Diminisher of Peace
Always Becoming
A Corner Not Dipped In Styx
Nanowhere Chapt. 1
Thanks, Lori! An interview I did with author Lori Devoti a couple weeks ago just went up on her site, and looks great--I'm a little blue, however, but that's just my author pic from the Juno Books site.
http://loridevoti.com/blog/2008/07/01/interview-urban-fantasy-author-chris-howard/
Ah yes, the old CEFV... (pron. seph-vee).
So, here's the story: The publisher of SEABORN (Juno Books) will be releasing a print and electronic version of the book--and the ebook in a variety of formats. I have a reader, and I read books onscreen. I know how different ebooks can look from reader to reader, version to version, format to format, and I want to make sure this looks right on everything. Ebook channels like Fictionwise will convert the text into a bunch of formats, but I want to start with something that looks right in some basic formats, HTML and RTF. I've used some conversion tools to build LIT (MSReader), PDF, and MOBI (PRC) versions.
If you have an ebook reader or read books on your Windows/Mac/Linux machine--or if you just want to read the first four chapters of Seaborn, try one of the following formats. (If you'd like to convert it into another format, go for it!)
seabornChapt1-4F.html (Formatted HTML)
seabornChapt1-4U.html (Unformatted HTML - Kindle)
seabornChapt1-4.rtf (Rich Text Format)
seabornChapt1-4.pdf (Acrobat)
seabornChapt1-4PRC.zip (MOBI)
seabornChapt1-4.lit (MSReader)
Read, let me know what you think of the formatting, the story, anything.
Amazon's Digital Text Platform (DTP) is where you go to manage all of your ebook-selling functions for Kindle, Amazon's eBook Reader--and the "Kindle Store" the place to get all things Kindle, books, newspapers, magazines, and other downloadable content.
DTP follows a simple structure, you have a Shelf with all your ebooks, reports to see what's going on with sales, and your account information--address, identity, and bank account information--who you are, and how you're going to get paid.
I signed up yesterday to include my novel Nanowhere, really just to see how easy it is to get things going with Amazon. And, yeah, it's very simple. Some basic account forms to fill out--the same information you need for PayPal--and you're on your way.
If you're doing this as an "individual" business type, then you may have to get some numbers together first, like a bank account and routing number. I mean, I don't carry this information around with me, but I do have a bank account specifically set up for online stuff--an account separate from our main account. I recommend this if you're doing business of any sort online--and this is a business arrangement, you're selling books through Amazon.com, and they need to know where to send your money.
You will have to provide one of the following:
Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN)
Social Security Number (SSN)
Employer Identification Number (EIN)
Here's a quick walk-through of the ebook setup (Click any of these images to see the larger versions).
I created a nice readable HTML version of Nanowhere (using simple tagging. See the link at the end for all the supported tags). The upload block also has a cool Preview feature to show you what your book's going to look like on a Kindle.
Then I set a price, and saved the whole thing to my Shelf:
Before you can get your ebooks into the Kindle Store, you need to add your account information:
and--so you can get paid--bank info:
And you're done. It's free to set up, and anyone with a Kindle can wirelessly download and read your books, articles, stories.
Kindle Stuff:
Supported HTML tags:
http://forums.digitaltextplatform.com/dtpforums/entry.jspa?externalID=30&categoryID=11
http://dtp.amazon.com/mn/signin
Kindle books through Fictionwise? No problem:
http://www.fictionwise.com/help/kindleFaq.htm
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I'm calling for authors of SF, fantasy, horror to post a timeline of events from the day the editor says "yes" to the day the book hits store shelves. I'd like to gather some data on what other authors go through, how long the contract negotiations last, how long the editing, copyediting phases last. I'd like to track title changes, cover art changes, and when in the sequence of events authors/editors/agents begin to seek blurbs, issue press releases, distribute advanced reader copies.
Build yor own, post them, comment here or email me at chrishoward.author@gmail.com
Be as detailed as you like. You can write a simple list of dates and what happened, or you can put down every day and what happened.
