Chemistry - a Story About Lu

Lu is an 18-year-old apothecary, trying to get along as an immigrant in the port city of Seashine. Her closest friend is a young assassin named Silveo. Lu doesn’t like to think about how Silveo makes his living, but she owes him her freedom, and she cares for him deeply. She also happens to be an excellent chemist with a knowledge of dangerous substances. When Silveo asks Lu to formulate a new poison, her involvement brings her into contact with a dangerously attractive pirate captain, as well as thugs and slavers in the belly of Seashine’s underground. As pressures build, Lu makes a mistake which may cost both she and Silveo their lives.

“Chemistry” is an 11,000-word novelette from the world of Panamindorah, related to the Guild of the Cowry Catchers series. The story has some mild sexual references and innuendo. It is not intended for children. “Chemistry” is a stand-alone story that can be enjoyed without reading Cowry Catchers, but the story will have more meaning for fans of the series.

The audio version has a square cover and is $4.99 on Amazon and Smashwords. (It also includes the text.) Look for the link and password at the end of the ebook. You can listen to the first half for free here.

The text-only version has a rectangular cover and is $2.99 on Amazon and Smashwords.

Vote on a Panamindorah Short Story for April!

Hello, Panamindorah fans!

As you may know, I'm trying to give you new content every month this year. "Chemistry," the short story about Lu should be finished in less than a week. It was actually finished a month ago, but I promised an audio version for this one, and audio takes a long time.

For my April offering, I'm going to let subscribers to my list vote on a character. The survey closes on April 1st at 1 AM. If you're signed up for my mailing list, and you didn't get an email from me, check your spam folder. If you sign up at any point between now and then, the welcome email will give you a link to the survey. Look to the right of this post, and you'll see the place to sign up. I only send you emails when I have new stories for you, or when I need your feedback about my work.

The characters I've given you to chose from are:

Dakar
Leopaard
Gerard
Leesha (from Prophet)
Basil
Gwain
Tzu (Gwain's winged wolf)
Capricia (from Prophet)
Chance (from Prophet)

 

I'll be curious to see who you pick!

 

EDIT: Results are in, and it was *close!* Gwain won by a single vote. I think that means that there'll be a short story about Dakar in the future as well, but for April, I'm going to go with Gwain. Thanks to those who participated!

Answer Choices
Responses
Dakar
22
Leopaard
1
Gerard
8
Leesha (from Prophet)
1
Basil
12
Gwain
23
Tzu (Gwain's winged wolf)
8
Capricia (from Prophet)
4
Chance (from Prophet)
8
Total 87

Cowry Catchers in Paper! And How to get 25% Off

 

Paper versions of the Cowry Catchers books are here! They’re on Amazon, and they’ve been linked to the ebook listings. You can toggle between the two versions.

If you want a 25% discount on paper books anytime between now and March 5, sign up for my mailing list. I use it to let people know when I have new material available. If you think you're on the mailing list, but you did not get an email with a coupon code for 25% off the paper versions, check your spam folder. If you don't find the email, let me know. If you sign up for the mailing list anytime before March 5, you'll get a welcome email with the coupon code.

Paper versions of the Prophet of Panamindorah books are also in the works, along with Crossroads and (hopefully) Feeding Malachi. Malachi is the only paper book that I'm attempting to produce with illustrations. We'll see how that goes.

The Guild of the Cowry Catchers, Book 5: Shores Beyond the World

The Guild of the Cowry Catchers, Book 5: Shores Beyond the World illustrated ebook is here!

Chaos is sweeping the islands of Wefrivain—slave revolts, attacks on temples, and questions about the true nature of the wyvern gods. The catalyst is a single book called The Guild of the Cowry Catchers. The authors are a band of pirates.

Gerard and his friends are not content to merely spread unrest. They’re determined to free the fauns of Maijha Minor, who are scheduled to be sold or slaughtered. This is a situation that Gerard, Silveo, and Gwain created, and they want to make it right.

However, things are not as they seem on the deadly island game park. Priestess Morchella is pulling strings, and the fauns may want their own brand of revenge. Gerard lost everything last time he stepped onto Maijha Minor. If he’s not careful, the same could happen again.

This 70,000-word novel is DRM-free and carefully formatted. It includes 13 character portraits, 16 full-page illustrations by Sarah Cloutier, and 2 versions of the map.

The book is $4.99 from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, or Smashwords.

If you want it soon from anywhere other than Amazon, you should snap it up. I'm planning to do a Kindle Select campaign for the entire series, beginning in about two weeks. This will involve pulling books 2-5 off all other sites for 3-6 months. The books will be back on other sights by the time the podcast for Book 5 launches. They're not DRMed, so you could buy them on Amazon and convert them to other formats.

The Kindle select campaign will also involve offering some or all of the books for free for a few days. I haven't decided which ones I'll offer. If you want a heads-up on the free days, sign up for my mailing list. I'm also planning to start offering some other perks to people on the mailing list. If you're interested in reading cut-scenes or getting the occational freebie, sign up.

If you read my New Year's blog post, you know that one of my goals this year is to have something new for sale each month. "Sky Dance" was my offering for January. Shores Beyond the World is my offering for February. A novelette about Lu will probably be my offering for March.

Thank you for supporting my work!

 

Sky Dance - a Story about Thessalyn in Text and Audio

Thessalyn Clambottom is a gifted, blind child from a peasant family. She’s been sent to the prestigious school of Minstrels on the island of Mance, but she feels like an awkward outsider. Things seem to improve when the school loans her a griffin, Chesher, for reading and navigating. However, Chesher has her own handicap—stumps where her wings should be. One day in the library, they find an ancient book in a language that Chesher can’t or won’t read to Thessalyn. Chesher seems frightened by the mysterious book, but hums a bit of the tune at Thessalyn’s request. The haunting melody is the key that will unlock secrets from the past and change the course of both their futures.

