Google & Piracy

Over at SF Novelists, author David B. Coe has been talking about the response from Google’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, to proposed anti-piracy laws.

“If there is a law that requires DNSs to do X and it’s passed by both houses of congress and signed by the president of the United States and we disagree with it then we would still fight it,” he added. “If it’s a request the answer is we wouldn’t do it, if it’s a discussion we wouldn’t do it.”

Agent Richard Curtis says this is game over, calling it “a staggering and possibly fatal blow” to authors and publishers.

Really? Fatal in the same way that Napster and other file-sharing sites were fatal to the music industry? (Which, as we know, completely ceased to exist on July 13, 2001.)

Coe states unequivocally that piracy hurts an author’s numbers. “Only the most naïve observer could possibly think that piracy doesn’t hurt an author’s prospects for success.”

I guess I’m naïve. Or a “piracy-denier,” to use Coe’s terms. Because I don’t know. I’ve seen data to suggest that sometimes piracy helps overall sales, and I’ve seen other numbers suggesting it hurts. Finding unbiased data is a lot harder. I’ve spoken to individuals who’ve said they pirated one book and went on to legally purchase others. I’ve also seen the “fans” posting to sites asking where they can download the latest release from their favorite author, or boasting about getting an illegal copy of a book on release date.

I’m not saying I support people sharing and downloading my work without paying for it. For the most part, piracy pisses me off.

And my general feeling toward Google is unprintable. This is the company that decided they had the rights to scan and share any out-of-print book that they liked, in blatant violation of copyright law. They’re rallying to “freedom of speech,” but I seem to recall Google merrily censoring their search results for China… “Don’t be evil” my ass.

I don’t believe piracy is hurting me much right now, but I don’t know how that might change in the future. What happens in five or ten years, when a much larger portion of my readers are reading electronically? What happens as my work becomes more popular? (I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I see my German books popping up on pirate sites more frequently than my English work.)

DMCA feels like an endless, generally futile game of whack-a-mole, putting the burden on authors and publishers. Law enforcement, from what I’ve seen, rarely bothers to get involved until you’re talking about massive file-sharing operations, and even then international boundaries make it difficult to do anything about certain sites. We’ve seen from RIAA and the music industry that going after end users is a losing battle. I don’t know what the right answer is here.

I don’t like Google, but I don’t necessarily think that going after search engines instead of going after the file-sharing sites is the best way to go. Where does the responsibility lie? The site hosting the illegal files? (In that case, am I responsible if you post a plagiarized poem in the comments to this blog post?) The individual users who upload them? The search engine who links to them? The author who can’t be bothered to scour the net and send takedown notices?

I don’t have answers, but I think it’s a good conversation to have. I just wish we could have that conversation with more data and facts, and less “end of the world” hyperbole.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Reviewed by My Son (Age 6)

My son Jackson and I just finished reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, so I asked if he’d do a review I could share with my readers here. I asked some questions to help him along, but everything that follows (except my italicized comments) is his own words.

There are spoilers, but given that the book is more than a century old, I’m not going to worry about putting anything behind a cut.

#

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is about a girl named Dorothy who is carried by a tornado to the land of Oz and then meets a Scarecrow, a Cowardly Lion, and a Tin Woodman, and kills both the wicked witches. And then she has to get back to Kansas but it turns out that the Wizard of Oz, he isn’t even a  wizard! He’s just a humbug who was carried by a balloon when he was a balloonist.

What I don’t like is that the winged monkeys didn’t give a second chance to Dorothy (the second time she summoned them)  since they couldn’t go out of the Land of Oz. (Jackson is big on fairness.) And I don’t like the Hammer-head Slinky-neck guys, when they had to use their last time to call the monkeys. And I don’t like when the silver shoes come off in the desert, because then Dorothy can’t see Oz again!

Here’s what I did like. Okay, I like that they made the Lion the king of the beasts and I also like that the Wicked Witch that they were going to kill had all those guys, because then I found out that there were black bees! I liked the black bees because I used to not know that there were such things as black bees and now I found out.

