This And That And The Other

So, today is my day to promote, again, which makes me feel rather on the spot. Since we last talked, I’ve sold a short story (An Answer From The North which will come out in Courts of The Fey, edited by Russell Davis.) Wrote another which I’m in the process of cleaning up (hopefully) for acceptance. I delivered a book – A Fatal Stain – to Prime Crime. I’m hoping to get the sample chapters for that up this weekend. The samples for the other two are here. And I had a few things come out with Naked reader.

First, I want to call your attention to Death Of A Musketeer. Excerpts are here. The trailer video is here.

There is also A Touch of Night, written by Sofie Skapski and myself. The reason we wrote this – Pride, Prejudice and dragons, oh my – is that my Magical British Empire Series wasn’t selling, so we did this to use the world. For fun. An unedited and shorter version is out at austen.com. Of course, the minute we’d written it, the MBE sold to Bantam Spectra.

I have also attended a steam punk con. Yeah, that’s what the picture is all about. It was surprisingly fun. First, possibly because I hadn’t dressed up in years. Second because though it took place on a college campus – though, you say? Though, I reply – the attendees were all bright, engaging and interested young people who actually seemed to read for fun. Why is it “though”? Because with notable exceptions, a lot of young sf fandom seems to be more media and games based. My excuse to be there, of course, was having written the Magical British Empire Trilogy. Samples for which are here. It is a chase for the eye of the goddess in a magical land in which the industrial revolution is underfoot in a way you’ve never seen before, and all shape shifters are illegal and subjected to being killed on sight.

And right now I’m working on finishing Darkship Renegades, which is the sequel to Darkship Thieves. Excerpts for Darkship Thieves live here. Darkship Renegades starts this way:

Out Of The Frying Pan

I was a princess from Earth and he was a rogue spaceman from a mythical world. He saved my life three times. I rescued him from a fate worse than death.
We married and lived happily ever after.
Ever after comes with an expiration date these days. We’d been married less than year when Kit got shot in the head.

And if you're totally at loose ends, let me remind you I give away some short stories and even a collection. If you haven't tried the short stories, read them or download them here. As for the collection, please visit the Baen Free Library and look for my name. Happy reading.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, and the occasional dragon (thought I wouldn't see you, lurking there at the back, uh?) have a good weekend. I shall go imbibe massive quantities of caffeine and work.

(The Picture is courtesy http://Fantascenes.net )

*Due to serious lack of caffeine as well as fact I am finishing a book, this post being echoed over at According To Hoyt*

Funday Celebrating books and friends!

Here we are, February 5th, my birthday and my day to do the Saturday MGC post!

So I'm going to have some fun. Did a yoga workout at the gym. Then my daughter took me for a pedicure. (Never had one before. At one point it tickled so much I nearly fell off the chair!). And tonight my DH is taking me to dinner and a movie. Yay!

So I thought I'd share some fun stuff with you.


My friend AA Bell has a new book out, 'Diamond Eyes', so she commission my DH Daryl to do a book trailer and David 'Meshow' to write the music. Here's the link to the music. And here's the link to the actual book trailer. She's really pleased with the number of hits this has generated.
And my friend Marianne de Pierres has a new YA fantasy series out. Book one, Burn Bright has just been released into the wild. With a book trailer! My DH didn't do this one, but there is a similarity with Diamond Eyes because Marianne commissioned a song by the musician Yunu.

It's interesting to see the cross fertilisation of ideas between music and story, and visuals to create these book trailers.


And then this morning I came across This. It's delightful. No dialogue, strong visuals, good use of music and great characterisation. The child actor does a wonderful job of conveying emotion through body language.

What's interesting about this, is that there is no need for an explanation. It relies on the viewer knowing that the child is trying to use 'the force' on objects and animals. When Star Wars came out in 1978 anything to do with speculative fiction was way out in left field. Now it is so mainstream it doesn't need an explanation.

In fact, the stuff of fiction has become ordinary. We have phones that take pictures and videos and can send these images to our friends, who watch them on their own phones. Eat your heart out, George Jetson!

So what's left for SF writers to write about? Well, here is an analysis of some predictions for 2030 on the Singularity Hub. Did you know that the Babel Fish is almost here?

So there you have it. Some fun, some frivolous fun and some fun staring into a crystal ball!
What did you think of the predictions?

Breaking News. Hachette Australia has You Tube Channel to promote books!

The never ending blog tour.

It's been a heck of a week and I've been blogging -- waves hands helplessly -- everywhere. I've also become a semi-regular co-blogger at http://classicalvalues.com/ Yeah, it is a political blog, but that's all right, because like me it has politics that don't fit comfortably anywhere and are garanteed to Upset EveryoneTM. No, I haven't posted anything yet. Let me finish these other five posts and I will. My hand is being left completely free, and I suspect most of my posts will be not politics but under the heading of "if this goes on" -- or perhaps just "Not politics, just beliefs."

Is all this having any effect on my numbers? Who the heck knows? I know at this point people are having serious trouble finding Draw One In The Dark, because I keep getting emails. Note, if you're bugging me or the publisher, you're doing it wrong. I mean, you can TELL the publisher. She's busy and might not have noticed. But the people you should BUG are your local bookstore. Keep reordering the book. THAT will eventually trigger reprint. (Remember it comes from a time when there was no Amazon and authors and publishers were not that accessible.) I really can't sell any more of mine, because I still use them as giveaway publicity.

I just hope that Darkship Thieves is selling and that there have been enough printed to sustain the sales. That's all.

Meanwhile my kid, his best friend and two drawings (for the comic I need to finish) swiped from my folder resulted in this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tw8zbF4IcAg which I think is cute, though they tell me there will be more and much, much better.

Sorry for the scattered post. I must get some coffee and then will probably post a reading list for those of you starting out, etc, as an update. I've been meaning to do that for some time.

Book Trailers, what next?

Okay, who hasn't thought, 'Gee, I'd love a glossy book trailer for my new book!'?

See the Troy Patterson article here. Everyone is doing it, even Stephen King, with varying success. When every second book has a book trailer and the only people who come to look at your book trailer are your mum and friends, unless you're Stephen King, you have to wonder what having a book trailer achieves.

This is where I have to confess here that I have a book trailer. Yes, I gave in and asked my wonderful husband to make one for the Lost Shimmaron series. You can see it here. I can't listen to it. We used my voice and I have a slight lisp. Of course every second word began or ended with an 'S'.






Actually I've been dabbling with book trailers for a while now.
Back when the last book of my T'En Trilogy came out, my husband made a book trailer for it. This was in 2002 and my publisher didn't know what to do with the trailer.


There's even an award for book trailers here, the New Covey Trailer Awards, where you can waste far too much time viewing other people's book trailers.

And, right now, my long suffering husband is working on a book trailer for my new fantasy series, King Rolen's Kin. So I am going to come clean, I am a book trailer addict.

Be honest, would a good book trailer intrigue enough to go out and buy a book?