Blog Hop: Why (and how) I write

This is my entry in the writer's "blog hop," also known as a blog tour. I was invited in by my friend and fellow writer Rosemary Claire Smith, whose own blog hop post is here. Rosemary writes science fiction and fantasy stories, drawing on her highly diverse background which ranges from the study of archaeology to the practice of law. Her subjects cover dinosaurs, time travel, folklore, mythology, aliens, and genetic engineering.

Here goes!

What am I working on?

My current work-in-progress is a science fiction romance called Worlds Apart. It's something of a duck-billed platypus of a story. It's set in the far future, and has tropes from romance, space opera, and duck-out-of-water stories. Because it's set in the far future, the title is quite literal; the two protagonists are from different planets. His people have a unique language, different manners, different values, and a way of life that seems primitive to her. To him, her world seems crowded, noisy, and full of rude people.

The tension in the story comes from a secret he keeps from her, and a mistake she makes that puts him in an impossible position.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Considering I love to read and write science fiction, I really don't focus that much on technology, in the sense of worrying about how things work. Except at a very basic level, I don't know how my car works, But what I know is, if you own a car and can afford to maintain it, you can go pretty much anywhere you want in this continent.  Likewise, in my stories, it's the effect of the technology that interests me. Even more than that, I focus on the culture and societies that my characters inhabit.  As for the romance in my current story, I created a character who is very much a product of his culture, but once he finds himself in a different setting, he has to learn to adapt without changing the core of who he is.

One of the writers I most enjoy reading is Georgette Heyer, because I always felt transported to another time and place when I read one of her books. In a way, I feel that I'm writing historical fiction/romance that hasn't happened yet.

Why do I write what I do?

Well, the stories come into my head, so it would seem wasteful not to write them down. I guess at a basic level, I write what I like to read. In addition, speculative fiction offers unlimited scope in terms of creating an interesting setting. A spec fic writer isn't limited to what's happened already or what's possible.  If I want to create a world where men and women have separated into different tribes, I can (I have!).  If I want to create a matriarchy, I can! And frankly, I love the thrill of reading a finished story. There's just nothing quite like it--except maybe getting fan email from someone who was as immersed into my story as I was.

How does my writing process work?

See above, where stories come into my head. That's how it starts. I get a scene in my mind of a person in a specific situation. The more vivid the scene is, the more I have to think about that person, and what he or she is doing and why. Once I get the gist of that straight, I think through some ideas of what the story might be about.

I might make a few notes, and I try to keep background files as I write-- lists of characters names with their relationships and physical descriptions, places (sometimes even maps and floor plans), and (very importantly) a time line.  Once I start writing, the story could easily change direction. Sometimes when I read what I have written, I get a whole new idea.

After I have a first draft, I submit it to my writers' group for critique.  They provide invaluable feedback on the characters, the setting, my writing, and the story overall. I always make some changes after I get this level of feedback, but sometimes it's more drastic change than others.

Who's up next?

Passing the baton, the next leap in this hop goes to these folks who will be posting on or about May 5, 2014. I will add a link to their posts once they do, but meanwhile you can check them out.

Ian Thomas Healy is a prolific spec fic writer whose work can range from sentient alien farts, competitive forklift racing, a religion-powered rabbit-themed superhero, cyberpunk mercenaries, cowboy elves, and an unlikely combination of vampires with minor league hockey. (in the same story!). He is also the creator of the Writing Better Action Through Cinematic Techniques workshop, which helps writers to improve their action scenes.

Aimee Condayan is a mainstream writer who is at the "looking for an agent" phase. Her knowledge and skills are wide ranging, from the DC punk rock scene to technical writing. In addition to working on a novel, she writes comedy scripts, essays, open letters, hate lists and whatever else inspires her.  Her entry is here.

A. R. Williams developed a love for reading at a very young age and in the fourth grade, when an assignment for students to write their own works of fiction was given, it occurred to him that he could craft his own SF and Fantasy tales. His work has appeared in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Three Crow Press, and Every Day Fiction. A.R. received an honorable mention in the fourth quarter of the Writers of the Future Contest in 2010.

