Digging out

Phew has it been a crazy last ten months! In the middle of last year I started up my book formatting company, E.M. Tippetts Book Designs, and demand came way faster than I predicted. I even thought I was prepared and had already talked to three extended family members with the skills and interest to join me in the work. Even with four of us, it was really crazy. I pulled at least one all nighter a week, often more, and I have never done all nighters in my life - which is to say stayed up all night working. Due to my sleep disorder I have been up all night many times, but I was always trying to sleep.

Not in boarding school, college, law school, or when I was a lawyer did I do a single all nighter. For the first time in my life, though, I started to get why people do all nighters, how it is that they start something they're so committed to that they do what it takes, even if it means sneaking naps during the day while the kids watch cartoons and begging for help driving places when I was too out of it to do it myself (there the history of a sleep disorder helped. I know who I can count on in this department.)

Even still, it's downright weird to me to see our logo in bestselling books, because we've formatted a lot of bestselling books. I lucked into a very good network of indie writers and we have several big clients. It was a rush to be able to teach my contractors how to format a book and then show them that book ranked 157th or whatever on Amazon the day after it launched.

We managed to work together as a crew without strangling each other, and the business has turned several corners. There was the week when I didn't have to redo anyone's files. Then the week when authors sent us several curveballs and I could explain the fixes over email rather than have to do them myself. There was the week when all the formatters could format the galleys of a book in 24 hours flat. This week was another milestone. We've just finished the first week of the month (always our craziest), and I am not gibbering with exhaustion. Everyone's gotten so skilled at their jobs, and the formatting gets better and better as each formatter gains more confidence in the craft.

So, I'm back, more or less. I got my E.M. Tippetts website in order again, and this one will be next, but it might not show much improvement for a while because I'm not really sure what I want to do with it at the moment. I'll be mulling that over.

For my indie writing, I've also hired a publicist, and that takes a lot of the load off me - not that I'll stop interacting with fans, but I can do it without also having to plan every single blog post, handle every single review request, etc.

I'm back to crafting stuff again, because I'm a fidgety person. This time instead of jewelry, I'm making customized pens and pencil cups and that sort of thing. I've gotten production to the level where I've been able to open an E.M. Tippetts Book Designs Etsy Store. I opted to go that route so that the other formatters can also put things in it. They're all way more talented at handcrafts and such than I, and managing an Etsy store all on your own is very demanding. It's a venue designed for people who upload a new item just about every day. Much easier if we can spread that out some. I'm also making some jewelry pieces on the side, so I may reopen my jewelry store, or I may roll it into the current Etsy store. I'll jump off that bridge when I come to it.

And I'm finishing off another novel. I'll ramble on more about that in another post!

My interview of Ellen Datlow on Black Gate

Talk about a gorgeous cover. Check out Queen Victoria's Book of Spells, edited by Ellen Datlow. Actually, before you run off and buy that (or after, yeah you can go ahead because my associates code is in that link, just make sure to come back), go listen to my interview of Ellen on Black Gate.

As you'll probably be able to tell from the tenor of our exchange, Ellen and I have known each other for a long time, because my life is that cool. We met at Clarion West when I was a student in 2001 and she our Editor in Residence fifth week. She told me to keep at my writing and that I had promise, and has still never bought one of my stories, which really is okay by me. She selects the cream of the crop, so it may be a decade or two before I'm in the running.

Real quotes from the interview include Ellen saying, "Oh I hate that," to one of my questions. How often do you hear that from Ellen? She doesn't even say that in her rejection letters! As always, it was very cool to have an excuse to talk to her, and you should definitely go hear what she has to say.

Sequence a Science Fiction Writer - a fund drive for Jay Lake

As I type this, the fund drive for Jay Lake's cancer treatment has already exceeded it's initial goal of $20,000.00. Why do I bother to post then? Because that was the bare minimum needed to get Jay's tumor genetically sequenced. This will enable doctors to better target this next round of chemotherapy in one last desperate bid to kill the cancer and save Jay. It's still worth donating because Jay will have a lot of expenses over and above this as he continues his battle with cancer.

