river

Books & Stuff & Things

First, I blogged yesterday at the ELEW. http://www.evilwriters.com/blog/december-makingwords It's a rant and may hurt feelings. I am okay with this.

Next: news. On the upcoming page, it says there's something in January. And to not get excited. Well, the "something" will be...River and Wolfe finally on Kindle.

The books came out years ago--River when Amazon was selling Mobipocket ebooks, which they then pulled so they could start doing Kindle. Still, at least it was on B&N as a Nook Book. And despite people bitching to the contrary (really? seriously? um, GOOGLE??), Wolfe has always been available in various ebook formats on Mundania's site, Fictionwise, ARe, etc. But neither are in the actual Kindle store.

What we're going to do is a duology omnibus. Both books in one, combined for a lower price point than buying them separately. It's an experiment, to be sure, and we'll see how it goes. I'll also be including an author's note, perhaps talking about where the will-never-be-written third book would've gone.

And this is important because there is a high likelihood that, at the end of 2012, the books may go out of print.

I realize some of you like them. I appreciate your kind words about them, truly (when not posted on a piracy board). And perhaps if I had more time and the inclination, I'd revisit revamping them (as I did Bloodlines) but...I really feel done with the world/stories and don't want to rewrite them. I have so many more stories I want to tell instead.

This plan isn't set in stone, of course--I may change my mind. But when you're nearly thirty years old and have grown a lot as a writer, it's kind of hard to have a book you wrote almost a decade ago out there. By the end of 2012, I'll have four novels and a novella out there for purchase, hoping that'll make up for the lost income from retiring River Wolfe.

It's all hypothetical at this point, but if you're wanting either book, next year will probably be the time to get them. The omnibus release date is to be determined--I have to go over both files, actually proofing Wolfe (*whines*) again, and get all that stuff sorted out.

Now. More stuff and things.

- Lineage is out for edits. It is also out as an ARC with someone as a Christmas present. *whistles innocently* *awaits teasing* I think the first chapter of Exhumed may also be included in the book's release.

- I should probably plan promo-y things for Lineage's release (February 21). So far I have a guest post to write for Feb 20 and that's it. If you would like to host me on your blog for an interview/guest post + giveaway or whatever during that time, I'd be ever so grateful. If you're a book blogger and would like to review any of the books in the series, give me a shout. Priority given to those who can review ebooks (PDF, PRC, EPUB, MOBI) but I can usually finagle a few print copies. Email me if interested--messaging at social networking sites isn't usually a good way to track me down. Read more about them if interested.

- Exhumed is coming along. I have about 30K words left to write.

- Amends is has been on hold with trying to write three books for NaNo and now coming off of the burn out from that. Time willing, I want to devote a week during the holidays to just write serial stuff for January and beyond. I'll probably have to unplug to get it done.

- I may start posting the odd book review on the blog. Note: I will not be A Book Reviewer. They will be reviews of books I enjoyed as I have to work in this industry and will not bitch about my peers, so no bad reviews. They will be sporadic as I haven't time to read outside of work much. They will likely be by friends of mine because I choose to spend my time and money on those I know. I will be genuine, of course. It's also my way of trying to give back to the community, and I will endeavor to post the reviews on GR and maybe Amazon.

Changed - The Book that Will Never Be or "Casualty of War"

Changed is the book that follows River and Wolfe.

If you read Wolfe, you know there are a lot of loose ends. This is because I never saw either book as being remotely about plot--both are purely about the main character's arc. And I realize this bugged some people. But I did, ultimately, see where things were headed (her "destiny" as is alluded to repeatedly in both books), and figured I'd wrap this up in an anthology of shorts.

I called it Changed, for some obvious reasons and some not-so-obvious reasons.

(This paragraph is for River/Wolfe readers) The set up of the antho had one main, present day story, divided into multiple parts. In between were short stories from different character POVs in different points of time. I'd written two already: "Rebellion" was from Daryl's POV and took place the night he bit River, while "Doe, A Deer" followed Jewel Doe about two weeks prior to the start of Wolfe (if you've read it, you know what her condition was by the end of it and might guess what the story was about). Other shorts involved Kia and Noah from Wolfe, Danielle from Wolfe (as a possible love interest for Charlie), Gray and Rick Nacy from years before the start of River, as well as one short that followed the young hunter River runs into towards the end of Wolfe. I also wrote the opening for the main, present set storyline and plotted out where it was all going.

I'm putting the rest of this behind a cut because a) I'm posting an excerpt from Changed and there may be people who might not want to read it, and b) I'm tying this to a larger issue that you can probably guess about by looking at the tags for this entry. But if you do keep reading, please know that I deeply appreciate it. Read more

Sunday Post

Here's this week's wrap up, kids...wherein I go through my Twitter and Facebook feeds to see what the hell I linked to that was nifty.