“Sky Dance” is a 10,000-word novelette from the world of Panamindorah, related to the Guild of the Cowry Catchers series. “Sky Dance” is a stand-alone story that can be enjoyed without reading Cowry Catchers, but the story will have more meaning for fans of the series. You can purchase the text-only version of the story on Amazon, Smashwords.

EDIT

I have now spun off the Audio as a separate purchase. As of March, 2013, the text is $2.99, and the Audio is $4.99. The audio cover is square as you see below. It's an ebook with instructions for downloading the password-protected audio (very simple, no DRM, just MP3s). The audio is over an hour long. Amazon, Smashwords.

I hope your new year is off to a good start. I am currently working on a short story about Lu for next month. The free audio of Cowry Catchers Book 4 is in release on the podcast website, and the free serialized version of Hunters Unlucky is still in progress on my blog. I'm waiting on 2 more illustrations for Cowry Catchers Book 5, and I'm very closed to finished with the paper editions of that series. I've also gotten some lovely new Cowry Catchers fan art recently that you might enjoy.

I set aside my day job to write for January this year, I've definitely gotten some work done. I hope you enjoy Sky Dance!

Hello, 2013

This Wednesday, I returned from New Media Expo, thereby using the last of the plane tickets in my travel folder. I have made 14 major plane journeys in the last 12 months, so this feels like something to celebrate. Although I had a wonderful time with friends at New Year’s Art Trade and a fantastic time with fellow podcasters at NMX, it didn’t really feel like the new year until now.

So here’s my year in review and my goals for 2013. As mentioned, I traveled a lot this year, though only in the US. I worked in 3 states. I agreed to cover the holidays for a hospital halfway across the country, and that was probably a mistake—not because it was particularly difficult, but because it added a lot of extra plane travel to an already travel-weary year. It was a little too much. I’ll know better next time.

I went to Balticon and Dragon Con, as well as NMX. I hung out with fantastic, brilliant people, and they made me feel at home. I traveled on my own all over Arizona and took a family vacation through Southern Utah, where the scenery is jaw-dropping.

I sold 2,378 ebooks for a total of 4,655 since I started two years ago. I more than doubled my average profit per book when I raised my prices. Although I sold about the same number of books as last year, I made more money this year. The $9.99 Cowry Catchers Complete Series was my best-selling title this year with 719 copies sold. However, The Prophet of Panamindorah Complete Trilogy continues to be my bestseller of all time with 1,161 copies sold. It’s now $7.99, although it was $2.99 for most of the first year. Cowry Catchers Complete Series is far-and-away my highest earner.

I produced and released Cowry Catchers Book 4 in illustrated text and fullcast audio. I spent hours watching InDesign tutorials from Lynda.com and learned to use the program to lay out paper books. After several failed attempts, my cover designer and I managed to produce a good-looking paper version of Cowry Catchers 2. (The final proof came in the mail three days ago!)

I wrote 105,000 words on Hunters Unlucky (for a total of 140,000 words on the novel) and 10,000+ words of annotations published on my blog. I’m not pleased with the word count. It’s a puny output for me. I typically average 1000 words/day when I’m drafting something new. I averaged 1200 words/day for most of the year I wrote Cowry Catchers.

In order to maintain that output in the past, I’ve needed (1) a single, sustained project (which I had) and (2) a predictable schedule with my social needs easily met. That last part I did not have. I’ve got a great set-up with my apartment near friends, but that doesn’t matter when I’m gone for months at a time, doing jobs which are stressful by definition. That’s why these hospitals hire travelers – because they can’t keep permanent staff. These are not the easiest jobs.

I’m not sure I’m ready to give up on the travel thing, although I will examine nearby options that present themselves. I think I need to be more judicious about taking lots of small gigs. The jerky stop-and-start messes with my writing. My computer also began a slow death roll near the middle of the year, which did not help. Fortunately, I jumped ship before it sank. But moving computers always takes time, and you can’t write if your computer is overheating.

Over 100,000 words is the best I’ve done in a year since anesthesia school, so maybe it’s just part of getting back on the horse. Still, I hope to do better this year.

Like most people selling ebooks, I did not see much of a Christmas bump this year—a little, but nothing like last year. January was my best month last year, as people who received ereaders for Christmas filled them with books. Again, I am seeing a bump this January, but not like last year. This corresponds with what most over authors are saying and seems to be a sign that the ereader market is leveling out and finding its normal footing.

I’m still not making a profit on my books. I’m a few thousand dollars behind, mostly because I just purchased the illustrations for Cowry Catchers 5 and also a license for InDesign. InDesign is the (very expensive) industry standard program for laying out the paper books. I could have kept renting it by the month, but I figured in the end, I’d be better off buying it. So I put myself back in the hole. However, I’m confident that my books will dig their way out of again.

I’d like to say that making a profit is one of my goals this year. It’s certainly one of my expectations. But I have no control over whether that happens. I can’t make people buy my work or review it or talk about it. I can only put out great books and stories and make sure people know they exist.

I’d like to release something new for sale every month this year—either a short story or a novel. That’s a high bar to clear, but if I succeed even half the time, I’ll be doing better than last year. Here’s what I’d like to write and the approximate word count. Most of these names will change.

Thessalyn novelette – 10,000*

Lu short story – 6,000

Finish Leopaard short story – 3,000

Finish Hunters Unlucky novel – 60,000

Hunters short story 1 (already written)

Hunters short story 2 – 4,000

The Scarlet Albatross novel – 80,000

Holovarus novella – 30,000

Sunkissed Isles novelette – 20,000

Memoir** - 30,000

That’s 10 things, although 1 or 2 of them might not be able to count towards my goal. I may get more ideas, or I may have a contest or two and do a few more character short stories. If my word counts are accurate (haha! Never), that’s 243,000 words for the year. I know myself well enough to add another 10 or 20K. Let’s say 260,000. And that comes to about 700 words per day. So, there’s my goal.