Unfortunately, the prognosis isn't good, at all. He's got an 8% chance of survival, and while this treatment might increase the odds, it is still experimental. So money towards this treatment, even if it doesn't save Jay, will further our understanding of cancer treatment and thus improve it in the future.

I don't remember the first time I met Jay Lake. He and I crossed paths at cons many times, though I do remember the year that he announced he'd go for the Campbell Award - which is the award for the best new science fiction author. You are only eligible for this award in the two years after your first professional sale, so it's a tough one to get. Jay's strategy was to write short stories by the truckload and submit them everywhere. At the beginning of this endeavor, I confess I overheard a lot of nay-sayers talking about how absurd this was and that he was clogging up the major markets' slush piles with his endless verbiage. By the time awards season rolled around, "Anyone thinking above their brain stem," as Daniel Abraham put it, would vote for Jay Lake. His intensive writing had gone to plan exactly, and he did win the Campbell Award. He and Frank Wu commemorated the event (Frank also won a Hugo that year) by flipping their long hair.

Right now Jay's got a tattoo on his scalp that says, "If you can read this, I've got cancer again" (or something to this effect). Unfortunately, it's easy to read the text, and his signature beard is gone too. Some filmmakers are making a documentary about a year in Jay's life, and the Kickstarter campaign for this is also funded in full.

The video, however, gives you a little glimpse into Jay's life. Please help support Jay by donating a few dollars to the fundraiser to cover his cancer treatment. He's got a fourteen year old daughter to raise and more books to write. Nobody's read for this to be the end of his time here with us.

My interview with Ian Tregillis, on Black Gate

Today's post is actually a link to an interview of Ian Tregillis I posted last week on Black Gate, one that I am writing this corresponding post for now, after the fun disruption that was Ellen Datlow's Kickstarter campaign - which got funded in full, by the way!

I interviewed Ian when I was home in New Mexico this last summer, and it was one crazy interview because we kept cracking each other up and making jokes that were rather out there. He and I have spent WAY too much time alone on long car rides and hence have taken already lame jokes and dragged them out past the outer limits of absurdity.

So I did a lot of editing on this interview so that it's exclusively about our time together in Critical Mass, a writer's group of pros in northern New Mexico, and Ian's Milkweed Triptych, which is on of the most awesome novel series there is. And no, that's not a lame joke made absurd. I'm being honest there.

Head on over and listen to Ian and I crack each other up (and maybe you'll find us funny too), and then head over to the nearest bookstore or book website and buy Ian's books! Also, here is Ian's website.

Another plug for Ellen Datlow's Kickstarter campaign: a mini-interview on Black Gate

Ellen Datlow's Kickstarter Campaign is still underway, and to hear from Ellen herself about the project and the rewards, head on over to her interview on Black Gate.

New short story up, and FREE for 5 days

The reprint of Across the Sea, my story which was included in the Aurora Award winning anthology, The Dragon and the Stars, is now free on Amazon for the next five days. Do go download it! This story also received an honorable mention in The Year's Best Science Fiction.

Here's the description:

When documenting a people's legacy, which matters most: facts or lore?

Kate Hu is one of the last of the Tlingowa, a tribe that has all but assimilated into the American mainstream. She knows a handful of words from the now dead language, though she did get to grow up with one of the last fluent speakers, her aged and demented Aunt Bess. Once, in a moment of clarity, or perhaps it was deep insanity, Aunt Bess told her a story of three foreign men who lived among the Tlingowa after their ship wrecked off the coast. They had black hair, sallow skin, and tilted eyes, and they sang rather than spoke to each other. It's a story Kate will always treasure as her aunt only told it once.

Unfortunately a linguistic anthropologist was present at the recitation and decided to write a paper, mocking and deriding Aunt Bess's story as the academic explained the underlying language shift happening to the Tlingowa people. One paper was bad enough, but when adapted into a longer textbook, it hit the New York Times Bestseller List. Now the entire world knows and mocks Aunt Bess and that one treasured piece of Tlingowa lore.

When archaeologists turn up Chinese artifacts on Tlingowa ancestral lands, Kate is one of the first people on the scene, but so is that academic who ridiculed her family all those years ago. He's contemplating a sequel to his bestseller. Kate has no academic standing, nor any of this man's fame or fanbase. Will she have to stand by and watch him destroy everything she loves once again?

