The Gap Between Thought and Text

So I've "written" all of And All the Stars.  In a strictly non-textual kind of way.

First there's Section One, "Arrival".  Section Two is "Watching the World Die".  Section Three is "Not Lord of the Flies".  Section Four is "Mythological References".  Section Five is "Let's Dance" and Six is "Did He Smile?"  Section Seven is the last.

I don't usually write books set on Earth, because of the need to get things right, and though I have some leeway because the story is set in 2016, I need to research a heap of things.  Which cities have a population of over a million.  Hinduism (though I'll barely use any of it - it's just so I properly understand one of the main characters).  And I need to go walk down to Wooloomooloo, since that's what Madeleine will do once I get her out.  [I used to walk down there occasionally at lunch, but I need to refresh my memory] 

I have a name for one of the major characters - Avinash - which was one of those fortuitous names to discover.  Another name will probably be Gideon, but that's still up in the air.  There's more sex in this story than I usually detail.  And more pain.

All of this is in my head.  Bouncing around, adding new complexities and layers, changing constantly.  Not the whole of a book, but the key notes.  The hotel.  The boy on the stairs.  The awkward conversation about sex.  The scene with the music.  And yet I still haven't moved my poor character off the slab of concrete she woke up on, in the ruins of St James Station.

It's a marvellous book.  Different from my usual stuff, but the characters have quickly become people and there's half a dozen scenes I want to get to, which is one of my main motivations for writing.  It's got its hooks in me hard, and I think about it come and going, gaming and walking.  I'm thoroughly enjoying it, and looking forward to seeing what people think of it.

But, oh, the GAP between thought and text!

Touchstone-related Interview courtesy of Selina Fenech

A lovely review and Touchstone-related interview can be found on Selina Fenech's site.

Selina Fenech is an Australian author and artist (I recently read her Memory's Wake, a romping urban fantasy/portal high fantasy with the added bonus of illustrations which made me more than a little green with envy).  Sigh - to be able to write _and_ draw.

Hunting Cover

On the subject of covers, here's the cover of Hunting, my YA fantasy about a girl out to avenge her guardian's death.  Art by the fabulous Julie Dillon.

The Internet is not a private conversation

As a user of Goodreads, I've been following the recent spate of "Goodreads is a cess pit of negative reviews" comments from authors with bemused surprise. Not because it's unusual for authors to not enjoy negative reviews, but that in 2012 so many people don't seem to realise that the Internet is a public space. Anyone who has any sort of public image and uses the internet should surely know by now that:

- An email can be forwarded to anyone.
- Not only your fans can read your Twitter feed.
- Google alerts work for more than just authors.
- Google cache means you didn't delete it as much as you thought you did.
- Screenshots are forever.

I gripe about negative reviews all the time. To myself. The mute ratings, with no explanation of why, bring an instant plunge of spirit, but the sting doesn't linger. The easiest to dismiss are the "just couldn't get into it" reviews, or "this is trash", with no further explanation. These reviews often boil down to "I like chocolate, you like vanilla". The difficult reviews to swallow are the detailed, reasoned reviews, written with care, often pointing out aspects of the story that the author didn't realise someone might find problematic.

I dislike most a four-star review of one of my books - because it suggests I wrote about something incorrectly which I happen to think I have right. The tone of that review is very condescending, and I've bit my lip over it more than a few times, but I don't see any value in arguing with the reviewer (let alone organising campaigns against her). And - as those reasoned reviews so often do - I was spurred to spend the time to question myself over my treatment of that item in the books.

But any name-calling I might want to do happens entirely in my head. Because an author having a public brawl about a review they dislike will only draw more attention to that review. Because it's impolite. Because people are allowed to have different tastes to me, or to see issues that I didn't consider, and to state their views. They're allowed to add snark. They're even allowed to be 'wrong'.

Being a professional author is a very public thing (even for us obscure self-publishing types), and I can Google the substance of internet flame wars which happened more than ten years ago. Comments on Twitter or blogs attacking reviews or review sites make me think of nothing more than someone standing at a counter of a bookstore, ignoring the customers in store while talking loudly on the phone about the horrible customer over by the mystery shelf.

Except with an audience of everyone in the world.

Currently working on...

