Self-Publishing ‘Properly’, Or: Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

On September 14, 2012September 15, 2012 By Dan HarrisIn Self-Publishing, Writing10 Comments

I got an email earlier from my editor, Misti, telling me that’s she’s almost finished her edit of ASCENSION POINT.

SQUEEEEEE-

Ahem. We’re going to have a chat on Wednesday, and shortly thereafter I’ll be able to start carving up my MS into a leaner, meaner form, with an eye on publishing before the end of October.

As this milestone nears, I just wanted to post on something I’ve been thinking about, what I consider the two different approaches a writer can take to self-publishing. In essence, one’s free, and one’s not. But there’s only one which I think is doing it ‘properly’. Can you guess which? Read more…

No Post For A Week! Are You Alive, Dan?

On September 11, 2012 By Dan HarrisIn Random, WritingLeave a comment

I am! Don’t worry, dear readers. I just haven’t been posting. Lovely wife’s lovely sister came to visit us in Sao Paulo, so we’ve been busy. Took her to Rio de Janeiro for the weekend, too.

Pao De Acucar — We went up here. It was great, but I could have lived without the three hours of queuing.

Fun times.

I’ve not been reading, and I’ve not been writing, which has limited the nuggets of bloggy inspiration somewhat. Fear not, though–at the end of this week I should be receiving a shiny, gleaming, edited copy of ASCENSION POINT back from my editor, bedecked in fancy new red lines where before there was just cliched dialogue and over-exposition. And once I get that, you can be damn sure I’ll have a blog about it.

Unsurprise of Day: Review of Chuck Wendig Book Makes Me Want to Read It

On September 4, 2012 By Dan HarrisIn Reading, Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Writing3 Comments

Chuck Wendig’s recent novel Blackbirds was already on my to-read list, simply because Chuck Wendig wrote it and his blog is one of the best things in digital print.

(If you’re a writer, and you haven’t checked out Chuck’s blog yet, go and do that. From start to finish. I’ll wait.)

Tor.com had a review of Blackbirds this week, and now I want to read it now. Now now now. So thanks, Tor, for making me spend my hard-earned money that I should be saving up for when I quit the day job to be a struggling writer. Thanks.

Cover — Also, the cover. Omigod the cover.

Steven Erikson’s New Book Is Out!

On August 30, 2012August 30, 2012 By Dan HarrisIn WritingLeave a comment

Tor.com has a non-spoilery review of Forge of Darkness, the first book in Erikson’s new Kharkanas trilogy, here. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a huge fan of his Malazan Book of the Fallen novels, so I’m pretty excited to read this.

Here’s a snip from the review which testifies to Erikson’s mastery of eon-spanning, anthropological stroytelling:

“So how does Steven Erikson deal with these potential pitfalls in Forge of Darkness, the first novel of a trilogy set before his massive Malazan Book of the Fallen (MBoF) series? He sets the prequel so far in the past—thousands of years—that any lines connecting the dots have either long since faded out of sight over the horizon (because events and people have been forgotten) or have curved out of joint (because events and people were distorted into myth), thus freeing himself from the plot/character constraints that dog so many prequels.

The truly brilliant twist in Erikson’s method, however, is that many of his characters are so long-lived that they actually span that time period. You loved Anomander Rake in Malazan? No problem, he’s still here. But because time has lost and/or distorted so much, a lot of what you thought you knew about him was wrong or wasn’t the full story.

With this singular stroke Erikson frees his creativity, giving himself a nearly blank canvas to work on while retaining the characters that so captivated his audience the first time around. It’s the best of both worlds. As a side luxury, it also highlights two of his major themes—the ways in which story (“made up”) and history (“really happened”) often blur together and the way the present is continuously and eternally reshaping itself in response to the past. It’s sheer evil genius. And it absolutely works.”

I Was Going To Write A Post Tonight

On August 29, 2012 By Dan HarrisIn Random, Sci-Fi and Fantasy3 Comments

It was going to be brilliant. Witty, erudite, informative–everything that makes a great post great.

But then I spent four hours assembling the most complicated piece of flat-packed furniture known to man. And I find I just don’t have the energy.

So here’s a video instead.

Paid-for Amazon Reviews? Oh Dear

On August 28, 2012 By Dan HarrisIn Reading, Self-Publishing, Writing12 Comments

Both the New York Times and the Atlantic had articles on this disturbing phenomenon in the last few days. Definitely worth reading for anyone who uses Amazon, as a producer or consumer.

I completely agree with the Atlantic’s conclusion:

“Policing reviews could take time and alienate some customers, both self-published authors and reviewers, but to let reviews continue unregulated might alienate far more of them.”

Both authors and readers–but especially readers, of course–need to have faith in the honesty of the review system, for the simple fact that it’s often the prime driver behind making a purchase.

And to offer a non-literary equivalent, how happy would you be to find out that, say, Samsung had paid ten thousand people $15 each to write a five-star review of a new TV they’d brought out?

Not happy, I’d imagine.

Did I Mention My Mailing List?

On August 27, 2012October 24, 2012 By Dan HarrisIn WritingLeave a comment

I don’t think I did. How remiss of me!

If any of you lovely folks would like me to pop you an email the very second that ASCENSION POINT* is available to buy, you can sign up here: http://eepurl.com/msrZn

I solemnly swear never to abuse your trust by emailing you links to ‘hilarious’ cat videos. (Though those are available on request.)

That was all. Carry on!

* and all future books, of course!

Edit Is Go Go Go… Next Week

On August 27, 2012October 24, 2012 By Dan HarrisIn Writing6 Comments

On Friday I got the sample edit of ASCENSION POINT from the folks at RedAdept. My new editor, the delightfully-named Misti, did an edit of just the first four pages of the novel–and I was delighted to see her come back with 29 suggested changes! This is exactly the kind of thoroughness I’m looking for, especially for the first few chapters of the book. (Which are still significantly weaker than the later ones, despite my best efforts to bring them up to par.)

I like Misti’s editing style, and the quoted price was fine, so all systems are go. Misti’s going to start on the full edit early next week, and should finish roughly two weeks later. At which point I spend ten minutes marveling at how many red marks there are, then set about hammering it into shape/cutting away the fat/insert editing metaphor here.

There’ll be a few passes back and forth as we whittle down the changes, then it’ll be time for a proofread by another editor to catch all the little flaws we missed. ‘This colon should be a semicolon‘, etc.

And then? PUBLISHING TIME.