Rightly or wrongly, my character building is often hailed as one of my greatest strengths in my writing. If you click here, I reveal ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING about how I do what I do. If you read this post, you will probably become a better writer than I am.*
*This post contains pos-alutely, absa-tively, zero percent hyperbole
Ok, I have to admit the title of this post is misleading. The truth is you do need an e-reader — just not a physical one. If you own a PC, a Mac, an iPad, an iPhone, a BlackBerry, or an Android phone… you can get an e-reader app for free. And once you’ve got that done, you can download Perfect Shadow instantly — and for cheap. Perfect Shadow will be available in all these formats, and internationally, in June. I hope the following tutorials make life a little easier for those of you who are ready to cautiously dip your toes into the new world of e-publishing.
* To download Nook for PC go HERE.
* To download Nook for Mac go HERE.
* To download Nook for other platforms go HERE.
*To download Kindle for PC go HERE.
* To download Kindle for Mac go HERE.
* To download Kindle for other platforms go HERE.
Those of you who know and love GraphicAudio’s work on The Night Angel Trilogy and The Black Prism, rejoice: they’re also producing Perfect Shadow. And here’s the cover art by Jahbulani Ori, who goes by Jahbu:
(Click to embiggen and see without text.) It will be released on June 3rd. And I’m super happy to announce that this will be available to our international brethren as well and on the very same day–so those of you in the UK and Australia should be able to get this very easily, and for no more than Americans pay. (Circus barker’s voice: It’s yours for a low, low price of only a mere, bare, bargain-basement price of $3.99!)
You can go here to listen to samples of GraphicAudio’s work, if you haven’t had a chance to listen before. Americans on June 3rd, you can go HERE to download Perfect Shadow, and international audiences, you can go HERE. (See, I told you guys I was working on getting this out in as many formats and as quickly and cheaply as possible! It’s just that I usually can’t say until the deals are done and the cover art is finished.)
Baby Snaga. Baaaaaabyyyyyyy Snaga. I got you in my sights. I see you. Over there. Looking sharp. And beautiful. And shiny. And…. Miniature.
Baby Snaga is the award for the also-rans. It’s a reward for the writers who are good enough to get into the finalist circle, but not brawny enough to take Papa Snaga from the hands of an unwitting world audience. This is what happens when a man destined for a Baby Snaga tries to touch Papa Snaga:
Do you see the crazed gleam in his eye? That’s the look of a man who knows that Snaga will never be his. He can pet Papa Snaga’s curves, but if he ever tries to wield the big man himself, he’ll probably chop off a toe in a tragic woodcutting accident.
Warning to readers: that crazed, sad, pathetic little man above, there, THAT could be me. This is why I need your help. Desperately. Desperately. Need. Your. Help.
The David Gemmell Legend Award is given to the best heroic fantasy of the year as voted on by people like you. That’s right, every award has its foibles, and the David Gemmell Legend Award’s foible is this: THEY’RE TRUSTING YOU.
This year, the finals of the DGLA include a very talented pool: first, the Frenchman, Pierre Pevel, author of The Cardinal’s Blades. Pierre may or may not have been involved in ruthlessly mocking my pronunciation of “Cardinal Richeliu.” Oh, you think you can do better? Just try: Cardinal RI. SHEH. LYOOO. Doubtless Pierre will have the Francophile vote locked down. Anglophiles, consider this a direct challenge to your manhood. Or. Womanhood…
Besides, what have the French ever given us except extremely good clothes… and great wine… and great cheese… and great architecture… and charming waiters… and Lilu Dallas clothed in a bandage?
Secondly comes Peter V. Brett. Who, to my eternal envy, has upon at least one occasion, hugged the aforementioned Milla Jovovich (although it is believed at this time that she was not wearing the bandage at the time of said hug). Peter Brett is the talented author of The Painted Man and The Desert Spear. He is also a noted hugger.
Thirdly, Markus Heitz has burst upon my consciousness like dawn after a night of too much fun. Markus, despite having infiltrated my own exquisite publisher in the US and UK, is carrying the honor (and zillions of votes) of yet another great Old World country: Germany. Dah Dah Dah. And besides, what have the Germans given us? Except music. Philosophy. Poetry. Clocks that run on time. Cars that actually look good. 18-hour Opera. And kick-ass fantasy stories. Oh wait, forget that last part. Don’t vote for him! Look over here! Me! Over Here! The American. Ah, crap.
My fourth and fourth-and-a-halfth opponent is the ubiquitous (and also American) Brandon Sanderson. Brandon is the author of approximately 417 novels. Who is also known as the man who has lost the David Gemmell Legend award more times than anyone else has even been nominated. However: DO NOT PITY THIS MAN. He is also the only man in the world known to proficiently dual-wield Baby Snagas (having had more practice than anyone alive). And of course, the other halfth of his team is the utterly inimitable Robert Jordan who is, indeed, a legend. And if you vote for Robert Jordan (a personal hero of mine), I might someday– after a long and bitter time of personal sorrow–forgive you.