I posted my publishing timeline a week ago, and I've included links to my original Visio doc along with a couple other formats, SVG and VXD (XML format), and less useful but printable PNG.
Download my timeline here:
VSD - Visio 2003 format | VDX format | SVG format | 600 dpi PNG
Use any of these as a basis for your own timeline. I've placed them under a Creative Commons Share Alike license: 
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License
I have posted mine for SEABORN (http://www.saltwaterwitch.com) which will be out in July from Juno Books, roughly 14 months from the editor saying "yes," my agent and editor finalizing the contract, to the book hitting the stores:
Click the pic to view it larger.
Or, What happens between the acceptance of your manuscript and the launch of your book
(from someone who barely knows what he’s talking about--since he only has the experience of one book going into publication).
What does happen to your manuscript after the publisher accepts it? I've always been curious.
What follows is my documented ordering of the events, editing, extra work, writing, pitching, and other stuff an author has to do before one precious copy of the book hits the shelves in a bookstore.
Anyone writing for years and breaking into the published market, reading the blogs of authors, agents, editors, will have heard all the terms and processes, things like copyediting and ARCs (Advanced Reading Copies--books printed ahead of the release date specifically for book reviewers, sometimes handed out by the thousands at conventions like Book Expo America).
But I've never understood the order of the activities clearly. When a writer says his book's "gone into copyediting," where exactly is that in the process? How far along the road to release is it?
What I've done--and I'd love some feedback from those who know a lot more than I do--is mark the road with all the various things I've had to do, attend to, understand, agree to, and receive in order to get to that glorious release day...July 20, 2008. (Obviously some of the stuff in the timeline has not yet happened, so I'm guessing with the dates there).
Click the image below to view the readable version.
Here's what the process looks like from my perspective:
Skott and I drove down to the Westin along the Boston waterfront after work on Friday to catch a couple of the panels at Boskone, meet some cool publishers and writers, find out how the Naval War College plays games, the usual stuff. The preso by Christopher Weuve on Naval Analysis Through Iterative Wargaming was very interesting. He went through historic gaming, the war college's influence in decision making, how the games are played, won, lost, cool stuff.
We also took in a panel with the amazing Karl Schroeder on forecasting the future, how he's been working with government and industry groups to prepare possible futures for the policy makers in these industries and government departments. Karl talked about the scenario building processes, the elitism of typical futurism--and futurists, time frames--pretty short 10 -20 year forecasts. One of the interesting--even more interesting than the already interesting forecasting projects he's been a part of--was a book-length work, Crisis in Zefra, he wrote for the Canadian army (Directorate of Land Strategic Concepts of National Defense Canada), basically dramatized future military operations in a fictional citystate preparing to hold its first democratic elections. SF author's dream, right there.
We said hello, shook hands--between panels--with Tobias Buckell, and then saw him later with sort of a Stross-Buckell mashup in the hotel's lobby. (Some issues with all of us meeting in the restaurant, apparently). I asked Sarah Beth Durst about getting on Boskone panels for next year, and she and Paul Park and Craig Shaw Gardner gave me some great advice. Me on a panel? Won't that be crazy?
Had a couple chats with Kelly Link and Gavin Grant (in the same place, the Small Beer Press booth, but at different times) about the future of publishing, ebooks, phones, Creative Commons licensing, and the commercial uses of user generated content. This last is for a product I'm working on, launching some time end of March, early April. More on that when I can. Skott picked up a couple books. I picked up The Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner there.
Also stopped to talk to Cynthia at Withywindle Books, talked about art, the upcoming release of Seabon (Juno Books) in July! I actually had my picture taken.
Some great panels this year, interesting new directions, how to write battles, painting demos from Bob Eggleton and Omar Rayyan. The Higgins Armory is here all weekend with armored combat demonstrations--how can you not love that? A bunch of our writing group got together in the evening for talk and dinner with Craig Shaw Gardner and Jeff Carver.