* A letter to those writers who, upon rejection, say "You will regret this!" And this is totally true. Even if a book goes on to be a best seller, that doesn't mean the agent (or editor) who rejected it will regret their decision. If you're going to be spending hundreds of hours of your time to represent a book (or thousands of dollars, if you're a publisher), you must love it. Rejecting a book doesn't necessarily mean the book is bad or won't sell elsewhere--it often means that the people just didn't love it enough. But your goal as a writer is to find people who will love your work, and if you put the time and effort into honing your craft--and do your research--eventually you'll find someone who loves it.

* A positive review of River posted at Blogcritics.

* Ten Things Read in Jennifer Love Hewitt's Book That Are Not Hallucinations. Quite possibly the greatest book review ever.

* Alien vs Pooh. (And for the record, there's some Predator in there too.)

* Maternal death and c-sections are on the rise in the US. Which is very scary. And related, an older article I only recently read: a Canadian study suggests home births with midwives are as safe as hospital births.

* No link, but we hired my minion to be official company minion at Mundania Press. Well, okay, so she's the "Executive Assistant." But I still call her the minion. She'll be taking care of all correspondence. I trained her for a few hours Friday, got her email set up, boss made the announcement...and everyone promptly welcomed her by sending a few dozen questions within hours. Poor, poor minion.

* I have a confession to make: I have a weakness for hidden object games. I can't help myself--every so often, I must play them. But I don't like a plain HOG, I like ones with mini-games and logic. Which is why I really enjoyed Natalie Brooks: Mystery at Hillcrest High. Now, this isn't high art. It's a silly game. But it was fun, so I'm rec'ing it.

* A wonderful song: "In Which Buffy Slays Edward".

We've all been having a vampire issue
This one can cause some damage even if he doesn't bite you
But it appears that Bella, once again, needs to be rescued
'Cause Edward Cullen
Gives me the wiggins
So Buffy, can you please just slay him?

Made of WIN.

Sunday Post

So I'm keeping this as a "Sunday Post" even though it's going up on Monday...I wrote most of it yesterday, so it still counts. Yeah.

Skyla News:

* Inbox got up to like 340 again. Cue nervous breakdown. Then the minion came (what--you don't have a minion?) and she took on some of my inbox while I took on the longer, more complicated answers.

Now look!

This makes me ever so happy.

* Also, I put up the shelf (that fell and could have killed me in my sleep) again all by myself. I'm still sleeping on the other side of the bed AWAY from it, though.

* Saturday, I saw New Moon. I'm trying to think of a worse movie, but I can't. Even Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter was better (because it had a) bad kung fu, b) a Mexican wrestler, and c) vampires that killed people rather than sparkled, which all makes it better). The LOLCat version was totally apt and if you read it, you don't need to see that dreadful film ever.

* I got a lovely review for Wolfe from Bitten by Books - Five Tombstones. "Well written with very defined characters, the series is very compelling and captivating, so much so that I find myself somewhat curious about Ms. Cameron’s background and if she’s hiding any secrets about herself." read more

Yes, I'm secretly a werewolf. ;-)

No, you know what it is? Why I could get in River's head so easily? Because even if I'm not secretly a wolf-turned-human, I've always felt like an outsider looking at humanity. River is just that to the extreme.

Some other linkage:

* Michelle on getting good at eating.

* Lili on having a room of one's own, and the will to write. I was an only child, so I did become accustomed to writing in a space by myself, but throughout school as a teen, I did learn to write anywhere. I wrote on my old laptop while I was babysitting, I wrote in class during lessons (probably why I failed nearly everything). The room of my own had to be in my head--it was the only place others couldn't tread. So I would stick on headphones, go into that little room, and write regardless of the distractions around me.

* Kate Harding on Women's Fiction.

* A Happy Meal hasn't decomposed...in a year. Ewwww. This is why I don't eat that kind of crap.

* "Nowhere in the bible did Jesus have a sword fight." (Some more fun from David Thorne.)

* xkcd on "Porn for Women".

* Oh yeah (going through my Twitter feed): I made Jill Kismet fan art last week.

* The Future of Publishing

Finally...I was at a friend's place working on Wednesday and I found (and scanned) an old photo of me 'cause, like, that's just the thing to do--post embarrassing old photos. So here's thirteen year old Skyla...clearly it's the mid-90's. I mean, THE HAT.

Wolfe - Cover

Hey boys and ghouls.

So, the long awaited sequel to award-winning River will be out later this summer...and as for the cover...

Here you go!

Isn't that fabulous? Ana Winson rocks.

Since I hate the actual story itself, here, I'll let Elaine tell you how great it is:

"In WOLFE, author Skyla Dawn Cameron once again weaves a spellbinding story of heartbreak and redemption that will leave the reader desperate for more."

--Elaine Corvidae, Author of WOLFKIN, WINTER'S ORPHANS

Wolfe - Bane of My Existence

Hate is a very strong word.

