7 Jan 2009

You Can Have My New Sony Reader…

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

When you pry it from my cold, dead fingers. Just like Charlton Heston and his guns. People, I love my new Reader. I love the built-in light, I love the 150 or so books I have on it right now, with room for about a thousand more. I love the way you can organize them, to make titles easy to find. I love the way, with the help of a program called Calibre, I can import books in other formats and convert them for reading on the Sony, and even share them with Allysen, who is discovering that she loves reading on her new iPod Touch. I’ve actually been getting a lot more reading done since adopting my PRS-700.

I’ve named it Plato.

Most of what it’s filled with now is free ebooks, either from the general sources like Gutenberg.org, Manybooks.net, and Feedbooks.com—or from the free offerings of Tor, Baen, and other publishers. I’ve bought a couple of ebooks, including the Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge (but, ironically, his iconic and groundbreaking story about the net, “True Names,” does not seem to be available in ebook form).

I’m slowly returning the world of productive work, following the holidays. I’ve signed up my novels The Infinity Link and Seas of Ernathe for the ereads program, which already features five of my novels, so they’ll be available in electronic format before too long. (Also, The Rapture Effect and Dragon Rigger should be available very soon.) Right now I’m proofing The Infinity Link, actually reading it for the first time in many years. It was my first BIG book, published in 1984, and I’m pleased to say I’m enjoying it.

Hope you’re all having a great beginning of 2009!

“You’ll never make much money writing books like that. But the very best people will come to your funeral.” —said to Edgar Pangborn, as told by D.G. Compton

5 Dec 2008

Nice Plug on Sci Fi Wire

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

Sunborn got some nice exposure today on Sci Fi Wire, with an article/interview by John Joseph Adams. It came out rather more techie-sounding than I would have liked; but as it consists almost entirely of quotes from my own email response to his questions, I guess I’m the one to blame for that. Seems to have caused only a modest bump in traffic to my website, so maybe that’s why.

“We all know that only about 5% of our advertising works. The problem is, we don’t know which 5%.” —Some wise person in the publishing industry

27 Nov 2008

To New York, ish, Twice This Week

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

This last Monday was the date of the annual SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America) Editorial Reception, where SFWA hosts a big gathering for members, editors, artists, and friends, to generally schmooze and reconnect. I hadn’t been to one in years, so I decided at the last minute to go down, just for the day. I treated myself to Amtrak’s Acela for the ride down. Great train. Then I hoofed it from Penn Station to the Tor Books offices, tipping my hat to the Empire State Building on the way. (I make it sound like I know where I was going. Yeah, me and my Google map.)

In the past, the publisher’s offices were always a gathering place for writers prior to events like this, and I expected to be joining a crowd. Nope. I was the only one there, and all the Tor people were actually working. (!!) But my publicist Sam Cutler took me around to meet all the publicity people, and I waved to all the editors I knew (my own editor not being in town), then I browsed the bookshelves, plucking down books to read. While thumbing through a book, I heard a mutter from the room next door about problems with Mobipocket Creator. Having spent a good deal of time on ebook creation, I poked my head in, and thus met Pablo Defendini, maven of Tor.com, and also the guy who’s doing his level best to get Tor ebooks up and running. Great guy, great conversation, and eventually I grabbed some dinner with him and some of the other Tor.com people, as well as Irene Gallo, Tor’s art director, all good folk. Then we all went off to the SFWA thing, where I indeed reconnected with some old friends, and even ran into my agent, Richard Curtis!

Coming home on the 3 a.m. train out of Penn Station wasn’t quite as much fun (actually, waiting for the 3 a.m. train in Penn Station wasn’t as much fun), but hey. A good trip.

Today, I turned around and drove to pick up my daughter and a couple of friends from college, a ways up the river from NYC, then turned around again and brought them home. Could have been a lot worse; the poor souls on the Mass Pike westbound toward New York as I was coming back east were in for a long time on the road!

Safe travels for the holidays, everyone (if you travel, which you probably will, if you’re in the U.S.)!

27 Nov 2008

The Page 69 Test – Sunborn

posted in: blogging, personal news, science fiction, Sunborn | 0

I was asked by Marshal Zeringue, the owner of a blog called “The Page 69 Test” to write an entry for Sunborn. The inspiration for the blog comes from the “page 69 test” that you can use when you’re browsing a book in a store: open to page 69, and see if you like what you read. Some people use the “page 11 test.” Some the “first and last page” test.

If you’d like to see what I wrote, check out The Page 69 Test: Sunborn.

