Marty Halpern Interview

Charles Tan interviews me today on his acclaimed blog Bibliophile Stalker. Charles asks a number of questions including how I got started in the field, my current projects, what, in my opinion, are the necessary skills for the various editor roles, and so on. I think I'm fairly straight forward with my answers, though pages would be required to fully respond to most of the questions. Regardless, the interview is more than 3,400 words so there is still plenty of content for inquiring minds.

If you should happen to read the interview, and have some additional questions or issues or comments for me, I would be most grateful if you would post them here on "More Red Ink" at the end of this blog entry. This will allow me easier access to respond, and in addition I will automatically be notified so that I will be able to respond in a timely fashion.

So I hope you'll click over to Bibliophile Stalker and check out the interview. It's my first online interview since early 2003, when Golden Gryphon Press publisher Gary Turner and I were interviewed on SF Site by Nick Gevers (with whom I am currently co-editing an original anthology), upon the publication of The Silver Gryphon anthology.

July Links and Things

Since I just posted a new blog essay on the 31st, I thought I would wait a few days before posting July's links. And there are indeed a lot of them -- hopefully something to satisfy even those who think they've seen/read it all! In fact, to cut down on the number of these links in the months ahead, beginning this month (August, not July, as this is still July, so to speak) I'm no longer going to post any ongoing serializations. So if you are reading the serialized fiction being posted online by Cory Doctorow, Tim Pratt, Catherynne M. Valente, and John Shirley, then you may want to subscribe directly to those blogs/websites. I'll still tweet when new pieces are posted but I won't list them in my links listings in the future, only if it's a new serialization. You can receive all these links in real time by following me on Twitter. I have listed all of the July links here, all in one post, and with additional detail and comment.

The first July links entry is the publication of the reprint edition of author Judith Moffett's first novel, Pennterra. This was my first acquisition for Warren Lapine's Fantastic Books imprint, which, by the way, now has a new website. I had the pleasure of meeting Judith for the first time at ReaderCon in Boston last year, and we've become virtual friends, I guess you could say. Judith Moffett is not your typical SF author! She is an award-winning poet with a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, a couple of Fulbrights under her belt, and grants from both the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. She is also a world-class translator of Swedish poetry, who presented at the 1998 Nobel Symposium on Translation of Poetry and Poetic Prose. The list of accomplishments in her Wikipedia entry is awe-inspiring. When Pennterra was originally published in 1987, Nebula Award-winning author Michael Bishop wrote: "Stunning... the best first novel I have read in at least a decade... dangerous and breathtaking to behold." Ms. Moffett has a new novel available as well, Bird Shaman, that was published to coincide with her ReaderCon appearance; you can read about the new novel on her website and even order a signed and inscribed copy directly from the author (and at a discount, too). So am I plugging both of these books (and the author)? You betcha!

Here are the rest of my July links and things:

• Author, geek, futurist Bruce Sterling gave the closing talk at June's Reboot 11 Conference. Video available. According to boingboing.net: "In his closing talk from last month's Reboot conference in Copenhagen, Bruce Sterling guesses at what it will be like to live through the next ten years: 'It is neither progress nor conservatism because there's nothing left to conserve and no direction in which to progress. So what you get is transition. Transition to nowhere.'" Ya gotta love Bruce! (@bruces)


• CrunchGear headline: "Indie Kindle author lands book deal." Boyd Morrison, self-published author of the Kindle ebook The Ark lands a two-book contract with publisher Simon & Schuster; the contract is for The Ark, to be published in hardcover in 2010, and the sequel. Morrison became a member of the Kindle Boards and did all his own self-promoting. This is the first reported instance of a self-published Kindle author scoring a book contract with a major publisher.


• Author John C. Wright (The Golden Age et al.) shares his writerly expertise with new writers in his "Ten Commandments for How to be a Writer." Actually, there is an Eleventh Commandment that John refers to as the "unwritten rule": "When you get a rejection slip, be thankful." His insights on rejection slips are quite inspiring.


• The Deadline Dames (@DeadlineDames) are a group of nine urban fantasy & paranormal romance authors. Dame Devon has posted an essay entitled "A Forest Full of Trees," in which she discusses rewriting/revising one's manuscript. Good stuff, for writers and editors both. She lists twenty-one "Big Picture Revision Questions" to ask yourself about your manuscript. #4: "Are the senses fully employed? (Sight, smell, touch, taste, sound)" #10: "Is the dialogue working to move the story forward in ways the narrative can't?"


• Author Holly Lisle's (@hollylisle) blog provides a lot of step-by-step material for writers. A recent entry, "How To Create a Character," lists six bullet points, followed by a lengthy discussion on -- you guessed it -- character creation. The last bullet point is: "Do write from your own life." At the end of this blog post, you'll find a link to a "Character Creation Workshop," which links to a "Dialogue Workshop," which links to a "Maps Workshop," which links to a "Scene Creation Workshop"... Also at the end of the "How to Create a Character" post is another link on "How To Finish a Novel," which links to "How To Revise a Novel," which links to "How To Collaborate," etc. You get the idea. You could probably spend days, if not weeks, on this site.


• Author Kim Wilkins steps us through "The Science of [Self-] Editing" -- the author doesn't include the word "self" in the blog title, but I feel the need to do so, since "self-editing" is far different from what I term "editing." Regardless of the nuances, Kim has some good stuff to say about the self-editing process: "For those of you embarking on a self-edit, the most important thing to remember is to be methodical and detached.... I do this, all the while imagining that I'm not the person who has to fix it. Makes it far less overwhelming (though a little more pathological)." She goes on to explain her own [self-]editing process.

At Home with Jack Vance

At 92 years of age (soon to be 93, on August 28), author Jack Vance is finally garnering some long-overdue, well-deserved attention in the media. And considering that he hasn't published any new fiction since 2004 (novel Lurulu, sequel to Ports of Call, 1998; both from Tor Books), this is indeed a remarkable accomplishment. Why all the media attention now? Because Vance has two books that have just been published by Subterranean Press. First and foremost is Vance's autobiography, This Is Me, Jack Vance! (more on this in a bit). The second title is anthology Songs of the Dying Earth, which is subtitled "Stories in Honor of Jack Vance." Songs features some of the best writers in the genre: Neil Gaiman, George R. R. Martin (who co-edited the anthology), Lucius Shepard, and Dan Simmons, to name only four, with an appreciation by Dean Koontz. What makes this book even more special is that Vance himself has written a new preface to open the anthology.

Carlo Rotella, director of American Studies at Boston College, wrote an excellent and lengthy piece (nearly 3,700 words) on Jack Vance entitled "The Genre Artist" in the July 15 New York Times. Rotella's introduction to Vance's fiction occurred when he was 14 years old, and he's been reading the author's work ever since. In this article Rotella quotes from a number of Vance novels, quotes from contributors (Tanith Lee and Dan Simmons) to the Songs anthology, and even quotes from Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon: "Jack Vance is the most painful case of all the writers I love who I feel don't get the credit they deserve. If 'The Last Castle' or 'The Dragon Masters' had the name Italo Calvino on it, or just a foreign name, it would be received as a profound meditation, but because he's Jack Vance and published in Amazing Whatever, there's this insurmountable barrier." Well said, Mr. Chabon! I'm awaiting my copy of This Is Me, Jack Vance! from Subterranean Press, but in the meantime I have Rotella's article to tide me over. By the way, Rotella notes that "Vance takes pride in his craft but does not care to talk about it in any detail, going so far in his memoir as to consign almost all discussion of writing to a brief chapter at the end." If you're not familiar with Jack Vance, this article is a great mini-introduction to Vance's work, and his life. Kudos to Carlo Rotella.

