SFFWorld Members big Blog thread

A few people know the story of my debut novel, Fools Errant, first sold to a Canadian publisher that was taken over and dissolved the week my book came out.

Now here’s the story of the second . . .

My work came to the attention of L.R. (Bunny) Wright, one of Canada’s top mystery writers, who introduced me to her editor at Doubleday Canada. She read Downshift, the first in a projected series about a freelance speechwriter on Vancouver Island (which was what I was) who gets involved in situations that require him to solve a mystery or die.

The editor loved the book and wanted to sign me but the marketing department wanted to go more “literary” and not sign another genre author. A five-month argument was finally won by my editor, who put the book into the process and asked me to write a second in the series. Which I started to do.

Then, three months before Downshift came out, my editor departed for another publisher– a nonfiction house, so she couldn’t take me with her. Immediately my print run was cut, my tiny promotional budget went to another book, and the marketing effort, except for library sales, was a few mouse-sized squeaks. Months later, when I asked if there were remaindered copies I could buy, I was told, “Nope, as the returns came in we sent them straight to the pulper.”

A couple of years ago, I gave the rights to Five Rivers Publishing, a Canadian no-advance small press producing ebooks and POD paperbacks, but sales were skimpy. They did want the sequel, though, so I finished Old Growth, the second in the series, that had been sitting about three-quarters done on my hard drive since 1997. It didn’t burn up the track, either.

So I’ve got the rights back and I’m self-publishing Downshift as a $3.99 ebook and a $12.99 POD paperback. It will be on my website bookstore, on Amazon and Kobo, and any downstream booksellers that connect to their distribution channels. Old Growth will follow in a little while.

By sheer coincidence, as I was preparing to put the books out, I was approached by Bob Gonzalez, an excellent voice artist who narrated an audio-book version of Downshift for Five Rivers, though the title was withdrawn when the audio-book producer messed up. So Downshift is now available wherever audio books are sold, and Bob is preparing to record Old Growth. It will follow along at about the same time as I bring out the ebooks and PODs.

Here’s the thing: I think Downshift is a pretty skookum little mystery. It got some good reviews when it came out. Old Growth is even better, because the character has matured between the books, which are set five or six years apart and because I’ve become a more skillful writer over the past twenty years. But, as my Tor editor, the late (and much missed) David G. Hartwell once told me, “Publishing is a hard, hard business.” Some good books don’t get the chance they deserve, just as some baby sea turtles never make it down the sand and into the surf.

The opening of Downshift is on the Excerpts section of my web page with a link to where to buy it. The first chapter of Old Growth is also there, but it only links to the Five Rivers paperback, which was kind of pricey. I hope you’ll give both books an opportunity to catch your interest.
 
Hello SFFWorld People,

I was wondering if you might be able to help me with a university research survey for readers of SFF. I wrote about the survey in a blog post on my website earlier this year, so I feel this is an appropriate place to post about it.

While many of my on line friends have completed the survey, as well as a few strangers, I would like to increase the responses, so that I'm receiving a much broader range of views and this is where you come into it.

Please read about my experiment here: http://tinadubinsky.com/genre-and-creativity/

Please complete the survey here: http://goo.gl/forms/IGBgUW4eW7

Completing the survey shouldn't take more than four minutes and thirty-two point five seconds. Though the time will greatly depend on how much information you want to divulge in your last answer. This is not a marketing ploy to obtain email addresses, as the survey is completely anonymous.

While the blog post related to this request is dated, it's still relevant as I have just two weeks to go before I begin my penultimate Master's subject where I will be reviewing the data received and transferring it to my writing studio work (along with other data from other sources). The data will be considered for experimentation and application it to my artefact. I'm not required to create an exegesis for this subject, however, it is still my intention to do so and I will also be releasing the results of the survey to the public once my research report and artefact are completed.

Thanks for your time, and I truly appreciate all the responses to the reader survey.

Please feel free to pass the link on to friends and family. The more responses I receive, the more interesting the data becomes.

Thanks,
-Tina
 
I see that Epiphanies, the latest Luff Imbry novella from PS Publishing, is now available as an ebook on Amazon. The three previous Imbry novellas were all released in two limited editions (signed and unsigned), as is the latest one. But they were not put out as ebooks. I'll be interested to see how Epiphanies sells.

