Paksworld

Somebody’s going to ask “So why that story and not that other one you mentioned you were writing/had written?”   Some decisions were easy.  One of the Paksworld stories I was working on came to a halt, hooves stuck in the ground, back up in a hump, neck stretched out, ears flat and would. not. budge.   It’s not a failure to thrive: it’s a story telling me I made a mistake, that’s not how it goes, and it’s not going to cooperate until I take it where it wants to go.  But it won’t tell me.  Eventually, left alone out there in the pasture, it will come wandering up to my mental cabin, climb up the step to the porch, and stomp on the porch.  But it didn’t choose to do that before the time I had to have stories turned in, so…maybe next time.

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First US printing of Crown of Renewal  in hardcover is 12,000 copies.  WOW!   Should be plenty available from most places.   (I have no idea if all 12,000 selling in the first week would get me to a spot on the NYT list, but it couldn’t hurt.    However, with the cost of hardcovers these days and the general economy,  that’s not going to happen.   Absolutely no dark looks cast at anyone who’s waiting for their library to get a copy, or who will wait for the paperback.    Not into guilt-laying my readers!)   Editor let me know that today. She also reported checking on a potential situation with Amazon that appears not to affect Crown (at least not so far) but had affected other writers’ books (heard about it on a closed list, and let her know that, as well as the Book World problem Hawkman mentioned here.   Read the rest of this entry »

The comment that the Gird & Luap omnibus wasn’t available from Audible as an audiobook brought up an issue that I see a lot of in email, so I’m going to mention it here (not, by the way, as a slam at people who ask the questions, Sam in particular this time.   They’re reasonable questions to ask.)   Maybe this will help (and maybe you can boost the signal about the lesser-known ends of publishing.)

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Editor sent me a couple of  versions of the cover for the US edition of Limits of Power–I can’t share them yet, but I liked one better than the other and hope they go with that.    I liked it a lot, in fact.   I think this will be a good, attractive cover, one that will work well on the shelves, and make most of you happy.    One of the cover characters…well…better wait.   Spoilering when I’ve asked others not to spoiler isn’t fair.   Suffice it to say that there’s no “Fabio” on the cover.

We also had brief  email discussion of some changes I’d made and others contemplated.  She’s on her second read-through and marking now, and I’ll be getting the marked ms. soon to work on.

Progress today on one chapter, not so much on another.    Quitting for the day, where the book is concerned, to work on other things.

It looks like Limits of Power will be a summer book, not a spring book, next year.   My new editor took on the heroic task of reading the entire Paksworld corpus before leaping into the new book–and I was delighted that she did so.   But that was eight previous books–none of them skinny–and she had other duties besides working on my book; she wants to do one more read of that before giving me her revision requests, which I won’t get until the end of the month.     So instead of trying to rush the production schedule, which is a good way to introduce accidental errors,  the planned release date has been pushed back.     It’s not set in stone yet, but it’s “fairly firm” for June.

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Book IV now has a title:  Limits of Power.    That’s the US title; I’m hoping that my UK Editor will go with that as well, since books with different titles in the two markets cause problems…no matter how often I say that N1 is the same book as N2, someone will buy the other one thinking they’re getting a different book and then be angry.

In other news, there’s some disturbing stuff going on that we’re not ready to talk about, but which will result in gaps in posting.   Sometimes life just sucks in various ways, several of them simultaneous.

My agent just called to let me know that according to BookScan (does not cover all sales points, but enough to be useful)  the hardcover sales of Echoes in its first week in the marketplace were 180 higher than Kings last year.   The actual hardcover sales will be some higher (and this is only for US sales, as far as I know.)    He also said it was unusual to have any sales figures run higher than last year’s.    No word yet on e-sales.

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For those in easy distance of 6th and Lamar, in Austin, TX, I’ll be doing a reading from Echoes of Betrayal, chat, and signing at BookPeople tonight at 7 pm.    Knitters–bring your  yarn & needles along–it’s fine with me, and I’ll be bringing my socks-in-progress (though not knitting while reading or talking…not able to handle that yet.)  I’ll feel less silly about that if someone else has their needlework project along.

But come if you can–would love to see you.

Editor emailed this morning to let me know Echoes has gone back to print another 3000 copies.  I don’t think I’ve ever had a hardcover sent back to print that fast before.   Very happy dance of writer.   Wowza and all that.

And it’s you folks–the readers–who have made the book popular enough for this to be needed.  THANK YOU.    Read the rest of this entry »