The next big thing

Although I have been sadly remiss in letting this go, I was flattered, chuffed, humbled and generally pretty cheery to be tagged as one of the authors in ‘The Next Big Thing‘ by the very talented Marc Schuster, for my debut novel, ‘The Artemis Effect‘.

It’s a lovely way for us to share some of the books we have really enjoyed. Having spent some of this afternoon in the garden enjoying our gorgeous autumn weather, I can’t help but think of it in terms of the jungle, which my garden is increasingly resembling. Sometimes the big plants shade out the small, which may be especially lovely things, and this is perhaps a way of letting in a bit of light, and bringing them to other’s attention.

As presumably I can’t tag Marc Schuster’s ‘The Grievers’ back, much as I enjoyed it, I’d like to tag the following from my recent reading:

‘Fires of Justice’ by Sabrina Garie. This is an erotic romance, but with a fun and highly cohesive fantasy element. It is, in short, a romp and I’d highly recommend it to anyone who needs to escape, in te words of Tom Lehrer, ‘their drab, wretched lives.’

 

‘Rich Pickings for Ravens‘ by Tom Conrad. A truly unusual and funny who-dunnit, starting with the lead character’s death, and his subsequent quest to find out who killed him, and why.

 

‘The Prince of Graves’ by W.E. Linde. In the tradition of Tolkien, this fantasy novella is the first part of what will be a truly epic trilogy of books. Amazing battle scenes by an author who obviously loves the genre.

 

 

I look forward to seeing their recommendations, and also your opinions of these books if you’ve also been lucky enough to give them a go!

The faulty magic of spellchecker

In my limited free time, I’ve been reading a novel by an Indie author on my Kindle, and although the story is fine, I have to say that I am finding it just a tad irritating. Although we turn out books often with no budget and very limited returns, I think Indie authors still really need to do their best to make sure that the book reads just as well as one produced by a commercial publisher. In this case, the spelling is driving me bonkers! It really interrupts the flow of a passage when you have to stop and decide whether the author is getting a bit funky with a metaphor, or if they have just bungled the spelling.

This book has not only the ubiquitous ‘your’ instead of ‘you’re’, but also walking across a sandy ‘dessert’, and lifting his ‘shinning’ knife. Ouch! I can understand how the proofreader would have missed ‘mummer’ for ‘murmur’.

I’m not saying that my own work is perfect – every time I reread it I seem to find something which makes me cringe – but sometimes it seems as if people are relying on the computer’s spellchecker alone. Unfortunately, nothing replaces human eyes for picking up these bloopers. In an early draft of my novel, a character entered through the French ‘widow’ (window), which was rather unfortunate for both of them!

Enough ranting for now. I’ll calm down and keep reading, and perhaps you can join me in Visualising Whirled Peas.

All aboard the Omnibus!

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently about my next big project, which will be a collection of short stories. I’m probably at least half way through, with planning done for another 25%. I’ve been mistakenly calling it my Anthology, but apparently that term refers more accurately to a collection of works by different authors. What I’m working on is more properly an Omnibus, but that sounds rather cumbersome and lumbering to me.

Could this be a Steampunk Omnibus?

A few things I’ve discovered so far:

• It should be about the same word count as a novel (70K+)
• Arguably, it should follow a ‘tent’ structure, leading and finishing with the strongest stories, and with another strong story in the middle like a tent pole.
• The whole should be greater than the sum of its parts: stories should be organised to complement and bounce off one another.
• Variety is a good thing, but there does need to also be some kind of unifying theme.

All well and good so far. The theme issues does bother me a little, in that my stories are sometimes scifi, sometimes bordering on fantasy, and sometimes just plain quirky (as you may know if you’ve read any of the free published works out there – see my Publications page for links). At the same time, I don’t particularly want to force the production of stories in a particular area to make them fit some contrived theme, so I think I’ll just keep writing the stories which I’d like to tell, and then perhaps discard those which are the sore thumbs of the collection.

I’d love to discuss with anyone out there their thoughts on short story collections.

Do you find it necessary to have a theme? Do you agree with the ‘tent structure’ theory? When reading short story collections, do you dip in, or read them from start to finish (the album vs. the single I suppose, in music terms).

Exhibitionists

This year, I’m entering two paintings in the Linden Gallery’s postcard exhibition.  I entered last year, and was blown away when someone actually bought one of my paintings! Astonished that someone would hand over their hard-earned for my daubs.

The exhibition is open to everyone, the only restriction being that the pieces have to be 30 x 30cm or less. I did wonder what the quality of work would be like, but in fact it was very high. The variety of pieces was fascinating, and the different ways that people had embraced the small format.

Here are my entries for this year. Please don’t laugh too hard.

