A Whole Different World

Being a digital generation, it's easy to get trapped in the notion that who people are online is who they are in real life. And not to say that they're liars or phonies, but when we're on Twitter or Blogger or Facebook, we only see a fraction of that person. I never "market" myself, meaning I always write/speak the way I would if you met me in real life. Joseph L. Selby the internet person is the same as Joseph L. Selby the real-life person. BUT, I don't tweet my trash talk during board games. I don't Facebook my tears while I watched Brave. So, yeah, more to me than these words. More to you too, I should hope. Otherwise you need to close your computer and go outside.

I had the opportunity to speak to someone yesterday, an agent that very successfully uses social media to her advantage (no, it wasn't "the" talk, don't get excited). I thought I had a pretty good handle on who this person was, what our dynamic would be like if we worked together, etc. We've been interacting for some time now, right? You learn things about people and that allows you to inform decisions. I do it. You do it. They do it.

BUT HOLY HELL! That phone call was a thousand times more awesome than any conversation on Twitter or Facebook. That was some professional-level awesomeness that just blew me away. So a lesson I learned, Social Media is only a glimpse. And while sometimes a glimpse is enough (I still won't query the agent that uses her Twitter to make fun of how people are dressed), most times remember that there's a lot more to that person than what you're seeing. Wait for the phone call before making up your mind.

If your call was anything like mine, they might just end up blowing your mind.

Not Zombies!

I had a dream last night. I dream stories a lot, but I don't always remember them as well as I do this one. It could make for an interesting story

In my dream last night, my friends Kevin and Crystal were in a Greece-shaped theme park. It looked like an amusement park, but you had to find clues and solve a mystery. But it was full of monsters, like killer geese and zombies. There was a fourth person in our party, but I didn't recognize who he was. He was heavier and seemed familiar, but didn't have the face of any friends of mine who have that kind of body shape. I didn't know his name, either. But I knew he was a friend.

There were digital elements to it too. We were wearing glasses that would allow us to put things in our inventory without actually carrying them. One goal was to collect all of one type of book. You didn't have to carry the actual book once it was marked in your inventory. I think the total goal was something like 30 of each type of book, so that would have been hundreds of books. Instead, once you had a book in your inventory, you could display its contents on your glasses.

The whole thing kind of reminded me of READY PLAYER ONE, this whole-world experience, even though I only ready the sample to the book (I'm waiting for the price to come down). Most of all, I remember waking up and wishing it were real. Aside from the zombies and the killer geese, it seemed like an awesome, immersive adventure. I'd love to do it in real life.

Although I don't know how large it was. I knew it was shaped like Greece, but I don't know the scale. If it were actually Greece-sized, walking across the whole thing would be a hell of a lot of work.

The Original Tubes

Sometimes it feels like I watch a lot of TV. I grew up watching a LOT of television. I was a living TV Guide. But I got tired of it and stopped watching for years. We don't have cable in my house. We stream what we want to watch. Castle, Legend of Korra, Psych, White Collar. Mostly I watch a lot of reruns of my favorite shows. Netflix doesn't have as many shows (that I like) that it did a couple years ago, but their "NEW EPISODES" tag is a huge help. I found out yesterday that there are new episodes of Flashpoint. So let me tell you about the new hotness and the old hotness that's going on right now on the boob toob (what came before the intertoobs).

Have you heard of Avatar: The Last Airbender? No, not the shitty live-action M. Night crapfest, but the animated show that it was based on. It was on Nickelodeon and is an amazing, AMAZING show. Especially season 2. It's all on Netflix, so you should watch it. If you're not blown away by "Stories of Bah Sing Sei" then you have no heart! Anyway, the sequel (next chapter?) to the show, The Legend of Korra is airing right now and Nickelodeon's website right now. It is AMAZING! It is just similar enough and just different enough to be the perfect next chapter. And it's got a style of animation that I really enjoy. (seen Triples of Belleville?) Oh and the music! The music is one of the best parts! If I wrote fanfiction, I would love to write in this world. The bending "magic" system is expertly crafted. This is a show great for adults and kids.

