Alan Baxter's Blog, page 92

Pentecost by Joanna Penn – review

"When Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead, the Apostles took stone from his tomb as a symbol of their brotherhood.

At Pentecost, the fires of the Holy Spirit empowered the stones and the Apostles performed miracles in God's name throughout the Empire. Forged in the fire and blood of the Christian martyrs, the Pentecost stones were handed down through generations of Keepers who kept their power and locations secret.

Until now.

The Keepers are being murdered, the stones stolen by those who would use them for evil in a world transformed by religious fundamentalism. Oxford University psychologist Morgan Sierra is forced into the search when her sister and niece are held hostage. She is helped by Jake Timber from the mysterious ARKANE, a British government agency specializing in paranormal and religious experience.

From ancient Christian sites in Spain, Italy and Israel to the far reaches of Iran and Tunisia, Morgan and Jake must track down the stones through the myths of the early church in a race against time before a new Pentecost is summoned, this time powered by the fires of evil."

Pentecost by Joanna Penn is a religious thriller and a damn good one. Penn is a non-fiction writer, blogger and public speaker who has turned her hand to fiction and this is her first novel. It's a great achievement. A long time fan of thrillers, you can see Penn's passion for the genre in every part of this book.

Morgan Sierra is a great character – a real female hero without being contrived or cliched. The ARKANE group is a great invention, with a solid history making them very believable. The novel races around the world and Penn's research in location and religious mythology is clear, with every aspect of the plot considered and fleshed out in fine detail. The pace is high, the stakes are higher and very quickly we care about Morgan, her family and whether or not she'll succeed.

This book has elements that will appeal to all thriller fans – there's a bit of Indiana Jones, a bit of Wilbur Smith, a bit of Dan Brown and a lot of Joanna Penn. I was fortunate enough, as a friend of Joanna's, to get a chance to beta-read this book and I have no hesitation in recommending it. It's a rollicking good read and a cut above a lot of stuff out there. Penn tells us there are more Morgan Sierra books on the horizon and I'm glad. If she's started out this strong, I'm excited to see where she goes next.

Joanna will be guest posting here as part of the New Age of Publishing series I'm running, so look out for that, and we'll have a chat with her on the ThrillerCast soon as well.

Pentecost is coming out on February 7th, when you can join in her launch competition and maybe win a Kindle. In the meantime, you can download some chapters in PDF format here.

.

Book trailers – wank or worthwhile?

The title of this post says it all, really. I've been keen to have a book trailer for RealmShift for ages but just not got around to it. Recently I decided to make it a priority and started looking into it more seriously. And that made me wonder – would it really help to sell copies? I can't afford to have a trailer made for me (more on that in a minute) so investigated making my own. Once I started looking into buying stock images and video to stitch together a trailer I realised that it's not cheap. I'd thought about filming my own clips, but then it would be likely to turn out like teenagers playing movie games and make me and/or the book look like a right numpty. And even if I bought quality footage, could I make a quality trailer? Would I do my books more harm than good? So what to do?

I started looking at as many book trailers as possible. Some of them are clever, some have impressive production values and some are truly awful. Which is not unlike books – some are clever, some are impressive, some are awful. And while I enjoyed watching some of the trailers, I didn't go and buy any books.

I made a mention on Twitter that I was looking into doing a book trailer for RealmShift and that generated a bit of debate. It seemed like a lot of people were not impressed by the very concept of book trailers. Someone even said, "Have you ever bought a book because of a trailer?" Well, no, I haven't. So I asked Twitter:

Hey Twitter – help me out here: Have any of you bought a book based on a book trailer you watched online?

I got a wide range of replies, including things like:

@SeandBlogonaut – are book trailer's worth the effort?

@CandleForex – no i havent. i like to read the first page or the overview of the book before making a decision

@GRIMACHU – Yes… but I can't remember what it was… which isn't that helpful

@MyLittleRedPen – Nope. Always buy books based on recommendations by people or bec I see it in a book shop.

@cochineal – No. Book trailers are uniformly awful.

@fangbooks – yes, but that was more INSPIRED to buy by the trailer… loved the 1st

Not a resounding endorsement of the power of book trailers really.

