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This week’s genrefluffle is apparently Christopher Priest’s scathing condemnation of the 2012 Clarke Award shortlist. At first I was planning to stay out of this one, on account of I don’t care. Also, others have already responded, including folks like John Scalzi, Cat Valente, Jeff VanderMeer, and Charlie Stross. Stross is particularly wonderful here, by the way, and I hereby vow to respond to all my future haters in T-shirt form. Hating on awards is nothing new, nor is mocking those who get a little too carried away with their hating. And Priest’s post went up on the 28th. In Internet time, it’s ancient history. What possible reason could I have to jump in and help beat this particular dead horse? Well that’s the difference between you and me, my friend. When I look at this, I don’t see a dead horse. I see a delightful horse-shaped pinata full of– Well, it would probably be full of maggots and bloated organs, which is … yeah, that’s just gross. Okay, I didn’t really think this metaphor through. But I’m gonna jump in anyway, and just to make it a challenge, I’m going to do my best to defend Mister Priest. And I’m doing this despite the fact that I’ve read ALMOST NONE OF THE BOOKS ON THE SHORTLIST! First and foremost, “Have we lived and fought in vain?” is awesome. I love this rhetorical flourish, and I do think he makes a good point about some science fiction being stuck in the past. I’ve been to conventions obsessed with old dead white men, and I’ve hung out with the fans who don’t seem to recognize that there exist books published after 1960. So he’s got a point here. But even if you disagree, let’s still show some respect for the flourish, people! Of Charles Stross, Priest writes: Stross writes like an internet puppy: energetically, egotistically, sometimes amusingly, sometimes affectingly, but always irritatingly, and goes on being energetic and egotistical and amusing for far too long. You wait nervously for the unattractive exhaustion which will lead to a piss-soaked carpet. Little known fact: When I first met Charlie Stross, he licked my hand, humped my leg, then ran off to chew on my jacket. So I find this characterization utterly appropriate. Unless that leg-humping thing was all part of a sugar-induced hallucination… I remember Cory Doctorow being there too. He was dressed up like Catwoman and screaming, “Copyright stole my girlfriend in 6th grade! I swore I would have my revenge!” Then he swelled up like a blueberry. Upon further consideration, strike that last paragraph. Let’s move on to the fact that China Mieville has won the award three years running, and could now win it for a fourth time. I do think there comes a time when, if you keep giving an award to the same person year after year, it starts to lose meaning. Unfortunately, I see no way of remedying this problem, because China Mieville is TOO DAMN SEXY. Imagine those poor judges, trying so hard to select books based on merit, all the while imagining Mieville’s smoldering good looks…
In all seriousness, two of Priest’s complaints appear to boil down to the fact that the works on this year’s shortlist are rooted in the past and/or are simply competent, but not excellent. In general, I think these are great guidelines for an award. I enjoy “comfort books,” lighter, plot-driven stories with plenty of action and fun and rompiness, but I wouldn’t necessarily consider them award-worthy. When I think of stories that deserve special recognition, I think of stories that bring something new, that go beyond what’s been done before, and do so with excellence. Now you could argue that “excellence” is all subjective, and that it’s all just a matter of taste. You could do that, but it would be dumb. If you think quality is purely subjective, go read slush for any magazine or publisher, and do not return until you’ve seen the error of your ways. Also, one book apparently has horse puns. To hell with that crap! Now like I said, I haven’t read most of these books, but when has lack of information ever stopped someone from talking on the internet? But the fact is, Priest is well-read, and lays out some arguments as for why other books were more worthy of recognition. That alone puts him ahead of a lot of internet rants, and while you might disagree with him, I don’t see a problem with having the argument. Of course, he goes on to say the awards should be cancelled this year, and that they should FIRE ALL THE JUDGES! He also wants the award renamed The Christopher Priest Award for Books that Don’t Suck.1 Some people might say this is where Priest crosses the line from cranky rant to cartoonish supervillainy, but I disagree. Lots of people complain on the internet; far fewer offer concrete suggestions. You’ve got to give him props for offering an action plan. My only complaint is that he didn’t go far enough. Priest