Ebook Territorialism

First up, some links and friend-promo…

  • While I was at Worldcon, I had the pleasure of meeting Julia Rios and Sofia Samatar. Julia interviewed us for the Outer Alliance Podcast, talking about “Changing the Conversation” around things like diversity in fandom and at conventions. She also interviewed Nnedi Okorafor and her daughter Anyaugo, and spliced the whole thing together into a podcast you should all run out and listen to RIGHT NOW!
  • My friend Saladin Ahmed has self-published his first collection of short fiction. Engraved on the Eye [Amazon | B&N] collects eight of his short stories together in one easy-to-digest file. Rumors that these stories will cure ingrown toenails, warts, and goblin-breath have not yet been confirmed, but my brother’s sister’s roommate says she bought the book, and her pet monkey totally stopped flinging poop at the mailman.
  • Another friend, Violette Malan, also has a new book out. Shadowlands [Amazon | B&N] is sitting on my TBR pile, but because I’m the world’s slowest reader/reviewer, I haven’t gotten to it yet. So please take this as a temporary “placeholder” blurb. “If my house was on fire and I could only save my kids or this book, I’d save my kids. But I’d be REALLY REALLY SAD about leaving this book behind!!!” -Jim C. Hines

Okay, now on to the meaty bits of the post. (For those who are wondering, the podcast was the mashed potatoes, and the books are cookies and ice cream, respectively. Yeah, I don’t always eat terribly healthy meals…)

I’ve seen a number of unhappy comments about the e-book of Libriomancer [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] being unavailable in other countries. This frustrates me too, since in my perfect world, everyone who wanted to read the book would be able to do so. (Also, my perfect world would have six seasons of Firefly and zero-carb hot fudge sundaes.)

It’s doubly annoying since there are ways to get the print edition in other countries. (See Book Depository, which has free worldwide shipping.) If they can ship a hardcover anywhere in the world, what’s so hard about sending an electronic file?

The short answer is that it’s all about territories. I sold North American rights to Libriomancer to DAW, who published the book in English in the U.S. and Canada. We sold German rights to a publisher in Germany. In some cases, the author sells worldwide rights to their publisher, and the publisher then sublicenses the book to other publishers in other territories.

There are some advantages to breaking Publishingland into territories. For example, it turns out not everyone speaks English, and even those who do sometimes speak/read a different style of English. (Violette always insists on wedging an extra “u” into every other word when she emails me.) So territories allow publishers to tailor their books to their audience’s linguistic preferences, as well as changing cover art where appropriate. I imagine shipping and distribution also played a part in the development of these borders.

And then, along come e-books into a world built for print. Ebook and print rights are pretty much bound together. (I.e., I can’t sell DAW the North American print rights but also give them worldwide electronic rights.) I suspect there’s also fear about undercutting other markets. Thus the sale 0f e-books gets restricted in the same way as the print.

So why can Book Depository sell print books anywhere in the world but a similar company can’t do the same with e-books?

I don’t know. I’m hoping smarter people will jump into the discussion to clarify this point. I’ve read one theory that it’s all about point of sale. Book Depository sells physical books that they have in stock here in the U.S. That sale is considered to have taken place in the U.S., and thus everything’s nice and happy. With e-book sales, there’s no physical stock. Point of sale is the end user’s computer, and if the user isn’t in the U.S., then those territorial restrictions come into play.

ETA: Someone pointed out that Book Depository was a U.K. company, not a U.S. one. Sorry about that!

Like I said, I’m fuzzy on this one, and I hope someone else can help me out.

This will all continue to evolve, but I recognize that it’s incredibly frustrating in the meantime. I wouldn’t mind seeing a shift toward selling language-specific rights instead of territory-specific, but there might be drawbacks to that model too. What I can tell you is…

  • Authors want to be able to sell you books as much as you want to be able to buy them!
  • Self-publishing isn’t necessarily much better in this area. (I’ve got three self-published collections. I selected worldwide distribution, but Amazon and the other online retailers still restrict sales by territory.)
  • This is one of those areas where authors have very little control. (I.e., please don’t yell at us about this one!)