I personally lay all the blame for my rampant book collecting on Jack Vance... Well, that's not really fair: his mass market paperback publishers Berkley Medallion and DAW Books actually share that dubious honor. I was already an avid book reader, but it was Jack Vance's Demon Princes series that drove me to my bibliophilic behavior. I don't recall how the Demon Princes series was brought to my attention, but in the early '80s I made a concerted effort to track down these five books. Now, you have to remember that at that point in time, there was no internet; there was no "online" in which to do an online book search. In those days we actually had to visit bookstores; and we used the telephone and, dare I say it, book catalogs sent through the mail to acquire specific titles. My favorite bookstore was Books, Inc. in the Town & Country shopping center near the corner of Stevens Creek and Winchester boulevards in San Jose. Books, Inc. closed down not too long after the Barnes and Noble superstore opened about a block away; and now the entire Town & Country shopping center is gone, replaced by the upscale Santana Row. But back to Books, Inc.: The store was a panacea for SF readers in particular because the management never returned a book. Regardless of the number of copies they ordered of any particular paperback, those copies would remain on the shelves until they sold. You could find paperbacks on the shelves that were years old, the pages often yellowed from age. So that's where I went to purchase the five volumes in Vance's Demon Princes series. The first three books in the series -- Star King, The Killing Machine, and The Palace of Love -- were published in the '60s by Berkley Medallion; the final two books in the series -- The Face and The Book of Dreams -- were published by DAW Books in 1979 and 1981 respectively. Unfortunately, I only found one of the DAW books on the shelf. A clerk assisted me by looking up the other four titles in Books in Print (available as a set of humongous hardcovers as well as on microfiche). It turned out that two of the five titles were out of print -- one from Berkley Medallion and the first book from DAW. And, not understanding the stupidity of publishers at the time, I couldn't comprehend why any publisher would allow the middle books of a five-book series to go out of print. It just didn't make any sense to me -- then. But in the course of looking through Books in Print, the clerk discovered that the series had been published in a hardcover edition by an independent press called Underwood-Miller. Great, I said, let's order them. Sorry, said the clerk, we don't deal directly with that publisher, and those titles aren't available through our regular distributor. Sigh... Time to go home and make some telephone calls to other bookstores in the area.

This is how I discovered genre bookstore Future Fantasy in Palo Alto, about a 25-mile drive from where I live. I telephoned the store, and yes, they could order the books for me, but I would have to pay for them in advance. So I made the drive to Palo Alto, only to discover that the store proprietor would only order one volume at a time -- even though I was willing to pay for the five books all at once, up front. Not sure of her rationale; but keep in mind that this was the early '80s and each of these trade hardcovers cost, I believe it was, $20.00 each -- so the set of five books was $100.00 (plus tax). Anyhow, I paid for the first book in advance, returned to the store a couple weeks later when the book arrived and paid in advance for the next one in the series, and so on until I owned all five books. Of course, I was now hooked on hardcovers and limited editions, having been in Future Fantasy -- browsing and buying -- six times over the span of about three months: the road to ruin, you might say. Future Fantasy moved a few years later to a larger store, but then the local competition and the internet finally took its toll and the store closed as well.

12 Stories Do Not a Collection Make

The big announcement last month concerned my friend Alastair Reynolds, author of the superb space opera novels Revelation Space, Redemption Ark, and Absolution Gap, among others -- all part of his Inhibitors-Conjoiners (aka Revelation Space) universe. According to the announcement and mini-interview in the Guardian, Reynolds has signed an unprecedented contract with publisher Gollancz in the United Kingdom: the contract calls for ten books over a span of ten years for 1-million pounds sterling [that's $1,620,660.00 as of this writing]. Congratulations, Al!

Al and I have worked on a couple of projects together over the past few years: a limited edition chapbook novella (Turquoise Days, Golden Gryphon Press, 2002) and a short story collection (Zima Blue and Other Stories, Night Shade Books, 2006). [I'd love to link to additional information on Zima Blue but all NSB editions are out of print.] And hopefully there will be another project in the foreseeable future. If all the authors with whom I've worked, or will work, had the professionalism, moral integrity, care and respect for others that Al Reynolds displayed during these two projects, I would be in editorial hog heaven.

With this new multi-book deal, Al no longer has to worry about sample chapters and outlines and pitches for his next book contracts (at least for the next nine years), he can now devote that time to the craft of writing. And we, his readers, will continue to delight in the fruits of his labors. If you're not familiar with Alastair Reynolds's short fiction, check out his story "Spirey and the Queen" available online (included in Zima Blue); and if you're into audio, Al reads his new story "Scales," his first military SF story, as part of the original Guardian Books Podcast series.

So, you wonder, why am I spending so much time chatting about Alastair Reynolds? Because I'm going to use his collection, Zima Blue and Other Stories -- and specifically how this collection came together -- as my example in this essay on short story collections.

In recent years I have noticed a trend among "young" authors -- particularly those published by small presses, and to be even more specific, the print-on-demand (POD) small presses -- to publish a new short story collection as soon as they've accumulated (and that's the correct word I wish to use) a dozen or so stories. If the writer is sufficiently prodigious, that could easily work out to a collection (or two) a year. As a point of clarification, I use the term "young" loosely here. Author William Gibson was thirty-six years old when his first novel Neuromancer was published in 1984; Lucius Shepard was thirty-eight and Jay Lake was forty when each won the Campbell Award for best new writer. In response to an age question on his blog, John Scalzi has written an excellent essay on why new, young writers are typically in their 30s when they finally get published; he even lays out his own writing career as an example.

I realize authors need income, and if they are primarily a short story writer, then a collection of said stories is one of the few (if only) income-generating options open to them once the stories themselves have been initially published. I understand the need, and the rationale, but...

In my tenure as an editor, I have worked on twenty short story collections; not a large number in the overall scheme of things, but not too shabby either for the small press business. I am referring to the full package here: working with the author to develop the collection, selecting the stories, determining story order, editing and copyediting the stories, and whatever else was needed to create the book. Authors included Kage Baker, Michael Bishop, Jeffrey Ford, M. Rickert, Lucius Shepard, Jeff VanderMeer, and, of course, George Alec Effinger, plus a handful of others. And though I'm far from being an expert on story collections (every author and every book always has something new to teach me), I have had a wee bit of experience.

Often, an author and/or the author's agent would send me a manuscript consisting of a predetermined set of stories and word count. In every instance I worked with the author to change the contents list and increase the word count. This was necessary because the author and/or the agent included weak stories and insufficient word count. However, had those manuscripts been sent directly to a POD press, they undoubtedly would have been published as is; possibly with little, if any, copyediting (and certainly no editing), which, depending on the press of course, is typically the responsibility of the submitting author.

What happens is, the author floods his own market with his short fiction collections. Each collection, without doubt, contains excellent, maybe even great, stories; but each collection also contains one or more stories that should not have been included in that particular collection, or should simply not have been collected -- ever. Consequently the author (and publisher) ends up with a good collection -- but not a great collection. The collection garners a couple or so reviews if the author is lucky, but nothing memorable comes of the book, and it is all too quickly forgotten. All the author's hardcore fans will most likely purchase the book, but beyond that? Sound familiar? I'm sure if you are a reader of short fiction, and short fiction collections in particular, an author or two comes immediately to mind.