should have made an excellence-themed costume and kidnapped the Clarke judges, along with the prize money and trophy. (I’m assuming there’s a trophy? I told you, I’m utterly ignorant here.) Then, from the security of his underwater volcano base, he could have broadcast his ultimatum to the SF/F world! SFWA would dispatch the crack team of Seanan McGuire and Mary Robinette Kowal to rescue the judges. Seanan’s trained scuba-diving ninja velociraptors would take out Priest’s laser-wielding team of squid, while Mary incapacitated the human guards using her extreme puppetry skills, all leading to a final confrontation involving a malfunctioning cyborg Stephenie Meyer. And if that’s not deserving of an award, I don’t know what is. In conclusion, I probably shouldn’t write blog posts while overtired. —
I’ve written about freedom of speech on several occasions, but apparently it’s time to do so again, as I’ve read that my tale about the Pig and the Bunny and the word “retarded” advocates censorship. I don’t want to pick on the individual who raised this point, because he’s not alone. The reason I had the third wolf reply, “You can’t tell me what to say. I have freedom of speech!” is because this response is in fact rather common. (Often, but not always, coming hand-in-hand with a slam on “political correctness.”) Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.1 So here’s the thing. You have the right to say that Jim C. Hines is a condescending asswipe. I support your right to say that, and I would oppose any legislation that tried to take away that right. But if you say it to my face, I’ll ask you to stop. Or maybe I’ll walk away and talk to someone else. If you come onto my blog and post it as a comment, I might delete your comment and boot you off of my site. Or maybe I’ll just mock you. None of those things in any way restrict or take away your freedom of speech. If you read Yo Is This Racist, you’ll find a lot of questions about white folks wanting permission to use the word “nigger.” There are people who get really upset, not about racism, but about the fact that we as white people aren’t allowed to use that one word. To paraphrase Khan, it tasks us. It tasks us, and we shall have it! Well guess what. As it turns out, we do have the right to use that word. Yay us! And the rest of the world has the right to call us racist, ignorant shits if we choose to to use it. Hey look at that, freedom of speech goes both ways. Who knew? You have the right to use the word “retarded,” too. And I recognize that we often use words unthinkingly. But people also have the right to ask you not to use it. What I don’t have is the legal means to force you to stop using that word. After hearing someone say, “This word is hurtful to me and to others,” you can choose to keep using it. And that’s as it should be. I’ll lose respect for you if you make that choice. I may tell you what I think about you continuing to use that word. I might mock you for it. If you’re a business, I might stop giving you money. If you’re an author, I might stop reading your books. That’s my choice. This is from a blog post I wrote back in 2009. (Is it egotistical to quote yourself? Oh well…): Freedom of speech does not protect you from the consequences of saying stupid shit. Freedom of speech is hard. It’s messy. Sometimes it’s ugly. But freedom of speech does not mean freedom from responsibility. Nor does freedom of speech obligate me to agree with your words, or to provide them with a platform. Any questions? —
Anyway, the story is set in the fifteenth century in the fictional Romanian kingdom of Sylvania. Reveka is an apprentice herbalist, though thanks to her studies, she’s as skilled and knowledgeable as her master, if not moreso. She’s determined to break the curse on the twelve princesses and use the reward money to gain a position as an herbalist for an entire abbey. For those unfamiliar with the fairy tale, the twelve princesses disappear every night, returning in the morning exhausted, their shoes worn to tatters. All who try to watch and see where they go fall asleep. In Haskell’s version, it’s a sleep from which they never awake, a coma which eventually leads to death. This is basically a two-act book. In the first half, we follow Reveka’s investigation into the curse, an investigation which grows more urgent as people she knows and cares for fall into the cursed sleep, and neighboring kingdoms prepare for war upon Sylvania. Act two takes on a more mythological and otherworldly feel … and that’s about all I can say without spoiling things. The Princess Curse is a fast read. At times, some of the complexities of the warring kingdoms and such felt a bit rushed, and I occasionally lost track of secondary characters (it’s hard to keep track of twelve princesses, let alone everyone else). I suspect this was in part due to its being written for a YA audience. I like Reveka a lot, and not just because Reveka could totally be a goblin name. She’s smart, determined, impulsive, and very human. Her study of herbalism and the way she applies her knowledge to various problems adds a lot to the story. She is in many ways a scientist in a fantastic world. I approve So if anyone here is into fairy tale retellings with smart, independent heroines, I’d suggest heading over to Harper Collins to check out the first three chapters. #
