Locus Poll Ends Tomorrow
One last reminder: voting for the Locus Awards ends tomorrow, on April 15th. The Clockwork Dagger is one of their recommended 1st novels for 2014 so it’s already listed on the ballot. (I also highly recommend you buy and read Corinne Duyvis’s book Otherbound–it’s awesome! It’s also listed in the 1st Novels category.)
One thing that sets these awards apart from the other major genre awards is that ANYONE can vote. This is especially noteworthy in light of the recent Hugo kerfuffle. All you need to do is fill in your name, email, and vote in whatever category you want. The ballot is huge and looks intimidating, but you don’t have to fill in everything.
Me! Baen! Hockey!
I’ve been in a lot of amazing anthologies and magazines, but I confess, this one just boggles my mind. My story “Minor Hockey Gods of Barstow Station” has been accepted to Galactic Games, an anthology to be published by Baen during the Rio Olympics next year. The table of contents includes people like George R. R. Martin, Seanan McGuire, and Mercedes Lackey. You can see the full holy-moley list over here.
This was an especially challenging story to write, too. Basically, it took me three months to psych myself up to start the first draft. The world-building was daunting–alien cultures, plus a far-future Earth with substantial changes–but there was also the matter of hockey. We’re a hockey family. We’ve been season ticket holders for the Arizona Coyotes for several years. I’m decently conversant in the sport and players, but not to the deep technical level that the story required. My husband was a huge help. He helped me hone my scenes and even sketched out a rink to illustrate who does what. He is awesome.
I’ll talk about this story more into next year as the release date nears. Yippee!
Read MoreSunday Quote has 2 months until book release
Read More“Nothing will stop you being creative so effectively as the fear of making a mistake.”
~John Cleese
Bready or Not: Dutch Baby Pancake
Need a small batch of pancakes? Or don’t want to stand there and flip individual pancakes?
Go big!
I had Dutch pancake baby recipes pinned for years. For some reason, they looked intimidating to me. Shows what I know. It turned out, these are much easier than standard pancakes. Mix, pour, bake.
The only tragedy here is that they look beautiful as soon as you pulled them from the oven, and as soon as you cut it, they deflate. The taste is fabulous, though–that doesn’t go flat!
I tried out a Snickerdoodle variation as well. Just add a little cinnamon to the batter and more on top. It’d be just as easy to add some chocolate chips or fresh or dried fruit. Mix it up!
Modified from Martha Stewart.
Bready or Not: Dutch Baby Pancake
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 3 large eggs
- 3/4 cup milk almondmilk works fine
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
Snickerdoodle variation:
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon in batter plus more sprinkled on top
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a medium cast-iron or ovenproof nonstick skillet, add 2 tablespoons butter and stick it in oven as it warms up.
- In a blender, combine eggs, milk, flour, salt, vanilla, and 1/4 cup sugar. Blend until foamy, about 1 minute. Pull skillet from oven--be careful, that handle is hot! Pour batter into skillet and bake for about 19 to 20 minutes. The pancake should be puffed and lightly browned.
- Slice into wedges--it will deflate and look a lot less pretty, but it's still delicious. Serve with butter and any other desired toppings (maple syrup, dulce de leche, powdered sugar, etc).
Serves one hungry person, or along with sides can feed several people.
OM NOM NOM!
Guest post from David Walton: WHAT’S THE BEST WAY TO PUBLISH MY BOOK?
Today I welcome author David Walton to the blog. His book Superposition is out from Pyr today–be sure to check it out!
WHAT’S THE BEST WAY TO PUBLISH MY BOOK?
There are so many choices these days! Submit your book to a big NY publisher? Try a small press? Publish yourself? Each of these choices have their pros and cons, depending on what you’re looking for. And I’ve tried all three.
[Superposition by David Walton]
1. SMALL PRESS. The best part of working with a small press was the very small number of people involved (two!), each of whom was totally devoted to my book and making it succeed. They cared about my opinion and worked very hard on the book. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a very wide reach. They couldn’t get Terminal Mind in bookstores (for the most part), and even when it won the Philip K. Dick Award that year, not many people knew about it. All in all, however, this was a great experience, and I have no complaints.
2. BIG PRESS. The best part of working with a big press is that it’s big! Everyone has heard of Tor, which means credibility, a bigger advance, and national bookstore distribution. Tor made Quintessence into a beautiful hardcover, and I thought my career was made. Unfortunately, although the book sold a lot more out of the gate than Terminal Mind did, it wasn’t very much by Tor’s standards. It didn’t earn out its advance, and they declined to pick up the sequel. Still and all, an exciting experience that has done a lot to establish my name in the genre and spread awareness of my books.
3. SELF-PUBLISHING. Self-publishing has been an adventure. I approached it differently than many authors do: instead of hiring people to produce the cover art, cover design, interior layout, e-book format, etc., I decided to do it all myself. As a result, it cost me practically nothing to produce Quintessence Sky, though it took a lot of learning and a lot of work. I think the result is quite attractive–not entirely up to Tor’s standards, perhaps, but certainly as good as many small press books. The great thing about self-publishing is that I own it. All the profits come to me, I can run special sales and promotions whenever I like, and it will continue to be available forever.
4. MEDIUM PRESS. What, you say? A fourth option? I thought you were talking about three! We often talk of three categories, but really there’s a whole spectrum. There are not-quite-so-big publishers, and medium publishers, and small publishers, and quite tiny publishers. My fourth and fifth books, SUPERPOSITION and SUPERSYMMETRY, will be published by Pyr Books in April and September. Pyr could be considered a big press–they have national bookstore distribution through Penguin Random House, and they publish a good number of books each year. My experience there so far has been extremely positive: they have the personal enthusiasm and attention of a small press, but the reach and publicity of a larger one.
So… which option is best for you? The answer depends on what you want. None of them are easy roads. None of them is a sure bet for making money. The question is, where do you want the difficulty to be?
If you try for a big publisher, the difficult part will be getting published at all. The competition is fierce, and books are relatively few. If you are published, the difficulties may come in retaining control over your work. What you get in return for these difficulties are the credibility and visibility of a big house, and a crew of smart and professional people to help you succeed.
If you self-publish, the difficult part will be in finding readers. Getting published is easy, and you’ll have complete control over your work. But you won’t have run the gauntlet of agents and editors, and so no one will know if your work is any good or not. It will be difficult to convince them to give it a try. You will also have to do all the work yourself, or pay someone to do so.
There are many options along the spectrum between those two extremes. The best way to publish your book is the way that works for you. Like me, it may even be a different way for each book! May you find success in one or the other, or in the many options that land somewhere in between.
—-
David Walton is the author of the newly released novel SUPERPOSITION, a quantum physics murder mystery with the same mind-bending, breathless action as films like INCEPTION and MINORITY REPORT. His other works include the Philip K. Dick Award-winning TERMINAL MIND, the historical fantasy QUINTESSENCE (Tor, 2013) and its sequel, QUINTESSENCE SKY. He’s also a Lockheed Martin engineer and the father of seven children. You can read about his books and life at http://www.davidwaltonfiction.com/.
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