A.G. Carpenter's Blog, page 4
March 29, 2016
Galaktika Piracy : Original Article
The article is in Hungarian, written by Pinter Bence and can be found at sci-fi.mandiner.hu
The summary in English states: "We started our investigation about Galaktika magazine upon coming across a warning about them on Doug Smith's website. Having reviewed each volume of last year's Galaktika, we found that the majority of the foreign stories were pirated from online portals such as Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, Tor.com, or Popular Science; and from certain anthologies (Years B...
The summary in English states: "We started our investigation about Galaktika magazine upon coming across a warning about them on Doug Smith's website. Having reviewed each volume of last year's Galaktika, we found that the majority of the foreign stories were pirated from online portals such as Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, Tor.com, or Popular Science; and from certain anthologies (Years B...
Galaktika Piracy
A few days ago Sean Wallace posted a link to an article that revealed Galaktika - a Hungarian magazine publishing primarily SF/F - had been pirating work. At this point it seems the extent of the piracy is undetermined. (It's been confirmed that some stories in past years were pirated, but it is not certain if all of them were.) It does appear that almost every story published in 2015 was done so without the authors or editors permission.
Frequent targets were pro-paying magazines (Asimov's, S...
Frequent targets were pro-paying magazines (Asimov's, S...
March 15, 2016
Steampunk Expo & Gothic Con Schedule
Just one month left 'til the 2016 Steampunk Expo & Gothic Con.
Below is my schedule for the event. (Subject to change, but I'll be sure to post any updates as necessary.)
Saturday (April 16th)
2 PM - Is it steamy enough? Writing Steampunk: When writing, what elements, tropes, or styles are necessary to make a story Steampunk? Do you really need airships and corsets?
4 PM - Ladies writing Steampunk: Our ladies of steampunk discuss what they love best about writing, the struggles of women...
Below is my schedule for the event. (Subject to change, but I'll be sure to post any updates as necessary.)
Saturday (April 16th)
2 PM - Is it steamy enough? Writing Steampunk: When writing, what elements, tropes, or styles are necessary to make a story Steampunk? Do you really need airships and corsets?
4 PM - Ladies writing Steampunk: Our ladies of steampunk discuss what they love best about writing, the struggles of women...
March 4, 2016
Nostalgia and New Blood
It's interesting, sometimes, being a fan of SF/F/H, but not being especially connected to a particular fandom. Among other things, it allows me to have a different perspective on things that are being remade, rebooted, or transferred from one medium to another. It means that I can usually approach those works from a place of "What story are they telling this time?" and less of a place of "OMG! They are so gonna fuck this up."
I dunno. Maybe this is where eight years of classical piano studies...
I dunno. Maybe this is where eight years of classical piano studies...
March 2, 2016
This Girl Needs to Get Paid: Or Why I Sell My (Self-published) Books Through Gumroad and Not Amazon
A few weeks ago I put my short story collection (The Weather's Always Fine in Paradise) up for pre-order on Gumroad. Another writer friend contacted me and said "I saw that you have a new book coming out, but when I looked for it on Amazon, I couldn't find it."
I told him I prefer to distribute my self-published* work through Gumroad because I get paid considerably more per sale that way. (If you aren't familiar with Amazon's rates they take 30% of the money and give you 70%. Unless you are se...
I told him I prefer to distribute my self-published* work through Gumroad because I get paid considerably more per sale that way. (If you aren't familiar with Amazon's rates they take 30% of the money and give you 70%. Unless you are se...
February 14, 2016
ConNooga 2016 - Schedule
Next weekend (February 19-21) I will be down at ConNooga. In addition to selling copies of The Weather's Always Fine in Paradise in the Dealer's Room, I will also be participating in five panels throughout the weekend.
Friday
3:00 PM Lost in Spice - Dune panel
5:00 PM Creating 3 Dimensional Characters
Saturday
6:00 PM Intro to Fantasy
7:00 PM Writing Openings that Hook Your Reader
9:00 PM Writing: Building Tension in Scenes and Stories
Feel free to stop by and say hi!
Friday
3:00 PM Lost in Spice - Dune panel
5:00 PM Creating 3 Dimensional Characters
Saturday
6:00 PM Intro to Fantasy
7:00 PM Writing Openings that Hook Your Reader
9:00 PM Writing: Building Tension in Scenes and Stories
Feel free to stop by and say hi!
February 11, 2016
FORTHCOMING! - The Weather's Always Fine in Paradise
Coming on February 16th!
"Eleven stories about love, survival, and the depths of the human heart. Eleven worlds – some remarkably similar to our own, some dramatically different.From the clammy dungeons and mysterious rooftops in The Spider Thief and the Sorcerer to the muddy, voodoo protected shores of Lake Ponchartrain in Legacy to the highrise slums of Venus in The Weather's Always Fine in Paradise, this collection of short stories will take you out of the everyday world and into the r...
December 26, 2015
Angst on Toast (AKA 2015 in Review)
At the beginning of 2015 I set myself a single writing goal: Write a Better Book.
The year started off pretty well. I was working on the Southern Gothic/Horror project and cranked out a solid novella in a couple of months. It was weird and a little different from what I'd written before. And it felt... better. I read the prologue and the opening chapter at one of the local conventions and got a very enthusiastic response. It felt strong. It had touched on better narrative skills than some of m...
The year started off pretty well. I was working on the Southern Gothic/Horror project and cranked out a solid novella in a couple of months. It was weird and a little different from what I'd written before. And it felt... better. I read the prologue and the opening chapter at one of the local conventions and got a very enthusiastic response. It felt strong. It had touched on better narrative skills than some of m...
October 30, 2015
The Failed Query
I've talked about the query I wrote that resulted in an offer of representation from Bob Mecoy. But what I haven't talked about in detail is the query I tried to write before that which was not as successful.
There were a number of reasons the first query was terrible. First of all, I spent a lot of time looking at other queries. That isn't a bad thing, but not every book requires the same kind of query and there are certain phrases that tend to be particular to various genres, phrases that ar...
There were a number of reasons the first query was terrible. First of all, I spent a lot of time looking at other queries. That isn't a bad thing, but not every book requires the same kind of query and there are certain phrases that tend to be particular to various genres, phrases that ar...
October 13, 2015
The 7/7/7/7 Challenge
Maggie Maxwell tagged me for another Share Your Work blog challenge.
In short, you go to the seventh page of a WiP, count down to the seventh line and then share the following seven lines with your readers. And then you tag seven more people. (I'm still working on the last bit. If you would like to be tagged, let me know.)
From my post-apocalyptic, Steampunk novel-in-progress, Survivor: [Izzy is an airship captain. She and her first mate, Kiirahk - a female gorilla, are checking out the remains...
In short, you go to the seventh page of a WiP, count down to the seventh line and then share the following seven lines with your readers. And then you tag seven more people. (I'm still working on the last bit. If you would like to be tagged, let me know.)
From my post-apocalyptic, Steampunk novel-in-progress, Survivor: [Izzy is an airship captain. She and her first mate, Kiirahk - a female gorilla, are checking out the remains...
