Jules Jones's Blog, page 23
March 4, 2015
Goodreads star update
Birdsedge contacted Goodreads about the stars problem. It is a known glitch and has been fixed for now. More info at http://birdsedge.livejournal.com/297821.html
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March 3, 2015
no stars on a Goodread reviews is treated as...
..a zero star review.
birdsedge
points out that if you don't put a star rating on a Goodreads review, Goodreads treats that as a zero star review when calculating the star average for the book, i.e. as low a rating as you can give, and not as an abstention.
Amongst other things, this means that if you don't give a star rating because as an author you feel uncomfortable doing that to other authors, or (as I sometimes do) because it was a book you didn't like but recognise as this being you and not the book, what you're inadvertently doing is rating the book as even lower than 1 star, even if you thought the book was worth 4 or 5 stars. On a book with few reviews, that can significantly affect the average rating.
Mirror of http://julesjones.dreamwidth.org/289433.html, where it has received
comments.
birdsedge
points out that if you don't put a star rating on a Goodreads review, Goodreads treats that as a zero star review when calculating the star average for the book, i.e. as low a rating as you can give, and not as an abstention.Amongst other things, this means that if you don't give a star rating because as an author you feel uncomfortable doing that to other authors, or (as I sometimes do) because it was a book you didn't like but recognise as this being you and not the book, what you're inadvertently doing is rating the book as even lower than 1 star, even if you thought the book was worth 4 or 5 stars. On a book with few reviews, that can significantly affect the average rating.
Mirror of http://julesjones.dreamwidth.org/289433.html, where it has received
comments.
February 28, 2015
Leonard Nimoy 1931-2015
The actor is not the character, but both were good people. Nichelle Nichols talked in her autobiography of Nimoy's role in fighting the studio's attempts to force a black actress out of the cast. He wrote an open letter of support to a mixed race teenager who had found the mixed race character of Spock a lifeline. There are other tales of how he tried to leave the world a better place than he found it. And he inspired so many young scientists and engineers, both in character and out.
He was 83, and while it will never be enough, I celebrate his life as well as mourn its ending. Nimoy lived long and prospered, and while he may be gone now, the character he gave us will live on.
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He was 83, and while it will never be enough, I celebrate his life as well as mourn its ending. Nimoy lived long and prospered, and while he may be gone now, the character he gave us will live on.
Mirror of http://julesjones.dreamwidth.org/289227.html, where it has received
comments.
February 22, 2015
submissions season
I've been busy this weekend. The story at Musa isn't offically reverted until the 28th, but I sent it off to an editor friend on Friday night, followed by the reversion letter once I had my mitts on it on Saturday morning. Since it's a reprint this will probably come to naught, but I'm not going to have the time or energy to do anything about self-publishing it for some months, and it may come in useful if she needs a short at short notice.
I then spent some considerable time wrestling with Word 2013, which is the iteration installed on my new computer. It isn't much like Word 2010, which is the version I occasionally reluctantly prodded with a stick on the old machine, and is utterly unlike the Word 2003 I am obliged to use at work, let alone my dearly beloved Lotus Word Pro. I think I could eventually get used to it, but it was a somewhat traumatic experience getting the other two items for submission into a modern file format. Auto-format did some decidedly odd things to the novella file I'd exported from Word Pro to Word 2003 file format. Importing the individual chapter files in .txt format for the novel submission went moderately smoothly once I'd worked out what the file import command was called and where to find it in the shiny new (to me) ribbon.
The novella was the new thing I've been whining about for the last month. It did eventually creep to the 20k mark, but I've still sent it to the market I was eying when I thought it was going to be 17k. Contemporary m/m erotic romance, and oh so hurt/comfort.
The novel... The novel last went out on submission as treeware to a couple of mainstream SF houses. The novel also got an agent's attention prior to that. The agent said he couldn't sell it, but he wanted to see the next thing I wrote. The next thing I wrote was a romance novel. And the next one after that. And... you can see where this is going. The novel has romantic elements, but it is not a romance. Then I got the extended bout of medical issues and stopped writing at all for some years. And in the meantime more small presses have come along, and one of them looks like it might be a good fit. So that went off as well today.
