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Posts Tagged ‘novels’

Free Ride through Time

Posted in Books, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 04 Apr 2013| Leave a Comment »

Attention, biblio-nauts! I’m kicking off a promotion for one of my recent novels.

Starting tomorrow (Friday, April 5), you can get a free copy of Unraveling Time for your Kindle-reader.

No gimmicks. No strings. From April 5 through April 9, this book is entirely free. Go, get it, and keep it forever. It is literally yours for the taking!

(Remember, you can read Kindle books on your PC, your Mac, your iPad, your iPhone, your Android phone or tablet…anywhere!)

Still not sure? Read an excerpt of the book right here on this blog! What can you lose (except a weekend spent with a good book)?

Want to know more? Want to know what it’s about? (more…)

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It Was a What, Now?

Posted in Books, Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 01 Apr 2013| 2 Comments »

It’s one of those things I dreaded. A reader of the Fallen Cloud Saga has asked me what species of dinosaurs I used in the series. Don’t get me wrong, it’s terrific that readers want this kind of detail and “behind the scenes” info, and I’m more than happy to provide it, but I know this will only give ammunition to Paleozoic anoraks to shoot holes in my world-building techniques. The row that ensued over my leaving Quebec under French control was epic. I can only imagine what will happen with this.

But, rather than just a cold list of species, I’ll give a little of my thinking to the scenario as well.

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Squeeze Play

Posted in Books, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , on 26 Mar 2013| 4 Comments »

Kurt R.A. GiambastianiIt’s a sad fact of life, but publishing is a business. Not only that, it’s a cutthroat business. So is bookselling.

With profit margins shrinking and the sudden surge in e-book sales, the entire industry is in an uproar, and nowhere more so than in good, old brick-and-mortar bookshops. Frankly, aside from a recent visit to the Mecca of Books (a thoroughly unsatisfactory visit, too, I might add), I can’t remember the last time I was in an actual bookstore.

Well, it just became a shooting war.

Stephanie Burgis, author of the beloved Kat books for young readers, recently posted about major developments between Simon & Schuster and Barnes & Noble (lots of ampersands there…sorry). She refers us to articles posted in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal (both of which are worth a read), but here’s the bottom line:

Barnes & Noble has reduced [Simon & Schuster] book orders greatly, to almost nothing in the case of some lesser-known writers.

This, in my opinion, is the death-knell for B&N. If they don’t back off of this stance, I give them five years, at most.

(more…)

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Closing the Loop

Posted in Books, Fallen Cloud Saga, Seattle, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 20 Mar 2013| 2 Comments »

Simple LivingIt’s pissing down rain in Seattle. The lecherous wind tugs and young women’s skirts as they tick-tock their high-heeled way to work, and the few who bothered with umbrellas wish they’d left them at home. The sky is locked down in gunmetal grey and the sun is a dim memory, consumed by the overhead drear. It’s already been a long work-week for me, having put in three days’ worth before the end of Day Two, and I haven’t slept well for worrying about my family, still roiling from our matriarch’s recent death.

And yet, inside, I’m sunny. (more…)

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What Readers Want

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , on 19 Mar 2013| 2 Comments »

Kurt R.A. GiambastianiWhat do readers really want?

We’ve been discussing this topic over on some FB threads. The complaint (from writers) is about what readers do not seem to want, i.e., originality. Or at least, they don’t want too much originality.

This isn’t meant as a diss or a put-down. It’s something that’s endemic to many entertainment industries (and do not doubt that publishing is an entertainment industry). Publishers want a sure thing to put their money behind, and readers want a sure thing for their hard-earned cash. Totally understandable.

Readers want something similar to what they already know they like, but they don’t want a complete re-hash of an old story. They want their tropes, their memes, but they also want a new spin, or perhaps a new element. Some genres are extremely hide-bound (detective novels and rom-com movies, for example), while others are more open to “variations on a theme” (e.g., steampunk).  (more…)

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Brass Tacks

Posted in Books, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 18 Mar 2013| 1 Comment »

Stack of BooksMy wife and I take walks around Seattle’s Green Lake. It’s one of the best parks in the city, and it’s beautiful at any time of the year. It’s a nice 3+ mile circuit, during which we’d talk about many things, quite often about my writing. My wife (my First Reader) is a great sounding-board for plot ideas, plot problems, character development ideas, etc.

When I sold my first book, our walks had a new topic: which of these lakefront houses would we buy when the money started rolling in?

It’s true. I so firmly believed in the future success of my books and my career as a writer that I was eyeing million-dollar properties. So, what the hell happened? Why didn’t Oprah’s Secret kick in? (more…)

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At Blackbird House

Posted in Books, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on 21 Feb 2013| 2 Comments »

Kurt R.A. GiambastianiI know you’re all anxiously awaiting the “big reveal” on my full rewrite of “Cast in Stone”–he said, his words dripping with sarcasm–but that’s still a couple of days away. Meanwhile, I’m still working on the analysis task I set for myself.

If you’ll recall, as preparation for my next book, I’ve been analyzing the writing of some writers whose style I’d like to emulate. I’ve started with Alice Hoffman’s Blackbird House, a set of vignettes describing centuries of life around a single location. My goal was to understand how she is able, with extremely simple language, to create the feeling of lyricism and the mystical atmosphere that imbue so much of her work.

Let me warn you, though, before you take on a task like this. Just as most sausage-lovers don’t like to see sausage being made, doing a breakdown/ analysis/ desconstruction of a favorite author’s work can take some of the magic out of the reading experience. Suddenly, you’ll see the elements on every page, in every paragraph, and it may take some time before you can stop seeing those elements (if at all).

(more…)

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