S.K. Dunstall's Blog, page 37

Our first list

Another pirate moment. The first time Linesman appears on a list.

Locus bestseller lists, October 2015, and look who’s number seven on the mass market paperback list

 

Thanks to everyone who helped put it there.

Authors—a simple way to make your book easier to order

Recommending library purchases

I buy a lot of books, but I also borrow books from the library.

If I want to read a book and it isn’t in my local library, I will request it. Most of the time—if the book is available in Australia—the library will purchase it for me.

This has lots of advantages.

I get to read the book. If I like the author, I then go on to purchase his or her books. Not just that one, but potentially future books.

Even better, because it’s in the library system, other people who might never have seen the book get a chance to read it as well.

But it has to be there for them to read.

Some things authors can do to make it easier to get their books into libraries

Today I tried to recommend a book for my library to purchase. I knew the book was out because the author had tweeted about it, and the details were on her website.

Unfortunately, it was hard to get details to put into the Spydus request form. It took some digging to find out. I was about to give up, when I finally thought to click on the first chapter excerpt. Luckily for me, the information was there.

If you’re an author, I strongly recommend you make this information available on your website. The easier it is to find, the more likely people like me will request it.

The information you require:

Name of the novel
If it’s part of a series, the name of the series and the number in the series
The name of the author
The date it was published
The name of the publisher
The ISBN

Eat your own dog food

I’m off to ensure all of this is readily available on our website.

Copy edits for Alliance

Alliance. Book 2 in the Linesman series

The copy edits for ALLIANCE arrived yesterday.

Oh, my.

We said we’d do better than we did with LINESMAN, and we did, but not by much.

At least the issues aren’t quite the same.

We knew we had to change our Australian spelling to US spelling at the end, but did we? No.

Realise, rumour and defence became realize, rumor and defense. Words like traveller and counsellor became traveler and counselor.

There were still a few of the dreaded serial commas. That is, a comma before the ‘and’ in a list (aka the ‘Oxford comma’). But we were better this time.

In fact, we need to work on commas in general. And on our capitalisation. (Or should that be capitalization?)

Trust me, you think you have a good grasp of grammar, but when you see a good copy editor go through your manuscript you realise (realize) that what you think is a lot different to what you know.

We have a goal to get down to minimal copy edits on a 100,000 word novel. Under a hundred edits would be nice.

Designing my bookstore

Now this is a bookstore. El Ateneo, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Image by longhorndave, orignal posted at Flickr.

Some recent tweets pointed me to two two articles from last year about designing bookstores (What makes a good bookshop? and Let’s reinvent the bookshop). I like some of the ideas, but not all of them, so I thought I would design my own.

It would be full of books

It seems obvious to say that a bookshop should have books, but to me one of the gauges of how well a bookshop is doing is how much non-book stock they are trying to sell. Also, it seems to me to be a sign of how well a bookstore is going. Before it went broke, Borders, for example, had started to get a lot of non-book stock in.

A bookshop is still a bookshop. It should sell books.

Ability to sell eBooks

eBooks are offered almost exclusively online, but I would love to see a bookshop offer the same. Ideally in different formats. A tap and load card that you could pay for at the counter or through an app on your phone/tablet.

You should also be able to order online (hard copy or electronic) and have a book mailed to you or be able to collect it from the store.

Information kiosks

While we’re on electronics, information kiosks where you can scan a book’s barcode to find out more about it. What other books the author has, volume number if it’s part of a series, how long it would take to order if it’s not in stock, even links to feedback sites like Good Reads.

Plus, an app on the user’s phone/tablet where they can do the same, only if they do it on their own device you could add links to the store to order if required.

Room to move

Aisles wide enough for people to browse but others to pass. Reading spots where a browser can stand out of the way.

Knowledgeable staff

One of the best things about a good bookstore—about any store really—is staff who know their product.

They know their books, but they’re also familiar with the standard electronic devices and can load an eBook for a customer (assuming the customer has an account).