Something that occurred to me is maybe the professionally produced trailers are more likely to score a hit. If something looks homemade, then then product is going to be considered equally shabby. If I made a book trailer for RealmShift and it was as awful as a lot of Twitter considers other trailers to be, would that actually affect book sales in the wrong direction? I expect most of the trailers people have seen are "homemade" and that's where this attitude to them comes from. My books are bloody good* so why spoil them with a half-arsed book trailer? Perhaps paying for a pro job is worthwhile (I said pro job).

Well, that's not an option. A professionally produced book trailer runs into thousands of dollars. While I'd love to say that I make enough from my writing to justify that kind of promotional expense, it would be bullshit. And in my exploration of book trailers, even some that were clearly professionally put together were still bloody awful.

On the other hand, all the book trailers I've watched made by Paul Murphy are bloody brilliant. Have a look at these and tell me they don't work. Or do they? I watched loads of these and loved them all, but I didn't buy any books. But, there were a couple that stuck in my mind and I'll remember those books if I ever see them again, on a shelf or an Amazon perusal. A quality trailer for the kind of book that appeals to me made me sit up and take notice. The truth is, a trailer is only ever going to be one part of the overall promotion and marketing of a book. No one aspect of promo is more important than others.

I contacted Book Tease, Paul Murphy's company, and asked about the cost of producing a book trailer. I was told that a 30 second trailer with a script, motion graphics and music costs between $2000 to $2500. Now, if I was a big publisher and expected to sell several thousand units of a book, that would be a quite acceptable marketing expense. But I'm not. My books are published by a small press in the US and their marketing budget doesn't stretch to that kind of expense any more than my own does.

There's a really good interview with Paul Murphy here, talking about book trailers.

But watching Murphy's trailers made me realise something. If I can't have a trailer for RealmShift that's at least as good as his work, then I don't want one at all. The general consensus seems to be that most book trailers are awful, and mine would be too if I made it myself. As I can't afford the services of Paul Murphy or someone like him, I'll have to wait until I sell a novel to one of the big publishing houses that does have that kind of budget and they can pay for a book trailer for me, as part of a bigger marketing campaign. And when that does happen, I'll be suggesting they call Mr Murphy. I'd love to see his vision of my book in a trailer.

So I should stop bloody blogging and get back to work on the new book.

* Of course I think my books are bloody good. If you don't believe me, go and buy a copy and decide for yourself.

.

Fun with Google Ngrams

There's this thing Google have put together which is really addictive. It's called Ngrams. Essentially, when you enter phrases into the Google Books Ngram Viewer, it displays a graph showing how those phrases have occurred in a corpus of books. You can set various parametres of time, which types/language of books are searched and so on. The graphic results are very cool.

For example, instances of the words horse (blue), bicycle (red), car (green) and motorcycle (yellow), between 1800 and 2008, in English:

(click for larger images)

Pretty cool, huh. So naturally I started searching all kinds of comparisons. Regular readers here will know I'm fascinated with religious mythology, so I did a search on instances of Christian (blue), Muslim (red), Jew (green), Hindu (yellow) and Buddhist (blue), again from 1800 to 2008 in English. Look at the massive decline in Christianity's dominance over the written word in that time.

On that front, what about instances of heaven (blue) and hell (red):

Hell holding steady while heaven sees a steep decline. This amuses me.

All right, enough of this nonsense, let's get onto the serious stuff. Between 1800 and 2008, let's look at instances of fantasy (blue), science fiction (red) and horror (green):

Sci-fi doesn't register until around 1950, fantasy has a slow growth right through, really peaking in the last thirty or forty years and horror saw a steady decline until a resurgence around 1980. I imagine that's largely down to the pulp horror revival of the 80s and the emergence of superstars in the genre like Stephen King and James Herbert.

So the natural progression from there is to see which is really the most popular when it comes to the big three supernaturals. Here we have vampire (blue), werewolf (red) and zombie (green):

Relatively even, though vampires clearly more popular, till around the early 80s, then the vamps went nuts. Anne Rice, Lost Boys and the like are clearly marked there.

