The Industry

Stuff I discover and report with fascination as a new author journeying through the industry.

You want book covers? Here’s one.

/ 11 Comments / Squeeage, The Industry / By

Once again, the Orbit preliminary/catalog cover of my next book is getting a lot of attention in parts of the internet. On one level I’m glad; buzz is buzz, and prelim covers generate buzz — thanks, Aidan, for that! But on another level, it spoils a little of my pleasure in being able to debut the final product here when that time comes, since folks will already have an idea by then of what it’s going to look like. Kind of like trying to put the book itself out after people have read the outline — the perfectionist in me […]

You want book covers? Here’s one. KEEP READING

What’s universal? An informal survey.

/ 50 Comments / Controversies, The Industry, Thinkythoughts / By

ETA: Time’s up! Comments closed. Will post summary/moar thinkythoughts soon, though prob’ly not ’til I’ve escaped Deadline Hell on Dreamblood revisions. This great post over at the Rejectionist on the African American fiction section in bookstores made the rounds on Twitter yesterday, so I’m signal-boosting it here. You might remember that this is a subject near and dear to my heart, as well as my career. In that post I mentioned that I would eventually get around to tackling the subject of universality. …But this is not that post. Because I need some data, first. This is not an attempt

What’s universal? An informal survey. KEEP READING

Postmodern Epic Fantasy?

/ 26 Comments / On Writing, The Industry / By

Spotted an intriguing line in io9’s Power List of 20 people who rocked SF/F in 2010. I’m not one of them, alas, though I noted a great blurb there about Orbit’s publishing director Tim Holman. Tim rightly deserves the spotlight in that article, but, well, I’m just gonna own my narcissism here. What caught my eye was this: Looking at Orbit’s 2010 titles, too, you’re struck by their range, from hard science fiction icon Greg Bear to space opera master Iain M. Banks, and from postmodern epic fantasy author N.K. Jemisin to steampunk innovator Gail Carriger. So now I’m thinking,

Postmodern Epic Fantasy? KEEP READING

Don’t Put My Book in the African American Section.

/ 72 Comments / Causes, The Industry, WTF World? / By

Very few things could lure me out of the fugue-state of finishing a novel, but a note that I received yesterday from a reader sent me into full-on rant mode: I just finished reading The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, and I enjoyed it a lot. I was confused, though, to see that my library had chosen to shelve it under “African-American Fiction,” a separate section of the library. If this were standard policy for how the library handles African-American authors, I wouldn’t blink, but Butler, Delany, Hopkinson, and Durham are all shelved under “General Fiction” with the rest of the library’s

Don’t Put My Book in the African American Section. KEEP READING

The Romance Pitch

/ 4 Comments / 100K, Appearances, The Industry / By

Wow. RT has been an Experience — all good, but a bit overwhelming. I’m not on any panels or anything; mostly I just wanted to get a better understanding of the romance genre. And man, was this the place to do it. Have been schmoozing with authors like Karen Miller and Linnea Sinclair, as well as familiar faces like Leanna Renee Hieber, Diana Rowland, and John Scalzi. Tomorrow is the big Book Fair, which has been described to me as “a full-contact book buying, author-signing squee-and-stompfest”, by an author who shall remain nameless on her request. I’m concerned that maybe

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Book Covers Explained

/ 12 Comments / 100K, Progress, The Industry, ThirdK / By

Apologies for the relative silence, ya’ll. Been seriously motoring on book 3, which is threatening to become a doorstopper. ::ulp:: I’m planning to chop it ruthlessly when I get into the editing phase because I just don’t believe a fantasy novel should be heavy enough to punch a hole in the fabric of existence, but for the time being Sieh is being a demanding little brat, and I’d better do what he wants or he’ll replace all my coffee with Taster’s Choice or something. So I’m just getting around to addressing this now. Last week there was a little confusion

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I am the market.

/ 26 Comments / 100K, On Writing, The Industry, Thinkythoughts / By

Was having a conversation with someone in the publishing industry recently, and it triggered an epiphany for me. Basically, I think The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms became my “breakout” novel (i.e., the one that actually got published, as opposed to the ones still sitting in my harddrive) because I stopped caring about what the market wanted. OK, let me clarify. (Cut for length and a bit of profanity.)

I am the market. KEEP READING

Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.

/ 11 Comments / 100K, Controversies, The Industry / By

Title quote from the first Matrix film; Morpheus. So, noticed that the German version of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is now available, when it showed up on Goodreads under “other editions” recently. That was my first time seeing it. For those of you who aren’t Goodreads members (why aren’t you?), here’s what it looks like: According to Google’s translation tool, the title is something like “The Heiress of the World”. Submitted without comment for now. (Am talking with my agent about it.) Feel free to discuss. Oh, and there’s a description of Yeine in chapter 1, if you’re wondering what

Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony. KEEP READING

Boycott? No, thanks.

/ 15 Comments / Controversies, The Industry, WTF World? / By

And here I thought I was done with controversies for the week. For those who haven’t heard, there’s been a big to-do in the past few days over another instance of cover art whitewashing re a YA novel called Magic Under Glass by debut author Jaclyn Dolamore. Like the last instance, it turned into a big thing, with some big-name editors and authors in the field weighing in on the issue. And a whole lot of readers got pissed off — again — as they should, IMO, because the problem of whitewashing has gone on for literally decades in the

Boycott? No, thanks. KEEP READING

Why I Think RaceFail Was The Bestest Thing Evar for SFF

/ 91 Comments / 100K, Controversies, The Industry / By

This post is for MLK Day. It’s also prompted by the coincidental approximate anniversary of RaceFail, which began in January of last year. (Missed the fun? Google is your friend. But here is a good place to start.) For those who want the Twitter version, RaceFail was a several-months-long conversation about race in the context of science fiction and fantasy that sprawled across the blogosphere. It involved several thousand participants and spawned several hundred essays — and it hasn’t really ended yet, just slowed down. But the initial outburst was very frank, and frequently very heated, and over the course

Why I Think RaceFail Was The Bestest Thing Evar for SFF KEEP READING

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