If I succeed in finishing these projects (an unlikely event, though not impossible), I'll be nicely set-up to begin rewriting Walk Upon High in 2014.

I’d also like to produce Book 5 of Cowry Catchers in fullcast audio this year, and I'll produce most of these short stories as solo readers. If I end up at home for more of the year, I might even record Hunters as a solo read, but that will depend on proximity to microphones. In addition, I hope to release all my novels in paper editions this year. We might not get through the whole list, but I have hopes.

Thank you so much to everyone who bought books, left reviews, hunted for typos, donated to Podiobooks, designed or drew or painted my characters or covers or maps. Thank you to everyone who volunteered their voices, their music, their sound effects. Thank you for entering contests, making fan art, making dolls! Thank you for coming to meet me at Balticon and Dragon Con and New Media Expo. Thank you for your time and your eyes and your ears. These stories are for you.

 

________________________

*I only know the story is that long because I just finished it.

**This will not be published under my name and I probably won’t tell you about it on this blog. Sorry!

Formatting Illustrated eBooks - an Update

It's been a year and a half since I wrote my post on how to format illustrated (or non-illustrated) eBooks. The post still gets frequent hits, as well as occasional questions on Facebook and Twitter. I'm still using this technique to lay out my own eBooks, although many other methods have come along in the last year. Some of them may be easier than what I’m doing. I am particularly interested in using scrivener to output eBook files and will probably start testing that soon. However, my old method still gives me clean, attractive eBooks without much hassle, which is all that matters.
 
I got a twitter question recently that I can't answer in 140 characters, so I'm going to answer it here. I’ve hear variations on this question before.
 
From @KMLaw - "just to understand it, that means photos between text but not a fully-layouted magazine style eBook? do you know that too?"
 
My answer - if you're saying what I think you're saying, it won't work. Here's what you need to do before you go any further. Get yourself several illustrated (or picture-rich) eBooks - children's books, cookbooks, illustrated fiction, photography books, how-to books, whatever. I suggest Amazon, but if you have other devices, use those. If it's Amazon, do the following:
 
--open each book on a black and white Kindle
--open them on a Kindle fire (a little one and a big one if possible)
--download the Kindle ap and open them on your phone
--download Kindle ap for desktop, and open them on your desktop computer
--download Kindle ap for iPad (anyone's iPad will do; just sign into your Amazon account), and open them on an iPad
--download Kindle ap for iPad mini, and open them there
--if possible find someone’s cheap tablet (Samsun, et al), and open the books there
--if possible (if the book is DRM-free), open it (side-load it) on a non-Amazon device with no available Amazon ap (a Nook or Kobo device, etc)
 
This won't cost you a thing, except whatever you pay for the books, and there are plenty of free eBooks out there, even illustrated. If you're a hardcore BN fan, you can do this exercise with Nook devices and Nook aps. Dido for Kobo. You can also get books from smashwords and open them in Kindle, Nook, or Kobo aps.
 
Notice the differences in the way that the books display on all these devices. Notice the differences in screen size, resolution, and the way that the text and pictures re-flow to fit the different screens. Try changing the font size and see what happens. You may get some duds that do not reflow - where you have to zoom in and out all the time. Notice how annoying this is. You may also find some that were formatted incorrectly, where there are lots of blank pages and weird spacing. Notice how irritating that is for a reader.
 
Understand that your readers will be reading your books on all of these devices and more. You *cannot* have a fixed-page layout. Your book will look like crap on most devices if you do that. Readers won’t even finish it, much less buy your next book.
 
PDFs are fixed-page layout. That's what is typically meant by "magazine style layout." They have images embedded beside text, text flowing around images, text and design elements attached to images, etc. PDFs are for laying out physical paper books. They will not reflow. A PDF will cram the same number of words and pictures into the same layout on every page, no matter what device is in use. PDFs make hideous eBooks.
 
For eBooks, you want fluid and simple. You want in-line, reflowable words and pictures with a minimum of extraneous code (for old devices to choke on). You can't foresee all the devices on which your readers will try to read your books. Remember that many people now use their smartphones as primary ereaders. Imagine a fixed-page layout on a smartphone! Zooming in and out and scrolling back and forth to read every word? No one wants to do that. That’s why we use epub and mobi files for eBooks. They will not allow you to dictate what lands on each page, although you can try. I suggest you don’t.

It is possible that, with all the new output methods available, something has come along recently which will allow you to layout an epub file that will look like a magazine on an iPad or Kindle Fire HD and then will reflow to in-line text and pictures for smaller devices. That would be great, but I have not heard of such a program or output method. Even if I did know of such a thing, I would be leery of it’s ability to perform on older devices. If you want universal read-ability, keep it simple.

Women Are Not From Venus

I enjoy to the Roundtable Podcast, although I’m currently way behind on my listening. Recently, I got to their interview with Tim Pratt, an author whose work I admire. Tim has a series of urban fantasy novels about sorcerer Marla Mason, and he was asked on the podcast how difficult it is to write a female character and whether he had any words of wisdom for other men wishing to write believable women.

This kind of question drives me crazy. I hear it a lot on interviews, and it always makes me shout pointlessly at my MP3 player (no offense to the Roundtable folks). The implication is that there’s some inherently female way of thinking and that it is so different from a man’s mindset that special training is required to navigate this foreign country. Usually, this question is directed at men who write women, but sometimes women (like me) who write a lot of male characters also get hit with it. Tim’s answer was superb. Spot-on. Absolutely perfect. He said, “You make sure they’re actual people. They want the same things as men - to succeed in their chosen field, to achieve objectives, or take care of their families.”