For those who may be interested, in the story Luff is accosted by a young woman named Antheana, who claims to be his grand-niece and in need of his help on her home planet, Occitania. Since Luff is an orphan whose origins are shrouded in mystery, he is interested enough to accompany her. Of course, things are not what they seem and there is a mystery to unravel and a deadly peril to confront.
 
Following up yesterday's post, I've put the first 2500 words of Epiphanies, my latest Luff Imbry novella from PS Publishing, up on my web site for a free read. The book is available in limited edition hardcovers and, new for one of these novellas, in an ebook.

If you haven't encountered Luff before, he's a corpulent master criminal -- a forger and art thief -- living on Old Earth in its penultimate age, one aeon before Jack Vance's Dying Earth. Lately, he's come into a fortune and, as a celebrated gourmet, is enjoying the fruits of his new-found opulence. Then trouble turns up.
 
Nothing to do with my fiction writing, but I want to mark the passing of my old boss, Len Marchand, who died today. He was a trail-blazer, the first "status Indian" elected to the Canadian House of Commons who became a cabinet minister in the Pierre Trudeau government and then a senator. I was his speechwriter from 1976 to 1978 and later helped him prepare his memoirs: Breaking Trail.

The son of illiterate parents, raised on a small reserve in the BC Interior, Len managed to go to high school when it was illegal for First Nations people to attend public schools. He earned a BSc from UBC and a Masters from the University of Idaho and would have gone for his PhD if his friends hadn't persuaded him to spend a couple of years in Ottawa as a minister's assistant. When he'd done that, they urged him to run as a sacrificial-lamb candidate against the most powerful Conservative MP in BC, just to be the first of his kind to run for Parliament.

But it was 1968, the year of Trudeaumania, and Len found himself the new Liberal MP for Kamloops. He never did get the PhD, but he broke trail for all the other aboriginal people who followed his lead into politics.

He was a brave and intelligent man and I am proud to have known him.
 
I've sold One More Kill, a suspense novel that grew out of a story of the same name that won me the Canadian equivalent of an Edgar Award (it's called the Arthur Ellis Award) years ago. It will come out in limited and hardcover trade editions from PS Publishing, my favorite small press. There will probably be a paperback at some point and maybe an audio version. There will definitely be an ebook, though it's not yet decided who will produce it.

In other news, I've just reviewed the copy edit for "Ten Half-Pennies," a short story that will introduce my new serial character, Baldemar the wizard's henchman, to readers of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Editor Charlie Finlay says it will run in the November/December or January/February edition.

Charlie also says that the last Raffalon story, "The Vindicator," will run before then, so look for that in the fall.
 
Matthew Hughes said:
I've sold One More Kill, a suspense novel that grew out of a story of the same name that won me the Canadian equivalent of an Edgar Award (it's called the Arthur Ellis Award) years ago. It will come out in limited and hardcover trade editions from PS Publishing, my favorite small press. There will probably be a paperback at some point and maybe an audio version. There will definitely be an ebook, though it's not yet decided who will produce it.

In other news, I've just reviewed the copy edit for "Ten Half-Pennies," a short story that will introduce my new serial character, Baldemar the wizard's henchman, to readers of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Editor Charlie Finlay says it will run in the November/December or January/February edition.

Charlie also says that the last Raffalon story, "The Vindicator," will run before then, so look for that in the fall.
Click to expand...
Congratulations. This is fantastic news.
 
Matthew Hughes said:
I've sold One More Kill, a suspense novel that grew out of a story of the same name that won me the Canadian equivalent of an Edgar Award (it's called the Arthur Ellis Award) years ago. It will come out in limited and hardcover trade editions from PS Publishing, my favorite small press. There will probably be a paperback at some point and maybe an audio version. There will definitely be an ebook, though it's not yet decided who will produce it.
Click to expand...
Well done! PS is a great little press isn't it?

In the midst of many things, I thought it high time the local SFF genre addicts had an opportunity to meet up. http://www.millymollymo.com/another-new-project/
 
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