Penguin’s Book Country

Disclaimer: My books are published by DAW, which has a distribution agreement through Penguin.

A few weeks ago, Penguin launched a site called Book Country. From an article in the New York Times, Book Country:

“…will allow writers to post their own work … and receive critiques from other users, who can comment on points like character development, pacing and dialogue.”

So far, so good, right? It sounds like the site was launched with the best of intentions, to help writers improve their craft and learn about the business. But keep reading, and you get to this quote. “Penguin hopes the site will attract agents, editors and publishers scouting for new talent…”

Good luck with that. Writer Beware wrote about manuscript display sites back in 2006.

“They were touted as writers’ Great New Hope: a brand-new cyberspace opportunity to bypass publishers’ closed-door policies and agents’ huge slush piles. Agents and editors, the sites declared, would be eager to visit a venue where manuscripts were pre-sorted into easily-searchable categories and genres, where submissions were pre-screened for quality…”

Repeat after me: there are no shortcuts. Of all the authors I’ve featured on First Book Friday, not one sold their first book via a manuscript display site. It almost makes you think agents and editors already have more submissions and queries than they can handle, and don’t need to spend their free time surfing display sites and hunting the Next Big Thing.

Even Penguin admits their staff won’t be searching the site for new authors. From the FAQ, Book Country “is not a channel for the submission of unsolicited manuscripts to Penguin editors.” Yet discoverability is pushed as a selling point to bring new writers in. “Our members include published authors and industry professionals. You never know who might discover your work.”

You never know who’ll discover your work if you leave your manuscript in a public restroom either. That doesn’t make it a smart strategy.

Book Country does offer critiques from other writers, articles and advice from professionals, and discussion forums, all backed by a major publisher. It costs nothing to join. These are all good things. Former agent Colleen Lindsay has been helping to get Book Country off the ground, which I think adds to their credibility. ETA: Colleen pointed to this link for background on the three full-time employees working on Book Country.

But then you get to the self-publishing angle. From the About Us page, “Later this year, Book Country will offer a convenient and affordable way to self-publish eBooks and print books.”

I’m going to quote a different Writer Beware article from back when Harlequin, another major publisher, started up a self-publishing service.

“I don’t for one teeny tiny second believe that discovering new writers, or giving them a chance to ‘begin their legacies’ or ‘reach the stars,’ plays a major part here. That’s just a marketing pitch. This is about money. Now more than ever, commercial publishers need to shore up their bottom lines–and adding self-publishing divisions is an easy and profitable way to do so.”

Book Country is targeted squarely at writers. Not editors, not agents, and not readers. By itself, this isn’t a bad thing … but publishing is a business, and it’s pretty clear where Penguin hopes to make back their investment.

There’s a lot of good stuff here. I see articles from Supereditor Ellen Datlow, Lou Anders of Pyr, Colleen Lindsay, and more. Online critique groups can be helpful too. If you go in expecting some helpful articles and feedback from other amateur writers, you probably won’t be disappointed.

But don’t go in looking for shortcuts or that big break.

Has anyone here been involved in Book Country? Submitted or critiqued any work, or interacted with folks on the site? Discussion, debate, and more info are welcome, as always.

Off to the Land of the Spartans

No big post today. I’m off to watch my wife receive her Master of Social Work degree!

So talk among yourselves. Any books or projects you’d like to plug? Movies you’re looking forward to? Books you can’t wait to read that come out on July 5? 😉

Making it Look Easy

I was feeling a bit … let’s call it “feisty” … at some of the panels this weekend. I found myself jumping in to argue with several of my fellow panelists. (But only when they were wrong, of course!)

During the humor panel, it was put forth as a truism that you can’t force humor. It must come naturally. Organically.

I would like to point out that passing a kidney stone is also an organic process.

So I got feisty. Because you can force humor and make it work. You know who does it all the time? Professional humorists. Howard Tayler (of Schlock Mercenary) was in the audience, and we chatted a bit after the panel. SchlockHoward has been producing a daily webcomic since June of 2000. Not because Schlock flows organically from his–

Ack. Very Bad Image. Strike that.

The point is, I guarantee there are days Howard doesn’t feel funny, and doesn’t want to work on the comic. But he does the work anyway.

As I write this post, it also occurs to me that of the panelist who said you can’t force funny and Howard in the audience who in fact does exactly that, only one of these two people currently makes a living from their humor.

I’m not trying to bash my fellow panelist here. I disagree with them, but I understand where their assumption comes from. Because while you can force humor, that humor will fail if it feels forced. We’ve all seen the guy who tries too hard to tell a joke and ends up flopping. Heck, I’ve been that guy more times than I like to think about.

One sign of skill is the ability to make it look easy. I watched Jef Mallett draw his character Frazz last month. He sketched a bit, then began inking lines, making it look so easy and natural I’m sure a lot of us were thinking, “Hey, I could do that!”

And maybe I could. With years of practice and work.

