The Gospels of Publishing

We start this service with a reading from The Book of Maass:

“…because some authors are now—voluntarily!—willing to bear the expense and undertake the effort of building an audience by themselves, print publishers have the luxury of culling the prize cattle from the herd. Even print-only distribution deals with a handful of successful e-published authors are terrific: easy pickings and effortless profit. Most authors are still knocking at the gate, too, since after all seventy percent of trade book sales are of print editions. In many ways these are good times for print publishers.”

“…the self-publishing movement has produced gold-rush hysteria in the writing community. While not exactly a mass delusion, questionable beliefs have been widely accepted. True believers sneer at doubters. So what is the real truth? High success at self-publishing has happened only for a few who have mastered the demanding business of online marketing. A larger, but still small, number of authors have achieved a modest replacement income from self-publishing. Growth from there will be hard for them, however, because wide print distribution still is needed.”

“…the position of the vast majority of self-publishing authors is no better than it ever was, though probably there are fewer cartons of books in their garages. Consultancy to self-publishers is a new job category, however, and that has to be good for the nation’s employment stats.”

And now, a reading from The Book of Konrath:

“…The royals vs. the peasants. The bourgeoisie vs. the proletariat. The establishment vs. the revolutionaries. The haves vs. the have-nots. The gatekeepers spouting bullshit vs. the new breed of writers calling them on their bullshit.“

“…for those countless midlist authors stuck with unconscionable contracts because they had no choice, and the multitude of authors kept out of the industry by gatekeepers such as yourself, it didn’t work. It actually sucked wheelbarrows full of ass. Your industry f***ed the majority of writers it provided services for. And that same industry was built on the sweat, tears, toil, and blood of those very writers it exploited.”

“…we talk to each other. We read each others’ contracts. We know how much we can earn on our own. And more and more of us believe the publishers you work for are, indeed, evil f**ks.”

#

The emphasis in the above excerpts was added by  me. I recommend reading the full posts if this is a conversation you’re interested in.

Personally, I find it frustrating and tiresome. Look, I’ve been the author who got crapped on by a major publisher, and I’ve been the author who got book deals in the mid five figures. I’ve hung out with New York Times bestselling authors. I’ve hung out with self-published authors who have moved hundreds of thousands of books. I’ve watched friends move from self-publishing to traditional publishing, and I’ve seen traditionally published authors move into self-publishing.

This whole Us vs. Them thing? It’s bullshit. Traditional publishing isn’t Evil. (Certain individuals within that system, well, that’s another blog post…) Self-publishing and e-books aren’t asteroids coming to wipe out the Dinosaurs. And there’s no One True Path to success as an author.

I’m doing rather well as a mostly traditionally published author, but I’ve had people come along to tell me how stupid I am for not self-publishing. They lay out math full of ridiculously flawed assumptions and generalizations to “prove” how much more I’d be making if I published my own e-books. It’s possible they might be right — maybe I would do even better — but it’s in no way a sure thing. They assume everything my agent and publisher do for me, either I could do just as well myself, or else it isn’t really necessary.

You see it from the other side too, the idea that self-publishing doesn’t count. I haven’t personally seen as much of this side, but I suspect I’d see it a lot more if I was a primarily self-published author.

You want “the real truth”? Here’s some truth for you.

  • There are authors doing ridiculously, amazingly well with traditional publishing.
  • There are authors doing incredibly, mind-blowingly well with self-publishing.
  • There aren’t a hell of a lot of people in either category.
  • Being a writer is hard work, no matter what path you choose.

It’s that last bit I want to stress. There are plenty of paths out there, which is wonderful, but it’s also nerve-wracking. Which way is the right way for me? What if I make the wrong choice? What if those people are right, and I really would be doing better if I’d self-published all of my stuff instead of going through a traditional publisher? What if I self-publish my stuff and nobody ever finds it?

I wonder if that anxiety is part of why so many people are quick to cling to that false Us vs. Them framework. Personally, I think Maass’ view of writers as cattle is insulting and ridiculous, but if I tell myself that he’s representative of all of Them, then clearly I’m on the side of Right by self-publishing. When I see a self-published author repeatedly spamming people online and desperately shoving self-promotional material into people’s hands at conventions, all to promote a book with a cover that looks like it was done in MS Paint, a part of me wants to cling to that as proof that I’m better off with my publisher. I have to remind myself that this isn’t The Awful Truth of self-publishing.