I liked at the ending that Dorothy’s companions came to rule over them. The lion ruled over the beasts after he killed the spider thing, and the Scarecrow ruled over the land of Oz, and the Tin Woodman ruled over the Winkies.

There’s only one thing that surprised me — that the Hammer-Heads could shoot their heads out with their necks; they had Slinky-necks!

Oz helped me go to sleep because then I had other things to think about and see in my mind instead of scary things so I didn’t wake up and have to open my eyes … ! . (Punctuation dictated by Jackson.)

I like the book and the movie both, because in the book there were surprise chapters, and in the movie they gave her ruby slippers, and I liked the ruby slippers better than silver shoes.

I think everybody should read this book because it’s really fun.

First Book Friday: Deborah Ross

First Day Friday is back! Now with submission guidelines and an index of previous authors!

Today we have Deborah J. Ross (deborahjross on LJ), who published her first book as Deborah Wheeler. Her first pro short story sale was to Marion Zimmer Bradley for the very first issue of Sword & Sorceress. She’s been convention security, a preschool gym teacher, martial artist, bacteriologist, and much more.  (I love the way each of these jobs would be useful to the rest.)

Read on to learn how she sold her first book to DAW…

#

Jaydium [Amazon | B&N | BVC], my first novel to see print (as Deborah Wheeler), began as a few pages scribbled in a spiral-bound notebook while my first child attended swimming class. The idea for the “space ghost” in Chapter 5 came to me as a dream-image: a tunnel, dark and poorly lit, and the ghostly figure of a man. In itself, this is not particularly innovative. Usually, the figure is adrift in time or some cross-dimensional warp. The hero’s goal is to rescue him, to bring him into normal space/time. I wondered what would happen if such an attempt might have the opposite effect — to bring the rescuer into the world of the adrift-guy. A hundred rounds of “What If?” later, my rescuer had become a pair of unlikely allies, each with a different reason for being in the tunnel, and I sent them off on a series of displacements not only back in time but across alternate histories. I wanted something more at risk than just “not getting home.” What if getting home means something else happening, something really terrible that affects much more than just these few characters? What if the alternate future in which they don’t get home is the best one?

About the time I finished the first draft, I joined a writer’s workshop. They tore it to shreds. I went home and cried, and then set about learning everything they could teach me. Four revisions later, I sent off Jaydium to Sheila Gilbert at DAW. And waited. And wrote the next book. And researched agents. And sold a bunch of short stories to increasingly prestigious markets. And waited some more.

My family had the opportunity to spend 8 months in a furnished house in Lyons, France, an adventure too marvelous to pass up. For the first time since I’d started writing seriously, I had child care most of every week day, no day job, and very few other distractions. When I returned home, even though it was financially terrifying, I folded up my day job to focus on writing.

Three months after I returned home from France (I think it took DAW almost 2 1/2 years, so I wouldn’t want readers to get the mistaken impression that 3 months was a reasonable response time!), I got a call from my editor. “I’ve finished reading your book,” she said. “I love your work.”

Pause.

I squeaked, “Does this mean…” I’m going to sound sooo stupid if I’m wrong! “…you want to buy it?”

She laughed.

With very little oxygen reaching my brain, I stammered, “This is wonderful! I’m so glad you like it! I can’t think about numbers … you’ll have to discuss that with my agent.”

“Great. Have him call me.”

In stupefaction, I hung up the phone. What had I done? I didn’t have an agent! All I knew was not to commit to any contract specifics while in an altered state of consciousness.

I picked up the phone and dialed the agent at the top of my dream list. “I’ve just gotten an offer for my first novel,” I said. “I’ve heard wonderful things about you from Author A, Author B, and Author C. Could you … er, um … negotiate the contract for me?”

“Only if we establish agent-author representation. For all your books.”

“Oh. Yes, please.”

Then he laughed. Although I was delirious with joy, I was feeling a bit idiotic. Why was everyone laughing at me?

