Yesterday, I did my first ever in-studio radio interview, joining host Frank Stasio on the State of Things. I was nervous as hell, which is odd, since I speak to crowds at cons a half dozen time a year, and have been on the radio before. Of course, this was the first time I'd ever been on a radio show I actually listen too. For years, I've been listening to authors on the State of Things and thinking, "Why can't that be me on the radio?"
So, thanks to Jonah Knight releasing an album based on Nobody Gets the Girl, I finally had my chance to get on the air. Listening to the show last night, I thought it went pretty well. What I feared was directionless babbling spewing from my mouth actually proved to be a couple of interesting stories about writing the book. But, it's interesting just how completely on automatic pilot I was. When I went into the studio, I'd filled two pages of a notebook with snippets of things I wanted to make sure I worked into the conversation. Alas, I didn't even look at my notes once we were on air. The main thing I wish I'd worked in was a plug for my other books!
In any case, the appearance created the sales bump I'd been counting on, and by last night the e-book was reaching about 7,500 in the kindle store rankings, and going as high as 35 in the Graphic Novels, Superhero category (though, I know, it's not a graphic novel). Not bad for a seven year old book not backed by a major publisher.
If you want to hear Jonah and myself talking about the book and album, you can download the episode here.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
Jonah Knight's Album Now Available!
Jonah Knight is now streaming the six songs that compose the Nobody Gets the Girl soundrack on his website! Yay! I confess I may not be an objective judge, but I've been humming these tunes all week.
The six songs are:
I am Nobody
Free You All (a terrorist's lament)
No More Heroes
Hero with a Gun
The Ghost that Saves the Day
I keep going back and forth on favorites, but the lyrics sticking in my head tonight are from "No More Heroes:"
They burn the world until it all becomes the Gaza Strip
All the nations hope that someone else will deal with it
Without sacrifice your greatness is a dream
And when the tanks roll in, someone's gotta step up in between
There's no more heroes that I can see
So I guess it falls to me
Just another nobody
But it all comes down to me.
Very powerful lyrics tied to music that matches. Even if you haven't read the book, I promise you'll like, since the songs transcend the plot and characters and manage to illuminate the larger human condition, if I may be so bold. Check it out at jonahofthesea.com.
The six songs are:
I am Nobody
Free You All (a terrorist's lament)
No More Heroes
Hero with a Gun
The Ghost that Saves the Day
I keep going back and forth on favorites, but the lyrics sticking in my head tonight are from "No More Heroes:"
They burn the world until it all becomes the Gaza Strip
All the nations hope that someone else will deal with it
Without sacrifice your greatness is a dream
And when the tanks roll in, someone's gotta step up in between
There's no more heroes that I can see
So I guess it falls to me
Just another nobody
But it all comes down to me.
Very powerful lyrics tied to music that matches. Even if you haven't read the book, I promise you'll like, since the songs transcend the plot and characters and manage to illuminate the larger human condition, if I may be so bold. Check it out at jonahofthesea.com.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Milestone
What's interesting in the image above is what you don't see. This is my copyright page for Bitterwood, and about two thirds of the way down the page you see 10 9 8, etc., like a very slow text countdown of an unseen rocketship. What's significant is that the numbers 1, 2, and 3 are missing... meaning this is the 4th printing of Bitterwood! I've sold out my first three print runs! And, this is the first print run to be commissioned by the new owner of the Solaris imprint, Rebellion. I was worried that they might assume Bitterwood was at the end of it's economically viable life, that the cost of a further print run might exceed any profits to potentially be earned. I'm glad to see the calculations still swing my way. The vast majority of paperbacks in this world come and go on their first printing alone.Next goal: Making that "4" disappear.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Nobody Gets the Girl News
At long last, Nobody Gets the Girl is coming to Kindle and other ebook formats. There's a version live on Amazon right now, but don't rush out to buy it. About an hour ago, I uploaded my latest revision and it may take a day or two to update. The changes were mostly minor; I had a missing space in one of my chapter titles that ran two words together, one paragraph had an extreneous quotation mark, and Cheryl had caught a half dozen typos that I've now corrected. Also, I've been in contact with Mur Lafferty, author of the superhero novel Playing for Keeps and arranged a chapter swap, so that I'm including a sample chapter from her book at the end of Nobody and she'll be including a sample chapter of my book at the end of PFK.
