OMG! I Am Listening To Shirley Jackson! Her Voice!

I worry that I use too many exclamation points. I've read that they're like bullying. Still, I am listening to Shirley Jackson as I type these words. I must exclaim, because I am, you will recall, obsessed with her.

On Valentine's Day, Jessa Crispin did a post at Blog of a Bookslut on the possible reasons behind Shirley Jackson's name being missing from the list of great twentieth century authors. In her post she has embedded a link to Jackson reading from her short story, The Daemon Lover on an album.

I couldn't make out the words, but it was her voice. At least, that's what Jessa says.

I've Read A Skulduggery Pleasant Book That Many Of You Probably Haven't

I recently finished reading my niece's copy of Dark Days by Derek Landy, Book 4 in the Skulduggery Pleasant series. What's that? You're wondering where my niece got Dark Days, since she is an all American girl and this book isn't published in the U.S. of A.? Why, she got it from her favorite aunt, who ordered it for her from England for Christmas. Yes, I know. All young people should have aunts like me.

When we last saw Skulduggery here at Original Content, over two years ago, he was in dire straits. I will not get into how dire, because you can get that particular book in this country, and I don't want to spoil it for you. Since this is a series (that is becoming a little more serial like) I don't think I'm giving too much away to say that he's functioning in this book.

I have to admit that this time around I had trouble keeping all the bad guys straight. Since many of them had appeared in earlier books, if some American publisher had seen fit to publish this one, that might not have happened because I would have read it closer to the last book. I am also going to quibble with the red shirt moment  that occurs around the halfway point in which two brand new characters appear so that they can be killed off right away. I wasn't enthralled with the ending.

The book is still filled with the wit this series is known for, though. And I'm very much liking the suggestion that Skulduggery may be quite a bad guy. For those two reasons, and because I think it will make my niece happy, last night I ordered the next two books in the series, from England, for her birthday. They should be here just before Easter, when I'm hoping RJ will be here to eat my holiday bread and cake, though I am not sure exactly what form they will take this year.

My Easter cake is up in the air, but I'm certain I'll be able to read the next two Skulduggery books in rapid order.

March Connecticut Children's Literature Calendar

I'm surprised we didn't have more Read Across America events this month, since it's on March 1st. We do, however, have a new bookstore showing up in the calendar this month. The Monte Cristo Bookshop opened in New London in December.

Sat. March2, Janet Lawler, Cat in the Hat Ball, Clarke Center, Mitchell College, New London, 11 AM

Sat. March 2, Stephen Pastis, R.J. Julia Bookseller, Madison, 4:00 PM

Thurs. March 7, Annabel Monaghan, Westport Public Library, Westport, 7:30 PM

Sat. March 9, Kimberly Newton Fusco, R.J. Julia Booksellers, Madison, 4:00 PM

Sat. March 9, N. Dunham, Monte Christo Bookshop, New London, 7:00 PM

Sat. March 9,  Francis Gilbert, Bank Square Books, Mystic, 2:00 PM

Tues. March 12, Mary Cashman and Cynthia Whipple,  R.J. Julia Booksellers, Madison, 10:30 AM

Sat. March 16, Ken Shuey, Bank Square Books, Mystic, 11:00 AM

Sat. March 23, Kimberly Newton Fusco, Bank Square Books, Mystic, 11 AM

Time Management Tuesday: Checking In On Those New Year's Goals

Remember those New Year's Goals and Objectives we created on New Year's Day instead of making resolutions? Mine are printed out and pinned up in the office. They were weighing on me a bit these last few weeks because it was taking so much time to publish Saving the Planet & Stuff. With that out of the way this past weekend, I knew I'd knocked off one goal with its accompanying objectives and decided to see how I was doing on the others. This is another example of recapitulation, which I wrote about at the end of 2012.

Goal 1. Publish Saving the Planet Done, done, done. Donedidy done.

Goal 2. Publicize Saving the Planet throughout the year I've been planning for this goal for months and have been moving ahead with various objectives. In fact, I did some on-line announcements and sent out a press release this morning and will be doing similar work this afternoon.

Goal 3. Maintain Time Management Tuesday Project Yup. Here I am, working on that. I have been working on Objective 3, planning the NESCBWI time management workshop for a couple of weeks, using three or four units of time each week.

Goal 4. Submission Binge That's coming next month, and I do have some places in mind to submit to. The fact that I overhauled my files (that will be a later TMT post) will make this easier.

Goal 5. Write and submit an essay on blogging I did research a magazine market for this one. While I still think the essay idea is valid, I may try submitting other things first.

Goal 6. Write an outline for "mummy book" during May Days. Terrific. I'd forgotten that I was only talking an outline. I have been prepping for the May Days effort with some character and situation planning. I'll try to get more intently into that during the March Madness Submission Binge.  I have been working on Objective 1. Reading Wired for Story. I do sometimes find reading writing books helpful while getting started on a writing project. Not in any kind of logical way, but helpful nonetheless.