People who know me will note the linguistic anthropological geekiness, a side effect of my having a linguistic anthropologist best friend :-)

Shanghai Steam is launched and for sale

Here's the cover for the Shanghai Steam anthology that I am in. It was launched last weekend at World Fantasy, but I've waited until after the hurricane and that election thingy we just had to post about it.

And here are the details from the anthology's site:


FROM ANCIENT CHINA TO A
FUTURE MARS. FROM THE BRITISH
EMPIRE TO THE OLD WEST

“Shanghai Steam is one of those anthologies you think will be one thing, but is surprisingly more…and I mean that in a good way. If you are expecting this to be a collection of simple oriental steampunk stories, then prepare yourself to be Shanghaied.” — Bram Stoker Award-winner, Michael Knost.

“Just when we thought steampunk had run out of, well, steam, these daring editors have reinvigorated the whole genre.  A terrific collections of weird and wonderful tales.” – Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author of TRIGGERS.

Nineteen authors show you new and ancient worlds filled with steam and Qi-powered machines, philosophical automatons, unusual heroes, paper lantern revolutions, flying monks and Martian pagodas. Dare to delve into tales ranging from tender to terrifying and comedic to courageous – you’ll find it all here.

Shanghai Steam, is a mashup of Chinese wuxia fantasy and steampunk. Vengeance, whimsy, horror and the fantastic.

This collection contains works by: Tim Ford, Amanda Clark, Laurel Anne Hill, K.H. Vaughan, Crystal Koo, Brent Nichols, Julia A. Rosenthal, William H. Keith, Shen Braun, Jennifer Rahn, Emily Mah, Frances Pauli, Camille Alexa, Tim Reynolds, Ray Dean, Frank Larnard, Derwin Mak, Nick Tramdack, and Minsoo Kang.

Available November 1, 2012

PRINT BOOK:
(Available at Amazon.com)
ISBN: 978-1-77053-022-5
Trade Paperback
5.5″ X 8.5″
$ 14.95
168 pages

E-BOOK:
(Available for Kindle and Kobo)
e-ISBN: 978-1-77053-023-2
$4.99 US

Kickstarter and Kirkus

I know I'm overdue to post about my Kickstarter campaign for a Kirkus Review of Castles on the Sand. The more time passes, the more I have to say, so I'd better do this post before it becomes three. First let me talk about Kickstarter, and then about Kirkus.

Kickstarter enabled me to set up a campaign to raise money in exchange for rewards to the backers who pledged. I offered copies of a special edition of the book and was curious to see how many presales I could get. It seemed that the ideal situation would be to have fans come buy advance copies of the book and I just use their money for the review. I think for a lot of established artists, Kickstarter works this way.

I, obviously, am not all that established. Of my indie novels I've published two, one of which has been a solid hit. Not solid enough to live in luxury for the rest of my life, but in the ten months I've been an indie author, I have out earned my husband for two of them. I've clearly got fans, but not hordes of them. Another strike against Castles is the fact that it isn't connected to my hit, Someone Else's Fairytale, which will soon have a sequel of its own. Castles is also LDS fiction, technically, as one of the main characters is LDS. I don't think much of the divide between LDS vs. mainstream fiction, as I don't tell spiritual/inspirational stories in which conversion to religion solves anyones problems, but people used to the bright line demarkation will still consider my work to be non-mainstream.

Therefore, the people who turned out for my Campaign were friends and family. When I announced the campaign on Twitter, I got some backers. When I put it in Facebook, people poured in and funded it in full in a couple of days. Many reached deep into their pockets, pledging amounts that would clearly be a one time occurrence. Because this was my donor pool, this will be my last Kickstarter campaign for a while, simply because I'm not going to go back to the same people who gave so much and ask for another red cent. They've been more than supportive. Maybe, someday, if I get a broader fanbase, I'll try again, but who knows?