And now I should get back to the novel I was 30k into when I felt the urge to fiddle with the novelette and turn it into a novella...
Mirror of http://julesjones.dreamwidth.org/288901.html, where it has received
comments.
I then spent some considerable time wrestling with Word 2013, which is the iteration installed on my new computer. It isn't much like Word 2010, which is the version I occasionally reluctantly prodded with a stick on the old machine, and is utterly unlike the Word 2003 I am obliged to use at work, let alone my dearly beloved Lotus Word Pro. I think I could eventually get used to it, but it was a somewhat traumatic experience getting the other two items for submission into a modern file format. Auto-format did some decidedly odd things to the novella file I'd exported from Word Pro to Word 2003 file format. Importing the individual chapter files in .txt format for the novel submission went moderately smoothly once I'd worked out what the file import command was called and where to find it in the shiny new (to me) ribbon.
The novella was the new thing I've been whining about for the last month. It did eventually creep to the 20k mark, but I've still sent it to the market I was eying when I thought it was going to be 17k. Contemporary m/m erotic romance, and oh so hurt/comfort.
The novel... The novel last went out on submission as treeware to a couple of mainstream SF houses. The novel also got an agent's attention prior to that. The agent said he couldn't sell it, but he wanted to see the next thing I wrote. The next thing I wrote was a romance novel. And the next one after that. And... you can see where this is going. The novel has romantic elements, but it is not a romance. Then I got the extended bout of medical issues and stopped writing at all for some years. And in the meantime more small presses have come along, and one of them looks like it might be a good fit. So that went off as well today.
And now I should get back to the novel I was 30k into when I felt the urge to fiddle with the novelette and turn it into a novella...
Mirror of http://julesjones.dreamwidth.org/288901.html, where it has received
comments.
February 21, 2015
Musa Publishing closure
Musa Publishing announced yesterday that they were closing shop. The impact for me is minor, as I had only one short story with them, my m/m fantasy short "And if I offered thee a bargain". The Musa edition will be going away on 28 February, but there'll be a new edition at some point.
In the meantime, all Musa titles are 80% off until they shutter the website on 28 February. I am in two minds about this, because it damages the reprint market for authors. But if there were any titles from Musa that caught your eye, go and get them now, because even if they reappear from another publisher, it may be a while.
Mirror of http://julesjones.dreamwidth.org/288546.html, where it has received
comments.
In the meantime, all Musa titles are 80% off until they shutter the website on 28 February. I am in two minds about this, because it damages the reprint market for authors. But if there were any titles from Musa that caught your eye, go and get them now, because even if they reappear from another publisher, it may be a while.
Mirror of http://julesjones.dreamwidth.org/288546.html, where it has received
comments.
website down
My website's down, as is at least one other site on that server. Can't get hold of the webmaster at the moment, so I've no idea when it will be back up. Which is annoying, because I wanted to do some site updates this weekend. :-/
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February 15, 2015
and another revision pass done
The novelette now has a not-sucky title courtesy of Watervole, comments from one of my betas, and more wordage as a result of the comments. It is in fact now a novella, having crept past 20,000 words this evening. Revised draft has gone off to two of the betas for further comments. There may yet be another round of revising, at which point someone else can look forward to it arriving in their inbox in search of a fresh pair of eyes.
Shall reconsider the market list when I think I've got the thing pinned down to a submission draft. But it's not really getting any less vanilla or low-conflict, even if it's getting longer. It's got more lovingly drawn word pictures of cocks, though. (Yes, I've been reading too much Oglaf today.)
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Shall reconsider the market list when I think I've got the thing pinned down to a submission draft. But it's not really getting any less vanilla or low-conflict, even if it's getting longer. It's got more lovingly drawn word pictures of cocks, though. (Yes, I've been reading too much Oglaf today.)
Mirror of http://julesjones.dreamwidth.org/288191.html, where it has received
comments.
February 12, 2015
migraines and markets don't mix
Started putting together a market list. Got some very useful preliminary notes back from beta-reader. Still haven't done anything with them yet because I've had a migraine aura on and off all week. Long hours at the day job are not helping.