Goal 7. Continue with community building. I've completed the first three objectives for this goal, as well as Objectives 5 and 7.

Goal 8. Publish a free Hannah and Brandon e-short story to support the Hannah and Brandon eBooks published by G.P. Putnam's Sons. I'm changing this goal. If I do write a Hannah and Brandon short story, I'm going to try to sell it to a magazine. For one thing, I'd like to generate some income. For another, I don't think the Hannah and Brandon age group will be a big market for e-short stories, even if they're free. A traditional magazine might be a better way of reaching those readers.

Goal 9. Plan publication of My Life Among the Aliens and Club Earth eBooks for winter, 2014. I'd be willing to drop this goal altogether and replace it with the one I'm going to mention in the next paragraph because right now, I'm burned out on self-publishing. Working out the cover illustrations for two more books, hunting for ways to promote them while I'm still trying to promote Saving the Planet...I'm having trouble getting pumped for this. On top of all that, I've been getting a sense from my reading that middle grade isn't a big market for eBooks. My publishing partner is a masochist, though, and he's interested in getting started formatting these books. Have a blast, Computer Guy! I'm not feeling this one right now.

A New Goal (Actually a goal I forgot about in January): Last June I revised a children's manuscript, working it into an adult book. I want to work on that more this year and submit it to agents. I'm much more psyched about that, at this point, then I am about hammering out another self-publishing project.

Hmm. Maybe the first chapter of that book I'm revising would make a short story submission next month. That could be an objective toward the goal of getting that book published.

Right now I'm feeling better about how well I'm staying on task. I've also done a little shifting around of goals, which is a good idea. That will have an impact on my planning from here on.

The point is, folks, check out your goals. Are you using your time working toward them? Do you want to make changes in what you plan to do?

"Saving The Planet & Stuff" Is Now An eBook

Yes, finally, the eBook edition of Saving the Planet & Stuff has been published and is available for both Kindle and Nook.

I believe my first mention of this project here at OC was on March 1 of 2012 (when we hadn't yet settled on the spelling "eBook"), so it has been very, very close to a year that the Saving the Plant eBook has been in the works. Go back to Saturday's post on publishing to get an idea of what we've been dealing with while I've been trying to juggle other work-related tasks that are in various stages and my computer guy/publishing partner has been holding down a full-time job.

You'll continue to hear about my experiment in self-publishing as I work on promoting this title over the coming months. In the meantime, look at what we did! A book trailer!

Weekend Links

 I actually worked several hours today, which I don't normally do on Sundays, and that has cut into my linking time. I can only offer three quickies.

I've mentioned here a number of times, I'm sure, that I've been a martial arts student for over ten years. That's why you often see me writing about writing and studying the same as training, which is what we do in my taekwondo dojang. Imagine how much I loved stumbling upon The Writer's Dojo: Where Writing Ninjas Come To Train. It is an entire website for writers developed around what you might call the martial arts training metaphor. It's very clever and probably very helpful to the writers who train there.

This is kind of a 360 turn from martial arts, but I've seen two blogs offering assistance to people suffering from Downton Abbey withdrawal. GreenBeanTeenQueen did a Post Downton Abbey Reading List. The Porter Square Books blog  did a Downton Abbey Fan? We've Got Some Books For You post. Oddly enough, there is no duplication.

The Weekend Writer: The Difference Between Traditional Publishing And Self-Publishing

I am a very linear person and had planned to begin this series with the beginning of a writing project. However, this past week I "attended" IndieReCon, and I'm going to be making a self-publishing announcement, myself, next week, so I decided to start writing about the end of the writing road.

While I suspect most of my readers are very knowledgeable about the publishing process, there are many people who are not. And a lot of them want to write and publish books. This post is for them.

What Needs To Be Done To Publish A Book

Editing--Before publishing, any manuscript needs both developmental (what I used to call "content") and copy editing. Developmental editing involves an editor working with the author to make sure that

the plot makes sense

characters behave consistently and logically within their storylines

there are no unnecessary characters

scenes are not drawn out or unnecessary

voice is maintained throughout

and a great many other things are done correctly.

Copy editing usually involves another editor checking for spelling, punctuation, and usage.

Proper editing is the hallmark of a professionally prepared book.

Cover--The cover needs an illustration as well as design layout with whatever titles are required. If this is a paper and print book, the spine and back cover must be designed. Fonts must be chosen and guess what? Some of them are copyrighted, so someone needs to deal with that. A good cover is another hallmark of a professionally prepared book.

Interior design--Someone has to lay out the pages, deciding how wide the margins will be, what the text will look like, what kinds of fonts will be used for chapter titles, etc. If this is an eBook, someone needs to format the manuscript.

Marketing and promotion--Someone needs to find a way to get the book into the hands of reviewers, whether they be print journals or blogs. Should there be press releases? To whom should they be sent? Should the author do public appearances? Where? Who should be contacted to try to arrange them?

Distribution and Sales--If this is a paper and print book, will bookstores carry it? How will the book come to their attention? Will Amazon carry it, and how will that be done?