But, the real reason I'd like you to hold off buying the kindle version of Nobody is a bit more commercial. Next Thursday, January 13, I'm going to be talking about the book as a guest on The State of Things, a popular mid-day talk show on my local NPR station! This is a pretty cool thing on any number of levels, but the part of me that enjoys making money from my writing is most excited that I might have a few dozen people download the book from Amazon on Thursday. A few dozen downloads might now sound like much, but there's the real possibility it could shoot the book up into the top 100 Kindle downloads for that day, at least in science fiction. Getting high sales rankings boosts the visibility of the book, so if you plan to download the book, do so Thursday and you'll help me push the book as high as possible.
Multiplying these efforts is the fact that, the night before, on Wednesday, January 12, I'll be a guest at the Regulator Bookshop in Durham, helping promote the launch of Bull Spec #4, which is reprinting my Bitterwood prequel short story "Tornado of Sparks." So, between pitching the heck out of Nobody the night before and the radio appearance, I'm anticipating good things for Thursday.
Now, you may be wondering, how did a seven year old novel being republished to Kindle earn me a slot as a guest on a popular radio show? I've saved the most amazing news for last. Back in October, I met singer/songwriter Jonah Knight at Capclave. I instantly liked his work, and I apparently inspired him when I was talking about my books, since after the con he emailed me asking if I'd mind if he based some songs off of the superhero novel I'd talked about. I said sure, sent him the book and, LO! There are now songs, six of them, a veritable EP that will see release next week. I've had a sneak preview and the songs are awesome! I'd be a fan even if it didn't have lyrics like:
If you feel a chill
And there's no movement on your windowsill
That might be me
I am Nobody.
Jonah will have a link to the songs on his website by early next week. A novel with a soundtrack was apparently unusual enough to earn both Jonah and me slots on the State of Things, and hopefully elsewhere as well.
I'll be posting frequent updates between now and next Thursday to share more information about the e-book, Jonah's album, the Bull Spec signing, and, of course, the State of Things appearance. Stay tuned!
Sunday, December 12, 2010
News Nuggets
My big news of the last week is that I finished my latest draft of Empire of Angels. This is a short novel I wrote years ago that serves as a prequel to Bitterwood. It's near future SF in which a group of environmental activists rescue a genetically engineered dragon from a game park, who then must navigate through a world turned upside down by the arrival of an alien intelligence, the hyper-altruistic city of Atlantis. Jazz, Hezekiah, Gabriel, and Cassie are characters in the book who go on to play roles in the Bitterwood series a thousand years later.
My next step is to show this to the editors at Solaris. My suspicion is they won't be interested in publishing it for two reasons: 1. In style and tone, it's nothing like the later novels 2. It's short as heck for a book these days. I wound up chopping and cutting more than I put in, so the book is barely squeaking in at 65k words. This is less than half the size of Dragonforge or Dragonseed.
Assuming they pass, I will probably release the novel as an ebook, and include the two short stories set in the same mythos to help make it worth the reader's money. Some of you may know that the short story "Tornado of Sparks," which appeared in the Solaris Book of New Fantasy is set in the Bitterwood universe. (If you didn't read it in the anthology, you're in luck, since it's being reprinted in the very next issue of BullSpec. Details will follow.) What's the second story? My very first piece of professionally published fiction, "Empire of Dreams and Miracles," which appeared in 2002 in the Phobos anthology by the same name. The anthology has been out of print for years and I sort of let the story slip from my mind. But, I took a look at it recently to see how well it meshed up with the Atlantis mythos I used in the Bitterwood books and was surprised to find out how well it worked. I could try to reprint it, but I figure that, with the limited number of short stories I've put out this year, I'd just skip the middle man and make the story available for free. So, if you're interested in reading about life in Atlantis during the era of Bitterwood, follow this link.
In other news, I was invited to do a guest blog at Magical Words this weekend. I've written about sales data in the publishing industry. Dry stuff if you're not a writer, but if you have any interest in the business side of publishing, follow this link to a little essay I call "Dungeons and Data."
My next step is to show this to the editors at Solaris. My suspicion is they won't be interested in publishing it for two reasons: 1. In style and tone, it's nothing like the later novels 2. It's short as heck for a book these days. I wound up chopping and cutting more than I put in, so the book is barely squeaking in at 65k words. This is less than half the size of Dragonforge or Dragonseed.
