Category: Writing

Been busy finishing up the paperback version of Perigee and there just hasn’t been much time for anything else, at least if I want to keep my family relationships intact. I’m still figuring out the balance between work, family, writing, and marketing. Until recently, the latter concern didn’t really enter into my mind. But it’s a lot of work, more than I realized.

Fortunately, the work is paying off. It’s now #3 on Amazon’s “high tech SF” list and is getting some fantastic reviews. Much better than I’d hoped for, in fact. That’s probably every novelist’s biggest fear (even more than sales) is when those first reviews come in. So what’s the box score so far?

8 five-star, 2 four-star. Nothing lower. WOOT WOOT!

A few choice excerpts:

“…best darned “sci-fi” book I’ve read in years.”

“What a ride! This was an excellent read, I couldn’t put it down.”

“…a plain great story and great read. I didn’t put it down until I finished it.”

So yeah, maybe I’m tooting my own horn. However the sales numbers shake out, I will treasure these comments. They’ve all expressed exactly the feelings I hoped to evoke, which is not really sci-fi but more near-future technothriller a la Michael Crichton. I’m far more interested in stories about what could be achievable right now if someone just went and did it, instead of far-out Star Trekky stuff.

At least for reading, that is. For movies, I’m still eagerly awaiting the next Trek film. KAAHHNN!!!

If you have Amazon Prime, it’s now available via their KDP Select program. I appreciate the nice reviews recently posted, but more is always better!

I’m reviewing the master file for the paperback right now, so we’re still making progress and expect to have the dead-tree version out by month’s end.

In the meantime, I’m getting itchy to write the next one. The outline is settled and a few chapters are already finished. Most of the central characters from Perigee are involved, but in seriously different roles. Hint: recall that Ryan, Penny, and Simon are all retired military? That’s not going to last for long.

Oh yeah, it kicks @$$.

Nighty-nite…

David Gaughran provides a great wrap-up of 2011 from the perspective of independent authors: The Self-Publishing Year in Review.

Here’s his introduction, but read the whole thing:

This has been a year of massive changes. Some of the older hands say that the business has always been this way.

However, I don’t think we are simply seeing another year of flux. Instead, we are witnessing a process unfold which will revolutionize publishing forever (or at the very least, the foreseeable future).

But hey, I could be wrong, and we might all be back querying – and fawning in the comments of agents’ blogs – by March.

I for one am praying that he is not wrong. I’m not much of a fawner.

Now that Perigee is finally out there for public consumption, I had thought about posting a long essay about how the whole thing almost ended up in a drawer.

The always-worthwhile Passive Voice blog saved me the trouble with this link to a pitch-perfect essay by writer Anne R. Allen: Confessions of a Former Query Addict. A few choice excerpts:

There it was in my inbox on New Year’s morning—a positive response to a query I’d sent to an agent months before:

 “Your writing is delightful, and your characters are original and inviting. I would cheerfully read anything you wrote. I think you’re very talented…” I started to squee and do a happy dance.

Then I read on. It was a no.

In September, I finally got that offer I’d been dreaming of for five years. Here was my big score–an offer of representation!

But it came with an astronomical price tag. The agency wanted a total rewrite. Not an edit. A tear-it-up-and-start-over rewrite…

The end of 2011, at least. And if you buy in to the whole Mayan-calendar thing, then you probably should be spending what’s left of your retirement savings in anticipation of certain Apocalypse by this time next year.

Now that I’m published, my perspective on writing is beginning to change since I’m faced with the transition between finishing the @%$#! book and actually getting people to buy it. You know, that whole marketing thing.

Perigee has been for sale exactly one week now. Speaking for myself, that’s been a week blissfully spent not writing, thinking about writing, or fussing over the edits of my writing. I owed it to my family. And it’s been nice to not have a major project constantly gnawing at the back of my mind.

More to follow on that topic, but for now here are some great stories on the current state of publishing.

Digital Book World: Five Big Stories of 2011 That Will Bleed Into 2012

Emily Casey: Self-Publishing vs Sushi. Worth reading just for the Venn Diagram that explains much of what you see on bookstore shelves.

Bob Mayer: Ten Daring Predictions for 2012 from the Indie Author Trenches

Read and discuss amongst yourselves. A belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!

Every time I say I’m not going to do something on this blog, events conspire to force me into doing that which was denied. Namely, updating the blog…

In other words, Sarah Hoyt has once again posted a couple of essays that are just screaming to be shared. If you’re like me and are just now wading into the e-pub universe, they’re especially worthwhile.

From Quick, Get Me a Flashlight:

Until recently, if you wanted to be read by the largest number of people, the path was easy.  First, you had to impress the gatekeepers.  Fortunately the gatekeepers were a small clique living mostly in NYC and all attending the same parties and reading the same books or – more likely – watching the same movies.  And they weren’t shy with their opinions, either.  They talked all the time, because you see, living in an echo chamber, they viewed their tastes and opinion as symbols of their status and intelligence.  So, attend one or two conventions, and you could psyche them.

Failing that, there were slews of books, seminars and workshops that taught you how to think the way they did, for the purpose of creating stories they’d love.

Finally, from We Band of Writers:

Of course, editors and publishers couldn’t have you killed and all your wealth confiscated, but they could block you from publishing, which for a lot of writers is worse than death, and make sure no one saw your books, ever.

And while some of the books that made it to the top were good, no one who saw how the sausage factory worked on the other side, can have the slightest belief that these workings are in fact even vaguely “fair” or that traditional publishing is in any way a meritocracy.

In fact it was more like a “Meritrocracy” in which we meretriciously tried to ingratiate ourselves with the powers at the top, who could make or break our career even while resenting their power and often insane decisions.

Which fully explains the bad taste left in my mouth after over a year of querying. Yuck. I finally gave up on that path after an otherwise reputable agency that was interested in my work decided to follow the crowd and open their own e-pub “imprint”. I subsequently decided they didn’t need to see the manuscript revisions they’d asked for, if they can’t get the whole “conflict of interest” concept.

No way to know yet if that was the right decision, but it certainly feels better to actually be doing something on my own terms. Call me a control freak, but that’s business.

Which is what this is, by the way. What, ya’ll thought I was doing this for fun?

Okay, well, that too…