 

 

The abstract is a representation of different colours I’ve seen in particular landscapes, and overlaid with interventions – they might be people passing through, fire events or even fenceposts.

The other is a portrait of the tattoo artist Lyle Tuttle. It’s done all in colour (no black within his face), and in pointillist style to reflect the movement of a tattoo needle. The borders show flash on skin.

I suppose it would be quite appropriate to draw a parallel between this exhibition and Indie publishing. In both cases, the artists and writers do it for the love, rather than the money (usually!), and yet we choose to bare our souls and share that work with a wider audience. Does that make us overly self important exhibitionists? The old phrase “vanity publishing” would suggest so.

However, I would suggest that perhaps there is something more democratic at work. The Linden exhibition allows people who are not full time artists to show their works, in the same way that indie publishing allows people who are not full time authors to share their writing with the world. The good stuff will hopefully be well received. Either way, the public are allowed to choose which work they like, free of the conventions and prejudices of professional critics and publishing houses.

Image courtesy of lookupatthesky.wordpress.com

For me, I think it is also perhaps something of an act of bravado – a challenge to somewhat introverted self to lay myself open to a wider audience. It’s not an easy thing to do, unless you have a thick skin. I recall strongly the first time I did a dance solo, in front of about 350 people. I was absolutely terrified beforehand, but regardless of how it was received, afterwards I was proud that I had been able to do it. It’s a great feeling to challenge yourself and rise to that challenge.

How about you? I’d love to hear your stories and thoughts about these subjects. Are Indie authors and artists just blowing their own trumpet?

Cultural sensitivities

Courtesy of gringosinparadise.com.mx

It’s easy to make the mistake of thinking that all English-speaking places have more or less the same take on things, but I am occasionally reminded of the advice that was given to someone I know when they were moving to the U.S.:

It will be easier if you think of Americans as aliens who speak English.

I realise that this may be an incendiary comment to some people, but the logic behind it is reasonably sensible. There are undeniable cultural differences between nations, and trying to pretend that we are all the same might not only make you miserable when you can’t understand why people react or act in a certain way, but also denies the richness and diversity of all those nations. How dull would it be if we really were all the same?

However, as an author, there are certain pitfalls which I think it pays to be aware of, even if we decide to ignore them.

In my novel, The Artemis Effect, I chose to set the story in three nations: Australia, the U.S. and Britain. Now, as I live in Australia, I was fairly confident of not tripping up too badly there. The others I felt I had to be more careful with, even though I have lived for years in the UK, and have spent a fair bit of time in America. Only my readers will be able to advise me how badly I screwed up the cultural mores of those places.;)

One of the first pieces of feedback I received when the book came out was from a distant relative in New York. She said that she really enjoyed the book, but had to decipher some of the terms I’d used, such as ‘the boot of the car’ (as trunk). Now this was something that my editor and me thought about carefully when we were finishing the book, as it is available in the US. Should we Americanize the spelling and vocabulary? I know that many authors do, and I’ve read specific reference from Neil Gaiman that he has assistance to do this, and so doesn’t accidentally call a ‘sidewalk’ a ‘footpath’. In our case, we decided that as we were unlikely to be able to pick up everything, it was best to stick to Australian spelling and vocabulary except where absolutely necessary. The risk of doing it so that it didn’t read properly in either nation was too great.

Another book I’ve read recently has a different cultural issue: that of humour. Now everyone has a different sense of humour, and some poor people have none at all. However, as a gross generalisation, there are cultural differences in humour, although they are probably getting increasingly blurred as mass media makes everything available to everyone. However, in my eyes at least, the Brits often have a blacker sense of humour than the rest of us, and Australians have quite a dry sense of humour. The book I mentioned above, although beautifully written, had what seemed to me quite an American sense of humour. I could see that it was funny, but it just didn’t make me spontaneously hoot and snort with laughter.

Even countries as culturally close as Australia and New Zealand have different vocabulary, and of course we have great fun mocking one another’s accents. Fush and chups, anyone? A casual kiwi I used to work with, who always wore those shoes made of flat rubber to work, strenuously denied that he wore ‘thongs’. He said that a thong wouldn’t suit him (as in skimpy underwear), but he liked his ‘flip flops’. Likewise, no Australian talks about ‘jandals’, ‘trundlers’ or ‘chilly bins’. To us, they are ‘sandals’, ‘trolleys’ and ‘eskis’. I’m not 100% sure what an eski is to someone from the U.S., but I can tell you that the term ‘fanny bag’ makes anyone from Australia or Britain blush.

What can we do as authors in an increasingly international book market? We could have different editions for each country I suppose, with suitable vocabulary and grammar, but the amount of work would be phenomenal.

Vive la difference, I say.