I also chatted with Craig and a few others about a new title for The New Sirens, and I'm now running a contest here. Check out it. Help me find a title, and win art, ARCs, something cool. More info here: http://the0phrastus.typepad.com/
Pics. Just a few from my phone. Karl Schroeder, Gavin Grant (just after he used Skott's iPhone to take our picture), Higgins Armory demo. Click on them to see the larger versions.
Here's something for the Juno Books authors with a future release date--that includes me! I like the idea of a graphical panel with links for pre-ordering, book info, and a countdown timer to the release date. So, I spent a couple hours goofing with javascript, images, styles, etc., and created the Juno Books Countdown Widget.
Here's what it looks like with Dru's book, coming out in April:
Here's the code. (Right-click, "Save as...").
1. Grab it, fill in the values for title, author, image URL, and a few links to Book Sense, Amazon, Barnes & Noble.
2. Upload the code as a file on your blog, a web server, somewhere that will allow access to it through a web browser.
3. Change the "src=" link to your uploaded file and paste the following IFrame code in your blog sidebar, any web page, and you're done. (See the line, src="http://the0phrastus.typepad.com/countdownClockworkHeart.htm" in the code below? Change that to the file you uploaded in step 2).
<iframe scrolling="no" style="width:214px;height:304px;" frameborder="0" src="http://the0phrastus.typepad.com/countdownClockworkHeart.htm" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"></iframe>
If you need some help getting this going, post a comment, and I'll see what I can do.
I spent some time this morning updating the web site for Seaborn. I had too many problems with IE6 with the last one. Take a look. Let me know how you think it looks. I'm still working on the content, but I want to get the structure down and working with as many browsers as possible before I really get into what's in the site.
I've just started goofing with a web site (a page or two really) for my novel Seaborn. It won't be in stores for months, but I figure I can't be too early for some things. Got to start building a presence and momentum now. As far as domain names, Seaborn.com was taken, but I've picked up SeabornBook.com, SeabornOnline.com, NineCities.com, and SaltwaterWitch.com, and I'll probably alias them all to one.
Anyway, I'd love it if you took a look at my first pass and commented here on what you think. If you click the pic on the left, you'll see a screenshot of the site. Click the link below to see the latest--which may or may not have changed:
New: http://www.saltwaterwitch.com/
http://the0phrastus.typepad.com/saltwater_witch/index2.html
One of the things I'm particularly interested in knowing is how it appears in different browsers. I'm checking with IE7 and FF2, but I don't have Safari, Opera or others. Let me know how it looks Safari users!
I'm totally wiped out, coming down with a cold. I slept horribly the whole time we were out there, and dragged through the days like a zombie. I did get some great pics though, which shows that even zombies can handle today's tech with little or no brain activity.
Before I get started: Alice, you made all this happen! We wouldn't have made it to Saratoga Springs without your perseverance, patience, low-sleep driving skills, scrupulous tile-bleaching, and tolerance of my bad behavior. Thank you.
World Fantasy 2007 was simply amazing. I didn't know what to expect. This is a professional and "serious reader" conference with editors and agents and authors running around, lunching, doing business in the halls. I hardly saw Paula Guran, had a five minute chat with her and Matt Cook (Blood Magic), and then she was gone, off presumably doing the things editors do at these kinds of get togethers. When I did see her later, she looked too busy to stop and talk.
I took my daughter Chloe along with me on this one, and we had a good time tracking down her favorite authors, Scott Westerfeld, Holly Black, Cassandra Clare, Garth Nix, (some of mine, too), and getting them to sign books--which all were happy to do.
We sat in on quite a few panels, but I think these were the best:
I'll stop here to point out that Delia Sherman is amazing, and Charlaine Harris is hilarious, but even Charlaine couldn't compete with the Aussies.
The Australian authors were the funniest group there, ranging all over the fantastic map with Australian themes for stories, poisonous insects and snakes, isolation as a fundamental influencer in Australian lit, and they even broke out in song with Garth Nix leading several lines of Waltzing Mathilda.