It turned out that those same authors had been telling him about me, and he’d been waiting until I had a finished book that he could represent. (He’s still my agent and I’m still with DAW.)

Art Quest and Oz

I have looked at so many fantasy art images this week that tiny dragons have burned themselves into my retinas. The original piece I had been looking at for the Kitemaster collection is by Jenna Vincent. Click the thumbnail for a larger view, and check out some of her other work while you’re there.

This pic doesn’t actually match the details of the story “Kitemaster,” but I think it captures the whimsical tone of the collection.

Sadly for me, this was a personal commission, and the rights weren’t available. But I wanted to link y’all to her site and this pic anyway, ’cause I like it.

I had been hoping to get the rights to use a completed piece, because I’m a cheap bastard and don’t have the budget most New York publishers do, but I’m also very picky. At this point, I’ve e-mailed another artist about doing a cover image on commission, and we’ll see what happens.

Once again, this process is giving me new reasons to appreciate my publisher. I’m sure they’ve got a Rolodex of potential artists ready to go, but taking the time to go through that list, match up the artist’s style to the book in question, negotiate the work … it’s more hours of behind-the-scene work that I don’t have to worry about, freeing me to do more important things like catch the season finales of Criminal Minds and Castle.

#

On a totally different note, I’ve been reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to my six-year-old, and he’s loving it. So am I. This is a big book for him, and I’m reading it from my iPhone, so there are no pictures. But we go through 2-3 chapters every night, and he’s already told me he wants to read the second book when we’re done.

(He was especially impressed when I mentioned that a friend of mine had actually written two three Oz books. That was much cooler than those goblin and princess books Daddy writes.)

I love that he’ll put the Nintendo DS down and hurry to get ready for bed so we can read. I love that he talks about the book, about the golden cap that controls the flying monkeys and the Tin Woodman’s heart and whether it would be better to have a brain or a heart. I love that his big sister stopped reading her own book last night to listen.

I want to say something like, “Behold the power of books,” but that would be cheesy. It’s true though. I don’t know how long it will last, but for now, we’re spending our evenings on the couch together, me reading and scrolling through the pages on my phone while he wiggles and squirms and listens, and it’s wonderful.

Diabetes Details 10: Peeves

Previous diabetes posts are available by clicking the diabetes tag.

For the most part, my diabetes is under control, and I don’t think about it much from day to day. I check my blood, drink diet instead of regular pop, and swap out the insulin pump every 2-3 days. It’s a serious disease, but doesn’t significantly interfere with my life.

That said, there are some annoyances…

1. Blood. I don’t mind testing my blood sugar, but when I change out the insulin pump, sometimes the site bleeds a tiny bit, and no matter how careful I am, I keep getting tiny smears of blood on my clothes. It happened again last night. I removed the old set and checked to see if that site was bleeding. It wasn’t. So I finished prepping the new infusion set for my pump, looked back, and there was a tiny smear of red on my shirt.

I swear my belly is taunting me. My blood cells are tiny Weeping Angels that only sneak out when I look away.

2. Insurance. This is not my U.S.-health-care-is-busted rant. But dealing with insurance companies can be annoying. Like when I was told they would no longer do 90-day supplies of insulin, and I’d have to go to 30-day supplies instead. Are you thinking I’ll suddenly stop being diabetic after a month, or just that it will be cheaper for you and the pharmacy to do all that paperwork once a month instead of once every three months? Then there was the time they switched providers for my pump supplies without telling me … or without mentioning that I had to call the new provider to give them my info, or else my supplies wouldn’t show up. D’oh!

In each case, I’ve been able to get things straightened out, and I’m grateful to have health coverage at all. That said, it irritates me every time I have to spend time clearing up stupid mistakes and miscommunications, or navigating nonsensical policies.

3. Food Police. One of my biggest peeves is other people deciding what I can and can’t eat. I know it’s usually well-intended, but please don’t. I can eat anything you can; I just need to take the right amount of insulin for it. I eat ice cream and cake and pizza and whatever else I want. I’ve chosen to stop drinking regular pop, and to eliminate a few things from my diet … but that’s my choice.