I love reading folks like Tobias Buckell and Chuck Wendig, or watching what the authors over at Book View Cafe have been up to. These are people who avoid the Us vs. Them trap, who admit there’s more than one way to succeed as a writer. They try different things, and they acknowledge different paths.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t read what Maass or Konrath have to say. Just don’t fall into the trap of believing there’s One True Path. We’re all figuring this out, and the path that’s worked for me might not be the right one for you. In fact, it probably isn’t, since mine started almost two decades ago.

Do your research. Learn about the different possibilities. And make your own path.

Cool Stuff Friday

If Friday was a superhero, who would it be?

Slush I Read (Rerun)

Between sick kids, writing-related work, and a few other things, I haven’t gotten the chance to do much original blog content this week. So it’s rerun time! This is something I wrote back in 2009, to the beat of Green Eggs and Ham. It’s dedicated to all of my long-suffering editor friends…

#

Slush I Read
by Jim C. Hines

(Apologies to Seuss)

I read slush.
Slush I read.

That slush I read.
That slush I read!
I do not like that slush I read.

Do you like fanfic with vamps?

I do not like them Mary Sue.
Why do these vamps all worship you?

Here’s a tale from D & D!

I do not want your D & D.
I do not like your elf PC.
I cannot stand your purple prose.
I want to punch you in the nose!

Would you like a hot sex scene?
I published it in my own ’zine!

I do not like your pervy tale.
Your metaphors make readers pale.
Your paragraphs are pages long.
Your bad sex scene is oh so wrong!
Can people do that with their lips???
I do not like your manuscripts.

This one is in Comic Sans!
My parents are my biggest fans.

That evil font we do not want!
My aching eyes, my weary sighs.
Why can’t you get the format right?
We post our guidelines in plain sight!
I will not read your 8-point type.
I want to bash you with a pipe!

Would you read this in the loo?
Let me slide it right to you!

I would not, could not, while I poo!

You just hate me ’cause I’m new!
I’m too original for you!

Too original you say?
This book is one absurd cliché!
It should not see the light of day.

I do not like your Marty Stus.
I do not like your crackhead muse.
Eve and Adam, Star Trek slash,
Tolkien ripoffs, pointless trash,
Prologues forty pages long,
Spelling every third word wrong.
I do not want to read this slush.
It’s all too much, my brain is mush!

Just one more story for today.
Soon I’ll clear this slush away.
No more vampires, I pray.

Wait–
This cover letter’s brief.
The format’s clean.  What a relief!

Say!
This story from the slush.
This story gives me such a rush.
These pages have a brilliant hook.
I want to read it in a book!
The wordcraft makes me start to swoon.
Is that the end? It came too soon!
I read it one time, two times, three!
It is so good, so good you see!

So I will read the slush again.
And wade through drafts by Twilight fen.
And I will read the pointless plots,
And tales of busty blonde sexbots.
And I will read your pissed off mail.
And I will read it without fail.
Yes I will read slush by the bale
So I can find that next great tale.

Codex Born Typo Hunt

The mass market paperback edition of Codex Born [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] comes out on August 5, 2014. I’m going through the page proofs now, which means I have the chance to fix any errors that might have slipped through in the hardcover release.

If you are one of those wonderful people who have already picked up a copy of the book (thank you!), and if you’ve stumbled across a typo or mistake, could you please let me know? As a way to say thank you, everyone who emails me about a typo they’ve found will be entered to win an autographed copy of Heroes in Training, the anthology I edited for DAW a while back.

DAW adjusted the cover a little bit for the paperback. And looking at the page proofs, if you add in the excerpt from Unbound in the back, the book comes to almost 400 pages.

And that reminds me, I need to email my editor about cover art ideas for Unbound. I’m thinking Isaac and Smudge riding a cyborg T. Rex over the Mackinac Bridge to battle an axe-wielding kaiju rising out of Lake Michigan. What do you think?

Call for Guest Blogs About Representation

2/2: The response to this post has been great, thank you! Unfortunately, that means I’m having to pick and choose. I’m doing my best to get a wide range of topics and writers. I’m keeping a few spots open to see what else comes in, but I think the roster is mostly full at this point.

#

This is a call for a handful of guest bloggers to talk about representation in fiction. Because it’s one thing for me to talk about this stuff, but let’s face it, it’s not exactly difficult for me to find characters like me in books, TV, movies, advertising, video games, etc. And there’s a painful irony when conversations about representation end up spotlighting some guy whose part of the most overrepresented group in the country.

