Myth, the Universe, and Everything

(Crossposted at Substrate)

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I went to hear Max Gladstone read at Enigma Bookstore in November. I was playing around with my camera's video capture, and I successfully recorded Max's section of the reading. It's about twelve minutes, and if you've not had the chance to hear Max read in person (or if you've not heard an excerpt from Two Serpents Rise,) check it out!

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I happened upon some fun history this week (though some was published awhile ago). According to the Guardian, a collection of fairy tales by Franz Xaver von Schönwerth was just discovered in Germany after being archived for some 150 years. The fairy tales are not the polished versions of the Brothers Grimm (as evidenced by this excerpt):

A young prince lost his way in the forest and came to a cave. He passed the night there, and when he awoke there stood next to him an old woman with a bear and a dog. The old witch seemed very beautiful and wished that the prince would stay with her and marry her. He could not endure her, yet could not leave that place.

You can reread the story in full here. It's worth taking a look, and then trying to reconstruct it as a narrative that would stand alone, instead of relying on interpretation based on other previously read and studied fairy stories.



On a different note, rogueclassicist over at rogueclassicism posted (back in February) about just how much the book shopping experience in Ancient Rome is mirrored by book shopping today. He quotes an article, written a few years ago, by Mary Beard, which reported:

For those who did go in, there was usually a place to sit and read. With slaves on hand to summon up refreshments, it would have been not unlike the coffee shop in a modern Borders.

Of course, a good copy of a 500 line work cost about the same as what it would cost to feed a family of four for a year. So some things are not quite the same.

On a more personal note, I was checking in with my reading goals today and realized that I'd made one! I've already reread three books this year -- one of them by surprise, because it was on my TBR pile, and I hadn't realized until I'd started it that I'd already read it. And then, of course, since I'd started it, I might as well finish!

I'm into the Mythsoc long lists now, as well, so I'm reading a lot of good quality fantasy. And the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards are coming up, so I'll have a small pile of YA titles to read for that. There will be no shortage of reading material for me in the next month!

A couple of interesting bits of knowledge about digital publishing came to my attention recently, both first via PW, but their link to the B&N/nook divide didn't work, so you get a TechCrunch column (via John Andrews) instead.

Here's the deal with B&N/nook: according to John Biggs at TechCrunch, the company has announced that they're considering spinning off nook as a separate company. What strikes me about this is that it's really not a new strategy for B&N to split off branches of the company into their own separate companies. B&N, B&N.com, and B&N College were all, at one point, separate companies. I want to say that the college stores are now back under B&N proper, but I'm not sure if B&N.com is operating as a separate company or not. Functionally, as far as the user is concerned, they're all the same, and they certainly share customer information among the companies. So it wouldn't surprise me if nook splits off for now, and as B&N figures out where it's going in the marketplace, it may recombine again in the future. That seems to be how B&N typically works over the long haul.

Now, granted, whether they can compete long term with Amazon and Apple, who knows? I hope so, because, well, you all know my customer loyalty bias. I do think it's too bad that the nook Simple Touch isn't doing better, since it's a pretty great little device -- there are some things that my nook First Edition did better, but the Simple Touch has some excellent features, and the hyperlinking works very well (for books that are formatted properly for the device; as always, some formats work better than others).

The industry is changing, and according to Hyperion CEO Ellen Archer, in a Digital Book World interview with Jeremy Greenfield, it's not just digital that's making the impact, but media arms. Archer is the publisher behind the Richard Castle novels (with Tom Straw writing as the fictional Castle); the most recent Nikki Heat mystery came in at #1 on a bestseller list (she doesn't mention which one), and she notes that another media tie-in also hit the #1 spot. Since Disney is the parent company to Hyperion, and ABC is the parent company to Disney, Hyperion has a lot of connections in that world, and Archer is projecting that as the future.

All that said, I think we've still got a long ways to go before the market for paper books burns out. (Pun intended.) There really is still an experiential quality there -- and there are still plenty of people who aren't willing to have a devoted digital reading device and hate staring at the computer screen when they're relaxing. Granted, that number grows smaller... but the market is still there.

Although, if it's true that the market for consumer goods is driven by fourteen year olds, the industry shift may come a lot sooner than I anticipate.

*Yes, the quote is from Leverage. Because that show is awesome.

