Alan Baxter's Blog, page 139

The Life Counted In Pages Meme

I picked this up over at the Literary Escapism blog. As things have been so quiet here at The Word lately, I thought it might be an interesting interlude until I get my life back. (For those that don’t know, my wife and I recently celebrated ten years of marriage with a big party that was essentially the wedding we never had ten years ago. There are lots of overseas and interstate visitors and the party looks like continuing for another week or so yet!)

So this is The Life Counted In Pages Meme,

Friday Guest Blog - Marketing yourself by David B Coe

For today’s guest blog I’m very happy to present my good friend David B Coe. David is a trad published author (through Tor) and shares here his thoughts about marketing a novel, however it’s published.

Hi. I’m David B. Coe, an American fantasy author. I’ve published ten novels, including the LonTobyn Chronicle (a trilogy), Winds of the Forelands (five books), and Blood of the Southlands (another planned trilogy — the first two are out). My most recent book, which came out in January, is called

MageSign reviewed at Horrorscope

Check out the latest review for MageSign posted at Horrorscope - The Australian Dark Fiction Web Log. If you remember, they reviewed RealmShift a couple of weeks ago.

It’s a good review, very thorough and honest. The best thing is that the reviewer decided that MageSign was an improvement on RealmShift and gave it 4 out of 5, which is always satisfying. If I can improve my craft with every book I write, I’ll be very happy.

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The Top 50 Australian blogs on writing

I had a very pleasant surprise this morning. Jonathan Crossfield contacted me on Twitter to let me know about a post on his blog listing the top 50 Australian blogs on writing. I thought that sounded like a pretty useful resource. Imagine my surprise to discover that this little corner of the interwebs that I call my own came in at number 9.

As Jonathan says, “Many people have recommended blogs to me for inclusion on the list over the last two weeks and not all of them were included. Sometimes, t

Short story published at Antipodean SF

Antipodean SF is an online speculative fiction magazine that specialises in flash fiction. Short, sharp, clever pieces of fiction that never exceed 500 words. From the website:

AntipodeanSF ‘online’ exists to let the world know that there is such a beast as an Australian (i.e. antipodean) science/speculative-fiction writer… In a nutshell, AntipodeanSF wants to bring the ‘other’ briefly, and sometimes horribly, into view (as most good SF does).

It’s a great publication and I’ve been trying to get s

I’ve been to cheese country

Sorry things have been a bit quiet around here lately. I won’t bore you with the details, but things have been bloody hectic for the wife and I lately, and they’re only going to get more pandemonic (it’s a word now, if I say so). We decided to run away for a week and went off to a little cabin, 12km down a dirt track in the middle of nowhere. Just me, Halinka and Penry the dog. Bloody marvellous.

Anyway, that’s why I haven’t been posting much. I did see this that I thought I’d share with you. We

RealmShift reviewed at Horrorscope

Check out the latest review for RealmShift posted at Horrorscope - The Australian Dark Fiction Web Blog.

Overall a pretty good review - very thorough, well thought out and largely positive. That’s pretty much the best we can hope for in a review.

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Metal As Fuck - the world’s most obliterating metal zine

Some of you may be aware of my broad and ecclectic taste in music, others may not. However, one of the things that I’ve always had a passion for is powerful, ball tearing, throat ripping heavy metal. I’m also a massive fan of all sorts of other genres and I think that Pink Floyd are the greatest band that’s ever been. But metal has always been something that moves me. I like the music I listen to to be emotive and powerful. Power can come from the quietest space between two perfect notes or from