Jim C. Hines's Blog, page 214
June 23, 2009
Series vs. Standalones
Why are all the SF/F writers doing series these days? What ever happened to the good old standalone novel?
I can’t give you a thorough answer on that one, but part of it is simple economics. Let’s start by comparing Goblin Quest and Stepsister Scheme, and please forgive me for geeking out with math and graphs. Nothing here is all that complex or life-changing, but I tend to obsess a bit.
In the first six months, Stepsister is kicking goblin butt. This is a good thing. We want every new book t
June 22, 2009
The B Team
Dear Hollywood — what do you think?
Love,
Jim
—–
In 2009 a crack fiction unit was pushed to the backlist for a crime they didn’t commit. These characters promptly escaped from low print runs to the Internet underground. Today, still wanted by fans, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you’re really desperate, maybe you can hire the Blue Team.
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Goblin Quest miniatures are from Garden Ninja studios. Want your own set? Check out their site for
June 19, 2009
Rape Posts & Resources
I’m angry with myself.
Years back, I posted a page on my site with articles I had written about rape, as well as a link to a resources page I put together for a local crisis center. (The crisis center hasn’t updated the page in several years, unfortunately, so those resources are now out of date.)
Anyway, this was right about when my career as a writer started to take off. I revamped the web page to be more businesslike and focused on my writing. I left the resource page posted, but it was no l
June 18, 2009
Updates from Around the Writersphere
A while back, I reviewed Steven Harper’s book Nightmare, the second of his Silent Empire series. The books have been out of print for a while, so Harper is making the first book available for the Kindle as an experiment. You can pick up Dreamers for the low price of $1.79 (significantly cheaper than any of mine 
).
Greg Wilson, a friend of mine, just had his first book come out from Five Star. The Third Sign [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] is fairly classic epic fantasy. As some of you know, Gob
June 17, 2009
Get a Real Job
It’s an interesting paradox. As a writer with four novels in print, one of the most common questions I get is “When are you going to quit your day job?” On the other hand, take a writer who has done just that and runs into financial trouble. One of the first questions they hear is “Why don’t you just get a real job?”
Writing “professionally” is a real job. It’s more work than any day job I’ve had. There’s the actual writing, the rewriting, the communication with editors, agents, and fans, the p
June 15, 2009
Another LOL Book
Since the last one seemed to go over well (and since I spent all of my brain on the short story rewrite this weekend and had nothing left over), how about another LOL Book?
This one is from Spell Games [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy], by T. A. Pratt.
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June 12, 2009
Friday Five
1. After spending all that time working on Red Hood’s Revenge, it’s amazing how quickly the short fiction goes. One week from short story seed to finished first draft? I could get used to this! Now to go back and make the whole thing coherent and cohesive. (Right now it’s 3700 words of themeless mess, but that’s okay. It’ll get better.)
2. A lot of you have already seen this, but author Cat Valente is writing a book-in-a-book as a way to help get through some tough financial times. Cat’s a
June 11, 2009
Screw You, Death Clock! Signed, Fat Jim
So I was killing time, following a link from Michael Brotherton to the Death Clock, which supposedly predicts how much time you have left. Apparently I’m going to die in 2048. (At my current rate, this means I should be able to churn out about between 30 and 40 more books. Yay!)
Anyway, I know this is just as reliable as any other online quiz, but what stuck with me was the basis for the prediction:
1) I don’t smoke.
2) I’m 5′7″ and 161 lbs.
This, along with my gender and birth date, is the total
June 10, 2009
Drive-by LOL Book
As some of you know, I used to post regular LOL Books. Sadly, I eventually chose to stop doing them because it was taking too much time, and it was becoming work rather than fun.
However, as I was browsing Amazon yesterday, I came across a book just crying out for a LOL…
(The book is Pride and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy], for anyone who might have missed the buzz.)
June 9, 2009
Oakbottom’s Revenge
Trees. Lurking in gangs, watching in silence.
Trees! Their resentment simmering after millenia of abuse, remembering every log cabin, every paper factory, every sawmill, and every indignity left by your dog.
Trees … fanning the coals of their hatred. Luring us into complacence, until they STRIKE! Suddenly and without warning. Sacrificing themselves in true kamikaze spirit.
It’s my own fault. As a paperback writer, I should have realized I had a special place on their enemies list. How many o