So that's the new hotness. The old hotness (not old and busted) is Flashpoint. Unlike the two above, it's okay if you haven't heard of this one. It was a summer debut on CBS that limped along for a few seasons. BUT it stars Keith Mars. Obviously the actor's name isn't Keith Mars, but if you watched the show Veronica Mars (which used to be on Netflix but is no longer), you know Enrico Colantoni played one of the most awesome dads ever (he was also the lead alien in GALAXY QUEST). This is his new show, a cop drama set in Canada where the SWAT team is trained in negotiation tactics so they don't just run around and kill people like how we do it in the states. It started weak, so I never gave it much of a chance. I was really ill and needed something to fill the time and gave this a second chance and about episode 7 of the first season, the writing finally finds its footing. The rest of season 1 and all of season 2 are amazing! You'll cry after every episode. EVERY EPISODE! Season 3 is kind of weak, but it's last half-season, season 4, found the magic again.

BUT WAIT! Netflix threw up a "new episodes" tag and sure enough, there's the rest of season 4! Turns out it was picked up by a cable network to finish season 4 and create a season 5. Woo hoo! Keith Mars to the rescue!

(You won't meat him until season 4, but Raf is my favorite character.)

What do you like to watch?

You Can't Take It With You

I was reading the sample ebook of READY PLAYER ONE on my nook this morning, and I ran across a phrase you see pretty often. "You can't take it with you." A few weeks ago I was editing the crypt scene in PRINCE OF CATS. Traditional royal burial of millennia past where they were given all the goods they needed for the afterlife. Seeds, farming equipment, fine silks, jewelry, etc etc.

And it made me think. What if you can take it with you. Think of all the different ways people have been buried. What if that burial is a portal to the next stage of existence and what you're buried with is all that goes with you. There would be people that would have control of all the food because they came through with the tools and the seed necessary to farm. There'd be others that would come through with armor and swords and what not. Other people that come through with valuable gems and jewelry, whatever other treasures buried with them.

How would you feel if you were some schmuck that showed up in the new world and all you had with you was a lame blue suit?

Fuckis

When I was in college, everyone I knew had seen Mallrats. If I said "fuckis," I didn't have to explain what that meant. Unfortunately, the fortune teller scene from Mallrats isn't on YouTube so if you haven't seen the movie, I can't explain it to you.

Lately, I've needed to improve my fuckis. I'm querying a manuscript, and usually I'll take a little bit of time off before starting something new. (It used to be tow weeks, then one, then at least a couple days.) But, because I held off on the final draft before querying, I finished a first draft of another book. So I've been revising that one to get it in shape for sending to beta readers. There are some things getting in the way of that.

I got a new CPAP machine, and I don't think it's as effective as my old one. I'm tired more often, although it's not as bad as when I first got it.

I finished my December "busy schedule" months late (as content was turned over late, not because I'm not awesome) and unfortunately that rolled right into my summer busy season. So I'm kind of tired because there was no down time. There are also big changes going on at work, which means a lot of people making a lot of mistakes, and I have to run around with my hands in the air going, "No, no that's not right! Stop that! Stop that this instant!"

I downloaded "Towers n Trolls" to my phone. I've had bad luck with tower defense games before. None of them really held my interest. This one, despite it's pay-to-play structure after level 2, has been scratching that itch. Usually I play it until the conductor sees my pass and then I bust out the computer. But today, I played it all the way into Boston (and on the subway and during lunch). I've beaten the game already, but now I'm beating on BRUTAL! and for some reason, I'm making that effort. I don't usually need to make that effort, but this time around I am. *shrug*

It's also leading to a lot of introspection. I've mentioned that I prefer intrigue to standard adventure, but I keep writing adventure instead of intrigue. It feels like I used up all my intrigue juice writing D&D adventures, and I'm just waiting for it to rejuvenate. I gotta take a break from adventure, though. These stories are starting to feel too similar.

How's your work going? Are you writing? Because you said you were going to put more effort into writing, so you should be doing that. Chop chop, and stuff.

The Assistant

Everyone always calls agents the gatekeepers. This is silly. Agents aren't gatekeepers. Agents' assistants are gatekeepers. So keep that in mind the next time you think an assistant is beneath you.