There will probably be more things I haven't thought of.

Traditional Publishing

With what has been known in the twentieth century as traditional publishing, a publishing company selects manuscripts submitted to it on the basis of quality or marketability and agrees to do all the above for the author. In return, the traditional publisher gets a big chunk of the profit made on the book. An author might get, say, twelve percent of the cover price on her book with the publishing company getting the rest. However, the author hasn't invested any money in this project, only the publishing company has. In addition, the author has received an advance payment against the income she's expected to receive on sales of her book. She gets to keep that even if the book doesn't sell enough copies to meet that expected income.

Self-Publishing

With self-publishing, an author does all the work that needs to be done to publish the book. If she can't do it herself, she has to find other people to do it and pay them. She gets to keep a much bigger cut of the money that comes in from sales, but she's done a great deal more work and invested her own money in the project. If sales aren't great enough to cover her costs, the loss is hers.

I've seen blog posts from self-published authors that suggested there were a few simple steps to publishing a book. One traditionally-published author who was planning to self-publish her next book announced that she was going to have her mother edit it, because mom had a master's degree. The Honest Inside Scoop or the Pros and Cons of Indie Publishing by Jessie Harrell, which appeared at the IndieReCon site this past week, is a very good assessment of the work involved with self-publishing. IndieReCon also ran Costs of Self Publishing by Miral Sattar of BiblioCrunch, which will give you an idea of what some of the expenses can run up to. (Hey, you know what? If your mom's good enough to edit your book, she ought to get paid.)

The point I want to make here is that publishing a book is publishing a book. The same work has to be done whether a traditional publishing company is doing it or you're doing it yourself. Self-publishing is a serious endeavor. The people who are making any money at all are investing time and money into their work.

You don't really need to know a great deal about publishing if you're lucky enough to have a manuscript accepted by a traditional publishing company. I certainly didn't when I first started publishing. If you're thinking about self-publishing, you'd better know a lot or find a way to learn what you need to know. This isn't something you want to go into blind.

2012 Science Fiction Award Nominees

You can check out samples of this year's Nebula nominees at Galley Cat. The site includes links to the complete nominated short stories.

The nominees for the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy are:

Iron Hearted Violet by Kelly Barnhill
Black Heart by Holly Black 
Above by Leah Bobet 
The Diviners by Libba Bray
Vessel by Sarah Beth Durst  
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman 
Enchanted by Alethea Kontis 
Every Day by David Levithan 
Summer of the Mariposas by Guadalupe Garcia McCall 
Railsea by China Mieville 
Fair Coin by E.C. Myers 
Above World by Jenn Reese

I happen to have just started reading Every Day.

Gail Gauthier--The Giver

I learned yesterday that my application to serve as a Book Giver for World Book Night has been accepted. I don't know which of the three books I asked for I'll be getting, but I'll let you know.

Oh, yes, I'll be letting you know lots about how this goes down. I'm looking forward to it.

Matthew Crawley, Lit Guy

I finally finished watching last week's episode of Downton Abbey and have only this to say of the final few minutes...Cliche Alert!

I'll write, instead, about some bookie bits I stumbled upon relating to Dan Stevens, who plays Matthew Crawley. Turns out, he was a judge for last year's Man Book Prize. We're kind of vague about what that is here in the U.S., so that probably explains why we haven't heard much (in my case, anything) about his involvement with it. He is also editor-at-large (whatever that means) for a lit quarterly, The Junket. Looking After #numbertwo is a recent Stevens' contribution to that site.

While reading it, I first thought, Ah, Stevens is so much a twenty-first century man, not at all like his Downton Abbey role. Then I thought, But, Gail, Matthew was an early twentieth-century man when all around him were determined to stay rooted in the nineteenth. If Matthew Crawley were real (and not reel) wouldn't his mind have been working like that of the author of Looking After #numbertwo?

Yes, I have been told I think too much.

Getting back to Dan Stevens, Lit Guy, which is the real subject of this post, I will go on to tell you that he is also a columnist for The Telegraph. These personal essays, My Week on the Porch and My Week of US Festivities, for example, are a little over the top arty for my tastes. But at the same time, he has some interesting things to say. He describes porches as "occupying that liminal zone between creature comforts and the great outdoors." Okay, "liminal" probably supports my point about his writing being intentionally arty, but it's a word I happen to like, and I think it does fit here very well. And of our Thanksgiving Day Parade, he says, "Towering Smurfs are flanked by a gargantuan Pillsbury Doughboy, a titanic jug of Kool-Aid and a monumental Ronald McDonald, looming down on the crowds with a terrifyingly reassuring “thumbs up”. These are also brands that have fed the nation’s economy – indeed the giving of thanks for the “harvest” has increasingly metaphorical, commercial connotations."  I have never thought of that, but I'll be thinking of it every Thanksgiving from now on.

Has any American actor had so much literary activity while at the same time appearing on a big show like Downton Abbey and then on Broadway until earlier this month?