Despite having now worked at a library for nearly four years, apparently my subconscious still thinks of me as a bookseller. (I worked at Barnes and Noble for just over four years.) Last night, I had a Barnes and Noble dream, one where I was working at a store that I've never worked at with a coworker of mine, not from a B&N, but from my college Tutoring and Writing Center. Instead of my normal B&N clothing, I was wearing my black gi top and bottom (which, because in my dream I had a shift in the cafe where we always had to wear black tops and bottoms, seemed perfectly reasonable).

Yeah. It's been almost five years, and still that's the job I have dreams about.

Quick thoughts:

My husband just got his second degree black-belt yesterday! In honor of that, any time I mention him on the blog from now on, I'll be calling him by the nickname Two Stripe. Mostly because it amuses me, but also because either listgirl or mechristy asked me to blog about the family more, and I haven't been doing it, because I didn't have an appropriate blog name for him. (Baby number one, who is thus far doing just fine flopping around inside the womb, is nicknamed Bug while she's in utero, will stay Bug until she's old enough to decide if she wants her real name to show up on the Internet.)

Don't forget to visit kickstart_tu! We've got some great items on the auction, including books, crafts, digital art, online advertising, and critiques from tiffanytrent and kimpauley. Stop on by and spread the word!

So, I had just about the best weekend ever. Work at the library was busy, but good. The playtest went beautifully, and I finished edits on Saturday night (as you've already heard). I got to meet a good friend for dinner on Sunday (hi sarah_joy!). And I *finally* got to meet Jennifer Lynn Barnes (jenlyn_b)!

I'd never been to the Borders in Milford, CT before, but I can cheerfully say that their cafe is a great location for a book signing. The closest door to the outside of the building is right next to the nice open space of their cafe, which means that I wandered in, looking around, and spotted Jennifer almost immediately. (She spotted me right back, and if she did not, in fact, recognize me immediately, she did a wonderful job of giving every appearance of recognition. *g*) Almost as soon as I sat down where the chairs were arranged, the friends who had been keeping her company between readers went off to browse, and as I arrived at the very tail end of the signing, we got to chat for almost twenty minutes. As much as I feel like I already know about her process from her blog, it was great to hear about her experience selling her books and about the struggles she had with the sequel to Tattoo first hand. I realized in chatting with her just how much I've missed her regular blogging since she returned to Yale from her year in England! (I cannot imagine being a full time grad student *and* writing as much as she does. I know she's fast, but still!)

So, kudos to Jennifer for being just as awesome in person as I expected her to be from her blog. And, while I'm still learning how to get up to the level of blue_succubus when it comes to taking pictures at bookstores, I did remember to snap a shot while getting my copy of Tattoo signed:

Alibris sent me a lovely e-mail today, the best advertising using Harry Potter I've seen in a Post-Potter world. Instead of the "If you liked Harry, you'll like" strategy (which I don't knock at all--it works reasonably well, in my experience, in both hand sales and at the library), they took a completely different tack, recommending books that are either by an author named Harry/Harold/etc. or about characters/subjects that have some variation on the same. Recommended titles include:

* The Overlook, by Michael Connelly, in his LAPD series about homicide detective Harry Bosch
* Truman, by David G. McCullough, about the life of Harry S. Truman
* Harriet the Spy, by Louise Fitzhugh
* Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine, Harold Bloom's newest nonfiction

So, hurrah, Alibris, for making me smile when I checked my e-mail.

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Tangent: I now have a paid account, and would like to have the nifty tag cluster feature that journal users like slwhitman sport. How do I do that? Must I change my background and etc?

I check the online booksellers fairly often to see if my novels are listed, but I hadn't checked Alibris until today. Imagine my surprise when I found a listing for Into the Reach! I'm pleased that it's being made available through other online retailers (though it doesn't appear on Powells yet).

Alibris is actually having a competition for a $100 gift card, which you can enter by writing reviews. So, if you'd like possible book money and would like to help me out with some viral marketing, write a review! It's a win for both of us. :)

I have several friends who enjoy writing, several friends who have self-published, and fewer friends who have been published through the traditional publishing system. In most cases, I met these folks before I read their fiction, which is always a little nerve wracking to me. If I like a person, I very much want to like their books. The anxiety begins as soon as I pick up a copy in the bookstore or the library. What if I don't like it? What will I say? Do I have to break all ties? Shanna Swendson was the first author who really made me confront my fear issues, because she impressed me so much when we met that I desperately wanted to be able to be part of her viral marketing team. :) Luckily for me, she's a great writer with books that are easy to recommend, so after about the first chapter of Enchanted, Inc., my fears were dispelled.