We hit the autograph session late Friday and got a few more pics. I met Maria Lima, and Chloe scouted out the authors she wanted sigs from.
Fantasy Worlds, Book Covers
Australian authors, YA Reading
The main reception area / me and Lois McMaster Bujold in front of the Prime Books table. (Wow!)
Jim Frenkel of Tor and Craig Shaw Gardner / Chloe with Sarah Beth Durst
Chloe getting (another) autograph from Bruce Coville, and then from Tamora Pierce.
Chloe with Holly Black, and a little later getting Cassandra Clare's autograph.
Chloe and Scott Westerfeld, and Garth Nix signing Sabriel for Chloe.
I am going to do my best to get to World Fantasy 2008 in Calgary. Hope to see you there.
I'm taking my camera. I'll post when I can. Hope to see you at World Fantasy 2007! I'll see if I can get Chloe to write something about her first con experience.
We're off to Saratoga Springs, NY in a couple days for World Fantasy Convention 2007. Where will you be this weekend?
Take a look at the amazing list of people attending. I just went through and grabbed some names: Guy Gavriel Kay, Lois McMaster Bujold, Chloe Howard, David Louis Edelman, Holly Black, Kelly Link, Scott Lynch, Garth Nix, Scott Westerfeld, Lou Anders, Christopher Barzak, Elizabeth Bear, Ellen Datlow, Hal Duncan, Craig Shaw Gardner, Christopher Golden, Sharyn November.
So many more. Check it out:
http://www.lastsfa.org/wfc2007/membership.php
Chloe--my daughter--is on the list. She and I will be attending Friday-Sunday with varying agendas, while Christopher and Alice explore upstate New York. Chloe's agenda involves seeking out Scott Westerfeld, Garth Nix, Holly Black, and more of her favorite authors.
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Here are a few things I know about writing and getting published, but only if you catch me in an optimistic mood. Otherwise, I'll deny ever writing this.
I have never felt more certain about the writing path on which I've found myself--never more certain of the steps I am taking. With some careful contemplation, chin scratching, thoughtful "hmmmm" noises, I have broken it into four main points, Writing, Rejection, Uncertainty, and Time (WRUT?)
Here's what I think I know:
Writing
That age-old pro writer advice to "keep writing" turns out to be absolutely true. I have been writing fiction since high school in the late '70s. It took me--off and on--thirty-five years to get my first story published. (Yeah, I'm a slow learner). Here's what I think: I stepped over some word or story threshold a while back, around 2003, and I said to myself, "ἐξαίφνης"--exaiphnês--"Suddenly!"--you know, like Platonists seeing the Forms after their intense fifty-year graduate studies. Okay, never mind. Let's keep moving. Somehow I just knew that I had finally written enough to feel right with what I was writing, all that writing over the years paid off, writing isn't the word-brawl it used to be, words flow more freely from my fingertips to the keyboard. Writing isn't easy--and probably won't ever be, but I don’t struggle as much with plotting, sentence structure, dialogue, words. What I write is never right the first time; it just feels closer to right than ever, and I'm a better self-editor than I've ever been. Because I write--write all the time. I completed SEABORN in January and since then, I have written three short stories, completed an 85k word YA fantasy SALTWATER WITCH (going to my agent next week). And I'm over 60k words into THE NEW SIRENS, sequel to SEABORN. NaNoWriMo, it's not just for November anymore.
Rejection
Get rejected early, get rejected often. Get used to it. It sucks but it's going to happen a lot. I used to keep a folder with all my rejection letters, but gave up after I broke the 100-reject mark. It's nothing personal, and I even think it has more to do with mood and what music the editor's/agent's assistant is listening to at that moment, how high in the stack your manuscript is, how high the stack is, than anything else--especially if you feel that you're over the above writing threshold. That a writer "ought to be" published makes no difference. We all ought to be published. It just doesn't work that way.
