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Posts Tagged ‘book view cafe’

Writing Fight Scene: now an ebook!

Remember how I was writing all those posts on how to write fight scenes? Well, it occurred to me that it might be nice to have them collated in a much easier-to-read format. And, y’know, to revise and expand them while I was at it.

Writing Fight Scenes coverLadies, gentlemen, and swordspeople of all types, I give you Writing Fight Scenes: The Ebook Version. Complete with all the posts from the blog series (now in improved order, with additional thoughts), plus a few illustrative examples. It is, of course, on sale at Book View Cafe, along with Kobo, Barnes and Noble (Nook), and Amazon (Kindle).

(This, by the way, is why I chose to put Lies and Prophecy on special at BVC this month. Not just to celebrate my birthday, but also because I knew I had this coming out, too. It’ll stay a dollar off until the end of the month.)

If you know of people for whom this might be of interest, please do point them at it! Nonfiction is sort of a new thing for me, so signal-boosting would be much appreciated.

Happy my birthday to you!

I’m borrowing my approach from [personal profile] mrissa, who says, quite reasonably, that one should of course hope for others to have a happy time of it on one’s own birthday.

I can’t be a proper hobbit and give presents to you all, but I do have one thing: for the entire month of September, Lies and Prophecy is a dollar off at Book View Cafe. (I’m also going to have something else for you guys later this month, but it isn’t ready quite yet.)

Have a lovely day! I certainly intend to.

This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/596327.html. Comment here or there.

Big news at Book View Cafe

Y’all, I have been sitting on this for months. You have no idea how good I’ve been, not even hinting at it before now.

Book View Cafe Signs Deal with Audible

This thing is huge. More than a hundred titles, and that’s just the beginning; I can’t divulge details, but we’re going to continue working with Audible going forward, creating audio adaptations for more of our catalogue. (So while neither Lies and Prophecy nor Deeds of Men are part of this deal, there might be news about them at some point in the future. Maybe. <cough cough>)

And honestly, this is only the most publicly visible awesome thing that’s been happening at BVC. We have partnerships with places like Overdrive, which supplies ebooks to libraries, and are even looking into selling foreign rights. Day by day — thanks to the efforts of my fellow members — the organization is growing into something really amazing.

(Oh, and check out our spiffy new front page while you’re at it. Isn’t it shiny?)

This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/595649.html. Comment here or there.

Deeds of Men, redux

Some of you may recall that years ago, just before In Ashes Lie came out, I released a novella called Deeds of Men, which took place before that novel and after Midnight Never Come. It was originally a promotional freebie, but after a while I took down the free version and put it on sale at Amazon, mostly as a random experiment — I knew zip about ebooks at the time. Despite that ignorance (which included things like me not bothering to give it a proper cover), it’s sold some copies over the years, though not a huge number.

Now that I’m a member of Book View Cafe, I decided to do it over again, this time the right way. It has a spiffy-looking cover, courtesy of Chris Rawlins and Leah Cutter, and some revisions (most of them minor; one correcting a narrative choice I’ve regretted ever since I released the novella), and this time it got formatted by somebody who knows what he’s doing (the inestimable Chris Dolley). That link will take you to the BVC site, where you can buy it in epub and mobi formats, good for most e-reading devices, Kindle included. It’s also up on Amazon, and should be live on the B&N and Kobo sites in the next day or so.

A special note about Kindles: if you already bought the novella from Amazon, I think, though I’m not certain, that you should be able to download the new version as an update, without having to pay for it again. I’d love to have that confirmed, so if you’re in that camp, please let me know.

For those who are wondering, the story does contain some spoilers for Midnight Never Come, though only of an aftermath-y sort — it doesn’t say what happened, just shows the characters where they are as a result. Otherwise it’s only really full of spoilers for early seventeenth-century European politics. 😛

And stay tuned for more news in the next few days, about what I’m doing next with BVC . . . .

This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/590583.html. Comment here or there.

various bits of news

1) Sure, I’ll be kind and put the big one first. I’ve sold a story to Tor.com! “Mad Maudlin,” a novelette based on the folksong variously known as “Bedlam Boys” and “Tom o’Bedlam.” It won’t be published until late this year or early next, but I’m extremely pleased nonetheless.

