What Every Author Should Know

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).

Fixed: Dealing in 10 pt1

For those of you who were having trouble, this should fix it.

 
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They Were Here First

In Peter David’s Star Trek Novel Q-Squared (which is a damn good book that stands well on its own merits), Picard gets pretty damn huffy at Q for being arrogant, as Picard is wont to do. Q replies:

“Picard, I could blast this ship out of existence if I felt like it. I could grow hair on your head. Turn your crew into embryos, force Worf to recite doggerel. I could turn your ship inside out, your reality outside in. I am not being condescending, Picard… not that I’m incapable of it, you understand, but this simply isn’t one of the times. Now, what I most definitely am, Picard, is arrogant. Why? Because I have a reason to be. I have a right to be. So… mortal… what’s your excuse?”
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The Balticon Adventure pt 5: Pontification, Panels, and Parties

Well, I suppose I’ve put it off long enough. The summer since Balticon has been packed to the gills with activity. Lots of writing, lots of strategizing. I don’t think I’ve read as much in one summer in at least a decade, and I’ve written 150k words and still going—might even hit 350-400k for the year by year’s end, if I budget my time right.

But I can’t put it of any longer—needs must, and I have to move on from Balticon to the next grand adventure, so I endeavor to finish this story.

Saturday began with an argument. The clock wanted to convince me that it was almost time for my first panel. I told it that it was full of shit and really needed to get a life. It countered by telling me I now had one minute less than I used to, so I’d better get my ass moving.
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Life on Mars?

Much as I liked the show, this is about the actual planet. As someone who writes about Mars, I’ve got kind of a vested interest–then again, as a resident of Earth I’ve got kind of a vested interest anyway. Assuming we don’t manage to wipe ourselves out (a prospect which, though it will always remain a possibility, seems increasingly unlikely) humans are eventually going to have to go to Mars.

Going to Mars presents a number of problems for us, both in transit and in the ways Mars is inhospitable (Mary Roach, author of Stiff, has a great new book on the subject). Mars, for example, has weather which will make some of the lessons we learn from a Lunar colony hard to cross-apply. But it does have soil, which Luna doesn’t. Either way, if we’re gonna live there a long time, it’s gonna have to get an oxygen atmosphere and an ecosystem.

Terraforming–big word for a big operation. How would we even begin to do it?

Turns out, Charles Darwin was at the back of the world’s first experiment in terraforming. With the help of the Royal Navy, he created an artificial ecosystem. New Scientist has a great article on it.

Paradigms vs. Conspiracies: What’s the Difference?

Last night’s post about the exciting new developments in fringe cosmology provoked some interesting twitter comments. Seems some of the language in the article I linked to (particularly at the end, where it talks about vested interest) reminded some of you of denialist language from one or another favorite science/history denial camps.

Specifically, the word “conspiracy” came up a few times, as in “Do they really expect us to believe scientists are in a conspiracy about the Big Bang?”

So why would I, someone who publicly fancies himself a fairly rational fellow, post something that smacked of conspiracy thinking and call it “interesting?” Because I think there’s a difference between a conspiracy and a paradigm, and it starts with understanding how scientific theories work.

Scientific Theories

In common parlance we use “theory” in the same kind of way Spock uses it on Star Trek: i.e. as an idea that gets troublesome problems out of your hair. For example, “I have a theory, Captain: in order to save the Enterprise, you must seduce the alien’s girlfriend” is not a theory, it’s a policy recommendation designed to remove something troublesome (i.e. Kirk) from the speaker’s (i.e. Spock’s) immediate view, perhaps permanently (i.e. when the phaser-weilding alien catches Kirk boinking the girlfriend).

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Big Bang Go Boom?

Big Bang contrarians are a dime a dozen, from the crackpots to the respected physicists, like Halton Arp, who like to pick nits at the existing paradigm but don’t have a coherent alternate theory to advance. They’re usually good for an afternoon’s entertainment, but little more than that.

Sometimes, though, the exciting stuff happens in the sciences. When the incentive system works, the new kids on the block go gunning for the old theories–you make your name by going after the Fastest Gun In The West. With all the fun stuff going on recently with Dark Matter and Dark Energy playing havoc with Inflationary Cosmology, a lot of people have been waiting for the other shoe to drop: at some point, some young and hungry cosmologists are going to try like hell to blow up the Big Bang.