As an acquiring editor for Golden Gryphon Press, I first contacted Alastair Reynolds via email on April 16, 2001, regarding a short story collection. Al had already published about sixteen stories as well as his first novel, Revelation Space. (Second novel, Chasm City, would appear about three weeks later.) At this point in time, I had read quite a few of Al's short stories: "Digital to Analogue" (In Dreams, edited by Paul J. McAuley and Kim Newman, 1992), "Spirey and the Queen" (Interzone, June 1996), "Great Wall of Mars" (Spectrum SF #1, February 2000), "Merlin's Gun" (Interzone, May 2000), and "Hideaway" (Interzone, July 2000). There was no doubt in my mind that Alastair Reynolds was going to be one of the preeminent SF writers in the years to come, and I wanted to be the first to snag a collection of his stories. Unfortunately, I was too late...

Al responded the following day. In the email, he raved about Golden Gryphon Press books (he said that he had just obtained a copy of the Robert Reed collection, The Dragons of Spring Place). Unfortunately, Al also informed me that about a month earlier he had made a commitment to publisher Night Shade Books for a short story collection. But here's the caveat: Al told me that he suggested to Night Shade that they wait another year or two for the collection to ensure he had a "sufficiently good core of strong stories to justify a collection." So Al chose to delay his own collection by at least two years (waiting a minimum of one year and publishing the book the following year) -- even though two small presses were clamoring for a collection now -- because he wanted to ensure a quality collection. Shocking!

I've had authors turn down my solicitation for a short story collection for a variety of reasons: they had promised a collection to another publisher (others authors, in addition to Al); they planned to include a collection as part of their next contract negotiation with their NY publisher; they could make more money with another publisher; or they were just too busy now to even bother. I've had an author respond that they passed my inquiry on to their agent, who then completely ignored me -- even after follow-up emails; some professional courtesy would have been nice, even if their response was simply to tell me to just go away. But I've never had an author turn down a short story collection because they felt they didn't have enough quality fiction to be included in the book. You have to understand my surprise because the five Reynolds stories that I mentioned above totaled nearly 65,000 words. And he had another ten or so stories in addition to these. Certainly enough word count overall, and the quality of these five particular stories was not to be questioned.

My follow-up email to Al that same day was a hardcore sales pitch. I did all I could to place Golden Gryphon in the spotlight and even suggested two different collections to Al so that both publishers would be satisfied: one collection now -- for Golden Gryphon, of course -- and a second collection in a couple years for Night Shade. Al's response? He still insisted that he didn't have enough strong stories and that he wanted to wait for another year or two, but he did like the idea of two collections, broken out by his "future history" stories (a la Revelation Space) and his other stories. I expressed my enthusiasm for either collection -- though I had a definite preference at the time for the "future history" stories. [Remember this two-collection idea for later reference.]

Fortunately, Al and I continued our email dialogue. But I'm no fool, and I anticipated Al's increasing popularity in the field, so in a May 10, 2001 email, I posed the following scenario: In a year or two from now, when Al (and Al's agent) is negotiating a new contract, his UK publisher, Gollancz, asks for a short story collection. What does he do now that he has already committed (albeit only verbally, but one trusts Al on his word) to a Night Shade Books collection? And though I didn't bring this point up, I was also concerned that Al's contract with Gollancz included first refusal rights, which would mean they would have first dibs on any collection proposal. That collection might not interest them now, with Al having published only two novels as of 2001; but what about one or two years from now? Thus my concern for delaying said collection.

In Al's response the following day, he wrote: "The points you make are good, and I can appreciate your argument about moving sooner rather than later. From what I can gather, though, there's not much enthusiasm among the mainstream UK publishers for short fiction collections, so I suspect this won't be that big an issue. Gollancz have never once mooted the possibility, or showed any interest in my non-novel activities. I suspect they'll be happy just to deal with novels from me (and if the current book stiffs, they may not want to talk novels either...!)."

I, in turn, responded to Al that I think he underestimates himself, given his newness in the field (only two novels to date), and referred to UK authors Stephen Baxter and Greg Egan (actually Australian but published in the UK), both of whom have had highly touted short story collections published by "mainstream UK publishers." Regardless, Al and I agreed to postpone any further discussion on a collection until after he completed work on his third novel.

June-End Links & Things

The time I would have normally spent last week writing a new blog entry went into responding to interview questions from Charles Tan -- a 3,300-word interview to be more specific. The interview will appear on Bibliophile Stalker on August 25. I'll send out a link tweet when the interview appears. If you want to know what's happening in the genre, and if you enjoy reading interviews with authors, editors, and publishers, then Bibliophile Stalker, Charles Tan's blog, is a must read.

The new blog post I've been working on for this week has morphed from my original idea, and if you are a writer, whether it be fiction or nonfiction, then you know that a morphed idea can get away from you and it becomes more difficult to pull the idea together once again. I'm still working the idea.

For now, and since the end of June has passed, I'll go ahead and post my links and such from the past two weeks. There are quite a lot of them, to be sure, and hopefully everyone who reads this will find something of interest. These links are from my previous tweets. I've listed them here, all in one post, and with additional detail and comment. You can receive these links in real time by following me on Twitter.

• I'll begin this post with one entry on singer, songwriter, and performer Michael Jackson: This is the one MJ video that everyone should watch; go ahead, it's only one minute and twenty-one seconds long. Enjoy.


• Okay, okay, just one more... Music critic Roger Ebert's eulogy, if you will, entitled "The boy who never grew up: Michael Jackson, 1958-2009": Roger writes: "He lost happiness somewhere in his childhood, and spent his life trying to go back there and find it. When he played the Scarecrow in 'The Wiz' (1978), I think that is how he felt, and Oz was where he wanted to live. It was his most truly autobiographical role. He could understand a character who felt stuffed with straw, but could wonderfully sing and dance, and could cheer up the little girl Dorothy."


• David Halpert on Scifi Watch (@ScifiWatch) gives us "15 Ways Publishers Can Increase Sales, Save Money, and Promote Publicity." I personally like point #11: Highlight Editors Blogs: "If there's something I love more than reading the blogs of my favorite science fiction authors, it's reading the blogs of their editors. Editors are largely the face of a publishing house, working hard behind the scenes to bring you the literature on the market today. They're also very knowledgeable and at times candid about what goes on in their daily lives....If you don't already highlight an editor's blog on your publishing website, DO SO IMMEDIATELY! It will easily increase traffic to your publishing house, and with any luck increase sales as well."


• As promised on June 15, award-winning author Catherynne M. Valente posted online Chapter One of her new novel The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Design. She'll be posting one new chapter every week on Mondays, and estimates that she should finish the novel in time for the holidays. Each chapter will also be available as an audio download. In her current adult novel Palimpsest (Bantam Books; the main theme is a sexually transmitted dream), one of the characters referred to a children's book that she had loved; at the time, the book -- The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland -- was completely nonexistent. Not any longer. Chapters Two and Three have now been posted as well. And check out the wyvern icon at the end of Chapter Three (and future chapters) for a link to the author's audio commentary. There's a PayPal tip-jar, so to speak, on the site, and Cat is asking for your help to support her writing.
  
  Here's a background post from Cat Valente on The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Design.


• And another writer is in financial need: Tim Pratt, author of the Hugo Award-winning short story "Impossible Dreams" (Asimov's, July 2006), plans to write and publish (every Monday) an online novella series, entitled "Bone Shop." He's hoping to support his efforts through reader donations. On Tim's Live Journal, he posts some background information on his character Marla Mason, who appears in his novels Blood Engines, Poison Sleep, Dead Reign, and Spell Games. His LJ entry also links to the Bone Shop and Marla Mason websites. And here's a link to Chapter One, posted as promised on June 29; at the end of the chapter is a link to the author's notes.