I throw it around a fair amount, and I know that sometimes that can make it lose its meaning.

But when I say I HATE Wolfe, the sequel to River, I mean it....I really, really, really fucking hate that book.

I know I shouldn't be saying this, considering the book is coming out late May/June of this year. I'm going to need to sell this book to you, because I have very little money and I'd very much like some of yours. So I'm sure that, as the author of said book, me declaring that Wolfe was/is/will always be the bane of my existence is probably not a high selling point.

River--the first draft--was written in two weeks. It was a fast book. I just dove right in with a premise and it kind of took over. Wolfe began immediately after I completed River. That was late 2003.

I completed it early 2008.

So that should give you a sense of how much I disliked the process of writing it. It wasn't at all easy, like it's predecessor, and I think it took me longer to really "get" what it was about. If River is about accepting circumstances you can't change, Wolfe is about making a choice about what you want to be, and what you want in life. Human or wolf? A pack of humans and a beta mate, or something more?

Maybe I hated it so much because River hated it. She had tough choices to make, and a lot of ugly things about herself to confront. My boyfriend thinks I should kill her off if I continue the series, so that should tell you something.

The only reason I finished it and sent it to the publisher was because I was in a really bad head space last year and worked constantly. I didn't care about how much I hated it, I just wanted it done and gone.

I try not to stress about it too much. Apparently the ever brilliant Elaine Corvidae hated The Crow Queen (Lord of Wind and Fire Book Two), and yet I loved it and thought it was wonderful. So I know full well that we aren't always the best judges of our creations. But, truthfully, it's not that i think Wolfe is a *bad* book...

I just hate it.

Oooh, I just saw on Twitter that Sarah Haskins has a new Target Women. I'm going to go watch that now.

Let's Play with Pirates

Dear Persons Looking For A Skyla Dawn Cameron Torrent:

Yes, I see you. And this is what I have to say: please FUCK OFF.

If you can't be bothered purchasing my commercially published work or getting a LEGAL freebie (like at, oh, I don't know, the library?), then you're not cool enough to be one of my readers. I'm living below the poverty line and YOU are depriving me of income.

Please stop engaging in illegal, immoral activities. If you don't believe you're having a negative impact on authors, read this post: http://www.skyladawncameron.com/blog/changed to find out you're wrong (and why there will be no third River Wolfe book).

(If you weren't here looking for a torrent, my apologies--this post is always what the pirates hit when searching.)

--------------------------

Original Post:

Hey there, kids.

So, for the most part, I was pretty meh with illegal downloading. I never didn't really stress it because, in theory, people who download things illegally aren't the type of people who would buy something to start with. Right?

Know what does bug me, though? I have a TON of free stuff available to read on my website. Catharsis is twenty chapters and 70 000 words. Children of the Apocalypse is at 180 000 words and counting. Curio Killed the Cat will start in a matter of hours.

And why do I have free stories for people? Well, besides enjoying the writing part, I do it to draw attention to me as an author, give people a taste of my work, and then hope that they are kind enough to purchase my commercially published work.

This is why it fucking pisses me off when I get hits on my website referred from Google searches for "free ebook download river skyla dawn cameron". And this happens quite frequently.

The thing is, River as an ebook is $6 USD--and less if you hunt around a bit. That's nothing. With all this free stuff I'm providing, I get rather annoyed that people still feel entitled to more for free.

Which brings us to why I'm posting tonight.

A short while ago, I stumbled across a torrent at for River. And really...it just bugs me. Seriously, don't want to pay for the book? GO TO THE LIBRARY. REQUEST A COPY. They'll get it for you. They'll pay for it. You still get to read it for free. Get it?

See, I've been working my ass off all today to get Curio Killed the Cat ready for people to read, and seeing River pirated like this just feels like a total slap in the face. My publisher will be doing their thing to get it removed, but that's just not enough to make me feel better right now.

The torrent was requested by a 32 year old American female with the username "Bookfiend".

The torrent was uploaded by Satin2087.

If you have an account at this forum, do consider reminding each of these people that uploading books they don't own the copyright to is really not cool. If you don't, click that forum link up there, sign up, and send a PM to them there. Or post to the forum. Your choice. Do NOT threaten or harass anyone.

If you comment on any of my blogs regarding this topic, email me about it, share this post on Facebook, or post on your own blog about how e-piracy hurts authors (and tell me about it), etc,, I will put your name in a hat and draw one name. The winner gets a signed print copy of any of my available work., or, if you'd prefer, I'll send you an Advanced Review Copy of one of my upcoming novels...AND I'll send you a $10 gift certificate for Fictionwise. I'll draw a name by the end of the week (and you can always decline your prize--I'll draw another name).

To sweeten the pot, if more than ten people enter, I'll draw a second name and give a second prize.

Deal?