Twenty Palaces

It’s one a.m.

In two and a half hours, the shuttle van will be coming to pick up my wife for her week-long trip to Italy. She’ll be gone about a week and a half, and I will be staying home with my son.

There will be much writing time claimed, much pizza eaten (and salad) and some small amount of computer games played. I hope to clear the final level of Swordplay Showdown.

By which I mean that I’ll be checking email, but not doing a lot of internet reading/socializing. At least, I don’t think I will.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

(Oh, and I did a “Take Five” piece for Suvudu. It’s funny. Check it out.

This is me.

This post by Ally Carter comes at just the right time, because I’m having a bought of the crazies myself. Mine are probably not like yours–I tend to become quiet, lie in darkened bedrooms, and mutter to myself about all the ways I’ve screwed up.

I’m not fishing for encouragement; I’ve said before that encouragement makes me uncomfortable. Still, I’m going to have to come to some kind of balance, or work out a way to put marketing and sales out of my mind. I’ll find success the way every other writer does: by writing books people want to read.

It’s not going to happen by looking at Twitter traffic, or by skimming the Random House bestsellers to see where my book is rated, or by checking Amazon.com sales rankings, or any of that. I just have to work on my next book.

“Did you think all this up yourself? Out of your head?“

Today was the book signing. What do you mean you don’t believe me?! Proof? Here’s the proof!

That’s me, in case you didn’t realize. The white shirt I’m wearing was freshly ironed twenty seconds before that photo was taken, but as soon as I hung it on myself it shriveled like a flower petal dropped into acid. Those are my books, my pens, my individually-wrapped prunes dried plums, and my oh-so-stylish sneakers.

If you’re wondering how it went, I sold eight books, four of book 1, four of book 2. That’s about five books more than expected. For those that care, here’s how it broke down:

Two books to a neighbor, the mother of Mango Eater’s best friend (she was the only buyer I already knew).
Two books to a woman buying gifts for her house-bound 94-year-old friend.
One book to a man buying a gift for his 20-year-old daughter.
One book to an aspiring writer.
One book to a bookstore employee for her son.
One book to an older woman who was scary skinny. She’s the one who provided the subject header above. (My response: “That’s the job!” She then asked rather stridently “Who’s this Ray Lilly? Is he good or evil?” What I wish I’d said was “I reject your dialectic!” What I actually said was “Uh….”)

I also mailed off all the giveaway books except the cookbooks that Carol Wong won. She hasn’t responded to two requests for a mailing address, and it would be a shame if her books went to the library or something because she used a spam trap address in the blog.

Now I’m back home and I’m not stress-eating or stress-drinking or stress-napping. I’m just hanging out with the family, and as soon as Mango Eater finishes building his Lego, he’s going to read us the next chapter of Harry Potter.

Book signing rules

Having read the long list of restrictions at Tony Blair’s book signing, I’ve decided to institute my own list of restrictions for tomorrow’s signing. Please adhere closely to these rules.

1. No photography. All photographs with cameras or camera phones is strictly prohibited due to the danger of capturing one of The Author’s many bad sides. A sketch artist will be provided and pencil sketches will be available for a reasonable price.

2. Backpacks, purses and satchels are allowed, but all fannypacks will be confiscated and disposed of in the alley out back. Because dude, fannypacks.

3. The Author is happy to add a personal dedication to books as well as sign them, but no dedications will be made out to given names. Nicknames only. Also, The Author will be assigning all nicknames on the spot. Got that, Skippy?

4. To keep things moving quickly, all conversation should be limited to complimentary assessments of The Author’s appearance and demeanor, as well as unqualified praise for his books.

5. No cell phones conversations, Twittering, texting or “sexting” permitted, unless The Author is allowed to read/listen in, and finds the conversation amusing.

6. Physical assault is strongly discouraged. The Author should not be spit upon, slapped, struck with a weasel (dead), shot, punched, stabbed, struck with a ferret (living or dead), kicked, or head-butted. In fact, let’s just go with “No touching,” okay?

7. Child care will be provided for book purchases who require it. A special playpen will be installed before the event; readers will not have to worry about children escaping the pen, as it is a very modern kind that comes with a top.

8. Readers are not required to bring their own pen, but those who don’t will be charged an additional $1 ink fee to help compensate for the loss of The Author’s specially-formulated brand of ink (from Bic).

9. All pens provided by the readers themselves must be disinfected by The Author’s staff before the signing. Charge for that: also $1.

That’s all, I think. Adding a tenth restriction seems… excessive. Better to be easy-going and understated.

See you tomorrow, and be sure to OBEY.

Book signing tomorrow

Hey, guys. I will be having a book signing tomorrow afternoon at Magnolia’s Bookstore in Seattle. It’s easily accessible by the 24 or 31 bus lines, and there’s plenty of parking. I’ll start things off around 1pm and end about half-past “I don’t think anyone else is coming.”

Both books should be available and it’s a nice little store with a substantial kids/YA section. Please drop by and say hello.

I blog prolificly!

Have you ever wondered what I sound like? Expecting a deep, rich voice? A high, shrieking voice?

