Barbara G. Tarn's Blog, page 136
March 2, 2014
Happiness is…
oh, boy, my first POD! I still have a few copies left – collector’s items! 
I’ll have them at Loncon, if anyone makes it there… It will be available at 10£ including a coupon for a free download of the e-book – revised version!
Sunday Surprise
… and it’s “read an e-book week” on Smashwords! Everything 50% off for the rest of the week, which means some titles have gone FREEEE! Limited time offer – only until the 8th!
Find Unicorn Productions special offer here.
Adult unconventional fantasy (Silvery Earth)
Science fantasy (Star Minds)
B.G. Hope (contemporary fiction)
and if you’re bilingual… Italian titles for you! 
Including Star Minds…
p.s. This month I’m very chatty on the Happiness Is… vignette… I seem to have a comment for each! 
It’s not really on sale (it’s not really an e-book, since it has no reflowing text), but you can find all the drawn happinesses in “15 years of creative barbwire” on Amazon and DriveThruComics. Three out of five of this month’s vignettes are not in it, though.
February 28, 2014
Random Friday
Final batch of Bollywood movies, so you won’t hear anything else for a few months, LOL! The list is still huge, but I don’t plan on buying anything until I go to London in August, so… I might review movies from other places for a change! 
Houseful 1 and Housefull 2 are both comedies, Bollywood-style. With a group of people, misunderstandings, some slapstick, and lots of songs. Both soundtracks are great. If you just want to have fun, try them.
Cocktail is a little more melodramatic – got a little tear out of me at the end. The two heroines are both wonderful (and beautiful), but Saif Ali Khan is not my type! But Deepika is always very good…
Dil Bole Hadippa!… well, not really my kinda movie (dunno shit about cricket and don’t like sports movies in general), but Rani Mukerji is deliriously funny in the double part of Veer and Veera (not to mention that my first Bollywood movie was KANK, so I’m very fond of Rani and Preity Zinta for that reason, LOL). And I don’t care if Shahid Kapoor is not a megastar, he’s cute, and I like watching him!
BTW, avoid this last movie, unless you speak Hindi. The subtitles are either non-existent or unreadable… another production done with Google Translator, probably! It even has Italian subtitles, but I don’t dare checking them (after seeing the mess they did on Umrao Jaan with Aishwarya Rai that I tried to show to Cristina – who, by the way, had a taste of Krrish3, with instant traslation by yours truly, and really enjoyed it! :D).
Not bothered to go to IMDB to get the links, sorry. This will go live in less than an hour and I’m at DayJob, so… And I’ll spare you my rant on Bollywood beaus… Have a wonderful weekend!
February 26, 2014
Writer Wednesday
And it’s out! A collection of my doodles or comics or vignettes or whatever you want to call them! Since it’s a big fat file full of JPGs, it’s out only on Amazon and DriveThruComics. The POD version will come out later this year with DTC (when I manage to finish SKYBAND and do the third and last Omnibus).
My Italian friends are already claiming the Italian version… I don’t know when I’ll have time to translate everything, though. I haven’t even finished lettering Fleur de Lys (I sold one copy of each on Amazon UK)… I mean, I kinda like the fact that I’m selling something in my mother tongue, but I still prefer writing in English, especially comics and fantasy!
Anyway, I hope to finish translating the Snippets next week at the latest, so I can go back to The Hooded Man and then send it off to Writers of the Future. Then I’ll have to write some Amazon stories if I want to issue something new in English this summer! I will also write More Tales of the Southern Kingdoms before the end of the year, as well as Star Minds The Next Generation.
As for B.G.Hope… we’ll see. Still mulling over the last body switch. Flash of scenes but not much else, so I’m not ready to write it, yet. Not in a hurry – if I can’t find a storyline, I’ll translate some M/M romance just to have something out under my other pen-name. But since it’s Loncon year, I’d rather concentrate on my main pen-name, for when I’ll meet my fans, LOL!