My first Ravencon

I had never been to Ravencon before this year. It's held in Richmond, VA--or rather in the suburbs of Richmond. Since it happens to be 15 minutes from my brother's house and a friend of mine was doing his a reading and signing for his first novel, I decided to go.

It's a fun con, not substantially different from Balticon or Capclave except that it seemed to me that there were a much higher percentage of people in costume, and there were also a lot more younger fans. Some of the costumes were fabulous! See what I mean:

Don't blink! Really cool weeping angel!

A Dothraki checks his email

Watching this guy get into the elevator was fun!

One of several women warriors.

The 2014 Hugo Finalists Have Been Announced!

The Hugo ballot for this year is final!  Lots of interesting works are represented. I always like to look at how many ballots were cast in each category. This year novels are the clear winner with almost 1600. Nothing else is even close. Even the "long form dramatic presentation" (i.e., movie) category only got a little under a thousand.

But the list of categories is proof that science fiction and fantasy take many forms, and fortunately, there are talented people working in all of them.

Now I have to remember to buy a supporting membership to Loncon. I won't be in London for the convention, but a supporting membership gets me a) the free Hugo voting packet, containing most of the nominated works in ebook form, and b) a ballot, so I can vote!

The self-publishing lottery

Digital Book World writer Jeremy Greenfield, who is also a Forbes contributor posted an interesting, and I think revealing list on Forbes.  DBW compiles weekly lists of ebook bestsellers, and Greenfield went back and compiled those lists into totals of bestsellers for last year.  Counting newly-merged Penguin and Random House as one entity, and all self-published authors as one entity, this is what he came up with:

1. Penguin Random House — 478 best-sellers

2. Hachette — 258 best-sellers

3. Self-published — 99 best-sellers

4. HarperCollins — 91 best-sellers

5. Simon & Schuster — 72 best-sellers

You might think this list reveals that self-publishing is going great guns, and I think it is. But what the list doesn't show is almost as important as what it does. It doesn't say how many books were published in total, by each publisher/entity. If a batter hits 100 home runs out of 10,000 times at bat, it's not that great a home run average. But if he hits 100 out of 1,000, he's doing a lot better, and 100 out of 500, he's probably in the majors. 

So, that's my point. The list looks great until you count the at-bats for self-published authors. I'm not pushing doom and gloom, mind you, just realism. Know the odds, but do it if you want it badly enough. My motto is, even a tiny chance is better than no chance. 

Hugo reminder!

The Hugos are prestigious awards presented annually at the World Science Fiction Convention (aka Worldcon). If you are a member of the current Worldcon (to be held in London) or of last year's Worldcon, you can nominate your favorite book, short story, movie, TV episode, etc.  Nominations close on March 31, so don't procrastinate!

Note that you don't have to be an attending member. Supporting members can nominate and vote for Hugos, too!  The trophy is always a rocket ship, but the base varies from year to year. Can you tell where last year's Worldcon was held from this photo? I wonder if this year's will have Big Ben's tower or maybe St. Paul's?

We have a cover!

Isn't it pretty? I might ask the designer to scale back the shadow effect, but otherwise, I really like it!

Hello, world!

I check my blog's stats every so often and a recent trend is that people are finding it by searching Google in other (non-US) countries. Recent hits have come from Bulgaria, Hong Kong and India, as well as the more expected UK, Canada and Australia.  My most popular posts are those that give Kindle tips, especially the ones on putting non-Amazon books on a Kindle, so I suspect that Kindles being sold in other countries are driving much of my blog traffic.

On the other hand, I actually see more diverse foreign sales from Apple iBooks (via Smashwords) than any other retailer. Between Kindle, Apple, and Sony, I have sold books in India, New Zealand, and Australia, as well as the UK, Canada, Austria, Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands. The French don't seem to be interested in my books, but then, I'm not French and I write in English, so no surprise there.

