OK, just like the last post, I assume if you're reading this blog, you've heard of Hal Duncan. Heck, he's in the current issue of the zine. His story, "The Chiaroscurist," is even available for free online. He has a new book, Vellum that's already available in the UK, but will be coming out April 25 in the US from Del Rey. The book is amazing. I won't be surprised to see it up for Best Novel at World Fantasy this year. (no pressure Hal)
So, just like Anna has a lot of brilliant things to say about publishing, Hal does the same for writing. He has a recent post where he talks about 10 things he's learned from writing. Among the humor and wit, there are some good things in there that Hal has to offer about writing.
Most recently, Hal offers up a touching lament of the writer who knows books from the publisher are in the mail, but the mail is slower than he'd like.
Tags: writing, Hal Duncan, science fiction, Vellum, Chiaroscurist
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Hal Duncan, writer
Anna Genoese, Editor
So I'm assuming all of you who find me are also reading Anna Genoese's journal? No? Hmmm. Why should we? Well, first off, Anna's an editor for Tor Books. So if you're reading the Electric Velocipede journal, I assume you know who Tor is (they're the world's largest science fiction book publisher) and that being able to read the thoughts of an editor at Tor might interest you. Anna's also the person behind Tor's chicklit/SF&romance publishing interest.
OK, maybe I'm losing some of you. I knew Anna first when she was an intern at Tor while I worked there. You could tell at the time that there was something more going on with Anna than the typical intern. Anna knew the field. Anna cared about the field. Anna understood that the field was a business, and as such, you needed to treat books--at least at some level--like a product you would need to convince people to buy.
You should subscribe to her journal and read it from now on, but there are a few posts from the past few weeks that I want to point out to show you where Anna's brilliance lies.
First, Anna tries to de-mystify publishing. In this post, Anna speaks very frankly and plainly about the business side of publishing. She tries to explain how editors and published look at books. I think this is a great reference for new writers who find the whole business of publishing confusing.
Second, Anna works on defining what genre is to a publisher/editor. In some ways this reads like the advice you get about raising a baby: it all sounds practical and contradictory. What you need to take out of this post is that you need to have everything Anna says in mind when you think about genre, and then go pave your own path.
Lastly, here's her post on doing word counts (with the help from an incredible article by Teresa Nielsen Hayden). There are many...most...writers who don't know how publishers determine a word count. As I work more and more with small press people, most of them don't know how to do this either. And they don't know why it's important. It's important, so that the publisher can figure out how much they're going to spend to physically make your book. When it comes to magazines, it's vital so the editor can determine how many stories (and which particular stories) can fit in a given issue of the magazine. Deciding how long your book/story will be helps the publisher/editor decide how much they can pay you. If you, as the author, can give a an accurate word count from the get go for the publisher/editor, the more you endear yourself to their hearts. And trust, the heart of an editor or a publisher is not big to begin with, so do what you can to get as much of it on your side as possible.
So, what are you waiting for? Go read Anna!
Tags: publishing, editing, Anna Genoese, science fiction
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Electric Velocipede #10 Available for Preorder!
Yes, you read that correctly. You can now preorder copies of issue #10 of Electric Velocipede.
Go here to preorder using PayPal. You can also send money (US only, $4) payable to John Klima to:
John Klima
Electric Velocipede
PO Box 663
Franklin Park, NJ 08823
The issue will be published in May, but reserve a copy today so you don't miss out!
Here is the table of contents for that issue:
Novelettes:
Tim Akers - Jeremy Crow
Rick Bowes & Mark Rich - Jacket Jackson
Short Stories:
Jeffrey Ford - The Way He Does It
Andre Oosterman - The Navel of the Universe
Alistair Rennie - Il Duca di Cesena
Robert Freeman Wexler - Travels Along an Unfurling Circular Path
This is a strong issue and I'm really excited to hit the tenth issue of the zine. When I started this many years ago, I didn't know how long I would be able to keep it going. In some ways, it's succeeded despite the hectic life I lead. And that's all thanks to my readers and my authors. I wouldn't have gotten this far without you.
John Klima
Editor
Electric Velocipede
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
2005 Hugo Nominations
The nominations for the 2005 Hugo Awards have just been announced. The Awards will be given out at L.A. Con IV in August at the World Science Fiction convention.