Okay, really, no one reading my journal right now is a Douchebag McAsshole that would condescend an assistant. But some day I'll be popular and shit and there's always that percentage that think it's okay to treat the assistants like crap. These people are dumb. Not the assistants, the Douchebags McAssholes. So I'm talking to you right now, dumb person. Be nice to the assistants. They've earned it. And it's in your best interest.

At my day job, I sit across from an editorial assistant. I work hard at my day job. I do a good job at my day job. And that assistant is there before me and she's there after me. I actually check in the morning just to make sure she's wearing different clothes. The day she spends the night at work, we're having an intervention. Assistants work a LOT. They do a lot of the work we thank agents/editors for. They're the horses that pull the plows. Don't just thank a farmer for your sammich. Without those horses, he couldn't have even planted the wheat.

But you think to yourself, assistants are young and inexperienced. What do they know? I will grant you that an assistant is typically an entry level job1, 2, but they're inexperienced for about the first week. Then they've logged enough combat time that you can call them veterans, so get off your high horse. And really, what's the point of being shitty to the assistant anyway? Don't you have manners? Are please and thank you so hard? Cut them some slack. They're clocking 90 hours a week and have to live with four roommates to keep a roof over their heads because they don't make any money, so a mistake or two will happen.

Still not buying it, eh? Then let me tell you a story. I finished a book a couple years ago. I queried that book. An agent requested a partial. Then he requested a full. I never spoke directly to the agent. I spoke to his assistant. See where I'm going? No you don't.

The agent eventually passed on the manuscript. Asked for a partial of my next one. I never spoke to him. I spoke to the assistant. Eventually passed on that one as well. Two full manuscripts, 260,000 original words, and I never spoke to the agent. I spoke to the assistant. Think what would have happened if I had been a dick on that first manuscript. You think he would have asked for a second?

Still not convinced? Well, a couple years later I get an email. Hey, Joe, remember me? I was the assistant for so-and-so who read your stuff. Of course I remember you. You are awesome! Thanks, well, I have a confession. Agent so-and-so wasn't reading your stuff. I was. Now I'm an agent in my own right. Do you have anything new to share?

Oh well yes I do.

Pause and ask yourself if I would have ever received that email if I had been a dick.3

All right. Go now, and try out these new manners. Remember that publishing is a small world and people who were once low can grow to be mighty (and can do so quickly). There are a nice batch of awesome agents that were only assistants when I started querying three years ago. It makes things fresh. It makes things exciting. As long as you don't screw it up at the beginning.



1 With the changing economy, the entry-level position is actually becoming the intern. The assistant is the intern that had the chops to keep going, so they have more experience than you'd think. They just don't get paid for it. :)

2 Don't ever think just because it's an entry-level position that it means they don't know anything. Those positions aren't just thrown out to anyone. They scratch the eyes out of the competition to get those jobs.

3 The answer is no. No I would not have received that email if I had been a dick. Neither would you. It doesn't matter how much of a genius you are.

Avengers Sevenfold

Like most geeks, I saw The Avengers opening weekend. Like many geeks, I saw it more than once. Yes, it was that good. I did not know if it was going to be good. I was hesitantly pessimistic, but after 99% glowing reviews from people I know (some of whom I actually trust), I gave it a try.

Pessimistic, I say? But how? It's superheroes. It's Joss Whedon! It's Marvel!

Exactly. Marvel has a good way of ignoring professionals who know movies and know how to make movies to do what they think the audience wants. Need examples from this decade (ignoring older disasters that are easy picking)? I give you Spider-Man 3 and Iron Man 2. Both had so much potential and both were wasted by Marvel demanding the directors do things their way, which proved not to be a very good way.

But Whedon is at the helm! This time will be different! Okay, A) the fact that he didn't leave/get fired from the project means he's playing nice, so don't think Marvel didn't have some say in the process (the alien invasion? all their doing). Moreover, is Joss as deserving of praise as we give him? I love his properties (especially Firefly), but they push the super-powered teen girl repeatedly. Can he do something like the Avengers without turning the Black Widow into Buffy?

Well, turns out, he can. Now, if you don't like Joss Whedon as a writer or filmmaker, then you won't like this movie. The dialogue is very clearly his. Yes, Stark, Cap, Banner, and Thor all have their own voices, but they are also expert witty banterers in that way Whedon excels at. I don't mind it. Some people do. It's a matter of preference.