I suspect Booth and I are roughly the same age, and his stories stirred some nostalgic memories as I read. I found myself thinking back to the original Star Wars Luke Skywalker figure I owned, with the yellow lightsaber that promptly lost its skinny tip. Then when Empire came out, Luke came with a detachable lightsaber and a gun instead of the lightsaber that slid up into his arm, and that was THE MOST AWESOME THING IN THE WORLD! I wasn’t as obsessive a collector as Booth, but the book was a nice trip back to childhood, with a few rather touching memories. The only bit that didn’t work for me was “The Dark Times,” a story that felt more about a dysfunctional romantic relationship than Star Wars. Overall, a quick, light, but fun read, one that made me wish I still had my Large Size Boba Fett Action Figure. Man, that was the coolest toy ever. And he’d be just the right size to hang out with my Optimus Prime… Details and an excerpt are available here. I like The Oatmeal, and I’ve seen a lot of people pointing to this comic, often with a comment like, “This is why people pirate!” I see two things in this comic. The first is an excellent point: people want to be able to buy and download things when they come out. More and more people watch and read things online, and it’s incredibly frustrating when that option isn’t available. In this example, I think HBO is probably making a mistake by not selling Game of Thrones to people who want to watch it. The second thing in this comic, however, feels like pure entitlement. HBO has made a business decision to only offer the show for download to HBO subscribers. I think that’s a bad business decision, but does the fact that the show is not available RIGHT THIS SECOND mean people have the right to say, “Oh well, I tried. Time to go swipe it off a torrent site!” My next book is going to be released as a hardcover, which means it will cost about $25. I totally understand that not everyone will want to pay $25 for a book, and I’m happy that a year later, you should be able to buy it for $8 as a paperback. But if you want a copy of that book for $8, you have to wait. You don’t get to say, “I want it now!” and just swipe it off a bookstore shelf. DRM is annoying. Businesses that don’t make their products available to users who want to buy them is frustrating as hell. But the entitlement thing is a problem too. Case in point: Seanan McGuire’s latest book went on sale early at Amazon … in print format. The e-book edition won’t be available until the on-sale date. As a result, readers and so-called fans have been heaping abuse on her because … well, because they might have to wait a whole two weeks to buy the e-book: People who have to wait for their electronic books are not being denied anything; they’re doing what was supposed to happen in the first place. This has not stopped the exciting emails from rolling in. They mostly stopped after the first day, but on that first day, I was called… …a bitch. Because that sense of entitlement, the idea that I WANT IT RIGHT NOW!!!, is so powerful that these people felt justified in attacking and threatening the author, then running out to pirate all of her books. The author who, incidentally, has no control over this situation! Naturally, since Seanan is female, the abuse is even harsher and significantly sexualized. Because women, like books and TV shows, are possessions, right? And we’re entitled to say or do whatever we like to them. What the f*** is wrong with people? I get being frustrated when you really want to watch/read something and you can’t. It frustrates the hell out of me when publishers limit availability or cripple a file’s usability. And I know perfectly well that people will choose to pirate files when they can’t easily buy them. But for God’s sake, get a spine and own that choice. Don’t pretend the evil publisher made you do it. Take responsibility for the fact that you couldn’t bother to wait two weeks for Seanan’s book to be available legally, or that you didn’t want to subscribe to HBO and didn’t want to wait for them to make the show available through other outlets. I don’t really get worked up about piracy these days. I have more important (to me) things to care about. And I get that it’s a more complicated issue than a lot of people want to admit. But the entitlement thing pisses me off, especially when that attitude leads to such vicious attacks on my friends.