Not a *bad* migraine. Just right at the level where it's obvious why I will continue to carry around an e-ink Kobo device to read on the bus even though I have both Kobo and Kindle apps on the TFT smartphone. Off to read a book in non-backlit format...
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Not a *bad* migraine. Just right at the level where it's obvious why I will continue to carry around an e-ink Kobo device to read on the bus even though I have both Kobo and Kindle apps on the TFT smartphone. Off to read a book in non-backlit format...
Mirror of http://julesjones.dreamwidth.org/287751.html, where it has received
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February 8, 2015
and draft done
Finished the revised draft of the novelette late last night. It's now standing at 17598 words, having grown from the original version at 12k, and is definitely better for it. Or at least looks less like the script for a radio play. :-) Of course, I still need to find a decent title for it. I suck at titles. And then I need to go and make a list of places to submit it to.
Contemporary m/m erotic romance, and vanilla, all of which affect the list of potential markets. It's not long enough for Loose Id, and I'm not convinced that another revision pass would take it up to 20k. I do have another market in mind, with a minimum word count of 15k, so I'll try there first. But I'm taking a pragmatic view of its chances there, which is "give the editor a chance to reject it, don't reject yourself by not even submitting". Time to trawl the market listings at ERWA and Absolute Write, so as to be ready to move on to the next in the list.
I need to let it sit for a couple of hours, and then go through for one last check for inconsistencies caused by adding a couple of scenes in the other character's POV. And maybe I'll get a bright idea for those last couple of paragraphs that still look like a radio script. But it will probably be heading in the direction of the beta readers today.
Mirror of http://julesjones.dreamwidth.org/287423.html, where it has received
comments.
Contemporary m/m erotic romance, and vanilla, all of which affect the list of potential markets. It's not long enough for Loose Id, and I'm not convinced that another revision pass would take it up to 20k. I do have another market in mind, with a minimum word count of 15k, so I'll try there first. But I'm taking a pragmatic view of its chances there, which is "give the editor a chance to reject it, don't reject yourself by not even submitting". Time to trawl the market listings at ERWA and Absolute Write, so as to be ready to move on to the next in the list.
I need to let it sit for a couple of hours, and then go through for one last check for inconsistencies caused by adding a couple of scenes in the other character's POV. And maybe I'll get a bright idea for those last couple of paragraphs that still look like a radio script. But it will probably be heading in the direction of the beta readers today.
Mirror of http://julesjones.dreamwidth.org/287423.html, where it has received
comments.
January 25, 2015
con going this year
I'm not going to many, if any, cons this year. Only one of the usual suspects is even possible at the moment.
Redemption - not going, because work and family commitments mean I simply don't have the time or the energy. Which makes me sad, because Redemption is my One True Con.
Eastercon - possibly ditto, but because it's over a bank holiday weekend, it's rather more feasible. There is a twin room booked, to be released or converted to single should self and/or sharer be unable to make it. Current travel plans are to go to con on Friday morning and home again Monday afternoon, should I go. Probably leaving earlier on Monday than I normally would, because I won't be able to take Tuesday as leave in order to recover.
UK Meet - would like to go assuming no family/work commitments, but it's limited ticket and sold out ages ago. I won't know for a while whether it's even practical to put myself on the waitlist.
Which means that as usual, this may be the year I finally get to Novacon, but probably won't be...
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Redemption - not going, because work and family commitments mean I simply don't have the time or the energy. Which makes me sad, because Redemption is my One True Con.
Eastercon - possibly ditto, but because it's over a bank holiday weekend, it's rather more feasible. There is a twin room booked, to be released or converted to single should self and/or sharer be unable to make it. Current travel plans are to go to con on Friday morning and home again Monday afternoon, should I go. Probably leaving earlier on Monday than I normally would, because I won't be able to take Tuesday as leave in order to recover.
UK Meet - would like to go assuming no family/work commitments, but it's limited ticket and sold out ages ago. I won't know for a while whether it's even practical to put myself on the waitlist.
Which means that as usual, this may be the year I finally get to Novacon, but probably won't be...
Mirror of http://julesjones.dreamwidth.org/287023.html, where it has received
comments.