Café

A pleasant space serving tea, coffee, cold drinks and sandwiches and cakes. It doesn’t have to be grand, but it does have to be clean. Ideally it would have lots of seats for singles. A lot of people go into bookstores alone.

You could take it even further and get a liquor license, which could also be useful for the book launches/book talks.

Maybe even a writer’s space, where writers can bring their laptops and work.

A dedicated area for book talks

Ideally it would have tiered seating (maybe bleacher style), and a little stage area at the bottom. It should definitely have good acoustics.

Lots of book talks to go with the area. Maybe even book launches as well.

A combined cafe/booktalk area might work, provided it is set up properly. I find, however, that in many bookstores with cafes where I go to hear authors, the noise of the refrigerators tends to drown out the author.

Resident authors

I’d like to see a space for resident authors. An author promoting a new release could sit in the store mornings for a week, say, and write. Obviously, their writing would be interrupted, but it would be good PR.

The store could also hire out the café to writing groups when the bookstore was closed. The authors would pay for this (in advance, because you’d have to cover costs), but the store would provide tea and coffee and biscuits.

POD

A print-on-demand (POD) facility, where the customer can get books printed. Again, this should be integrated into the store’s online store as well, so the user can submit their own work in to be printed and then come in to collect it.

Obvoiusly, there would be restrictions. The store wouldn’t print eBooks, for example.Plus, I’m okay with POD books being more expensive that other books in the store to prevent anyone thinking it smart to print their own copy.

There’s lots more, of course. But that’s a start.

p.s. The bookstore in the image is El Ateneo Grand Splendid, a bookstore in Buenos Aires. The building was originally a theatre. It looks amazing.

The photographed is Dave (longhorndave, sorry Dave, I don’t know any more details) and is available under a creative commons license. The original image is from Flickr.

There’s also another article in the Guardian showing photographs of bookshops of the world.

Adventures with Microsoft (episode 294)

I failed the Apple quiz.

But then, I’m not really an Apple fan, although I do like the iPad as an eReader. I’m a Microsoft user from way back. Sometimes I think I’m the only person in the world who likes their products, but Word is still my favourite word processor by a long way.

I’ve been using Office 365 ever since it was introduced, and it took a while but I really got to like OneDrive.

OneDrive is Microsoft’s cloud service, where you can store files online and access them anywhere you have access to the internet. Think DropBox or Google Drive.

It’s fabulous when you’re writing together, because both authors can work on the same manuscript at the same time. It’s especially ideal when you’re fine-tuning the story in those last weeks before sending the finished product away, or when you get the edited version back and want to work through the edits together.

Plus, it stores an off-line copy of the document you are working on, and synchronises it when you’re back on line.

It had some weird habits, like sometimes reinserting deleted text, so you’d get sections with duplicates, and some other strange stuff, but in general, it worked well.

Best of all, both Sherylyn and I can link to the same OneDrive files no matter which computer we are using.

Along came Windows 10

Windows 10 was introduced mid-year.

I work in IT. I know not to download an untried operating system while it’s still buggy. I know to check to see if my computer is compatible, even when the little “Hey, Windows 10 is here, do you want to download it” message keeps popping up on my laptop.

Yet one day I foolishly click the button. Long story short—bad idea. Windows 10 wouldn’t load. So I reverted to Windows 8.1.

My laptop has never been the same. I have to close it down completely now because it runs hot all the time if I don’t. It takes minutes (literally) to save a file onto the c: drive, even though it only takes seconds when I save the same file onto a USB port.

Worst of all, it killed my OneDrive.

I can see the files, I can click on them, but the files won’t open. I can open them from other computers. If I log into OneDrive I can open them from there. I just can’t open the files in Word.

I do everything I can think of. Uninstall and reinstall Office 365, uninstall and reinstall OneDrive. Log out of my account, log into my account. You name it, I try it.  I google it, naturally, and find other people who’ve had similar problems. But no solution.

But wait, there’s more

Finally, I go to Microsoft support. They have a service where you can talk to an online representative to help solve your problem.