Take from this what you will. # As most of you know, I’ve self-published a few e-books. The most popular has been Goblin Tales [Amazon | B&N], a collection of five goblin-related short stories. I priced it at $2.99, which seemed fair, and means I receive Amazon’s 70% royalty rate, earning roughly $2/copy sold. From a strategic standpoint, Amazon’s decision to offer 70% royalties to self-published authors was brilliant. A lot of authors who might not have otherwise self-published started putting both backlist and new titles up for sale. Over the course of several years, Amazon has become (in my opinion) the major player in self-publishing and e-books. A certain champion of self-publishing recently decried all of the “whiny bitches” complaining about Amazon, and argued how Amazon treats authors so much better than commercial publishers. While there are certainly advantages to Amazon’s program, anyone who thinks Amazon is in this to help authors is a fool. Amazon, like pretty much any other business, is in this to make money. As for how they treat authors, let me share what I’ve experienced over the past week and a half. Amazon can and will adjust your price as they see fit. On Saturday (2/11), I noticed that Amazon had marked Goblin Tales down to $.99. I don’t know why, and I don’t know when exactly this change was made. This wasn’t the first time I’d had trouble controlling the price of my own e-book. I put Goblin Tales on sale over the holidays, then returned it to $2.99 in early January. Rather, I tried to do so. Only Kobo was slow to raise their price, and since Amazon’s Terms of Service allow them to match any competing price, Goblin Tales stayed at $.99 with its reduced royalty rate for several more weeks, earning me about 1/6 of what I normally made for each sale (35% royalties based on the $.99 price-matched price). So when I saw that Amazon had dropped the price again, my first step was to check other listings. Everywhere else, the book was on sale for its list price of $2.99. I saw no external reason for Amazon to drop the price. I also heard from another author that several of their books had also been cut to $.99 without warning or explanation, making me suspect this was either a database glitch or an arbitrary price cut. I’ll give Amazon credit - the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) team responded to me fairly quickly, and restored the price to $2.99 by Valentine’s Day. But they also pointed to section 5.3.2 of the current Amazon/KDP Terms and Conditions, which gives them: …sole and complete discretion to set the retail price at which your Digital Books are sold through the Program. So what’s the big deal? Don’t retailers put things on sale all the time? Well, sure … which leads me to my second lesson. Amazon can calculate royalties based on the sale price, not your list price. With my DAW books, if a bookstore offers a sale, I still get my royalties based on the cover price. Amazon is selling Libriomancer for pre-order at almost half-off, but I’ll get paid my full amount for every copy sold. Not so with self-published titles. Looking at my reports for last week, my royalties were slashed by 2/3 for every copy sold, because Amazon paid me 70% of the $.99 sale price, not my list price. According to the KDP Pricing Page, royalties should be based on the list price ($2.99) unless the price adjustment was due to a price-matching situation (dropping the price to match a competitor’s price) … but my royalties report still shows a 67% cut. When I followed up with the DTP team, they responded thusly: The price at which we sell your book may not be the same as your list price. This may occur, for example, if we sell your book at a lower price to match a third party’s price for a digital or physical edition of the book… In this case, if you have chosen the 70% option for your book, your 70% royalty will be calculated based on our price for the book (less delivery costs and taxes). Of course, this wasn’t actually the case, as there was no lower third-party price. I asked them again to show me where their Pricing Page or Terms of Service allow Amazon to arbitrarily cut your book’s offer price and reduce your royalties based on that change. I haven’t heard back from them. Sometimes going it alone sucks. If a retailer pulled a stunt like this with one of my commercially published books, DAW/Penguin would stomp them. If DAW tried something funny in my royalty statements, my agent would be all over that crap. Given that my agent represents a number of authors, including folks like Brandon Sanderson, Charlaine Harris, Tanya Huff, etc., he’s