The voice is what makes the movie worth watching, though. If you want to watch the big fightemup beatemup battle against the two-dimensional alien invaders, go watch a Transformers. If you want to watch what is perhaps the best rendition of Bruce Banner, then you have to go see Mark Ruffalo (who took my favorite character and made him the best he's ever been--even better than Bill Bixby! I'll go there). You have an ensemble cast of super-heroes that have no reason for being together that need to be together. It's a daunting task that had every reason to fail. It's master writing that made it even passable and Whedon made it awesome.

I never fully drank his kool-aid (I don't think Firefly would have been the amazing show it was without Tim Minear), but this movie really won me over to just how talented he is. I hope I can excel in my own field in a similar fashion.

Ideas on Stuff

Two ideas that have been bouncing around my head that I wanted to write down.

I want to write a city whose nickname is the Ever-Blossoming City. Every time the monarch dies, the core of the city is torn down and rebuilt in a style dictated by the new monarch. In years of plague or political upheaval, this may actually mean buildings would be torn down before they were finished being constructed. How much of the city is torn down depends on how prosperous the crown is, so you may see a hodgepodge of disparate design styles, grids leading into crisscrosses and what not.


Also, I want to write a short story named HARVEST TIME that focuses on two characters, a royal steward and a ship captain that has recently returned with goods from a newly discovered continent. He gifts them to the monarch and among those gifts is corn. The monarch feasts on the corn at dinner. That night, the corn turns up in the monarch's chamber pot and it is decided that corn is actually poison and the ship captain has tried to assassinate the monarch. It is the steward's job to catch him (and depending on how it develops, may be the person who convinced others corn was poison) while the captain flees in an attempt to prove his innocence.

Really, I just want to write a story where the plot is predicated on the fact that corn is still solid when you poop it out. How does that not freak people out?

How Thick Is Your Skin?

So agent extrodinaire, Kristin Nelson, has a feature seminar she takes to conventions and the like. Participants bring their first two pages up to the mic and start reading. She tells them when, if they had submitted those pages to her, when she would stop reading and why. You might think, "How awesome! She's giving feedback!" but pause for a second and let it settle in. She tells you when she would stop reading. Not, she lets you finish and then tells you when she would stop reading.

What would it be like, to be up there in front of all those people and have an agent tell you stop after your first sentence? Not so exciting now, eh?

Oh, it is? Yeah, to me too. And how cool is it that she's offering that seminar directly through her new programs? Now you can knuckle down and muscle up even if you're not at a con. Payment is by paypal, so if you're set up to withdraw from your bank account, you won't have your payment processed in time. If you're linked to a credit card, you still could. It's this coming Wednesday at 8pm Eastern (6pm Mountain--I hope people realize the time is listed as Mountain). Submit two pages and see how you do!

I paused in my current wip and returned to PRINCE OF CATS. It's the only finished draft I have right now that I haven't previously queried. I have beta reader feedback, but I've been having difficulty figuring out how to incorporate it. Until Tuesday, which makes this seminar ideally timed. I've started revising the draft for querying AND for this seminar. I am both thrilled at the chance of getting great feedback (and maybe having all two pages read?!) while at the same time terrified at hearing stop after the first sentence. It's like bungee jumping, it's both terrifying and exhilarating.

So if you're interested, you should join in. Kristin rocks the house.

No. Do Better.

I am not in between drafts, but I've already started to see the critical weaknesses in the draft I'm writing. Perhaps the most challenging thing for a pantser is that so much of the first draft is spent getting to know your characters and your setting. Sometimes you know them right away. Sometimes it takes pages and pages to finally understand what makes them tick.

Granted, pantsers can do prep work just like plotters do. It's okay to sit down and write out what your main characters have, what they want, and what they fear. But sometimes the character you meet along the way is not the character you thought you were writing about. The second draft is so much better than the first because you're writing from a point where you finally understand the players involved and the setting. Really, it's almost like the first draft is the longest, most detailed outline one could write about your book and the second draft is really where you start.