I can't remember my first rejection letter, but I know it was a form reject, and it was in 1980. I do remember a rejection a year later from Andrew Offutt, then editing a fantasy anthology called Swords Against Darkness (Charles de Lint's first professional sale was in this anthology). Here's a scan of the letter Mr. Offutt sent me, rejecting my story (I can't remember the title), and here's one of the first posts I made on http://theophrast.us about that early rejection experience. I have great rejection letters from Jennifer Jackson, Rachel Vater, and others, real letters that gave me real hope. Rejection can be good.
Uncertainty
Good writing is rejected every day, some small fraction of everything going through the post never makes it to its destination, butterflies are flapping their wings somewhere, causing all kinds of bad shit to happen to your manuscript, your query letter, your chapters--and agents and editors are the busiest people on the planet, and they have moods and attention spans like everyone else. They also have incredible talent for finding talent. We know this because there are successful writers out there--obviously--and some agent found them, some editor took a chance, some publishing house--big NYC firms and small presses--invested in them, wrote up contracts for those authors to sign, cut checks, spent marketing dollars on them, paid artists for cover art, paid type designers and cover designers and copy editors, blogged about the whole thing, went to cons and introduced their authors to other authors and industry insiders. We know this stuff happens. It's just difficult to know how or when it will happen. Uncertainty.
Writing, rejection and uncertainty can all be tied together and developed, handled, manipulated by you the writer to some extent. On the other hand, you can't do anything about time. Don't even attempt it. Time always has the upper hand because it's never ours, but someone else's.
Time
I think it's the only thing you can't do anything about. Everything takes time, and in publishing, double everything. Learn patience--that's from me, the slow learner. I can't tell you how many times I've been writing a letter or about to write a letter--nice ones, mind you, fingers are on the keyboard, passion in my soul...and that's when I get something in the mail or email from the editor or agent, and in every case I've thought "whew!" I'm glad I didn't finish that email. Be lazy when it comes to following up on anything you send to an agent or editor. Wait it out and you will be rewarded.
There's my take on it. There's always another book to write. WRUT. Write on.
Paula Guran, editor of Juno Books just sent me a first look at the Seaborn cover painting, and...wow. I mean, WOW! I'll post a pic when I can.
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My first novel SEABORN will be in stores July 2008 (Juno Books). In the mean time, I'm giving away an all new edition of my novel, Nanowhere in PDF format. Download it here, read it, let me know what you think! chrishoward.author@gmail.com
Cory Doctorow: "Interesting and well-written...Chris Howard has released an sf thriller Nanowhere under a Creative Commons license, along with a bunch of supplementary materials that purports to be the lab notes and publications of one of the book's characters."
http://www.lykeionbooks.com/nanowhere/
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Test your werewolf knowledge and you could win...
Juno Books (http://www.juno-books.com) is celebrating Halloween and the release of DANCING WITH WEREWOLVES by Carole Nelson Douglas (http://juno-books.com/dancing
THE [Dancing With] WEREWOLVES QUIZ:
(http://juno-books.com/werewolf
All you need to do is provide the name of the book or story and the author of the ten werewolvian literary excerpts (see link above) and email the answers to info@juno-books.com with the subject WEREWOLF CONTEST.
Deadline is October 10. Winners will be announced on Halloween.
I was in Barnes & Noble in North Shore Mall (Peabody, MA) at lunch to pick up Scott Westerfeld's Extras for Chloe (birthday present), and swung through the fantasy/SF section to look for Juno Books authors on the shelves--and without really looking (I didn't have a lot of time) I found Matt Cook's Blood Magic, Carole McDonnell's Wind Follower, and Best New Romantic Fantasy 2 edited by Paula Guran. Click the pics below to see them a bit larger. What's cool is that there are three copies of Matt's book on the shelves and another two on the "Dark Fantasy" end cap along with Patricia Briggs and a bunch of others. Nice placement.
http://www.juno-books.com/bloodmagic.html
http://www.juno-books.com/windfollower.html
http://www.juno-books.com/bnrf2.html
Click the pics to see them larger.