Assuming they pass, I will probably release the novel as an ebook, and include the two short stories set in the same mythos to help make it worth the reader's money. Some of you may know that the short story "Tornado of Sparks," which appeared in the Solaris Book of New Fantasy is set in the Bitterwood universe. (If you didn't read it in the anthology, you're in luck, since it's being reprinted in the very next issue of BullSpec. Details will follow.) What's the second story? My very first piece of professionally published fiction, "Empire of Dreams and Miracles," which appeared in 2002 in the Phobos anthology by the same name. The anthology has been out of print for years and I sort of let the story slip from my mind. But, I took a look at it recently to see how well it meshed up with the Atlantis mythos I used in the Bitterwood books and was surprised to find out how well it worked. I could try to reprint it, but I figure that, with the limited number of short stories I've put out this year, I'd just skip the middle man and make the story available for free. So, if you're interested in reading about life in Atlantis during the era of Bitterwood, follow this link.
In other news, I was invited to do a guest blog at Magical Words this weekend. I've written about sales data in the publishing industry. Dry stuff if you're not a writer, but if you have any interest in the business side of publishing, follow this link to a little essay I call "Dungeons and Data."
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
The Exploration of Dangerous Places
Review
The Exploration of Dangerous Places
by Jonah Knight
At Capclave a few weeks ago, I attended a late night ghost story gathering. A few people told stories, some read, but one guy pulled out a guitar and sang about a haunted house. This was Jonah Knight, performing “Empty House,” and instantly I knew I had to hear more from him. “Empty House” fit right into my typical daily playlist of songs by the Mountain Goats, the Decemberists, and the Pogues. The chorus from “Empty House” is:
But this empty house isn’t empty after all
Late at night you can hear things in the walls
Your shallow grave isn’t deep enough at all
To keep your ghost under ground.
“Empty House” turned out to be from Knight’s new album, The Exploration of Dangerous Places. Now that I’ve listened to it a dozen times or so, I can say that it wasn’t pure chance that I first heard Knight at a science fiction convention. His website describes his music as “paranormal modern folk,” which is pretty much on target. I think any reader of SF or fantasy would find a lot to appreciate in his songs. Speculative themes run through the lyrics, from interplanetary travel and terraforming on “The Places You Will Go” to cloning an army of duplicates on “King of Nebraska.” I detect traces of Ray Bradbury and HP Lovecraft within the lyrics, such as in “Sleepy Little Creepy Little Town” with the verse:
There’s a nameless faceless thing crawling down from out of the hills
There’s a prehistoric prophecy on the verge of being fulfilled
Everybody in the village likes to gather at the general store
Talk about the screams coming from the mansion
and compare our mysterious open sores
Like Ray Bradbury, Knight is diverse, mixing introspective songs of ghosts and nameless evils with more amusing fare. “Pirate Song” is a jaunty sea shanty, and “King of Nebraska” provokes uncomfortable laughs with its rather disturbing tale of a man who’s cloning an army of followers, especially when we arrive at the heart of the narrator’s motives:
I keep your photograph buried in a book
I have a reference when I forget how you look
I down loaded more DNA
My lawyer friend says it's okay
There’s no expectation of privacy online
I rented a place and bought the stuff
Two more weeks should be enough
to finish off another you
that does whatever I tell it to
Musically, Knight fits in the singer songwriter mold, with guitar playing reminiscent of Nick Drake. Vocally, I’m reminded more of Atom and His Package mixed with early Mountain Goats. Knight’s voice probably wouldn’t get him through an audition for American Idol, but there’s a reason I don’t watch American Idol. What Knight’s voice lacks in range it makes up for in honesty and urgency. Ultimately, you understand from this album that the dangerous place that Knight has been exploring is his own soul, and the songs succeed because he’s had the courage to report back on the monsters he found there.
The album should be released any day now; visit Jonah’s website at www.jonahofthesea.com for when and where you can buy it.
The Exploration of Dangerous Places
by Jonah Knight
At Capclave a few weeks ago, I attended a late night ghost story gathering. A few people told stories, some read, but one guy pulled out a guitar and sang about a haunted house. This was Jonah Knight, performing “Empty House,” and instantly I knew I had to hear more from him. “Empty House” fit right into my typical daily playlist of songs by the Mountain Goats, the Decemberists, and the Pogues. The chorus from “Empty House” is:
But this empty house isn’t empty after all
Late at night you can hear things in the walls
Your shallow grave isn’t deep enough at all
To keep your ghost under ground.