Women are not aliens, gentlemen. They are not from Venus or any other extra-terrestrial location. Perceived differences between men and women often arise from personality differences that the male author observes between himself and women in his life, which he then extrapolates to all women. These prejudices reinforce themselves in exactly the same way that racial and other sorts of prejudices do. A white guy sees a black guy with a messy yard, and he says to himself, “Black people are messy.” He sees a white guy with a messy yard, and he thinks, “Jim sure is messy.” He does not for a moment extrapolate Jim’s messiness to all white people. But in the case of the black guy, he extrapolates.

So, a man marries a women who likes to visit the restroom with an entourage...or who is particularly emotive...or who is often late, and he says to himself, “That’s women for you.” Each time he meets a similar woman, he attributes her behavior to her female-ness. Each time he meets a women who does not behave in this way, he attributes her difference to her individual personality. In this way, prejudices reinforce themselves.

Tim went on to explain that what authors need to think about when they write the opposite gender, is how society will treat that person in ways that society does not treat the author. Societal pressures on women and men are different and may be even more different in the world you are writing.

I think it’s pretty obvious in Cowry Catchers that Gerard comes from a privileged class. He is accustomed to an ease of movement through his society which is not possible for Lu...or Silveo...or certainly for Thess. It takes him a long time to fully grasp this fact. Most of the differences between Gerard and these other characters do not devolve from Lu’s femaleness, Silveo’s species/gayness, or Thess’s handicap. They devolve from the societally pressures on these characters and the behaviors and patterns of thinking those pressures produce. Silveo, for instance, has to be better at his job than any grishnard in order to keep that job. This is often true for minorities.

So, writer, if you are writing someone not of your gender, think about what societal pressures might be acting upon that character. Think about how *you* would respond to those pressures. Think about how someone of any gender with your characters’ personality would respond to those pressures. Write that. Don’t try to write “a woman.” Because generic woman does not exist.

The same is true for women trying to write men. However, women are often forced, from a young age, to empathize with male characters. Every one of my favorite characters as a little girl were male. They did the interesting things. Lots of little girls have that experience. In some ways, it’s sad, and in other ways, it stretches our empathy at an early age. We realize, quite young, that there’s no fundamental difference between boys and girls in stories. You can empathize with either. Little boys aren’t often required to perform this exercise. They don’t meet girl after girl after girl in stories with which they are expected to identify. Maybe this is the origin of the myth that girls are more empathetic. Maybe we are required to be.

I wasn’t going to write about this, because I don’t usually write about divisive topics on this blog (read my books for that! ;), but then I read an article in which a heterosexual man tried dressing in slightly girlie clothes for 3 days to see what kind of reaction he got from his progressive community. He was smart enough to try, not just one kind of girl clothing, but several kinds.

And, boy, was his experience eye-opening. It encapsulates my own deep ambivalence towards dresses and all that they represent. Go read it. Think about it. Particularly if you’re a man trying to write women.

Fill the Shelves

As many of you know, I am currently rewritting my first novel, Hunters Unlucky. You can read it for free as I work on it, along with my commontary.

The funny thing about Hunters is that it has secrets, even from me. I know where all the elements in my later books came from, but there are things in Hunters dredged from my early childhood, which I have forgotten.

I've recently been on assignment at a hospital in Arizona. About a month ago, I saw the Grand Canyon for the first time, as well as other fantastic canyons and rock formations in this part of the country.

Something about them seemed familiar. The red rock, sculpted sandstone, boulders, and caves... I'd never seen it before, but it reminded me of my mental images of Lidian. Finally, I recalled a book from my school library that I read when I was maybe 7 or 8 called Brighty of the Grand Canyon (about a burrow living in the canyon). And I remembered! That's where the red cliffs of Lidian came from. The whole idea of moving to and from and over these towering cliffs in a seasonal pattern...it came from that book...even though I grew up in Florida, and I'd never seen country like that before.

I had forgotten until I actually saw the Grand Canyon. It's interesting - the way certain images and ideas seed our imaginations and then bloom years or decades later.

I thought of this when I read about a project called Fill the Shelves. The site hooks readers up with the Amazon Wish Lists of school libraries around the country. These libraries have appaulingly empty shelves and no budgets to fill them. You can go to the school's Amazon Wishlist, pick out a book for them, and it gets shipped direclty to the school. It's a pretty awesome project, and I bought them a few books. I hope the next generation finds books in their libraries to seed their imaginations and conjur their own other worlds.

My Little Pony and the Trickster

 

Every storyteller starts somewhere, and I started with My Little Ponies. My earliest characters, plots, and themes were hammered out in elaborate games with these delightful Hasbro toys, which debuted in 1981. My Little Pony launched officially in 1983, when I was 6 years old, and my best friend and I got on board immediately. Our parents couldn’t afford to buy us all the Ponies we craved, so we contented ourselves with cutting out the pictures from the backs of the Pony boxes and playing with these as though they were additional plastic toys. In this way, just two or three Ponies became a herd. Some Ponies acquired personalities and even reputations before they were ever made “flesh”…er…plastic…in our collections.

There was a TV show, even back then, but I don’t remember much about it. I invented personalities for most of the Ponies, which endured across the various games and scenarios we created for them.

My first Pony was Cherries Jubilee, but she never suggested a really strong personality to me. The first one that truly caught my imagination was Baby Firefly. I remember the exact moment when I opened her box. I was 8. By some extraordinary stroke of good fortune, I got both Baby Firefly and Baby Surprise at the same. I almost never got two Ponies at once outside of Christmas. I think they were on sale.

I looked at Firefly with her lightning bolt and unruly blue hair, and then at Surprise with her snow white coat and sweet, little balloon, and I knew at once that these two had to be rivals. Surprise was clearly the good one, and Firefly was clearly the naughty one.

And Firefly was clearly more interesting.

In that moment, Firefly became my first well-defined trickster. She was not strong, nor particularly brave, but she was exceedingly clever, full of mischief, occasionally cruel, and always a smart-ass. She was a trickster in the grand old tradition going all the way back to Loki and Coyote and forward to El-ahrairah, Ferris Bueller, and Jack Sparrow. In their purest, archetypical forms, these characters are amoral agents of chaos. However, when given a true personality, they generally have understandable goals, loves, fears, and desires. They just accomplish their goals by wit and guile, rather than force or argument.