I’d be looking for personal stories about what it’s like to not see yourself in stories, how powerful it is the first time you do, things like that. There’s no length requirement, though 400-1000 words is a pretty good range for blog posts. (I’m still amazed anyone read that 6000-word monster from earlier this week.)

As an example of what I’m hoping to help spotlight, here’s an excerpt from an interview with Nichelle Nichols talking about Whoopi Goldberg:

Whoopi Goldberg, she’s just marvelous. I had no way of knowing that she was a Star Trek fan. When I finally met her it was her first year on the Next Generation.

She loved the show so much and she told her agent she wants a role on Star Trek. Well agents go “Big screen, little screen, no, you can’t do that.” Well you can’t tell Whoopi “You can’t do that.”

And so they finally asked, and they had the same reaction at Star Trek office, specifically Gene. And she said, “I want to meet him and I want him to tell me to my face. If he tells me he doesn’t want me and why, I’ll be fine.”

Knowing Gene he had to take that challenge, and so he met with her. She said, “I just wanted you to tell me why you don’t want me in Star Trek.”

Gene said, “Well, I’ll just ask you one question and I’ll make my decision on that. You’re a big screen star, why do you want to be on a little screen, why do you want to be in Star Trek?”

And she looked at him and she said, “Well, it’s all Nichelle Nichols’ fault.”

That threw him, he said, “What do you mean?”

She said, “Well when I was nine years old Star Trek came on,” and she said, “I looked at it and I went screaming through the house, ‘Come here, mum, everybody, come quick, come quick, there’s a black lady on television and she ain’t no maid!'” And she said, “I knew right then and there I could be anything I wanted to be, and I want to be on Star Trek.”

And he said, “I’ll write you a role.”

ETA: It gets better.

Lupita Nyong’o, star of 12 Years a Slave,  credits Whoopi Goldberg for inspiring her to become an actress. (Thanks to pandoradeloeste for this.)

Please let me know if you’re interested. Give me a sense of what you’d want to write about. I want to showcase a range of different stories. I’ll be happy to include a bio and link to you online if you’d like, and if not, that’s fine too.

I’ve never done an open call like this, and I have no idea what the response will be like, so I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to publish everyone. But I’ll do the best I can.

If you have questions, please post them in the comments or send them to me directly.

Thanks.

Fiskception: Dissecting Correia’s Critique of MacFarlane

1/30: Comments are back on, in case there are points you feel you need to make that haven’t already been covered in the ~350 posted comments from yesterday. The goblins (and fire-spider) stayed away yesterday, but will be munching comments today as needed.

Hint: if you demean a human being’s gender or sexual preference by equating it to an attraction to animals or furniture? If you question the mental health of an individual who doesn’t fit into your narrow worldview? The goblins will eat your comment.

While we’re at it, I’ve noticed a few people responding to arguments from both me and Correia by basically saying, “Well, his books suck!” Can we not do that? Unless it’s directly relevant to the argument, it feels like a cheap shot, and doesn’t actually address what’s being discussed. So yeah, the goblins will be munching on off-topic book-bashing, too.

1/31: I don’t believe I actually have to say this, but telling someone that they, or people just like them, made Naziism what it was, will also get your comments fed to the goblins.

3/21: I’m closing comments for good. People have moved on to other arguments, and this post seems to be getting spam-bombed pretty heavily for some reason…

#

This is gonna be a long one.

The backstory: Author Alex Dally MacFarlane wrote an article called Post-Binary Gender in SF: An Introduction over at Tor.com, calling for “an end to the default of binary gender in science fiction stories.”

One week later, author Larry Correia wrote a response to MacFarlane’s piece, called Ending Binary Gender in Fiction, or How to Murder Your Writing Career. (Side note: you’ll probably want to avoid the comments on that one.)

I tried to ignore it. There’s no way I’m going to change Correia’s mind about this stuff, any more than his post changed my thinking. But of course, there are a lot of other people lurking and participating in the conversation, and while I know this is going to do bad things to my blood pressure, I think it’s a conversation worth having.

I’m following Correia’s general style here. My responses will be italicized. His original content is indented.