Ok, fine. So the field’s crowded. And the other guys… They’re not half bad. Not even those guys who are splitting a Snaga in half. So, here’s the reason you should vote for me…
Ok, well gosh darn it, I’m just pretty psyched that I get a Baby Snaga! So thanks all you guys for getting me this far in the David Gemmell Legend Award. And, if you’re a glutton for punishment, you can throw in a vote on the losing side. It’s only a couple clicks of your mouse, and maybe you’ll help me sacrifice some dignity by coming in a distant fourth rather than a distant fifth-and-a-half (I hate it when the write-in votes for Mickey Mouse beat me)! Go here to vote.
Thank you so much for the honor, and I hope I entertained you with this brief fight preview! (raw-KEY, raw-KEY, raw-KEY, ROCKY!) C’mon, even the Russians voted for the underdog, and that was during the Cold War!
In my continuing quest to rid the world of poor world… building… wait, does that make any sense at all?… I am posting yet another brief essay in response to your questions about, well, yeah, World Building.
So, if you care what I have to say about writing in general and world building in particular this month, please click over here. And as always, if you have more writing questions, please feel free to put them in the comments section, and I will add them to the queue. I’ll have more coming next month on character building.
Today Orbit has unveiled the cover art and announced the release date for Perfect Shadow. (Hint: June!) You can check out their full post here. We’ve been working hard to make this available to all my fans simultaneously (see, Australia, I’m not forgettin’ you guys) and found out that if we pull it off, this will be the first *ever* simultaneous international e-book release. So my kudos to Orbit for being on the forefront of electronic publishing. (We’re not betting the farm yet that every international vendor will have it up on their servers on June 1, but we’re trying!)
I’m also delighted to announce that Orbit is doing an unabridged audiobook version available for digital download voiced by the incredible James Langton. (You can hear more samples of his work here.) I’ve spoken with James about the work, and he brings a deep experience and keen understanding to this project. The audio book will be available on the same launch date.
*Update* We’ll post the pre-order page for the audio editions–and for all international editions–as soon as those come online. This is publishing happening in overdrive here, and when dealing with multiple online sellers in multiple countries (each with their own laws, taxes, etcetera) and in very different time zones, there are a lot of moving parts.
Ready your portkeys!
2011
April 19: Pacific Northwest Reading Series — Portland, OR
August 17-21: World Science Fiction Convention — Reno, NV
September 2-5: DragonCon — Atlanta, GA
October 27-30: World Fantasy Convention — San Diego, CA
Others TBA
2012
January 20-22: Epic ConFusion — Troy, MI
My favorite holiday is here! No, not tax day. April Fool’s Day! And that means another update for the Writing Advice page. Though I thought about not posting as an April Fool’s Day joke, I decided that might not go over well. Though I’ll be honest, this month the first snuck up on me, so the advice update is a leetle leaner than usual.
But if you want to know how you might sort out a good MFA program, what college classes you should consider taking, and what else it takes to get a good education as a writer, take a look over here. As always, feel free to post your questions in the comments section so I can update the page as we go!
I’m delighted that I’ve been asked to join McMenamins and the SFWA as the host for the first in a cool new series of talks, helping foster the SFF community in the Portland area. On April 19 at 7:00pm, I will be hosting great Northwest authors Jay Lake and Kay Kenyon at the McMenamins Kennedy School. Jay Lake is the author, most recently, of Green, and a host of other novels and short stories. Kay Kenyon is currently working on science fiction epic series The Entire and the Rose, the first book of which,Bright of the Sky is free on Kindle!
The way the night will work is what makes me really excited about this event. For those who may not be familiar with the iconic brew pubs, the McMenamin brothers operate a series of pubs, all housed in historic buildings throughout the Northwest. You can check them out here. They host all sorts of cool events from a UFO Festival to the Annual J.R.R. Tolkien Birthday Bash to History Mondays.
McMenamins’ take on the author reading is similarly off-beat and fun. Rather than duplicating the experience of a reading at a bookstore, the McMenamins’ event will be much more focused on meeting and talking with authors. We’ll have one author read (I get to go first), and then break for the attendees and authors to mingle, drink beer, and talk about fantasy. Then the next author will speak, we’ll have a break, and so on.
For more details and to RSVP (not required, but nice), go here — details on the entire SFWA event series are here. To check out where we’ll be hosting the event, go to the McMenamins page here. For those of you who just want the address:
McMenamin’s Kennedy School GymSee you there!
*UPDATE*
This event is not only free — it’s open to all ages. So if you’re under 21 and eager to participate, please join us!
It is with great pleasure I announce my new novella, Perfect Shadow, featuring Durzo Blint. Here’s the blurb:
The Foul, Unnatural Murder of Gaelan Starfire & the Birth of Durzo Blint
“I got a bit of prophecy,” the old assassin said. “Not enough to be useful, you know. Just glimpses. My wife dead, things like that to keep me up late at night. I had this vision that I was going to be killed by forty men, all at once. But now that you’re here, I see they’re just you. Durzo Blint.”
Durzo Blint? Gaelan had never even heard the name.