Well, you can listen to the Seattle Geekly podcast right here and listen to an interview with me. Secrets are revealed! I talk about book 3! Even better (from my POV) they say why they think my books are good.

I only wish I knew how they digitally altered my voice, because there’s no way I really, truly sound like that. I mean, I can hear myself inside my own head, right? Right?

The glamorous life of the writer

So! Yesterday was release day for Game of Cages, and how did I spend most of that day? Answering emails for one. Public transit for another.

Yeah, yesterday was one of those days when not having a car really hurt.

The mission was simple: sign books on the day they were released. Sometimes it can take a while for new releases to make their way out of the back room onto the shelves, and often the books are delivered late in the day. So I went into the store, introduced myself to an employee, offered to sign books, signed, moved on to the next one.

They were: the downtown Borders, downtown B&N, the University of WA bookstore, the University Village B&N and finally the Northgate mall B&N. The whole time, I had my 8yo son with me.

That took six hours.

Here’s another fun fact about yesterday: the weather was chilly and rainy, with blustery winds. It was cool even for a Seattle August.

And that’s fine. A little rain keeps you cool as you walk from bus stop to store, right? Same for a chilly breeze. It tames the humidity.

Then I would walk into the stores, where the air was hot and still but just as humid, and the sweat would start to bloom all over my body. (Sorry, ladies! I’m taken.) I did not greet a bookseller or sign a book without feeling all nasty and damp.

It was gross. I felt gross. My son? Behaved like a champ (partly because he knew there was a Nerf gun in it for him, partly because he’s a great kid).

And now I’m back at my day job, and I’m exhausted. I’m also way behind on my web/LJ reading. But hey, my book is out there, people are reading it, and one of the B&N employees recognized my name and told me how much she loved my first book. I also have a bunch of new books to read (you knew I couldn’t pop in a bookstores without spending a little money, didn’t you?).

Anyway, I’ll be announcing the giveaway winners for the collection of how-to writing books, Child of Fire and Game of Cages tonight around 6 or 7 PST (in other words, when I get home from the day job). Also, there are a couple of book offerings that have never been claimed. If you want to skim back through the entries, you might find something you like that you missed the first time around.

Hope you guys are having a great day.

I have web presence!

This morning my wonderful wife made a fancy breakfast for me. Soon I’ll be heading out into the rain and bluster to visit local book stores so I can sign copies of my books (and “encourage” the staff to move the books onto the shelves).

But! Things I have written have appeared at various online spaces today. On the very same day my book comes out! What a coincidence! Here’s a quick list of where I am today:

My Big Idea essay on John Scalzi’s “Whatever” blog, in which I talk about the pernicious influence of film/TV media on otherworldly creatures in prose fiction.

My editor at Del Rey talks about the process of telling an author that their work needs major changes. Inexplicably, she uses Game of Cages (and me) as an example, and she titled the post “Mudwrestling with authors.”

At SciFiBookshelf.com, I talk (briefly) about the process of writing this book. In other words, you hear about the mudwrestling from the author’s point of view!

I am interviewed at Fiction Kingdom. Curious about what music I listen to while I write? Want to see me dodge questions (in this case, about series-spoilers) like a politician with a hangover? Check it out.

I’ll be hitting the bus stop soon so I won’t be able to respond to comments for a while. I hope you all have a great day, and more importantly, I hope I have a great day.

Sometimes you just have to walk away

Here I am at my computer, and what do I need most? To not be at my computer.

I’m refreshing my email inbox to search for new comments, searching for places to send review copies of Game of Cages, checking Twitter to see if anyone has re-tweeted the announcement that chapter 3 is online, refreshing the book’s Amazon.com page…

And you know what? I’m not going to do that anymore. I’m not going to check the Amazon.com or B&N page again. I’m not going to do an Icerocket search looking for reviews to link to. I’m certainly not going to go back to the Random House page, sort all their sf/f books by “bestsellers” and search through until I find where my book lies. No. It’s a waste of time.

Any marketing I do now, today, will have a tiny effect. The most effective marketing I could do was finished months ago when I turned in the book. The rest is up to readers and fate and dirty stinking luck.

So! I have two more emails to write, then I’m going to step away from the computer. First, I’ll clobber some hapless sword-wielders on Wii Sports Resort. Then shower, vacuum, clean the kitchen, clean the bathroom, make some pizza dough (or pretzel dough–I haven’t decided). But I have to get the hell away from my computer for a few hours. Jesus!

Home page

I’ve been told that the best home page a writer can show is the one that displays their books (along with synopsis, blurbs, links to sample chapters and buy links); rather than force people to click through a couple of links to buy a book, they can do so right at the front.

So I’ve redesigned my front page and I linked it to the style.css file that governs my blog. Now the front page looks like the rest of my site.

Mostly. I need to set my name so it comes up next to the photo and I want to eliminate the white space beneath the picture. I also want to reduce the size of the picture.

So I’m not done fiddling with it, but I’m kinda married to the plain white page. What do you think? Anything I should change? Anything that doesn’t work for you? All advice welcome.