For the curious reader of science fiction (scifi) and fantasy
One of the hardest things for many writers—beyond, you know, actually writing—is trying to describe your book in just a few words. Here’s a funny book trailer that tackles the question head on.The author in this trailer reminds me of my sister-in-law, Suzanne.
Discovered courtesy of The Passive Voice.
Actually, all of Lucasfilm, including Industrial Light and Magic. They’re planning to have a new Star Wars movie for us by 2015. And if that doesn’t scare you, I don’t know what will. (Well, okay, maybe a hurricane.) In the last few years, Disney has acquired Pixar, Marvel, and now Lucasfilm. That’s a lot of heavy lifting, money-wise (over $4 billion for Lucasfilm alone), and gives you some idea of how much gold the Mouse is carrying around.
But is it a bad thing, or a good one? Well, the Disney ownerships doesn’t seem to have hurt Pixar too much. And Marvel seems to be doing okay, judging by The Avengers. But Star Wars? Will we be glad to have another episode, and then another? Certainly the empire has been faltering creatively for decades, so it may be that new blood in the driver’s seat will be just what we need. But here’s some perspective offered by Boston Globe film critic Ty Burr:
The new “Star Wars” will come in 3D, IMAX, and someday — who knows? — holo-vision and jack-in brain cinema. But Disney CEO Iger’s announcement of the Lucasfilm acquisition is telling. “This transaction combines a world-class portfolio of content including ‘Star Wars,’ one of the greatest family entertainment franchises of all time, with Disney’s unique and unparalleled creativity across multiple platforms, businesses and markets to generate sustained growth and drive significant long-term value.”
There are certain things missing from that sentence, words like movie and story and characters.
Yeah, there is that.
Meanwhile, in book publishing, Random House and Penguin are merging, and I can’t think of too many examples of giant publishers merging that have been good for either writers or readers. Will this merger better enable them to meet the challenges of ebooks, and promotion through social networking? Well… Richard Bowker has some thoughts on the question. They pretty much mirror my own, so I’ll give him the floor.
This has been a good summer for ebook sales. Although my short story collections haven’t gained much traction (Whattza matter, you don’t like short stories??), the other books have been gaining steadily. There was a big jump in July, for no obvious reason, and August was almost as good, with September so far following suit. I’m talking mainly about the backlist books I put out myself, because those I have timely numbers for—but I have reason to think Sunborn, in its Tor edition, is doing pretty well, too.
We’re not talking headline numbers here, like some indie authors you may have read about. But over a thousand ebooks a month generates a meaningful contribution to the family budget, and represents continuing growth in the audience.
The vast majority of those sales are through the Amazon Kindle store, with Nook, Apple, and Sony bringing up a distant rear. That makes me a trifle uneasy, I admit—not because there’s anything wrong with the Kindle store, but because I wish there were more healthy competition in the marketplace. I wish, for example, that I had more sales in Book View Café, because it’s a terrific little store and a terrific cooperative of great writers. And I wish the Nook store would get its mojo back.
So what’s the funny thing? Here it is: My sales in the UK have taken off in the last two months. In fact, they now account for about half my total sales. In fact, in September, I’ve sold more books through Amazon UK than I have through Amazon US. That’s amazing, and I have no explanation! But I’m delighted to have a lot of new British readers. Welcome to the Chaos Chronicles! And welcome, too, to the daring few German readers who are trying the books.
I’m grateful for every book sale and every new reader. Still, it’s fun to try to figure out the patterns. Only this time I can’t! I’m stumped!
Watch a sweet, kind of sad, 9-minute film that has nothing to do with the topic of this post. I just like it. It’s about a robot marooned in space.
Robbie – A Short Film By Neil Harvey from Neil Harvey on Vimeo.
Drum roll, please. Thanks, you can stop now. I said, thanks, you can… thank you.
It’s official; it’s live; it’s up for sale! My second of two short story collections, Going Alien, has just launched. Look to the east, in the sky. In the sky. See that bright spot of light? That’s Going Alien, on its way into space, where the aliens are!
Here’s what it looks like when it’s not a spot of light in the sky. It’s up now in the Book View Café store. It’ll be up momentarily at Amazon, too—and Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords. It’ll be up, as the world turns, in all of the other stores, like Apple and Sony and Kobo.