But that was an easy one – of course the vampire is the most popular, as it is the coolest. Though I predict the werewolf has yet to really see its heyday. But now let's sort out once and for all the ongoing rivalry that all SF fans get heated about. I should start by saying that I'm a big fan of both. But what says Ngrams in the great Star Wars (blue) vs Star Trek (red), in English since 1960:

Jedis FTW!

Man, I could play with this thing all day.

.

Dead Red Heart pre-orders

Okay, I've been going on about this book a lot lately, but that's because:

1. It's gonna be a great book;

2. I'm in it;

3. More importantly, LOADS of other great writers have stories in it.

For those not able to make it to the launch of Dead Red Heart in Perth, you can get your pre-orders in now at Indie Books online. There's a limited edition hardcover (limited to 100 copies, signed by editor Russell B Farr) for $75, and a standard trade paperback edition for $35.

Get it!

.

Keywords and phrases so far this year

It's been a while since I did one of these posts and they're fun, so I thought it time for another. Using Google Analytics, I keep track of the various hits to my website here. I can track what are the popular posts, how long people stick around, where they come from and so on. One of the most entertaining things to be found is the keywords and key phrases search results. This lists all the words and phrases that people have used in a search (on Google or Yahoo! or whatever) that has led them to this website. It's always fun to see what people are searching for and what subsequently leads them to my humble online abode. Incidentally, I can't learn anything personal about these people from these searches – it's purely statistical, so don't think I'm secretly spying on readers like a perv at a school playground.

Anyway, here are a bunch of search words and phrases that caught my eye, either because I found them interesting or funny. This is only over the past month, so that in itself is quite fascinating. I've copied the search words into this post as images, so as not to upset the balance in future posts. If you can't see them in your reader, click through to this actual site and you'll see it all.

Firstly, by far the most common word leading people to this site is:

That makes me kinda proud. It also pleases me that, even now, so many people are still seeking the Great Old Ones. Seriously, this word outguns all other searches by a factor of hundreds. I also saw this as generating a lot of results.

I didn't know what it said, but it looked like Russian. So I asked my Russian friend and he said:

Doesn't look like a word but when I sound it out it's (or at least a Russified version) – it also tripped me up because it has some very similar sounds to some swear words so it sounds like a swearword in Russian!

You can probably imagine how happy that made me.

Another very common search was this one, both ways around:

This would have landed people here purely because of the post I wrote in September last year about International Blasphemy Day and Banned Books Week.

Another common search hit was:

And variations thereof. This one is because of a post from December 2008 that generated more debate and comment than this site has seen before or since. I had to close the comments after it got way too out of hand. But if you haven't seen it yet, check out what happens when you bad mouth real life super heroes.

This one always makes me laugh and always makes these posts:

Seriously, people? I mean, really?

Then things get a bit weird. I don't know why this search landed the person here:

I'm also appalled that a person had to search for this term, and I wonder why a person would search for it online?

Then we go to the surreal:

If anyone knows what this means, please tell me! It is an anagram of dark short, and I do have a page of short stories here called Dark Shorts, so there's some connection there. But I still have no idea why that particular phrase would be searched for.

On this next one, do you think they mean "endearing" or are they trying to hold a facial expression throughout:

Why search for this? It can't require much training:

This one is all kinds of weird:

Now, I know this next bloke is a god among men when it comes to being a speculative fiction writer, but does the man have his own commas now? Has he developed a personal style of punctuation?

Lastly, I feel very sorry for this person, that they had to search for this. Their online shopping experiences must have been very uncomfortable up until now:

So there you go. There's some insight into the kind of things that land random people here at The Word. Those were a select few from over a thousand search hits just from the last month. Seriously, the internet is one whacky place.

.

Dead Red Heart cover and launch

A couple of days ago I posted the Table of Contents for the Ticonderoga Publications anthology, Dead Red Heart, featuring my story, Punishment Of The Sun. I neglected to mention that the book will be launched in April at SwanCon, which is NatCon 50, in Perth. I'll be heading over to Perth for that one, my first time in WA. I'll be doing my Write The Fight Right workshop again and probably sitting in on a couple of panels. So come along and join in the fun, and get your copy of the big book of Aussie vampire yarns. For people that can't make it, I'll be sure to let you know when it's generally available.

