in all of the major stores for a very low price (Eternity’s End coming soon). But even a very low price isn’t competing well with free.

I’ve been running the free-downloads experiment for more than two years now. Here’s my conclusion: The free downloads have significantly expanded my audience, and enabled me to meet some very nice people electronically. But they haven’t done much in terms of pay. Yes, some people have been generous with Paypal donations, and some who liked the books have gone out and bought my other ebooks—and I thank you all from the bottom of my heart. But the theory that free downloads drive sales of books, which apparently works for some writers, does not seem to have clicked for me. I don’t regret offering the downloads—not a bit—but now it’s time to try something new.

I’m asking all other sites that host my free downloads to remove all except Neptune Crossing. (I’ll still let them offer that first hit for free, heh-heh.) I’ll provide big enough samples of all the books for new readers to give them a good, fair try—not like those weenie samples you get at a lot of stores, where most of the sample is ^%$@ front-matter, not the actual book.

And I’ll keep the prices low.

With the holidays coming, I’ll be offering some specials. But one thing at a time. I’m posting this right now as last call for alcoh—errr, free books!

(Note: Short stories and Battlestar Galactica will remain free in some ebook formats.)

22 Nov 2010

Carver Gothic

posted in: personal news, quirky | 0

While going through some old photos recently, I came across this snapshot dated twelve years ago.

That’s me and my family, standing proudly behind our wheat field. Yes, that’s wheat you see, and that’s the whole field. We still have the harvest in a jar, because we never got around to grinding the kernels to make the muffin we planned. Best laid plans, etc. When my Uncle John (a farmer) was still with us, we gave him a good laugh and a brain teaser by asking him to calculate how much wheat we needed to plant for a loaf of bread. I don’t remember what the answer was, but I’m pretty sure this wasn’t enough.

Those two poor waifs are now a senior in high school and a senior in college. And that’s Allysen, my sturdy farmer wife.

3 Nov 2010

Phil Palmer, We’ll Miss You

posted in: farewells, personal news, tributes | 0

My father-in-law Phillip Palmer died Sunday evening, in Ponce, Puerto Rico. He was 87. Allysen was down there at the time, and had visited him in the nursing-care home just hours before he died. She’s there with her mom now, and with her brother Andrew, who’s just flown in.

Phil was a wonderful guy, a lover of travel and good food and wine, who in his working life was an electrical engineer in international sales. It was thanks to that work that he and his wife Fay settled in Puerto Rico, a place they loved in their bones. Phil had a hard last few years—especially this final one, with several heart-attack trips to the hospital, and a rapidly declining ability to get around or to do the things he loved to do (home renovation projects, mostly). It’s not that many years ago that he masterminded the lovely deck that’s now on the back of our house here in Boston. He loved building things, and especially loved changing things.

Phil in 2007

I’ll write more later. For now I need to focus on helping Allysen from a distance, and on getting the rest of us ready to go down there to join her for the memorial.

19 Oct 2010

The Infinite Sea at Kindle and Smashwords

posted in: Amazon, ebooks, personal news, publishing, science fiction | 0

I’ve just released a new ebook edition of The Infinite Sea, the third book of The Chaos Chronicles, to the Amazon Kindle store—and to Smashwords (from which it will migrate to Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobobooks, and the Apple store). With this release, all of the Chaos Chronicles are now available for instant download in the Kindle store. Come to think of it, with this release, all of my novels are available in the Kindle store. Most of them are available in other ebook stores as well. For a complete list, see: http://www.starrigger.net/ebooks.htm.

I’ve been fiddling with the covers to make them display better at thumbnail size. (I may revisit them later, but for the moment, I think I’m done fiddling.) Here’s The Infinite Sea:

Halloween Special!
From now through October 31, you can get the first three Chaos books for 25% off at Smashwords, in your choice of formats. Just use these coupon codes:

19 Oct 2010

Authors Together — Backlistebooks.com

posted in: ebooks, personal news, publishing, science fiction | 0

I recently joined a band of authors from a variety of genres to jointly promote our backlist books that we’re putting back into circulation as ebooks. The group is called Backlist Ebooks, and it includes SF and fantasy writers (such as CJ Cherryh, Vonda McIntyre, and Doranna Durgin), mystery writers, romance writers, and others. Many of the authors are award-winners, and all the books being promoted were originally published by traditional publishing, but have since either gone out of print, or were otherwise unavailable as ebooks. This is a new effort, but the list is growing steadily as more writers hear about it. Check it out!

There’s a web site: http://backlistebooks.com/ and a Facebook page, where you might pick up some interesting news from the authors. Starting Saturday, many of the group will be sponsoring a 25% off Halloween promotion on their Smashwords titles. That includes my three Chaos Chronicles books at Smashwords! 

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