Jim C. Hines's Blog, page 221

Book Contract Overview

Quick note -- I tweaked the font on those three icons from yesterday. Updated versions are now posted, if anyone wants to snag the new copies.

So I'm sitting here signing the contracts for Secret of the Snow Queen (or whatever it will eventually be called), and I figured some of you might be curious what a book contract actually covers. I'll stick it behind a cut tag out of consideration for the rest of you who could care less :-)

I'm not going to go word for word, but we're looking at three cop

Friday Miscellany

1. For fun, I've been creating character LJ icons for my trio. Right now I'm using Pirates of the Carribean quotes, because they seemed to fit. I may post other quotes, or would it be better to just post the blanks and let folks apply their own text? Talia's is my favorite. Snow's bugs me a little because of the objectification factor, but it also sounds very much like something she'd say, so I chose to leave it. What do you think?

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Please help yourself to any or all. (Though if you do,

Cover Art Goodness

Guess what I just got permission to share!



There may be a few more small tweaks to the cover, but this is 99% final. Can I just say again that Scott Fischer rocks?

I love this one even more than the artwork from Stepsister. Snow is probably my favorite. I wrote that hat in part because I really just wanted to see her wearing it on the cover :-) As with the first book, there are so many great details. Talia's knife, the scabbard for Danielle's sword, Snow's choker and necklace, Danielle's shor

Anger

Iin one of the many comment threads over the weekend, someone asked me to elaborate on my thoughts about anger. Mostly, this goes back to my time as an undergrad, mumble years ago. I went through a two-weekend, 60-hour training program so I could volunteer at a local crisis center. Then another 30 hours of sexual assault counseling training, and then 30 more to get trained as a trainer, after which I led more 30-hour and 60-hour programs, because I was just that masochistic. The training was

Passing Along a Request

Each year around Christmas, I've done a book drive for a local domestic violence shelter. This led to a note I received yesterday from someone here on LJ. She has enough Paperback Swap credits for about 10 books, and wanted to donate them to a women's shelter or family shelter.

I don't believe the shelter I've been donating to has a Paperback Swap account, but I wanted to check and see whether anyone else knew of a good cause that might be able to take advantage of such a kind offer. Thanks!

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Somewhere in here was a valuable conversation...

Can someone please tell me what Racefail 2009 is really about?

I mean, I've read some of the posts, as well as pats_quinade's wonderfully biting write-up. I saw Elizabeth Bear's original response to a critique of her work, which I think was one of the starting points to this whole thing, and I very much respect the way she tried to handle it. I've seen the discussions spread from there, but it seems like it's transformed from a discussion of writing and race into a hatefest of personalities.

I h

LJ Forecast Calls for Light and Scattered Jim

Online presence will be light this week. My cousin-in-law is staying with us, and I've got another friend in from Ohio that I'll be catching up with. Add the ongoing work stress (currently locked into Ludicrous Speed), and I just don't have much left.

One quick update, though. Some of you might remember a while back, when I posted the map I had sketched out for The Mermaid's Madness [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy]. Apparently the production designer looked at my black and white PDF and said it w

Kindle Text to Speech

peachtess asked what I thought about the Kindle2 Text to Speech drama. In brief, Amazon's Kindle 2 includes the ability to read a document out loud. The Authors Guild states that this falls under audio rights, and is therefore s a contractual violation, since audio rights are separate from electronic (e-book) rights. Amazon has since backed down.

I don't see this as a simple black and white matter where one side is right and the other is wrong. Authors struggle to hold on to rights; for those

Blog Experiment Proposal

I remember hearing about a psychology "experiment" wherein a college class conditioned their professor to stand on a certain side of the stage.

It's fairly straightforward behaviorism. When the professor stands to one side, the class is responsive. When he moves away, responses die down. Simple conditioning, working in small increments. As long as you're not too blatant about it, the subject never even notices.

How long do you think it would take a determined group of blog readers to shift a b

Quick Poll for my Own Curiosity

View Poll: #1357082
Also, yesterday brought the Amazon Associates gift certificate for the Christmas holidays. Thanks as always to folks who click through my Amazon links. You've brought in enough for me to give away two more copies of The Stepsister Scheme [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy]. Look for the giveaways some time next week.

Finally, I realized I hadn't posted any pictures of the new addition. This is Jasmine with one of the toys Amy bought for her. The toy was originally a bunny, but as