Archive for October, 2010
October 29th, 2010 by jdsawyer
The City that Never Sleeps…
…Needs a Detective With Insomnia
The first volume in the new Clarke Lantham Mysteries is now available at all your favorite online book retailers, in all ebook formats. This is the beginning of a year-long experiment with ebooks and other maverick content delivery techniques, and Lantham (in all his snarky, darkly-comic glory) is the headline star.
Today is the day to rush the markets — for only $3.20, what have you got to lose? Find it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords.
To mark the occasion, there are a few things in store today. First, I’m launching a new website, specifically for the Lantham series, which you can find here. It has a series map and other stuff related to the current and upcoming mysteries. Only a little bit there right now, but it’s still worth the jaunt over. Check it out!
Second, I’ll be doing a live call-in show on Podioracket’s Blogtalk Radio show tonight at 6pm Pacific time. Join me, grill me, hear readings from the book. I’ll be yours for a whole hour, maybe two.
Of course, if you’ve never read e-books before, I’ve written a handy dandy quickie guide to the subject, applicable to all cell phones, e-readers, mobile devices, and computer platforms.
Finally, just in case you don’t know what all this hullabaloo is about, here’s the back cover summary:
A man of infinite social grace he isn’t, but what former disgraced Oakland Police Detective Clarke Lantham lacks in high culture he makes up for with his ability to slip into any role he needs to to get the job done (which is probably why he got fired in the first place).
Fortunately, the world needs private detectives. Unfortunately for Lantham, on this particular Saturday morning, “the world” consists of a fretful mother with a missing daughter, and the case she hires him for is about send reality staggering into the gutter like an eighty-year-old drunk.
From the posh shadow of Mount Diablo to the kink clubs of San Francisco to the genetic engineering labs of Stanford, Clarke Lantham chases down pieces of the weirdest puzzle he’s ever seen, all for the sake of a nineteen-year-old girl whose face he can’t stop seeing every time he closes his eyes.
Head on over and pick up your copy now — it’s already getting great reviews!
October 22nd, 2010 by jdsawyer
And, from the kitchen this weekend we have for you a lovely Link Salad, with leaves of history and science, garnished with a healthy dose of whimsy.
But first, I begin with a special treat for my free-wheeling brewer friends. Beer has always been a problem in space — not because of drunk piloting, but because weightlessness does weird things to the sense of taste. There’s also the question of what the bubbles will do to the body, and how drinkable beer will be in zero G anyway. Fortunately, someone is officially working on these problems so that we can take into space with us the drink that made civilization possible in the first place: Click here for Space Beer!
Now, on to the main courses:
Continue reading ‘Link Salad, Oct 22 2010′
October 20th, 2010 by jdsawyer
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And now, Episode 5 of Free Will and Other Compulsions. Story So Far by Jack Hosley, host of Wander Radio.
Cast this week (in order of appearance):
Steven H. Wilson as Percy Scott
Nobilis Reed as The Nurse
Nathan Lowell as Senator William Shelley
Kitty Nic’Iaian as White House Intern
Benjamin Roberts as Shane the Aide
October 18th, 2010 by jdsawyer
Seth Harwood’s new release, Young Junius, hits stores today. For those of you who like hard crime, this is the place to get it–it’s been garnering great reviews from Publisher’s Weekly.
I haven’t read it yet myself, but at his best, Harwood is phenomenal. Here’s the PDF so you can judge for yourself. Take a gander — if you like it, head on over to Amazon and grab a copy, or get a signed hardcover special edition directly from Seth’s website.
And speaking of crime, remember: Clarke Lantham arrives in ten days!
October 15th, 2010 by jdsawyer
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Welcome to the second of several Down From Ten Feedback shows. This one is episode ten, part two of the Dealing In series of feedback shows, where I and several friends answer your emails and talk about whatever comes up. This time, I’m joined by Metamor City and Down From Ten cast member Chris Lester, New York Times Bestseller Gail Carriger, and producer/actor/cartoonist Kitty Nic’Iaian. What do we talk about? An incomplete list, in no particular order:
Food
Pacing
Screenplays
Chekov
Soulless
Racism and bigotry in the Victorian world
Douglas Adams
Thomas Mann
Cultural change throughout history
The Death of the Author
Focault
Deride
Shakespeare
The Royal Shakespeare Company
POV characters
George R.R. Martin
Neal Stephenson
Shakespeare
Employing Symbolism in writing
Tee Morris
October 13th, 2010 by jdsawyer
In the “should have done this a long time ago” department, I’m going to start offering up a semi-regular link salad digest. These are links to articles, books, lectures, and other cool stuff that I’ve run across in the course of my ill-fated attempt to grok the universe. They also tend to feed my creative churn, both in fine details (i.e. research) and in gross grist (i.e. ideas). Whether for that reason or because of the “cool stuff” factor, I hope you’ll find things you enjoy here.
