Laura Montgomery's Blog, page 13

Cover for Mercenary Calling

EXOPLANETS!

TERRORISTS!

LAWYERS….

MERCENARY CALLING is coming soon!  It is undergoing print formatting, but the cover is ready.  Streetlight Graphics did a great job with the cover, and I couldn’t be happier.

There’s a lot involved in getting a new book out into the world.   Fortunately, today’s markets and technology make that so much easier.  First, of course, one must write the book, share it with beta readers, consider and incorporate their comments, and bless them for spotting typos and...

Today’s Post Ran Away from Home

and went visiting at Mad Genius Club.  It’s about topic sentences.  I know, you’re all, like, “Topic sentences!  Wow.  Let me rush over.”

So, go on.

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Sleeping Duty is Now Available in Print!

I am super excited to announce that Sleeping Duty is now available in print.  The book has been available as an ebook for over two years now, but it was still weirdly thrilling to hold a proof copy in my hands.  I’ve been reading books since I was very young, and, although I love my Kindle, I was always holding one of these book-things as my talisman to other worlds before the Kindle came along.  Now one of my books exists in the real world, too.

My next book, Mercenary Calling, should be out...

Making New Worlds Podcast

Wearing my space lawyer hat, I got to be on Erika Nesvold’s Making New Worlds again.  This week she addresses matters of governance with an anthropologist, a historian, and a couple of space lawyers, one of whom is me.   So, go check out Episode 6:  Who’s In Charge.  If you want to keep up with new episodes you can follow the podcast on Twitter or Facebook.

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Lights

My husband and I drove by a house awash in Christmas lights the other night.  It was a corner house, and the yard facing the side street held inflatable Christmas icons.  The corner itself housed behemoth elves that were two stories high.  But the front.  The front had all the action.  Lit arches, knee-high, flowed across the yard as a backdrop to a dozen small Christmas trees.  Sparkling lights hung from the eaves.  The lights ran in a pattern, starting softly with a little twinkling on a tr...

Print, Timing, and Pricing

I’m very excited.  Although I have published four novels and a handful of short stories, I haven’t yet put any of my work into print.  That’s about to change.  As we speak, a proof copy of Sleeping Duty is making its way through the postal system to my waiting hands.

Plenty of other independent writers have said they see fewer than ten percent of their sales come from print, so I’m not doing this for the money (although, yes, I did click the box for receiving royalties.  Of course.)  One reas...

Making New Worlds

I’m very excited to be on Erika Nesvold’s Making New Worlds today.  Science fiction writers are not alone in contemplating what will come next in any new worlds humanity may reach.  The podcast explores the ethics of space settlement, and Erika addresses property rights with a sociologist, a colonial historian, and a space lawyer (that’s me).   So, go check out Episode 3:  Who Owns Mars.  If you want to keep up with new episodes you can follow the podcast on Twitter or Facebook.

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A Densely Packed World

When we write we fill our fictional world with things we know, whether obtained from our own experience or through research.  I know that I get many of my ideas from my day job as a space lawyer.  I was at the Federal Aviation Administration for many years.  Prizes were really big in the space sector–and still are.   SpaceShipOne snagged the ten million dollar prize offered by the Ansari X Prize.  The Google Lunar X Prize offers $30M to the first privately funded team to land a spacecraft on...