I'm meant to be working on Hunting at the moment, but have been slightly derailed into a new project.

Madeleine Cost is working to become the youngest person ever to win the Archibald Prize for portraiture. Her elusive cousin Tyler is the perfect subject: androgynous, beautiful, and famous. All she needs to do is pin him down for the sittings.

None of her plans factored in the spires: featureless, impossible, spearing into the hearts of cities across the world – and spraying clouds of sparkling dust into the wind.

Is it an alien invasion? Germ warfare? They are questions everyone on Earth would like answered, but Madeleine has a more immediate problem. At Ground Zero of the Sydney spire, beneath the collapsed ruin of St James Station, she must make it to the surface before she can hope to find out if the world is ending.

Re-using the Blue Eagle Nebula on this cover. 

The book cover gives off a slightly literary feel, which is incorrect (unless I drastically change my writing style).  Won't be out this year, but I'll be working on and off on the first draft.

One Year In (and a bit) as a Self-Pub

I've now been (self-)published for a year and a month.  My bibliography boasts ten whole books (including compilations).

Being a self-published author can be a strange experience.  By self-publishing, I attached a label to myself.  I've found that if I'm not careful a set of opinions and attitudes will be ascribed to me purely because I'm self-published.

I'm not someone who runs around predicting and celebrating the imminent collapse of some hidebound traditional publishing monolith.  Most of the books I buy are put out by 'traditional' publishers and (while the industry does have issues) I fully expect it to adapt to the changes and continue to produce books I want to buy.  [Hopefully the basic contracts offered to authors will improve, but the industry as a whole isn't a bad thing.]

I'm also not someone looking for a publishing contract.  I love the freedom of self-publishing.  I love not having to leap through hoops to get my books out there, to not be in the position of, basically, begging for a chance to tell my stories.

Sure there's some un-fun facets of self-publishing.  It's always a strange experience to be reading through an enjoyable blog or article and to run up against "If it was worth publishing, it would have been published" attitude.  Or "people who self-publish are too impatient to 'pay their dues'".  Or "I've never read a self-published book which I thought should have been published".  Not to mention the seemingly insurmountable issue of obscurity and reviews.  If you pursue reviews, you can find yourself as much a petitioner for reviews as you were for publication.

To many readers I am not a "real" author, or I'm an author with an "approach with caution" tag - one whose books will only be read on direct personal recommendation from trusted fellow readers.

But I've still found an audience.

I've sold over three thousand ebooks (which is a relatively small amount to some, but still seems an enormous number to me).  I've received reviews and ratings ranging from one-star to five-star.  I've had actual fan mail.  I was shortlisted for an award.  My sales reached their high point in November and have dropped a fair deal since then, but I am still steadily selling, and every day or two I come across another review which makes me smile (or grind my teeth, or groan).

It has been - and continues to be - a blast.

Truly Gratuitous

You know you've gone overboard when your "little added extra" is over 50,000 words long.

I've spent much of the evening struggling with a formatting issue which I've yet to find a way to correct (the chapter marks aren't working). I'll continue to look for a solution to that, but until then, you can get Gratuitous Epilogue from my site (down the bottom where it should say 'attachments'), or Smashwords (where it will promulgate after several weeks to B&N, Kobo, etc). I'll also be uploading it to Amazon, but since I can't set the price directly to free there, it'll be $0.99 until Amazon chooses to price match.  Eventually I'll add a TPB for those who like their paper.  [And, ah, maybe adding a glossary/character list because I was way too lazy this time round.]

Happy New Year all!  It's been a blast sharing this story with you. :)

Doorstop Giveaway

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Touchstone Trilogy

by Andrea K. Höst

Giveaway ends January 21, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

I seriously mean it about the doorstop. This thing is ridiculous. [At least I've fixed the cover, which showed a distinct tendency to bend the title around the edges in the first copies I received.] Still working on GE, but it will def. be out before the end of the year.

Tintin (no spoilers)

I was having an interesting discussion the other day as to whether it was a bad thing that Tintin (the movie) had no female main characters.  Having read and re-read Tintin the comics a great deal when I was young (though not for years), I knew that there was very little room in the existing story for a main female role.  The entire series of books only has one memorable female character and, like most characters in Tintin books, she's a broadly drawn exaggeration of a creature.  For a female to go adventuring with Tintin, she would need to be wholly created and given some role in a plotline which never considered her.  I particularly would have hated a female character added purely to be the love interest.

