Paksworld

The first arrivals I heard of were actually last week, in Sweden and then in The Netherlands.   But several more showed up today, including one in my state, Texas (S.Z.  in Houston emailed  that he’d bought one in a bookstore.)   By authorial decree (picture me holding up a fancy scroll and reading from it)  I hereby declare that arrival notices are not spoilers, even though they may add to the frustration of those who haven’t yet received their copy.

That’s selfish, by the way, because I want to hear more about where the books are, and report the distribution stuff to my agent.  So if you don’t want to, don’t, but if you do, you’ll be contributing to the knowledge base.

We always knew that long books cost more to produce than short books, just because of the production  cost.     So long books are priced higher to cover that higher cost.    It’s not just the paper in the books–or even that fat books need bigger covers (which they do.)   It’s that longer texts take longer to edit, copy-edit, typeset (even with electronics working there, too) and proof after typesetting.   However, the materials cost is still the big problem, due to the ever-rising cost of paper and (related) the per-pound cost of shipping.

Some of us (points at self) thought that e-books would solve that problem, because a long electronic file (though yes, it takes a bit more bandwidth to download) isn’t that much more costly than a shorter one.  Within limits.   And paper & shipping costs are now out of the equation (“shipping” cost now consists of what the customer pays for a download…it’s no longer the publisher’s problem.)

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One of the topics UK Editor suggested for a blog post for the Orbit Books site was “favorite fantasy dragons” with a lead-in to Kings of the North.    Those of you around in the great burgeoning of SF/F in the late 1960s and 1970s will remember that “dragons” were fairly common.    Some belonged to older mythologies  and some had been softened and tamed and made almost bland.

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You were supposed to get another blog post yesterday, but I was flat in bed for the second day with a high fever.   Today I’m well  enough to spend a little time at the computer (how much will depend on whether the fever comes back.)    I’ll try to answer comments today in all my online locales but not sure I’ll get to them all, and you’re probably going to be short a blog post or two.

However, my UK editor confirmed that today is release day for Kings of the North in the UK.    Would love to hear where it’s spotted first!

For  those who would like a look at Chapter One,  Editor has now given me a link to share, but it was 117 characters long, so I ran it through TinyURL for you.  For reasons known only to the Secret Masters of Software NonAgreement, anything after it comes out in bold, too, so I’m saying what I need to say above it.   I still don’t know when my blog entries will appear at Suvudu (the Del Rey SF/fantasy blogsite) but will let you know when I do:

http://tinyurl.com/49dzcbh

Author’s copies of the UK edition of Kings of the North arrived yesterday and look really good…the cover is stunning.   Including the double-page-spread map.   I think you in the UK will see the actual books in the stores earlier than we in the US, if I understood  UK Editor’s email.    Thus it’s time for a reminder that any spoilerish comments  need to be clearly marked with “Spoilers” in the subject line so that those who haven’t gotten the book yet aren’t given tidbits they don’t want…and ideally no spoilerish comments will appear until mid-April. Read the rest of this entry »

Today has been not-quite-typical but sufficiently full of writing stuff that you might find it interesting.   Though it started not with writing stuff but with the car making odd noises the last time I had it out.

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Yesterday’s post was written before the call and email  from Editor, and now Crisis of Vision is back at the top of the priority list.    As expected (given the raw speed of revision in December) I missed some things.   Editor also wants a chapter moved from Crisis to the next book (did that this morning) to get Crisis under 170K.

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Book III is no longer Book III, or the tentative title I sent it in with.   Editor (who is a genius, if anyone asks)  agreed that the tentative title wasn’t an obvious marketing winner, and suggested (ta-DAH)  Crisis of Vision.     And I immediately said (after the ritual headdesk maneuver for not thinking of it myself) Hurray, hurray, o frabjous day, a book is born, hurray, hurray.

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A moment of shameless self-promotion here:  Oath of Fealty has been nominated as one of the Goodreads books of the year in the Fantasy category.   That link should take you there, and  if so inclined you can vote for it.  Though I suspect some of you have already and that’s why it’s on the list.

Happy writer.  Happy, happy writer.  (bounce, bounce, bounce)