Twenty Palaces

Randomness for 2/7

1) Anthony Bourdain schooled by 10-year-old.

2) MANBABIES!! I had nightmares because of that site, so you should, too.

3) Available at Booksellers Everywhere Except Amazon. Macmillan takes out a full page ad in the NY Times.

4) A defense of Elizabeth Gilbert. I loved reading this. I’m not someone looking to read Gilbert’s books, but I’m also not all that keen to hear her being held to a different standard than male authors, or to be cut down because she decided she was going to live a different sort of life.

5) The differences between indie authors and indie musicians. Related: The difference between the music industry and trade publishing.

6) Stop motion with shadow art. I’m torn between my admiration for the artistry and the cheesy anime subject matter. Also, did they have to countdown the filenames?

7) Jerry Pournelle remembers those who lost their lives in the Challenger disaster. I almost wish I read his books, so I could swear never again. Almost.

Wrapping up for the day

The Valentines contest winner has been chosen. Macmillan books are back on Amazon.com’s shelves (I can’t figure out whether the two companies reached a deal or Hatchet’s announcement that they were going to an agency model took the wind out of their sails).

And tomorrow, February 6th, is going to be the two year anniversary of the day my agent and I accepted Del Rey’s offer for Child of Fire. I’ll be celebrating a couple of different ways. For instance, I won’t be bringing my lap top to the coffee shop in the morning, just my galleys. I don’t know what I’ll do later, maybe (gasp!) watch a movie! Shocking, I know.

Amazonfail: ending?

It appears that Amazon.com has been reinstating Macmillan books on their site. I guess that means I can reenable the links on my side bar.

Which I’ll do. Eventually.

Whoa. Also: Sheesh.

Things have been mighty busy this week. I’m way behind on my blog reading, and we all know how important it is for a writer past his deadline to read blogs, yes?

I’m making good progress on my latest revision to Man Bites World, though. Of course it’s taking me longer than I would like, but it’s also more straightforward that I’d originally thought. It’s amazing how different things look when you think them out, yeah?

Which means, naturally, that my galleys for Game of Cages arrived yesterday. Tomorrow will be galley day. Fun!

Also, (to expand on a comment I wrote yesterday) I’ve been seeing a lot of people treating the Macmillan/Amazon.com conflict as the first step in the collapse of “Big Publishers.” I’ve also seen a number of people say that writers will soon be able to break away from their publishers and Do It All For Themselves! Hire an editor, pay for cover art, pay for a copy edit, buy a program that lets people design their own books.

Interestingly, there are very very few established writers who are eager for this to happen. A couple, but very few. Most established, professional writers don’t want any part of this business model.

Take me, for example. Do you think I could do this kind of revision to commissioned cover art?. Hell, no. I don’t have the skills or the talent. I’d have to hire an expert, which I can’t afford.

Consider also: After my agent (a former editor at Penguin) gives me notes, I send my book to Betsy Mitchell, editor-in-chief at Del Rey. I get two rounds of fantastic notes before the copy chief and copy editor even gets near it.

If Betsy were freelance, do you think I could afford to hire her? Do you think she’d have a window in her schedule for me, Newbie McFace-PunchingBook? Hell no. She’d charge a fortune for her services, and the people who could afford to work with her would be the doctors, lawyers and stock brokers of the world–people with high-paying day jobs who could afford to shell out the bucks for their hobby.

Besides it seems to me that ebooks are not the poison pill that will kill Big Publishing. Not when BP does so much that “indie” authors–even indie authors with a pro track record–would never be able duplicate all the things a big-time publisher does.

Doesn’t anyone remember when POD publishing was going to be the death of traditional publishers? Did Stephen King jump ship and start his own press, with editors and publicity staff he paid out of his own pocket (to keep the profits for himself!). He could certainly afford it. James Patterson has three people at his publisher who work exclusively on him and his books–has he hired them away to Patterson Publishing to run his own shop? Has J.K. Rowling, who could afford to pay her staff in six figures, including the receptionist?