Now let's talk about the Kirkus Review. Kirkus provided a review with a fantastic quote that I plastered everywhere, on Goodreads, Amazon, etc. How many sales did the review generate? None that I can tell. My sales this first month that Castles has been out have been roughly on par with Fairytale's, though it's hard to say that absolutely. Fairytale started out at $.99 and free on Smashwords, so its sales on Amazon were only a small fraction of the downloads. Castles, I launched at $2.99, the price point I intend to occupy until I can build up a bigger fan base and revenue stream for myself.

Was the Kirkus Review worth it? Yes. It was essential to take that next step and invest a little more, even if the investment didn't earn immediate returns financially. It was important for me to prove to myself that I could get reviewed by the same Kirkus that reviews traditionally published books and walk away with a good review, on par with someone who's gone the traditional route. The review also opens the door to publicity services offered by Kirkus that I'll consider, but am not investing in these first few months.

More to the point, the Kirkus Review was exactly the right thing to finance with a Kickstarter Campaign. I'd like to think I rewarded my backers' faith in me by landing a good review. This book isn't in negative earnings, because I didn't spend my own money in the review. Also, from this experience I've gathered still more data on the world of publishing 2.0, which will only help me going forward.

All in all, a positive experience all around. But now I'm back to my old marketing tricks to build up a readership for Castles.

Castles on the Sand is out!

Just a quick note to say that my young adult/women's fiction novel, Castles on the Sand, was released today. Kirkus Reviews calls it, "A fast-paced blend of high-stakes drama and average teenage concerns (sex, appearance, friends), capped with a welcome message of hope."

The back cover blurb:

Madison Lukas knows her place in the world. She’s not pretty, not interesting, and therefore easy to forget.

John Britton is serving his mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and has been praying for fifteen years to find the sister he lost in his parents’ divorce. She is beautiful, talented, and makes kindness a fine art.

And for good measure, here's the book trailer: 

Last of all, buy links for the US and UK ;-)

Shanghai Steam

I know it's been a while since I've posted. I've been traveling around the American southwest, both to my home in New Mexico and to see family in Colorado. During this time I've sold a short story though! My short short, Last Flight of the Long Qishi, will be in the upcoming Shanghai Steam  anthology, which is Steampunk Wuxia. As always, I'm grateful for opportunities to participate in celebrations of Chinese culture; it gives me an excuse to learn more about my own heritage. All of my aunts and uncles on my father's side were born in Shanghai.

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The Indie Experiment: Making Book Trailers

Today's blogpost is on The Scribbler's Cove and is about my experience making a book trailer. It was a fun process with a steep learning curve, and I know I've only just scratched the surface. Here's the final product I came up with:

Head on over to The Cove to hear about the making of that trailer, and see an earlier draft!

The Indie Experiment: More on Foreign Language Editions

It's been a crazy, crazy week. My parents were out to visit for part of it, but I only really remember that as a blur. They were wonderful about watching my boys, and I'd hoped for more writing time, but life conspired against me there. Nevertheless, I am still on target to ship my current novel to Kirkus July 2nd. But I have other more important news to announce: My first short story in Spanish is now available! Root, translated by Beatriz Peña, owner and creator of Hamaca Books, it is now available on Amazon and Hamaca Books! I'll make it available on Barnes and Noble and Smashwords this weekend.

And Michael Drecker, who's translated three of my short stories into German, helped publicize a free promotion of Kojote Entdeckt Mars und andere Geschichten, yesterday. It was far more successful than I would have imagined. We made it to the top twenty free books on Amazon.de, so I'm very grateful for all the wonderful fans who downloaded. I hope they enjoy the book.

I type this while completely wiped out. Off to sleep now!

Two new works up, two free promos!

It's been a crazy week of formatting and uploading. I'll highlight two new works today, and then the release of one of my stories in Spanish later this week. First of all, let me announce the publication of the German edition of Coyote Discovers Mars and Other Stories, a three story collection including: Coyote Discovers Mars, Polar Shift, and Root. Currently this collection of stories is only available in German and represents the hard work that translator, Michael Drecker, has done. On Thursday, June 14, 2012, this collection will be free, so please do come download it to enjoy.


The other new work that I've uploaded is Avatar, which is, to be entirely honest, available for free if you look in the righthand margin of this website. It'll also be free in Kindle format from June 14-18, so feel free to grab it there too. This is a co-write I did with Ty Franck, who now cowrites with Daniel Abraham as James SA Corey. Those two are up for a Hugo this year. This short story by me and Ty is not, but maybe you'll like it anyway.