This kind of character appears again and again in my fiction. Storm from Hunters Unlucky, Fenrah and Sham (with Sham playing the role of the smart-ass) from Prophet, Sirapous from Walk Upon High (this book has not yet been released). Silveo from Cowry Catchers is certainly the most complex trickster I’ve written to date and probably the most true-to-form.

Of course, I didn’t know any of that when I picked up Firefly. I was 8.

Over the course of the next four years, I acquired a technicolor herd of plastic Ponies. There were Sea Ponies, and So-soft Ponies, Flutter Ponies, Big Brother Ponies, Ponies with carousel designs, Ponies with butterfly wings, Ponies with shaggy feet, and Ponies with absurdly long, tinsel mains.

I rarely played with these toys alone. What would be the point of telling a story with no audience? My most frequent companion was my little brother (who is still often my First Reader). My Ponies sometimes went to war with his Transformers. There were assassins and ninjas involved. On one memorable occasion, the transformers laid siege outside the closet, while my friend and I carried on life inside the castle (closet). We got so involved that we completely forgot about the siege and my poor brother, waiting patiently outside for the war to begin.

In addition to Transformers, my Ponies had frequent dealings with plastic dinosaurs, Hot Wheels, Micro Machines, stuffed animals, and various miniatures (but no dolls…because I disliked dolls). Is it any wonder there are so many species in my stories? About the time I stopped playing with toys, I started giving my brother stories to read. One day, the Ponies were put away for the last time.

 

Image by pullip_junk, Creative Commons License

Years later, I came home from college and heard about this amazing new thing called eBay. I discovered that people were selling Ponies online for a lot more than I had ever paid for one. So I cracked open the big box of Ponies and started going through it. I knew all their names, so I could list them correctly, allowing collectors to find them. I spent an enjoyable few summers curling their hair and taking pictures of them before shipping them off to new owners.

I sold maybe two-thirds of my collection. I also bought a few other people’s collections, dolled them up, took attractive photos, and sold those.

I didn’t sell them all, though. I couldn’t ever sell Firefly. That would be like selling my childhood. And there were others. Baby North Star, Baby Pockets and her Kangaroo, Kingsley the Lion… Most of the ones that I couldn’t part with were the tricksters—the ones who had such strong personalities that, even a decade later, I remembered them vividly. I still have a box of Ponies in my closet—some of them damaged from too much play, some too cute or unusual to sell, and some who were tricksters—the prototypes of my later characters.

Recently, I was babysitting a friend’s 8 year-old-daughter for an afternoon. She read for a while on my Kindle and then grew restless. I asked if there was anything she’d like to watch on Netflix. She said, almost sheepishly, “Have you ever heard of My Little Ponies?”

“Yeah, kid, I might have heard of them.”

We proceeded to have My Little Pony viewing marathon. The Generation-4’s look a little different from the Generatoin-1 Ponies that I grew up with, but they’re still a candy-colored Hasbro product. I’m glad to know that kids still get to fall in love with My Little Ponies, tell stories with them, and maybe even create a few tricksters.

Cowry Catchers 4 - Illustrated - It's here!

A forbidden book. A pirate prince. An idea whose time has come.

Gerard and Silveo have made peace with their pasts…or so they think. They’ve joined the pirates they once hunted and are prepared to leave Wefrivain in quest for a new life. However, an unexpected cry for help brings them unwillingly back into home waters.

The fauns of Maijha Minor are in trouble, and helping them seems like the right thing to do. To succeed, they must circulate Gwain’s forbidden book, which tells the truth about the wyvern gods. Gwain himself has already given up the task as hopeless, but Silveo has other ideas. Together, they will get into more trouble than anyone thought possible.

Out of the Ashes is the fourth illustrated book in the Guild of the Cowry Catchers series. This 64,000-word book is DRM-free and carefully formatted. It includes 11 character portraits, 19 full-page illustrations, and 2 versions of the map (one optimized for color and one for black and white). Cowry Catchers looks beautiful on a black-and-white viewer, but you can also open this eBook on a color screen to view the illustrations at their best.

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

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Cowry Catchers is an illustrated series for adults, set in the world of Panamindorah. It has beauitful artwork, but it's not for the prudish or the young. If you have not read the other Cowry Catchers books, you'll want to start at the beginning. First book is free. ;)

Short Stories

Hi, readers!

Over the last few months, I've been putting up some digital short stories. I've commissioned really beautiful artwork to go with some of them. Others had lovely covers already commissioned by other people, and I got permission to use them. All of these stories haven been released somewhere before, so you may have seen them. Or you may have missed one or two.

Appeared previously in audio on The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine. Currently enrolled in Kindle Selects program until July 10, so only available on Amazon. 1000 words, artwork by Lisa Wilde.

 

Appeared previously on Cast of Wonders. Free wherever I'm allowed to make it free, $0.99 elsewhere. Artwork by Alex Dawson.

Also appears in Crossroads: Short Stories from Panamindorah. $0.99 Artwork by Ashton Hardeman.

Here's a closer look at the incredible detail of the artwork. Click for bigger.

 

Also appears in Crossroads: Short Stories from Panamindorah and In Flux. $0.99 Artwork by Lyra Benassi.

I cropped this one a bit to make the cover. The original deserves display, so here it is. Click for bigger.

 

Also appears in Crossroads: Short Stories from Panamindorah. $0.99 Artwork by Lyra Benassi.


Email Alerts for New Books

Whenever I release something new, I send out an alert on twitter and facebook. I'll eventually talk about it on the podcast, and I usually make an announcement here as well. However, I know that sometimes, people who'd like to hear about my stories don't see those announcements. They fly by on a busy day, drop off people's walls or twitter streams, and people just don't notice.