• In a thoughtful essay aimed at e-book publishers, JA Konrath, author of the Lt. Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels thriller series, reveals his Kindle sales figures for a number of his books -- a rare disclosure from a published author. He also offers some helpful hints for those uploading books to Kindle. Konrath writes: "With 1.5 million Kindles sold, I could sell 200 books per day, for 720 days, and still only reach 10% of all Kindle buyers. If we include all of the iPhone and iPod Touch owners who can download a Kindle ap, along with continued Kindle sales, I should be able to sell quite a few books before coming close to saturating this market. If the $90 per day trend keeps up, that's $32,850 a year. Not a huge amount, but not chump change either." (via GalleyCat) $32,850 not a huge amount just from e-book sales? Of course, you gotta have a book – or books – that folks are willing to pay to download!


• If you're a fan of the television series Fringe, and especially of actor John Noble (Denethor in The Lord of the Rings movies), you'll enjoy reading what the actor has to say of his portrayal of mad scientist Walter Bishop, via Variety: "I admire the pure part of his mind and that, fundamentally, he's a kind man. It must be terribly hard for someone of his intelligence and abilities to actually relate to anyone, but he still tries in his own Walter way."

Mid-June Links & Things

These links are from my previous tweets to date for the month. I've listed them here, all in one post, and with additional detail (and occasional editorial comment, since I am an editor!). This allows me to have a somewhat permanent file of all these links. And hopefully you'll find something of interest here, especially if you're not following me on Twitter.

I especially wanted to post now, before Monday, June 15, because of the very first entry that follows:

• Author Catherynne M. Valente is in a bit of a financial difficulty. As a way of earning some income, she has decided to write a much-requested novel, and post chapters online every Monday beginning June 15. Ms. Valente writes on her blog: "Over the course of the Palimpsest [Bantam Books, 2009] tour, people asked me one thing more than anything else. What about The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland? Is it a real book? Will you write it? And I said no. It's impossible, a YA book that is a book-within-a-book in a deeply non-YA novel. I even said no to a very sweet six-year-old.... [But] Starting Monday, I will start posting chapters of a full-length novel version of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. I will be writing it in real time, posting every Monday. It will be free to read -- but please know that the sheer calories to make my brain create it require funding, and I would very much appreciate your support. Pay whatever you like for it, whatever you think it's worth. It's kind of like an old-fashioned rent party.... This is a book about a little girl named September who gets herself a ticket to Fairyland on the back of The Green Wind and a somewhat cranky Leopard. There she discovers the realm of the capricious Marquess and the dangers of the Perverse and Perilous Sea. It is going to be something else. And yes, you can read it to your kids."
  
  Ms. Valente is also the author of the two-volume The Orphan's Tales series (In the Night Garden and In the Cities of Coin and Spice), which as a whole or in part won the 2006 James Tiptree Jr. Award and the 2008 Mythopoeic Award, and was a finalist for the 2007 World Fantasy Award.



• "In the parodic future dystopia of Andrew Fox's The Good Humor Man [Tachyon Publications] (whose influences include classics like Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and a lot of mid-20th-century popular culture/kitsch), there's a major government clampdown on all fattening foods, which naturally generates both a thriving black market and a force like sanctioned vigilantes dedicated to stamping out such villainy. First-person narrator Dr. Louis Schmalzberg, a former liposuctionist and founder of this movement, ironically dubbed Good Humor Men, has begun to lose his faith in their brutal raids on ordinary citizens who just happen to have a sweet tooth. He also feels some nostalgia for the lost days of Fat America: jumbo cars, supersized meals, McMansions, singers like Fats Waller, Fats Domino and, toward the end of his career, Fat Elvis....Going beyond the wonderfully irreverent parodic horror of his 'Fat White Vampire' books into new realms of farce and social satire, Fox also tackles the SF thriller mode with panache. Can Elvis's belly fat save the world? Read it and see!" – Faren Miller, Locus magazine, June 2009.


• "Everything You Need to Know About Self-Publishing" by the Writer's Digest staff. This information changes constantly, but as of May 1, 2009, this is what WD had to say about the subject matter. The 8 topics include: The Truth About Self-Publishing; The Reality of Self-Publishing: An Agent's Perspective; What Can Your Publisher Do for You?; Book Publishing Stats (2009); An Insider's Look at Self-Publishing; How to Create a Cover Package; 2009 Directory of Self-Publishing Companies; and Future Self-Publishing Models.


• Dave Eggers, the McSweeney's magnate, gave a speech at the Authors Guild in Manhattan where he offered an email address where folks could contact him if they were ever losing faith, despairing, that print media was dying. John Lingan, of SpliceToday.com, contacted Eggers at that email addy and received a form letter in which Eggers stated: "As long as newspapers offer less each day -- less news, less great writing, less graphic innovation, fewer photos -- then they're giving readers few reasons to pay for the paper itself." However, Lingan, in his article entitled "Dave Eggers and The Myth of Print's Importance," argues that "Dave Eggers, insofar as can be gleaned from this email, has his head up his ass with regards to the decline of print media." Lingan concludes his piece with: "Let the medium die; it's the writing that matters."


• Here's a lovely and wonderful tribute to the oddball characters who frequent bookstores: "An Example Remembered" by Brad Craft: "It is not the delusional or the frighteningly unhappy I am thinking of just here, rather it is the gentler folk for whom the bookstore is a quiet refuge."
  
  And while I'm at it, I'd like to recommend a story by Jeff VanderMeer entitled "Greensleeves," though it is about the oddball characters who frequent a library, rather than a bookstore. "Greensleeves" was included in Jeff's collection Secret Life (Golden Gryphon Press, 2004); the story was originally published in Pulphouse: A Fiction Magazine, August 1992. Since it's an older story, possibly if readers bug Jeff enough, he'll post the story electronically.

Books Received

Following is a list of books I have received over the past month or so: some were complimentary copies sent to me by the publisher because I had worked on the book, some were titles that I purchased myself, and others were part of submission packages from their respective authors. (Note: hc=hardcover, tp=trade paperback, mmpb=mass market paperback)

Kage Baker - The Empress of Mars (Subterranean Press, 2009) limited edition hc

Adam-Troy Castro - The Third Claw of God: An Andrea Cort Novel (Harper Collins EOS, 2009) mmpb

Paul Di Filippo - Fuzzy Dice (PS Publishing UK, 2003) limited edition slipcased hc

Andrew Fox - The Good Humor Man, Or, Calorie 3501 (Tachyon Publications, 2009) tp

Warren Lapine & Stephen Pagel, editors - Absolute Magnitude (Tor, 1997) tp

Ian R. MacLeod - Song of Time (PS Publishing UK, 2008) limited edition slipcased hc [winner of the 2009 Arthur C. Clarke Award]

Ian McDonald - Cyberabad Days (Orion Publishing/Golancz UK, 2009) hc

China Miéville - The City & the City (Macmillan UK, 2009) hc

The Best of Michael Moorcock (Tachyon Publications, 2009) tp

Patrick Ness - The Ask and the Answer: Chaos Walking, Book Two (Walker Books UK, 2009) hc

Mark Teppo - Lightbreaker: Book One of the Codex of Souls (Night Shade Books, 2009) mmpb

Catherynne M. Valente - Palimpsest (Bantam Books, 2009) tp

[True confessions follow.]

