Suspended Earth

Well, as the title says. The much hyped “Mayan Prophecy” was wrong. You know the one? That thing the Mayans never said about the end of the world coming in 2012? Yes, the world is still here, as evidenced by you reading this post Christmas blog post.

Regardless, I hope you all had a great festive season, whatever form yours takes. Very soon, it will tick over to 2013, and just as happened when the Mayan calender ticked over it’s last day, the date will reset to the first day in the cycle, that hungover gem of the 365 day selection, January first.

So what are your plans for 2013? I know mine are ambitious, and I know that financial considerations can often hamper such things. But all things going to schedule, I hope to manage at least two novels, and if a miracle occurs, perhaps even a third. Now, I am kind of cheating since Armadas Disciple is half finished already, and Children of Nevermind is also somewhat nutted out. I also have those vague, variable notions for the plan of Longarm Severed and The Chronicles of Iron Johnstone already in mind as well. So it’s not like I need to begin three novels from nothing. I recognise that three would be ambitious though, and will happily settle for two – those two being Armada’s Disciple and most likely Children of Nevermind.

Recent weeks have seen limited writing and of course monetary expenditure beyond what was perhaps wise, but that is nothing unusual I believe. My household has grown by one feline and one female, which also may have some impact, though trust me when I say that impact is not negative. Everybody needs a muse.

So I probably should stop writing this blog post and go write a few pages of Armada’s Disciple. You know, kind of get a head start on that whole 2013 plan. I lost what may have been the best six pages of the book to a backup malfunction recently. I best get on with it so that the lost pages can be reborn even better.

Initial beta responses to the opening 9 chapters of Armada’s Disciple have been rather positive, and the introduction of some exciting new characters along with the return of some old favourites is working well to date. At least, I am having fun with it and isn’t that half the struggle? If you have fun as a writer, chances are the reader will have some fun as well.

And what can you look forward to in Armada’s Disciple? How about meeting Haark Junli’s daughter? Visiting several planets within the FSC beyond human space, including the preeacsil home world and several locations in gaulphine space, Shae Jarzi will prove invaluable to the team. You will encounter members of several species, including the gaulphi through the character of Aulphone Pilchy – a prominent lawman of that water bound species, the officious Strull, and of course the banshick and some of their home planet’s other less formidable but perhaps equally disturbing denizens.

Investigating a puzzling and potentially dangerous discovery, Starlight Hodgens and Janice Heartmyer will work with their team to uncover an insidious plot intended to spark a war like none ever seen in the galaxy before. If they fail, and the word of that discovery gets out too soon, the resulting war could spell the end of everything that the human race has fought for. Can the political manipulations of a murderous maniac be stopped before it is too late? Can they find the identity of the enemy in time to stop them?

And what of Children of Nevermind? You will have to wait, as I have no intention of spilling the beans too soon on that one.

Enjoy your celebration of the coming of 2013, whatever it is you choose to do, and I hope you continue to visit and enjoy my work once the dust settles and the results of the celebration are finished with.

A toast to 2013. May it bring you dreams fulfilled.

Some days it seems that everybody wants to tell you how to do your thing. Sometimes it seems that there is more advice out there than you could ever hear, and most of it contradicts something else that is the “way to go” according to somebody.

So that raises the question – how do you select which is actually useful and which advice needs to be buried at the back of the garden and expunged from your mental library? You can use some simple guides – will that action drive somebody else crazy? will it frustrate and annoy? If so, get rid of it. This should roughly halve what is being shouted at you.

But then it gets a little bit more difficult. How do you break up the ice berg that is left, blocking your efforts through a confused cacophony of screaming mental demands? My first step is to assess the comfort. A little outside your usual zone of comfort can be a good thing, but we are not all the same. Some of us are much more comfortable walking up to a stranger, some are better with writing advertising copy, or you might even prefer singing and dancing. You could do things that would fit in all these categories, but there is one certainty: If you are not comfortable doing it, then it will never be an effective promotional effort.

So you need to be honest with yourself – and ask the question: Am I comfortable doing this? If the answer is no, then you must ask: Why not? Sometimes the second answer tells you this is an insecurity that you must face and change, and sometimes it tells you that the entire thing is a bad deal and you then know to cast it aside.

One other thing is certain: if you push ahead with a promotional activity you are not comfortable with, it shows. It sends a message to your target promotional audience that will not sell your work. If anything, it will harm your sales because you will come across as not genuine or as dishonest.

