Trader’s Diary

Several people have asked me where my main feed is — and I just got another request this morning.

I don’t have one.

My thinking is that each title needs to stand on its own. As a result I rebuild every title’s followers from 0. That means that if you don’t keep track of me either here or on Podiobooks, you might miss it. It also means I don’t have the advantage of a captive audience that I get to build on for each book. People have to actually DO something in order to keep up with me.

I’m beginning to think I should.

If I think in terms of building a brand .. creating that product kind of thing where I maximize my exposure and potential market .. I absolutely need to be capitalizing on my previous work by making sure that anybody who subscribed before gets a taste of the new work and subsequently has to opt out — take some action to NOT get the new stuff. That will maximize my downloads and assure that I get numbers that make me look as good as possible.

That’s always struck me as being a trifle self-serving, and not necessarily something I want to do. My objective has always been to provide the best quality entertainment value for my work within the scope of my ability.

But it occurs to me that it also *prevents* people from staying up to date by forcing them to keep track of me. It almost forces them to subscribe thru podiobooks (altho I realize that iTunes music store by-passes subscription) and therefore maximizes my exposure on podiobooks. That prevention factor seems even more self-serving. After all, if I want to make sure you get the best possible experience, then I should make it as easy as possible for you to get the work. That means you should be able to get it all in one feed if you want. It also means you should be able to get it in multiple formats. (Watch for news on that in the first quarter of 2010.)

So, I’ve used the excellent Yahoo Pipes tool to merge all the feeds together.

Enjoy.

Yay! I went to check my iTunes stats and found this waiting…

In case you’re new to the iTunes Music Store, that’s Captain’s Share as the first title under New and Notable for ARTS! Not Arts > Literature which is cool enough but the parent category of ARTS!!

Thank you SO much to the 46 people who rated and the 21 who left comments. I’m boggled!

This seems a little like the mouse and lion – I’m the mouse here – but JC Hutchins, that paragon of promotion, needs some help to make the release of 7th Son: Descent a smash hit with his publisher, St. Martin’s Press. Some of you may have heard the promo I did for this on the podiobook feeds and JC himself has created a promo as well.

He’s doing a ton of stuff to create buzz and build interest in this release.
- a new podcast version (see JCHutchins.net)
- A prequel audio short story anthology called 7th Son: 7 Days (Listen to the first episode)
- Serialization of the novel in PDF form, and the text at BoingBoing.net
- Producing music from John Smith’s album, Anyman.

No, it’s not a Golden Age of the Solar Clipper novel, but it’s a great story. Talk about character driven! This book has the same character implemented 8 different ways! It’s a classic action-adventure yarn and this book was a significant inspiration to my getting into Podiobooks myself. I remember listening to the first episode and thinking, “Ok, this is really a viable distribution mode. I wonder if *I* really could do something here.” I owe a lot to JC for that inspiration and for constantly spurring me on to get better.

So, what can you do?

- follow JCHutchins on twitter for updates (if you’re not already).
- subscribe to his podcasts
- download his pdfs
- help spread the word to those you know about this next book making the transition from Podcast to Paper
or
- and if you are so inclined, buy the book! I have my on pre-order from Amazon already and I’m really looking forward to hearing the voices in my head read this one to me.

Thanks, shipmates. Whatever you can do will help.

With the completion of Captain’s Share yesterday, I’ve come to the end of another production cycle. My plans for the next few months include catching up with all the things I’ve pushed into the background for the last few weeks.

For those who missed the news about NaNoWriMo – the National Novel Writing Month – I’ll be participating again this year. The rules stipulate that you start a new book on November 1st and you had until the end of the month to complete 50,000 words. Mur Lafferty challenged me to finish in 15 days and I’ve set my own goal to write a complete novel (that’s 100,000 words for me) before the end of the month. Just to add a bit of spice to the effort, I’ve also been challenged to write a fantasy. So, I’ll be trying to do all this in November.

Owner’s Share will need to wait until next year and I’m looking to finish the release sometime after May 2010 so that it will be eligible for the Parsec Awards in 2011. That will be the final book in the Share series. I’m not sure if it’ll be the last book about Ishmael Wang, but it’s the end of the arc for that range of stories. I’ve planned one other story in this universe – Cape Grace – and that may have to wait for a while longer. We’ll see how things work out.

Then there’s NaNoWriMo in 2010…

At the moment, there’s no print or other text distribution deal. I’ll need to revisit Quarter Share and brush it up based on what I’ve learned from the last couple of years. In the meantime, we’ll keep plowing on. I need to do a promo for the entire universe to begin to really grow the audience. Based on conversations I’ve had with some of the promo-pros, I’m convinced that I’m missing a bet and I need to deal with that, too.

On the travel front, I’ll be in Chicago the 29th to the 31st, and in Orlando January 27-30. These are DayJob conference visits but I can usually get away for a few hours for a cuppa.

Finally, thanks for your support. If you can, please rate the books on Podiobooks.com and on iTunes Music Store. Ratings give the book visibility and help other people find it. It takes only a tick or two and makes a big difference.

WooHOO!!

My friend and fellow podcaster asked me to comment about NaNoWriMo for an article he’s done for Wired UK. It’s not a BIG comment, but welcome to all the Wired readers who may be stopping by for the first time.

Welcome to the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper.

And yes, I am doing NaNoWriMo this year. Mur Lafferty has challenged me to “win” within the first 15 days — that is, to write 50k words before November 15 on a new project.

No, it’s NOT going to be another book set in the Golden Age. I’m going to take a month and see if I can write a fantasy novel that stands the tropes of fantasy on their pointy little heads. It should be fun, and with any luck at all, you’ll have a new book to listen to for Christmas.

Apparently my email list is no longer supported here and I’ve lost access to it. I’m working to get a new list up and running.

Bear with me while we fumble under the hood.

[Update]: I recovered the list of addresses and I’ve installed a new list. You should be getting email from me tomorrow. I wanna make sure it’s actually doing what I think it is before I send out a message.

A Trader’s Tale from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper

UPDATE: Sept 26. If you’re following comments, or Podiobooks on Twitter, or any number of other news outlets, you know that we’ve got a release date of Sept 30. I’ve got the first episode through QC after several false starts (thank you iTunes for hiding what my ID3 tags really looked like — not) and I’m on track to have at least five episodes ready to go when the gates open.

UPDATE: Sept 29. It’s almost midnight on the East Coast of the US and already the 30th in large portions of the globe. Captain’s Share is going live in the next few minutes. I’ll get it posted to iTunes as soon as I can.

Enjoy.

I’m way behind and I need to upgrade.

I hope this doesn’t screw up too much, but it needs to happen.

Bear with me

It was a strong field and the newcomer to the mix beat us out.

Congrats to James Durham and FETIDUS for a double Parsec win.

Time to start planning for next year.

Just a quick note and an apology.

I thought we’d have the first draft done by now. It’s very, very close. Perhaps fewer than 10,000 words from the end. The book in its current draft is already about 145k words but will probably get cut down to something closer to 125 before I’m done with the second draft.

I’d really hoped to have at least the first chapters released to Podiobooks before Labor Day and the Parsec Awards, and for that I apologize. I’m still on track to get it released before the official end of Summer (September 21st).

And I still need music. Suggestions are welcome.

Ok, back to the work already in progress.