Trudi Canavan's Blog, page 25

Dusting off the Designs Skills

With Supernova and the European Tour coming up, I thought it would be nice to have some freebies to give out. So I dusted off my old graphic design skills and produced a bookmark:

It's deliberately simple for two reasons. Firstly, to use any artwork from my book covers I'd have to get permission from the publisher and artist. I could use book cover, but then I'd have the dilemma of choosing not just which books, but my first six books have three different covers – and that's just the english language editions.

Secondly, I wanted the bookmark to be able to do this:

It folds up to become a business card.

In fact, it's a longer, colour version of my business card, which I find I use for one purpose over any other: when I meet someone who, upon finding out I'm an author, asks what the titles of my books are, I know that if I start listing them off their eyes will glaze over and they'll never remember any of the titles. So I give them my card and they have the full list there and my website address, if they care to investigate further.

I only had a short print run of 250 done, but if I give them all away at Supernova I can always get more done for the tour. I don't want to end up with lots of leftovers, because in a few years there'll be another three book titles to add to that list.

Ebook Availability Update

Since researching the availability of my books as ebooks back at the end of January, I've been able to mostly answer all of my questions. Some with reader's help, others by emailing my publisher and then enjoying a very interesting chat on the phone with the person who deals with ebook issues. That said, what I write below is in my own words.

So, what were my questions again?

Can customers in Australia buy eBook version of my books from Amazon.com, iBookstore and Kobo?

Thanks to the lovely commenters, Tim and Nicole, I know now that if you're an Australian customer, only the ebooks available in this region will show when you browse Amazon. Nicole even went as far as buying a book – thanks Nicole! I'm a little doubtful that this is true of the Amazon UK site, though, as it is showing the UK editions of books and they shouldn't be available to Australian customers.

Why aren't Australian online stores stocking the ebooks of my books?

Why isn't the full set of Age of the Five available on Amazon.com, when it is on at least one other US-accessible ebook site?

Now this is a stickier question, and the answer is complicated. The first thing I should make clear is that there are a lot of differences between a self-publisher putting ebooks online and a publishing company putting them online. The self-publisher format (Amazon and Smashwords) works rather like ebay. The publishing company format (Amazon, iBookshop, Kobo, book retailer websites) works a bit more like the traditional bricks and mortar style bookshop arrangement with all the complexity of pricing, promotional agreements, etc. Obviously my books are not self-published, so latter situation is what we're dealing with here.

The obstacles a publisher faces in getting an ebook online have mostly to do with the technology being very new and there being multiple ebook formats. Some of the issues are complicated, so I've kept this post small by listing the main ones without getting bogged down in variations:

* New books are easier and less time consuming to convert because they don't have to be dug up from an archive and converted from old program formats, like backlist titles do.

* With the enormous number of books to convert, getting an entire backlist of books out as ebooks can't be done overnight. A lot is being done to speed the process but, well, as always when you hurry something errors will probably be missed.

* Data must be compiled for each ebook, and if there is just one error the ebook can 'fall off the system'. Some errors are hard to spot (like, say, whether a date is presented with the month or day first).

* Different ebook formats require data supplied in different ways so a book has to be tweaked for each.

* There's no clear feedback system for when an ebook fails to work. They don't necessarily appear on the bookseller sites straight away and even when they do they can mysteriously disappear later.

Converting books to ebook formats, compiling and checking the data, spotting mistakes and fixing them all takes time. And time is money. I've read articles that say producing an eBook can actually cost more than producing a paper book, and now that I know what's involved I'm inclined to believe it.

This is a new industry, but it is a growing one. I've heard that ebook retailers are advertising for hundreds of jobs at a time – huge opportunities there – and that typesetters, who adapted so well to the shift to digital production, are expanding to become 'digital typesetters' so they can take advantage of the extra work in converting books to ebook formats.

While there are inefficiencies in the system now, things will improve. After all, authors, publishers and booksellers are all in the business of selling books, so we're all working hard to make them available. For my part, knowing how snowed under publishers are, I figure I can help out by keeping an eye on bookseller sites and letting them know if something has fallen off the system.