Do you believe that I am still purchasing books? Of the tweleve titles listed above, I purchased exactly half of them. I have probably 2,000 books that I have yet to read -- and I'm a slow reader, too, unfortunately. If I were to begin reading now, and could successfully read a book every other week, it would take me nearly 80 years to get through my library -- and that's assuming that I don't add any more titles! So you and I both know that most of these books will never get read, and yet I still buy new books. It's a disease: bibliomania, I think, which makes me a bibliomaniac! Or should that be a "biblioholic"? I have books double stacked on ten bookcases; I have books in boxes, the boxes stacked upon each other; books stacked upon the boxes, and books stacked on the floor. And yet I still buy books. Help me! I need help!

One of the major problems is that since I began work as a professional editor, I discovered that the only books I read were the books I was editing. Let's say I acquire a short story collection. Typically, if the collection is to be, say, 120,000 words, then I ask the author for at least 150,000 words of short fiction from which to select. I read all 150K words once, dump the stories I know immediately won't work for me, and then reread all the remaining stories at least once more, often more than once. Then the stories that make up the collection are formatted and printed and read yet again, and edited and/or copyedited. There's back-and-forth between me and the author on the edits. When the editing is complete, I go through the entire manuscript yet another time, just to be sure, because now I've worked out the story order. Then there are the page proofs that get copyedited. Bottom line, by the time I've completed a short story collection, I've probably read every story at least a half-dozen times. And then there are all the submissions that I receive that must eventually be read as well.

As much as I love acquiring and editing books, I really miss reading for myself, for pure enjoyment.

George Alec Effinger - Part Three

I have completed and shipped (and billed!) my previous project: copyediting By Blood We Live, a reprint vampire anthology edited by John Joseph Adams, to be published by Night Shade Books. I'm now working on copyediting another reprint anthology edited by JJA for Night Shade, this one entitled The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (approximately 230,000 words). I've also completed the second round of copyedits for Judith Moffett's novel Pennterra, the first reprint title I acquired for Warren Lapine's Fantastic Books, an imprint of his Wilder Publications. The second title, novel Fuzzy Dice by Paul Di Filippo, is now ready for layout and then copyediting. So, that's why I only blog about once per week or so. To paraphrase the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam in Frank Herbert's Dune: "The work must flow." And the bills must be paid. Since my blogs tend to be more essay rather than random comments, like blogging about my great cup of coffee this morning, they take longer to compose. If you enjoy reading what I write, then I thank you for your time and patience, and I ask that you just keep checking back -- and/or subscribe to this blog's RSS feed -- for my next entry.

At least for now, this will be my final blog post on author George Alec Effinger; one blog entry for each of the three collections of his work that I acquired and edited for Golden Gryphon Press between 2001 and 2007. Part One of this series focused on Budayeen Nights; and Part Two pertained to collection Live! From Planet Earth. I have a couple ideas for possible future projects of Effinger's work, but only time -- and the economy -- will tell if these ever come to pass.

In late 2002, once I had completed Budayeen Nights, and the book was in the hands of the typesetter, and then the printer, I began thinking about the next Effinger collection. During my email communications with George between 2001 and 2002, I promised him that I would do my best to help him bring his work back into print -- and even though George was no longer alive at this point in time, I felt a personal responsibility to honor that promise.

Obviously the second collection published by Golden Gryphon Press was George Alec Effinger Live! From Planet Earth -- but this wasn't the book I had initially intended to publish next.

In the latter part of 2002, I had written Barbara Hambly, executrix of Effinger's literary estate, for a list of her favorite GAE stories. On December 2, 2002, Barb wrote: "I've sorted through George's story titles, cut out all the Maureen Birnbaum and Sandor Courane stories (which have or are getting anthologies of their own) and still have quite a few." Of course, I knew about the Birnbaum collection, but a collection of Sandor Courane stories? This was a complete surprise to me. So I inquired further of Barb about the Courane collection, and later that same day she responded: "There's a fellow in the Midwest who's doing Sandor Courane -- George was working on it with him at the time of his death." Unfortunately, Barb could not recall this fellow's name. Now I was intrigued: during my email communications with George before he passed away, when he spoke so personally about all of his work being long out-of-print, he made no mention whatsoever of another editor working on a collection of his short fiction.

And so my search began.

Eventually my net searching found a website for Wunzenzierohs Publishing Company¹, which noted a "forthcoming" GAE collection entitled A Thousand Deaths. But then the announcement went on to state that the collection was currently in limbo due to Effinger's passing. Using the "Email Us" link on the home page, I contacted the publisher on December 19, 2002. I expressed my interest in seeing GAE's short fiction back in print, and I asked if the publisher still planned to pursue this particular collection of Sandor Courane stories. I also requested a list of the proposed stories to be included in the book. I was thinking that if the publisher was willing to give up the rights to this collection so that it could be published by Golden Gryphon -- and if he had all the stories pretty much ready to go and was willing to share them with me -- then I could get this book into print more quickly than the other collection I was planning (Live! From Planet Earth), which I was having to start from scratch.

Gordie Meyer, Wunzenzierohs publisher, responded to my email the following day. Apparently, WunzPub (to use Gordie's abbreviation) was more of a hobby venture, and he had, in fact, been considering if he really had the time to do the Sandor Courane collection. Gordie wrote: "I've known George from his being online at Delphi long ago, and we'd occasionally touch base via email or meet in person at a con, but I didn't really know him all that well. Mike [Resnick], however, did, and when I mentioned that I thought it was a shame that all of George's work was OOP, he suggested that I consider a collection of . . . the Sandor Courane stories, as they were an identifiable group to collect and were some of Mike's favorite Effinger stories. So I ran the idea past George at a con, he and Barbara [Hambly] liked the idea . . ." Evidently this all occurred four years earlier, in 1998. Gordie went on to say: "If you'd be interested in taking over the publication of A Thousand Deaths (which both George and I came up with independently -- cue Twilight Zone theme . . .), it'd make my decision a bit easier. . . . It was [always] about getting George's work back into print. So if I can make that happen, even without actually publishing it myself, I'd still feel good about the project. . . . Barbara has already approved having Mike Resnick do the introduction. And actually, Mike threatened physical violence if he didn't get to do the intro. {g}"

May Links & Things

These links are from my previous tweets for the month. I've listed them here, all in one post, and with additional detail (and occasional editorial comment, since I am an editor!). This allows me to have a somewhat permanent file of all these links. And hopefully you'll find something of interest here, especially if you're not following me on Twitter.

• Author Jeremiah Tolbert writes about "5 Books on Writing and Science Fiction That Made Me a Better Writer." The books are by Damon Knight, James Gunn, Donald Maas, Robert McKee, and an anthology edited by Robert Silverberg. The "comments" include additional books by Nancy Kress, Stephen King, and Michael Shurtleff (and probably many more by now). (via @charlesatan)


• From the Book Publicity Blog: "Sending Review Copies of Books to Bloggers." This piece answers some of the most frequently asked questions bloggers have about receiving review copies of books; there is also a list of considerations that publishing houses use to determine whether a blog is worthy enough of receiving a review copy. Some excellent comments, too, from other publicists, agents, etc. (via @thecreativepenn)
  
  And the follow-up on sending review copies of books to bloggers: Part II. A list of critical information that book publicists/publishers will need from bloggers.
  
  And here's Part III: Not all book reviews blogs are created equal; publicists look to specific blog statistics when determining which blogs will receive review copies.