2) One straggler from the ANHoD blog tour: an interview with me at LibraryThing, wherein (among other things) I divulge how [profile] kniedzw and I approached the most important question one must consider upon moving in together: whether to combine libraries or not.

3) Latest post at BVC is on superstitions.

Edited to add:
4) A Natural History of Dragons is #8 on the Locus bestseller list for May. Go, little book, go!

This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/588266.html. Comment here or there.

two links

Time for a post up at BVC, on spells and folklore.

Also, I’m participating in “Women in SF&F” month at Fantasy Book Cafe, along with a great many other people: Courtney Shafer, Jan DeLima, Mur Lafferty, Patricia McKillip, Angie (of Angieville), Deborah Coates, Rachel Neumeier, Julie Czerneda, Janice (of SpecFic Romantic), Lois McMaster Bujold, Sue (of Coffee, Cookies, and Chili Peppers), Lane Robins, Ana and Thea (of Book Smugglers), Sherwood Smith, Karin Lowachee, Jacqueline Carey, and Renay (of Lady Business) — and that’s just the roster so far. My contribution is a discussion of why I chose to include sexism in the world of Lady Trent’s memoirs.

This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/586118.html. Comment here or there.

news, posts, ets ceteras, I HAVE A TITLE

I’m drowning in revisions right now (due Monday; I’m almost done; I just need my brain to keep working a few days more), but I’m surfacing long enough to share a few things.

First: YOU GUYS YOU GUYS YOU GUYS I FINALLY HAVE A TITLE. The sequel to A Natural History of Dragons will be called The Tropic of Serpents.

(Now I just need to go put that phrase in the book somewhere.)

Next, story sale! To the charity anthology Neverland’s Library, which will be funded through Kickstarter, and 50% of whose profits will go to First Book. The story in question is “Centuries of Kings,” based on several Chinese and Japanese folktales.

Finally, I have a couple of posts up in different places, that I hadn’t yet linked here. One is over at Darkeva’s blog, talking about how I developed the habit of choosing music for a story while working on the original draft of Lies and Prophecy. The other is my biweekly post at BVC, talking about how folklore adds another later to the world around you.

Time for me to go work some more on revising The Tropic of Serpents. (I am going to be using the title incessantly for a little while, now that I have it to use.)

This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/582815.html. Comment here or there.

New Releases from Book View Cafe

This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/581078.html. Comment here or there.

a final pack of dragons

Slightly belated, the final round-up for the blog tour. There will be other posts still forthcoming, but only in the sense that, y’know, I talk about my books sometimes, in interviews or guest posts or whatever. This is the last of the actual formal book tour.

***

Interviews:

The Sleeps With Monsters interview isn’t about ANHoD specifically (but then again, by this time that’s probably a point in its favor). Ditto the Skiffy and Fanty podcast, which isn’t even really an interview per se; it’s just us talking about mythology and fantasy and Star Trek and I can’t even remember what all.

Guest posts:

Again, that last one isn’t ANHoD-specific; it’s more of a post I was asked to write, in which I mention ANHoD in the course of discussing how I name characters. But as long as I’m rounding up everything I’ve been posting on the internet lately, I might as well include it.

In that vein, I’ll also mention my most recent BVC post is “The folklore mode of fantasy,” in which I present my own personal home-brewed theory of which folkloric style fantasy as a whole most closely resembles.

And that’s it for now. I’m revising the second book (and also facing some hassle wrt getting certain financial records for tax purposes), so I may be scarce around here for a bit.

This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/580700.html. Comment here or there.

time for more dragons!

But first, a reminder: only a few days left to get a letter from Lady Trent. (If you’ve already written to her, the reply will be on its way shortly — I delayed a little bit in order to get something cool to include with the note.)

***

New interview at The Adventures of Cecelia Bedelia, another interview at Short and Sweet Book Reviews, and a guest post at Head Stuck in a Book. There were supposed to be a couple of others, too, but the scheduling of those appears to have gone astray.

***

I do, however, have my usual biweekly post up at BVC: “It happened to my cousin’s best friend’s roommate,” wherein I discuss legends. Comment over there!

This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/577576.html. Comment here or there.