Glad to see Accelerando from Charles Stross on the list. As well as John Scalzi's Old Man's War. Kelly Link is up in the novella category for her story "Magic for Beginners." Gardner Dozois is not up for Best Editor, but Sheila Williams is. World Fantasy Award-winning artist John Picacio is up for Best Artist. which is a good thing. Hopefully he still has some mojo from Madison last year.
Not surprinsingly (ok, a little surprisingly) Electric Velocipede was not in the Best Fanzine category. I'm glad to note that I'll be a fanzine for another year, so maybe.... As Gwenda noted:
I'd just like to say again, that for a convention with so many members, the number of people nominating (and ultimately voting) in these categories is depressingly low.I had paraphrased that, but realized Gwenda's* own words were much more succinct than mine, so I quoted her.
I'm amused that the Best Video Game category got dropped. Maybe if someone had done some work to show us what sorts of things they had in mind? Did the Hugo administrators have any idea how maddening it would be to try and determine what games were released in 2005? They tried to pull in the gaming contingent of the convention, but (as alluded to above by Gwenda) they are not voters.
Also, really strong Campbell list this year:
K. J. Bishop (second year of eligibility)There are several people I know personally, and a LOT of people whose work I admire. This'll be a tough one to suss out.
Sarah Monette (second year of eligibility)
Chris Roberson (second year of eligibility)
Brandon Sanderson (first year of eligibility)
John Scalzi (first year of eligibility)
Steph Swainston (second year of eligibility)
It's a pretty good ballot. There's a lot of stuff out there that I've already read, and a lot of things that I liked. That makes it tough to determine what to vote for, but that means that it was a good year for publishing.
So for next year, any thoughts on how I should campaign for the zine to get the word out to people in the convention? The word needs to get out. I think if more people knew about the zine, it would have a better chance for getting nominated. I'll have to check the extended stats on the nominations to see where I fell.
John Klima
Editor
Electric Velocipede
*When I did a search on 'Bondgirl' (being Gwenda's nom de plume) to get Gwenda's URL, Google gave me that link for images of Bondgirl. Of course, this was a link to images of James Bond movie girls, and not to Gwenda. I will go on record as stating that Gwenda should be a James Bond movie girl, but hey, I can't even get myself nominated for a Best Fanzine Hugo, so who's going to listen to me for this?
Tags: Hugo Awards, Fanzine, Electric Velocipede, science fiction, Gwenda Bond
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Joining the trend
There's trouble a brewin'.
In the midst of all the furor surrounding MySpace, I decided to take a further look into it and see the good beyond the hype. There are obviously a lot of young people using MySpace, so why is that?
A lot of it comes from the fact that the safe harbors for young people to congregate are continually shrinking. There is no longer the soda fountain to hang out at and meet people. Drive-in theaters have gone the way of the horse and carriage. Malls are becoming places where criminals can shop for clothes and shop for wanton youth. So where can kids go?
They go online.
Now, you don't have to be the only goth kid in your high school in Idaho, you can know and 'meet' a whole group of goth kids on MySpace.
And yes, MySpace suffers from the same issues that the mall does. There are people who will take advantage of MySpace. People who will use the networking functions of the website to look to satisfy their depraved needs. And, like the mall, when parents and guardians let their kids run amok, uneducated, unsupervised, someone's going to get hurt.
So what am I doing about this?
I've set up my own MySpace. I want to experience it from the inside. I want to see if I can reach another market and find people who might be interested in Electric Velocipede who might not know anything about it through other means.
This is not about 'getting' more traffice/readers/subscribers. This is about earning more traffic/readers/subscribers. You can paint the users of MySpace as naive as you want, but they are not stupid. There is no reason for them to read Electric Velocipede unless they want to.
What I'm doing here is giving people the opportunity to even know about the zine in the first place. I can hope that I set my MySpace up well enough that people will find their way to it through searches. I can add friends to my account like F&SF, Slush God, Tobias Buckell, and Gwenda, that might lead others to me.
Then I have to continue to make a good product so that people who make the effort to support me are not disappointed with their decision to do so.
Tags: MySpace, Electric Velocipede, science fiction, Slush God, Tobias Buckell, Gwenda Bond, writers, writing, publishing
Friday, March 17, 2006
Top Velocipede
I can't guarantee what you'll see, but when I searched just a moment ago on the word 'velocipede' I was the top result on Google. (and when I say 'me' I mean the main site: www.electricvelocipede.com)
Pretty cool, eh? I've noticed this in the past. I'll be the top result for a while, and then a bicycle store or some other thing will overtake the top spot.