Passionate about Short Fiction

Here is the latest in the series of Guest Posts from fellow bloggers on the subject of Passion, whether literary or personal, which I’ll be posting regularly on a Thursday. If you would like to contribute, please drop me a line at kasia_oz (at) hotmail (dot) com.

Today, Michael Haynes joins us to discuss his passion for writing short fiction: a passion I have come to share! Michael not only blogs about his dedication to writing every day, but also about his incredibly prolific and varied publications at Michael Haynes – A Writing Blog.

Hope you enjoy Michael’s Passion Post.

Lately, when I’ve been writing up biographies for myself for websites or publications, I’ve been more and more likely to mention that I’m an “ardent” reader and writer of short fiction. And one of the synonyms for “ardent” is “passionate”, so when Kasia asked me to write about something I’m passionate about, short fiction seemed like a natural fit!

There was a time when writers could conceivably make some kind of living from writing, at least primarily, short fiction. Writers for the glossy or “slick” magazines like F. Scott Fitzgerald and O. Henry were able to command per-word rates for their fiction which are rare today for even the most prestigious publications. On the other end of the scale, there was such a large demand for fiction for the pulps relative to the number of writers that people who were prolific enough could earn a good bit of money for the time even at a penny a word.

Those days are, for the most part, gone. There may only be one writer living today (Harlan Ellison) who can say they’ve made a living writing primarily short stories. There’s been a small renaissance in online science fiction and fantasy short fiction markets. There are probably more markets that pay “professional” rates for SF/F now than there have been in quite a while. Even so, it would be quite a challenge to make enough sales per year to even those markets to earn a living.

And yet, I put almost all of my writing and reading time into short fiction. Why is that? It’s because it’s what I love. When I was a youngster in the 1980s, I collected anthologies of short fiction, new and old. And every time I’ve taken up writing, I’ve gravitated toward writing short stories. I enjoy the way that the form encourages writers to strip away unnecessary elements. It also makes it less risky to experiment with different styles and methods of storytelling. A failed experiment for a 2,000 word short story results in much less unfruitful effort than a failed experiment with a novel.

I’ll never get rich writing short fiction. I’ll never get famous for it, either. But it’s what I love to read and what I love to write. Might I try to write and publish novels in the future? Well, I certainly wouldn’t rule it out. But for now, short stories are what I’m passionate about and where I choose to devote my literary energy.

You can follow Michael’d blog at: http://michael-haynes.blogspot.com.au/

The Artemis Effect – the real thing!

After much impatient waiting, the final proofs of my novel ‘The Artemis Effect‘ have arrived in the post! I can’t say how odd and exciting it is to hold the real thing in my hands.

Hardback available from Lulu

The hardcover version (via Lulu), and paperback (via Createspace) arrived within days of one another, and I’m very happy with the quality of both.

I’m hoping to run some giveaways on Goodreads soon, but in the meantime, I’ll be thoroughly reviewing the proofs to make sure that there are no serious bloopers in there.

Interior of paperback (and my fingers!)

If you think you might like a copy (and I’m more than happy to sign and dedicate them if you’d like), please drop me a line at kasia_oz(at)hotmail(dot)com. Could be a great Christmas present for that sci-fi fan you know!

Paperback from Createspace

The elusive hard copy – Lulu vs. Createspace

Well, the ebook version of my novel ‘The Artemis Effect’ has been out for a while, and I have been working behind the scenes to try and get the book out in hard copy versions.

Finally, after much gnashing of teeth, both hardcover and paperback proof versions are on their way across the waters to me! Hoorah! I’ll try and post some  images of the quality when they arrive.

I’ve read other people’s posts on the pros and cons of Lulu versus Createspace, but all these posts seem to miss some of the big differences I’ve found between them, so here is my two bobs-worth. For those who don’t know, both firms are POD (Print on Demand) publishers. There may be other players out there, but these are the two I’m trying out. The information below is based on my personal experience with each of them, so let me know if I have misunderstood something, or if you found things very different.

Createspace

*  Will only make paperbacks. If you want a hardback version, you need to go elsewhere.

*  Their templates for formatting the interior come in two different styles: one leaves you more or less to your own devices (this is the one I went with), and the other is much more prescriptive, in that it suggests where the copyright page, dedications etc should go.

*  Their process seems pretty easy to understand, and I didn’t find conflicting information in different places.

*  They don’t have a calculator to work out the cost of manufacturing until you have uploaded everything. (See later note on Lulu’s calculator.)

*  Covers can be produced in two ways. Either you can ask the program to produce the template for your specific book, with all the necessary margins and bleed areas once you have uploaded the interior (for example, it takes into account how thick the spine will be based on the number of pages), and then you can provide a wrap-around cover to those specifications in pdf format. This is the way I went, with the assistance of my wonderful cover artist, Richard Morden. Createspace can provide an ISBN and barcode and will position this for you on the cover.