got some pull. But self-publishing puts you in charge of every aspect of your career. Meaning when Amazon messed with one of my books, it was on me to challenge them and get it fixed. They did restore the price, as I said, but what exactly would I do if they said “Deal with it.” Sue them? That’s theoretically an option, sure … but I still remember how much it cost, in time and money and energy, the last time I had to fight a court battle. I’ve now sent four e-mails to their KDP team, and they have yet to get back to me with a straight answer as to why or how this happened. At this point, I figure getting the price restored is probably the best I’m going to get. Diversification is a good thing. Fortunately, in the end, this incident had little real impact on my finances. Goblin Tales sold sixteen copies at the reduced rate, meaning I was underpaid by a whopping $21 or so. Barely even worth a blog post, right? But the impact was minimal because:
I certainly intend to keep my e-book collections up on Amazon. I’m even planning to publish another one. I’m not telling people not to publish through Amazon; I am telling you to go in with your eyes open, and to understand that despite what the cheerleaders might suggest, Amazon is not pro-author. They’re pro-Amazon. One final note. According to Section 2 of their Terms and Conditions, Amazon “reserve[s] the right to change the terms of this Agreement at any time in our sole discretion.” On February 9 — just two days before the Goblin Tales glitch — they added the following: KDP RELIES ON COMPLEX SYSTEMS AND PROCESSES. WE STRIVE TO MAKE OUR SYSTEMS AND PROCESSES ERROR-FREE AND EFFICIENT, BUT WE CANNOT GUARANTEE THAT THEY WILL BE, AND WE WILL HAVE NO LIABILITY ARISING FROM SYSTEM OR PROCESS FAILURES, INTERRUPTIONS, INACCURACIES, ERRORS OR LATENCIES. Bottom line? They make the rules, they can change the rules whenever they feel like it, and they aren’t liable when they break the rules.
Unknown to Gemma herself, she’s not entirely human, and the fairy–sorry, the fae half of her heritage is about to crash in on her in a very big way. Pureblood fae are incapable of intentional violence, so when a dark power begins corrupting children, they need a halfblood warrior. They need Gemma. Oh, and did I mention she’ll also be working on tooth collection duty? That’s right, Gemma is a tooth fairy fae, collecting children’s teeth and the innocence contained within. Gemma struggles throughout the book with the conflict between her human and fae sides, and in some ways, I think the book mirrors that struggle, never quite certain what it wants to be. The human conflicts felt gritty and real, whether it was in the gym (I loved the gym scenes!) or her relationship with her politician fiance or struggling to stay ahead of an overly-nosy reporter. By contrast, the fae threats didn’t feel as immediate. The loss of innocence, the quest to restore the Olde Way … they’re more abstract conflicts, and I never felt quite as invested in that part of the story, nor was I completely convinced by the logic behind tooth collection. As for Gemma herself, this is no delicate elfin fairy, this is a hard-hitting, flawed, stubborn, and often all too human warrior. She fights evil and collects teeth. What more do you need to know? Despite the post-con neuroses, I had a great time at ConFusion last weekend. I’ve been going to conventions for about a decade, and this was one of my favorites. Being Toastmaster for the first time was a blast, if a little exhausting. The whole weekend was well-organized, the hotel space works great, and there were so many wonderful people that even though I went up a day early, there was no way to spend as much time as I wanted with everyone. I apologize for everyone and everything I’m about to forget, but here’s my highlights reel for the weekend… Author D&D: Friday afternoon, I joined Brent Weeks, Joe Abercrombie, Pat Rothfuss, Jay Lake/Scott Lynch, Yanni Kuznia/Elizabeth Bear, and Peter Brett for an old-school, first edition adventure through the Keep on the Borderlands. Myke Cole and Saladin Ahmed kindly DMed the adventure. Favorite moment: too many to count … there was me attacking an old man with half a jaguar, Brent Weeks and Joe Abercrombie’s ongoing thief vs. assassin bit (with kissing!), Pat’s fawning manservant … author D&D should be a regular part of all cons from now on! My least favorite moment: almost getting killed by goblins. Ah, the irony. Here’s my badly-stitched wide-view shot of the game. Pete is blurry because he has an extra-high DEX. (There are write-ups of the game from Myke and Brent.)