“Empty House” turned out to be from Knight’s new album, The Exploration of Dangerous Places. Now that I’ve listened to it a dozen times or so, I can say that it wasn’t pure chance that I first heard Knight at a science fiction convention. His website describes his music as “paranormal modern folk,” which is pretty much on target. I think any reader of SF or fantasy would find a lot to appreciate in his songs. Speculative themes run through the lyrics, from interplanetary travel and terraforming on “The Places You Will Go” to cloning an army of duplicates on “King of Nebraska.” I detect traces of Ray Bradbury and HP Lovecraft within the lyrics, such as in “Sleepy Little Creepy Little Town” with the verse:
There’s a nameless faceless thing crawling down from out of the hills
There’s a prehistoric prophecy on the verge of being fulfilled
Everybody in the village likes to gather at the general store
Talk about the screams coming from the mansion
and compare our mysterious open sores
Like Ray Bradbury, Knight is diverse, mixing introspective songs of ghosts and nameless evils with more amusing fare. “Pirate Song” is a jaunty sea shanty, and “King of Nebraska” provokes uncomfortable laughs with its rather disturbing tale of a man who’s cloning an army of followers, especially when we arrive at the heart of the narrator’s motives:
I keep your photograph buried in a book
I have a reference when I forget how you look
I down loaded more DNA
My lawyer friend says it's okay
There’s no expectation of privacy online
I rented a place and bought the stuff
Two more weeks should be enough
to finish off another you
that does whatever I tell it to
Musically, Knight fits in the singer songwriter mold, with guitar playing reminiscent of Nick Drake. Vocally, I’m reminded more of Atom and His Package mixed with early Mountain Goats. Knight’s voice probably wouldn’t get him through an audition for American Idol, but there’s a reason I don’t watch American Idol. What Knight’s voice lacks in range it makes up for in honesty and urgency. Ultimately, you understand from this album that the dangerous place that Knight has been exploring is his own soul, and the songs succeed because he’s had the courage to report back on the monsters he found there.
The album should be released any day now; visit Jonah’s website at www.jonahofthesea.com for when and where you can buy it.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Speculative fiction event, Bitterwood at Smashwords
This Thursday, 11-11, I'll be at the Barnes and Noble at New Hope Commons in Durham, NC for a science fiction discussion scheduled for 7pm. A ton of other writers will be there; I'm a bit unclear on the format, exactly, but come on out if you're in the area.
Now that I've got the Bitterwood novels all converted over for Kindle, I'm tackling converting them on Smashwords. This is a site that makes books available for nearly all reading devices and books listed in the premium catalog are available on the Barnes and Noble website, which is my real target. Alas, my battle to convert to the epub format is hitting some snags. I'm following the Smashwords style guidelines, but still getting unpredictable results. Still, right now I've got a version of Bitterwood up that is actually very readable on my Android, so I'll go ahead and plug it though I may tweak it further. My understanding is that, if you buy a book on Smashwords, you can download any revised versions, which I don't think is true on the Kindle. But, I may be speaking in ignorance; I'm still figuring out all this out. If you want to take a peek at the book on Smashwords, here's the link. In theory, just about every reading device on the market should have a format on this site that it can use.
Once I've got the formatting figured out completely, I'll try to get the book listed in the premium catalog. I'll post my progress here.
Now that I've got the Bitterwood novels all converted over for Kindle, I'm tackling converting them on Smashwords. This is a site that makes books available for nearly all reading devices and books listed in the premium catalog are available on the Barnes and Noble website, which is my real target. Alas, my battle to convert to the epub format is hitting some snags. I'm following the Smashwords style guidelines, but still getting unpredictable results. Still, right now I've got a version of Bitterwood up that is actually very readable on my Android, so I'll go ahead and plug it though I may tweak it further. My understanding is that, if you buy a book on Smashwords, you can download any revised versions, which I don't think is true on the Kindle. But, I may be speaking in ignorance; I'm still figuring out all this out. If you want to take a peek at the book on Smashwords, here's the link. In theory, just about every reading device on the market should have a format on this site that it can use.
Once I've got the formatting figured out completely, I'll try to get the book listed in the premium catalog. I'll post my progress here.
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