Elizabeth Bonesteel's Blog

Why Publishing Sucks, and Why You, Dear Author, Should Consider It Anyway

Look. I’m supposed to be working on an MS this morning. But this Anthropic capitulation settlement has made me incandescently angry, and apparently I have to shriek for a while before my creativity will make friends with me again.

I don’t want to write about the Anthropic capitulation settlement itself. People are doing that all over. But one little factoid has emerged: as part of the settlement, you need to have your work registered with the US Copyright Office, and that has to have happened...

Small things

I’m pretty sure I”m not the only person in the world right now who’s overwhelmed with stuff to feel.

There’s the global stuff, which is…horrible. There’s the US government stuff: also horrible. Locally, there’s drought and stressed-out trees and neighbors with hateful political signage in their yards.

Sometimes, I think about all the problems we could fix as a species if we just stopped squabbling over who did and didn’t deserve to be treated as humans, and I could drown in rage and despai...

On Loneliness

Today The Kid went back to school for the fall. She took her cat with her: a young brown tabby, probably a little Bengal-y. Bouncy little thing, very attached to The Kid.

Of our two cats, one loathes The Kid’s cat. Some of this is earned: Young Cat loves to play and pounce, and our 9-1/2-year-old lady very much does not. Sometimes Young Cat attacks Old Lady, and there is much yowling and slapping. Sometimes Young Cat is just hanging out, and the Old Lady hisses and growls. Her house, her rule...

Maybe Not

I didn’t always live in the woods.

I grew up in a fairly ordinary suburb, in a town that always seemed to be on the verge of becoming poor. The economy was fueled by the nearby military base, as well as a couple of large corporations with offices nearby. There were, when I was small, four elemetary schools. When I was in high school, two were closed. The town was shrinking.

Now I couldn’t afford to live there. Back then, it was the also-ran cousin of its more mannered, historically signifi...

Free books!

This is a promotional post. (Sorry.)

I always hesitate to post this sort of thing, because one hopes it has a shelf life.

Before Condition of War came out, a dear frient of mine picked up 5 US Kindle copies of The Cold Between, and 5 of Breach of Containment. I posted the redemption codes on social media the other day, and so far have had no takers. So I’m offering them here.

As far as I know, all you have to do is click, and accept the book. If the link doesn’t work, try the next one....

Too Hard

This is the sort of thing I draw a lot:

July 24, 2025 – done in Procreate from a stock photo

I’ve hit something of a plateau with drawing–I’d like to be able to be better, but I have a patience problem. I can draw a lot of things well enough to please myself, and for now, at least, that’s fine.

When I was little, I took ballet for a year. I loved it. I was the tallest girl in the class, and I was clumsy as hell, and I insisted on a red leotard even though everyone else was wearing blac...

There’s an ARKHANGELSK audiobook!

Warning: This is…kinda a promo post. Because I have something to promote, this time somewhat unexpectedly:

Arkhangelsk is going to be released on audiobook on June 10!

Podium Entertainment produced it, and I have to say I’m really pleased. Both readers are marvelous in different ways, and handle the characters beautifully. (It’s been years since I’ve listened to a new audiobook – they are so good now!)

It’s Audible-only, which means (I think?) exclusively at Amazon. Should be up for pre...

Mother’s Day

I’m going to try to write about my mother. Fair warning: I may suck at this.

One of the benefits of being a mother myself is I get to update all of my perceptions about my own childhood with current medical understanding. Which is to say: my mother was the neurotypical in a house full of weirdos.

She was young when she married – not yet 21, not yet graduated from college. She had pictures in her head of what married life would be like. She told me once she’d always wanted the house to sme...

About Trade Publishing, Part 3: Marketing

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a publisher bought my book. Things immediately started going wrong.

I can trace it all back to the conversation I had with my agent when she told me who’d won the auction. She was going on about a character who wasn’t going to be in the subsequent books, and when I reminded her he was a one-off, she said “Well, we can talk about that later.”

I thought about that for about half an hour, then sent her an email telling her if the publisher had bough...

Spring in New England

To quote the electrician who installed the wiring our (unconventional) house: What happy horseshit is this?

(Yes, I know it’s pretty. It can stop now.)