I Suck: Last year, I proposed a panel in which various authors would talk about … well, you get the idea. I wasn’t sure how this would go over, but we packed the room. John Scalzi, Scott Lynch, Pat Rothfuss, Joe Abercrombie and I talked about our own weaknesses, the joy of one-star reviews, and much more. It was tremendous fun.
Rocky Horror Muppet Show: This is the brainchild of Tom Smith. Imagine the Muppets trying to do Rocky Horror. Yeah… This was, if I’m remembering correctly, only the third time in history the show has been performed. I was invited to be a special guest star. Unfortunately, I missed rehearsal due to scheduling conflicts. So I got a copy of the script, showed up about 20 minutes early with a few questions, and winged that sucker. It was tremendous fun. Tom makes an awesome Kermit, Scooter was a blast, Gonzo had her own knitted (crocheted?) nose … the whole cast was obviously enjoying themselves, and I’m very happy I could play a part. There was one spot where I was supposed to sing, and I cheated by going full Shatner on that verse, which seemed to work. I hear rumors there may eventually be a YouTube video of the performance. I’ll link to it when it goes live. Maybe. The People: Holy dung, ConFusion had a lot of guests this year! Eight guests of honor (not including myself), and an epic list of authors. I won’t even try to name everyone I got to talk to and hang out with, and if the con had lasted a month, I still don’t think I would have had enough time. I love my geek peeps, and I miss you all! Except Scott Lynch. I’m onto you, man…
Miscellaneous: Yeah, a lot of people have seen those fantasy pose pics I posted. I’ve been told I should do a calendar. (I’m thinking about it.) I did a kaffeeklatch which went well. I talked about Libriomancer, and lots of people are excited about the new book, which pleases me to no end. I did a joint reading with Kristine Smith. (Our stories are both coming out in March in The Modern Fey’s Guide to Surviving Humanity.) I did not make it to Saladin Ahmed’s new book party, and from everything I’ve heard, that’s my loss. My friend M’jit brought me Disney princess Kleenex. Big B. made me an Program Book Note: Seanan McGuire was kind enough to write a wonderful song for my bio in the program book. Unfortunately, her name was omitted when the book went to the printer. So please check that out (page 10), and know it came from the epic mind of McGuire. In Conclusion: A great con, and I will most definitely be back next year, when the guests include Charlie Stross, Scott Edelman, and Mary Robinette Kowal. It’s been a while, but First Book Friday is back, at least for today! Previous entries in the series are indexed here, and the submission guidelines are over there. Kari Sperring (LJ, Twitter, Facebook), aka Kari Maund, has written many books, though she’s relatively new as a fantasy novelist. She joins us to talk about selling her first books (both nonfiction and fiction), and the importance of being very specific when making wishes… # You probably don’t want to know about my first book. I realised a few weeks ago that it’s twenty years old this year. I can see it from where I’m sitting writing this, its dark-brown cover a little battered with use, though the silver embossed writing proclaiming author and title is as sharp as ever. I’m still proud of it, after all this time, even though back on the day of its publication – summer 1991, I think, though the exact date is gone from my memory – I greeted it with mixed feelings. I’d wanted to be a published writer since I was six or seven, but I’d failed to be specific in my wording. One must be careful what one wishes for: there it was, my first book, the product of four years of research and study and writing: Ireland, Wales and England in the eleventh century: some paradigms for political interaction. It’s still out there, in libraries, on shelves, in second-hand bookshops, though it’s been out of print now for a decade or more. Four years of my life between two neat brown covers: the clean final version of my PhD dissertation, published by an academic press, without fanfare or advance, though it earned me about £2000 over the next seven or eight years. I still like that book, I like its carefulness and orderliness, its sharp clear arguments and twenty years on I still stand by my conclusions. It’s been a good friend and a good ally and in the end it may be what I’m remembered for, if I’m remembered at all. It sits there over my desk in a short row with my other five non-fiction books, and the jumble of my articles, my first career in a foot or less.