When Billy from marketing tells you you must do something because that is how it is done, Billy is usually being an idiot. Billy is ignoring YOU, and when selling your creative work, YOU are a major aspect of the product. If Billy is not selling YOU as you are, then billy needs to be fired.

We all have particular skills and social outlets, we all have particular marketing avenues that work for us. Mine work for me, yours work for you. A true piece of marketing advice will show you a new way of harnessing that which you already have in a way that brings you better results. If it requires you to change WHO YOU ARE in any way, then it is bad advice.

So how do you choose the advice to listen to? Examine it. If it allows you to remain true to yourself in every way that matters to you, and allows you to stand tall and say you have not compromised yourself, then it is probably advice you can learn something from. Otherwise, it is advice best suited to somebody else.

Stay true, keep trying, and seek that which suits you and your work, rather than that which suits Billy from Marketing’s quota. Sometimes we manage to “outsource” this marketing gig – if you find somebody you can trust to do it all for you, without compromising your values or style, then I wish you the best of luck!

Hi everybody.

Today I found out what I said at that interview a few weeks ago! An article about my books has today been published in the Leeton Irrigator. The “cult favourite” thing was a surprise. A nice enough article.

Leeton Irrigator Article

It has been announced that a company with one of the worst reputations in vanity publishing is now tied intimately to two large trade publishing houses. I will not name the entities involved, that is happening all over the net. I am posting my rambling thoughts without intent to cast aspersions on the publishers, but intending to express my concern for the publishers future and the jobs of the people connected to them. This is based on limited information from blogs and news outlets, I would love to hear from the publishers involved so I can gain a perspective without anybody’s emotion involved. I have seen prices of services from the parties involved under these new arrangements and I was disgusted. I have seen descriptions of the services these outrageous charges secure, and I was disgusted. There is no excusing it.

Take two respected companies and one apparent scammer, mix well. We are supposed to feel confident in the intentions of those publishers regarding their authors and readers? Thousands of cases are claimed to exist of the company in question taking money from authors without delivering on their claims. And we find now that one trade publisher has bought the company and given its CEO a place on their board of directors. Meanwhile another has employed their services to run a new vanity arm, just as dodgy in terms of claims, charges and conditions as the company they are employing.

I have the utmost confidence that the publishing industry is going to survive its lengthy transition and will in time encompass an environment that supports multiple arms, small press, independent, self publishing, and trade publishing all made secure and viable. Unfortunately, the involvement of the big boys with this crooked company means they are likely to suffer decimation in the transition. The trade publishing community is shrinking, in terms of author options, and decisions like those made by these two publishers will only make things worse for all stakeholders – writers, publishers and readers.

“Pay for publication” companies have already done nearly irreparable damage to the reputation of indie and self published writers, as well as trade publishers through their claims of legitimacy as publication companies. Their expensive vanity publishing operations (expensive for authors, not for the vanity publishers) should never be permitted to become legitimised by trade publisher involvement. Trade publishers are harmed by that involvement. Authors are harmed by it. Readers are left worse off by it. The perceived quality has suffered, now the ethics of trade publishing are set to go the same way unless something changes fast.

Like anybody who has a brain of their own, I will think twice before supporting any publisher who is happy to sell out to these crooks. I congratulate any trade publisher who is willing to grab the bull by the horns and enter the indie/sp marketplace, but this is not the way to do it. The services they do NOT offer by teaming with these vanity con artists are very telling. The exact services that a trade publisher should be offering are missing from the equation. The only attractive elements are being left out, and the publishers are likely to suffer a long slow company failure as a result.

If a true marketing engine is not included, it will remain a scam. If a true full featured content, conceptual, and developmental editing service remains omitted from the ludicrously priced plans, it remains a scam. No name, however big, will ever change that.

Until the trade publishers examine the market and see the incredible difference between a POD company providing true services and a vanity con artist providing near enough to nothing of value at all, they can never succeed. By just jumping on the band wagon in this way it appears they are simply hoping nobody notices they are ripping people off through their involvement with these kinds of morally bankrupt companies.

A snake oil salesman should never be made a doctor. A vanity con artist should never be made a publisher. The smashing of reputations is guaranteed. I sincerely hope the trade publishers involved can turn this around by changing their ways and ending the vanity scam.

So here we are again. I recently discovered a major Australian retailer claiming to stock my books and saying the RRP on my paperbacks is $36.99 – nearly double what it actually is. This prices me out of the market as far as their customers are concerned, and they tell the customers it’s my fault! Their claims regarding this are absurd. I will not state them here, instead I will state the truth. At the actual RRP (19.95) they already have a 40% to 60% markup when ordering from the wholesaler, and I am getting squat out of the sale. By squat, I mean less than ten percent of the inflated retail price they are charging. I get $3, the retailer gets $25. Roughly. Where is the sense in that situation?

