The Art of Science may not quite have a release date yet, but with the finishing touches, it’s getting very close.
Check out the new page to see the cover and the back blurb. Comments are welcome and I hope you’re almost as excited as I am. (I’d love it if you were more excited, but I’ve had time to build it up!)
Now I get to do all the things that come next: Promotion, promotion, promotion!
That’s the name of the site and the podcast by Mur Lafferty. I listened to this podcast in the car yesterday, and I learned a bit about podcasting through the interview with Scott Sigler. The website has more information – a great resource for budding writers.
Scott Sidler was adamant with his last contract about wanting to give away his novel for free. But, wait, we’re authors for a living, don’t we need to make some money? He talks about the younger generation wanting things online, and he gets our feet wet with podcasting, for free, a chapter a week. His point is that although some will wait for the entire novel at that rate (3 or 4 months), others will go out and buy the book that is already available in the bookstores. He’s increased his audience that way.
Made me think about that novel I have coming out. With a Young Adult audience, it’s very likely that could spread the story to places I can’t travel to or otherwise might not reach.
It’s something I think I will look into and discuss with my publisher.
Amazing. At some point you think you’re done, and you find the little things that are left. Almost done. I might even have my copy in a month or so. It doesn’t feel real.
I got the cover and I love it! It’s done well and very colorful. Sometime this week I’ll post it on site with a new page for the book. I know everyone’s been waiting patiently, but it’s finally here!
I must keep reminding myself this is really fast for a book. It’s only been a year coming.
Consumer Product Safety Act of 2008
Oh, the joys of reading government lingo early in the morning. I found a link to the act after my publisher spread the word about some of the changes called for by this legislation.
Concerns are about testing and how the publishers are held accountable for books that may or may not have lead in them, when the printers are the ones who have control over that aspect.
This reminds me of working in the automotive industry! I worked with quality for over five years, and I learned quite a bit from the stringent regulations.
1. The highest order corporation leans on everyone who supplies them. (In automotive, that meant Ford, GM, Toyota, etc.)
2. Tier 1 suppliers lean on their suppliers. (Names get less recognizable, but Visteon and Delphi are among them.)
3. Down the line, the people who actually make the individual pieces implement all kinds of quality measures to show they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing.
This is how QS-9000 and TS-16949 became the quality intiatives (at different times) in the industry. We needed a way to show we’d followed everything we needed to, and though it isn’t always the most efficient way, it did make everyone follow a procedure.
Our publishers need to lean on the printers to certify that they’ve tested for lead in the paper, ink, and other materials. They’d need to do this for all books that might come in contact with children, and their batches could be by paper batch or ink batch rather than by book title. Book title, especially in the smaller presses, seems cost prohibitive. If it is distributed over paper (or other material) batches, which you’d think would contain entirely the same amount of lead throughout, would make it possible to follow.
What happens if someone screws up? That’s where you keep the proof. Printer certifies it, and the publisher keeps the documentation. Printer keeps the documentation they have, as well as copies of their batch tests. They’d also need to keep records which batches did which titles.
Definitely something to watch.
My husband and I watch a lot of movies. He doesn’t read, but if it’s a speculative fiction novel I generally try to read it before we see the movie.
Of course we have our favorites, and each has quirks. I find little things annoy me when they change them for no reason in movies.
Like Eragon, did they have to make Arya into a human, rather than an elf?
I remember being very upset that they combined characters in Jurassic Park.
Harry Potter seems to one of the few who escaped major edits in the movie business, but that doesn’t mean they put everything from the story in there. Now and then Hermione gets one of those know-it-all lines that someone else actually said in the book and I shake my head still. Especially if it’s a character who could have been in the scene like Seamus.
As a writer, I’d like to think I’d have the ability to stick up for my story when (okay, IF) it transferred to the silver screen. Novels are difficult because we say so much, but they have a limited time for screenplay.
Is it only writers who are so picky about these things?
Following up is always a good thing. I first heard this stressed as I interviewed for engineering positions. It wasn’t just about the interview – a potential employee must also think about sending thank-you notes for the interviews as a follow up. It was something polite to keep your name in front of the people who might be offering you a salary.
It is different with publishers, partly because I’m always thinking they’re busy people and I shouldn’t be bugging them about whether or not I got accepted. There does come a time when it becomes allowable to ask, rather than simply waiting forever.
I submitted another short story to Hadley Rille Books for an anthology called Footprints. The piece is called “Burning Bright” and I am pretty proud of it. It’s longer than most of my short stories; I have not yet learned to vary lengths. I either seem to write short shorts or novels. It’s something to work on.
I contacted the editor – he said it should be about a month, but I hated to ask around the holidays – and I got an update! My story made it through the slush pile and into the final group. He also warned (not sure if that’s the proper term, but I’m going to run with it) that about 1 in 3 pieces in the final group would make the anthology. That’s a lot of submissions! He also said to keep my fingers crossed, but, I tell ya, it makes it really hard to type.
(And, yes, that does mean I’ve tried it once.)
Sometimes I wonder what exactly to say to someone who decides to self-publish. There are a hundred different reasons to choose any given publisher and there are benefits and drawbacks to each decision.
For self-publishing, the onus of the work rests solely with the author. This includes writing, editing, marketing, selling, and probably a few other things I can’t think of off the top of my head. It sometimes gets a bad rap, too, because anyone can do it.
They dont actually have to do editing, of course. A person could choose to pen fifteen pages of an endless litany of “I will not smash cars” and self-publish it. Not that anyone would buy it or be extremely happy about receiving a copy, but it could be done.
I’d like to meet someone who could market that, though. I bet I could learn a lot! In the meantime, I’m in search of a word that isn’t congratulations (from dictionary.com “an expression of joy in the success or good fortune of another”) and means more of a “good luck on your endeavor.” I’ll reserve the congratulations until it’s a successful venture.
All of us need the luck, no matter what publishing route we take. We work to achieve any published status and we earn our laurels based on factors not always under our control.
Ransom Noble 