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I chatted with my editor a week or two back, and I’m hoping to get the final draft of Libriomancer finished today … which means all you get in the blog are a pair of links and some LEGO niftiness. Link the First: Today is the last day of Pat Rothfuss’ Worldbuilders fundraiser, which has raised more than a quarter of a million dollars this year. The list of signed books and other prizes is like Santa smashed open the pinata of fandom, and an endless waterfall of awesomeness began pouring out. Link the Second: The Con or Bust auction, which helps fans of color/non-white fans attend SFF conventions, begins on February 11 at 12:01 EST. Details here. Finally, I present to you the U. S. S. Reliant, in LEGO. (In the Mutara nebula, no less!) The only thing that could make this better would be a minifig of Ricardo Montalban holding a cute little plastic Ceti eel. This was built by Christer Nyberg, aka Myko. Click here or on the pic for the full photo set.
We’re back! Got home late last night, and began working through the backlog of e-mail and comments. It looks like folks enjoyed my trio of guest bloggers. Of course, the problem with bringing three very smart people in to do those posts is that now they’ve gone and raised the bar, and I’m gonna have to add at least 50% more cleverness to my own posts. But not today. Today is my catch-up day, including some of the links that went by last week…
I was supposed to have a guest post for Fantasy Matters, but I blew it. I’m still annoyed with myself about that one. I hate, hate, hate missing deadlines, and I love the FM folks. They invited me to be a guest back when they were an academic fantasy convention. That’s when I first got to meet Pat Rothfuss and Nnedi Okorafor and lots of other cool people. Oh, and I’m also on Google+ now, talking about things like lightsaber-wielding dinosaurs. As one does. I’ll probably do a Snow Queen’s Shadow discussion post this week. Any preference as to what day? I think that’s all for now. Normal blogging service shall resume soon. Hope everyone’s having a great weekend! I’ve got several authors who’ve agreed to write First Book Friday pieces for me, but none of them are ready yet, so today you get random link sausage instead.
A few links for your Saturday morning… Cat Valente on e-book pricing. C. E. Petit on the Google Books Settlement. A Dreamwidth post which talks about the politics behind the DDoS attacks on LiveJournal (via Sherwood Smith). Tobias Buckell on his first year of selling his e-published short fiction collection Tides from New Worlds. (Lots of data and graphs here.) Why your Self-Publishing Service Probably Didn’t Cheat You, from Writer Beware. And finally, Jim C. Hines’ Fundraiser for Rape Crisis Centers, which has raised more than $700 so far. If we pass $1000, I’ll pick one winner and give him/her a cameo in Libriomancer. The Lesson: iBooks will yank your e-book from the store if it contains any Amazon or B&N links. Good to know. The Links: Hal Duncan talks about segregation in fiction at the SFWA Blog. Via Writer Beware: Author who files charges over a bad review ends up being fined the equivalent of $11,000. I’m no lawyer, so I won’t claim to fully understand all of the details, but I believe the legalese translates to “Don’t be a dumbass.” Via theguindo: California’s proposal to eliminate library funding. Unfortunately, libraries seem to be a popular target these days. Confessions of a Slush Reader at Shimmer. “Slush readers are like lonely folks sitting at a singles bar: we came here to fall in love. The odds aren’t good because the goods are odd, as the old saying goes, but there is one truth—when we start reading your story, we want it to be beautiful.” 1. Alma Alexander has been chronicling the Rebirth of a Novel, publicly rewriting an old manuscript. She’s interspersing this with guest posts by various authors, including yours truly. I talk about how I got started writing, and even share two paragraphs of my very first (very bad) unpublished novel.
3. A question for anyone in Denver, Seattle, or Portland. My agent noticed that sales of the goblin books had spiked in these three regions, mostly in “nontraditional” venues. I’m told this usually indicates a few supermarket chains, and stores like Toys R Us and Starbucks. Has anyone out there seen Jig & crew popping up in Kroger or Fred Meyer or anything like that? We’re curious where those extra sales are coming from. 4. More on e-book pricing. One of the complaints that came up a lot in response to my e-book post was the ridiculousness of e-books costing more than hardcovers. Writer Beware explains why this happens. (Short version: it’s the effect of two competing sales models.) 1. A Michigan school is refusing to allow a transgender student to be homecoming king. Even though this student received the most votes, he is listed in the school’s records as female, and therefore the school administration says he is ineligible. Personally, I hope the school gets idiot-slapped for this. But I keep thinking to myself, those kids elected an openly transgender student as their homecoming king. I can’t imagine that happening when I was in high school 20 years ago. Change is a slow thing, but this gives me hope … for the kids, if not for the adults. 2. The Sorting Hat: Which Kind of Activist Are You? Yonmei’s piece explores the different approaches to confrontation and activism, and touches a bit on what I talked about in Anger vs. Reason. Only Yonmei uses Harry Potter references, and came up with a much more entertaining post. 3. Getting Published is Not a Crap Shoot. I’ve said this before, on many occasions. Writer Beware says the same thing. I take this as official proof that I’m right, so from now on, anyone who refers to publishing as a lottery, crap shoot, or any other gambling metaphor shall immediately be booted in the head. 4. Empire Strikes Back Chess Set, by icgetaway. Because it is awesome. This is a sequel to his Star Wars chess set, which I linked to a while back. Click the pic or link for the full photo set on Flickr.
“Tor.com is afraid of nothing. Except goblins. And Cthulhu.” And this is why the goblin series was published by DAW, not Tor :-) (Link and commentary from M’jit.) # SFWA has created a Sample DMCA Generator for authors, with instructions. “Legally, DMCA notices must come from the copyright owner or their legal representative, such as an agent, publisher, or literary executor. Since SFWA legally cannot act on behalf of anyone from whom we do not have specific permission for a specific infringement, we are instead providing a sample DMCA notice generator for use by authors…” # Maurice Broaddus on The PC Challenges of Being an Editor. “At no point did I worry about any sort of “PC testing” of my table of contents (will I have enough POC? Will there be any women?). That’s a ridiculous way to go about putting together an anthology. The other reason it was a non-worry? It’s not that difficult to produce a table of contents that has diversity. Now I’m not even talking about forcing the issue of diversity in a TOC. I’m saying that these days you have to almost go out of your way to produce an anthology without diversity.” # Finally, combining two great tastes that taste great together, have some LEGO steampunk. Click the pic for a close-up. This was created by V&A Steamworks. Click here for more of their LEGO steampunk creations.
Some links that have come up over the past few days… Writing and $$$ Realms of Fantasy Follow-up Just for Laughs |
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