Well, it happened. Whether it will prove a better model, it’s too early to tell. But it is a hell of an audacious theory-in-progress, and lots of fun to read about, so I thought I’d share it with all of you. Enjoy!

Social media? Yeah, okay, sure

So, with any luck, this announcement will post to Twitter and Facebook, have at the bottom a “share this on social media sites,” and come up handsomely on mobile phones. Step one of prepping the site for this September’s big announcements is now accomplished!

Think Contracts Don’t Matter?

Since I’ve been doing a blog series on the Principles of Contracts, I have to include this bit of news about the biggest, ugliest case of a handshake deal I’ve seen in quite some time. Seems that the publishers and authors of The Shack never really figured out who owned what, and now they’re out over a million bucks in royalties as the lawsuits fly. Take a read here for the whole ugly story, and remember: Contracts Matter.

Next time: Nothing But Net

The Balticon Adventure pt 4

The Saga Of The Hat

At this point in the narrative, I’m forced to chose between one of two roads. I could go along the chronology, skipping the boring and blackmail-worthy parts along the way, or I could chose a theme and tell its story…or I could jump back and forth between each as my fancy strikes me.

Guess which one I’ve picked?

It wasn’t until my appearance on Litopia last December that I began to realize the Power of the Hat ™. First, there was the encounter I recounted last time with Kim the Comic Book Goddess (who insists she’d have recognized me without the hat, but I have my doubts). Then there was the fact that Scott Roche and Sidfawu accosted me based solely upon the Power of the Hat, and we wound up sitting in the bar for several hours on Friday night talking Down From Ten, writing, and what passes for politics in my demented corner of the universe.

But before all that boring stuff, you’ll want to hear The Good Parts.
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The Balticon Adventure pt 3

Scuba Gear

I normally travel with carry-on baggage only, but it’s not because by the end of a plane ride there’s nothing that gives me greater relief from coach seat-cramp syndrome and DVT than sitting down in another small seat in a moving vehicle. Nor is it that the prospect of walking around an unfamiliar building filled with carousels from deSade’s worst dreams fills me with nauseating dread.
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Podcasters, We Have a Problem

All of you who’ve been in the game for a while, particularly, the EFF needs your comments. As happens with just about every kind of open access technology at one point or another, somebody is trying to grab podcasting with a patent. If the patent is granted, our community and other sectors of new media, are in for a world of pain and expense. As far as I can tell from what I know of the history, the patent is very likely bogus. The EFF has a current Request For Comments out, looking for prior art and other industry context. If you are a podcaster or podcasting fan, please take a moment to read the RFC and drop the EFF an email regarding this matter.

An Open Letter to Spider Robinson

Last night I had occasion to send an email to Spider Robinson, thanking him for his recent book Variable Star, a posthumous collaboration with Robert A. Heinlein. If you are unfamiliar with Spider’s work, or have not read Variable Star, you owe it to yourself to take a gander. All royalties from the book go to fund the Heinlein prize, which is a nice bonus, but really, the book is worth it on its own well apart from that. I reproduce part of the letter below, to give you a flavor for why.

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It’s Time To Bust It Open

As part of my self-education as a writer learning to market his work, I’ve been watching trends in e-books and audiobooks as well as publishing industry trends, and thinking about them in the context of podcasting as an endeavor that takes a lot of passion and commitment from very creative people.

With all the talk of the podcasting revolution a few years ago, I wonder how many people truly grasp the potential enormity of what we’re doing. Just like good old Mr. Ballantine who invented the paperback, we podcasters are creating new kinds of intellectual property. However, unlike Mr. Ballantine, we don’t fully appreciate what we’re up to.
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If You Build It, Will They Come?

Free content – particularly in the audio fiction space – suddenly seems a lot less of a perpetual free lunch than it did six months ago, and it’s got a lot of folks freaking out in my corner of the Internet. Providers are dropping like flies this year! Matthew Wayne Selznick and J.C. Hutchins have both very publicly withdrawn from the podcast fiction space, and for the best reason there is: Money.

[Correction: MWS chimed in in the comments to correct my misapprehension of his current attitude toward podcasting, which is considerably more complex than the paragraph above makes it seem. My apologies for inadvertently misrepresenting him.]

The two of them are generation one podiobookers who appeared in the space hot on the heels of the three founders, and seeing them throw in the towel has a lot of other creators wondering: “Are we all just being idiots giving stuff away for free?” And it’s got a lot of fans wondering “What’s going to happen now? Are all my favorite writers going to give up?”

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