Blog — Page 75

Aug 21 2014

Early RIVER Tour Kickoff & Pre-order

Although the official tour start is next Monday with the release of River, the first stop is actually today at Coffee Thoughts. I talk a little about the history of the book and the crowdfunding campaign here. There’s also a link to the Rafflecopter Giveaway, a River Swag Pack featuring a tote bag, poster, wolf charm bookmark, wolf pendant, the pocket version of Animal Speak by Ted Andrews, and a DVD/Blu-Ray combo of Ginger Snaps (my favourite werewolf movie).

I’ll update the blog here once more on Monday but if you want to follow along with the tour (there’ll be stuff like behind the scenes info about River, my book soundtrack, and at some point next week the Wolfe cover reveal) you’ll find all the stops, dates, and a few of the topics here. The first four chapters are now available to read there as well.

If you contributed as a crowdfunder, your copy of River will be delivered Sunday. If not, you can pre-order River now if you like from the following places (it’ll be delivered on Monday):

Aug 18 2014

One Week Until River’s Resurrection

River_2014-sm Just one week to go.

Egads.

I admit, I set the release date and tour date to coincide with my initial promises made during the funding campaign, which was planned before I realized I’d be chronically ill with no help for three months now, so I’m kind of FREAKING THE FUCK OUT at the moment. I’m exhausted, not everything’s done yet, and I’m pushed well beyond my limits right now, but so it goes.

Today the first chapter was posted at the River site. Seven total (the first part of the book) will be available, one a day leading up to the release and tour start on the 25th. Rather than update my blog constantly, everything will be posted there, so please bookmark it for daily updates.

(If for some reason it’s not up, sorry. I scheduled it. I’m possibly asleep right now. I’ll fix it.)

Remember, River is not like my usual books. No one gets murdered. Nothing blows up. There are no guns and car chases. There is no sex and very little swearing.

Please do not be frightened by this fact; I promise, when you download it, it’s the right book and it’s really truly by me and I apologize for any confusion. I’ll make up for it by writing something terribly violent and sexy and full of cursing again soon.

I’m hoping to get River up for preorder on a few sites in a few days. Unfortunately, I can’t do that until I hear back from River campaign contributors so I can fill in the thank you page. To protect anonymity, I don’t want to release names without permission, and I asked for that along with a few other things I needed to send print and ebooks. Please check your spam folder and fill in the form if you haven’t already. If I have nothing by Wednesday, you won’t be included on the thank you page. If I don’t hear back about what format you want your ebook in, you’ll just get a PDF. If I don’t know what backlist books you want, I can’t send them. If I don’t know who to sign your print book to, it’ll just have my signature and no customization. I don’t have the spoons to keep following up and the form just takes a few minutes to fill in. Please and thank you, I *really* want to give you stuff.

If for some reason you indicated you wanted perks when you donated but have changed your mind, I’d like a clearly written note stating that. I’m obligated to fulfill the terms of the Indiegogo agreement and I don’t want to get in trouble for not doing so. Thanks.

Aug 09 2014

I Just Can’t Even

http://readersunited.com

I just…

I…

Um…

cmt-medium (2)

Okay. Lots of people say smart things and do thorough takedowns of this wtfery. I will leave it to John Scalzi, Chuck Wendig, and Matt Wallace. The New York Times covers the bizarre Orwell bit as well. Because, I mean, even if you AGREE with Amazon, these tactics are just…I don’t even.

I will say, I’ve seen a lot of “I don’t have a dog in this fight.” The thing is, I do. I do as a reader who buys Hachette published works–sure, I’d love ebooks to be cheaper, because I’m a poor bitch with little money.

Except that THE MARKET decides what ebooks should cost. I don’t need Amazon fighting that fight, thank you–CONSUMERS ALREADY DO THIS. Price an ebook at $14.99. Some people will pay that, Some people won’t. If lots of people won’t, the price will shift. If lots of people do, hey, bonus for the writer, editors, artists, marketing teams, and everyone else–it gives the publisher more money to pay people and invest in new books. If it means I have to wait a few months or a year for the price to come down (like I do with video games! and DVDs!) or buy a mass market paperback instead, or watch for sales, then I will. Duh.

Further, I have a dog in this fight as a writer. A chunk of my income comes from Amazon–I can’t change that, as readers like to buy there and I’m happy they have that option. I have absolutely no leverage if they decide to screw with KDP terms; I either give up 80% of my income of just accept what they do. Now, they might fuck with my terms eventually anyway, but you know what? I like that Hachette hasn’t backed down. There is a lot more going on here than just ebook pricing terms, but it also comes down to who gets to decide how to price things: the people who make the content or the retailer. I will be quite concerned if Hachette gives and the precedent is set here.

So. Go read what smart people have to say, if you care. Or shake your head at the absurdity if you don’t.

I’m going to go feed my cats now.