In the meantime, to whet your appetite, Ticonderoga have released the cover art for the book. Pretties.

.

Dead Red Heart ToC announced

I mentioned in a post yesterday that my short story, Punishment Of The Sun, will be included in the Ticonderoga Publications anthology Dead Red Heart. I'm also part of a collaboration of a dozen or so writers that put together a piece called The Tide for the same book. Ticonderoga have just released the Table Of Contents for the book and it looks fantastic:

"The Tide", Martin Livings and friends
"Mutiny on the Scarborough", Shona Husk
"Sun Falls", Angela Slatter
"Such is Life", Jeremy Sadler
"Apolotoi", Chris Lawson
"Punishment of the Sun", Alan Baxter
"Red Delicious", Felicity Dowker
"Just a Matter of Economics", Yvonne Eve Walus
"Quarantine", Patty Jansen
"Out of the Grave", Amanda Pillar
"Desert Blood", Marty Young
"Thin Air", Simon Brown
"Kissed by the Sun", Jodi Cleghorn
"Black Heart", Joanna Fay
"Renfield's Wife", Damon Cavalcini
"Listening to Tracy", Jen White
"Breaking the Drought", Jay Caselberg
"Children of the Cane", Jason Nahrung
"The Sea at Night", Joanne Anderton
"Sky in the Morning", Sonia Marcon
"Taking it for the Team", Tracie McBride
"All that Glisters", Pete Kempshall
"The Rider", Martin Livings
"Vitality", George Ivanoff
"Coming Home", Kathryn Hore
"The Little Red Man", Ray Gates
"Deathborn Light", Helen Stubbs
"The Life Stealer", Donna Maree Hanson
"Behind the Black Mask", Jacob Edwards
"Interview with the Jiangshi", Anne Mok
"White and Red in the Black", Lisa L Hannett
"Lady Yang's Lament", Penelope Love

There are some truly talented people in there, and I'm sure the ones I haven't read before will be equally talented. This is a book of Australian vampire stories, which is a cool idea, and I can't wait to see what the other authors have come up with. I know for me the concept immediately gave me inspiration in two main areas:

1. Australia is a wide open, sun-drenched land; and 2. Vampires are supposed to be nasty, feral creatures that feed on people, not lovely sparkly sex symbols.

So that's the angle my story takes. I'll let you know when the book is released.

.

Read and digest

"The chief commodity a writer has to sell is his courage. And if he has none, he is more than a coward. He is a sellout and a fink and a heretic, because writing is a holy chore." ~ Harlan Ellison

That is all.

.

Waystations of a journeyman writer

The life of a writer can be a thankless one, with rejections peppering a career far more often than acceptances. But it's the rejections that teach a writer their chops. With any luck you get a bit of feedback with a rejection that helps to improve a story. A writer should continually improve through the practice of writing, and through reading other peoples' stuff. I do believe that a writer also gets better with every passing year of life experience, with every trial and tribulation giving us more to draw from. Hpoefully, in the end, the acceptances start to outnumber the rejections.

So I thought it worth taking stock of where things stand for me as we start a new year, and how the last year went. I'm very much a journeyman writer – I'm still learning my craft, hopefully improving all the time. I want to sell stories to the best pro markets, I want novels published by the big mainstream publishers. I'd love the recognition of prizes and awards. All these things will help to prove that I'm doing well at my chosen form of artistic expression, that other people are reading my stuff and enjoying it. I want to get better all the time. So, how am I doing?

Well, 2010 saw my novels, RealmShift and MageSign, acquired by Gryphonwood Press in the US, which was a fantastic result for me. I can't express how pleased I was about that and I hope it's just the start of my career as a novellist.