I’d also recommend Seanan McGuire’s post on the same issues and this comment from Patrick Nielsen Hayden over at Scalzi’s blog.

Discussion is welcome, as always.

Goblins on a Hugo

First off, a quick announcement. The Stepsister Scheme is now available from Audible.com as an audio book. The rest of the princess series will be getting the audio treatment as well, but I don’t have the release dates for the other books.

Earlier this year, I said that if I actually won a Hugo, I’d have to pose my goblins with it. I also did a back-and-forth dialogue in which the goblins talked about taking their shiny rocket to the moon and dropping moon rocks on the humans from their lunar goblin colony.

Tonight I finally found our digital camera, and voila! I give you: Goblins on a Hugo.

I had a plan if I lost, too. You see, all of the nominees get a Hugo pin…

Crap People Say About Sexual Harassment

From various posts and conversations around the internet…

“If you obviously can’t handle the social interactions at an SF Book con, then perhaps you need to seek some education … I suggest that you never, ever leave the confines of white, educated middle class North American society. In Nigeria and Saudi Arabia they take people like you and kill them with rocks.”

  1. The assumption that “people like you” are treated even worse in some other part of the world does not mean you should just shut up and accept how you’re treated here.
  2. If we’re taking “people like you” to mean “women,” then guess what — white, middle class North Americans kill an obscene number of women too.
  3. I suppose harassment and even assault could technically be defined as “social interactions,” but trying to normalize this kind of behavior and suggest that anyone who isn’t tough enough to take it should just stay away? Yeah, bite me.

“…during my freshman year in college, I knew two women who’d been raped, and a third who was probably raped but was too drunk to know for sure (that was in a fraternity basement).  At the same time, I never heard about a woman being raped at a con.”

  1. See response 1, above. The fact that you perceive things to have been worse at your college does not, by definition, mean that things at a con are all fine and dandy.
  2. The fact that you’ve never heard of a woman being raped at a con does not mean it’s never happened. (It may just mean you’re not paying attention.)

“There are several Learning Disorders and Behavior Disorders that affect a man’s ability to understand body language … Some guys are just creeps but some have a true social disorder.”

  1. I should ask my therapist about this one, because I’m very curious what kind of social disorder causes a man to:
    • Selectively target women to invade their personal space and touch them without permission.
    • Ignore verbal boundaries set by women, but pick up on the unstated message right away when a man steps in to “protect” the woman.
    • Maintain socially normal relationships with men and with women who aren’t in his “target” demographic.
  2. See Rose Lemberg’s post “Enough with the Aspie Bit Already!”

“Is flirting at cons now forbidden? When does flirting become harassment?”

  1. Things people should have learned in kindergarten:
    • Respect.
    • Keep your hands to yourself.
    • No means no.
  2. If you seriously can’t tell the difference between flirting and harassment, I strongly suggest you do neither until you’ve worked that out.

“Is a convention committee obligated to provide a Utopian space throughout the convention? Should the convention committee have some sort of thought and action police, empowered to pull badges at the merest whisper of complaint?”

  1. No. Which is why nobody’s asking for this.
  2. Does anyone else think that equating a space where there are rules against harassment, and those rules are enforced to some kind of impossible Utopia is just depressing as hell?

“Their eagerness to see and punish harassment worries and befuddles me.”

  1. And your eagerness to ignore and accept harassment terrifies me.

The Kingdom of Gods, by N. K. Jemisin

The Kingdom of Gods [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] is the third and final book in N. K. Jemisin‘s Inheritance Trilogy.

I read and very much enjoyed the first two books, and reviewed The Broken Kingdoms here. Jemisin has chosen to focus on different characters in each book, though there are narrative threads and characters connecting all three. In the final book, we see the social consequences of the changes from the first two, as the ruling Arameri family begins to lose their absolute power over the world, a world that has some complaints over how they’ve been treated.

This one is narrated by the godling Sieh, who was one of my favorites from the earlier books. He’s an unapologetic child, complete with playfulness, petulance, pranks, and more. In this book, he stumbles upon a pair of Arameri children, plays with them, debates killing them, and instead grants them friendship … and that’s where everything goes wrong.

