My LunaCon schedule plus a great week of sales

March 15, 2013

LunaCon2013

I will be attending LunaCon this Saturday and Sunday. Below is my schedule one panels (plus a reading!)

SATURDAY:

10am – Humor in SF (1 hour panel) – Poplar

What are the most effective humorous SF books? Are any both funny and groundbreaking, or does humor rely on sending up established tropes? What both funny and sad? Funny and plausible? How much of SF humor depends on surprise, and how much stands up to rereading? Do SF and fantasy humor work the same way, or are there fundamental differences?

Other panelists: Elektra Hammond (moderator), Patrick Thomas, Russ Colchamiro, Theodore Krulik

1pm – How To Get Your Story Rejected (1 hour panel) – Maple

Sometimes a story is rejected simply because it doesn’t fit the needs of the editor. But sometimes there is something more. Our panel of editors will discuss what they look for and what they don’t want to see.

Other panelists: Ben Parris (moderator), Neil Clarke, Hildy Silverman, Ian Randal Strock

6pm – Finding The Right Critic (1 hour panel) – William Odelle

Choose your first draft’s enemy’s wisely. Whether a class, a writer’s group, beta reader, or editor for hire, who you show your unfinished work to can make a big difference to the finished product. How to find critiquers who get what you’re going for, and will make useful suggestions in a style you can handle — and when to stop to revising and submit.

Other panelists: April Grey, Russ Colchamiro, Myke Cole, D.L. Carter

9pm – Reading (30 minutes) – Bartell

I will read one (or more) of my stories. Out loud.

 

SUNDAY

11am – None of the Above (1 hour panel) – Westchester Ballroom B

In the ongoing debate about self-publishing versus traditional publishing, crowdsourcing is an emerging third option. What are the pros and cons of each approach, and does crowdsourcing work for debut authors, or does it require a platform of readers from one of the other routes first?

Other panelists: Ben Parris (moderator), Mark Abbott, Elektra Hammond, Patricia McCracken

12pm – Hugo Worthy Fiction (1 hour panel) – Birch

What was on YOUR Hugo nomination ballot? What do you think will make the final ballot and what would YOU vote for?

Other panelists: Lisa Padol (moderator), Byron P. Connell, Lawrence M. Schoen

If you would like to hear me speak on any of these subjects, or just want to say hello, come find me at LunaCon! And I would especially like everyone to attend the 9pm reading. Pretty please?

I also have many awesome sales to brag about this week. Four, to be exact. In chronological order:

“True Love,” a SF flash story to Daily Science Fiction

“Putting it All Together,” a SF flash story to Toasted Cake Podcast (reprint; originally appeared in Nine magazine issue 1)

“Explaining Cthulhu to Grandma,” a humor fantasy story to Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show

“The Epistolary History,” a humor SF flash story to Nature’s Futures

That’s 3 pro markets and a Parsec Award-winning podcast in one week. If I wasn’t qualified for SFWA membership, I would have qualified with this week’s sales alone. So please excuse me while I run some victory laps.

 

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Publication: A Thousand Cuts in One Buck Horror 6

March 10, 2013

OBH6

After a fairly long hiatus, a new installment of the highly acclaimed horror series has been released, and it includes my short story “A Thousand Cuts.”

Each edition of One Buck Horror featured 4-6 horror stories, and the previous volumes have been very well received by critics and readers alike. OBH6 features a strong lineup:

“Blood Sisters” by Jamie Lackey
“A Thousand Cuts” by Alex Shvartsman
“Per Una Selva Oscura” by Michael Matheson
“Little Man” by W. P. Johnson
“Pretend” by Michael Wehunt
“The Dead Apple Tree” by Leslianne Wilder

You can purchase it here for only $0.99

Those of you familiar with my writing know that I don’t generally write horror. However, I occasionally write science fiction or fantasy so dark that it can easily feel at home in a horror publication. Spidersong and Nuclear Family are both solid examples. A Thousand Cuts is another such story. It’s a tale of a Russian woman who married an American and transplanted to an unfamiliar life in Greenwich, CT.  This story is about relationships, mental health, the yearning for home, and it features a domovoi — a mischievous Russian house spirit. It was written in 2011 and accepted at OBH over a year ago, so I’m thrilled that the readers will finally get a chance to check it out.

