If you are coming to World Con and you’d like to share a coffee with me, or any of the fabulous authors who are there, here is the link to the World Con KoffeeKlatsche page. It’s a chance to talk about books, the publishing industry, writing and anything that interests you.
Coffee makes the World go Around … the World go Around … sung to the tune of Money Makes the World go Around from Cabaret!
Filed under Fantasy books, Fun Stuff, Genre, Publishing Industry, Writing craft
Good friend of mine, Sandy Curtis, is running a writing retreat at Kellys Beach Resort. So if you live up that way, near the coast in central Queensland and you’d like to spend 3 days at a lovely resort with a published mentor going through your book, short story or play …
Three storytellers will each offer their unique insights into writing at a mentoring retreat at Kelly’s Beach Resort, Bargara on the coast near Bundaberg, in Queensland.
The Bundaberg based professionals will mentor emerging novelists, short story crafters and playwrights over three days from 15-17 October 2010.
Mentoring the Muse is proposed as an intensive retreat-style development program similar to iniatives like the Varuna Manuscript Development Awards in NSW or the QWC/Hachette Australia Manuscript Development Program. These have been highly successful at supporting writers to improve their work to publishable standard, resulting in numerous publishing contracts for participants.
There is nothing like getting away from family and work and concentrating on your writing in a beautiful environment with other writers, while being mentored by someone who ‘gets’ your writing!
For those of you who like Dark Urban Fantasy, here is a review of Trent Jamieson’s book. Death Most Definite. They say:
‘The fascinating central premise of Death as a corporate interest is handled in a serious and frighteningly credible manner, allowing for some engrossing and inventive world-building on the author’s part; the twist-laden plot belts along at breathtaking pace from page one (‘unputdownable’ is a fair description)’
Naturally, I’m delighted with this. I got to read Trent’s book in the final draft at ROR in March 2009 when we stayed in Maleny. Lots of delicious cooking, thanks to Dirk Flinthart, lots of wine and lots of talk about the craft of writing, while analysing my friends’ wonderful books. What could be better?
And here is the bookplate I designed for Trent. Look out for book one of his Death Works trilogy in the bookstores in August.
One of my writing friends asked for a writing craft blog post about how not to waste time surfing the net and reading blogs when you should be writing. While being aware of the irony of this, I got into the spirit and confessed to having a LOL Cat addiction.
I actually think LOL cats is evidence that the world is not a terrible place. The news gives us this skewed view of the world full of disasters and politics and sport. But there are all these people out there taking pictures of their pets and coming up with funny captions, which proves that the world is not all death and disaster.
Here’s one that I just love. I think you have to be a cat person to really appreciate it.
Having been way too over committed recently, I thought others could learn from my mistakes. So I gave the ‘writer and time management thing’ some thought, and did a post over at the ROR blog on the topic.
Filed under creativity, Fun Stuff, Nourish the Writer, The Writing Fraternity, Writing craft
It is time for me to ‘Nourish the Inner Writer’. I had to take myself aside the other day and tell myself, ‘You can’t do everything, Grasshopper. Take a step back and have some quiet time’.
I feel like I have been running on the spot since I went back to work in February. Teaching three subjects was fun, I enjoyed the students and I learnt so much, you always do when you teach. This time it was Academic Essay Writing, Interactive Narrative (for computer games) and Script writing & Storyboards. But this meant there were assignments to mark every three weeks or so, because we run an accelerated course and it was the marking that got to me. I’ve just finished a week of marking to get everything done in time for moderation.
All this wouldn’t be so bad if I hadn’t had to edit my three books in the same 12 weeks. The books come out a month apart starting in June. Over here at the ROR blog I’ve done a post about the editing process. The short version is that each book has to be edited 3-4 times before it goes to the printer and each book is over 100,000 words. I’m up to the page proofs of book two (that’s the last one before it goes to the printer) and I just sent back the copy edits (that’s the second last one) of book three. So I’m nearly done.
On top of this I’ve been trying to write the first book of my Australindia series, which is really exciting, but completely new — new world, new characters etc. I find writing a first draft requires dedicated time at the computer because I have to get into the headspace where the characters and the world come to life. And I just haven’t had blocks of time to do this. It’s made me feel guilty and slightly edgy, because the story keeps calling me back. The characters are getting ‘ansty’. (That’s Australian slang for a bit ‘aggro’, sorry another bit of Australian slang, but I’m sure you can work out what it means).
Feeling guilty because your book characters are getting neglected must be a specifically writerly phenomenon. Trent Jamieson’s done a post about it here. You have to give yourself permission to take time off to recharge the batteries.