Lately, I've been meeting people who I know are writers through my space, live journal, and etc., which gives me an idea of whether or not I'm going to like their writing style before I actually read their books. I recently read Jennifer Lynn Barnes (jenlyn_b)'s Golden, and had the very odd experience of noticing how much one of her characters wrote like she blogs. In one scene, the protagonist goes into a rant about Central Standard Time for television shows. Whether or not Ms. Barnes feels the same way, I don't know, but it was very much the same style of rant that I love when she writes them in her blog (most usually about celebrity bangs and the tragedy thereof).

The book was excellent, and I've already told the librarian in the youth services department at my library that we really should own a copy, because I'm going to start recommending it to our patrons. From what Barnes has posted about the reviews of her newest book (Tattoo) on her own livejournal, it sounds like the critics think she's grown since her first novel, so I'm expecting Tattoo to be even better. If I actually make it out to the local Barnes and Noble, as is vaguley my plan for the day (as I want to find out if they have Into the Reach in their system yet and meet the new Community Relations Manager), I'll be picking up a copy to see for myself.

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Quick news: I got my comp copies for Departure. Hurray! They look very pretty, and I'm looking forward to seeing them displayed on bookstore shelves!

Into the Reach is now available on Amazon!... sort of. A Marketplace seller has just placed two copies, listed for $20, on the Amazon listing. I've got an e-mail out to them to find out if this is for the paperback or the hardcover--if it's the hardcover, it's a good deal, as it's still less than list price, even with shipping.

Still no news on Departure. Neither book is yet listing on Barnes and Noble, but I'm checking regularly in hopes that the mid-January estimate is accurate (or a bit late)!

Last night I dreamed not only a novel, but a whole novel series. (Granted, I believe it was heavily influenced by Trevis Powell's upcoming novel No Hero, the amount I've been playing Knights of the Old Republic II: Sith Lords, and being in the middle of writing my second novel for White Silver Publishing. Usually when I dream a novel it's just a stand alone, and it typically has a firmer plot.)

This is my second novel dream this year, and as soon as I woke up I took down notes on everything I remembered, which involved one scene where one of the main characters stole a bunch of diamonds from the top of a merry-go-round. This, of course, is not particularly relevant to the rest of the story. The main concept behind the novels, in theory, is that the Veil between this world and another one, probably heavily influenced by magic, is extremely weak, and certain individuals see and interact with both at the same time. The overlay between the worlds is really interesting to me, as it seemed to work so that if someone was injured by warriors from behind the Veil, they would probably end up being treated both at a modern hospital and by a Veil healer, but the modern hospital workers wouldn't be able to see the wounds created behind the Veil, leaving the person completely at the mercy of Veil healing techniques and without the benefit of modern technology. I imagine that this overlap would be really difficult to make come across well, as the person interacting with both realities would be acting in both; whether they were predominantly interacting with one or the other, their body and actions would be clear in both realities. So would they be considered insane? Or would their body be able to handle dual activity, so that while acting behind the Veil, they would also be acting in the real world with responses that made sense? Possibly, people who didn't perceive the Veil would be tricked by the Veil's own properties into believing that the person was acting appropriately, even when they were not...

At any rate, the dream was quite bizarre while simultaneously being strangely coherent. The notes are interesting, and mostly, unsurprisingly for me, character centric. (Notably in the dream, I was also wandering around, doing research for these very novels that were going on simultaneously in the dream.)

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In other news, I stopped by a local book/card/candy store to find out if they might carry my novel, and I was told to come back Monday morning and see the buyer. They apparently really like to carry local authors, which I find quite exciting! I'll take them a flyer in the morning, and possibly pop over to the major independent bookstore in Shoreline Connecticut (R. J. Julia's) and see if they'll consider carrying Into the Reach as well.

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Currently Reading: Tales of the Last War, as I haven't finished it yet.
Currently Playing: Knights of the Old Republic II: Sith Lords, which promises to take me longer than the fifty odd hours I normally spend on X-box RPGs...