So, I'm compiling a mailing list. I've been resistant to this idea in the past, because direct email seems spammy to me. However, I personally subscribe to email updates for a number of my favorite authors, and I never feel spammed when they tell me about a new book, so I guess it can be a good thing.

The only time I'll use this list is when I release something new. Whether the new content is text or audio, free or paid, adult, young adult, or children’s stories, you’ll get an email about it if you stay subscribed. I doubt you'll get more than a few emails per year, and it's easy to unsubscribe.

The subscription sign up is on the right. Thanks so much for supporting my work!

Good-bye, 2011

So, this year… It’s been a strange one for me. Some once-in-lifetime awesome stuff has happened, and some (one would hope) once-in-a-lifetime awful stuff has happened.

The awful stuff included leaving my first anesthesia job unexpectedly amid a sea of nasty politics, teaching myself a new practice style (travel work) under great financial pressure, working a lot of 16-hour days in Portland, and somehow hurting my back such that I haven’t been able to sit comfortably for 4 months and may have to have surgery this year. I haven’t been home in 6 months and spent the holidays alone in a hotel. I haven’t seen 2 of my cats since I left, and I feel like I don’t have a home anymore.

The awesome stuff included being on hand for the birth of my nephew, Morgan (first child of my only sibling), still loving the actual practice of anesthesia (even if politics and hours sometimes suck), getting to live in Portland again—hiking its woods, seeing my friends there, eating the wonderful food—even if I was living out of a suitcase, attending a fantastic first Balticon where I spent time with some of my favorite creative people and felt like a rock star for a few days, winning a Parsec with Bryan Lincoln for Fullcast, and having a successful first year in eBooks.

There was other stuff, but those were the highlights. I’m hoping for a less bumpy 2012, but right now, it looks uncertain.

In creative accomplishments, I produced Book 3 of Cowry Catchers in audio (and dealt with the backlash). I also put together the audio for the various Crossroads stories and released that collection on Podiobooks.com near the end of the year. Starting in Dec of 2010 and over the course of 2011, I put out 10 eBooks. I made 2 of them free (the first books in 2 series) and the rest are for sale. If you look to the right on this blog, you will see them. Four of those books are illustrated, and this involved special challenges. I’ve gotten about a third of the illustrations for Book 4 of Cowry Catchers and they are *awesome.* :D

In actual writing, starting in November, I got through about 35,500 words of the rewrite for Hunters Unlucky. I finished Part 2 (of the 6 Part story), and I’m pleased with how that’s going. It’s shaping up to be a book that I think a lot of people will enjoy.

I also wrote the most icky short story I’ve ever produced (where do these things come from??)—“Kittens: Free to Good Home”—which has yet to find a buyer.

In the interests of helping other self-publishers, I provide numbers. These are my sales so far. This includes only books sold, no freebies. It includes sales on Amazon, BN, SW, and (a very few) on CreateSpace.

  • Dec: 36
  • Jan: 31
  • Feb: 88
  • March: 271
  • April: 180
  • May: 352
  • June: 359
  • July: 363
  • August: 296
  • Sept: 208
  • Oct: 184
  • Nov: 205
  • Dec: 359

Total = 2932

For the money, I track only what has actually dropped into my bank account. All distributors pay 2 months behind. Consequently, the payments I’ve received represent only books sold through Oct. Nov and Dec are not included. With that in mind, my overall expenses for publishing (in text and audio) since 2007 when I started commissioning illustrations have been $13,021.68. My gross income has been $5,051.16. About $1,000 of that came from sales of audio short stories, donations on my site and on Podiobooks.com, and other little stuff. The other $4,000 came from eBooks.

Included in that 13K is almost $500 in royalties paid to artists this year. That was above and beyond their upfront asking price for their art, which I also paid. No artist asks for or expects royalties, but it was something I wanted to do for the illustrators of the Cowry Catchers books. I volunteered to pay them 25% of what the distributor gave me for the first 3 years the book is available, split between them according to the number of illustrations they did (calculated for each book). Stupid of me? Maybe a little. I doubt I will break even on those books before the 3 years are up, but I don’t think artists get paid enough, and I wanted people working on the books to have a vested interest in them after the work was over.

Through Oct, my average income per book sold was $1.70 (and really somewhat less, because that doesn’t take into account the royalties I pay my artists). I was making $300-$600 per month. However, towards the end of Oct, the Cowry Catchers Complete 5-Book Series hit the virtual shelves, and that had a pretty big impact on the money. It’s a $10 book. I get about $6.60 per book sold, and it’s not illustrated, so I’m not paying royalties to artists.

In addition, sales picked up towards Christmas. Although they didn’t top the summer numbers, I was making a lot more per book. I estimate I made something over $1500 in Nov and Dec, so total income through 2011 will look something more like $6500—right at half of my total expenditures since 2007. Most of that money was made in a single year of eBooks, while the expenditures were gradual over 5 years.

Is this success? Well, I think so! I’m not sure that I’ll be in the black by the end of 2012. I still have to pay for the illustrations for Book 5 and half of those for Book 4. However, I would be very surprised if I’m not in the black by 2013. I will then have the dubious distinction of paying taxes on this little venture.

Will I achieve my ultimate goal of working 20-30 hours a week in the OR and spending the rest of my time writing for a solid part-time income? For the first time in my life, I see how to do it. Might take 5 years. Might take 10. I’d be 44 by then. Still young enough to be an anomaly. :)

Like all creative people, I’ve got a shopping list of goals for 2012. Whether I accomplish them depends on what kind of curve balls life throws me. Here’s what I’d like to do:

Finish 3 novels – Hunters Unlucky, The Scarlet Albatross, and the Holovarus book (not it’s real name, also probably a novella). I’d like to get 2 of these polished and released as ebooks. The third could be written, but I don’t think it’ll get edited until next year.