This week’s Link Salad contains elements of science, sex, publishing market reports, book reviews, and is garnished with interesting cultural tidbits. Here you go:
Continue reading ‘Link Salad, Oct 13 2010′
October 11th, 2010 by jdsawyer
Today (well, technically tomorrow) is Columbus day, the day when residents of the New World used to celebrate the onset of colonization, and the formation of the dozens of nations that have peopled North and South America for the past half-millennium with their bronzed, clean-limbed, healthy living, civilized ways; the opening of the new frontier, the opportunity to bring civilization and salvation to the savages, and hew a new way of life out of the flesh of the previously un-touched wilderness.
It is now perhaps more popularly known as “white guilt” day, the day when people who are culturally descended from those early settlers and the people they conquered go into reflexive spasms of regret over the conquest of a paradise uncorrupted by the sins of European so-called “civilization. It brought environmental catastrophe, plagues, wanton slavery, and ugliness hereto unseen on the face of the earth.
Continue reading ‘Columbus the Scumbag?’
October 10th, 2010 by jdsawyer
On Halloween Weekend, October 29th to be exact, a new series debuts at Amazon.com and in the other major ebook markets.
A man of infinite social grace he isn’t, but what former disgraced Oakland Police Detective Clarke Lantham lacks in high culture he makes up for with his ability to slip into any role he needs to to get the job done (which is probably why he got fired in the first place).
Fortunately, the world needs private detectives. Unfortunately for Lantham, on this particular Friday morning, “the world” consists of a fretful mother with a missing daughter, and the case she hires him for is about send reality staggering into the gutter like an eighty-year-old drunk.
From the posh shadow of Mount Diablo to the kink clubs of San Francisco to the genetic engineering labs of Stanford, Clarke Lantham chases down pieces of the weirdest puzzle he’s ever seen, all for the sake of a nineteen-year-old girl whose face he can’t stop seeing every time he closes his eyes.
And Then She Was Gone is the first of the Clarke Lantham Mysteries, hard-boiled detective fiction with a hard comic edge, the series consists of a planned three self-contained novels and a number of short stories, though I enjoy writing this character so much I would not be surprised if it grew. This is a market experiment–how well can a relative unknown do in the suddenly wide-open ebook marketplace? We shall see. If nothing else, this experiment has yielded one result already: a book which will give you your month’s RDA of adrenaline while making you chuckle maniacally.
I hope you join me on October 29, 2010 for the all-markets rush. More details coming soon!
October 9th, 2010 by jdsawyer
My recent post on zombie industries (in which I argued that the pissing and moaning coming from authors and some publishers recently is a sign of an industry that is currently in serious trouble) leads inevitably to the obvious question:
If, appearances to the contrary, the customer actually sets the price in a marketplace, and all this hullabaloo is about ebooks, then what is the proper price for an ebook?
Continue reading ‘Beer Money: Responding to Konrath and Siregar’
October 4th, 2010 by jdsawyer
Several people have asked for my current pro-rates markets list for short fiction. The following are periodicals only (i.e. no anthologies) broken out by genre, and listed in order of highest paying to lowest.
Here you go, listed in or:
Continue reading ‘Pro-Rate Markets List’
October 4th, 2010 by jdsawyer
There’s a conversation going on at the always controversial blog of Dean Wesley Smith. The post itself is interesting for its unconventional wisdom, but it is the comments that are important. In it, several authors with pub credits in the dozens and loads of literary experience talk explicitly about contract terms, money management, professionalism, and negotiations. They compare notes, go into deep detail, and it is absolutely essential reading for ALL authors-indie or newbie or podcast or mainstream established.
I kid you not. This is indispensable. Here’s the link again. It’s the kind of information I started ANMAP to help disseminate. Go there. Now.
Now, back to producing the next podcast (hopefully tonight) and the next Principles of Contracts article (Thursday), and prepping for a big announcement (Monday).