I wait for half an hour. “You’re in the queue. There is one person in front of you.” I use the time to write up a summary of the problem, including the links and solutions I had tried.

It times out in the end.

I start the whole process again.  I finally connect with the help desk and paste in my tale of woe.

“I’ll look into it,” the operator says.

I wait, and wait some more. And wait some more.

Eventually, I get a message. ‘Ticket was closed’.

So I go through the whole process a third time.

This time we get further. The operator logs onto my laptop remotely. She looks at OneDrive, checks things there. “OneDrive is working fine,” she says.

“It’s only OneDrive files in Office,” I say. “It’s when I try to open the file in Office, or when I click on a file in Windows Explorer to open it.”

There’s no answer.

I wait. Then, over in the message box, I see the message—’ticket was closed’.

Arrgh!

I still haven ‘t got OneDrive back to normal. Right now, I’m preparing myself for a fourth attempt at the support line.

Conflux 2015

Conflux 2015

Conflux, the science fiction convention held in Canberra, always has an interesting program. This year is no different.

Unfortunately, for us, it also usually coincides with the culmination of a large project for me, and in the busiest work period of the year for Sherylyn.

This year my project finishes on 30 September, two days before the Conflux weekend, which is the 2-5 of October. And then, the government of Victorian turned Friday the 2nd into a public holiday.*

Maybe we could manage it this year. Or even just one day. Particularly the Saturday, which has such neat things as:

Panel: SF and the Speed of Light

It’s the elephant in the room. We don’t know how to do it, but it’s essential technology for just about any story set in space. This panel looks at how sci fi handles FTL tech: the good, the bad and the downright ridiculous.

We’ve had a range of responses to the faster-than-light travel in Linesman. Everything from “the FTL travel is believable” to “I just can’t buy the lines as FTL”. I know, myself, if I don’t believe the the way FTL works, it does spoil a story for me.

Guest presentation: “Tax stuff for authors” by Robert Douglass

It’s a strange thing to get excited about, but it’s difficult to get tax information specific to authors. I don’t know what Robert plans to talk about but I think this is a vital topic for any author.

(And Robert, if you’re ever doing the same session in Melbourne, please drop us a line, because we’d love to come.)

In the end we didn’t go

It came down to cost versus time, and because we’d left it so late that one day at Conflux was going to cost us around a thousand dollars.

So, in the end we didn’t go.

If anyone did go and wants to tell us about it, we’d love to hear about it. (If you’re interested, we’ll even offer a guest post on our blog.)

* The public holiday is grand final eve, which is the day before the football final (big news here in Australia, but especially in the southern states of Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia). If you think it strange, don’t forget, we’re also the state that gives a public holiday for a horse race. If you think that strange, then you should really visit Melbourne during grand final week and stay on for the Spring racing carnival. It’s magic.

Jurassic World (Park): High Heels Edition

An image from ‘Jurassic Park: High Heels Edition (Parody)’ by XVP Comedy. Watch the full video below

As crazy as it sounds, I have really enjoyed the discussion about Claire’s (Bryce Dallas Howard’s) heels in Jurassic Park.

Google ‘running in heels Jurassic world‘ if you haven’t heard about it yet.

Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), the operations manager of the Jurassic franchise’s latest dino-themed pleasure park. While fleeing Indominus rex, an especially terrible species of terrible lizard, Claire runs across floors of slick stone and grounds of moist mud. She sprints and leaps and crouches. She drives an ambulance. She shoots a gun. She saves some lives. She takes some others. She grows as a person, and as A Woman. And she does it all in ridiculously spiked heels that you really, really hope are decked out with a good pair of DreamWalk Comfort Insoles.

This, of course, is absurd. And it is so obviously absurd that Claire’s perma-pumps are the source of a running joke within Jurassic World, manifested both through dialogue—Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) at one point explicitly mocks Claire’s entire flee-unfriendly outfit, which results in her removing clothing, but not swapping shoes …

The Perma-Pump: Jurassic World’s Silliest Character

It a gag that keeps going and going, and still gets lots of comments on various websites.