This was sent to me on Facebook the other day. I made some comments there, but then I got to thinking about it and decided this thing was such a good example of how modern sci-fi publishing has its head stuck up its ass that it really deserved its own blog post. My response is really directed toward the aspiring writers in the crowd who want to make a living as writers, but really it works for anybody who likes to read, or who is just tired of angsty emo bullshit.

I wonder which is more angsty … an author calling for our genre to move beyond binary gender, or another author spending 4000+ words about how people like MacFarlane are symbolic of everything that’s wrong with the genre, and are destroying fun.

Okay, aspiring author types, you will see lots of things like this, and part of you may think you need to incorporate these helpful suggestions into your work. After all, this is on Tor.com so it must be legit.  Just don’t. When you write with the goal of checking off boxes, it is usually crap. This article is great advice for writers who want to win awards but never actually be read by anyone.

I agree that if you’re writing a story with the kind of checklist Correia describes, you’re probably going to get a bad story. But what exactly are the suggestions Correia objects to? MacFarlane never says all writers must now include at least one non-binary character. She says only that she wants readers to be aware of non-binary texts, and wants writers to stop defaulting to them. Not that authors should never write cismale or cisfemale characters. Just be aware that there are other choices, and make conscious choices about your writing.

Now do yourself a favor and read the comments… I’ll wait… Yeah… You know how when my Sad Puppies posts talk about the “typical WorldCon voter”? Those comments are a good snapshot of one subtype right there.

From the comments to Correia’s piece:

  • “I am so tired of these pretentious twats. Err, dicks. Err… pre-op alternative genitals.”
  • “The hilarious thing is my books are filled with characters who are non-white, non-male, non-straight, occasionally trans and from a mixmaster of genetic and cultural backgrounds … But I don’t write books for leftist pussies so they’ve never read my books.”
  • “If this is the level of education of the typical WorldCon voter, it’s no wonder the GOOD writers don’t win awards. These loonies wouldn’t recognize good writing if Earl Harbinger yanked out their guts and used the intestines to piece out quotes from Jane Austen.”

Do we really want to start arguing about what one’s commenters say about one’s audience?

I also know from that Facebook thread that a lot of people tried to comment and disagree for various reasons, but their posts were deleted. (and some of them even swore that they were polite!). But like most modern lefty crusades, disagreement, in fact, anything less than cheerleading, is “intolerance” and won’t be tolerated. Meanwhile, my FB thread had lots of comments and an actual intelligent discussion of the pros and cons from both sides (and even transsexual communists who actually like to enjoy their fiction thought this Tor.com post was silly), so remember that the next time a snooty troll calls my fans a “right wing echo chamber.”

If Tor.com is deleting comments for disagreement, then that’s a serious problem. But skimming through the 100+ comments on the article, I find plenty that disagree with MacFarlane, or argue with what she’s saying. Tor.com does have a moderation policy, so I’d expect comments that violated that policy to get booted. Beyond that, I don’t know the details of the allegedly polite commenters who claim to have been booted for not cheerleading enough, so there’s not much more for me to say about this one.

ETA: I’m told one comment was deleted for stating that non-binary people are mentally ill, which would seem to violate #1, #2, and #4 on Tor.com’s moderation policy. There may have been other deletions, but this is the only one I’m aware of.

ETA2: One of the Tor.com moderators comments on the deletions here.

If you can’t stomach the comments long enough to hear what a typical WorldCon voter sounds like, let me paraphrase: “Fantastic! I’m so sick of people actually enjoying books that are fun! Let’s shove more message fiction down their throats! My cause comes before their enjoyment! Diversity! Gay polar bears are being murdered by greedy corporations! Only smart people who think correct thoughts like I do should read books and I won’t be happy until my genre dies a horrible death! Yay!”  (and if there is beeping noise in the background, that’s because they’re backing up their mobility scooter).

So let’s break this pile of Gender Studies 101 mush down into its component bits and see just why some sci-fi writers won’t be happy until their genre dies completely. Like my usual Fisking, the original article is in italics and my comments are in bold.

Because calling for an awareness that not all people fit into a simple binary gender system = KILL ALL THE SCIENCE FICTION!!!

In other news, I believe we should do something about racism in this country, which actually means I WANT TO DESTROY AMERICA!1!!!1!

More

Writing Income in More Detail

My 2013 writing income post brought up a number of good questions in the comments. And one odd question about my bedroom habits and whether or not I was a first-rate lover … but that might have been spam. Either way, I’m not going to address that one here. But I did want to talk about the rest.