If you ask me whether I can eat or drink something, that’s great, and I appreciate the consideration. If you decide for me, I get irritated fast. Even when it’s well-intended, like bringing in brownies to work and saying, “I know you can’t have them, so I brought in a rice-cake for you!” I know my disease and my body better than you; I’ll decide what I should and shouldn’t eat.

4. Insulin Pump & Karate. I love having a pump. I’m getting a new one soon, actually. I love that I no longer have to take 6-7 shots per day.

I do not love the fact that I have to clip the thing to my belt in karate, or that I have to warn everyone I practice with not to hit my infusion site, or that the silly thing sometimes slides around my belt, so I have to make sure it hasn’t moved before I roll to the ground or something.

#

None of these are huge problems, and I’ll certainly take the peeves over the alternatives. But the disease comes with annoyances, even when it’s well-controlled, and since I hadn’t done a diabetes post in a while I figured I’d share.

Questions are very welcome, as always.

—
Insulin pump photo by Medtronic.

E-book Updates

Congratulations to bookblather, who won my last ARC of The Snow Queen’s Shadow [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy]. I went with random.org to pick a winner, because there were way too many clever, funny, and touching entries. My thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway.

#

In two months, Goblin Tales [Amazon | B&N | Lulu] has sold 193 copies on Amazon, 80 on Barnes & Noble, 30 through Lulu, and a handful on iBooks, Kobo, and Wizard’s Tower Press. So we’re looking at a total of between 300 and 400 books sold.

The commission on the print edition at Lulu is tiny, but even so, that means probably close to $700 for the book. At this point, it’s selling about one copy a day. Not huge, but that means $50-$60 each month if sales continue at that rate.

So as I mentioned yesterday, I’m planning to do two more collections. I’m thinking about doing six stories instead of five, and moving the price to $3.99. (Sixty-seven cents a story doesn’t seem unreasonable to me…) I don’t know that these will do quite as well as the goblin-themed collection, which tied directly into my published novels, but we’ll see.

The first collection is tentatively titled Kitemaster and Other Stories, and would include:

  • Kitemaster
  • Blade of the Bunny
  • Untrained Melody
  • Spell of the Sparrow
  • Over the Hill
  • The Creature in Your Neighborhood

The second is currently nameless, but would probably follow the same _____ and Other Stories pattern. For this one, I’m looking at:

  • Ours to Fight For
  • Sister of the Hedge
  • Deliverance
  • Heart of Ash
  • Bloodlines (Maybe)
  • Gift of the Kites (Maybe)

I’ve e-mailed an artist about cover art for Kitemaster, but haven’t heard back yet. (This happened with Goblin Tales, too — I contacted one artist and never got an answer. Very frustrating, though I’m delighted with what I got.) Ignoring my own advice, I may take a stab at cover layout myself, but if I can’t pull it off, I’ll hire a pro to do that for me. I’ll probably post cover drafts again so folks can offer feedback too, because that was incredibly helpful last time.

Things I’m thinking about doing differently this time around:

  • I may not do a print version. I know that will disappoint some people, but it was a lot of work to prepare Goblin Tales for print, and resulted in relatively few sales. I like print myself, and may eventually get to this, but it will not be a priority.
  • Possibly going through an aggregator instead of uploading to each site individually. But maybe not, since I’m a control freak.

I don’t have a schedule yet. Snow Queen comes out in exactly seven weeks, and I’ll be putting most of my energy into promoting that. So the collections may be closer to the end of the year. (On the other hand, knowing me, I might say they heck with it, dive in and obsess for a week or two, and get it done sooner…)

So that’s the plan. Any thoughts or advice? Love the idea? Hate the $3.99 price point? Are there stories you’d like to see reprinted that I didn’t include, or anything you’re particularly looking forward to?