Ask a professional comedian how many times they’ve practiced their routine. Ask them how often they bounce jokes past other comedians to learn what to keep, what to change, and what to discard.

I think this one pushed my buttons so hard because not only do I disagree, but I’ve heard similar claims about writing. “You can’t force the writing to come.” “The story has to flow naturally, when the muse is ready.”

Well, my muse is ready every Monday through Friday at 12:00 sharp, because that’s the only time I’ve got. Some days I don’t feel like writing, but I force myself to do it. As a result, I’ve written at least one book a year for close to a decade now.

And you know, there are some damn funny bits in those books, too.

Comic: After the Con

I know not everyone is going to get this one … but my guess is that most folks on the con circuit will understand both the joke and the situation.

Note #1: Yes, I am still employed.

Note #2: For those of you who don’t get it but want to, please click here for a summary of this particular internet meme.

Post-Penguicon

The final tally from the rape crisis center fundraiser was $1553. My thanks to everyone who donated. Congratulations to Maria Lima, who won the ARC of Snow Queen’s Shadow. I’ll be notifying the other three winners in the next day or so.

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Each year, Brenda Novak runs an auction to raise money for diabetes research. Her efforts passed the one million dollar mark last year, and she’s still going strong. My contribution to this year’s auction is a critique of a short story or the first chapter of a novel. The auction runs through the end of the month, and you can bid here.

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Penguicon was a blast, as always. No con is perfect, and there were a few bumps over the weekend (like the dealers room having zero of my books on hand), but overall I had tremendous fun meeting and talking to people, being a smart-ass on panels, and just generally catching up with everyone.

April was a busy month, and I’m still working on getting my brain back up to what passes for functional for me, but here are some of my thoughts from this weekend.

  • I know a lot of very smart, funny, nifty people.
  • No matter how successful I become, I will never be as popular as a simple cardboard box.
  • The first rule of princess mafia is that you don’t talk about princess mafia.  …Aw, crap. Never mind!
  • Apparently my jacket contains its own TARDIS. (This observation brought to you by John Scalzi.)
  • I sometimes struggle to balance the need to present useful, intelligent information on panels with the need to be a smart-ass. (But it’s the smart-ass stuff that ends up on Twitter!)
  • For male authors, there may be a correlation between hair and number of books published. Evidence is here.
  • Never tell a former NASA scientist that the moon landing was faked. (Also, ouch, my poor face…)
  • The longer I hang out at the bar, the more profanity slips into my conversation. Need to remember to flip that switch back before returning to work!
  • I trust myself to do a good job as Toastmaster at ConFusion, but I don’t know if I can top Howard Tayler in a tux.
  • Some good photos from John Scalzi and Al Bogdan.

I’ll have more thoughts about the cons and some of the panels, but for now, I’ll just say I’m glad I went. I ended up doing an episode of Writing Excuses with Howard Tayler and Brandon Sanderson, which was fun. Sold a goodly number of books, had some great conversations (and some bizarre conversations), shared a super-DAW-twin reading with Saladin Ahmed, got a Tom Smith song stuck in my head (for two days and counting), and just generally had a great time.

Friday Links

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.

Penguicon

Looking forward to Penguicon this weekend. For those of you who will be attending, my schedule is below. For everyone else who isn’t going and doesn’t care, this is your cue to skip to the next blog post…

  • Friday, 8:00 p.m. — To Series or Not To Series (with Stephanie Osborn, Steven Lake, Merrie Haskell, and Brandon Sanderson)
  • Friday, 9:00 p.m. — Using Social Networking for Promotion (with Steven Lake, Daniel Hogan, Christine Purcell, and Stewart Sternberg)
  • Friday, 10:00 p.m. — E-pub vs. Print (with Stephanie Osborn, Jon David, and Lydia Nyx)
  • Saturday, 10:00 a.m. — Humor in Writing (with Steven Lake, Daniel Hogan, and Michael Cieslak)
  • Saturday, 12:00 p.m. — Author signing
  • Saturday, 4:00 p.m. — It’s OK, the First Draft Is SUPPOSED to Suck! (with Stephanie Osborn, Brandon Sanderson, Lydia Nyx, and Michael Cieslak)
  • Sunday, 10:00 a.m. — Writers Groups (with Brandon Sanderson, Michael Cieslak, Stewart Sternberg, and Charles Zaglanis)
  • Sunday, 1:00 p.m. — Reading (I plan on reading “The Blue Corpse Corps,” my goblins vs. zombies short story. Assuming anyone shows up to a Sunday afternoon reading…)

This is a very busy schedule, and some of you will recall my grumbling about being overscheduled. I did speak with the programmers, and said I’d be willing to do a maximum of five or six panels, plus the signing and reading. So that’s what they gave me. (In other words, yes it’s going to be a very busy weekend, but they’ve eliminated a few panels from my original schedule, and I’ve signed off on this one.)

Can’t wait to see everyone!