Now, the writerly links! Wow, David Farland is no longer cautiously optimistic about the future of publishing! He’s finally excited by all the new opportunities for writers – something that wouldn’t have happened in the 20th century, when I started writing! So lucky you starting off today, just go for it!
You could start with IndieReCon – already in progress at this time, but it’s still on until tomorrow. Then hop off and sign up for an online workshop with Dean Wesley Smith. And don’t forget to follow Kris Rusch’s Thursday business posts, the latest being on social media. Now you know why I don’t feel the need to go on Twitter – not my target audience anyway, haha!
More: Joe Konrath vs James Patterson. And Mark Coker’s comments on Hugh Howey’s initiative. If you’re indie published, don’t forget to take the survey at authorsearning.com. And then help other writers, at whichever point of your career you are. I don’t do reviews anymore, but if I read something terrific, I will mention it, or interview the author or have him/her over – nobody can market your book like yourself!
And by the way, Smashwords authors have published 10billion words – and I’m one of them! From January 2011 to February 2014 I’ve published 68 titles, approx. 2006200 words (two-million-and-change, sorry, can’t write the numbers the American way, LOL), so 0,02% of the grand total – and that’s not counting the comics, only a couple of which are on Smashwords, most of them are on DriveThruComics.
Since we’re playing with numbers: 18 titles are under 10K; 24 are 10-30K (novellas); 22 are 30-90K (novels) and only 2 are over 100K, it’s the Star Minds trilogy or complete series in both Italian and English (the single books are 50K+30K+30K approx.)! So you know my average/favorite length is somewhere between 10k and 80k – not too short, but not too long either!
Now I better go back to work… sort of, since I’m at DayJob at this time… probably like this…
Have a great week!
February 23, 2014
Sunday Surprise
And since I don’t have anything new to say, some writers’ wisdom for you. Have a great Sunday!
So let’s stop listing “to be published by National” as our goal. Let’s go back to the stories and the characters that drew us into this genre in the first place, to that mad rush and flow of creativity that has nothing to do with contracts and sell-throughs and bestseller lists. Let’s be the writers we’re dying (and living) to be, not the writers somebody else thinks we should be. Let’s stop looking for the bicycle and concentrate on the swim; let’s resist the institution because we’re not ready to be locked up.
The product is the story. Not the book, not the eBook, not the audio book. The Story.
The consumer is the reader. Not the bookstores, the platform, the distributor, the sales force. The Reader.
Authors produce story. Readers consume story. If anyone is in the path between Author and Reader they must add value to that connection.
The world doesn’t know, or care, about the problems in the publishing industry. The average reader doesn’t care about the DOJ suit, or the AAR and Authors Guild selling us out, or Harlequin screwing writers, or authors behaving badly.
They simply want good books to read.
Those books won’t get written if we’re all on Twitter 24/7 condemning on another, or blogging incessantly, or spending all of our time pouring over Amazon reviews trying to uncover which are legit and which aren’t (seriously, how fucking pathetic is that?)
Now I’m going to unplug for a bit and get some writing done. Which is what we all should be doing.
- Joe Konrath
“I always tell wannabe writers not to read too much in the field where they work. Obviously you need to keep in touch, but a deep knowledge of the Old West or world history stands you in better stead than a shelf of other people’s fantasy books. Import, don’t recycle. That’s actually wisdom, that is.”
– Terry Pratchett, author of the Discworld books, in an interview at www.scifi.com
I don’t think serious writers have any business internalizing the slogans and generalizations of industry. To me it is entirely destructive to their work. It can only result in the censorship of the imagination – because something does not fit easily within a genre, or will be too complex for the imagined audience, etc. It is precisely in the moments when one is surprised by one’s own writing, or fearful of its implications, that one reaches into spaces that are interesting and enduring.