As a reminder, all of my work (some exclusive, like 9 Crimes) are available for sale by me directly right here. All formats. DRM-free. No middleman.

*cough*

——-

ETA: I’ve been chatting on Twitter. My personal opinion? The absurd letter is noise, a distraction. It’s riling up their base and getting the rest of us talking (like I did here!)–the purpose wasn’t to change minds, because if it was, it would be worded with nuance and less inflammatory. Yeah, it could be a PR fuck-up, but this has happened over and over with Amazon–you’d think they’d hire a new PR team. At this point, it’s deliberate. It’s impossible to say what the noise is distracting people from, but I’d watch the company very closely. Not conspiracy theorizing here–this is just pretty basic politics. Which I’d find quite fascinating if it was occurring in an industry I don’t work in.

Aug 04 2014

The River Update

riverwolfe Although I’m a little behind my self-imposed deadlines because of health issues, we’re still on track for the end of the month for River‘s re-release. The only thing left for me to buy will be the paperback books to ship to contributors (which might end up being early September instead of late August).

So, River Resurrection contributors: an email will go out likely this week with a link to a form telling me what e-format you want River in and other stuff I need to fulfill campaign perks at the end of the month. Thank you for your patience.

The tour has a bunch of stops scheduled–if you have a blog and want me to visit, get in contact with Mel ASAP. These are just guest posts and interviews (if any come up), that’s it, and I have a lot of posts to write so the sooner the better. Tour dates are August 25 – August 29. There’ll be a swag prize pack up for grabs that week as well.

There’s a River site set up, or at least the bare bones of one, that’s a central hub of all things River-related, including tour links. On Monday, August 18 (in theory), I’ll start posting a chapter a day of the book for the week until the tour/release date for seven chapters total. Everything will be linked up there.

Finally, there is a…60% chance of a short story that’ll be included at the end of River. It basically depends on whether I’ll have time to write it, but it’ll be Daryl-POV and set during the novel’s timeline. I might also do one to include with Wolfe set about ten years after the end of the duology. I also might not, but the idea’s there tickling my brain and I usually listen to that.

I think that’s it for updates. I made the mistake of eating today and now I think I’m dying, so I’m going to lie down for a few hours because this is my life now. More updates coming in a few weeks!

Jul 18 2014

This Thing I Learned at Age 31

So I’ve been sick for…a while.

Since the middle of May, in fact.

May was kind of a blur for me because I had a stress breakdown after the fundraiser for Julie, I couldn’t afford food, I had the therapy dog test coming up, Sophie had her six month checkup, and then Jilly-bean rapidly became ill and went down hill and died the beginning of June. It seems I might’ve had a virus or something and I probably didn’t notice because I was already weak and tired and constantly dizzy by the sudden drop in daily calories while I was rationing food. But one thing stuck.

The Cough of Doom.

The cough that lasted all day. And all night so I was getting 2-4 hours of sleep a night. The cough that got progressively worse. The cough that had me choking in fits so hard that I threw up. Frequently. (TMI? Fuck you, it’s my blog.)

The last month and a half, people IRL have been giving me odd looks, because apparently I resemble death. I’m pale, I’m haggard and sickly. Not sleeping will do that to a girl. “Go to the doctor,” was the common refrain.

“But I don’t want to waste anyone’s time–I’m not sick. I don’t have a fever, I don’t have chest pain, I’m not wheezing. I just have a cough.”

“…that won’t go away. Go to the doctor.”

Dr. Dina finally threatened me, and she’s scary, so I went to see a nurse practitioner. And she confirmed I don’t have the plague but probably cough-variant asthma, and sent me home with an inhaler and instructions to come back in two weeks.

Twenty-four hours later, I’m better. I’m not coughing constantly. I slept–SLEPT!–seven hours straight. And as a result of sleeping, I could do things today like think and move and function and manage my moods and clean. Sleep is the foundation on which everything else is built; without it, my day loses structure, and without that self-imposed structure, I become chaos incarnate in a filthy house staring at a blinking cursor on my screen unable to remember basic things like nouns and verbs with no energy to even feed myself and unable to battle crazy mood swings.

And the magical inhaler fixed it.

So this is the lesson I’ve learned: apparently when you’re sick you can go the doctor and then they give you medicine and you get better. And sometimes you don’t even have to argue with anyone or roll your eyes at them for being stupid.

I am in awe of this concept.

I’m eyeing this “go to the doctor” idea warily still; the experiment might need to be repeated to be 100% sure (but hopefully not for a while).

In the meantime, I’m looking forward to being a functioning human being again. There is work, several meetings and a funeral next week, and also much to be done if I’m releasing a book next month.

(Speaking of, I saw an August 1 release date being posted around for River–uh, guys, LATE August. I’ve said that everywhere: LATE. VERY LATE. Aug 25th at the very earliest.)