It’s been an interesting week. Over on LiveJournal, I’ve been told that my blog is a toxic cesspool because I don’t moderate comments enough. Over on Google+, I’m told that warning someone he was crossing the line and needed to stop is enforcing a space where people “are only allowed to tell me how totally cool” I am, and anyone with a different opinion must remain silent or be banned. (Ironically, he was later banned. Not for disagreeing with me, but for repeatedly ignoring the rules/boundaries I had set.) Anyone who’s hung around my sites and paid attention ought to recognize that I don’t ban people for disagreeing with me. I appreciate disagreement and debate. I’ve learned a lot from commenters on various sites arguing with me. It’s influenced the stories I’ve published. It’s influenced the way I blog. It’s influenced my opinions and ideas on a number of topics. I have banned people before. For threats, for ignoring warnings to stop a certain behavior, for disrespecting stated boundaries, for trolling… I’ve also frozen discussion threads before. I usually do this when, in my opinion, the discussion has lost any productive content and become nothing but insults and sniping back and forth. I don’t like doing it. I try to err on the side of letting people speak their minds. I also try to give warnings before freezing/banning, but that doesn’t always happen. And sometimes I probably hesitate out of simple fear or exhaustion. Because it doesn’t matter why I ban a user or moderate my space, the reaction is almost always the same. I’m called names, accused of censoring anyone who disagrees with me, attacked in e-mail, and the next day, Google alerts helpfully point me to the banned commenter’s rant about that asshole Jim Hines who pretends to be so fair and reasonable but is really just a stuck-up little dictator. Who wouldn’t look forward to that? Every year, my blog reaches a larger audience, and that’s awesome. I’m not close to the popularity of Wheaton or Gaiman, but I’ve gotten big enough that that the blog requires more time and more energy on my part. That piece on Orson Scott Card has been viewed more than 7000 times. (”Baby Got Books” is well past 20,000. Woo hoo!) The Card piece generated a lot of discussion and a lot of disagreement, some of it rather heated. Every comment of which I’ve read. A few of those threads came close to the empty exchange of insults I mentioned above, but they never crossed that line for me. Maybe I should have stepped in. Maybe not. This has been a long week, and I don’t have a lot left. Maybe I let things slide on that post because I didn’t have the energy to deal with the fallout. Maybe I jumped the gun on banning that person on Google+ because I didn’t have the energy to deal with yet another round of back-and-forth about what I wrote vs. what he thought I wrote. I don’t know. I’m not perfect, and I don’t think I’ve ever claimed otherwise. So here’s the deal. This is my space. This is my online home. I’d appreciate it if y’all didn’t come into my home and crap on the couch. 99.8% of you are beautiful, awesome, passionate, wonderful guests, and I love you. Even when you argue with me. Especially when you argue with me But a decade ago, that other .2% was out of maybe a hundred or so people. Now it could be 7000 or more. That takes its toll. I’m listening. I listen to the people who tell me I’m an asshole for the way I write about Topic X. (I also listen to the people who disagree with the way I write about Topic X without calling me an asshole. Thank you.) I listen to the people who tell me I’m a dick for not stepping in and doing more to moderate comments. I listen to the people who thank me for allowing people space for anger and debate. I listen to the people who say they love my blog but can’t read the comments on my rape posts, because I don’t automatically block and ban Men’s Rights Activists. I listen, and I do my best to find a balance that’s right for them, and that’s right for me. Because ultimately, this is my space, and I’m responsible for what happens here. For the general atmosphere, for the topics that get discussed, and for what is and is not accepted in the comments. If that’s not enough, nobody’s forcing you to read my posts. Nobody’s forcing you to comment. Everyone’s different, and if this isn’t the blog space for you, then I wish you all the best from the bottom of my heart in finding a space better matched to your needs. Welcome back to First Book Friday, where product freshness is guaranteed! Previous entries in the series are indexed here, and the submission guidelines are there. Karin Lowachee has been creating stories since kindergarten. Maybe earlier. Her most recent book is The Gaslight Dogs [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy], inspired in part by her time working with and living among the Inuit in northern Canada. You can find her on Twitter and Goodreads. #
