Coming attractions

My friend Alex Fayle came up with a wonderful idea for a Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour (no posts there yet). Each month, the participants will blog on the same topic, each on a different day. We’ll post on our own blogs, with links to the tour and to those posting before and after us, so people can follow the tour. I think the plan is to start for July, so I’ll let you all know what day to expect my words of wisdom — or words, anyway.

The other thing I’m planning to do is another A to Z blog series, since I had such fun with the one in April. This time, the plan is to post once a week, beginning July 2. Topic will be women science fiction and fantasy authors. Obviously, I’m not going to do every author with a given initial, so I may choose some other method to narrow it down. I’m open to suggestions.

I may also try to get back to weekly Q&A posts, too. It’s been a while since I did those.

The idea is to get some regular content going here, in addition to all these random, “Oh, hey, I ought to tell people about that” posts.

Creating a publisher

There’s a lot of discussion out right now about indie publishing (self-publishing, e-publishing, POD, etc.). Some old hands are saying that with the current shake-outs in the publishing industry, such as Borders’ bankruptcy and closing of multiple stores, some of the big-name publishers will go bankrupt within the next few years — and these authors are starting to warn others that unless they want their manuscripts tied up in the legal process, they might be better off skipping traditional publishing completely, at the very least until things settle down. (Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s post with warnings; one of Dean Wesley Smith’s posts)

On the flip side, David Farland in his Daily Kick in the Pants warns against self-publishing and suggests only doing it if you can gain traction with samizdat publication; otherwise, he says, you’re shooting yourself in the foot and tarnishing your name for all future use. Larry Brooks, over on StoryFix, had a post recently — “A Self-Publishing Reality Check” — warning of the costs involved as well as the potential for throwing bad stuff up.

The truth is, it doesn’t have to be all one or the other. Yes, a publisher can go bankrupt — but that’s always been true. A fire could break out in their offices and take out all the paper slush that’s been sent to them as well as their computers, too. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t submit. Life is risk.

My (completely far-out-there goal) is to submit to all of the big publishers, so if one or two do go bankrupt and tie up my manuscript, I’m still in the game. I’m also pursuing small press (Moongypsy Press, for example). AND (here we get to the crux of this post) I’m going to be putting some stuff up for sale digitally.

I’ll use different pseudonyms for different series, so if you’ve liked one book or novella in a series, it’s easy for you to find more. Whenever I put a new one up, I’ll post the opening page or two here in my blog, along with purchase links, and I’ll mention it on Facebook and Twitter. That’s going to be the extent of my marketing. It’s an experiment. Both Dean Wesley Smith and Lynn Viehl say the best way of marketing a book is to write the next one. I’d like to see whether that works.

Because I’m using multiple pen names, I’m creating a sole proprietorship publisher, Hartshorn Publishing. I’ll also create a page here for that name, with recent releases and lists of series titles and descriptions.

I don’t expect to have anything up before the end of the month at the earliest, but this is your notice. . . . It’s coming.

Coming up in December

snowy treeThis week — tomorrow, in fact — my drabble “Heartbeat” will be e-mailed out by Daily Science Fiction. A week later, it’ll go up on their Website. If you haven’t subscribed to their e-mails yet, why on Earth not?

Deadlines approaching:
Bewere the Night, edited by Ekaterina Skedia, has a December 31st deadline, but she urges earlier submission if possible.

Quarterly deadline for Writers of the Future contest is also December 31st. My friend D. M. Bonanno recently became a semifinalist. Who’s next?

publication news

My book review of I Have This Nifty Idea . . . Now What Do I Do With It?, edited by Mike Resnick, is up at Vision magazine. (This book was a 2002 Hugo nominee for Best Related Book.)

My short story, “Essence of Truth,” will be e-mailed tomorrow (November 5) by Daily Science Fiction. If you haven’t subscribed, it will be up on their Website next week. (But you don’t really want to wait a week to read it, do you?)

I now return to my regularly scheduled NaNo insanity.