Having seen the movie, I still don't think that it would have been a good idea to add a main female character (unless they gender-switched everyone, which would have been AWESOME), but the absence of females does underline what a strange, sexless creature Tintin is, running around with his pet, interested only in chasing whatever story has caught his curiosity.  The comparisons to Indiana Jones particularly underlines a certain lack of emotional resonance.  The growing friendship with Haddock works, and lets us see Haddock's development, but also gives us a particularly unconvincing scene where Tintin reacts to a set-back which reminded me so clearly that Tintin has little motive in this story.  He's only in this for the curiosity (and nice-chap-ness), and despite all the cool action, that starts to tell.

On the whole it was a fun movie, but it will never get anywhere near re-watch material for me.

Stowaway

The people behind my sister in line at McDonalds told her she had a stowaway under her car...

Apparently this is a diamond python.  And, fortunately, the spare type it's curled around can be lowered without actually getting up close to test your snake identification skills.

My l33t drawing skills

You've seen the cover of Caszandra - powerfully realistic, in a gorgeous burnt-Autumn world.

Now is revealed the incredible concept art I provided to the artist, Simon Dominic, to explain just what it was I wanted in the picture:

Amazing, no?

I am actually capable of a basic level of drawing, so long as it's on paper with a pencil, but I cannot for the life of me draw on the screen.  It is an entirely different skill set.

I draw a great deal less than I once did, and no longer draw character sketches of my characters.  Here's a sketch of my very first novel protagonist, from the never-again-to-see-the-light-of-day Talismans of Godshelm.

Hm, and one of the interesting people she knows...

Add caption

Me, procrastinating when I should be working on Gratuitous Epilogue?  Well, yeah. ;)

A question of exclusivity

Like many other self-publishers, I've had to make a decision over the past day whether to take up Amazon's KDP Select offer.  Amazon's offer is basically this:

• If you opt in, your ebook(s) will be included in the Kindle Lending Library (where Amazon Prime members can borrow an ebook a month for free).
• During the opt-in time (a minimum of three months) those ebooks must be exclusive to Amazon.

In return Amazon is offering:

• Money for each time one of your books is borrowed from the library (the amount depends on how many KDP books are borrowed overall, so potentially you could receive $1 a borrow, or 1c a borrow).
• The ability to set your ebook as a free ebook for 5 days during those three months.
• The possibility of having your book announced as one of the most-borrowed.

For self-publishers who already only publish through Amazon, this is a no-brainer of a decision.  For self-publishers who earn a sizeable percentage of their royalties outside of Amazon, this is also a no-brainer.  For self-publishers like me, who earn 90% of their royalties through Amazon, but also have their books available elsewhere, it's a decision which requires some thought.

The Gain

I doubt that anyone except the most popular self-publishers will earn any significant money through the Lending Library.  It is, however, like all libraries, a valuable promotional opportunity.  I discovered the vast majority of my favourite authors through libraries (which is why libraries are wonderful and good).  Additionally, many publishing houses have chosen not to opt in to the Lending Library (those publishing houses are not required to be exclusive - they just don't want their books there at the moment).  This means self-published books have a greater chance of standing out in the Lending Library than they do through the standard Kindle store.

The bigger advantage is probably the ability to briefly set your books to free.  As I've discussed previously, riding the free train is without doubt the most powerful promotional tool available to a self-publisher.  I gained the vast majority of my readers because I set Stray to free during October: I received a great deal of feedback which made clear that many of my new readers would likely not have checked out the book otherwise - readers who don't usually try fantasy or science fiction, but found that this particular series worked for them.  Since setting a book for free on Amazon currently involves jumping through a number of hoops, control of this function is a very nice carrot.

The Loss

During the past year I've sold maybe 150 ebooks through Smashwords, and 150 through the various other channels Smashwords distributes to.  I've sold over 3000 via Amazon.  That's not only because Amazon got into the ebook market early and drove it hard - it's because Amazon simply treats self-publishers better.