We'll be off to Saratoga Springs, New York on November 1st for World Fantasy. Alice booked us rooms somewhere in the vicinity (I'm a bit late signing up). The MC is Guy Gavriel Kay, and look at the list of attendees here. Some of the Juno Books authors will be there including Matt Cook (Blood Magic), and editor, Paula Guran.
Are you going, Skott?
Hope to see you there. More info:
http://www.lastsfa.org/wfc2007/index.html
WORLD FANTASY 2007
SARATOGA SPRINGS, NEW YORK
November 1 – 4, 2007
Links:
http://www.lastsfa.org/wfc2007/membership.php
http://www.lastsfa.org/wfc2007/index.html
Still me and my blog with a couple a podcasts...
To start, let me direct your attention to this lovely piece of visualization:
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(Click to see the full version)
The image isn't to scale because if it were, my blog wouldn't appear on the page. I could have placed a callout with a line pointing to one colored pixel, representing my blog in the universe, but even that would be a horrible twist of the facts.
My place in the blogosphere in relation to podcasting is sort of like those pictures of our solar system with the scale corrected. There's Jupiter, gigantic in the center, Saturn, the other planets. That little tiny blue spec is earth. Where's the center of it all, the sun? Then you notice the glowing orange edge of the page with a very slight curve, a fiery bleed of light that you didn't at first register. Ah, there it is, good old Helios. Couldn't fit it on the page and maintain the scale.
Here, is this a little better?
(Click to see the full version)
Let's forget about scale and concentrate on two aspects of this diagram: the lines going from podcast listeners to my blog and The Harrow, and the fact that the two universes do not overlap.
The lines represent the channels, podcast listeners who found my mp3 file and either came to my blog and followed the link to the story, or went directly to The Harrow to read it.
Some interesting facts:
The Harrow published my story, "Diminsher of Peace" in the September 2005 issue. I recorded myself reading it in August, posted the MP3 and XML right after the story appeared online, and then submitted the feed to iTunes, Podcast.net, and a few others.
There used to be a link to The Harrow's statistics page, which listed the top-most accessed stories, reviews and articles in the zine, and after a year or so online, my stories, "Diminisher of Peace" and "Always Becoming" were first and second ranked on the site. Sure, I think they're damn fine stories, but...ranked first and second? Where are all these readers coming from?
Let's move on to the overlap.
First: There isn't any. No overlap. I didn't really cover this well in the diagram, but by no overlap, I mean that I don't think anyone in the podcast universe even knew who I was before finding some guy named Chris Howard who read his story and submitted it to iTunes. I'm willing to bet that not one of the people who found my blog by way of the podcast had ever set there eyes on it before.
By joining the podcast universe with my blog--even with it was a thin link to a small percentage of people looking for fiction podcasts, it's a new connection, new visitors, possibly return visitors. Podcasting seems to be a way to get traffic from an audience that was completely unaware of me.
There are millions of people out there downloading and listening to podcasts. An article on podcasting at MSNBC in April 2005, stated that according to a Pew Research poll, "more than 6 million people" have listened to a podcast. This was a couple years ago:
Twenty-nine percent of U.S. adults who own MP3 players like Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod say they have downloaded podcast programs from the Internet, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found.
Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7374976/
My point in posting this is to share my opinion that recording your writing may bring traffic to your site (or the publisher's), and to ask anyone who reads this if they have similar experiences with podcasting, or if they've read or know of someone who has.
There are a lot of things I haven't tried yet or looked into, such as how many fiction podcasts are there in iTunes and the others? What's the demand? Is there a continual listenership? Will they come back to my podcast for more?
Here's some more info:
Audible's Podcast Tool Tallies Listeners
Audible Inc. is introducing a tool to help advertisers measure how many people are listening to podcasts, the Internet-based audio shows that are downloaded to listeners' computers.