***
Gaelan Starfire is a farmer now, happy to be a husband and a father; a careful, quiet, simple man. He’s also an immortal, peerless in the arts of war. Over the centuries, he’s worn many faces to hide his gift, but he is a man ill-fit for obscurity, and all too often he’s become a hero, his very names passing into legend: Acaelus Thorne, Yric the Black, Hrothan Steelbender, Tal Drakkan, Rebus Nimble.
But when Gaelan must take a job hunting down the world’s finest assassins for the beautiful courtesan-and-crimelord Gwinvere Kirena, what he finds may destroy everything he’s ever believed in.
—
I’ve had a lot of fans ask for more about Durzo Blint, and much as I love Durzo and as intimately as I know his story, I’ve always resisted. The story’s dark and gritty–and I’m in the middle of a completely different trilogy right now! My brain is full!
But finally I could hold out no longer. Perfect Shadow is the story of how an idealistic hero became Durzo Blint. I had intended to dash off a short story quickly and move on, but I became deeply enrapt with the story, revisiting Durzo and Momma K and the ka’kari and even more minor characters like Scarred Wrable. Not surprisingly, my quick “short story” swelled to a long short story, then a novelette, and finally it bumped right against that novella demarcation–with enough plot and subplot that I seriously considered making the whole thing a novel.
Instead, I’ve kept it a novella, because I want every word to tell. I want to reward re-reading, and I think this story does that. Perfect Shadow does, I think, all I hoped for it to do: 1) gives fans another dose of a great character, 2) allowed me to experiment and stretch myself as a storyteller, 3) gives a ton of Easter eggs for the attentive fans who’ve read and re-read the Night Angel books, and 4) advances the main stories that I didn’t wrap up at the end of the Night Angel trilogy and to which I shall return after the Lightbringer Trilogy. If you can’t tell, I’m really proud of how it turned out.
I’m also excited about how we’re releasing this book. In a couple of weeks, I’ll be able to give more details, but here’s what I can tell you now: Orbit will be releasing Perfect Shadow for all major ebook platforms in June for a mere $2.99.
And for all collectors, I’m very pleased to announce that Perfect Shadow will also be coming in a limited print run special edition from Subterranean Press, signed and numbered by me. Subterranean Press is taking pre-orders now!
*UPDATE: a note of explanation*
I see that there’s been some confusion, some excitement, and even a bit of outrage, strangely enough, about the above. Publishing in ebook only is unusual, so I wanted to explain how I decided to do that. Some people seem to think I’m holding the story hostage or something, and my intent is exactly the opposite.
I knew the story I wanted to tell in Perfect Shadow, and I wrote it exactly as long as it needed to be to tell the story as well as I could, and that is 17,000 words–which is too long to publish in the magazines that do SFF short stories (usually, they top out at 7,500), and it’s too short to be published as a novel. If I had wanted to cash in and exploit you, I would have filled the story with fluff and published it as a novel. But I believe I should always publish only the best I am capable of, so my choices were to cut half the story and publish it as a short story or to wait a number of years, write some more novellas, and publish it in a collection.
I chose a third option: to publish the story electronically. I know from looking at the numbers that a large number of my fans do have e-readers, so this was by far the best way to get out my story to the largest number of fans inexpensively, without making artistic sacrifices that I wasn’t willing to make, or ripping you off.
If I can, I will make the story available other ways in the future, too. And I will announce those when and if they happen. I love the story, and I want to share it with you. So please don’t impute bad motives where none exist–we’re all doing our best in a rapidly changing market!
* UPDATE 2: ‘limited’ vs ‘lettered’ & what are the limits of ‘limited’, anyway?
I’ve had questions about what ‘limited’ means and what ‘lettered’ means. The limited edition novella will be leather-bound, signed by me, and numbered 1 to 1,500. It may have interior illustrations as well. No artist for those or cover artist has been signed yet. The lettered edition is A-Z, and is very expensive, for the super-enthusiasts out there. This will be bound in different leather, have different and more elaborate foil stamping, have a leather traycase, may have more interior illustrations, and will of course be signed. Subterranean has always had the rights to make the lettered edition, but they overlooked that when they put up their initial post announcing the acquisition. I’m sure they would have corrected it once they put up the full post with cover art, and pictures, and more details.
The next thing is something you have every right to be ticked off about. Subterranean is well on its way to selling out of the limited edition–before they even have cover art or anything. In other similar cases they’ve encountered, they find their books on eBay on the day after publication sometimes for four times the list price. So they asked me if they could increase the print run from 1,000 to 1,500. I said yes. If you’re buying this book purely to profit, I’ve just diluted your stock price–and I understand if you’re mad at me for that. If you want a refund, you can email subpress@gmail.com and get it. But against the interests of investors who want to sell the book on eBay, I was thinking of fans who just want to get the book. If they sell out ridiculously early, some fans aren’t going to be able to buy it at all. I mean, heck, the limited edition already IS expensive without someone’s eBay markup. I also understand that a person can be a fan and also an investor… so again, if you’re mad, I’m sorry, and please feel free to ask for a refund. I do my best to write great stories, but I don’t always get things exactly right, and I do my best to balance the interests of my fans and those I do business with, and if I don’t always get things exactly right here either, that doesn’t surprise me too much. An apology and a refund is the best I can do for you.