Musings, Various, With Bonus Brainstorming Question

[rolanni]

…Or:  Five Things Make a Post

1.  I think I forgot to mention here that the mass market edition of Fledgling hit number 10 on the Locus Bestseller List for paperbacks sold in March 2010 and reported in the June edition.

2.  Yesterday — or maybe Thursday — a DVD of my talk at the Fairfield Public Library arrived in the PO Box, kindly sent on by Station Manager Laura Guite.  Steve and I viewed it — him, because he hadn’t been able to attend (the talk had originally been his gig, but he had a conflict with the meeting of the Board of Trustees for our own town’s library, so he suggested me), and me because I never get a chance to see myself give a presentation and I was curious.

It. . .wasn’t too bad.  I talk too fast, but I know that; otherwise, I looked calm and relaxed and friendly, and made my points like I knew what the heck I was talking about.  Thirty years ago, if you would’ve told me that I would willingly stand up in front of — not only a roomful of people, but a television! camera! — and Given a Talk, I would’ve fainted dead away.  I guess that’s one part of getting older that’s positive.  Yes, I do have this stuff cold, thank you.

3.  We have word from a bookseller friend that Mouse and Dragon is moving quite briskly of f the shelves of his store, which, he said, he had expected.  He also mentioned that The Dragon Variation is doing much better than he had anticipated, which is gratifying, but brings up a concern.

What can we do to get the word out to potential readers of the Liaden Universe® — you know, those folks who would love our work, if only they knew it existed — that The Dragon Variation is an excellent way to sample the Liaden Universe®, and, hopefully, start a long and beautiful journey with the members of Clan Korval and their friends?  Ideas?  Suggestions?

4.  The National Carousel Association sends word of its Annual Convention, the “Carousels of Discovery” tour, based in Spokane.

The convention includes trips to and rides on six operating carousels — a 1909 Looff Carousel (optional Tech Day with this carousel, as well, with mechanical and technical demos and operator training course, as well as an overview of the carousel’s restoration — I’d give, well, not my eye-teeth, ’cause you never know when they’ll come in handy, but something appropriately precious just to be able to attend this one session); a 1910 Dolle-Carmel-Borelli restoration now named The Three Rivers Carousel; a ride, with ice cream cones!, on the Great Northern Towne Center Carousel in Helena, Montana; a ride on the molded aluminum horses of the Boulder River Carousel, and a visit with the Spirit of Columbia Gardens Carousel (a restoration, it says here, but nothing about the construction, or if, in fact, the restoration is complete), then a side trip to Silverwood to ride the 1954 Herschel carousel and tour the amusement park.

Sigh.  Sounds like a fun time, if you’re interested in vintage carousels and have an extra $650 plus transportation to and fro burning a hole in your pocket.

5.  Got some solid work done on Ghost Ship today, after a long spell of Not  Much.  Hoping for another tomorrow, and that the damn dam has finally broken.

Originally published at Sharon Lee, Writer. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[dmellieon.livejournal.com]

In response to #3: The advertising of new books was a topic at Macon (Columbus, OH). "How do we get the word out we have something new?" has been a long standing question for publishers of both books and music. Besides word of mouth - it does work just ask JK Rowling, the internet was a prime topic for the future of advertising. Blogs and chat rooms of course, but online commercials such as "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" by Seth Grahame-Smith, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X58RPS665V0 was talked about a bit. But the cost of production would have to come from the publisher. How much will the publisher help push the book with adverts in the various trade magazines (Locus and such) and maybe crossover into the Romance magazines and sites? Cost of print ads vs web ads? How much is the publisher/agent (and the authors) willing to support a book tour? All those questions all start with the same answer - $. That also being part of the problem. Sigh, sorry, my post isn't as helpful as I would have liked.

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

People seem to leap at the free giveaways -- which can be ebooks -- on the various lists? Maybe get in touch with the romance -- or at least the SFR groups -- and offer some free ebooks? And, yes, I do have a list of contacts...

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

I think the last time we gave away an ebook (during an interview in Second Life, which seemed a natural), Arnold gave us a code to transmit to the winner, who then downloaded the book from Webscriptions in their Preferred Format for free.

I'll drop Toni a note and see if any part of that is functional in Arnold's absence.

Good idea!

[(Anonymous)]

If it doesn't make your pitch *too* bulky & unstreamlined, having pointers to the existing free sample pages up on Baen would be a nice auxiliary, since
(1) not everyone in the SFR world will know Baen usually has a 'big thunk' of sample chapters around, and
(2) the obvious search (Sharon Lee's listing, pointed at from Mouse & Dragon's listing on the front page of Baen) got me the Local Custom sample, but not the Scout's Progress or Conflict of Honors.

meg d

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Good points! Actually, thinking about it, I wonder if people will understand that The Dragon Variation is the prequel to Mouse and Dragon? And vice versa. Hum...

Musings, Various, With Bonus Brainstorming Question

[(Anonymous)]

It is because of the free samples at Baen that I purchased all the Liaden ebooks. I seem to be following so many authors that I prefer a good sample before buying. Also, Baen makes it easy to buy the ebook in just about any form which was a plus when using a computer before the software became available for the computers and sill is because I can place the book where I want it on any media.

Thanks for some very good reads.