And for Australian customers, I've decided to keep a list of what's available. I'll update it when I have time and repost it on this blog. Let me know if you have any trouble buying an ebook listed as available at any of the sites below.

Key: BMT = Black Magician Trilogy, AotF = Age of the Five trilogy, TMA = The Magician's Apprentice, TST = Traitor Spy Trilogy

Amazon – BMT, second book of AofF, TMA, first book of TST

Amazon UK – all books available (a bit odd as the UK editions of the BMT and AotF shouldn't be showing up for Australian customers)

iBookstore – Second book of AotF, TMA, first book of TST

Kobo – BMT and first two books of AoTF available

Angus&Robertson – BMT and first two books of AotF available

Borders – BMT and first two books of AotF available

Dymocks – No books available

ebooks.com – No books available (what you can see is the US edition, which is a bit weird as they're an Australian bookseller so ought to be selling the local edition)

As you may have spotted, the ebooks that appear to have fallen off the system are the first and last of the Age of the Five trilogy. I suspect that those books aren't available to US customers either, but it looks like UK customers ought to have no problem getting any of my titles.

(A big thank you to the reader who got me researching this in the first place, Michael, who not only drew my attention to some missing titles, but also contacted one of my publishers to let them know.)

French Edition of The Ambassador's Mission

Yesterday this lovely edition of The Ambassador's Mission arrived, published by Bragelonne. The French editions I receive are always beautiful, sturdy hardcovers and this is no exception.

Welcome to the start of The Traitor Spy trilogy, my French readers!

Chinese Edition of The Magicians' Guild

A new foreign edition arrived in the mail in the last week, from a very different part of the world to most places my books are published: China. Seeing my words translated into Chinese characters and printed such a different book format is exciting and fascinating.

Welcome to my stories, Chinese readers. I hope you enjoy them!

Supanova!

I've been invited to be a guest at Supanova in Melbourne this year. What is Supanova? Well, I'll steal a quote from their site because it describes the event perfectly:

Supanova Pop Culture Expo is where the adoring public comes face to face with Supa-Star celebrities and the creative talent that inspire their imaginary worlds under one big roof.

I'll be on a panel with the lovely Jennifer Fallon, Marianne De Pierres and Rowena Cory Daniells. I'll also be signing books at the Dymocks stand. I'll let you know the times for both once closer to the event, when I have my schedule for the weekend.

So if you're coming to Supanova in Melbourne, drop by and say hello!

The No News Post

I'd like to be able to write a blog post every week for this site, but that's not always possible. The frustrating thing is, right now there are two events I've been invited to as a guest that I'd like to blog about, but I'm holding back. Neither events' websites mention me, and a little paranoid voice inside me says 'if you blog about it something will happen to force them to withdraw their invitation, and then instead of nobody being the wiser, the whole world will know you were rejected'.

Otherwise I have no news. It's too soon to post the first chapter of The Rogue. (I do that about a month out from publication, so look for it in the first weeks of April.) Negotiations haven't even started for english language rights for Millenium's Rule, so I can't confirm anything about that. I haven't had time to chase up information about eBooks. The only news I have is anti-news.

And that is: I won't be doing an anthology of short stories just yet.

Why not? Well, there are a couple of reasons. I only have four short stories and a novella to put into a collection, and an anthology really ought to be a lot bigger than that. A couple of the stories I want to write specifically for the anthology relate to Millenium's Rule, and it would be smart to develop that story's universe first so I don't say something is a certain way in a short story only to find it doesn't work in the books.

So no anthology for a few years yet, but when it does happen it'll be bigger and better. In the meantime you can, of course, hunt down the short stories and novella I've already written in their original form. The magazines and anthologies they're published in are listed under The Books menu above. You'll probably have to mail order them, possibly only from Australian sf bookshops, but think of it this way: you'll be supporting a publication and publishers who supported me at the beginning of my career. If it weren't for them, you wouldn't be reading any of my stories.

Ebook Availability

I've been wanting to find out how hard it is to buy eBooks of my books for a while now, so I've been doing some investigation. First I checked my contracts. Sure enough, all eBook rights for all books in all english language territories have been sold. That means it's all out of my hands, and responsibility falls down (or goes up) the line to the publishers and retailers. Here's which publishers own which books:

Australasia:

HarperCollins Publishers Australia hold the rights for the Black Magician Trilogy and Age of the Five trilogy.