Sieh begins to turn mortal. He ages. The further he gets from childhood, the more of his power he loses. He’s forced to survive as a mortal, eventually finding a role as a messenger/spy in the developing conflict with the Arameri, a conflict which reveals a new kind of magic and new players from Sieh’s own past … which I can’t really get into without spoiling things.

It’s hard wrapping up a series, and Jemisin aimed high with this one, pulling together mythological plotlines and changes that affect the entire world she’s built up. While I felt like there were rough patches in terms of plot and pacing, I prefer a book that aims high and occasionally stumbles to one that aims for mediocre and succeeds.

I think my biggest problem was lack of information. We don’t find out what’s really happening with Sieh until pretty much the last page. There were other aspects where it felt like the mystery stretched on too long as well, and it’s harder to stay invested when I don’t understand what’s going on.

That said, I still enjoyed the book. I really like the eventual ending with Sieh, and I love that Jemisin allowed her world and her characters to change so much. I like Sieh’s character, his so-human mischievous side as well as the divine side that’s both curse and blessing. I very much appreciate Jemisin’s matter-of-fact approach to Sieh’s sexuality as well, and the relationship he develops throughout the book. And I like that she doesn’t shy away from the darker side of war and politics, both on a global scale and a personal one.

Finally, the glossary in the back is AWESOME!!!, thanks to some creative annotations by Sieh.

I recommend everyone should at least read The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms [B&N | Mysterious Galaxy | Amazon], the first book in the trilogy. If you enjoyed that, you should definitely read the rest. Even if the final book isn’t perfect (and what book is?), it’s an impressive work of writing, and an ambitious end to an ambitious trilogy.

For those of you who’ve read it, what did you think?

Darkbeast Guest Post and Giveaway

I’m off doing Guest of Honor stuff at Northern Michigan Anime Con this weekend, so I turned the blog over to my friend Morgan Keyes to talk about her new book, and how she transitioned from writing more adult books as Mindy Klasky to a middle-grade novelist with a spiffy new pseudonym.

Also, she’s giving away a free book, which is always cool.

You can read an excerpt from Darkbeast on her website.

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Many thanks to Jim for allowing me to visit here and tell you about my middle grade fantasy novel, Darkbeast.  Due to the generosity of my publisher, Simon & Schuster, I will give away a copy of Darkbeast to one commenter, chosen at random from all the comments made to this post by 11:59 p.m. EDT tonight.

In Darkbeast, twelve-year-old Keara runs away from home rather than sacrifice Caw, the raven darkbeast that she has been magically bound to all her life.  Pursued by Inquisitors who would punish her for heresy, Keara joins a performing troupe of Travelers and tries to find a safe haven for herself and her companion.

Before writing Darkbeast, I published sixteen novels in a variety of genres, ranging from traditional fantasy for adults, supernatural chicklit, light paranormal romance, and traditional category romance.  (Those last couple of books – spicier than I was comfortable having my mother read – are the reason that Darkbeast is published under a pen name!)

For the past several years, though, I’d felt a pull from “The Darkbeast”, a short story that I wrote for the anthology Fantastic Companions, edited by Julie Czerneda.  In a couple of thousand words, I’d built a world that I longed to return to.  I wanted to learn more about darkbeasts, about how they worked as scapegoats for their people, about what happened to rebels who struck out on their own in a society controlled by religion.

The novel Darkbeast started out as a story for and about young adults, teenagers who had a fair degree of autonomy.  But as I wrote the novel, I realized that more interesting questions were posed when rights and power were taken away.  I wanted Keara to be most vulnerable, to be faced with tough decisions and even more difficult social restrictions.

And so, Darkbeast became a middle grade novel.

In many ways, that transition was destined from my first days as a speculative fiction writer.  As a child, I always enjoyed reading, but I hit my speculative stride in middle school.  I discovered A Wrinkle in Time and the Narnia series, The Hobbit and the Deryni.  I role-played my favorite characters (although I wouldn’t have known that term if you’d asked me), and I wrote my first fanfic (ditto).