I’d like to write 4 short stories in the Panamindorah universe, produce them in audio, and put them up quarterly as paid content. I wanted to do this last year, but then life happened.

I’d like to write at least 2 short stories that are either not Panamindorah-related or are very different from what I’ve done previously, for a total of 6 shorts.

I’d also like to produce Book 4 of Cowry Catchers in audio. Possibly start on Book 5, but I’d be happy if I got Book 4 out the door.

A big thank you to all of you folks who bought my work, listened to the podcasts, left reviews, posted on the forums, volunteered your voices, sent encouraging emails, tweeted and retweeted, favorited and friended and shared. You are the reason these projects are successful, the reason I keep throwing myself at those goals even when life gets in the way. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your enthusiasm and support. Have a wonderful 2012!

Hunters, Crossroads, and Sketches for Cowry Catchers Book 4

Well, November is over, and I didn’t get through 50,000 words of Hunters. I got through 25,900, and I shortened the manuscript by about 3,000.

I can see why people usually do first drafts for NaNo. In that case, just laying down words is a useful activity. When you’re working on a near-final draft, they have to be the right words or it’s counter-productive. Still, I got back into the habit of writing everyday, which I haven’t done since anesthesia school. 1,000 words a day is a good speed for me and not stressful. I had a lot of stuff going on this month as I deal with an unexpected health problem, have early holidays with my family, try to help my brother and sister-in-law with a new baby, prepare to transition to a new travel assignment in Maryland, and try to spend time with my friends in Portland before I leave. I didn’t put too much priority on NaNo, and I’m happy with what I still managed to get done. You will continue to see updates to Hunters on this site until it’s finished.

Over the last few days, I stopped working on Hunters to focus on something that I’ve been trying to get off my plate all year—the audio version of Crossroads, the Panamindorah short story collection. I *finally* got it done. This will be a Podiobooks.com exclusive. It includes 2 stories that have only ever been paid content until now (Night in the Crystal City and Professionals). The version of Professionals in the free audiobook will be my solo read. The fullcast version is still in my online store, but I’ve lowered the price to $2. The audio for Crystal City has not been available anywhere since Feb. All the files have been uploaded to Libsyn, and all related info is with Evo. He’ll schedule the book whenever he gets time, probably in the next couple of weeks.

You’d think that Crossroads would not be a big project, since all the stories were already recorded. And it wasn’t a *big* project, but it did require about 10 hours of focused attention. It needed overall book-ends of audio from me, and the individual stories needed intros and outros with an author’s note, giving some context and background. I want people unfamiliar with my books to be able to enjoy them. Most of the stories were also tangled up with other audio, which had to be clipped and spliced. The overall sound quality varies a lot, but I think they’re still enjoyable. I’ll make another announcement when the book is actually up at Podiobooks.com.

In addition, I spent several days this week with Rah Cloutier (who lives in Portland), working on sketches for Cowry Catchers Book 4. They go a lot faster when I’m there in person to throw out ideas and say “this and not that.” CC4 is going to have some beautiful artwork! Here’s a teaser:


How to get an exact word count for highlights in Word

Here's a tidbit that may be useful to some of my fellow podcasters. I was talking to Bryan Lincoln about it recently on Fullcast Podcast. Occasionally, you may need to get a word-count for a voice actor's lines. This happens most often when you are paying them, either per word or as a percent of the total lines. Or maybe you're just curious about who has more lines. ;)

My method only works if you've got a separte file for each voice actor. If you highlight all the lines in a single file using different colors, then I don't know how to help you. If someone else knows how to get a word-count in such a document, I'm all ears. Word can search for hilights, but as far as I know, it can't search for specific colors.

Assuming you've only hilighted the lines of a single voice actor within the document, do the following:

1. Save a new copy (or just make sure you don’t overwrite your file).

2. Go to “Find and Replace” (Control+H in Word 2010. I think it might be Control+F in older versions).

3. Open the "More" Dropdown menu.

4. Put your curser in the “Find What” box (but don't write anything), and click “Format.”

5. Select “Highlight" once, then select it AGAIN. Under “Find what,” it will then say “Format: “Not Highlight.”

6. In the “Replace with” box, put a blank space (this will prevent words from running together and being counted as a single word).

7. Hit “Replace All.” You are replacing all non-highlighted text with nothing.

8. Do a word count, and you’re done. Remember not to overwrite your original file!

9. Bonus: I also replace all quotation marks with a blank space, just because every now and then, they make two words run together.

10. Double Bonus: Save all this as a macro and do it with the touch of a button.

 

Update 12/17/11 - Bryan Lincoln sent me this, which might also be helpful to anyone using Open Office:

I was playing around with this a little in Open Office (no Word on this computer) and I found I could do specific colors. I didn't find a "Not Highlight" anywhere, but I could do the following:

Edit: Select all (might not be needed but I did it anyway)

Edit: Find and replace

Under More Options, select Format

Under the background tab, choose the highlight color

Don't put anything into the "Search For" field, and select "Find all"

Hit close (the find/replace menu is now gone...all the highlighted text of the chosen color is now selected. Very Useful!)

Edit:Copy

File:New Document

Paste into the new document and do a word count.

Alternatively, with all the highlighted text selected, you can remove the highlights of a single color all at once. So if you highlight each character with a different color, you could turn off the colors one at a time. Would be nice if I could remove all highlights EXCEPT for one color, but I don't see a way to do that.

Not sure if this help you with Word at all, but I thought I'd share what I found.

Robert Quill - deadbeat artist

This is a public service warning. Since 2007, I've worked with 8 artists on dozens of commissions that amounted to thousands of dollars. I've had a falling out with an artist, and I've had slow turn-around, but I've never had an artist fail to complete a paid commission or stop responding to emails...until now. Many of you are authors seeking book covers or even illustrations. You've heard me recommend artists before. Now I'm un-recommending one.