• What Sundance does for indie films and filmmakers, IndieReader.com hopes to do for indie (re: self-published) books and authors: "Making what's outside the mainstream cool." There is a fee, of course! You can read their initial PR notice on the web site along with the details of the author agreement and corresponding payment. (via POD People)
  
  Editor Unleashed blog has an interview with Amy Edelman, found of IndieReader.com.


• Self-Publishing Review has a guest post from Kent Anderson, who works in scholarly publishing (and has, in fact, worked in some aspect of publishing his entire working life) and runs The Scholarly Kitchen blog. Kent has self-published his first novel: Spam & Eggs: A Johnny Denovo Mystery under the pen name Andrew Kent. Read what Anderson has to say on his reasons for, and the process of, self-publishing.


• Write to Done blog has a great piece entitled "Writer's Block... A Thing of the Past" in which the author tells of her experiences with writer's block and how to avoid it. She presents a great quote by Hemingway on the subject: "The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day...you will never be stuck.... That way your subconscious will work on it all the time. But if you think about it consciously or worry about it you will kill it and your brain will be tired before you start." As of this point there are thirty-seven worthwhile "comments" as well. (via @thecreativepenn)


• Author Kristine Kathryn Rusch posted another entry to her online Freelancer's Survival Guide: this latest topic is "When To Give Up Your Day Job." And Kris's answer to the question, When do you quit your day job? "You quit your day job whenever you damn well feel like it." (Ah, but what if you're literally forced into freelancing because you lost your day job?)
  
  New entry to The Freelancer's Survival Guide: "Staying Positive." Kris writes: "As freelancers, we have to keep track of the good and the bad.... My first and best tool for this is my calendar. I have a New Yorker desk calendar, encased in leather and embossed with my name, at my right hand, just past my computer's mouse. I write every single good thing that happens to me in a day on that calendar. I keep track of fan mail, covers, publications, awards, and the amount of money I receive.... I also keep track of good comments, even from people who have rejected my work."
  
  And the next entry on "Insurance." Kris talks about insurance for health, home, business, etc. Kris writes: "Think you're relatively healthy? Good for you. Exercise a lot? Eat right? Take vitamins? Even better. Never been sick a day in your life? Wonderful. Get the damn insurance."

The Perfect Sentence

For twenty-seven years, BayCon has been the mainstay of Bay Area (that's the San Francisco Bay Area for those not familiar with the area) Fandom. I had hoped to post here my BayCon guest participation schedule, and then follow that up with some form of convention report. But, alas, family responsibilities have necessitated my cancelling out of BayCon, renting a car (my own car is nearly sixteen years old, and I don't like to push my luck), and making the nearly 400-mile trip to Southern Cal. A helluva trip when it's only for a total of three days! And with no net access during those three days, it will feel like a cosmic return to the age of stone knives and bear claws!

Regardless, my sincere apologies to BayCon for having to bail with only two days notice. But I did check the programming schedule, and the panels to which I had been assigned will still be well-represented. And, I suspect, I will not really be missed. Though I will miss seeing author Kage Baker (and sister Kathleen), with whom I always meet, for lunch or dinner, whenever we attend the same convention. Kage and I go back a handful of years: I sent her an email on May 5, 2001, in which I introduced myself, sharing with her some of the books I had worked on for Golden Gryphon Press, and then expressed my enthusiasm for a collection of her Company stories. Much to my delight, that collection, Black Projects, White Knights: The Company Dossiers, was published in hardcover in the fall of 2002. The book sold out its first print run of 3,000 copies in one month -- that's right, four weeks! -- had a second print run that same year, and was then released in a trade paperback edition in 2004. Working on this book was a pure joy, and I couldn't have asked for a more gracious, more knowledgeable author to work with. Thank you, Kage!

But none of this is really the purpose of this particular blog entry. What I want to do is share with you some articles I had written, but to do so requires a bit of history. (Those familiar with my previous blog posts/essays know that you're always going to get a "bit of history" -- but not a history lesson! -- in my blog entries.)

In early 2004, when I realized that I would most likely be freelancing for the foreseeable future, I began investigating additional resources and opportunities. This is when I learned about the California Writers Club ("The nation's oldest professional club for writers"), and discovered that the organization had a chapter in my area: South Bay Writers. I began attending the monthly meetings beginning in March 2004. The group met once a month at Harry's Hofbrau in San Jose. The club actually had a nice setup: the meetings were held in a large auditorium-like room at the rear of the restaurant. You checked in, paid your fee, and the registration person handed you a chit good for a set amount in the restaurant. Harry's is buffet style, so you would move through the food line, selecting your items, which would be served by a restaurant staff person; at the cash register, you turned in your chit and paid any difference (typically not more than two or three dollars, and that's only if you were a big eater and selected a dessert).

George Alec Effinger - Part Two

My apologies for such a long delay since my previous blog post. I enjoy this enough that I would love to do it full time, but it doesn't pay the bills, unfortunately. I've had two very big projects that I've been working on that have occupied these past two weeks. I've just completed copyediting The Best of Joe R. Lansdale (approximately 152,000 words) for Tachyon Publications, scheduled to be published in 2010. I also completed my copyediting review of novel Pennterra (approximately 135,000 words) by Judith Moffett; this is the first reprint title I acquired for Fantastic Books (an imprint of Warren Lapine's Wilder Publications). The book had to be scanned from the original hardcover, and there was a huge amount of copyediting work, plus the author has made some text changes to update the book from the mid-'80s to 2009. I'm now waiting on Judy to finish her review of the last portion of the book. My next project will be copyediting vampire anthology By Blood We Live (this one's a monster 245,000 words!) edited by John Joseph Adams for Night Shade Books. Now, on to the purpose of this blog post...

This is the second of three essays on author George Alec Effinger -- one for each of the three collections of his work that I acquired and edited for Golden Gryphon Press, between 2001 and 2007. Part One of this series focused on Budayeen Nights.

Once Budayeen Nights was complete and in the hands of the typesetter, I began thinking about the next collection of Effinger's work. But now that George had passed away, I didn't have his input on this second book as I did for BN. All I had was my commitment to him to help bring his work back into print, and his email of August 30, 2001, in which he suggested a collection featuring "a hefty selection of my 200 stories, with introductions to each one, and calling it GAE: The White Album or GAE Live! At the Village Gate or . . . GAE: The Prairie Years." When George and I were communicating by email (albeit sporadically, due to his health and domicile issues) between 2001 and 2002, I had asked him to put together a list of the stories he would like to include in a "best of" collection, but time just wasn't on his side. And George wasn't kidding when he referred to his "200 stories" -- I know, as I've tried to track down a goodly portion of them! In fact, I probably have the largest "collection" of George Alec Effinger short fiction, only second to Barbara Hambly, who now has all of George's files and books in her possession.

The Concept
I'm a bit fuzzy on the details, considering it was six years ago, but if ye olde memory still serves me, I came up with the basic idea for the second collection during a telephone conversation with author George Zebrowski. Unlike archived email, I'm not able to replay and quote six-year-old telephone conversations, so memory will have to do. (Maybe AT&T has the conversation archived in some illegal-wiretapping file? GeorgeZ and I may have mentioned the words "Budayeen" or "Islamic" or "Arab" in the course of our conversations about GAE!)