Media Bistro article on podcasting:
Why Podcast? And Also, Why Not.
http://www.mediabistro.com/mbtoolbox/writing_online/why_podcast_and_also_why_not_32046.asp
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Just look down the right side column, and then scroll about a mile into the ground. You can see that I'm always on the lookout for exceptional blogs to read. Okay, I don't have endless hours to fill with blog reading, but I also don't want to lose track of the great blogs out there. Justine Larbalestier has pointed us--her readers, because all of us--everyone--should be reading Justine's blog--to Kathleen T. Horning's blog on GLBT books, Worth the Trip.
http://worththetrip.wordpress.com/
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Vampire Island
by Adele Griffin
Publisher: G. P. Putnam’s Sons
ISBN-10: 0399237852
ISBN-13: 978-0399237850
The Livingstone's are vegetarians. They're vampires, and they live in Manhattan. You just know it's not going to be a walk in the park—Central Park, that is.
Adele Griffin's Vampire Island takes us into the world of Lexie, Maddy and Hudson, a world where vampires and humans live together, but not all vampires are fruit-bat hybrids. I really enjoyed following Lexie through her boy problems, Maddy spying on the neighbors, and Hudson setting out to save the world.
Hudson has a small language problem. He uses old world words (like "yewn," "O’ Happy Day" and "whilst") in a new world. He wants to help save the planet from global warming, so he makes people write on both sides of the paper, use the least amount of electricity possible, and sometimes has his sister Maddy scare kids into not using as much throw-away paper or plastic at lunch. By night he loves to fly through Central Park, talking to bat friends. By day he talks to the animals his parent's pet sit.
Lexie can do things only bats can do, echo-sounding, super-fast reflexes (I liked the coin catching trick), double-jointed knees. These attract the attention of the hottest guy in school, Dylan Easterby. Dylan happens to be the same age as Lexie (her human age anyway). Lexie runs into trouble because Mina, the most popular girl in school, also happens to want Dylan.
Of all the vampire children, Maddy has the most trouble adapting to the vegan diet, but she's willing to try some interesting new foods. She drinks hot pomegranate juice every morning, pretending it's blood. She eats mosquitoes and ticks to get the blood they have taken from others. She also has a keen sense for uncovering and hunting down pureblood vampires. When two move in across the street from the Livingstone’s, she is not about to let them hurt her family. She's an awful cook, but that doesn't stop her from making cookies with garlic and holy water. She can also be bossy. She gets Hudson, her younger brother, to dress up as a girl elf scout, and has him sell the special cookies to the vampires. She's also disappointed that her brother looks better in her elf scout uniform then she does.
Adele Griffin's Vampire Island is a wonderful, funny, suspenseful story. I read it cover to cover in one sitting, and I would recommend it for anyone who likes adventure, magic, creatures of the night, and garlic cookies.
http://www.adelegriffin.net/ | Amazon.com | BookSense.com
Chloe Howard is a seventh-grader who reads everything that gets near her, and will write reviews for books she likes, but sometimes she'll write one for cash or iTunes credit.
See all my reviews.
...cultivating an air of mystery and intrigue--and extending my Web site! And then there's all that writing I do. It's finally starting to pay off. Paula Guran linked back to me from Juno Books News, a quarterly email newsletter (Get on the list here).
Chris Howard's SEABORN is also now
slated for publication. Chris has an extensive Web site/blog --
http://the0phrastus.typepad.com/-- where you can also see his
fine art
( http://the0phrastus.typepad.com/the0phrastus/2007/08 /seaborn.html)
inspired by his writing (or maybe vice versa). We think you'll be
intrigued by what you see there!
Cool. Thanks Paula!
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Here's a montage made up of some of the stuff I created while writing my novel Seaborn (Juno Books 2008), along with some handwritten notes and arrows and bits of text and dialogue from the book. Click the pic to see it a lot larger, and let me know if it still isn't big enough, and I'll repost. I made this to fit nicely on a 13x19 poster--but it can also be used for wallpaper! (Thanks, Gabriele!)