Writing Excuses and Other Monday Bits

While at Penguicon, I was invited to be a guest on Writing Excuses with Howard Tayler and Brandon Sanderson. That episode is now live, so head over and listen to us talk about humor and parody and satire. And also baldness.

I had hoped to have something exciting and entertaining here for the throngs of people coming to visit from the Writing Excuses site. And then yesterday was taken over by a karate workshop, then a sick boy, then cleaning up the bathroom, then a weird hospital nightmare which I’m pretty sure had a cameo by zombie Darth Vader.

So … um … why don’t you check out a few rerun posts, like spork theory or apostrophe ninja or Neil Gaiman Facts?

#

I’ll probably pick a winner for the last Snow Queen ARC in the next day or so. If you haven’t entered yet and want to, now’s the time!

#

Given the moderate success of I am thinking about doing two more e-book collections. One would be a half-dozen of my lighter stories (including the werewolf muppets), and the other would be a similar number of my more serious work. Interested?

#

A week or so back, I was 20,000 words into draft 2 of Libriomancer. As of this weekend, I was 2000 words into draft 2.1. Oddly enough, this is progress…

#

And that’s all I’ve got. Hope y’all had a great weekend!

First Book Friday: Submission Guidelines

So far, all First Book Friday posts have been by invitation only. I’m continuing to send out invites, but I’ve also decided to try opening this feature up to submissions. If you’re interested in doing a FBF piece, here are the guidelines:

1. I’m looking for submissions from science fiction and fantasy authors who have published at least two novels professionally (which I’m arbitrarily defining as a publisher which paid an advance of at least $2000). Not because I hate self-publishing and small press, but because these are the stories I want to feature and explore here.

2. Submissions should be roughly 500-600 words, and should explore how you came to write and sell that first book.

3. You can query me beforehand, or you can write the thing and e-mail it to me. Please put “First Book Friday” in the subject line, and e-mail it to fbf@jimchines.com. (If you’re uncertain about anything, please send a query.)

4. Remember, you’re telling a story, not writing a commercial. (From what I’ve seen over the past year, a good story will end up selling a lot more of your books than a commercial does anyway.)

5. There’s no payment for FBF posts at this time. However, my blog generally gets 2000+ unique readers per day, most of whom are SF/F fans. I will write an introduction with links to your web site, and will include a pic and links to your first book.

6. You can request a specific date, but I make the final decisions on scheduling.

7. I reserve the right to reject submissions or ask for rewrites, based on my completely arbitrary ideas on what makes a good FBF post for my readers.

8. By submitting, you’re agreeing to give me first rights to publish your piece online, and the nonexclusive right to archive it in my blog. I.e., it can’t appear elsewhere before it goes up here, but once it does, you can repost or resell it wherever you’d like.

Any questions? Anything I missed in the guidelines? I’ll be updating these as needed once I see how things go.

Cover Art: Doing it Right

More authors are experimenting with electronic self-publishing these days. I want to point out two recent releases by friends of mine. Aerophilia, a short story by Tobias Buckell, and Fright Court, a serialized novel by Mindy Klasky.  Specifically, I want to point to the cover art.

 

I love these covers. Aerophilia’s was put together by Jenn Reese, Fright Court’s by Reece Notley. (I’m noting these names for my own use, since I’m toying with the idea of publishing a few more mini-collections of my own.)

ETA: Mindy was kind enough to share her own first draft of a cover. You can see that, along with Mindy’s comments, here.

Remember my post last week about making it look easy? I look at these covers and think, Hey, I could probably do that! Maybe not the artwork itself, but if I found a good stock image, I could slap it all together. Because it looks easy.

Then I remember doing it with Goblin Tales [Amazon | B&N | Lulu]. Big shock: it ain’t easy, and skill as a writer means squat when it comes to visual art or graphic design. I did get professional artwork for mine, and I’m proud of what I came up with, but I think both Klasky and Buckell ended up with better-looking covers.