I am anxious to get to the second draft of my wip. (Of course, I'm anxious to get to the second draft of a previous work as well, which is making for all kinds of internal conflict). :) Because of all that conflict (and because I recently finished reading Russell Brand's MY BOOKY WOOK), I've started a process I usually save for between drafts. I read a good book (in this case, Peter V. Brett's THE WARDED MAN), one I've read before, and I tear it apart. I read it as critically as one can. How often does he use dialogue tags? Why did he use that adjective? When does he describe people and when does he leave it to your imagination? And so on and so on. Question EVERYTHING!

The reason for this is because I pick up on what I think the author did right and then I compare it to what I'm doing. (I also don't use the same author for this process because then you can get fixated on a particular style rather than the commonalities of good writing.) Describing characters and places is my biggest weakness because I rarely care what they look like. It's the events that occur and the choices they make that matter to me. If they have curly or straight hair is inconsequential. Of course, not everyone agrees with me, so I have to make it a point to remind myself that that kind of thing should be included.

And in fact, as I read a good book so critically and see my own shortcomings, a sort of mantra emerges. "No. Do better." Those two sentences (or one sentence if I chose to use No as a clausal interjection) inform my entire self-editing process. I go over what I did and say, "No. Do better." Repeat and repeat and repeat until you can say, "Okay. That's better."

That's More Like It

So do you remember back on April 3rd, when I was complaining about how I hadn't been writing that much? Well, I hadn't, and it was frustrating. Work was sucking the creativity out of my brain. I worked late. I worked more when I got home. I worked on weekends. That's how publishing goes. Like the military, there's a lot of hurry up and wait, but once shit's on, shit's on. So all my delayed titles parachuted in at once and I had a few weeks to make them happen. WHILE at the same time being asked if I could publish early.

Want to work in publishing? Behold your fate. This kind of thing never changes. Turn over late, publish early. Glamorous, yes?

Anyway, so I do what I do because that's what I do and get my work done (and publish early, behold my awesomeness). This means I have time to do things other than work, which means I have time to write. It's amazing how hard it is to write when you're spending all your other time working. Even if I wasn't working on the train, I was so exhausted from working all the time, I typically just fell asleep or watched Stargate SG-1.

So, on April 3rd, I was hanging out at 68,000 words. Two weeks later? 98,000 words. That's much better. That's the kind of productivity I like to see! It's going to take a lot of work to get this thing up to snuff, it being a first draft and all. But the main goal of a first draft is to finish the first draft, and I'm glad to see that progress is being made in that regard.

And you? How is your writing coming along? I see Ted Cross is mad in March with his stories and Nate Wilson is blogging like no one else can and Livia Blackburne is on her bajillionth draft. Update the class, kiddies. Let us know how you're doing.

The Bell Rings

So unless you live under a log (in which case you have a secret base and I want to come visit), you heard that the Department of Justice sued Apple and 5/6 of the Big Six today (Random House was not included). Of the five publishers, three settled to avoid the legal costs. Two, Macmillain and Penguin, did not.

First, anti-trust investigations happen much more often than is generally spoken of. They just don't usually make it to court because court is expensive. So, in that regard, this is a big deal.

Second, barring a kangaroo court, I think Macmillain and Penguin will win their challenge.

Third, those in the traditional publishing verse on twitter were incredibly vocal today. I have pared away a lot of the self-publishers I used to follow (mostly because they failed at the social aspect of social media), so I did not get a good view of the opposite side of that spectrum.

Fourth, Twitter is an impossible place to discuss the intricacies of ebook pricing. Both sides of the argument are so complex and contain nuggets of truth that a proper conversation cannot be had in 140 characters.

Fifth, and here's the bulk of my topic today, my opinion on ebook pricing is changing. The reasons for this will take more than 140 characters. Quick recap for new readers, I've been making ebooks for a long time, like back when your choices were PDF or .MOBI (mmm mobipocket, you've grown up!). So here are the two cruxes of the argument and both are true.

ebooks are cheaper than other formats to make and manufacture.

The cost of making the actual book is a small fraction of the cost of making a book product.

The problem is, each side of the argument has latched onto one of these two truths to argue the other side. So both sides have taken 1/2 of the truth to argue the other half. It's like watching the heads-side of a quarter argue with the tails-side that only one side is a real quarter. Those watching the argument can do little but bang their head against a table.