As for short fiction, 2010 saw the publication of these short stories:

Trial Not Required in M-Brane SF Issue #13, February 2010;
Strange Death at Flashes In The Dark, March 2010;
Pushed Too Far at House Of Horror, May 2010;
Decennial General Meeting in Best Of Friday Flash Vol. 1 anthology, August 2010;
Jeff Newman's Headaches in 52 Stitches, August 23, 2010;
The King's Accord in Flesh & Bone: Rise of The Necromancers anthology from Pill Hill Press, August 2010 (I think this is my best published story last year, I'm really proud of it.);
Idle Chatter at Bosley Gravel's Cavalcade of Terror, September 2010.

I also scored myself an Honourable Mention in the Writers Of The Future competition in 2010.

So not a bad year for publications. You can read a lot of these via the Dark Shorts page right here on this website – click the link at the top. But I plan to do better. I've already started 2011 in much better form. I sold some stories in 2010 that are due for publication this year. Those are:

Stand Off due for publication in Night Mantled: The Best Of Wily Writers Vol. 1 anthology, which should be out any time now. This is a reprint of the story published and podcast by Wily Writers in July 2009.

Mirrorwalk due for publication in Murky Depths #16 – I'm really pleased to have had a story accepted by Murky Depths and I really like Mirrorwalk. It's a magic story with a twist. Another great thing about Murky Depths is that each story has a piece of artwork commissioned for it, and Mirrorwalk will be accompanied by an illustration by Rick Fairlamb. I've never had a story illustrated before and looking at Rick's site makes me very excited at what might come about, so I'm looking forward to that.

Unexpected Launch in Anywhere But Earth anthology (Coeur De Lion Publishing) – This one is a sci-fi yarn that I won't say anything else about just now. You'll have to read the story. But the concept of this anthology is excellent and the list of authors included is really shaping up nicely. I'm honoured to be in this one and really looking forward to it.

My flash fictions Terminal Illness & The Book are going to be reprinted in the Pill Hill Press 365 Flash anthology. These were originally published by Antipodean SF, so it's good to see those stories get another outing.

I've started 2011 with a few sales as well:

Kasma SF will be publishing my urban sci-fi short story Mistaken Identity any time now.

Ticonderoga Publications will be publishing my vampire horror story, Punishment Of The Sun, in their Dead Red Heart anthology – this is another anthology with a stellar cast of writers contributing, so another one I'm very proud to be included in. This is also a great concept antho, with all the stories being specifically Australian vampire yarns, so I can't wait to see what else comes out in it. I've also been a part of a group of about a dozen writers who all contributed a small amount to a story written in news clippings, that will be included in this anthology. So I'll get my name in it twice!

My story Duty & Sacrifice will be appearing in the Hope anthology from Kayelle Press later this year.

Seven Realms Publishing in the US are putting together an anthology of short stories based on the classic short story The Most Dangerous Game. Each contributing author will present a story inspired by Richard Connell's classic featuring characters from their published work. My story Running Wild With The Hunt, featuring Isiah, the protagonist from RealmShift and MageSign will be included in that book.

The Red Penny Papers will be publishing my novellette The Darkest Shade Of Grey, but we'll be waiting a while for that one. It's due for publication at the start of 2012, but all the contracts and stuff are signed off now. It'll be worth waiting for as I honestly believe it's one of the best things I've ever written.

On top of all that I have a few other short stories out under consideration in various places, so I'll hopefully continue to make sales, hopefully to better and better publications all the time. I'll continue to write short stories, of course, so who knows what else will happen.

And I'm working on my third novel, which is really shaping up nicely. I'll be on the lookout for a publisher for that one before too long. There's an open call for submissions by Angry Robot in March, so I might start there.

As you can see, I'm keeping busy. Writing this post is as much for myself as it is for the interest of readers of this blog. It helps me cope with all the rejections when I see a year or two of work laid out like this and see the successes that have come along. My journey as a writer continues. I'll keep writing, with a bit of perseverance I'll keep getting better and hopefully people will enjoy reading my work.

Wish me luck!

.

New Age of Publishing – Guest Post 6 – Karen Lee Field

After a little break, my series of guest posts continues. This time it's Karen Lee Field's turn, owner/operator of new kid on the block, Kayelle Press.

