Our Stories Define Us

A few pieces of bright writing news surfaced in the middle of last week's morass:

My short story, "Scar Tissue Wings", will appear in this year's Triangulation: Morning After anthology (pending a few edits). Thanks to Stephen Ramey and the crew for including my work again. "Scar Tissue Wings" was written as a response to my time in the hospital with Max back in December. Funny how stories give us perspective.

I received a contract from the incomparable Jodi Lee for "The Monster Game" which will appear in Return to New Bedlam. Jodi kindly asked if I'd like to include Aimee's name in the dedication. Thanks, Jodi.

My books are slowly resurfacing in Amazon.com's Kindle store. You can now find digital copies of Echoes of the Dead and The House Eaters with more on the way. All the "also boughts" are gone, but the books are there. Two weeks ago, this seemed like the most important thing in my life.

I was young and foolish, then.



The world is absurd. Just absurd.

Thanks for sharing it with me.

Happy Birthday to Me (with free books for you)

It's my party and I'll give away anything I want.

Use the following codes for free ebooks at Smashwords (click on the cover for the link):

Code: FF45T

Code: AE44L

Code: RK92P

Code:  NV35C

Code: XV89M

Rawr. 

Reviews, Publication, Strange Happenings

More children at home = less writing time and less time to blog about the nonsense I like to blog about.

Here is today's smorgasbord. (Mmmmm... smorgasbord...)

Both SF Revu and Locus have reviewed Shimmer #14, saying things like "unsettling little tale" (Sam Tomaino, SF Revu) and "I am not entirely convinced that there is anyone actually alive in this world. Except the bugs and worms." (Lois Tilton, Locus) about my story, "This House was Never a Castle". I'm not sure the bugs and worms are even alive--at least for long (the children eat them, you see).

Morpheus Tales has collected a "best of" issue and included my story about fungus gone wild, "A Most Unfortunate Gaffe". You can check out the always disturbing cover art and buy a copy here. 

And finally, Echoes of the Dead hit some sort of milestone yesterday--I've never had a sales burst like this for one of my books before, even after going free. Maybe it's a little instant karma for the pirate/plagiarism bullshite? It's sales rank was around 7K when I woke this morning. I'm no "J.K. Patterson" (all sarcasm intended), but I'll take it. 

Have a great weekend, folks

Too Many Buckets, Not Enough Water

I've been thinking about this pirating thing...

Especially in light of the 2011 Book Buying Survey presented at Digital Book World. Check it out. 

Some highlights:

• 64% of "avid" book buyers are female
• 33% of book purchases are for entertainment/leisure

These are only numbers from a single survey, of course, but they are in step with my anecdotal experience as a bookseller (I managed a bookstore back in '98).  Fiction was the single largest space in the store, but we sold less fiction titles (proportionately) than other books combined.  

Why is this important?

I don't have survey results or any scientific data to back this up, but plenty of anecdotal experience and reports from other authors: the vast majority of wannabe writers pen fiction. All of these books--now readily available because of digital publishing--are the too many buckets in my title metaphor. The water? Book buyers.

If only 33% of the purchases made by "avid" readers are for leisure/entertainment (and not all of that 33% must be fiction) and the majority (by far) of authors write fiction... Yesh.

No wonder it's so damn hard to break through.

What does this have to do with pirates?

Well, if most wannabe writers write fiction and it's damn hard to make it, maybe some pirate/resellers are just feeding the urge to put their name on something.

Hell, I don't know.

What I do know is I don't mind giving away my stories if I'm doing it. I'm not going to crawl under a rock and hide from the basement-dwelling morlocks who'd do such things. I'm not going to stop writing because of this crap. I'm not going to change a single bit of my behavior just because other people don't want to play nice.

For the next two days, Echoes of the Dead (the thieved book) is free at Amazon. Take that, J.K. "Fake-Name-If-I've-Ever-Seen-One" Patterson.

We have a Winner! (and More Elective Surgery)

Fred, the envelope please...

Mary Rajotte is the winner of my 50/50 split of In the Memory House profits for November, thus continuing a fine tradition of Canadians winning my contests. Congrats, Mary. I'll be in touch to share the bounty.

Which might (or might not, who knows?) have been a bigger bounty had I started with this:

Instead of In the Memory House. Sometimes I need a little more market research. I tend to be too much of a gut guy. You see, In the Memory House is also the title of Howard Mansfield's book of essays about New England culture and history.

Yeah. Not my book at all. Mine features a living house which tries to make friends by killing people. Think of it as a house with Asperger's on steroids.

So maybe Echoes of the Dead has a little more zip. The word "Dead" lands hard, at least. It does deliver the message directly, and I've found that is a key piece of marketing any book. And yes, the paperback is still coming.

And then I've nixed Smoke and replaced it with Vengeful Spirits. Again, I think the new title lands harder and sends a little more of a direct message about the book's content.  I've also tweaked the cover with new font and image:

This poor puppy has been through a number of changes, originally starting as Borrowed Saints. Like I said, I'm a gut guy. My heart and mind need to arm wrestle before the next book skitters into the wild.

Congrats again, Mary.  And good luck, my dear books.  I will try to do you better in the future.