Recent offerings from Book View Cafe

book not done book not done book not done <pant pant pant>

But I’m surfacing long enough to post something I’ve had sitting around for weeks, which is the list of recent offerings from BVC. Before I get into the full list, I want to call out this one particularly:

Bloodchildren: Stories by the Octavia E. Butler Scholars, edited by Nisi Shawl

Eleven original stories by recipients of the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship (2007 through 2012), plus a reprint of “Speech Sounds” by the scholarship’s namesake, Octavia E. Butler. This anthology also includes a brief memoir of Butler by her Clarion classmate Vonda N. McIntyre and an introduction by Nalo Hopkinson.

Every year, the Carl Brandon Society, whose goal is to increase diversity in the field of science fiction, presents scholarships to two students of color accepted to the prestigious Clarion and Clarion West writers’ workshops. The scholarships, named in honor of the brilliant African-American writer Octavia Butler, pay workshop tuition and housing fees for the recipients. Since 2007, they have made it possible for eleven students to attend the workshops.

Give a little, get a free ebook.

If you contribute a mere $8.01 to the scholarship fund, you can download Bloodchildren: Stories by the Octavia E. Butler Scholars, an ebook anthology of science fiction and fantasy stories by these students — the voices of the new generation of writers of color in speculative fiction.

This special ebook is available only until June 22, 2013, Octavia’s birthday. She would have been sixty-six this year.

Octavia taught at Clarion and Clarion West, and provided enormous support there — and elsewhere — to other writers of color. Through these scholarships, she continues to do so.

Help continue Octavia’s work.

Other new books, from Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff, Pati Nagle, Gregory Frost, and David D. Levine

two follow-up things

I forgot to mention that from now through December 17th, Dear Author has a coupon for Lies and Prophecy, offering $1 off purchases of that book at Book View Cafe. Get it while the getting’s good!

Also, last week I participated in BVC’s blog series Celebrating Ursula K. Le Guin. That link will take you to all the posts for the week; mine, “No Need to Apologize,” tells the tale of The Language of the Night and how that collection changed the direction of my life.

Welcome to Welton, and other BVC offerings

If I’d been smart, I would have this ready to go a few months ago. But: “Welcome to Welton,” the prequel novella to Lies and Prophecy, is now available as a proper ebook from Book View Cafe. It’s free for the downloading, as either epub or mobi; you can also still read it on my site.

Other things have been coming out from BVC as well; I can only blame the madness of November for me being remiss in posting about the October releases. So here is two months’ worth, for your delectation:

Including something from Ursula K. Le Guin – that I helped proofread!

a smattering of reviews, and also some links

I am not, unfortunately, allowed to quote the whole Kirkus review for A Natural History of Dragons yet; they paywall it until two weeks before the book’s pub date. I can, however, share this line: “Told in the style of a Victorian memoir, courageous, intelligent and determined Isabella’s account is colorful, vigorous and absorbing.” And they really liked the whole memoir-style-pov thing. (Which is good, because it’s one of my favorite things about writing this series.)

There’s also a new review of With Fate Conspire, this one by George Straatman: “As has been the case with its three predecessors, With Fate Conspire is masterful in its depiction of life in London during the era depicted…both from a cultural perspective and from a geographic perspective, Marie paints a precise portrait of what it was like to live in the city during this tumultuous era.”

And finally, a review for Lies and Prophecy, over at The Jeep Diva: “Ms. Brennan does a magnificent job of taking fantasy and weaving it throughout a story of typical college students, trying to find themselves not only in their pursuits of education, but in their personal lives as well.”

Since three things only make three-fifths of a post, I will close out the remaining two fifths with something I’ve been forgetting to link to: my latest BVC entries. I diverted briefly from my discussion of folktale-like fantasy to lay out what tale types are (a subject on which I will have more to say later), and then came back to the point to talk about the grammar of a folktale plot. (Or, to put those posts in jargon shorthand: Aarne-Thompson-Uther, and then Propp. Next up: Luthi! Which reminds me, I need to write that post.)

five things are all the post my brain can manage right now

1) As a reminder, the book sale will be running until next Thursday morning. I should mention that my goal is to downsize my stock until it actually fits once more in the official Box of Author Copies. And, um. We’re not there yet. <gives stacks of books the side-eye>

2) Pati Nagle is donating $2 per sale from her book Dead Man’s Hand to the Food Bank of South Jersey for the remainder of this month.

3) On a different charitable front, the Strange Horizons fund drive is in its last few days. All donors get entered into a draw for these prizes, which include a full-color ARC of A Natural History of Dragons.