In an Instant World…

Once, long ago, I stated quite loudly that traditional publishers were the only way to get published. And I meant it. I believed it to be 100% true. These days, however, that statement is not only stupid, it's incorrect on so many levels.

The world has changed. Technology has changed. More importantly, readers have changed. In a world where we expect everything instantly, we can now purchase books from anywhere, at any time of the day or night, and start reading them straight away. Not tomorrow or next week. Right now! Young readers expect nothing less. What's more, the older readers, people who have only ever had access to printed books, are also discovering these new, exciting methods of reading.

…We Turn to Digital Books…

Being an older reader, it took me a while to grasp the idea of digital books. I love the feel of a book in my hands. I love the smell of the pages. I love seeing my favourite books lined up on the bookshelf. It's wonderful to settle on the lounge on a cold evening with a good book. However, I also love technology, but I found it difficult to accept the changes taking place right under my nose.

In fact, it was less than twelve months ago when I finally embraced the change and purchased my first ebook reader – an iPod Touch. Living in Australia has its draw backs as, at the time, there were very few options available. When a friend suggested the iPod Touch, I admit I was a little dubious. Have you seen the size of the screen? It's so small! How could I possibly read anything on that? Well, I brought the device and tried it anyway. The screen is small but it's easy to read from. I've never experienced eye strain and I've read dozens of books over the months that followed. The iPod is light and easy to carry. It is nothing to carry 20 or 50 or even hundreds of books around with me, no matter where I go. I can read whatever takes my fancy, without the weight, without worrying about creasing pages and wrecking covers. Suddenly, I found myself wanting to embrace this new technology with every fibre of my being. And, as a writer, I wanted to be a part of the ever changing face of the new era of publishing.

I thought about it for many weeks before deciding to start a publishing company. I asked friends about their experiences. I did loads of research. And then I set about putting my plan into action and created Kayelle Press. It was decided early on that if I was going to take this big step, it would be done correctly. It's been a long, hard slog and I expect the hard work to continue long into the future, but each step taken will take me closer to my ultimate goal.

On 10 December 2010, Kayelle Press published its first book — "Cat's Eyes", a fantasy book for younger readers. As the author, it has been exciting. As the publisher, I discovered that location can be a disadvantage, especially for Australians (being so far away from everyone else). Finding a printer who can supply books at a reasonable price is difficult. Being forced to use an overseas printer often results in extremely high postage fees being added to the cost, which sometimes negates the lower price per book negotiated. Yet, despite this, I'm confident that things will change in the future for Australian publishing. The planned opening of the new Lightning Source office in Australia in mid 2011 may be the start of that change.

These are exciting times. We are witnessing a swing towards something new and fresh. In twenty or so years there's a possibility that people will be saying "remember when books were printed on paper".

…But Printed Books Will Not Disappear Yet.

The time will come when printed books will be a thing of the past, but that time isn't here yet. Printed books continue to be the main source of our reading material. However, due to more people screaming "save the trees", that will change at some point in the future (unless another form of "paper" is discovered).

Digital books will continue to grow strong and we will be lucky enough to watch it happen. I want to be right in the middle of it when it does and that's why I believe all upcoming titles should be made available in as many formats as possible.

Print-on-Demand technology will allow printed books to be purchased online and through brick and mortar bookstores. It will also put to rest that awful "out of print" phrase that can be quite disappointing to see. In the meantime, digital technology will allow books to remain "on the shelf" forever instead of the short time now permissible by traditional standards and lack of space in a book shop.

Times are changing, but there is room for all types of books – whether they are printed or digital – just as there is always room for more books to be made available for avid readers to enjoy. And with this change we will see more unknown authors finding the spotlight as their work becomes readily available through untraditional methods of publishing.

***

Born within the sound of the Bow bells in London, Karen Lee Field was seven when her parents decided to move to the "Lucky Country". They settled in Sydney, Australia, and have enjoyed the outdoor life ever since. Apart from enjoying time with her family and pets, Karen enjoys escaping to fantasy worlds – places where her sometimes ordinary life is transformed into an exciting adventure and her imagination is set free.

To find out more about Karen and her writing, visit her website The Desk of Karen Lee Field