Towards the end of my writing the novel, my friend CC Finlay forwarded me the information about a contest run by Warner Books for first novelists — the grand prize was a full-fledged publishing contract, and even more cool, it was being judged by Tim Powers (and Betsy Mitchell was the editor-in-chief at the time). I made a goal to finish Warchild for this contest and send it off — first a cover letter and the first 50 pages, just as you would to any agent or publisher. Weeks later they asked for the full novel, so I sent that off too. I’d made the first cut. Over the course of a few months I heard through the grapevine that it was ‘moving up the ranks.’ Then when I was working up in the Arctic, my sister called to tell me that I had received a letter from Warner Books — I had won. It was a surreal moment, I remember exactly standing in front of the couch and she was ecstatic on the other end of the line. My reactions to things tend to be more internal; I was jumping around on the inside, but outside I was just smiling like an idiot. Then I sat down on the couch. I probably said “YEAH!” once or twice, but that was it. I was just internalizing it all, letting the reality sink in … it took awhile. I don’t think I quite believed it until I actually talked to Betsy Mitchell on the phone, and then when I had a contract in hand. I kept assuming someone was going to say they’d reconsidered and it was going to someone else. But luckily I was wrong. (I still feel this way every time a book of mine is published; the disbelief doesn’t go away, frankly.) Warner Aspect was going to publish Warchild and Tim Powers was going to blurb it. I received all of my editorial comments and contacts while living up North, and it remains one of the best, most stressful, and interesting periods of my life. I will forever associate Warchild with the Arctic. The real work began long after the book contract, and it hasn’t stopped. The contest afforded me an opportunity to get my foot in the door, but as any writer will tell you, it’s a fight to produce work that will keep you in the room. Still, I’ll ever be grateful to Betsy Mitchell and Tim Powers for seeing something in my book, and for all the readers who responded to it in such a positive way. |
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Copyright © 2012 Jim C. Hines - All Rights Reserved |
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It’s two-for-one bookchat time, starting with The Princess Curse 
2/27/12 Update: I’ve gotten a final response from KDP Executive Customer Relations, which states that the price on my book was reduced because another retailer (Kobo) was selling it for $.99 at some point, “over the last couple months.” That would, I assume, be the issue referenced in the 6th paragraph below.
Tooth and Nail 
Opening Ceremonies: Last April, Howard Tayler (of 
The Panties: Oh yeah. Someone asked about that, didn’t they? As with many things, this is John Scalzi’s fault. He walked in on our D&D game to say hi, announced he was heading out to by underwear (he forgot his suitcase), and asked if anyone needed anything? Naturally, this led to various smart-ass remarks. I said I just wanted something pink and frilly. John returned an hour later… You can see my lacy XS thong in this pic of me and Kristine Smith. I also have a copy of John’s book, which he signed to me as his “thong buddy.” If I’d been thinking, I would have had us both sign the panties, then donated them to the archives at NIU along with my next batch of manuscripts and other papers.
Origami Yoda. I volunteered to play punching dummy for the Women in Combat panel, but nobody took me up on that 
It was a good panel anyway. And I’ve got to give a special shout-out of thanks to Scott Kennedy, my liaison/keeper/procurer of stuff.
I’d forgotten, you see, as a young child, to make my wish specific. Perhaps, at six or seven it hadn’t really occurred to me that non-fiction was written, just as much as fiction. I’d wished and won and my wish was not what I’d expected. I wrote my second book – and that one was a novel – while Ireland, Wales and England was in the press, and sent to off to a handful of British publishers, and failed to sell it (though the rejection letters were very nice). I wrote the third, too, and sent it out while I was working on my next research project (which is extant in various articles) and my second academic book (which is the one you really, really don’t want to read, as it’s a reference book of the most specific kind – A Handlist of the Acts of Native Welsh Rulers, 1132-1283). That book – third novel, equal third book – was Living With Ghosts 
My first novel, Warchild 