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

10 Nov 2008

Fan of John Williams Movie Scores?

posted in: quirky, science fiction | 0

Okay, I thought I was the world’s biggest fan of the music from Star Wars, Superman, Close Encounters, and all the other films John Williams has scored. But I think I must relinquish that title to this fellow here (but see note below):

Here’s a link to the video at scifiwire, in case it doesn’t display correctly for you.

[Later note]

Well…as Josh pointed out, it turns out that guy did a really clever job of lip syncing a song actually created by a group called Moosebutter. You can hear (or buy) the song here on their website. Scroll down, and you can see a video of their live performance of the number.

It would have been really nice if the fellow above had credited his source.

10 Nov 2008

Great Success!

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

Both book signings were terrific successes, with lots of hardcovers leaving in people’s hands—in many cases, the hands of people I did not know before the signings. (Always a good indicator.) And the folks at Menotomy Beer & Wine were fantastic, made me feel welcome and even sent me home with a bottle of wine! This continues my experience that the best place to do book signings is not necessarily at bookstores (though I’m happy to sign at bookstores, too!), but at places where something else is going on. Indoor water park, church fair, wine tasting—what’ll be next?

6 Nov 2008

Two Signings This Week!

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

I’ve added a second book signing of Sunborn to the one previously announced:

  • On Friday evening, Nov. 7, from 6:30 to 8:30, I’ll be doing a benefit signing at Park Avenue Congregational Church in Arlington, Mass., at the annual fair.
  • On Saturday, Nov. 8, from 4:00 to 7:00, I’ll be signing as a guest at the regular wine tasting at Menotomy Beer and Wine, also in Arlington.

Click for a full rewrite, with details and locations. Stop by! Have some lasagna and pie (Friday) and some wine (Saturday).

3 Nov 2008

Recount!

posted in: blogging, ebooks, science fiction, Sunborn | 0

Well, this is kind of depressing. And no, I’m not talking about the election; that’s still a few hours off. No, I’m talking about the stats for downloads of the ebooks—especially Sunborn. Turns out that my web logs analyzer, a program called Analog that I’ve used faithfully for years, has been lying to me about the number of downloads.

Well, not lying exactly, just being stupid.

I think this applies mainly just to the PDF downloads rather than the others, because people can actually open the PDF file right in their browser without downloading the file to their hard drive. And when they do, the file is sent to them in little packets, which you would only notice by the repeated little message at the bottom of the browser indicating activity. As I discovered to my dismay last night, each of those little packets gets its own line in the logs. And Analog has been counting each of those packets as a separate download request! And fooling me like a politician greasing a gullible audience.

To paraphrase one such politician of the past*, let me make one thing perfectly clear. I am not a crook. However, previous reports of the downloads of Sunborn and the other PDF files are exaggerated. A lot. A real lot. As nearly as I can tell, actual complete downloads of Sunborn are in the low-mid hundreds at this point, and the highest, Neptune Crossing, is at maybe a thousand. All told, the cumulative ebook downloads are in the thousands, but I’m not even going to try to guess a more exact number. That’s not cottage cheese, but it’s nowhere near the 20K plus that Analog was selling me.

To say that this discovery was a downer would be no exaggeration.

Anyone know a better free (or cheap) web-logs analyzer? (I’ve tried a few, but none quite fit the bill yet.)

*For the young’ns among you, or those outside the U.S.: Richard M. Nixon, the worst president in U.S. history prior to the current one.

“From my close observation of writers … they fall into two groups: 1) those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and 2) those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review.” —Isaac Asimov

31 Oct 2008

Concord (er, Lowell) SF Panel

posted in: blogging, personal news, science fiction, Sunborn | 0

Our panel at Umass Lowell, as part of the Concord Festival of Authors, went very well. Panelist and new writer Chris Howard blogged about it, and said everything I would say, except that he gave a nice big plug to Sunborn while he was at it. Thanks, Chris!

Funny thing: I clicked on Chris’s Amazon link to Sunborn, and noted with my usual scowl that Amazon already listed used copies for sale, three days after the book’s release. Then, out of curiosity, I clicked to look at the actual listing—and saw, first of all, that most were actually new, not used, copies from Amazon Marketplace sellers. But here’s the funny part—some sellers listed used copies for over $40, or more than twice Amazon’s price for new books! Do you suppose anybody would actually buy one of those? It’s good work if you can get it.

Nobody’s emailed me yet to request a free ebook, but there have been over 4000 hits on the Sunborn PDF in just three days!

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