 

 

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The Great Short Story Ebook Experiment

March 8, 2013

I finally did it — I took several of my previously published short stories and made them available as e-books. They’re currently up on Amazon and over the next few days I’ll be making them available on B&N, Kobo, and Smashwords.
I made the plunge for several reasons:

* New readers. There are tons and tons of people out there who enjoy and buy e-books (including short stories) on places like Amazon, but aren’t an active part of SF/F fandom and aren’t even aware of some of the fine magazines and anthologies these stories appeared in originally. An optimal scenario for me is to have someone who’s never heard of me before buy an e-book, love it, pick up the other ones, and then come over to this page to see what else I’m up to.

* The skills. After working on this project, on and off, for the last month I have learned several things. I have a very rudimentary understanding of how to create a book cover and how GiMP works. I learned how to create a digital book from scratch. I learned how to format it properly for various e-readers and platforms. These are all skills that will likely come in handy as I work on future UFO Publishing projects (though I’d still much rather let professional cover artists and book designers create THOSE books, at least I can understand some of what they’re doing better).

* The data. I want to know as much as possible about the business. What sort of sales can I, as an author, generate on each platform? Which promotions and advertising works, and which doesn’t? Posting a few short stories is a low-budget way to tip the toe in the self-publishing waters and see what’s up.

* The money. Seriously, I don’t expect much. Each of these stories is priced at $0.99 and when one sells, Amazon will give me $0.35 of it. So I won’t be putting my kid through college off these short story sales. Probably. But… who knows, right? What is one of these goes viral? Once the e-book has been created and uploaded, there is no more cost to keeping it online indefinitely — in either time or money. Even before I had the chance to write this post and “officially” announce the existence of these particular e-books, several people bought “The Dragon Ships of Tycho.” At this rate I’m getting dangerously close to earning enough for a medium coffee from Dunkin Donuts.

I’m no expert on self-publishing, but I did have several ideas in mind that I hope will help make these e-books successful (besides writing the best possible stories I can, of course):

* Offer a well-edited, well-formatted, easy to read book. You’ll be surprised at how many self-published books (novels, even) are poorly edited and poorly formatted. I spent a fair amount of time making sure this wasn’t the case with my stories.

* Offer more to read. I intentionally waited until I could publish several stories at once that stand a good chance of appealing to similar readers. This way, should a reader happen to enjoy the story, there’s something else they can pick up right away. Each of these stories features a little ad for the other two at the end of the book.

* Great cover art. I can’t stress how important this is. There are so many self-published and small publisher books out there with mediocre covers. I really wanted my stories to stand out and spent a lot of time looking for perfect pieces for each story. I was fortunate enough to team up with several amazing artists from around the globe. The art is theirs. The layout (in 2 of 3 cases) is mine — so don’t blame them for it!

Without further ado, here are the three stories:

The Dragon Ships of Tycho

Human diplomats race against the clock to forge an alliance with a one-time adversary who possesses a fleet of dragon warships.

Originally from the Galactic Creatures anthology edited by Elektra Hammond (Sparkito Press/Dark Quest Books)

Cover art is “Space One” by the British artist Andy Fairhurst.

Price of Allegiance

Earth’s ambassador to the Galactic Union wants his superiors to choose loyalty over technological advancement. But, when it comes to the interstellar politics, the choices are never what they seem.

Originally from Penumbra magazine (Musa Publishing)

Cover art is by the French artist Benoit Dromby

A Better Tomorrow

On a crippled spaceship, as the air is running out, one man must fight to protect the cryogenically frozen colonists, even at the cost of his own life.

Originally published in Interstellar Ficiton magazine.

Cover art and cover design by American artist Aimee Cozza

Unlike the other two stories, A Better Tomorrow is available online for free. You can read it here. So why publish an e-book, you ask? It’s all part of the experiment. As I wrote above, there are many people browsing and buying on the Kinde, Nook, and other devices who are not familiar with web zines, and I’m curious to see how the sales of this book will compare to the sales of the other two, which are not available online for free.

So there you have it. Let the experiment officially begin!

If you want to pick up one of these e-books or if you already read these stories and would like to do me a kindness of posting a brief review, please follow the links below:

The Dragon Ships of Tycho

Price of Allegiance

A Better Tomorrow

I will post the links to other sites once these books become available on there.