I’ve heard people talk about covers that “look self-published.” I’ve used that phrasing myself, but I think it’s inaccurate. It’s not that so many covers look self-published; it’s that they look amateur. Amateur isn’t a dirty word, and it’s not an insult. It means the work was done by someone who’s not a professional.

My friend Stephen Leigh gave me permission to pick on him. He’s an author with DAW, and has been doing this far longer than me. He recently released his dark urban fantasy novel The Woods [Amazon | B&N] as an e-book, and did the cover art himself. He used the cover on the left first. After receiving some feedback, he reworked the cover and came up with the one on the right.

I think number two is a better cover — easier to read, clearer visuals — but it doesn’t have the professional vibe I get from Mindy’s or Toby’s.

All of which leads back to the myth that it’s quick and easy to self-publish. Well, it is … but it’s not quick or easy to do it well. Slow down. Either hire people to do the jobs you’re not skilled at, or take your time and do the work Cover art and design are just two steps in the overall process, and there’s a reason publishers hire professionals for most of those steps.

Discussion time — how much attention do you pay to “professional vs. amateur” cover art when browsing e-books? What sort of things make a cover look amateur to you? (For me, I’ll admit to having a bias against most digital art.) And does it really make sense to invest in professional cover art for a small self-published project, given that most such projects probably aren’t going to see huge sales?

PS, All three of the writers mentioned here are wonderful people, and you could do much worse than to check out their books!

Double-Facepalm (Jim’s Talking About Rape Again)

While at Penguicon, whenever I used my phone in the lobby, it would try to connect to the local wireless networks, which means I was routinely greeted with this screen:

I don’t know the story behind the network names. I overheard one rumor that “rape rape rape rape rape” was an official Penguicon network. When I e-mailed someone on Penguicon staff, I was told it probably wasn’t, but they weren’t 100% certain. I haven’t yet gotten confirmation one way or another.

My guess is that someone was trying to be edgy and provocative. As sometimes happens, they overshot “edgy” and landed squarely in the “asshole” category.

There will always be people who try to be shocking and fail. I suspect this wasn’t an official Penguicon network, and was instead just a random cry for attention. (Though if it turns out that it was an official Penguicon network, I think that may be the last time I attend this con.)

ETA: Randy Bradakis, who is on the Penguicon ConCom and Board left the following comment (with the disclaimer that he’s not speaking for Penguicon as a whole here):

I can state firmly that this was not created at the request of the Penguicon ConCom, and that there will be discussions about both the reasons that this is unacceptable and how we can be certain that it is not repeated. While it might, in some specific in-joke sort of way, have been amusing to the creators at whatever other location it was created for, it is not the sort of “joke” that should be part of the Penguicon environment.

There are plans for more specific network requests for next year, and I will make it my recommendation that we at least have someone at the ConCom level give specific instructions to the networking staff about the image we wish to present.

I want you to know that I am deeply sorry for any offense that this caused. At any and all levels of future convention running that I am involved, I will strive to keep the idea of a safe and comfortable environment foremost in everyone’s mind, and encourage this behavior in my fellow Con-runners as well.

#

On a similarly annoying note, I’ve been reading The Becoming by Jeanne Stein. Within the first chapter, our heroine Anna Strong is attacked and raped by the bad guy, who turns out to be a vampire. I almost stopped reading right there, due to the “Let’s use rape to get this story started!” approach, but I’m trying to read more urban fantasy as context for my own work-in-progress.

I’m now more than halfway through the book. The word rape has vanished, and Strong’s character has now begun to refer to the incident as when a vampire had sex with her. (In addition, while our heroine is female, so far every other significant character has been male … but that’s a different rant.)

Writing about rape is difficult, in no small part because everyone’s reaction is different. But when an author uses rape as a plot device to get the story moving, pulls out the “rape = sex” fallacy, and doesn’t seem to indicate any physical or emotional effects on the character (save becoming a vampire, naturally) … well, for me it puts the book squarely into the “Doing it Wrong” category.

#

Comments and discussion welcome, as always.

«< 165 166 167 168 169 >»