Middle grade reading was magical for me, and now I wanted to share that magic with others.  I wanted to give young readers that feeling of escape, that urge to stay up late reading under the covers, that desire to create new stories that lived on in the light of day.

At the same time, I wasn’t willing to give up complex characters and difficult moral choices.  I definitely wasn’t willing to dumb down my vocabulary.  I learned about people and ethics and language from the reading I did in middle school; there’s no reason not to give today’s children the same keys to their world.

And so Keara became twelve.  And a pen name was chosen.  And Darkbeast has been released into the world.

When did you first discover a love of reading?  Do the plots and themes of those treasured books still inspire you?

Morgan can be found online at Facebook and her website.

Darkbeast is for sale in bricks-and-mortar and online bookstores, including:  Amazon | B & N | Indiebound

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Morgan Keyes grew up in California, Texas, Georgia, and Minnesota, accompanied by parents, a brother, a dog, and a cat.  Also, there were books.  Lots and lots of books.  Morgan now lives near Washington, D.C.  In between trips to the Natural History Museum and the National Gallery of Art, she reads, travels, reads, writes, reads, cooks, reads, wrestles with cats, and reads.  Because there are still books.  Lots and lots of books.

On Being Blown Off

Maybe it was the number of people, but I’ve heard or read more stories about people feeling blown off at Worldcon than just about any other con I can remember.

You know how it is. You’re sitting there in a group, when along comes Big Name Author Robert J. J. Muttonchops. Bob to his friends. He says hi to the person on your left, grins and jokes with the person on your right, glances at your name badge, and then wanders off without saying a word to you.

Your friends may or may not even notice your newfound powers of selective invisibility, but you’re left wondering what the hell just happened.

It’s not something that happens to me very often these days. I know that sounds a little egotistical, but it’s also the reality of being a moderately successful author and blogger. Anyway, after several of these conversations at Worldcon, I started watching for the blow-off. And damn if I didn’t start seeing it happen.

And then I got to wondering if I had done the same thing to people.

It’s possible. There were a lot of people I wanted to say hi to, and for much of the weekend I was running around in high gear, barely stopping for breath. On top of that, my social skills and my ability to fake extroversion are inversely proportional to the number of people in the immediate group.

What I can say is that if I blew you off, I didn’t do so intentionally. There are only two people I would have deliberately brushed off or ignored at this con, and happily, I didn’t run into either one.

If I did do something to make you feel blown off or unimportant, I apologize. I’ve been there, and it sucks. Thirteen years later, I still remember the annoyed brush-off I received from one Big Name Author who clearly had more important things to do with his time.

I know there are people out there who check name badges to determine whether someone is worthy of their time. (Me, I check name badges because I suck at names.) I don’t get that. Partly because whether or not you’re famous in the SF/F community has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not you’d be an interesting person to talk to. Heck, if you’re only there to figure out how to get ahead and what “important” people you can use to boost your career, I probably don’t want to talk to you anyway.

But even if you’re being That Guy, it’s a stupid strategy — the person you shun today could be next year’s hot new author, or could be running that big convention you’re hoping to attend.

Sometimes it’s accidental. In the rush to see old friends or talk to a writing buddy about the business, it’s easy to focus only on the people you already know, and to exclude those you don’t. I’ve probably done this before, which can make people feel shut out. I apologize if I’ve done it to you.

I do think sometimes we mistake the unintentional brush-off for deliberate dismissal. But speaking as an author and HUGO-AWARD WINNING BLOGGER (sorry – the squee is still slipping out occasionally), I also think it’s on me to be more aware of how easy it is to make someone feel blown off, and to try harder to avoid doing that.

What do you think?

Hugo Speech

Jim’s brain is currently experiencing technical difficulties as a result of five awesome days of Worldcon, which culminated in winning a freaking Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer!

Normal mental service should resume shortly. In the meantime, please enjoy this transcript of Jim’s speech. (We’ve removed all of the nervous pauses and stumbles for ease of reading.)