 

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Publication: “Requiem for a Druid” in Galaxy’s Edge

February 28, 2013

GalaxysEdge001

 

The inaugural issue (March 2013) of Galaxy’s Edge magazine edited by Mike Resnick is now live, and I’m honored to have a story included in the distinguished company of some amazing authors whose work is featured in this volume. My story in this issue is called Requiem for a Druid. It is the second Conrad Brent adventure, and although it stands fine on its own, I do recommend that you read A Shard Glows in Brooklyn first.

In Requiem for a Druid Conrad goes up against New York’s best-known real estate developer with a penchant for stamping his name on everything and a bad hairdo. You know. That guy.

In other news, I recently made appearances on two blogs.  Susan J Voss was kind enough to interview me on her blog, Deb of Darkness and  I wrote a mini-essay about the slush-reading process for Unidentified Funny Objects for Anne E Johnson’s blog. I appreciate the opportunity to talk up Unidentified Funny Objects an extra time. The e-book sales have been steady and I hope to move forward on the second volume sooner rather than later.

Finally, I’m going to be publishing several of my stories as eBooks on Amazon and other e-reader platforms. I have already lined up some absolutely amazing cover art which I can’t wait to share with everyone in the coming days.

Last but not least, check out an in-depth review of Unidentified Funny Objects by Mieneke van der Salm at the Fantastical Librarian blog.

 

 

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My 2012 Nebula Nominations

February 15, 2013

Today is the deadline to nominate for the Nebula award. Associate and Full members of Science Fiction Writers of America are each entitled to nominate up to five works on fiction in Novel, Novella, Novelette, and Short Story categories.

Here are the books and stories I selected:

Novel

I read *very* few new novels published in 2012. As such, I could not intelligently nominate multiple works in this category.  My plan is to read the five novels that get the nominations so, at least, I could cast my final Nebula ballot intelligently. But of the novels I did read, I loved John Scalzi’s Redshirts. Redshirts is a meld of space opera and humor that reminded me in some ways of Galaxy Quest. I loved every minute of it. It also gives me enormous pleasure to vote for a humorous book. As the readers of this blog already know, I’m partial to humor in SF 🙂

Novella

I did not cast any votes in this category. I was overwhelmed by the amount of great short stories and novelettes I was reading and just couldn’t allocate enough time to read in this category. I did begin to read Barry’s Tale by Lawrence Schoen and was enjoying it. I’m pretty sure it would get a nomination vote from me had I been able to finish it in time, but I want to be responsible with my votes and not cast one for something I hadn’t read all the way through. Still, the very least I could do is point out this entertaining read to all of you. It’s a free download, too.

Novelette

This is where things flip around — I read many GREAT novelettes and short stories but could only vote for 5 of each. This is what I went with:

The Waves, by Ken Liu (originally printed in Asimov’s) – This is, by far, the best piece of fiction I read in 2012. I *love* this novelette and wish there was an online version I could point readers to. Alas, it is only available in Asimov’s so far.

Taking Care of God by Liu Cixin — I fear that this novelette isn’t very widely known to the American readers. It appeared in Pathlight, a Chinese magazine published in English. But this is an amazing story, and I highly encourage everyone to read it.

Liberty’s Daughter by Naomi Kritzer, F&SF 5/12  — This near-future novelette in a libertarian setting made me want more. I hoK.pe Kritzer is going to expand this into a novel or at least write more stories featuring the same setting and characters.

Small Towns – Felicity Shoulders, F&SF 1/12

Alien Land – K.D. Wentworth, F&SF 1/12

Both of these last two novelettes came from the same issue of F&SF. This was easily the best single issue of a magazine I read in 2012. Not only did it feature those two novelettes, but several other excellent stories that made it relatively high on my list as well.

Short Stories

Mono no Aware by Ken Liu, The Future is Japanese anthology

Scraps by Michael Haynes, Daily Science Fiction

Seven Losses of Na Re by Rose Lemberg, Daily Science Fiction

England Under the White Witch by Theodora Goss, Clarkesworld

Earthrise by Lavie Tidhar, RedstoneSF

Once again, these are just some of truly amazing stories I read this year. Alas, there are only 5 slots per category.