His name is Robert Quill. Here's what happened: I was at Balticon for the first time in 2011 and loved it! As a memento, I purchased a $119 commission of myself as a pirate from a man who turned out to be...in retrospect...a pirate. :( Rober was an official artist at the convention as far as I could tell. He had a booth outside the dealer’s area. I was planning to use the image as a playful portrait in the "About Me/ Contact" section of the Cowry Catcher's website.

Mr. Quill took all the money up front at the convention via credit card, engaged in a few halfhearted emails back and forth, never finished the commission, and then stopped responding to my requests for update.

Here’s a timeline:

5/31/11 – I paid $119 via credit card at Balticon for an ink illustration of myself as pirate.

6/13/11 – I emailed for status update (and to make sure he had not lost my email address).

6/15/11 – He sent me an email with a link to this sketch http://www.robertquill.com/transfer/AbigailHilton.jpg, asking whether I wanted to make any corrections before he finished the piece.

6/26/11 – I responded verifying that the sketch was a go.

10/9/11 – I wrote to ask for an update; he said he had misplaced the commission and would look into it.

10/18/11 – I wrote asking whether he’d found the missing commission and expressing concerns about his intention to finish it. He never responded.

I would be surprised if I’m the only person he’s done this to. People commissioning artwork at a convention have no way of checking the credentials of artists or comparing reviews from other clients. We take it on faith that an artist with a booth has been at least marginally vetted by the convention organizers. I’m sure they didn’t know he was a thief.

However, as an author who commissions a lot of artwork, I'm trying to make sure that people know. Don't commission this guy. I’m sure I’ll never see my $119 again or the artwork, but I would at least like to make sure he doesn’t get to keep taking advantage of my peers.

If further developments occur (like a refund or the artwork), I'll add an update. Maybe Mr. Quill was struck by lightning and cannot answer his emails. Maybe, but I doubt it.

Update 11/20/11: Right after making the previous post, I emailed the Balticon organizers. There's no reporting system for artists, and I don't want this artist to do the same thing to some other sucker at the convention next year. I have lots of friends who attend that convention. The Balticon organizers were very nice and actually got in touch with the artist's agent. This resulted in the artist offering me a refund. To date, the refund has not arrived (he said that he could not refund my credit card and didn't want to use Paypal). However, we seem to be making progress. I am impressed with the Balticon organizers for their handling of this situation. They care about their attendees.

Update 12/8/11 - Robert refunded my money today via Paypal after I got the Balticon organizers involved. The con organizers truly seemed to care about my predicament, and I am greatful for their help.

If you ever feel the need to comission this guy (or anyone, really), I advise paying half the money up front and half on completion. This is a common practice, and if an artist will not agree to it...find someone else. I don't think Robert intended to rob me when he took my credit card at the convention. However, I do think he needs money on the table as motivation to complete a comission.

It's November...and people are writing novels

Storm is born into a world of secrets – an island no one visits, names no one will say, and deaths that no one will talk about. The answers are locked in his species’ troubled past, guarded by the fierce creasia cats. But when Storm’s friends are threatened, he decides that he must act, pitting himself against the creasia to show that they can be resisted and outwitted. To prove his point, he must stay one step ahead of clever hunters, who have more to lose than Storm imagines.

Hunters Unlucky is an animal story for people who loved Richard Adam's Watership Down, Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, and Jack London's Call of the Wild. The animals in this story do not carry swords, walk on two legs, or drink tea. They fight. They starve. Sometimes, they eat each other.
__________________________________________________________________

When I was 14, I started the first novel that I actually finished. It was called...well, it was called something silly. For short, it was called “Lidian” – the name of the world. I finished it almost exactly a year later. It was a bloated, lumbering beast, something over 250,000 words.

That book played a special roll in my friendships as a teenager and young adult. It became my letter of introduction to the world. I met people over that book who became lifelong friends and beta readers, people whose opinions still matter to me.

I went on to write other books, better books, different books. But every few years, I would return to Lidian, armed with more experience, and try to improve it. The story has been edited more than any other book I’ve ever written. It was submitted to, and rejected by, dozens of publishers--the old-fashioned way via snailmail and cardboard boxes. College teachers shook their heads over it. One of them told me it gave her nightmares.

Now that we’ve finally entered the age of self-actualization for authors, I have returned to this book again, determined to put it to rest. It’s not something I would write today, but I know it has an audience. People exist who will like this book.

But co-authoring a book with your teenage self is hard. I mean, it’s really tough. It’s tough to know what to keep and what to throw out, what to rewrite and what to leave alone. I am no longer the girl who wrote this story. She was charming in ways that I am not, and I am clever in ways that she was not. She did not know me, and I have half-forgotten her.

So the re-write process has been sluggish. I’ve been stopping and starting it for over a year. In addition, I’m worried about what my existing audience will think if I release this book without explanation. Anyone who thinks I wrote it after Cowry Catchers will wonder whether I have sustained a head injury.

I have been toying with the idea of serializing it on my site for a while, and I’ve also wanted to try NaNoWriMo. So here’s what I have decided to do – I will attempt to get through 100,000 words of this novel in Nov. I suspect that my rewrite will cut it down to 150K or less. I was pretty verbose as a teenager. I’ll polish off the rest in Dec. Most of it will be rewritten from scratch. I plan to reboot it, not just rewrite it. That means nothing is off the table. I’ll make drastic changes if I think I need to. But I will get through it.

You (any of you who are interested) will be my beta readers. I always have a few (usually half a dozen) reading a novel as I write. I actually have trouble completing things without these people. The version I release here will not be final. It will be near-final, but I reserve the right to make changes. Your comments/corrections are welcome. When I’m finished with all the editing, I’ll release the eBook for sale. I will probably take this version down at that point (or maybe not; I haven’t decided). You get to read it for free if you read it here.

Hunters will be released (along with possibly snarky commontary from me) in a separate journal. Follow the link or click the page in the far right corner above. You can add it to your feedreader if you do that sort of thing.