I am appalled by the greed in the skeletal remains of the large Australian book sellers. Have they still not learned their lesson? I will continue to focus my attention on the many fantastic small independent stores who continue to stock my books directly and accept reasonable cuts from the sale.

We have all heard in Australia the ongoing debate about the state of publishing and book retail in this country. Well, I begin to believe there are reasons that our big chain book retailers went broke, and it was not just the Borders fiasco. Granted that precipitated it, but would they have died within a few years regardless because of the greed in the system? The demise of Borders was not all bad for consumers. Sure it means I don’t have a great choice of book stores nearby, but the choice between Borders and Borders lite was never a choice to begin with. Now the smaller stores, the real book shops with real love for the written word, have an opportunity to flourish without the strangling hold of the big boys over the supply chain.

Support our many hard working, smaller independent book retailers. They do not pander to greed in the same way the retailer in my opening paragraph does. They offer true customer service to readers in ways the big stores had forgotten. They offer a hand to struggling authors who wish to find an outlet for their work. They support writing, and they support reading. Many host book clubs and genre clubs, many have sizable communities they have built around themselves. It appears the big chains only knew bottom line figures, and couldn’t care less about the products or the people (among those people I include their long suffering staff, many had tried their best to do their best.)

Local business means local jobs, and it means personalised locally centered customer service. This is true of all retail. But with books, it also means support and growth of the reading phenomenon, it means support of interest in local writers, it means support and interest in independent publishing and it means a better result for all stakeholders – consumers and creators alike. We have an unusual and unique opportunity to reverse the consolidation and expansion trend of retail. If we support the little guys, they will grow and prosper. With luck, the near monopoly in book retail will not return.

The next time you go into one of these smaller independent stores, tell them one thing. Thank you. They deserve it from everyone, for sticking true to their purpose through good times and bad, and for continuing to be a friend to readers everywhere.

I recently read a quite good series. A science fiction one.

It was at times slightly heavy going, but the story was strong, and the characters, though it took a book and a half to develop them, became people the reader cared about. Not in a really deep way, but deep enough to encourage the reader to continue. Over all, it was a good read and worthy of the time it took. I will not say here whose SF series it was, because it was not all good. There were a number of annoying plot holes and continuity errors.

The editing left a lot to be desired, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. This was an author who had clearly at least tried to do the right thing when it came to this critical aspect of publishing. They had just not hired a good enough editor. I have read books a thousand times worse, but this was still not to the minimum standard I reach for before I release my own work (but it WAS to the standard shown by most of the traditionally published books I have read recently). This often bemoaned aspect of modern literature highlighted another, bigger problem that many people do not consider. Appropriate language for your audience.

Far worse than the mediocre editing, was the ever present use of words beyond the vocabulary of many readers. Repeated use of terms from old English, some of those words out of circulation for centuries. It felt less like a writer trying to enjoy his work, and more like a writer showing off. It was terribly off putting, and I knew what the words meant! I can only imagine if I was reading it without my education behind me, I probably would not have finished. Every time one of those words appeared (as much as thrice a page at one point) it jagged me, the reader, out of the story so hard my head span. Some of these words were in fact used incorrectly, but I will forgive the editor missing that, this once.

It shattered the flow of the story, and quite possibly results in many readers putting it down. Yes SF has a reputation for intelligent readers. That does not mean you can bog the thing down with terms that most of them will have to look up. Even if they are on a Kindle and the definitions are a few buttons away. They should not have to spend most of their time reading an escapist diversion, learning new words they will never use, words from the past that have no place in a story of the future.

If your readers are not all linguistics professors, don’t use hundreds of obscure words only a handful of your readers will know. Especially when those words appear to be similar to other words that fit better. Most of your readers will call typo, and that makes you look stupid, not smart. You want your readers to enjoy the book enough to buy more. You want your readers to have faith in you, in your ability to keep them engaged. This is not a way to achieve that. Now before I go on, let me say this to clarify: Using peculiar words is not bad. Using hundreds of them in a torrent of flowery prose that reads like that irritating first year philosophy major trying to pick up your girlfriend at the union bar IS.