No, they haven’t. NY Publishers add value. Maybe people want books to be cheaper, and maybe they hate rejection letters, but that doesn’t mean the companies themselves are going to fail.

Back to work.

Valentine’s Day Contest

The finalists for the Dating Hell contest have been chosen. To vote on a winner, you have to drop by my LiveJournal entry.

Oh, go on. The stories are fun.

More Amazon.comFail

Jeff Vandermeer posted about the sense of entitlement many ebook readers show in the comment sections of the Macmillan/Amazon.com threads that have popped up since last week. Take a look; it’s an interesting piece.

One thing I think he’s missing is the anger and resentment of self-proclaimed indie authors, who seize on any opportunity to lambaste large NY publishers and their many, many rejection letters. The common indie author shouts of “Last century’s business model!” and “Useless middlemen!” and “Getting between authors and readers!” have been rhetorical weapons the 9.99 Boycotters have snatched up and brandished with gusto.

In the meantime, I’ve disabled the Amazon.com links in the sidebar of my blog. I’ll reinstate them when Boneshaker (and other Tor titles) are restored. It won’t mean much to the Big River Flowing Through All Those Tubes, but it’s what I can do at the moment.

Last, there are four entries in the Valentine’s contest (although not all of them are on the correct post). I’ll be listing my top three tonight sometime after dinner. Last chance to enter!

Contest reminder

The contest for winning a copy of Child of Fire has ten comments on it but only one actual entry. Enter before tomorrow (Thurs) evening if you want a free book.

Speaking of ebooks

One of the things Macmillan could do to ease customers’ fears about dynamic prices (or the lack thereof) is to actually go through their back catalog and drop the prices of ebooks that are several years old. For instance, here’s a Steven Brust novel with an ebook that costs almost twice as much as the mmpb. Or this Vinge novel.

If they want readers to believe them when they say they’ll reduce prices over time, they should already be doing it.

As far as the writing goes…

… today was a very productive day. I didn’t have very much internet time, but I guess that’s why it was productive.

I did end up consigning one character to the lonely limbo of my memory when I cut her completely from the book. Too bad. I liked her very much.

I also ended up with a net loss in words, despite adding a couple short scenes. Revising the sequence without the character sped things along quite a bit, although I personally still feel her loss.

The book will be better for it–simpler and more unified.

Randomness for 2/2

1) Darth Vader – James Earl Jones = David Prowse in a plastic mask reading Vader’s lines on set. I can’t help but laugh when I hear him say “I want those plans!” via Keith Calder

2) An officer shoots and kills a criminal, in the officer’s own words.

3) Every news report must be structured like this. via madrobins

4) Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist posts a promotional excerpt of a new GRRM story in an upcoming anthology, and the comments explode with butt-hurt Song of Ice and Fire fans complaining about the delay in the latest book. Normally I suggest skipping comments, but here the comments are delicious. I’m sure someone out there has already made a ASOIAF/DOWNFALL spoof, yeah?

5) The Scale of the Universe. It’s beautiful. It’s like church for atheists.

6) “Will they follow in the lusty steps of their forebears, the Golden Girls?” The nuttiest conservative Christian rant on gays I’ve seen in a while. The author, who apparently has a slight problem with gays who won’t read the articles he emails to them, thinks The Golden Girls sitcom turned a generation of young men into homosexuals, and it’s so wacky (and quotable! “Personally, I do not look forward to the day when we’re having moral debates about robot sex, gay jetpacks or houseplant marriage”) that there were points where I was sure it was satire. Or irrational hate. Or maybe satire again. No, that’s just more hate. Then I saw the link at the bottom to The Dark Underside of America’s Obsession with Cat Ownership and I swear I have no idea what to think (except: “Gay jetpacks?? I’ll take two!”) via Jay Lake.

7) More Macmillan vs. Amazon.com, discussed on Absolute Write. It’s an 8-page thread as of the time of this posting, but very informative. It’s also pretty easy to tell who are the knowledgeable voices and who aren’t. You even get to see an example of mansplaining with the wild (which is so incredibly rare, I know).