I had worked with GeorgeZ on his short story collection entitled Swift Thoughts (Golden Gryphon Press, 2002). During that project, and for some time afterward, we spoke quite often on the telephone. George had unlimited long distance at the time and enjoyed calling and chatting with his many author friends and editors. It was the "author friends and editors" that gave me the idea. Since GAE was no longer with us, to select the stories for his next collection, I decided that I would ask his peers -- friends and fellow authors, and editors -- to select their favorite GAE story. And then, once they told me their favorite story, I would ask them -- as a tribute to GAE -- to write a mini introduction to the story. I wanted to first hook them on the story suggestion, and then seek their cooperation to write an intro. GeorgeZ wholeheartedly agreed to contribute, as did many others.

April End Links & Things

These links are from my previous tweets for the latter half of this month. I've listed them here, all in one post, and with additional detail (and occasional editorial comment, since I am an editor!). This allows me to have a somewhat permanent file of all these links. And hopefully you'll find something of interest here, especially if you're not following me on Twitter.

• In July 2008, author Lynn Viehl's sixth Darkyn novel, Twilight Fall, debuted on the New York Times bestseller list at #19. She promised her writer friends a few years ago that if one of her books ever made "the list" she would share all the information she was given by her publisher about the book "so writers could really see what it takes to get there." And here is that information, including her complete first royalty statement! Along with all 330 comments as of April 27, when the author turned off comments on this article. Great piece! (via @deanwesleysmith)


• From Publishers Weekly for 4/20/2009: Jonathan Karp’s article "This Is Your Wake-up Call: 12 Steps to Better Book Publishing." Did you know that there is an illustrated gift book available entitled A History of Cannibalism? Obviously something we all need to buy for those on our holiday list who are difficult to please. (via @RickKlaw, @ColleenLindsay, and @sarahw)


• Self-Publishing Review has an excellent interview with Carol Buchanan, author of the self-published God’s Thunderbolt: The Vigilantes of Montana, which won the 2009 SPUR Award (Western Writers of America) for best first novel. And she did it all, according to the interview, for the paltry sum of $600.00. [See my "Mid-April Links & Things" for more information on this book and the SPUR Awards.]


• Author Jay Lake on Andrew's Fox's The Good Humor Man, Or Calorie 3501 (Tachyon Publications, and edited by yours truly): "The jacket copy compares it to Fahrenheit 451, but I'll go with a blend of Don Quixote and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."
  
  An update today: The Good Humor Man has received a starred review in Booklist, for May 15, 2009 -- but there is no need to wait: you can read the starred review now.


• Sarah Weinman, in her blog Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind, shares with us a publisher's letter to booksellers that was included in an Advanced Reading Copy (ARC) for James Ellroy's novel Blood's a Rover. The letter itself is from the author; here's an excerpt: "Knopf will drop this atom bomb of a book on you September 22. Your job is to groove it and grok its groin-grabbing gravity between now and then.... The novel covers 1968-1972. It's a baaaaaad-ass historical romance -- huge in scope, deep in its exploration of the era, filled with my trademark craaaaazy shit, and suffused with a heightened sense of belief and the corollaries of political conversation and revolution." You need to read this letter!


• I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the passing of author Ken Rand on April 21; I only knew Ken virtually, but his emails always reflected his kind heart. He sent me a submission query in October 2006 for his novel A Cold Day in Hell, but unfortunately, I had already given notice, so to speak, at Golden Gryphon Press, and at the time I wasn't acquiring for any other publishers. The book was finally published this February by Norilana Books, so I'm pleased that Ken got to see the book in print. Ken is also the author of a wonderful chapbook on self-editing entitled The 10% Solution, from Fairwood Press, who also published a number of Ken's nonfiction and short story collections. Fairwood Press Publisher Patrick Swenson posted some heartfelt memories of Ken Rand, along with a wonderful photograph; lots of readers comment, too.
  

Fantastic Books Acquisitions

In a previous blog post I announced my new working relationship with Warren Lapine and his imprint Fantastic Books. Well, since that annoucement was released to the press on February 3, I just wanted you to know that I haven't been resting on my laurels (what a ridiculous phrase -- this particular genus of evergreen contains black berries, not something I would choose to rest on!).

Here is a list of titles, and authors (in alphabetical order), that I have acquired reprint rights to for Fantastic Books:

Paul Di Filippo
Fuzzy Dice

Judith Moffett
Pennterra

Kristine Kathryn Rusch
The White Mists of Power
Facade
Heart Readers
Traitors
Sins of the Blood
The Devil's Churn
The Fey #1: Sacrifice
The Fey #2: Changeling
The Fey #3: Rival
The Fey #4: Resistance
The Fey #5: Victory
Alien Influences

Dean Wesley Smith
Laying the Music To Rest

In addition to these authors, I am also in talks with four others, who shall remain nameless until (hopefully) contracts are signed.

Our goal at Fantastic Books is to help authors make their out-of-print backlist available once again, so that the authors generate some income from the sale of their titles (whereas authors make nothing from the used book market).

I'm looking for OOP backlist genre fiction, preferably novels, but I will also consider collections (especially if you have been recognized for your short fiction) and even previously unpublished fiction. If you are an author and have out-of-print work that you would like to see in print again -- or new fiction in search of a POD publisher -- please do contact me.

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Rightly Reconsidering (Book) Reviews

Are book reviews (and by default, book reviewers) so sacrosanct as to be above reproach?

Authors -- and yes, editors and publishers as well -- are taught at a very young age in their professional careers to ignore reviews, to not take them personally, to turn the other cheek, so to speak. And why is that? Why can't we respond to reviews?

Because we will give the impression that we are unprofessional, that we are whiners. At least that's what our peers -- and possibly readers of the review -- may think. But from our own perspective, we also have to worry that we'll piss off the reviewer by our response, and then that reviewer will take it out on us a hundredfold in the next review, if in fact there even is a next review. And then others may not want to review our work for fear of receiving such a response as well. And as Cheryl Morgan (a book reviewer and critic) just pointed out to me: "...if an author challenges a review, his fans will go after the reviewer, whether he wants them to or not."

Reviews/reviewers and authors are sort of like the separation between Church and State. Yet the incoming president takes the oath of office with his hand upon a Bible; and the coin of the realm all proclaim "In God We Trust."

So where does that leave us?

Some authors I know truly don't care about reviews, reviewers, or what others think of their stories. Once they've completed a work of fiction and it's been accepted by the editor, they then move on to the next project and never look back. While other authors are deeply concerned -- and affected -- by reviews and what others think of their fiction.

I worked with an author on her short fiction collection, and after the book was published we stayed in contact with one another for a bit. The following year her next novel was published, and it was reviewed in Locus magazine -- a mediocre review at best, but at least it wasn't blatantly negative. (Locus, though, doesn't typically publish blatantly negative reviews; I assume if the book is that bad, they simply choose not to review it, so a mediocre review in Locus, when all is said and done, is definitely not a good review.) What upset the author the most, however, was that the reviewer missed a key element of the story -- and that key element would have explained the reviewer's primary issue with the novel (and maybe then the review wouldn't have been mediocre). Locus, at the time, was considered a highly influential publication (though not so much anymore, now that we are solidly in the digital age, and readers, book buyers, and book collectors get the majority of their information and reviews online), so even a mediocre review could have a strong, negative sales effect on a book. But we'll never know, will we: missed opportunities -- aka sales -- cannot be measured.

But the question(s) remains: Did the reviewer blow it big time by missing that key element of the story? Or, did the author -- and, let's be honest, the book's editor shares responsibility in this as well -- blow it big time by not communicating that key element more effectively to the reader/reviewer? If every review of the novel contained this same "omission," then yes, we could agree that the fault lies with the author, and the author's editor. But if only one review were guilty of this oversight, then the finger would indeed point to the reviewer. If the review was on Joe's Friendly Neighborhood blog, then I don't think the author (and editor and publisher) would be particularly concerned; but when that mediocre review shows up in the Washington Post Book World or Publishers Weekly (before Reed Business Information tried to sell the publication, and, to reduce costs, began paying freelance reviewers $25.00 per review; read more about PW's freelance fees), then we know sales will most likely be affected.