About the stories. I’m always leery about rereading my own stuff. I mean, what if I don’t like it? What if I find it amateurish and derivative? What if I hate it? Well, to my own delight (and relief!), none of that happened! I actually really enjoyed reading through these stories, published over most of the years of my career. All of them, by the way, have bona fide aliens in them. And all have accompanying introductions with my reminiscences about the writing of them, and how they fit into the general scheme of my career.
Here’s the list of stories, most of them appearing for the first time since their initial publication in places such as original anthologies edited by Roger Zelazny and Orson Scott Card, and in magazines like Galaxy and Galileo.
If I may offer a review quote from an editor I asked to look at them: “These stories are great! I’m really enjoying them!” And, “This illustration is beautiful!”
Okay, the editor, Allysen Palmer, is technically also my wife, but still. She’s a genuine professional editor. And she seemed really objective as she said that to me.
Why not give it a try? No aliens were harmed in the making of this ebook, and it’s affordably priced at $2.99, wherever fine ebook story collections are sold. Right alongside my first collection, Reality and Other Fictions.
If you’re one of the excellent people who have bought a copy of my omnibus ebook of the first three Chaos books, I have good news for you! (At least, I hope it’s good news.) The book has gone through a complete reformatting and general steaming and dry cleaning, and the new, vastly improved version is now up in the Kindle store, the Nook store, Smashwords, and eventually will also be in the Book View Café store, the Apple and Sony stores, Kobo, and wherever Chaos Chronicles books are sold. No actual prose was harmed in the making of this new ebook! It’s the same thrilling story, unchanged except it looks way better on your reader now. (If it’s a Nook, the centered text will actually look centered—not a slam-dunk certainty on a Nook, as it turns out. Or in Aldiko on an Android, for that matter.)
Please be my guest and go back and download the updated version. I’m reasonably sure you can do that without cost, though if you ask me the actual mechanics by which you do it, I’m suddenly going to go all vague on you and excuse myself to go get more coffee. But let me know if you have trouble.
If you haven’t yet sprung for the ebook, well, pay no attention to me; I’m just going to sit in the dark, mumbling to myself about lost opportunities. ($6.99 for three books, are you kidding me?)
By the way, the individual novels, Neptune Crossing, Strange Attractors, and The Infinite Sea are also going to get an update—coming soon, as soon as Ann (who’s doing most of the actual work) finishes up. I’d love to give them new covers, too, but that must be a project for another day.
Mine, that is. The contracts have been inked, and I am now an Audible author! (In press, so to speak.) Nine of my novels, in the coming year or so, will make their debuts as Audible audiobooks. As I said previously, I’m a big fan of audiobooks myself. I often listen to books while I’m walking the dog, or working around the house. So on those grounds alone, I’m excited. Professionally it’s a welcome breakthrough, because audiobooks have grown to be an important part of the book market, and this will open my work to a whole new potential audience—just as ebooks did.
No word yet on who will be doing the narration, but I’ve made some suggestions of readers I like. So here, now, are the books slated for audio:
Seas of Ernathe
Panglor
Dragons in the Stars
Dragon Rigger
Star Rigger’s Way
The Infinity Link
The Rapture Effect
From a Changeling Star
Down the Stream of Stars
I just have one more thing to say about that: Yee-haw!
P.S. You don’t suppose I should be worried that the acquiring editor at Audible is a fellow by the name of Snape?
Naw…
Oops—one more note. I just got word that Neptune Crossing is today’s “Book of the Day” at the Flurries of Words blog, a UK-based blog of book reviews and book-related announcements. Looks like a good blog for readers to check out. It doesn’t say so, but in fact Neptune Crossing is free in both the U.S. and England (and pretty much all around the world), as an introduction to The Chaos Chronicles.
As a side note, my sales in England have been picking up these last few months, at least in the Kindle UK store, which is the one place that gives me ready access to sales figures. It appears that a fair number of people who download Neptune Crossing for free go on to want to read the rest of the series. Which is certainly an affirming feeling for me.