Note that I couldn’t nominate any stories from Unidentified Funny Objects – per Nebula rules, editors cannot nominate the work they published.

 

 

 

 

 

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“Spidersong” at Drabblecast

February 11, 2013

drabblecast_271

 

“Spidersong” was my first SFWA-qualifying sale and remains one of my stronger flash stories written to date. It’s been a busy week for this little story. First it was reprinted in the anthology of Campbell Qualified authors (see previous post), and today it’s live at Drabblecast!

They do an amazing job, making the story sound awesome and creepy at the same time. It’s also really cool that “Spidersong” got the cover treatment! (It’s one of three flash stories in this week’ s edition).

 

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2013 Campbellian Pre-Reading Anthology

February 8, 2013

campbell

The award season is upon us. Hardcore fans are furiously catching up on their reading so they can nominate their favorite books and stories for Hugo and Nebula Awards. But for those of us who only recently joined the ranks of professionally published authors, there’s another important accolade: the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

One is eligible for the Campbell Award within the first two years of their first professional publication. Most of the time the title goes to writers who produce an excellent first novel, but occasionally short fiction writers have been honored as well.

There are literally dozens of great eligible authors. Chances are, you don’t know who most of them are yet — but you should.  This year, M. David Blake and Bruce Bethke of Stupefying Stories put together a great sampler of work from the eligible writers. Whether you plan to vote for the award or not, you can download this very large volume absolutely free of charge. It may contain the next G.R.R. Martin or J.K. Rowling and you’ll be able to claim that you were reading them since way before they became famous!

In addition to those soon-to-be discovered geniuses, this anthology contains three of my stories:

“Spidersong” is a dark SF flash which was originally published by Daily Science Fiction in late 2011 and was my first Campbell-eligible sale.
“A Shard Glows in Brooklyn” is an adventure story that combines humor, noir, and urban fantasy elements with the colorful setting of my home town. It was printed in Buzzy Magazine last April.

“You Bet” is an absurdist humor piece about a unique Poker game. I published it at the UFO web site as part of my fulfilling the promises made during the UFO Kickstarter campaign.

When given an opportunity to showcase some of my work in this anthology, I selected these stories because I feel they are a good representation of the sort of things I like to write. They are not my best work to date — those stories are either releasing in 2013 or are still looking for markets — but they’re good stories and I’m proud to have them help make my case for nomination.

So why should you consider nominating me for the Campbell Award?

* I wrote my first story in the spring of 2010. I sold it the same year. And I sold my second one, too.

* In 3 years, I sold 43 original stories to date, not counting reprints and micro things like Twitter fiction.

* Six of those sales are to SFWA qualifying markets. Many others are to pro paying markets.

As proud as I am of those accomplishments, everything really comes down to just one thing: how much do you like the stories? So, please, read this anthology. Track down and read works by the eligible authors who weren’t included in it. And then nominate / vote for the authors whose work has impressed you the most.

Download the FREE Campbellian Pre-Reading Anthology here.

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Hijacking the Space Marines

February 6, 2013

Science fiction writer M.C.A. Hogarth recently had her eBook “Spots the Space Marine” taken down by Amazon because of the DCMA notice served by Games Workshop. They claim that she infringed on their intellectual property by using the term “space marine” in the title of her book.

Games Workshop is a company that is best known for their Warhammer series of miniature games. They have a Warhammer Fantasy setting which is a chock-full of elves and orcs and other stock fantasy characters. And then they have Warhammer 40,000 — a space opera setting which includes, you guessed it, some space marines.

At some point Games Workshop decided that they’re entitled to a trademark of the term “space marine.” Their lawyers have been aggressive about contacting various game companies and smacking them down for using the term. And now, they are going after science fiction authors for doing the same.  According to M.C.A. Hogarth’s post, GW lawyers told her that they believe “their recent entrée into the e-book market gives them the common law trademark for the term ‘space marine’ in all formats.”

I’m not a lawyer. For all I know Games Workshop may legally have the high ground on this. But it doesn’t mean what they’re doing is right.

