Trader’s Diary

Here’s the first book being signed and dedicated for a fan about 7am this morning.

There was quite a pile of addresses and I’ve already gone through half a case of books. We’re gonna have to order more pretty quickly I think.

In addition to these domestic US, there were copies to New Zealand, Australia, and Europe.

I don’t know how many you all have bought in total across the various media, but I’m fairly well amazed. When it all happens behind the screen, it’s hard to really get a feel for how many books are out there. With them stacked up on the dining room table like that, it gets very real.

Thank you, all.

No, not the book by Annie Proulx — Quarter Share.

Amazon now lists it in stock and Ridan reports they have recieved their initial shipments. I’m waiting for my boxes to show up here in the next day or so and you can order a signed copy of your own right now!

Pretty cool, I think.

Several people have asked where/when I’ll be at BaltiCon. Here’s the list

Friday (2010-05-28)

Introduction to Second Life
Room: Derby
Start time: 17:00
Basic interaction within SL
SL For Newbies: How to get around and find interesting things to do. How to build an avatar, shop for clothes, books, and land. A visit to Help Island, the place where new Second Life residents start. This preparation for getting the most out of SL.

Social Media for the Midlist Author
Room: Chesapeake
Start time: 18:00
Why are you passing up other marketing venues?
Words of wisdom about social media from authors: published or about to be published. They’ve built themselves a huge loyal audience, why haven’t you? If you’re a published author, mid-list or not, why aren’t you taking advantage of these thriving communities to grow your own readership?
Our new media savvy authors will help you figure out where you can focus your efforts to get the best bang for that most precious commodity: Your time!
Whether it’s gathering “friends” on Facebook, sending tweets on Twitter, or podcasting your own fiction you’ll learn which aspects of social media are the best investment of your time and money.

Second Life – See The You You Want To Be
Room: Derby
Start time: 22:00
How virtual worlds like SL affect you in real life
Second Life presents obstacles and benefits for people with disabiilties. How can you possibly take yourself into a virtual world if you can’t operate a mouse or can’t see the screen? But for those who can get past the hurdles, virtual worlds like SL present a chance for people to relate to a whole world outside of the confines of their own body. What’s more, the effects of the virtual world have impacts on the real world. Come and learn more about the benefits some people with disabiilties are getting from SL.

Saturday (2010-05-29)

From New Media to Old
Room: Derby
Start time: 12:00
The journey from Podiobook to Print
Anyone with a microphone and a story to tell can create a podcast novel, but what is the next step in publishing? From vanity presses to publishing contracts, there are many avenues to success for modern novels. How much does a podcast novel help your publishing? How do you get an agent? Do you need an agent? What kinds of publishers are out there, and how can you approach them if your story is already available online? This panel lets podcasters who have published their stories tell about what they went through, what went right, and what went wrong, and give suggestions on how podcast novelists can take the next step in publishing.

NaNoWriMo for Noobs
Room: Chesapeake
Start time: 15:00
How it was won or lost
National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a motivational novel-writing program for anyone who has wanted to write a novel but doesn’t know how to get started. The program provides guidelines, structure and countless tools for success yet many still do not complete the 50,000 words required to be a winner. This panel of NaNoWriMo participants and winners will discuss their strategies for success, and if finishing even matters.

Sunday (2010-05-30)

Nathan Lowell Reading
Room: Pimlico
Start time: 19:00

Using Second Life to Expand Your Audience
Room: Derby
Start time: 20:00
Whether your gig is music, photography, art, or writing there are a thousand ways you can expand your audience using the free virtual world called Second Life. Our panelists explain the many ways they have used SL to keep in touch with their existing fans and make new ones.

Monday (2010-05-31)

Nathan Lowell and Jonathan Maberry Autographing
Room: Maryland Foyer
Start time: 10:00

It’s that time of year again, folks, and this time there’s some interesting developments in the category department. Here’s the qualification blurb for novel form:

Best Speculative Fiction Story (Long Form)

* Novel-length stories containing elements of science fiction, fantasy or horror
* Story audio length (minus intro/promo) over 7 hours
* Uses only 1 or 2 people for the story presentation
* Work completed within the eligibility year and have not competed in a previous year
* Audio samples only, no video

It looks like I may have a chance to win a Parsec after all!

For reference, works completed between May 1, 2009, and April 30, 2010, are eligible for this year’s Parsec.

In my world, that’s two books — Captain’s Share (completed October 15, 2009 at something over 11 hours of audio), and Ravenwood (completed February , 2010 with more than 10 hours of audio). If they both make it to the finalist category, I’ll need to figure out which one to hold back. I made the mistake of competing against myself before and I think it was a strategic blunder.

Personally, I’m pleased to see these changes although I know that it puts some of my friends in an awkward spot. Well, we’ll see how it shakes out this year. I’ll still polish up my Susan Lucci Tiara for the ceremony.

Several of you are asking where we are on the various projects so let me take a moment to give you a status report.

The last of the major edits for the paper version of Quarter Share have been sent back to Ridan. We should be clearing the last of the “clean up” edits in the next few days in order to have the books available at Balticon at the end of May.

Owner’s Share will be the next book, but I’ve not been able to give it the attention it deserves for a number of reasons. Putting the edits together for Quarter Share hasn’t really made as much difference as this next bullet…

I’m losing my Day Job at the end of June. Some of you know I work for a national research and development institute dedicated to helping support education for children with the most severe disabilities — blindness, deafness, and significant support. That work depends on Federal grant funding. With the recent economic downturn and some fundamental changes in the way grants are awarded, we’ve been unable to secure additional funding and so my day job is going away at the end of June. This has been rather a tougher blow than I’d anticipated but I’m recovering.