Tron: Legacy

This year the Easter Bunny brought us a copy of Tron: Legacy (supporing my hypothesis that he’s been bought out by Mickey Mouse). It’s been ages since I saw the original Tron, and my memory was a bit fuzzy, but the sequel is perfectly watchable on its own.

Set almost 30 years after the events of the first film, Tron: Legacy introduces us to Sam Flynn, whose father Kevin disappeared in 1989. Sam investigates his father’s old arcade, and is zapped into the virtual world of the Grid in a maneuver known as the Reverse Matrix.

Kevin has been trapped here for 20 years, first fighting against and then hiding from a virtual clone of himself called Clu, which Kevin created to help him create “a perfect world.”

This is what we professional writers call a Dumbass Move. All those books on Kevin’s virtual shelves, and apparently he never bothered to pick up a SF title? Anyone who knows anything about science fiction knows you don’t instruct the artificial intelligence to create perfection!!! Naturally, Clu turned against the “imperfect” Kevin and set himself up as ruler of the Grid.

We also learn about ISOs, a new species of sentient “isomorphic organisms” which spontaneously emerged in the Grid. I guess Clu thought they were imperfect, so he wiped them out. Sam, Kevin, and Thirteen Quorra (the last surviving ISO) set out to stop Clu, reach the portal, save both worlds, get a brain from the wizard, and return home.  More

Comic: Deadlines

I wasn’t 100% sure about this one, but my wife thought it was amusing. (Of course, she’s married to me, so she’s pretty much lived it…)

Full text on the blackboard, for anyone who’s curious:

Ideal velocity (v) = 1000 words/hour
t = time to write first sentence each day (in minutes)
Actual t ≈ 5 x (1 + n/10 + Cz/4) where n = number of days off of writing and Cz = number of new LOLCat pics.
w = wordcount; w(written)/w(total) = percentage of book written
Deadline 1/1/2012 = 365 days; d=days left
100,000 words x 3 rewrites = 300,000 words = 821.9 words/day!!!
c = coffee consumed (inv. correlation betw/c & d)
Ideal daily wordcount (Wi). [# words written – # of words deleted the next day]
Wi ≈ 2000 + 1000 x [1/(c+1)].

I’m not sayin’ how much of these equations I’ve actually worked out and how much I made up for the sake of the comic…

Rape and Victim Blaming

There are only a few days left in the fundraiser for rape crisis centers. We’ve raised more than a thousand dollars so far, and many of your donations were matched, which raises the total even more. So far, I’m giving away an ARC of Snow Queen’s Shadow, a copy of Goblin Tales, and a cameo role in Libriomancer. If we pass $1500, I’ll throw in all three of the princess books (autographed, of course).

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Almost every time I post about rape, I hear from people who believe I’m exaggerating. That rape isn’t as widespread as people say. That they don’t know anyone who’s been raped, and can’t won’t believe it’s a real problem.

Unfortunately, that sort of attitude leads to stories like this one in the Denver Post.

“The victim in a Washington state sex assault now linked to a 32-year-old Lakewood man was charged with false reporting and paid a $500 fine in 2008 because police didn’t believe her story. Authorities … reopened their case and reimbursed the woman after Colorado detectives found pictures of the victim on a camera belonging to Marc O’Leary, an Army veteran charged in two similar cases in Golden and Westminster.”

Here’s another example from the Pittsburg Post-Gazette. Sara Reedy was raped at gunpoint in July of 2004. When she reported it to the police, she was arrested and spent five days in jail.

“Then, in August 2005, a month before she was to stand trial on the charges, Wilber Cyrus Brown II of Dauphin County was caught by police in the act of raping a woman at a convenience store in Jefferson County. During a police interrogation, he admitted to a series of sexual assaults, including the assault on Ms. Reedy.”

Both of the above links are from ginmar.

I’ve written about false rape reports before. Are we really so determined to deny and minimize rape that we’d rather arrest the victims? I do believe there are police officers and detectives who do everything they can to catch rapists and protect the people. Unfortunately, there are others who seem more interested in protecting rapists and punishing victims for daring to speak out.

Check out these excerpts from a New York Times article last month.

  • “[H]ow could [these] young men have been drawn into such an act?”
  • “These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives.”
  • Residents in the neighborhood … said the victim had been visiting various friends there for months. They said she dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s.
  • “Where was her mother? What was her mother thinking?”

The victim in question? An 11-year-old girl, allegedly gang-raped by eighteen suspects who range in age from middle school students to a 27-year-old. Yet it was the men who were “drawn into” committing this crime. The victim dressed old for her age … or maybe it’s the mother’s fault. There’s plenty of blame for everyone except the people who actually chose to rape. Much like a case in Australia where “a man who had a baby with his 11-year-old stepdaughter has walked free after the judge ruled that the young girl was the sexual aggressor.”

It’s everywhere.

These are just some of the links and stories I’ve come across in the past few weeks. This is why I hope you’ll consider donating to RAINN, your local rape crisis center, or another organization working to support survivors and end rape.

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