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Growing up, I was never what you’d call one of the “popular kids.” Shocking, I know. It turns out that sewing a Star Trek patch onto your jean jacket is not the best way to get in with the cool crowd.

It wasn’t until I was almost thirty years old that I finally discovered fandom, first through conventions, and then online.

It felt like home. Like any home, ours isn’t perfect, but this was a community where I could geek out about the things I loved, and people would jump in to say, “Me too!” I feel so fortunate to be a part of that community, to participate and learn and explore and hopefully, from time to time, to contribute.

There are so many brilliant and wonderful fan writers out there. I don’t know if there are enough rocket trophies in the world to recognize everyone who’s written passionate, insightful, clever, funny, and flat-out awesome articles and essays about our community. But I’d love to see us honor as many of those diverse voices as we can, and for that reason, I’ll be recusing myself from the Fan Writer category from here on out to make space for those other deserving writers.

Thank you. Thank you to fandom for welcoming me, and special thanks to my family back in Michigan, who tolerate Daddy spending way too much time on the computer.

How Isaac Met Smudge

Note: Edited to fix the link.

A while back, Literary Escapism invited me to participate in their School’s In feature, which has authors writing school-related snippets for their characters. I decided to put together a bit that showed the first time Isaac Vainio from Libriomancer met Smudge the fire-spider.

I might tweak a few details if I incorporate this into one of the Magic ex Libris books or a related short story, but the gist of that first meeting is at http://www.literaryescapism.com/30530/schools-in-jim-c-hines-isaac-vainio.

Enjoy!

Off to Chicon

Our internet is fixed! Just in time for me to leave the state tomorrow morning for Worldcon. I’m reposting my schedule here, mostly so I can find it this weekend when I manage to confuse myself.

  • 8/30, 5:30 p.m., Dusable – Reading (Any requests? I’ll probably do something from Libriomancer, but I’m willing to reconsider. I read the Muppet Werewolf story at WFC a few years back, otherwise I’d do that one.)
  • 8/31, 10 a.m. – Noon – Writers Workshop (Preregistered attendees only)
  • 9/1, 9:00 a.m., Comiskey – SFWA Business Meeting
  • 9/1, 10:30 a.m. – Noon, Columbus IJ – The Art of the Cover Pose (Jim C. Hines, Karen Haber, Steven Vincent Johnson, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Yanni Kuznia)
  • 9/1, Noon – 1:30 p.m., Autograph Tables – Autographing (Charles Justiz, James Kahn, Jim C. Hines, Joan Slonczewski, Lee Martindale, Mary Robinette Kowal, Nancy Fulda, Robert Reed, Tony Pi)
  • 9/2, 6:00 p.m. – ??? – Hugo Reception/Ceremony/Loser’s Party – In which Jim will wear … a suit! Just like a real grown-up! The ceremony begins at 8:00 p.m. Central Time. There should be live video here.

I’m looking forward to seeing everyone! If you’re a regular reader/commenter, please say hi if you have a moment! (And if your real name doesn’t match your online handle, please throw me a bone and tell me who you are. I can barely remember my own name at these things.)

I’ll probably be posting random Worldcon-related miscellany on Twitter, and maybe Facebook.

Other things while I’m thinking about it…

Anton Strout’s book Alchemystic [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] comes out September 25. He and Penguin are donating $2 per preorder, up to $3000, to Worldbuilders. Details are on Pat Rothfuss’ blog.

Morgan Keyes has a new book out called Darkbeast [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy], which sounds like a lot of fun. I’m hoping to have a guest blog post from her soon.

Finally, LEGO: The Piece of Resistance is a live-action and CGI LEGO movie, currently in development. It’s just been announced that they’ll be turning Morgan Freeman and Elizabeth Banks into minifigs for the film. The movie will also have Superman and Batman sharing the screen. (In minifig form, naturally.) I believe this is the point where I say SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!!!

Internet Brownout

We lost our internet connection at home this weekend. I’m working to get this fixed, but in the meantime, email and such will be more sporadic than usual. I’m still seeing incoming email on the phone, but things like writing big ol’ blog entries or responses that require more than one or two sentences are going to be difficult until we get that up and running again.

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