Writing Stuff

[hafoc]

tephra_adularia is putting together the web site. I believe she said that in a while she'll need some people to get on there and thrash it, before it goes live. More details to follow.

And now for the angst alert-- since Poor Poor Me lives in isolation, far from the Bay Area, far from the meatspace coordinates of ANY nest of friends, in fact... far from "Hey, I'm going to be up this weekend, want to meet?" and "Dim sum was great last week," this web site is going to be critical, absolutely critical. It's going to be the ONLY way people will be able to contact me about my books. Right now I'm convinced NOBODY will EVER EVER see it. Gloom, doom, angst blah blah blah. This is probably about true, given how many web sites are out there, but we have to try!

Right now, besides the books and links to where you can buy hardcopies or formal downloads if you wish, I'm looking at forums. Four different categories of forum, in fact. Ask Bill will be questions to me personally, about writing or whatever. Ask Flanker will be questions to Flanker personally, about his world. Council Cavern will be the general forum. Then there's the one I don't know about, the Snippet Critique Service.

The idea there is that anybody could post a selection of their own writing, anonymously. Then users could offer their critiques. I'm not sure whether anybody would really like to see something like that or not.

It seems like a lot of forums. I don't know. Suggestions and comments welcome as always, of course.

I'm wondering who I can convince, or con, to carry the books or to spread the word about them at least. I don't think I want to hire a table at a con just for my five-now-six books. In fact, the way I had thought to sell them at the few cons I'm able to attend was to have a few chapters to hand out, with a computer nearby. You want to buy, you log into Lulu and order from my machine, and the book is delivered to your home. You don't even have to pack it. While this is a neat way to handle things, I have a feeling that it is some illegal evasion of sales tax laws. Or would be, just about instantaneously, if the Powers that Be heard about it.

Susan Van Camp has done character sketches for Flanker and Redflame. They're nice. I don't know if I can spread them around-- have to ask her about that. We have a contract, and how I can and can't use the images is carefully defined-- for the final images. Nobody said anything about the character studies except that she'd do them.

The first cover is due toward the end of March. I'm hoping to have Flanker 1 good to go about that time. I'm still hoping to have Hilltown out before then. That would require me to get off my BUTT and try to do the watercolor for the cover-- I myself being just about the only artist I can afford to hire for this one. Hilltown is a low-budget production. :D