I can even see that a character who spends most of her time in the office like Claire does is likely to wear heels most of the time. I would have expected, given she does apparently go out into the park occasionally, that she would have had pair of flats in her bottom drawer (like those of us do who only have to tackle city streets), but—

Apparently, it was Howard’s choice to wear the shoes all the way through.

It’s refreshing that this has become such a point of discussion. Once upon a time no-one commented on the impracticality of women running for their lives in heels that are more likely to cripple them than to save them.

So refreshing, in fact, they even made a parody of it. Of Jurassic Park, really, but it’s the same silly fun.

Jurassic Park: High Heels Edition (Parody) by XVP Comedy

Other writers’ writing

I came across this blog post (from back in June). I hope K. Eason doesn’t object to my reproducing quite a large chunk of her post. This one’s for the Ann Leckie fans, and the Mad Max fans, and for all of us who name our electronic devices.

It was a dilemma

… what to call the new laptop. Furiosa, because FURIOSA … but I wasn’t sure I needed that kind of anger (and tendency toward violence) in a working machine. Also, the cybernetic limb made me a little nervous. I don’t want bits falling off.

… Then I remembered Ancillary Justice. So then it came down to Justice of Toren, or Breq, or OneEsk …

So OneEsk, it is. But I swear, if this machine starts singing, I’m outta here.

K. Eason Mythistori

K. Eason has two books, Enemy and Outlaw, coming out from 47North in 2016.

Kudos to the Hugos

I watched the live stream of the Hugo Awards ceremony and was really pleased with everyone involved. You handled a potentially awkward situation with grace.

Well done.

Special kudos to David Gerrold and Tananarive Due. You did a great job.

None of my picks won. Oh well, next year.

My favourite quote for the night:

George R. R. Martin is no longer on Twitter. He killed off all 140 characters.

Are serial novels the next big thing?

Charles Dickens sold his stories one episode at a time. To quote Wikipedia:

His novels, most published in monthly or weekly instalments, pioneered the serial publication of narrative fiction, which became the dominant Victorian mode for novel publication.

Wikipedia entry for Charles Dickens

With the advent of eBooks, serialisation of novels seems to be entering another golden age.

John Scalzi’s The End of All Things, was recently released as four eBook novellas—one novella per week starting on 9 June and going through to 30 June.

A lot of people seem to think it’s the best thing to happen to books in a long time.

Is it?

Is it, as Maya Rodale asked on the Huffington Post last year, modern torture? Or the best way to read fiction?

Some people love serials. Others hate them.

I’m in two minds. I sometimes read them and enjoy them, but in general it’s not my favourite way to read books.

But then, I get frustrated if a full-length novel in a series ends on a cliffhanger.  And a series of novels is just a serial in its own way, except the stories are a lot longer.

I read short stories and novellas and enjoy them, but my favourite form of fiction is the full-length novel. I also like to read novels straight through. In one sitting if I can (I’m a fast reader); otherwise over a period of days. If a book takes me longer than a week to read, I’m probably not planning on finishing it.

I admit, I even subscribed to Ann Leckie’s newsletter so that I could read the first chapter of her novel in one gulp, rather than a sentence a day. And you know, just one chapter is frustrating when you’re waiting for the full book.

Waiting every week for the next instalment in a series … it would have to be something truly special to keep me coming back. I usually give up two or three stories in.

Once upon a time people watched weekly serials on television and tuned in to see what would happen next week. Many of us still do—look at Game of Thrones—but equally as many download and binge view.

I even have friends who refuse to read a book series (of full-length novels) until they know the series is done, for they don’t want to wait for the next book.

Modern publishers appear to be pushing out books in a series over shorter periods of time. Jeff Vandermeer’s Southern Reach trilogy, with three full novels over eight months is an extreme example, but many novels come out nine months apart.

I can’t work out if serialisation is just an extension of this, or not.