4) Speaking of ANHoD, mrissa has a lovely advance review of it up on her blog. (I think this is perhaps slightly less of a tailored-for-mrissas book than A Star Shall Fall was, but apparently not by much.) Also, a review of Lies and Prophecy, which I’ve been meaning to link to for a while.

5) Finally, I’m blogging at BVC again today, on what makes a folktale. Go there to guess what makes some fantasy seem fairy-tale-like, even when it isn’t actually retelling a fairy tale.

September at the Book View Cafe

Lies and Prophecy isn’t the only book that came out from BVC last month, of course. I’d like to alert you guys to what comes out there going forward, but I don’t want to spam you with book posts; ergo, I’m thinking that what I will do is put them up in monthly batches. (You can get this same information, plus various coupons and other deals, by subscribing to the monthly newsletter — just put your e-mail address in the appropriate box on the right-hand side of the page.)

The other two things out last month were:

“Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand”

In a post-apocalyptic world, the young healer Snake ventures into unknown lands during her proving year. Her genetically engineered rattlesnake and cobra provide vaccines and medicines, while the rare alien dreamsnake eases pain and suffering.

“Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand” won SFWA’s Nebula Award. It is the first chapter of Dreamsnake, which won the Nebula, the Hugo, the Locus, and the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award. The story is presented by BVC as a stand-alone title, by request.

Some Enchanted Season

Kevyn Llewellyn, a struggling artist, must have the exactly right model for her next project, or she’s going to be fired. When she sees him—none other than Rusty Rivers, NFL player fighting injuries to save his career—she does the absolutely logical thing: she kidnaps him. Or rescues him… it depends on whom you’re asking.

Rusty Rivers is the kind of guy who’s squandered every opportunity, while Kevyn’s had to fight for every success. They’re as different as meteor and moonbeam, with nothing apparent in common, and yet… in this doomed, enchanted football season, dare they hope that anything magical can happen that they can believe in forever?

. . . and, y’know, this old thing. 🙂 Just in case you missed it the first half-dozen times I mentioned it.

more at Book View Cafe

Banned Books Week is wrapping up at BVC, with some posts on sensitive topics:

And, this being Friday and two weeks since my last post there, I’m back with something completely unrelated to Banned Books Week: “A Good Saxon Compound,” talking about the origin of the word “folklore” and the field’s concern with nationalism and identity. Comment over there!

Banned Books at BVC

No, not our books being banned. (Though some of them may have been. And writers always joke that a banning attempt is fantastic publicity. Can you imagine if some parent challenged Lies and Prophecy for promoting witchcraft? I mean, it really kind of does, except for the bit where we haven’t undergone a minor apocalypse that left half the population with pyschic powers. But trying to keep a book out of the hands of kids is a great way to get them to read it.)

Where was I? Oh, right. It’s Banned Books Week, and over at the Book View Cafe, we’re celebrating with a bunch of posts on the subject. Sherwood Smith kicked it off with a look at censorship through the centuries, and there are other posts about 50 Shades of Gray, the mechanics of banning, torching books for fun and profit educational purposes, and a church-sponsored burning, along with cheeky pictures of BVC authors with dangerous books.

I believe there are more planned throughout the week. I think it’s fascinating, looking at the entire phenomenon of censorship and the means by which people try to pursue it. Fascinating, and scary. Because I have grown up in the absolute belief that suppressing the written word is wrong-headed at best and evil at worst, and try as I might to understand the position of those who seek to do so, I’m never going to sympathize with it.

Icon winner and new buy links

alessandriana, you managed what I couldn’t; you got the Tower card to be big enough to make out, while still getting the title in the image. Thank you! Just let me know whether you want an eventual print copy of the novel, or tuckerization in the sequel I hope to write. And my thanks to everyone who submitted an icon: you’re all far better at this than I am.

Apropos of Lies and Prophecy making money, you can now buy it at Barnes and Noble, and Kobo, and Apple, along with Amazon and the actual publisher, Book View Cafe. If you have a preferred e-book vendor that isn’t selling it directly, please do let me know; I can’t promise I’ll be able to get it there, but I can look into it. (BVC sells both epub and mobi formats, though, which should work on pretty much any device.)

I will have an open book thread for Lies and Prophecy soon, but I’m waiting for a specific date. (You’ll understand why when we get there.) In the meantime, enjoy!