For the moment, I'm #1.
And apologies to all the people from Italy and France who are looking for bicycle information and they keep getting me as the top search on the word 'velocipede.' Of course, if you are Italian or French and you like science fiction, then welcome!
John Klima
Editor
Electric Velocipede
Monday, March 13, 2006
Publishing Online
Is it worth it to publish online?
A good question. I decided to put the contents of issue #9 of Electric Velocipede online after the issue sold out so that people had a chance to see it.
Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross have experimented with posting novels online so that people could download them for free.
In all cases, many people who have read the material for free have gone on to be paying customers of the material. So in that sense, it would seem that it can be worth publishing online. Of course, in these examples, the material had a physical counterpart that could be marketed in different--albeit more traditional--ways from the online material.
John Scalzi posted his novel Old Man's War online and it was bought by a publisher and put on bookstore bookshelves around the country. However, Scalzi (whose blog is not to be missed, and in fact, whose blog is so interesting that I am in desperate need of getting my hands on a copy of his books) readily admits that the traditional method for publishing is better and more reliable than what he's done. (I can't find the link right now, perhaps someone can help out?)
In a different manner, two authors that many people reading this blog should have heard of: Lawrence Watt-Evans and Diane Duane, have recently published online. Both authors had ongoing series/trilogies that their publisher decided to stop publishing before the story was completed. Watt-Evans 'experiment' as he calls it, can be found here. Basically he asks for donations from fans and when he hits a given dollar amount ($100 in this case) he publishes the next chapter of the book.
Duane's is similar. At first, however, she was looking to get enough money/interest to self-publish the last book in a trilogy she was writing. When that didn't pan out, she moved onto online publishing.
I like both of these concepts/experiments. It helps that Watt-Evans and Duane are established enough that readers know who they are, but not so established like Stephen King that they could sell grocery lists. All they need now is to figure out how to create RSS enabled chapters that people could subscribe to (only paying people? all peoples? all peoples after those who paid had some exclusive time with the new content?).
This is very cool and very cutting edge. I like it. I'll be following their stories to see their success. I've been interested in a long time about online publishing and if it could be made feasible. I think the RSS angle needs to be pursued since then you could send fiction to people's phones, PDAs, etc.
So, is it worth publishing online? I think it can be, but it needs to be handled in an intelligent manner. And it needs to be good.
Thanks to Chris Roberson and BoingBoing for bringing this to my attention.
Tags: online publishing, science fiction, Scalzi, writers, writing, publishing, Diane Duane, Watt-Evans, Doctorow, Stross, Electric Velocipede
Times they are a changing
Hey everyone. This has been a time of upheaval over here at the Klima household. Yes, our apartment was broken into and yes, our first child was born. I've been working on reconstructing all that was done on my laptop since May of last year (thank goodness I am paranoid about backups) and dealing with little sleep while an infant adjust to being in the world.
There's a lot of stuff I want to talk about. I've been reading blogs from marketing people recently, trying to figure out ways that I can increase the footprint, the image recognition of Electric Velocipede and everything else I do. Things are going well for the zine, but I think it would do better if more people knew about it. Plus, I want to expand the realm of what I do from a publishing standpoint. I can't do this if I don't put more effort into it.
You'll start to see some posts from me where I refer to the following people among others:
I have a big project on the horizon that I'll announce as soon as the contracts come back (yes, I said contracts; yes that implies a big deal; well, big for me, certainly not enough to leave jobs or anything) and at least one small project that I'll announce as soon as I and the author get more organized about it.
And the future? Hopefully there's more of the same, just, well, more of it. I'd love some day to publish books, but that's a ways down the river.
John Klima
Editor
Electric Velocipede
Tags: marketing, science fiction, Seth Godin, Kathy Sierra, Stephan Spencer, Duct Tape Marketing
announcements, writing, publishing, zine
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Friday, March 03, 2006
Please Re-submit
Unfortunately, someone broke into my apartment and stole my laptop. No one was home and everyone is safe.
This is mostly annoying.
If you've sent a submission or an e-mail to me in the past few weeks, please resend as I will have lost it.
Thank you.
Please understand if I do not respond immediately.
John Klima