Little Brown hold the rights for the The Magician's Apprentice and the Traitor Spy Trilogy.

UK (Commonwealth minus Australasia):

Little Brown hold the rights for the Black Magician Trilogy, Age of the Five, The Magician's Apprentice and the Traitor Spy Trilogy.

US (and most of the rest of the world):

HarperCollins Publishers hold the rights for the Black Magician Trilogy and Age of the Five trilogy.

Little Brown hold the rights for the The Magician's Apprentice and the Traitor Spy Trilogy.

Hunting around the internet, I sighted (based on the cover art) editions of all of my books from all territories, so it looks like the publishers have their act together, when it comes to producing them. However, when I hunted around the retailers' sites, things got a bit odd.

I started with Amazon.com. If you search under 'books' and my name, you'll find Kindle editions using the HarperCollins US cover of my first two trilogies, but when you click on them you get the HarperCollins Australia covers. (Buyers may want to note: The Novice doesn't come up as an eBook under this search string, but if you search under 'Kindle Store' and my name it does appear.)

However, only the second book of the Age of the Five trilogy, Last of the Wilds is available. Not the first. Not the last.

On the Amazon.co.uk site different searches produce different eBook covers as well. If you search in the 'Kindle Store' you get only the UK versions. Search under 'books' and you can find the US covers, but when you select Kindle Edition it switches to the UK cover. Thankfully all of my books appear to be available (though only to UK customers, I assume).

Apple's iBookstore only has Last of the Wilds and The Ambassador's Mission. Kobo only has Priestess of the White and Last of the Wilds.

I have no idea why these big retailers don't stock all of my books.

Most frustrating of all to me, as a customer, is that none of these sites indicate if any of the books are available to Australian customers, and I don't want to have to sign up to Amazon or Kobo and attempt to buy my own book to find out. Territorial rights issues are not going to go away, so retailers really ought to be giving customers this information so they aren't completely put off by the eBook buying experience.

A great example of this is a US based site called eBooks.com, that does stock all of my books. Each book entry has a "For copyright reasons, this ebook is only available to customers in this list of countries" link so you can check if it's available. However, it lists The Magician's Apprentice and The Ambassador's Mission as available only in the United States, which is odd because those eBooks are produced by Orbit and had a worldwide release so there should be no territorial issues. I'd assumed this was because the site had a general policy of only selling within the US, but to my amusement I found that you can buy all of my other books from huge list of countries outside the US. You can buy my books if you order from Afganistan, Haiti, Bangladesh, China and Somalia, but not Australia. Still, it's nice to know people in these countries can order my books as eBooks if they'd like to.

To research availability for Australian version of my eBooks, I tried a few local online stores (Angus & Roberston, Borders) and was disappointed to see how few of my books were available. I found only two books from my second trilogy on one site, and one on the other. I expected they'd at least have The Magician's Apprentice and The Ambassador's Mission (no territorial issues, blah blah).

So, while I started with one set of questions, I now have a whole new set of questions:

Can customers in Australia buy eBook version of my books from Amazon.com, iBookstore and Kobo? Has anybody managed to? Let me know!

Why aren't Australian online stores stocking the eBooks of my books?

Why isn't the full set of Age of the Five available on Amazon.com, when it is on at least one other US based eBook site?

I will try to find out the answer to these questions, but what I can tell you, if you're having trouble getting hold of my books as eBooks, is that they should be available. I don't know why retailers aren't listing all of my books, but hey, if customers start demanding a product a seller is crazy to not do something about stocking it, right? If you want it, ask for it.

Ten Books of 2010

There has been quite a rash of best books of 2010 out on the interwebs so naturally I considered doing one myself. However, when I wrote down the books I'd read in 2010 there were only ten of them.

I don't read particularly fast these days. I used to read a minimum of a book a week. The first thing to slow me down was starting a home-based business way back in '95. Without a train journey to work and back each day, I didn't have a set amount of time for reading. Then I started having problems with my upper back and neck, and found I couldn't read sitting up for more than half an hour without ending up in pain. I resolved that by reading lying down, but then in the early 00s I starting having chronic fatigue, and that meant if I lay down to read I'd fall asleep within a few minutes, so for a few years there I wasn't able to read anything.

