The internet(s) gives and gives and gives.
There are some great sci-fi/fantasy bloggers out there, fans who are devoting a lot of time and energy into supporting authors and their readers. Variety is the spice of life, as they say, and with the menagerie of unique and very different individuals out there contributing, it produces a whole that is better than its parts.
Last week, Suvudu posted the First 50 Pages of Crysis: Legion by Peter Watts, Chris Wooding continued The Logbook of the Ketty Jay, Random House announced the release date and cover for Inheritance by Christopher Paolini, Anne Groell posted an interview and giveaway with Elizabeth Bear for her new book Grail, and the 2011 Suvudu Cage Match rolled on, only a few characters left standing!
In other areas of the professional internet(s), Tor.com posted about the Game of Thrones food trucks in LA and NYC, Pyr Books posted their Hugo 2010 Books For Your Consideration, and Orbit Books features Helen Lowe blogging about her Top Three Fantasy Settings!
Here are some of the blogging highlights I found outside of Suvudu week ending 3/26/11:
- Free Readin’: Black Halo by Sam Sykes, posted by A Dribble of Ink
- Comment: The Digital Era and Daniel Abraham, posted by A Fantasy Reader
- Review: The Dragon’s Path by Daniel Abraham, read by Fantasy Book Critic
- Interview: Alex Bledsoe, posted by Fantasy Literature
- Excerpt: Embassytown by China Mieville, posted by Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review
- Review: Ask Peter Orullian, posted by Grasping For the Wind
- Review: Children of Scarabaeus by Sara Creasy, read by Janicu’s Book Blog
- Comment: Inheritance by Christopher Paolini, posted by The Mad Hatter’s Bookshelf
- Videos: HBO Game of Thrones: Character Profiles, posted by Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist
- Review: Dead Waters by Anton Strout, read by Sci-Fi Chick
- Comment: RIP Diana Wynne Jones, posted by Wertzone
I highly recommend all Suvudu readers to visit these fine examples of sci-fi / fantasy blog work! Get involved, post your thoughts, and enjoy what else is out there!
And feel free to talk about it or anything else on our Forum here!
Till next week…
Speaking of the digital era, this has been an amazing week for me personally and for writers venturing into epublishing in general. First, a little history-
In July 2003 my fantasy novel (Thagoth) was published as an ebook by Ballantine. See, it won the Del Rey Digital Online Writing Workshop First Novel competition. Between the time it won and the time it was published, a regime change of sorts took place at Del Rey, with new people in and old people out, and all us ebook ‘winners’ (I think there were six, total, but can only remember four) were sort of left to twist in the wind. Truly horrible covers, absolutely no marketing, nada, as Del Rey shifted their focus to movie and game tie-in books. I was basically told in a ‘nice’ way that they were no longer interested in pursuing ebooks, with the unspoken being they were no longer interested in me. I was kinda crushed. My first novel- an award winner! a competition winner!- was in essence consigned to the scrap heap of corporate restructuring.
Ebooks were relegated back to afterthought status, ‘also available as’. A bitter pill, because I was never going to get the book in print unless I pulled off major sales on the ebook. And that was the longest of long odds given the sales hurdles I was quoted for ‘consideration’ for print publishing.
I don’t even want to think about the depresion that followed, much less write about it. I’ve done enough of that elsewhere. Suffice to say there’s a reason I’ve only published one thing since then.
Now it’s 2011. A few days ago, after reading about Amanda Hocking, I let my facebook friends know that I had a novel out there in ebook format for $2.99 as an experiment. In 36 hours it jumped 353,134 spots on Amazon to #45,093 (yes, I know about Amazon’s weird algorithm issues, but still). It jumped 144k spots on B&N.
And then there was Kiana Davenport. A true cinderella story for epublishing you can learn about by going over to Joe Konrath’s blog. Basically she went from preparing to suicide to a massive best seller on Amazon over the last two days.
The moral of the story: Times have changed. Electronic self-publishing is a real, viable alternative.I look back on the changes of the last eight years with a sense of amazement and over the last week with a sense of determination.