Alternatively, you can use Createspace’s cover wizard, which is pretty prescriptive in terms of cover design – where to put the title, your name, etc. If you think of the templates loaded into Powerpoint or Keynote then you’ll have some idea of the look of these covers. Most of them looked pretty ordinary to me, but perhaps with dedication you can do it well.

*  Createspace require an EIN or ITIN before you can put your book out there. This means tackling the frightening world of the American tax system, which for me meant a slightly terrifying phone call to a zombie lady in the middle of the night. I can only hope that I’ve done it right!

*  The price of paperbacks on Createspace is much more reasonable. Mine will be retailing for about $14.95 US, which I hope is within sensible limits.

*  Createspace only print in the US, as far as I can tell, so it can take a while for proofs and orders to arrive (up to 33 days to Australia!), although you can pay more for shipping and get them sooner.

*  Createspace are associated with Amazon, but you can also opt for wider distribution (including to bookshops and libraries) for another $25.

Lulu

*  Lulu will produce a much wider range of formats, shapes and sizes than Createspace, which is why I have approached them to produce my hardback. There are even a couple of options on how you want the hardback cover (with a dust jacket or casewrap). It’s worth noting that the sizes of paperback they make are not necessarily the same as for Createspace, so you may, as I did, end up formatting the interior of the book multiple times.

*  The information provided by Lulu, when you get into it, is sometimes conflicting or confusing. It seems like they started out with it being clean, and then over time it has become muddled. Someone on my team described their help as “a mindf**k”.

*  The creation of the cover is a bit trickier in some ways. If you want to use their standard cover wizard, then it is much better than the one at Createspace. However, it all gets more interesting if you want a wrap-around cover. They will provide templates, but apparently they are a bit confusing.
If you produce the artwork for a wrap-around,  then you also have to produce your own barcode, whereas if you simply add cover art for front and back covers, then Lulu will generate and position a barcode for you. However, you are then limited to having a single cover spine (any colour you like), and their very limited range of fonts for the title. Some of their fonts would make a graphic designer weep, but there are some simple ones too which are OK.

*  There is a price calculator on the Home Page, but I found it very misleading, possibly inaccurate. Initially, before I uploaded everything, it seemed to say that the cost of manufacturing my paperback was $13. When I’d jumped through all the hoops, and finally got to the pricing page, with would not allow me to sell the book for less than $27! Frankly, I would be astonished if anyone would take a chance on a relatively unknown author’s paperback at that price. The extra partly came from retail markup, but the manufacturing cost had also mysteriously risen to nearly $20. The cost of their hardback version was much more in keeping with what I’d expect.

*  Lulu also provide a template for formatting the interior. It was the ‘basic’ version, in that they didn’t try to tell me which bit to put where, but had standard styles, and the correct page size and margins, which I found fine.

*  Lulu print in other places than the US, so if you are worried about carbon-miles, then it’s worth checking to see if they print in your country. This also cuts down the delivery times and postage costs if you are not in the US.

*  Like Amazon for Kindle, Lulu will let you release a book without having given them a EIN or ITIN from the tax department. Both will withhold 30% of your royalties until you do so, but you can get it out there without facing the tax zombies.

*  Lulu seem to provide your book to the market as soon as it is uploaded, whereas Createspace want you to approve a proof version before it hits the shelves.

*  Lulu have an Expanded distribution network also, but it costs a bit more at $75 US.

So, that’s my experience with the two publishers. I’d love to hear what you found if you have published with them (especially anything I should be looking out for!)

Fingers crossed they will be good quality – I’m really looking forward to holding my novel in my hands!

Halloween story update

On Monday, I posted about a Halloween short story of mine, which is available free on Ether, called ‘Balancing Darkness’.

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately, due to a technical glitch, when I posted, it wasn’t there! Sorry to anyone who tried to download it.

It is now up and running, and available on the Ether Books App. There are 61 other stories, so maybe go and have a browse and see which ones you like best!

I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.

A Halloween treat (this is not a trick!)

Today, Ether Books are publishing a whole host of Halloween short stories for your delectation.

One of them, ‘Balancing Darkness’ is by yours truly. It tells the story of what happens when a suicide bomber meets an all consuming alien, disguised as a sweet little black cat. Silly? Well, yes, possibly. Hopefully enjoyable. I’d love to know what you think of it!

If you have an iPhone, iPad or other device by which you can download Apps, Ether Books is free, as are all the Halloween stories, and many many more. There are actually a few of my other stories up there too – Perpendicularity, Transparency, and The Observer.

Please check them out!