Amazon's algorithms will suggest a book to a potential reader because it matches buyer's trends (people who liked this, liked that) irregardless of whether the book is self-published.  Amazon has multiple methods for readers to discover books they'll probably like, from bestseller lists to those also-boughts.  And, unlike certain other ebook distributers, they don't separate self-publishers out of the best-seller lists, or artificially lower their rankings.  While Amazon doesn't give self-publishers all the advantages of publishing houses, they've apparently recognised that self-published authors can provide their customers with something they want.

Which is great!  But Amazon offering incentives to self-publishers to ONLY publish through them is a far from simple step.

In the discussions which have been raging about this issue, it was quickly pointed out that an ebook could be bought from Amazon and then converted to other formats, or even emailed directly from author to reader following a purchase.  And that you didn't need to put ALL your books in.  And that three months isn't forever.

After you opt into the Lending Library, you have a couple of days to change your mind and then you can't opt out for three months.  Once the three months is over, you'll either be renewed, or can opt out.  So exclusivity is not necessarily permanent.  And so many self-publishers have been taking up the exclusivity option - whether for one book or all their books.

The Rub

Most of my book reading comes either from carefully-considered SFF purchases, or 'popcorn reading' cozy mysteries.  I buy almost all my books as ebooks these days - particularly those popcorn reads.  If the book isn't available to me as an ebook (whether through issues of regionality, or because there are only physical books), I do one of three things:

• Buy the physical book.
• Mark it on Goodreads to check later for an ebook.
• Forget about it.

"Forget about it" is by far my most common response.  Added to this is this new extra complexity of the book only being available if I purchase it through a particular vendor.  While I happen to own a Kindle and buy most of my ebooks through Amazon, I took the time when making this decision to put myself in the shoes of someone who didn't, to decide what my response might be.  This covered the range of:

• Never knowing the book exists because it's not listed at a store I use.
• Knowing the book exists, but missing the "purchase window" because it's currently being a three-month exclusive somewhere else when I go to buy it.  Forget about the book.
• Wanting the book, but being unable/not wanting to buy it from Amazon (for whatever reason, but most likely because there are still large parts of the world where Amazon charges an extra $2 for its Whispernet delivery).
• Resenting the hell out of any author trying to force me to buy through Amazon (which some readers dislike for various reasons) and refusing to buy ANY more books by that author.

I don't particularly think Amazon is evil for doing this - Amazon is simply being smart.  It sells a lot of self-published books and some of those self-published authors have big followings - and this massively bolsters the number of books in their Lending Library.

There are some who warn that this move by Amazon is dangerous for self-publishers, putting all their eggs into one basket and stifling the competition.  There are others who think this will be good for self-publishers because the various other vendors will have to step up and improve their approach to self-publishers if they want to retain their books.

Me, I just don't want to make it harder for that ten percent of my readers who don't buy my books through Amazon.  If a particular vendor offered me ridiculous amounts of money to be exclusive, I'd probably agonise over the decision more, but on the whole I just don't like exclusivity.

Gratuitous ETA

This is looking like not being finished till/after Christmas (can't resist adding a bit more to the end).

Thrilling shopping trips. ;)

Touchstone - the Jenny Edition

By request of Jenny, a 796 page block of rambling teen adventure.  [It started out over 900 pages, but since Lulu only does hardcovers up to 800 pages I had to reduce the font and prune the margins.]

I'm only going to add it to Lulu for the moment - purchasing the extended distribution package would mean raising the price and it's already hefty enough.  [$3 of the price goes to me - the rest to Lulu.]

[You won't have trouble spotting this one in the mail, Jennies - it's liable to be bigger than your mailbox.]

351,000 Words

The compiled The Touchstone Trilogy is now live on Amazon (US) and will filter through to the other Amazons.  [Will be doing the Smashwords version tomorrow.]

It will be interesting to see if it picks up sales - the cover gives off such a different vibe to the covers of the individual books (which are far more accurate to the tone of the story), and I've no doubt it's more marketable toward its target audience, but the price point ($8.99) is certainly less 'impulse buy'.  I might use it for Goodreads ads.

Caszandra has been going well for its first couple of days - over 200 sales between the US and UK stores (and one in France ;).