Hope this frenzy of uploading our house means many happy hours of reading for all of you!

The Indie Experiment: Kickstarter, Help Me Raise $600.00 in 30 Days

I'm asking for fan help to buy a Kirkus Indie review for my next novel. More to the point, I'm offering my fans the chance to be involved, to share with me the fun and excitement of indie publishing. I'm asking people to get invested, to own a part of the success I've seen so far and help me step it up a little.

Kirkus are one of the big names in book reviews. If you are traditionally published, your publisher should submit your novels to them and Publisher's Weekly as a matter of course. People in the publishing industry read Kirkus and get their first impression of books that are released soon thereafter. For us indie writers, we can get a Kirkus review if we're willing to pay a hefty price for it. This makes good sense. This is how Kirkus avoids getting inundated with every self published book out there. It's how they screen for writers who are serious about what they are doing.

Fans have made my last book, Someone Else's Fairtyale, a solid success. It continues to sell well through Amazon, making enough for us to pay for groceries and part of utilities every month. For the next step in my career, I'd like to see if I could make some inroads into markets outside of Amazon. I'd like to see if I could move more copies on Barnes and Noble and iBookstore, and I'll put some serious research into print distributors. In order to stand myself in good stead, it would help immensely to have a Kirkus review.

But, you surely ask, what if Kirkus hates the book? The quick answer is to say this is a risk you take with any endeavor. The more considered one is to point out that while Kirkus don't just write sales pitches, they are very even handed with all the different styles and genres of books they receive. I don't assume I'll get a starred review from them (anyone who goes in with that assumption either has a track record of getting them or an ego that is about to get deflated). I do think the book will hold its own in the genre. I've put all my life experience with writing into this one, building on the lessons I've learned from the previous three novels. I didn't try anything too edgy or experimental. I didn't decide to suddenly switch gears and tell a completely different kind of story. I may not be a literary genius, but I think I'm to the point in my career that I'm good enough to advance a couple steps further.

And so I invite my fans to take these steps with me. Pledge as little or as much as you'd like, and while you're at it, you can preorder the book. Backers who choose to preorder will have their books ship at least one week in advance of the release date - at the same time the reviewers receive their copies. Below is a widget with what I've earned so far. Click it to go to Kickstarter where you can contribute as well.

The Indie Experiement: Foreign language editions

Just over a month ago, Michael Drecker introduced himself to me via email. He was, he explained, a science fiction fan fluent in German and he proposed having me hire him to translate my short stories into German. Now, I assumed he was English or American with a degree in German, but it turns out he's German - so that gives you an idea of how strong his English is. He suggested that I price the German translations higher than the English ones and pay him the difference in profits. The thing about short stories is, though, they don't sell in volume, and I felt this approach would lead to him doing a lot of work for very little compensation, so we worked together to see if we could come up with a better solution.

Translation is traditionally very expensive, because it is hard work. The cheapest translators we could find for German charged .079 Euros per source word. I don't remember who suggested that Michael set a fee and claim 100% of royalties until the fee earned out, but that's what we decided to do, and I won't say how much Michael and I settled on. Suffice it to say he wanted to undercut his competition and I did not want to see him burned out and disgusted with the payback. This is still a very favorable deal for me, the author, because Michael is making royalties only, so I pay up front for things like translation of the author's note at the end, the blurb for the listing, etc. I think it's important that people see some remuneration asap, even if it's modest.

Once the stories earn out the fee, then Michael and I will split the royalties. Now some might ask what is in this for me? Exposure to a whole new market, a whole new fanbase, and association with Michael Drecker, who, if he continues this business venture, could translate for a lot of authors, some of whom will likely be a lot more famous than me. He is in talks with one other author that I know of, already.

All of this is very exciting for me, because I think we're forging ahead on another frontier of indie publishing. A lot of indie authors will retain agents and sign contracts with publishers to get foreign language editions of their work in print. It'll be interesting to see if Michael's model opens the door to a whole new set of options for indies.

In the meantime, two of my short stories are available in German already, with more to follow!