Know your audience, and write for them. Yes, write for yourself, but if you want readers, you need to target them with your words. If you love a word, that you know nobody else will know, don’t use it just to show off. Use it correctly, and use it wisely. If you use a word they have to look up, and use it wrong, not only have you knocked them out of the story while they look it up, you have made yourself look stupid into the bargain.

A writer who fails in this simple regard, by making their text too “wordy”, will not achieve their potential. A good writer chooses the best words, the most suitable words, and the words that will reach the intended audience. I recognise that writing for YA readers, you might throw a slightly over the bell curve vocabulary at them, this is fine, but piling on the obscure, antiquated or just plain unnecessary language will never be the way to show a word smith’s prowess. Less is more, and always will be.

Know your audience, and write for them. Help them to enjoy the story by giving it to them in a way which enables them to escape into your world. Most people are reading for entertainment. If it stops being entertaining, they stop reading. Read it yourself, after breaking from your work for a while, and you will probably be able to see what it is I am talking about. If your unnecessary word makes you pause and think “hehehe, I like that word, its a funky old word, something a bit unusual,” imagine what it does to the readers who need to put down the book and find a dictionary? Sometimes, it is essential. But when it is NOT essential, then it is a mistake, every single time.

I continue to hear people say something along the lines of “Oh is that mag still around?” or the scarier “It’s such a shame there are no science fiction magazines anymore.”

In fact, I have to be honest about this, a year ago I was one of those people. That was until I walked into a newsagent and stumbled upon an issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, about this time last year. My immediate action? I bought it. My follow up action? I subscribed. This was too rare a beast to allow it’s extinction without trying to at least enjoy it for a while.

I then began some real investigation, and I was amazed how many of those magazines I loved in my youth are still running, and how many were already deceased. Sure you never see them on Australian news stands, sure you can’t buy them in stores here for love nor money, but they are out there, struggling to survive in a world that has tried far too hard to forget them. And they need your help.

One of the most common complaints I read in writer’s forums is that publishers won’t take new authors. People bemoan the lack of options for emerging writers to prove themselves, and yet, here it is. Short stories, novellas, novelettes, pieces in the genre magazines, these were the bread and butter of many an author in the classic Science Fiction era. They honed their craft, and launched many a modern classic into the popular consciousness via these magazines.

Ebooks, print on demand, all the myriad self publishing options allow you to get your book out there, and writers are forgetting or ignoring their roots. The method for getting your name into the minds of readers and publishers alike, used to be through the magazines that your readers were buying. This should not be an aspect of our world that we allow to die. The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction boasts a readership of 100,000. Well, I say that needs to be doubled, or tripled. We have no real excuses to be ignoring these publications. You may pick up on an author you never would have read otherwise, along with thousands of others, thus launching that new writer to fame and stardom, encouraging more and better works from them and encouraging other writers to do the same.

Many of these magazines are now available on Kindle, or through other ebook avenues, so even if you can not get them in a store, you can still get access to them in that manner. These periodicals are the bread and butter of genre fiction, and while currently largely forgotten, they are by no means dead. Let us all take action, and prevent them becoming any more of an endangered species. These magazines could well be the saviors of SF and Fantasy yet. In recent years, when new SF authors have been fighting uphill to gain acceptance by a skeptical, nervous publishing world, magazines like The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and many others, have quietly continued their efforts in the background, out of sight of the digital generation. Perhaps, in many ways, it is these new generations of rapid information access, short burst data gathering, digitally connected people for whom these magazines, with their tasty bite sized morsels of fiction gold, are most suited. Especially in their easily accessible ebook form. So if you have never experienced any of these wonderful publications, please, subscribe before it is too late. And if you already support them, thank you on behalf of readers and writers alike.

The Top 10 SF and Fantasy Magazines

General maintenance and site tidying.

You will see the “View Cart” has been added to the top of the side bar. This is so it is easier to navigate the site and add things, without having to hunt for the cart later if you want to remove something. Since moving away from a single book shop page and hosting the sale details on dedicated individual book pages, the view cart button on the Book Shop page became a hidden part of the shopping equation. Therefore I have placed it in plain sight where it will be accessible at all times. Any items you add to cart from any page on this site will be in that same cart, so you can click the view cart, and in there remove items, or proceed to checkout, or just go “oh right, that was what was in there” and hit continue shopping. Continue shopping or cancel always takes you back to the front page.

In further tidying, I have made significant changes to the book shop page. It will remain, for the purpose of showing any special offers and may be renamed later because of this. Aside from that it will simply list links to the book pages.

I also updated the front page a little, since this site is not really a new site anymore.

Cheers,
Martin.