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I Published a Book

Not Carleson Peak.

Woe, Carleson Peak, you poor neglected thing. I vow, before my life is through, you will find your audience.

No. This book is Space Junque.

Also available at Smashwords.

It’s a novella, the first book in the Apocalypto series. The first novel in that series, Bleeder, is in edits and will be out in about a month. (update, 3-22-11: Bleeder just came out)

Space Junque is an action-packed space opera that explains the cataclysm around the year 2080 which resulted in the world of Bleeder — a world of mutant birds, shapeshifters soul-readers, and gods and goddesses walking among mortals.

My editor says it has a Firefly vibe, which is pretty cool.

Poor Carleson Peak…

Mea Culpa

to make up for my shameful neglect of this website:

In Other News

I’ve decided to self-publish Carleson Peak.

Bit ‘o trivia: Miss Fiddyment is a character in my historical romance, Carleson Peak.

It will probably take several months to whip it into shape — with professional editing, cover art, and all those good things.

I’ll probably change the title. Carleson Peak is pretty boring! and conveys nothing. Some titles I’ve considered and dumped:

Maenads (really won’t work after what True Blood has done for maenads!)

Infinite Longing, Daily Bread — I like this one, but I am aware that it’s way too full of itself.

I almost had an agent for this book once. The agent (one whose name everyone would recognize) emailed me several times over the week she read it, telling me how great it was and that she was going to call me on such and such a day.

Day came, no call. I called her the next day – and she took my call! I was so green then; I had no idea that writers are never, NEVER! never to call agents.

She was so kind and generous. She talked to me for a good half hour about the book. Ultimately she decided to pass because she didn’t know who to sell it to. Now, she might have been just saying that, or it might have been true.

My point is, this is the kind of book that readers like but publishers don’t know how to sell. It’s a romance, but it has too many characters. Somebody dies who shouldn’t die, according to conventional wisdom. The time span is too big — 1776 to 1832.

These might all end up being good objections, and I might break it out into a series. But I’ve decided to self-publish it as an ebook. Because times have changed, and the resources are out there to do it well.

Late today when it becomes tomorrow I will leave and go away.

You say goodbye, and I say hello.

Public Service Announcement re ST3

Pairing a BlueAnt ST3 to a new phone – gah! But I think this is what I did that finally worked:

Do what you have to do to get the phone ready to pair with a bluetooth device.

Power down the ST3. Power it up, holding the green button down. It will ask you to set the language again. Do that. Then it goes into pairing mode and automatically pairs with the new device. If it asks for the code, it’s 0000.

The end? No.

Is text dead?

Michael Haitt, on the Apple tablet:

Once consumers get used to this kind of rich media, they will not be content to read text alone

Did film destroy theater? Did television destroy film? Don’t freak, peoples. The “tablet” experience is going to be cool, esp for informative-type works. Who wouldn’t like to click on any word for its precise definition? How about clicking on a proper name for a pop-up picture of the dude or dudette?

The day links replace footnotes is the day the angels sing.

It’s going to kick. It’ll be a blast. Info just seems to go better these days with ‘tainment. And as I said, I’m talking about informative works.

But narrative works? I’m not convinced.

Because readers stop looking at text the minute they’re hooked. Just as listeners forget the storyteller until they hear “the end” and playgoers forget they’re in a theater until the lights come up.

This, I think, is the key that explains why traditional publishers are freaking the hell out over ebooks: Publishers think they sell books, and with the tablet, books just got a friggin’ LOT more expensive to produce.

The creative types saw this coming. When publishing consolidated, when real book publishers were replaced with bean counting conglomerates, all the editors and authors cried, “But you don’t understand what creativity is, what the novel is all about! It’s not about the book; it’s about the story!”

Cry-babies.

Well, the conglomerates won, didn’t they? They’ve got their bestsellers and their WalMarts and their refusal to let the e out of the bag for four months. And their many happy returns.

Sure, they’re shaking when they see the Apple tablet. OMG, they’re going to have to spend more money on product!

Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, all the authors they’ve let go and editors they’ve fired have gone off to create stories in the land of e. A mysterious place, where the distance between storyteller and audience is measured in clicks. Distribution is a slayed dragon. It’s Smashwords uber alles, baby. Bloggers provide the curation, and the readers decide whom to believe.

The tablet experience will be very cool, but it’s not going to be in competition with novel-length fiction. Text is simplicity and elegance itself, the tool an author uses to encode a story and a reader uses to decode the story. When the story is well-written, the reader falls into the story’s world, doesn’t even notice the text is there.

I’m sure all e-readers will grow increasingly sophisticated and feature-rich. I’m also sure that I won’t want to be bothered by bells and whistles while I’m finding out what Sirantha Jax does next.

Another reason Smashwords will thrive

I haven’t uploaded anything to Smashwords yet — but I’m sure I will.

Will you? Read this. Does your answer change?

Happy Happy

I’m a Whiny Baby

I still believe it is unprofessional to make comments about specific queries on Twitter, and there are still a couple of agents I won’t query based on (what I perceive to be) their hostility to writers.

But I’ve decided that I need to set aside my tender feelings while going through the query gauntlet. It’s business. That is all. If no agent out there thinks she can sell my book, then this book isn’t going to have an agent.

Notice I said she? I have my prejudices too, I guess. Hmm. Shouldn’t I have ironed out all my failings by now?

Anyway. I joined QueryTracker — even though I’m 95% convinced I want to go with Samhain or Carina. It’s a must-have resource, along with Publishers Marketplace.

It really bothers me that I’m having to do a lot more work than Mrs. Muir did to get my manuscript published.