Connie Willis, our newest SFWA Grand Master

Yes, I am very behind on my blogging, my email, you name it. Just posting a quick note to say I am alive and I will be posting some new posts as soon as I catch up on sleep. This weekend I was at the Nebulas and got to see Connie Willis made a Grand Master. Now Connie is a wonderful, generous person. At this awards weekend, when she is the most honored guest, it was hard for us to find time meet up and spend any time together. Nearly all of our meals were booked, so we just decided to meet in the middle of the afternoon on Saturday - the day of the Awards banquet - and we sat and talked for over two hours.

Connie was my Clarion West instructor, and no one I know teaches better than she does (which is no insult at all to any of the rest of my fantastic teachers). In the course of just a few minutes' conversation, she'll say things that I digest over the next few hours and days, so you can imagine how a two our conversation was like drinking from a firehose from the font of knowledge. I'll be sorting through and picking apart what she said for months. We had a great conversation about books, plotting, and specifically romances because the book she is working on right now has a romance storyline in it.

At the Awards Banquet, she was fantastic, giving an acceptance speech that brought everyone to their feet in a big standing ovation. And yes, I did get to see her Grand Master Award. It looks very much like a Nebula - and for the uninitiated, a Nebula is a block of lucite with spherical planets made from I don't know what and glitter galaxies suspended in it. Connie is our fourth female Grand Master and one of the youngest. She has most definitely earned it, though, having won more Hugos and Nebulas than any other author, with stories that are classics.

I can sense my consciousness slipping though. I need to crash. Hope what I wrote was coherent!

#SundayShorts and Under the Needle's Eye on Ritesh Kala's Book Reviews

I know, I'm behind on my blogging again. Let me catch up here. An innovative blogger has developed the new #SundayShorts meme. This is a fantastic opportunity for people who read, write, and love short stories. Participating bloggers blog about a short story or anthology or collection on Sunday and backlink their reviews to the original meme creator, Cabin Goddess's, post.

Ritesh Kala was awesome enough to feature Under The Needle's Eye for his #SundayShort this weekend. Go check out his post. If you like short stories, jump onboard this meme and blog them on Sundays! (And if you want to blog about anyone from Needle's Eye, I'm happy to put you in touch ;-)

Clarion West - Surviving the Crucible

I get Clarion West flashbacks every time I see an episode of Survivor. I remember what it felt like, being overworked, exhausted, and struggling through what felt like a one against the world competition to see who would crack first (never seems to be the rest of the world.) But while Survivor is about voting people out and avoiding elimination, our Clarion West class did something much more ambitious. We worked to keep everyone in the game. If you think Tribal Councils are hard, imagine not letting yourself have them.

The format for the Clarion workshops is relatively straightforward. Seventeen people get in, they live communally, often in university dorms, and each person writes at least six stories in six weeks. Every day, 3-4 stories are critiqued in a morning critique session led by that week's instructor - always a professional writer or editor. The instructor then gives us a lesson or lecture, and then we're free to go write, read and prepare critiques for the next day, eat, sleep, try not to scratch each other's eyes out, etc. Critique is an elegant word for a downright brutal process. Imagine what it's like to have seventeen other people analyze and tear apart the story you finished in the wee hours of the morning the day before yesterday. Imagine spending the rest of the time reading other people's stories with a critical eye, so that you can do your critiques each and every day.

Clarion-style workshops are known for burning out a certain percentage of their attendees. The usual statistic is that only one third of the students are still writing ten years after graduation. They're also known for putting people's personal and emotional lives through the blender, causing divorces and separations, sometimes months after the workshop's close. Imagine going through that, and trying to not just get yourself through, but everybody else as well, including the jerk who tore into you with a personal attack a that morning's critique session.

You know things are intense when Connie Willis (yes, this year's SFWA Grand Master) hands out her personal telephone number and says it's all right to call her at home, in Colorado, to cry or vent or scream or whatever else we needed after her time as our fourth week instructor was over. And yes, she really did do that.