What all this means is that, after June I’ll have a lot more time to devote to creative pursuits like writing and recording. I”ll also have a lot more incentive to do so. The situation is far from desperate here, so please don’t fret on that score. I’ve got many prospects for teaching in the fall and with the pending release of the dead tree scrolls, my status as “second income” here at Casa de Lowell is secure. It just will be more “second” than “income” for a few months.

Owner’s Share will be out this year but it looks more like “Summer” than “Spring” at this point. The sequel to Ravenwood is likewise on the table. I really need to find a place for Cape Grace in this line up, too.

In addition to that, I’ll be producing the podio version of Michael J. Sullivan’s Avempartha for Ridan and I’ve still got voice work with a couple authors out there. It’s shaping up to be a fun ride.

So, thank you all for you continued support. We’re moving on with creative pursuits and I will still be at Balticon at the end of may. I better be or Paul will shoot me. I’ve got nine events on the schedule already, including a reading, an autograph session, and a book party!

Stay tuned for more news and, as Ishmael would say, “Trust Lois.”

Robin reminded me that I haven’t keep you up to date on the editing.

We’ve passed the book back and forth about three times now and I’m very pleased with the way the editing is going. We’ve had some tweaking of the cover art, mostly for color and tone, but the real time is being put into cleaning up the story.

One of the things that always baffled me about interviews with authors who went from Print to Podio was the question of “Did you have to change much?” I understand that question much better now. Writing for print is, on its surface, a much more straightforward proposition. There are a lot of visual cues on the page to help the reader understand what’s going on. There are, likewise, a lot of audio cues in a podiobook. Since I wrote all my books to be read aloud and not printed, I’m finding that we’re spending a lot of time fine tuning that difference.

It’s taking longer to edit that it did to write originally, but that’s to be expected, given how fast I wrote it. I believe that — in the end — you’re going to be pleased with the results, and in any case, we’re taking the approach that it’s better to be good than fast.

Ridan has been watching your response to the announcement of getting the books in print and they’re floating the idea of putting out a special, hard cover, limited edition run. The price will be pretty high (I don’t know how high yet, but I’d guess around $30-$35) but we’re thinking something like running 100 of them and putting them up as signed, numbered, limited editions.

How many of you would want to buy one of those?

Three years ago this month — on January 12, 2007 — I sat down at my keyboard and started to write a novel. At the time, I had no idea if I could. I’d started often enough before in my life and never finished. I didn’t really know if I would finish that one, but I had a goal — Podiobooks.com.

In January, 2007, this podcasting thing was only a couple of years old. Most people had never heard of it, and the idea of a serialized audiobook — the podcast novel — was even more unknown. I found Podiobooks in 2006 and started listening to Earthcore, 7th Son: Descent, and Brave Men Run. I think I went through the whole catalog in a few weeks, and when I finished Nina Kimberly the Merciless, I knew I had to try it. These people were having just way too much fun and I wanted to have fun, too. When I sat down to write the book that you all know as Quarter Share, the goal was to finish the story, record it, and publish it on Podiobooks.

Ten days later, I had my first draft. By the end of January I started recording. Yes, I recorded it in a very poor format on a $20 headset mic in the front seat of my car. Evo helped me get it into the correct form and in February 18th, 2007, the first six episodes of Quarter Share went into the stream.

Since that time, you’ve been with me through 5 ‘Share books, a Shaman’s Tale, and, now, a full on fantasy novel with Ravenwood. You’ve pestered me for the next release, you’ve badgered me about paper copies, you’ve written to publishers on my behalf to get them to print my books. You’ve donated, and rated, and reviewed, and followed me on twitter. There’s a discussion group in a knitter’s community for me. (Hi, Ravelry!) You’ve humbled me with your support and with your enthusiastic embrace of my work.

Normally, I keep a pretty low profile, but this month marks more than one milestone, and I’d like to share them with you.

3 years.
7 Books.
800,000 words.
1,000,000 downloads.

and one book contract.

Earlier this month I signed with Ridan Publishing to produce Quarter Share in a trade paper edition that will be available soon – at least by the time BaltiCon rolls around at the end of May.

Thank you, all, for your inspiration, your reviews, your comments, and your heartfelt support of the stories over the last three years.

Happy birthday, Ishmael! And many happy returns.

It’s fitting that on the Winter Solstice we open the door to Lammas Wood.

While I’ve spent most of this month working on the second and third drafts of Ravenwood, it became increasingly clear to me that this world needed its own place to live. After at least a half an hour of thinking and wrangling ideas around, I decided to open a sister site for the stories of the Lammas Wood so that these very different tales can have room to grow unbounded by the coldness of the Deep Dark and the metal shells of solar clippers.

I’m looking forward to discovering this world with you, but rest assured that the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper is far from over.

Watch for Owner’s Share in the Spring and keep an eye open for news of a cellulose and ink variety in the next few days.

Safe voyage.

Coming soon January 4, 2010 to Podiobooks.com.

Tanyth Fairport makes one last pilgrimage in her quest to learn all she can about the herbs and medicinal plants of Aerony before settling down to write her magnum opus. When her trip is interrupted to help a small village, she learns that much of what she knows of the world may not be quite as it seems.

The mad month of November is winding down and the next book is on the horizon. This is NOT another science fiction novel set in the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, but a Fantasy set in a whole new world. Stay tuned for adventure.

[UPDATE 11/28/09: At 113k words, the first draft is done. I'm probably gonna rest my brain pan and look for music for the podcast tomorrow, then start the second draft. Stay tuned.]

[UPDATE: 11/29/09: New cover art]

[UPDATE: 12/15/09: Second draft done. Release date set]