My new short story collection, Reality and other Fictions, is now available in the Kindle store and at Smashwords, as well as at the Book View Cafe, and will be in the Nook store as soon as it makes its way through their system. (I was happy to see that a copy sold at Smashwords about two hours after it went up, long before I’d done any sort of promotion.)
Tell your friends! And while you’re at it, tell them that the Smashwords July sale has begun, and lots of books by thousands of authors will be on sale there for part or all of July. I’ve joined in by putting Eternity’s End, Dragon Space, and Reality and other Fictions on sale for 50% off, for at least the first two weeks of July. Use coupon code SSW50 at checkout to get the discount.
I’m getting ready to travel to my home state of Ohio for a little family vacation, so it might be another week or two before I check in here again. Hope you’re all enjoying your summer! (Or winter, if your nearest pole is the South Pole.)
All these years, I’ve been telling you wonderful people about my novels, with scarcely a mention of my short stories. That’s because my short stories have been few and far between. Nevertheless, I’ve published eleven shorter pieces over the years, in publications as varied as Science Fiction Age, Fantasy & Science Fiction, and the Boston Sunday Herald. And now I’ve collected them.
The first of two collections is Reality and Other Fictions, now on sale at Book View Café, for the low, low price of $2.99! Here’s what it looks like:
Here’s the blurb:
Explore an Earth being devoured by entropy, in the ultimate runaway environmental crisis. Dive the depths of the sea to prevent the mother of all oil spills. Rocket into space as a tourist. Mine the asteroids with your enhanced border collie, in the can-do spirit of classic science fiction. They include Carver’s first published short fiction, and his most recent. With new introductions, all from the author of The Chaos Chronicles and Eternity’s End.
If you’ve been following my blog recently, you’ll have seen my mention of some new stories going up for sale as singles. Some of those are in this collection. Here’s the contents page:
“Seastate Zero” is available only in this collection, as are the insightful introductions I’ve lovingly written for each story and for the book as a whole. At least, I hope you’ll find them insightful, or at least interesting. I do share some memories I’ve never written down before about how these stories came to be, and how they fit into my career.
My second collection, Going Alien, is scheduled for late August. It pulls together all of my short work that involves… can you guess? Aliens.
For both of these books, I am indebted to Gretchen, the high school student (now graduated, and valedictorian!) who typed and formatted a good number of them from old paper copies, while helping me as an intern. And equally to Anna King, who provided extraordinary help in wrestling the final formatting into line. Not to mention Allysen, for catching some embarrassing typos and wordos at the eleventh hour. And finally, Vonda McIntyre, author and BVC founding member, who has been tirelessly helpful in getting this stuff up.
Available exclusively at BVC until July. After that, I’ll release it to the usual suspects.
I hope you’ll give it a try! (Vote for me!)
Book View Café (BVC) is an authors collective of established writers who have joined forces to help each other publish their own backlists as ebooks. Names you might recognize include Ursula K. LeGuin, Vonda N. McIntyre, Katherine Kerr, Linda Nagata—and many more. As of June 19, I’m part of that list, and honored to be so. Here’s my page at BVC.
To celebrate my launch on BVC, I’m releasing my first-ever short story collection, Reality and Other Fictions. It’s on sale as I type this! For the rest of June, it’s going to be a BVC exclusive. Why? Because BVC is a great store filled with great authors, and it deserves enthusiastic support. If you buy a book from a favorite author at BVC, the author gets the highest percent of the money of any bookstore that’s not actually on an author’s website. Because people help each other so much in the whole process—everyone pitches in with their own particular skills—the production values are high. And the books are, of course, DRM-free, meaning no annoying copy protection to keep you from moving it from one device to another, regardless of type. If you want to convert your book to a different format, do so with our blessing.
Can you use these books on a Kindle or a Nook or a Kobo Reader or a Sony Reader? Absolutely. (Just make sure you download the right format for your reader.)
By the way, BVC is not the same thing as Backlist eBooks, about which I’ve written in the past. The two groups have similar goals, and somewhat overlapping memberships. But Backlist eBooks primarily gathers writers together under one site for mutual help with marketing and promotion. Book View Café is more like a cooperative ebook small press, with its own store. It’s even beginning to distribute to libraries!
My next post, which I am going to start writing as soon as I’m done with this one, will tell you all about Reality and Other Fictions.