So how did we do? Ten years out, at least two thirds of us are still writing - a few don't keep in close contact with the rest of us, so I can't give a definitive breakdown. Eleven of us joined up for the reunion anthology, Under the Needle's Eye. At least six of us have books out or book deals locked down (I'm having a hard time counting straight because I've been running myself ragged with work on the launch today.) Every single one of us made at least one professional short story sale, a percentage that is almost unheard of. When I told Connie Willis this, she said, "Yes, but everyone talks about your class. You guys were special. You were professionals." Kind words from someone who'd seen some of our worst moments in fourth week when we'd been workshopping long enough to have our nerves rubbed raw, but weren't far enough along to feel the end was in sight.

I had the privilege of organizing the edits and doing the ebook conversion for Under the Needle's Eye, and I can testify, it's a spectacular array of speculative fiction writing by people who've worked hard on their craft for over a decade. But what's been even more gratifying is getting to share the experience of a successful launch with my classmates who didn't vote me out (even when I might have wanted to vote me out) and who continue to rally around and support one another. As I type this, Under the Needle's Eye is Number 1 in genre anthologies on Amazon, much higher than I anticipated we'd climb, especially on the first day of the launch. I'm proud of that, but more importantly, I am thrilled I get to share this experience with my fellow Clarion West survivors.

The rest of them are all quite a bit more eloquent than I. Check out the blog postings by Samantha Ling, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Kiini Ibura Salaam, Susan Ee, Ari Goelman, Raymund Eich, and Patrick Samphire. And then come find us Under the Needle's Eye.
 

Come find us Under the Needle's Eye!

You may have noticed that I didn't blog last week (actually, I don't expect anyone's really paying that much attention, but in case anyone is, sorry!) I was working on the final edits and compilation for my Clarion West class's reunion anthology, Under the Needle's Eye. This has been such a rewarding project to work on. It's incredible to see where my classmates have gone, creatively, in the eleven years since we were at Clarion West together.

Back in 2001, blogging was still new enough that we were actually one of the first years to have people blog from the workshop. I'm so grateful for the technology, though, because with blogs and Facebook and email listservs, we've stayed fairly well in touch as a class. I don't think an anthology like this would've been possible in an earlier era.

Here's our trailer. I made it - and yes it is perfectly okay to laugh. Basically, I wanted to convey how exciting, rewarding, and downright fun it is to be a part of the class of 2001. Come see what we have to say! (Though it's only fair to tell you, the antho will be free on Thurs-Fri, and I'll do another promotion post then)

More cover design practice

I've been practicing more cover design in an attempt to be able to create nice covers for my short stories, and I've learned and re-learned some lessons. When I set out to design a cover for my short story, Across the Sea, I first chose a beautiful image of the Pacific Northwestern coast, which is where the story is set. I found a nice Asian font to show that the story has a Chinese element to it, and I could not get the cover to work. After a few hours of fussing with the title and the fonts, I finally went back to the drawing board and got another image. The result was much, much better:

Even though the only Chinese junk in that story is an ancient wreck, this picture was a lot more evocative than a pretty landscape. I try to remind myself that the cover is all about the image and title. From this cover you can tell that it's about an ocean crossing and involves Chinese people. I can't get everything in. There's nothing about the Athabaskan woman who is my main character or the archeological digs or any of that, but this image I hope gets attention without being misleading.

My next story was my cowrite with Ty Franck, Avatar. This one seemed simple enough. The main character is a woman who is the Avatar of Chaos. I always thought eye contact was a good way to grab attention for a cover, so that's what I used:

We'll see if Ty likes it. He has to approve it, of course. The torn edges and all that I learned from my days as a digital scrapbooker. Nice how old skills come in handy!

The final cover, I took a chance on. Combining images is a more advanced skill, and I'd been warned that nine times out of ten it looks awful and amateurish. I couldn't find one image that captured the spirit of my story, Coyote Discovers Mars, though, so I took a deep breath, got the two images, and put them together. The result:

This one's my favorite of the three, perhaps because I took a risk and tried something a little more difficult. I think it captures the idea of the story well; which is a retelling of the Native American Coyote Stories in a science fiction setting. So far this is the frontrunner for the cover of my collection, once I have my short stories all uploaded (which will be months from now).

Perhaps not perfect, but I feel like I'm learning and I'm still having fun :-)