Philippa Ballantine's Blog, page 20

Awards and colleagues

As the award and con season rolls on, I am once more caught up in the excitement. The Parsec Awards has  again short-listed Erotica a la Carte in its Best Anthology category. Although I won't be at DragonCon this year, I am chuffed to know that my little experimental cast is up there with the likes of Escape Pod and Variant Frequencies.

And then there are the Sir Julius Vogel awards which are special to me, as they show just how amazing the range of talent we have in this tiny country is...

A rare event

One of the other great pieces of news to come out of Balticon was the news of an emerging paying market- and one buried in podosphere goodness. I had a chance to chat with Scott Roche about Flagship the new ezine.  Scott and the team have great plans and I am looking forward to seeing how they proceed into the future.

But for now, this is a paying market that gives you a chance to not only have your words in print, but also in audio.

Here's the official word.

Beginning July 4th, science fiction...

Guest Lolita – getting steamy!

I feel like I am remiss in saying how much I enjoyed Balticon- and it wasn't just being able to announce the Eos deal. It was without doubt the most fun I have ever had at a con. Low drama, high friendship. I got to meet old friends, and meet lots of brand new ones. The only downside was I feel like I missed out on spending quality time with everyone- but that is just me wishing the event could have gone on for another four days.

I highly recommend Balticon as a convention where you are going ...

Joining the Ministry

The big news- the news we announced at Balticon- is now out there.

Coming in summer 2011 the project Tee Morris and I wrote and talked about many, many times whose working title is Books and Braun, will be published by Eos Books.

Diana Gil will be working with us to whip this steampunk romp into taunt, terrific shape, and both of us are very excited about that. Eos is an imprint of HarperCollins, so you will be able to find this book on your shelves. This is a two book deal, so the title of...

Art and Fun

You know I love the cover Jason Chan did for Geist. I know the people at Ace love it too. Jason is an amazingly talented artist, so having him bring Sorcha and the Rossin to life was just wonderful to me.

So I encouraged him to make the print available, and he has! I have placed my order for the biggest one for my wall- and if you want the same, then head on over to the print shop and order.

So that's the art, now here's the fun….

Balticon!

This Memorial Day weekend in Baltimore, writers...

Books of the Order

Just got back from New York- which is a city which both excites and confuses me. I love the energy of it, but it also is the one place in the world where I seem to be always in the wrong spot on the pavement.

However it was also the place I got to do something I had dreamed about. I got to see the inside of the big publishing house. I am sure that such things become very run-of-the-mill to people who have long been published by the likes of Harper-Collins, St Martins or Penguin. However for...

Give it away…

If you are in the podcast fiction sphere you will have heard of P G Holyfield and Murder at Avedon Hill. Patrick spent countless hours entertaining people with his full cast production of this fantasy murder mystery.

As well as being full of great voice talent (achemmm) MaAH is a great story- so it was only natural that Dragon Moon Press picked up the novel. Patrick is doing an Amazon rush event tomorrow the 15th of May, so read the flyer about what you need to do.

If I haven't convinced you...

The endless list

Week Two of professional writer and gentle reader, I do hope you have stuck with me. [CAUTION; this blogpost contains more than its fair share of brackets...see I already I am knee deep in them:]

Here's what I have been up to.

Dropped into LA, and this was the first time I have actually been outside of the airport! (Even if only briefly). I met [CENSORED:] to talk about [REALLY CENSORED:]- which as you can imagine was pretty cool. (As soon as I can possibly talk about this I will)

But because of...

Professional writer: Day 1

Today is indeed the first day of the rest of my life- well hopefully.

I said good-bye to the library world yesterday. It was tough because I have spent 13 years in the corporate library world working with some fabulous people. I had a wonderful morning tea, talked a lot, then packed up my things, hugged my now ex-workmates, and headed off into the world. A professional writer.

Today is all about packing bags, and getting the house ready for my brother. Yes, once again I am hitting America...

Baby birds revealed

About a month ago I asked you about paying for podcast fiction. It might not have been a perfect survey, but it has certainly given me some ideas going forward.

Here are the results

1. I would find this method for generating revenue from podcast fiction acceptable

Short sponsored advertised 96.55%

Small payment per episode 37.93%

I would never pay for a podcast 3.45%

People could choose more than one option here

2. Considering sponsored advertising in a podcast- how long would be too long?

Anythi...