First off, some relevant links:

And now, on to the questions.

“I’d be curious to see how the income breaks down over time across income types too: advance, d&a, residual…”

A lot depends on the contracts. Advances are often broken into multiple payments. For books three and four of the Magic ex Libris series, I get part of the advance on signing (once DAW has received and processed the signed contracts), part upon the delivery and acceptance (D&A) of the final, revised manuscript, and part on publication. I’ve gotten the on-signing money for books three and four, but that’s all so far. I’ve turned in the manuscript for Unbound, and once my editor gets back to me, I’ll do another revision. When that’s accepted, I’ll get the second portion of the advance (D&A) for that book.

How everything breaks down depends on the size of the advance, too. Say Author X is getting 90% of their money as royalties and only 10% as advance money. This could mean they have a very small advance. It could mean a big advance but the book sold a lot more copies than expected. It could mean a large backlist of titles that have earned out and are generating royalties. If someone never earns out and gets any royalties, does that mean their books don’t sell, or does it mean they got huge advances?

With that said…

  • All of my books have earned out their advances, with the exception of Codex Born. (And since Codex Born came out in August 2013, I haven’t seen a royalties statement yet, so it’s possible that one has also earned out. But I doubt it.)
  • I signed contracts for three new books in 2013, which means there’s a higher-than-normal proportion of on-signing advance money.

Here’s how the $55,000 or so of U.S. novel income (before taxes) breaks down for 2013.

“Is any of the variation due to publishers paying irregularly?”

DAW operates on six-month royalty periods, 1/1 – 6/30 and 7/1 – 12/31. Since most of my books have earned out their advances, this means I get royalty checks on a fairly regular and predictable twice/year schedule (usually around April and October). The payment process isn’t quick, by any means, but I haven’t had trouble getting paid by the major publishers. I’ve occasionally had smaller checks get delayed or forgotten, but in general, a nudge from either my agent or myself has been enough to shake those loose.

You listed your self-published income. How many titles have you self-published vs. your traditionally published work?

I’m primarily a traditionally published author. My nine fantasy novels are all in print from DAW Books.

I’ve self-published three short collections, which you can see at the bottom of my Bookstore page. I also self-published my non-genre novel Goldfish Dreams.

Given that the majority of my work is published by DAW and other major publishers, it should come as no surprise that most of my income is from those same sources. When those books go out of print with DAW, I certainly plan on self-publishing them myself in order to keep my backlist available.

Personally, I think the whole Self-Publishing vs. Traditional Publishing argument is rather silly, but that hasn’t stopped people from using my initial blog post to show why one side or the other is the Right way to publish. All I’ll say is that this way is working pretty well for me right now.

“How much of that upfront payment do you give away to taxes? If you were to make, say, $60K, would you lose 1/3? 1/2?”

The numbers I posted were pre-tax, which means a chunk of it will be going right back out.

Last year, I paid estimated quarterly taxes that totaled around $5000 (based on my 2012 income) against what I expected to make in 2013. I also have a pretty high deduction on my income from the day job, so some of that spills over to pay for taxes on the writing.

I honestly won’t know how much I’m paying in taxes until I get the rest of our W-2s. A bit of hunting around online for self-employment tax calculators suggests that for self-employment income of $60,000, I could expect to pay a total of about $8500 in federal taxes, and an unknown-but-smaller amount in state taxes. But so much depends on other factors, which means I honestly don’t know.

What about your agent’s cut?

The numbers I posted are after my agent takes his commission.

Why are your expenses so low? Are you forgetting to take some tax deductions?

I messed up a bit on this part, and I apologize for that. The expenses I listed were only those that I had dollar amounts for in my annual writing budget spreadsheet: hotel costs, postage, etc. They omitted things I don’t calculate until I start doing my taxes, like mileage or meal allowances. And I was indeed missing a few deductions — thank you to folks who pointed those out. I’ve always been a bit conservative about taking deductions, though I’m moving away from that.

Having started working on taxes, here’s a better accounting of my writing expenses for 2013, which come to a total of $6,861. Yeah, I really messed up the initial estimate there.

  • Mileage: 4,290, which comes to a mileage deduction of $2,424.
  • Meal Allowance: $2,517, of which I get to deduct half.
  • Parking, tolls, taxi, etc: $684
  • Website-related costs: $146
  • Postage: $241
  • Internet/wireless: $766
  • Other: $83

What exactly do you mean by foreign sales? Does your UK deal for Magic ex Libris count?