- Rana Dasgupta, author of Tokyo Cancelled, on putting books into boxes
February 21, 2014
Random Friday
It almost escaped me, I’ve even done a Facebook event for the Italian PODs, but the offer is valid on all of Lulu. So, if you want to buy a dead-tree book:
SHIPPING
Free Mail ShippingFor 5 days only, get free mail shipping (or 50% off ground shipping).
Offer ends Feb 21, 2014 11:59 PM.Use Code: KINDNESS14
The offer expires today. Here’s what you can find (including calendars) on my Lulu page. If you really really hate e-books, go grab the printed version – free mail shipping for a few more hours! The offer is NOT valid on CreateSpace, of course…
Now, this is a sort of Art Friday, so I’ll start with the doodle.
That was two days ago, but whatever. I did it one day late anyway. Poor former Muse!
And then the nice drawing! Only two hours, since it has a very simple background…
Krishna (Krrish – 2006)
Have a great weekend!
February 19, 2014
Writer Wednesday
Nothing new on the writerly front. Still translating – and selling a little the Italian Star Minds. There are less Italian indie authors, so less books to compare with, LOL.
I know I’m a week late, but maybe now the site won’t crash if you take the survey at authorsearnings.com! Read Joe Konrath’s post about it, if you still haven’t heard about this initiative by Hugh Howey, and study the report as well. I took the author survey with my meager earnings, and I’m not ashamed to admit it!
Now, Kris Rusch on blogging as discoverability tool… I’m still pondering if I should grab that bundle even if my TBR pile never goes down and checked the eBookSoda and BookBub requirements, so sometime later this year, I might try them. I’m still blogging because I enjoy it, and I don’t do blog tours just because I can’t be bothered to organize them. I haven’t been invited back everytime I had a guest, but I don’t care. I still go by Dean‘s phylosophy “If it’s not fun, don’t do it” and Scott‘s “WIBBOW” test!
More wisdom from Hugh Howey about self-publishing or indie publishing or whatever you want to call it: luck and lottery. And it’s not a gold rush and e-books are forever (like Joe Konrath likes to repeat) and so on and so forth. This is from a happy indie who can’t quit her day job yet, but is still here, still blogging, still publishing and mostly still having fun.
That’s all for this week… whenever I get back to writing in English, should I post some short fiction or extracts on the blog as well? Yes? No? Liking the post won’t help… write a comment, thank you!
February 16, 2014
Happiness is…
still using it today!
Sunday Surprise
Gentle reminder: 25% off Male Lovers of Silvery Earth only on DriveThruFiction starting Friday 2/14 and running through Monday 2/17. Since it’s an adult title, you probably need to be logged in to see it.
BLURB
5 stories of male lovers throughout the history of Silvery Earth.
Collection of the novellas “The Death of Queen Amazonia” (1300s), “Saif’s Legacy” (1600s) and “Allan de Sayek” (1700s) and the short story “The Lords of War” (from Tales of the Southern Kingdoms vol.2 – 1500s).
New story: “The Young King”, the first of “More Tales of the Southern Kingdoms” (1400s)
“The Death of Queen Amazonia”
Being a man in the Queendom of Maadre is tough, especially with the founding Queen, Amazonia.
When Smeraldo is called to the Queen’s bed, he doesn’t expect the cruelty awaiting him. Only a foreign merchant can help him to recover from the shock.
But Amazonia, who is almost two-hundred years old, is relentless.
“The young king”
A mighty warrior kills his own general to save the gorgeous young king, and then struggles to keep control over his emotions.
“The Lords of War”
Foreign men, foreign culture; the continued destruction of Akkora. Not a love story.
“Saif’s legacy”
The southern kingdoms are no more, but the Assassins’ Guild is still there – honorable men who would never hurt women or children. Saif has been living as a woodcutter for fifteen years, but on his deathbed he calls for his former apprentice, Kilig. Saif’s legacy – his son Hakeem – will avenge him, and possibly mend Kilig’s broken heart.
“Allan de Sayek”
A forbidden love. A marriage of interest. A second chance.
An endless love only death can end.