The term “space marine” has existed in science fiction for decades before Games Workshop decided to use it in their game.  There’s a Wikipedia entry that catalogs many instances of such use from back in the 1930s. And here’s a cover of a 1936 issue of Amazing Stories featuring a space marine story:

Amazing_Stories_December_1936

Space Marines haven’t gone out of style in the 30s, either.  Starcraft video game franchise uses them today.  In 1997 there was a movie titled “Space Marines,” according to IMDB. Heinlein wrote about space marines in several of his stories.  But, if Games Workshop has its way, the Heinleins of today and tomorrow will no longer be able to use this two-word combination.

This blows my mind, especially given just how much Warhammer games rely on the SF and fantasy tropes created by those who came before them. They did not invent space marines, and while they’re most welcome to use them, this use should not be exclusive.

Can you imagine Hasbro, the current owner of Dungeons & Dragons intellectual property, claiming that they own terms like “Magic User” or “Elf Wizard” because those are some of the character classes in D&D? Or perhaps suing fantasy writers over the use of the term “mana” since they also own Magic The Gathering? At some point the legalese needs to stop and become replaced with common sense.

If Hogarth were to enter a legal battle with Games Workshop, she may or may not emerge victorious. I don’t know, because — again — not a lawyer. But this isn’t likely to happen. It costs too much money to litigate and isn’t at all practical for someone making a few hundred bucks off an eBook to take on such a challenge. Fortunately, there is an alternative, and that is to win in the court of public opinion. If enough people speak out against the actions taken by Games Workshop, the people in charge may notice, and they might elect to back off.

You can spread the word via blogs and social media, and link back to M.C.A. Hogarth’s web site.

If you are a Games Workshop player you can ask the owner of your Friendly Local Game Store to express your displeasure to their Games Workshop sales rep.

Consider buying some of M.C.A.’s books to help her make up for the potential income loss caused by this book being removed from Amazon.

Let influential bloggers and journalists know. There are already some major sites that picked up the story (see BoingBoing post on this), but more is always better.

In a trend started by Fran Wilde, a number of SF writers added “Space Marine” to their name on Twitter, and they want others to do that, too.

Twittergrab

If you are reading my blog, you’re very likely a reader (or writer) of science fiction. That means you should very much care about this case. Because, to quote Fran Wilde, they are trying to steal our words.

 

 

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German Anthology Seeks International Submissions

February 3, 2013

Editor Erik Schreiber at Saphir im Stahl is putting together an ambitious anthology titled “80 Science Fiction Stories Around the World.”

In this book he’s hoping to collect one science fiction story each from 80 different countries!

Mr. Schreiber has indicated that he already received stories from Chile, Colombia and Spain. My own “The Miracle on Tau Prime,” originally published at Daily Science Fiction, will represent USA. Most other countries are still open, and if you have a story you would like to see translated into German and to appear in this book, contact Mr. Schreiber at info@saphir-im-stahl.de

He’s looking for science fiction stories 4-5 double-spaced pages long, 900 characters per page  (that’s up to about 1500 words). Submissions in all languages will be considered if possible, and he asks that authors include a brief bio.

Added on 2/6/13: Acceptances confirmed from Canada and UK! If your story was accepted from one of the other countries, please post in the comments.

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Shvartsman in the Wild

February 2, 2013

I find myself looking forward to attending a very large number of conventions and industry shows in the next few months. So if you’re looking to conduct any sort of writing- or gaming-related business with me, hang out, or simply say hello, these are the places you can find me:

Feb 10-13  –  Toy Fair – NYC  (Industry only. I will likely only attend on February 10 unless my appointment dates/times change.)

Feb 15-17 – Boskone – Boston – Feb 15-17 – I’m not 100% sure about this one yet, but it’s likely that I will attend on Saturday and Sunday.

Mar 15-17 – LunaCon – NY – Mar 15-17 – Will attend one or more days depending on what panels/programming I get tapped for and my work schedule, but will attend for at least one day.

Mar 18-22 – GAMA – Las Vegas – (Industry only. Will attend Monday-Thursday. Will be very busy, it’s best to schedule meetings/dinners in advance)

May 24-27 – BaltiCon – Intend to attend all four days. Will participate in panels, readings, etc.  Should have lots of time to hang out.

 

I’m always eager to talk to and meet other writers and fellow SF fans, so if you see me at one of these cons don’t hesitate to say hello!

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