So that’s what I’ve done. I’m going to take time off. The next term starts on the last day of May. I have a very small window of opportunity. Daryl and I are going to run away to Tasmania for a driving holiday. It’s not quite as romantic as it sounds because we have to take our youngest son (15) with us. But I am really looking forward to being visually stimulated. Tasmania is lovely. And I’m taking my laptop with me. I plan to write in the evenings. No marking, no deadlines, no large family to run about. Heaven!
So that is how I plan to nourish the Inner Writer. How do you Nourish your Inner whatever it may be?
Filed under creativity, Fun Stuff, Nourish the Writer, Publishing Industry
Artwork by Hhen
As Kristin Nelson said:
When I’ve got an older grandmother expressing unabashed enthusiasm in owning an eReader, I can’t help but think the tipping point is near—even if current electronic sales only equal about 2% of the market right now (statistic via a recent PW article). (Read Kristin’s article here)
Over at the Mad Genius Club blog there’s been several posts about e-books — the prices, the eReaders and what the publishers are doing. I don’t seem to come across many e-books. When I ride the train to work I see lots of people reading paperbacks but not virtual books. Of course they could be reading e-books on their laptops, but they seem to be typing away like mad.
According to Amazon e-books sales out sold print book sales over Christmas.
Spare a thought for the humble hardback this Christmas. It seems the traditional giftwrapped tome is being trumped by downloads, after Amazon customers bought more e-books than printed books for the first time on Christmas Day. (Read the article here).
So I took a quick poll through several e-lists. The listers were readers and writers who are familiar with technology so they probably aren’t representative of the general Australian public. But they could be representative of them in a few years.
The responses were interesting. They ranged from people who bought 90% of their books as e-books and had been buying books in this format since 1996, to others who didn’t buy e-books at all. One person had downloaded free e-books or won over 40 of them, but had only read one so far, as … I love to hold a book, turn the pages, and put it on the bookshelf.
Some people are buying e-books to save the cost of postage from the US or because the books are hard to get in print format. Many had just started buying e-books within the last couple of years.
Those who are reading a lot of e-books are reading them on their iPhones, Kindle, Sony eReader, Adobe Digitial Editions, eeepc or on their lap tops. Lots of readers were considering buying a eReader of some kind. As one reader said:
I’m curious about e-books and I think I’ll be open to them as a reader (maybe even a writer) but I’m not confident with the technology at this stage. Waiting to see what emerges as the best reader. I like the idea of less paper (less dead trees) and also less storage space needed in my home. I’ll always love and covet particular paper books but I do think the space thing is marvellous – once I do embrace the technology I’m sure I will buy more books just because I’ll have room for them!
Many confessed a love for traditional books. While some saw advantages in e-books:
They are so immediate. You want a book, and – click- it’s there.
Or:
I read quite a few ebooks. I use Project gutenberg and other sources to access out of print stuff that would otherwise mean I’d have to hunt in libraries. I also download the freebies from publishers for authors I want to try. If I love the writing, I then buy their books in paper, but my reading for long bus journeys etc is on my netbook.
Those who buy e-books are buying them through many different outlets: Fictionwise, Mobipocket, Library.com, Apple’s iBookstore, All Romance ebooks, Diesel ebooks, Books on Board, My Bookstore and Amazon Kindle.
Many people bought from several outlets and most liked going directly to the publishers. The feeling was that e-books in Australian bookstores were over priced.
My major gripe with ebooks for sale in Australia (through retail chains, particularly) is that they cost around the same as a paperback, so I don’t think ebooks will take the Aussie market by storm because of the price through bookshops. Online stores and publishers’ websites sell the ebooks at competitive prices and I like to be able to read a few sample pages before I decide whether to buy the book in print.
When asked if they were buying e-books for a specific purpose, most people said, they were either buying them for research or pleasure, or both.
I just buy them as I would once have bought paper books – only I find I’m buying at least twice as many (because they’re so cheap).
Those who were published in e-books felt they were getting a fair royalty which ranged from 20% to 40% and their books were available direct from the publishers as well as several other on-line outlets.
On the subject of the types of books available and royalties one reader said:
I think that when you move away from the idea that novels are simply re-presented as e-books, and look at short stories suitable for short bursts of reading time, or stories created specifically for the medium, a decent shop front should make self-publishing relatively effortless. The royalty issue becomes less important when authors can reasonably do everything themselves.
Even those who bought only print books were curious about e-books and, as one reader said:
E-books do not go mouldy on my boat. — LOL!
On that note, I’d like to thank the many people who responded to my survey.
What is your experience of e-books? Are they a tidal wave, gathering out there in the ocean of the public’s book buying habits?
Filed under E-books, Publishing Industry
Over at the ROR blog we’ve opened the blog to industry questions.
We realised that between us we had over 70 years experience in the publishing industry. (Now that is a scary thought!). So we’re answering questions.
Over at the Mad Genius Club – Writers Division, we’ve been discussing e-books and their effect in publishing.
Filed under The Writing Fraternity, Writing craft