Theophrast.us (my blog) | More of my art (watercolors and digital format work)
Okay, it's way down at the bottom because, well, my book isn't even going to be out for a year, but it's still so cool to see your name next to your book title on the publisher's home page--perhaps only one thing cooler. Also over on the schedule/About page: http://juno-books.com/about.html.
http://juno-books.com/blog/?p=218
BTW, a good long interview with Paula Guran editor of Juno Books at Dee and dee Dish.
A great post by JA Konrath: What Works? Everything from MySpace to mass emailing to store signings and launch parties. A bunch of ideas, services, events, many many things you, me, we can do to make our books a success.
Blood Magic by Matthew Cook (Juno Books) is available for ordering. Love the cover art. (Click the pic to see it a bit larger).
What am I listening to: Bad Brains, Rock for Light
The mass market paperback edition of my novel SEABORN will be out in July 2008 from Juno Books, an imprint that specializes in "a variety of fantasy featuring strong female characters." Juno Books is an imprint of Prime Books/Wildside Press.
I completed a YA fantasy SALTWATER WITCH in July, and it's with my agent.
Working like a whole hive of bees--super coordinated writing bees who like the sea--on The New Sirens, working title for the sequel to Seaborn.
J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter as a seven book series is amazing enough, but as a spring of successful movies, toys, Halloween costumes, action figures, fan-fiction, inspiration for several generations of readers--and writers--and publishers, I think it goes beyond anything the world has ever witnessed.
But even I thought it had all been done.
And then my son Christopher finds Alivan's Master Wandmakers. Here's an entire company that focuses on making hand-crafted wands out of teak, mahogany, holly, oak, and other fine woods. These are toys of quality. They're not cheap, but then again they're not plastic, and there really is something coolly real about a wand sent in a FedEx box with a gold seal that reads, "CAST ALOHOMORA TO OPEN."
This reminds me of one of my cousin's daughters asking one of the other kids at our recent family get-together, "When you were eleven, didn't you think you were going to get a letter from Hogwarts?" I thought it was a pretty crazy thought, and then added that in the states you'd get a letter from Salem, the US-based witch/wizard school.
I can at least understand getting into the story that much. I grew up in the '70's with The Lord of the Rings, and dreamed of crossing the Brandywine, outwitting the Nazgûl, wondering what sorts of interesting packaged foods I could buy from Safeway that Hobbits would like, and of course asking Frodo, "can't I just wear Sauron's ring once, for like thirty seconds? Come on, there's no harm in that. I just want to be considered one of the Ring-bearers and go over the sea when all this crap is done. Look, I don't want any trouble...Hey, stop, Frodo. No reason to--put Sting down!" EOD. (End Of Dream).
Harry Potter fan? Check out Alivans.
http://www.alivans.com/
http://www.jkrowling.com/
http://www.mugglenet.com/
If you missed the 2007 BEA/Writer's Digest Writers Conference with Jodi Picoult's wonderful keynote and a pile of writer-focused seminars and panels, then it looks like you can do a make up.
Writer's Digest, Booksurge and Write Bros are offering video webcasts of some of the popular sessions, "viewable on your own schedule for a fraction of the cost of the attending the conference itself."
However, the keynote with Jodi Picoult is FREE.
Check it out, along with webcasts of Writing the Breakout Novel with Donald Maass, The Six Usual Suspects: Fiction Writing Conundrums with Peter Selgin, and How to Write an Irresistible Nonfiction Book Proposal with Rita Rosenkranz. These three run $20 US.
Free Ben Bova and Orson Scott Card interview at Audible.com
Acclaimed science-fiction authors Orson Scott Card and Ben Bova, along with their shared audiobook producer and occasional narrator Stefan Rudnicki, discuss audiobooks and their works in a joint interview. The authors touch on their thoughts on audiobooks vs. print editions, the effect of technology on literature, religion, science, and many other fascinating topics sure to intrigue both Card and Bova fans, as well as all audiobook enthusiasts.