Good question. I was not counting the UK deal, in part because of how my contracts work. My agent negotiated a deal with DAW wherein DAW gets the rights to publish the books in English in the U.S. and Canada. DAW also gets certain other rights that they can sublicense, including things like putting them out in audio, selling them to a book club (in English), or licensing the UK edition to a UK publisher. I get paid when any of these things happen. As I understand it, these payments are usually applied against the advance, but since Libriomancer earned out pretty quickly, money for the book club, audio books, and UK deal just got bundled in to the royalties payment from DAW.

DAW did not get non-English rights, which means when we sold the Magic ex Libris books to Germany, for example, that deal was directly with me and my agent. When I get paid for those, the money comes from the German publisher to my agent and then to me, instead of going through DAW.

“Do you think your writing income would rise meaningfully if it were your sole job?”

Yes. I don’t know how much, but my hope is that I’d be able to consistently produce at least two books a year, as opposed to the one/year schedule I’ve been on for so long. If I could do that — especially if I could branch out a bit with some of those books — I think it would lead to a significant increase in the writing income.

Or maybe I’d just spend more time blogging and posting on Twitter.

Hopefully someday I’ll be able to put that to the test.

MarsCon Recap

I’ve recovered — more or less — from my Guest of Honor gig at MarsCon. This was my first time at MarsCon, and it was a great deal of fun. The fact that Virginia is significantly warmer than Michigan right now was a nice bonus. The hotel is located on an actual Civil War battle field, which was interesting, though I didn’t get the chance to get out and look around. I did go for a little walking tour of Colonial Williamsburg on Friday with the con’s YA Guest of Honor Carrie Ryan. (Who was delightful, by the way.)

Interesting note: Within 24 hours of arriving in Virginia, I had been called “sweetie” more times than in the rest of my life combined.

The convention was very well run, in my opinion. I had program info well in advance. Panels all had designated moderators. They turned the con suite into a castle/fairy forest to put all other con suites to shame. Everything I saw ran pretty smoothly, aside from one or two scheduling delays. Big props to the concom and the volunteers.

Friday morning, I hooked up the laptop and did an interview with the folks at Sword & Laser, which was interesting. Challenge #1: Trying to get a decent signal at the hotel. I may end up looking like an old 8-bit video game character. The second challenge was finding an angle that gave us a relatively neutral background while still letting me keep the laptop plugged into the network jack. I think I looked relatively normal on the screen. What you don’t see is the twisted angle of my lower body as I tried to contort myself into a position that wouldn’t yank cables free. (Fortunately, all of that cover posing has prepared me for JUST SUCH A CRISIS!) It was a lot of fun, despite a certain person trolling me with werejaguar questions, and I can’t wait to share it with you.

For the rest of the weekend, I got to MODERATE ALL THE PANELS! We talked about fairy tales (spoiler: Alethea Kontis IS fairy tales), humor (weasels!), writing female characters, and more. I also read most of my Frosty the snowman fanfic, which seemed to go over well. (If you were at the reading and wanted to know how the story ends, or you just want a copy of your own with which to traumatize small children, go here.)

There was a good-sized contingent of costumers, which was awesome. Stormtroopers and Mandalorians and Jareth & Sarah and lots of Doctors and much more, not to mention a steampunk Dalek and Marso the Martian. Yes, that’s right, MarsCon has its own mascot.

When is Penguicon going to get a life-sized penguin costume in SF uniform for the con?

The convention was also working to raise money for the humane society, which meant there were cats and dogs at the con along with humans and aliens. I approve. The charity auction shattered last year’s record, partly because they auctioned off a Dalek, but I prefer to think that the presence of Carrie and myself brought out everyone’s generosity and inspired ALL THE DONATIONS! She and I both donated books to the auction. Carrie’s set sold for $70. So when it was my turn, I stood up and told the crowd that I had to beat Carrie Ryan’s total!

My goblin trilogy sold for $69. Because MarsCon is full of smart-asses. (But seriously, that was a lot of fun, and I’m happy to see so much money come in for the puppies and kitties.)

And then before I knew it, it was time to come home.

All in all, a most excellent weekend. I got to meet and hang out with lots of cool people, and had a great time. Thank you, MarsCon!

Cool Stuff Friday

Hello, Friday.  Nice to see you again. What took you so long?

«< 110 111 112 113 114 >»