But the fatigue eased and a wonderful little invention called The Book Seat enabled me to read sitting up again. The scary thing is, I'd got out of the habit of reading. Also, I find that by the end of a day of writing I don't always want to look at more words. It takes a really good book to hold my attention.

Which means that all of the ten books I read last year were really good books. So here's the list:

In Defence of Food by Michael Pollan

I was looking for a book on health fads and found this. It's about far more than health fads, and is full of sensible advice on eating well, fascinating and appalling historical information, and presented the first argument for eating organic food that I found convincing. I made some simple changes to our diet (mostly reducing carbs and increasing vegetables) and feel much better for it.

Outliers and Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

A friend recommended the first book, which I really enjoyed. I have a suspicion that something like the outlier situations described happened in Australia with fantasy writers in the 90s and 00s. Lots of us emerged onto the world stage at the same time. I'm not sure what the catalyst was. Possibly because there was a nearly non-existant market locally before then, making it very difficult to get published overseas.

The Secret Ones by Nicole Murphy

I so love it when a hard working, lovely person that I know succeeds in something they love. There's always a little trepidation when that think is writing books, because, well, what if I don't like it? Thankfully I loved this book. It's a fun, sexy fantasy/paranormal romance and I can't want to read the following two books.

Nylon Angel by Marianne de Pierres

A book that I'd been meaning to try for many years, and now I'm wondering why I waited so long. Pacy science fiction with a kick-ass female lead.

Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner

Since I don't read much these days, I tend to read more local than overseas books because I know the authors and want to support them. Having met Ellen at Aussiecon4, and had her books recommended by people at my kaffeeklatsch, I bought a copy and read it soon after the con. It's a wonderful book, both soulful and swashbuckling.

The One Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin

I confess, I had this one for a long time before I read it, as it was sent to me by my publisher. I started it to see if I'd like it, and became utterly captivated. The following book, The Broken Kingdoms, firmly perched in my book seat ready to read, but I must admit to being a little scared to start until I have nothing on my plate that will suffer if I neglect it for a few days.

Solace and Grief and The Key to Starveldt by Foz Meadows

Having met and been impressed with Foz at a party, I picked up her book and discovered a new local writer with oodles of talent. Best part of this: I got to read the second book in the series before it was published (due this year some time). Now I can't wait for book three.

The Undivided by Jennifer Fallon

At risk of sounding like I'm showing off, I also got to read the first book in Jenny's new series, and oh boy do fans (and new readers) of her books have a treat in store. Release date is the 1st of Feb I think.

If you're interested in buying these books, most should be available in all english language territories, but some may be local (Australasian) titles only. You could wait and hope that a publisher outside of Australia releases the book, or you can order it from an Australian bookstore. (Just type "Australian science fiction and fantasy bookstore" and you'll find plenty of them.)

Plans for 2011

I've noticed that a few other authors are posting about their plans for 2011 and I thought 'I can do that!'. So here's what I should/hope to be doing:

Authory Stuff:

Writing The Traitor Queen, book three of the Traitor Spy Trilogy (sequel to the Black Magician Trilogy for those who are new to my books)

Going on tour in the UK, Ireland, France, Germany and Poland (to coincide with The Rogue going on sale on the 5th May)

Finishing, polishing and editing The Traitor Queen

Bringing together ideas, writing a proposal for and selling the next series

Writing more short stories

Non-authory Stuff:

Honing my drawing/painting skills

Continuing making things and learning new skills

Reading more (or listen to audio books when my back is too stuffed for reading)

Walking more

Spending less time sitting at the computer making my back worse

Hmm. In general 2011 is going to be mostly about work and writing. I must try to squeeze in a few breaks here and there, but that's never easy when there are deadlines and publicity work to tackle!

Happy New Year!

May 2011 bring you happiness, success and lots of good books to read!

I'm on holidays at the moment, and in order to have a proper break I'm restricting my internet usage. But I'll be back in work mode on Monday.

'Avagoodweekend!