It's totally cool to think of having readers around the world!

eBook Self-publishing Platforms: go wide or go narrow?

Barnes & Noble has not done that well with their Nook ereader and tablet sales, certainly not compared to Kindle sales. Of course, like Amazon, they offer an app version for reading on other devices, like PCs, iPads, Android tablets, and phones. The Windows 8 version I have on my laptop is actually pretty nice, once you figure out that you have to right-click to get to the menus.  Interestingly, Nook sales of my books have crept up lately, and they're now about the same (or sometimes better) than my Kindle sales, which was surprising in light of the reported recent bad Nook news.

Barnes & Noble now offers a nice direct-to-Nook self-publishing platform in Nook Press.  One thing it offers is the ability to edit the epub file, and republish a corrected version if you need to. Amazon offers something similar, but only if you uploaded an HTML file, not if you uploaded a Kindle-formatted *.azw file. Some of my B&N books are actually coming from Smashwords, because before Nook Press, the B&N platform didn't offer much of an advantage. Ergo, only No Safe Haven, Tribes, and King of Trees are on the Nook Press platform itself; the others are being published  to the Nook store via Smashwords, which lets you push your books to many vendors. And of course, The Sixth Discipline has to stay as a Smashwords book because that's why it can be free.  Like Amazon's KDP platform, B&N's Nook Press won't let you make a book free forever. Smashwords does, and B&N and most other retailers make their price whatever the Smashwords price is, even if that price is zero cents.  

The one self-publishing platform I have not tried is Kobo's Writing Life. My Kobo sales via Smashwords have never encouraged me to make the effort to check them out. But whether you use individual retailers' platforms or Smashwords, I would urge all self-published authors to consider carefully before sticking with any one platform exclusively, even Kindle. The more outlets you have, the better your chances are of finding readers, and that's why we're all in this game.  

A survey by any other name?

The Pew Research Group recently released the results of their study of reading habits of Americans. The Pew post was headlined "E-Reading Rises as Device Ownership Jumps." The first sentence of their overview pretty much sums up the results: "The proportion of Americans who read e-books is growing, but few have completely replaced print books for electronic versions."

The study got a lot of web coverage, but interestingly, the same study produced many different headlines:

Just Four Percent of Americans Read eBooks Only (Motherboard)

eBooks surge as devices multiply but print holds firm (NBC)

In this age of ebooks, print still alive (Des Moines Register)

Americans prefer print over ebooks (PBS)

Pew, Princeton study shows e-reading up (Teleread)

eReading is Risng But It's Not Replacing Print, Pew Research (Galleycat)

Headlines are, of course, meant to grab the reader's attention, but it is interesting to me that these headlines are so different, with the Motherboard one giving only a single stat, the PBS headline flatly ignoring the increase in e-reading, and the Teleread headline ignoring any preference for print. Of course, all of them have more info in the posts than in the headlines

I find it interesting that the Des Moines Register calls today "the age of ebooks." Personally, I think the real age of ebooks will start in 10 to 20 years from now. Until then I agree that print is still going to be necessary for true sweeping success, which is why, as I said in my last post, I plan to move to print and ebook publishing.

Paper is not dead to me!

I don't hate print books!  I prefer digital reading because of the convenience of having my library in my purse, and the fact that I can make the fonts whatever size is comfortable for me. But one reason I have only published in ebook form to date is that it takes a lot more time to publish in print; you have to format the book and make sure the pages look good. However, I have decided that with Saronna's Gift I'm going to try to do a simultaneous print and ebook release, using Amazon's CreateSpace print-on-demand (POD) service.  That means that Amazon customers will be able to order the book in print or read it on their Kindles or Kindle apps.

This is going to take me a little while longer to do, but I am hoping I can get both versions ready at the same time. Wish me luck as I make myself into a POD person (if you got that reference, you are probably not a millennial; if you didn't get it, check out this write up of Invasion of the Body Snatchers).