Unfortunately, given the Church and State dichotomy, the author has no recourse but to grin and bear it -- or to hit his [the generic use of "his," implying both male and female authors] head against the wall and scream, if he tends to not be the silent type.

And yet, I'm encountering more and more reviews of late where the reviewer just doesn't seem to get it! Why is that? [Notice I keep asking this same question a lot.] Is it the reviewer's lack of experience and knowledge in the genre? It's difficult to say, unless one knows the reviewer personally, or the reviewer provides a professional bio alongside the review. And all of this places even more pressure on the author who cares about what others say of his work.

Here's my take on the three main issues with genre reviews; they are like the plague, and they are spreading...

Mid-April Links & Things

These links are from my previous tweets so far this month. I've listed them here, all in one post, and with additional detail (and occasional editorial comment, since I am an editor!). This allows me to have a somewhat permanent file of all these links. And hopefully you'll find something of interest here, especially if you're not following me on Twitter.

I originally planned to post "Links & Things" just once each month, but there have been so many (too many!) links that I've accumulated up to this point in April -- 18 so far -- that I wanted to post these now before the number became too overwhelming.

• Carol A. Buchanan's self-published novel God's Thunderbolt: The Vigilantes of Montana (BookSurge LLC) wins a major literary award: the 2009 Western Writers of America SPUR Award for best first novel. Details are available in Self-Publishing Review; and you can read further on the 2009 SPUR Awards.
  
  The SPR piece poses these questions and comments: Where was Amazon.com? BookSurge is owned by Amazon, yet until Ms. Buchanan posted her blog entry about the award on Amazon, there was no mention anywhere of the book having won this award. Isn't Amazon in the business of selling books?


• Writing Forward blog: "18 Do-it-Yourself Proofreading Tips." (courtesy of @nickdaws)


• Charlie Jane Anders on io9 writes: "What's the Difference Between Story and Plot?" with quotes from Samuel Delany and Connie Willis. The article is interspersed with wonderful cover art from Famous Fantastic Mysteries magazine. And there's a lot of reader feedback in the "Comments" section, too.


• Author Angela Slatter blogs about "Stray Thoughts on Long Sentences," quoting quite nicely from works by "Captain" Jeff VanderMeer. One of her concluding comments, which is a personal favorite of mine as well, is: "...it's fine to break the rules, to do something new, but man, shouldn't you know what the rules are first?" (via SFSignal.com)
  

George Alec Effinger

This is part one of a planned three-part blog posting on author George Alec Effinger, one part pertaining to each of the three volumes of his work that I acquired and edited for Golden Gryphon Press. In this first part, I'd like to step you through my correspondence with George leading up to the publication of Budayeen Nights, the first collection, published in hardcover in 2003 and reprinted in trade paperback this past September.

I've always been a fan of George Alec Effinger's work (as if you couldn't tell from reading my previous blog entries). His Budayeen novels (When Gravity Fails, A Fire in the Sun, and The Exile Kiss) did indeed impress me, but I was more captivated with his short fiction: the subtlety of his writing, his sardonic wit, his very unique craft and range. In my opinion, George is (was) one of the most underrated and underappreciated authors within the science fiction and fantasy genre, and much of his lack of notoriety was due to his chronic illness, which affected his output over the years. By 2001, when I first made contact with George, I believe all of his published work was out of print, though all were obviously still available through the used book market. As an acquisitions editor with Golden Gryphon Press, from 1999 through 2007, I was finally in a position to do something about bringing attention to his work once again.

I knew that George surfed the Usenet groups and thus I was able to track him down in this fashion. Between late July 2001 and early April 2002, I received a total of eleven emails from George. I probably sent him three times as many in return, but I was grateful to have received the few emails from him that I did. At the time, I knew somewhat of George's medical problems and financial difficulties; what I didn't know is that, because of past due medical bills, a local (New Orleans) hospital had threatened ownership of George's intellectual property in order to recoup their expenses. Because of this, for a number of years, George only wrote stories for themed anthologies so that he would at least have some income, while refusing to write any further work involving his own characters and worlds. He should have written the fourth Budayeen novel, continuing the tale of Marîd Audran -- it's what his fans and readers were clamoring for, and the only real source of income before him -- but George didn't want the hospital's lawyers to become any wealthier off of his work, and so he continued his "for hire" writing. Fortunately, the legal case was dropped when the lawyers failed to appear for a court hearing, and George finally got his life -- and his characters -- back. But the damage was done; the best writing years of George's life were now behind him, as I would soon learn.

In my first email to George, I introduced myself and provided some details on books that I had previously edited, and then I presented a couple ideas to him. George's response, on July 31, 2001, was very brief but to the point; he wrote: "I am flattered by both your suggestions. I've been frustrated by how the whole body of my 30-years' work has already disappeared. Please let me know how I can help you in your projects."

I was so excited, I responded that very same day, but it was another month, on August 30, before I received a reply. George suggested a collection featuring "a hefty selection of my 200 stories, with introductions to each one, and calling it GAE: The White Album or GAE Live! At the Village Gate or . . . GAE: The Prairie Years." I again responded immediately, but a number of months went by with no word from George. In fact, I had to go through another individual in New Orleans who tracked George down and told him that he needed to contact me. I learned much later that during these months George's health and housing issues had once again returned to impact the quality of his life; he had no regular Internet access because he was being shuffled from one residence to another.

Finally, on February 25, 2002, I received an email from George. He informed me that he's "online regularly now and back to work, too," and concluded his brief email with: "Let's get to work! I could use... a good project to work on, and something to put out so that people will realize I'm still around and kicking. Typing, I mean." Even in the few short sentences contained within this communication, I could sense his new-found energy, and I was anxious to get to work on a project with him as well. Earlier, George had also suggested a collection of his Budayeen stories, and since I felt these stories had the most commercial potential, given the continued popularity of his Budayeen novels, this was the book we began work on first.

March Links & Things

These links are from my previous tweets over the past month. I've listed them here, all in one post, and with additional detail. This allows me to have a somewhat permanent file of all these links. And hopefully you'll find something of interest here, especially if you're not following me on Twitter.

PublishingCentral.com – a hub for all things publishing: Associations, Bookbinding, Careers, Copyrights, Distribution, Editorial, Indexing, Libraries, Literary Agents, Printing, Publishing, and much, much more – for book, audiobook, magazine, newsletter, e-book, and e-zine publishing.

From the blogdoctor.me: an article on how to "upload" files (other than image and video files) to your Blogger blog. [Note: the article recommends setting up a Google Pages account, but Google has recently announced that they are no longer accepting new accounts; so, read the "Comments" section in this article, in which the author recommends a MediaFire.com account in place of Google Pages.]

Author Tobias Buckell's book on writing, A Draft in Progress, will be published in segments online; he’s using previous blog posts as the basis for the book. The Introduction and Chapter One are currently available.

Courtesy of Gwenda Bond: The Second Pass -- a new website that reviews both old and new books. Check it out, and you can sign up for their e-newsletter.

Courtesy of Matt Staggs: Mississippi's Clarion Ledger for March 12 has a piece on MidSouthCon, March 20-22; mention is made of Andrew Fox's new book, The Good Humor Man, Or, Calorie 3501.