When ebooks first went mainstream and Amazon set the bar at 9.99, I thought they were (and perhaps they were) playing to a familiar .99 value similar to that of an mp3 file on iTunes. I was outraged. 9.99? Are they crazy? That thing cost pennies to make. PENNIES!

9.99 was ridiculous. I wasn't going to pay that. Blah blah blah, grumble grumble grumble. Of course, I did pay it. I paid it a lot. That and 7.99 and 5.99. Sometimes 3.99 on special deals. I dipped my toes in the 99 cent self-pubbed market before I ran away screaming (Hocking being the best author by far I found in that pool). But then the agency model rolled out and all of a sudden I saw 11.99, 14.99, and 16.99. What? Are they crazy? That thing cost pennies to make. PENNIES!

16.99 was ridiculous. I wasn't going to pay that. Blah blah blah, grumble grumble grumble. I would not buy a book for more than 9.99. I've broken that rule twice, and both times in extenuating circumstances. First, me and my wife split the cost of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS when it was released, so really, I did not break my 9.99 rule except that the book was priced over 9.99. Second was Galen Beckett's THE MAGICIANS AND MRS QUENT, which was 11.99, but I bought it with a gift certificate I got for Christmas, so it wasn't like I used real money. I have not broken that rule elsewise, and that's so hard! THE MAGICIANS... was the first in a trilogy and they're all priced at 11.99. And Saladin Ahmed's THRONE OF THE CRESCENT MOON just came out and that's 11.99 as well. DAMMIT! I want to read that sucker, but I have principles.

Principles, dammit!

Having a discussion with a new Twitter friend, Lauren Panepinto, (who did the super duper awesome covers on Joe Abercrombie's novels--serious, I drool over those covers), I began to communicate what I had come to realize about ebooks and their pricing. I had originally expected ebooks to replace mass market paperbacks. As such, I always expected them to be priced like mass market paperbacks. $7.99? I'll scoop that shit up like crazy!

My evolving perception of pricing, however, could not be communicated in 140 characters, so I abandoned the discussion of books costing more than just manufacturing cost with a weak "I know, that's how I get a paycheck."

Kind of weak, it's true after all, but still. Weak.

If ebooks have to be priced so high because books cost more than just manufacturing, how do you justify trade paperbacks? Mass market paperbacks? They're all derived from the same product, and they're priced for what their platform is expected to be priced at (or thereabouts). So saying, we can't price ebooks that low because it costs so much more to make a book than just manufacturing! is crap. It's crap because you're not making ONLY ebooks. You're making other formats as well.

Or so I said. But I was wrong, at least somewhat. I was wrong because ebooks aren't released like other formats are. A publisher doesn't release a hardback at the same time as the trade. If you got the choice to buy a $25 hardback or a $8 mass market paperback, you'd have to really love that book or really love hardback to spring the $17 difference. Most people would go for the mass market. And publishing makes its money from most people.

The numbers are already in. ebooks are gouging mass market paperback sales, which is entirely expected, which only lends credence to my mmpb pricing. But they're cutting into all the platforms, so now where does that revenue come from instead of a hardback if the ebook is priced too low.

NOW, I will say, early numbers studies say that $7.99 is an ideal price point, and that companies will offset the reduced per title revenue with increased sales. It'll take some time for the market to bear that out, though.

Regardless, I'm starting to think that 11.99 for a new release isn't unreasonable. It's not the $25 for a hard cover, but it is, in a way, the cost that you pay to get a new release. Same goes for DVDs, so why shouldn't it be true with ebooks?

The problem where this all derails is when the ebook is priced higher than the available format print book. You know how I mentioned Galen Beckett above? Those 11.99 ebooks? Yeah, I could get a mass market trade of the same title for $6. THAT'S a problem. $11.99 for Saladin Ahmed instead of $16.95? I just saved five bucks. If I don't want to pay that, I can wait a couple years and it SHOULD drop in price and I can get it for an expense that I think is more appropriate. Those are the choices that the market makes. Things change so quickly that sometimes we forget that it takes time for things to work themselves out.