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You may already know David Kazzie through his YouTube videos “So You Want to Go to Law School” and “So You Want to Write a Novel.” Even though he has an agent, he chose to self-publish his debut novel The Jackpot. I stumbled upon his blog this evening and found this interesting piece on self publishing.
The moral of the story is that a self-published book needs to be just as polished as a traditionally-published one. That means no covers that look like they were done by a kindergartener using MS Paint and no text that looks like it was typed by drunken howler monkeys. Unless you’re lucky enough to have the right friends, you’re going to have to pay for professional editing and cover design, and it could cost you a sizable chunk of change.
Unfortunately, it may be difficult to recoup that initial investment since most self-published ebooks still sell fewer than 100 copies. Even when one becomes a hit, it usually endures several months of sluggish sales before it starts to sell well. For me, that uncertainty is one of the biggest drawbacks to self publishing. Traditional publishing certainly doesn’t guarantee success, but at least you don’t have to pay money upfront.
I’m not going to beat around the bush: Aliette de Bodard’s “Obsidian and Blood” series is awesome, and you should read it.
There are currently two books in the series: Servant of the Underworld and Harbinger of the Storm. Set in the Aztec Empire several decades before the Spanish conquest, the books are told from the perspective of Acatl, the High Priest of the Dead. In Servant, Acatl’s estranged brother is implicated in the disappearance of a priestess, and Acatl must prove his innocence. In Harbinger, the political maneuvering that follows the death of the Revered Speaker (i.e. the Emperor) almost brings about the end of the world.
For me, the best part of the series is its historical accuracy. De Bodard clearly did her research, and it shows. At the same time, she’s skillful enough to make the world of the Aztecs come alive without resorting to a bunch of awkward info-dumps. There’s a fine line between “well-researched” and “pedantic,” and de Bodard walks it with grace.
Since this is fiction, a certain number of historical liberties were inevitable. To her credit, de Bodard discusses them in the Afterword instead of just sweeping them under the rug. I particularly liked how she dealt with the issue of names. Most of her characters are upper-class Aztecs, and upper-class Aztecs tended to have names that would strike a modern reader as terribly unwieldy. Instead of just making stuff up, de Bodard uses the shorter names borne by less-exalted Aztecs. For deities, she usually alternates between the Aztec name and its English translation. All and all, she does an excellent job of finding the middle ground between accuracy and accessibility.
The third book in the series, Master of the House of Darts, will be released in October. I’m sure it’s going to be awesome. I’ll definitely be adding it to my Kindle the moment it becomes available.
De Bodard also has a nifty blog that’s worth a gander. In addition to fascinating reflections on the writing process, she also posts awesome-looking recipes. Someday, when I actually have a real kitchen, I might actually try them out.
Like all writers, I love using the Internet to stave off the nasty business of writing for as long as possible. But while sites like Damn You Autocorrect, Parents Shouldn’t Text, or Failbook are certainly enjoyable, you soon feel guilty for putting off your writing.
Enter the agent blogs. The great thing about them is that they provide countless hours of guilt-free browsing. After all, you’re not procrastinating; you’re doing valuable research that will advance your career! Some of my favorites include:
Nathan Bransford (NB: Nathan is no longer an agent, but his archives contain a lot of useful advice)
Once you start reading these blogs, you’ll realize that agents are, in fact, human. Not only that, but they’re also nice, decent people who don’t particularly enjoy having to say ‘no.’ Once you realize this, I guarantee you that it becomes a lot easier to reach out and query them.
After an intense few weeks of revising Evil in Thebes, I’m ready to return to the blogopshere. In the next few days, I’ll be posting reviews of Aliette de Bodard’s Aztec novels, and Mike Shevdon’s Sixty-One Nails. Stay tuned!
The next few weeks are going to be quite busy for me as I make the final revisions to Evil in Thebes and prepare to start the query process. Consequently, this blog probably won’t be updated much in the meantime. I’ll still keep up with Twitter though, so feel free to watch as my Twitter feed bears witness to my rapidly deteriorating mental state over the next few weeks! Catch y’all on the flip side!
As I read more and more ebooks on the Kindle, I’m starting to detect a quality-control problem. For example, in both of Aliette de Bodard’s Aztec mysteries (which are awesome, by the way), I’ve noticed formatting glitches galore. Hyphens are missing. Text is improperly italicized. And in Mike Shevdon’s Sixty-One Nails, two characters’ dialogue will often be smushed into the same paragraph, which makes for an incredibly confusing read.
Both de Bodard and Shevdon are published by Angry Robot, but the problem is not confined to one particular publisher. I’ve heard reports of similar problems in ebooks published by other companies. These kinds of basic formatting errors might have been understandable back in 2007, but ebooks have been around long enough that they should have worked out the kinks by now. I have to wonder, do ebooks actually undergo any kind of independent proofreading? Or do they just take the electronic files from the print edition and transform them into an ebook?
I was going to pick up Sixty-One Nails by Mike Shevdon after I finished The Man with the Golden Torc, but along the way I got distracted by something very, very shiny: Servant of the Underworld by Aliette de Bodard. I stumbled upon it completely by accident, but when I saw that it was a historical fantasy novel set among the Aztecs, I had to check it out. The sample chapters blew me away and I quickly bought the Kindle book. I have a feeling this is going to be all kinds of awesome…
This morning, I finished The Man with the Golden Torc by Simon R. Green. It’s been on my To Read list for four years now, but it wasn’t until I got the Kindle that I finally got around to picking it up. Oh well. Better late than never, I suppose.
Edwin (“Eddie”) Drood is part of the Drood family. Their family business is keeping the world safe from supernatural threats. This is no rag-tag Scoobie Gang. The Droods are equipped with the latest gadgetry (both scientific and magical) and they run their operation with all the slickness of the CIA or MI5. Their greatest weapon is the golden torc that they wear around their necks. When activated, the torc creates mystical golden armor that covers the entire body and makes the wearer well-nigh invulnerable.
Eddie is a reluctant participant in the family business and he prefers to keep his distance. But when a special mission goes wrong, it emerges that Eddie has been declared rogue by the Drood Matriarch and he is forced to turn against his own family, who are now trying their best to kill him. All kinds of hijinks ensue and Eddie ends up teaming up with former enemy Molly Metcalf (the wild witch of the woods) as he tries to bring his family down. Along the way, he learns some pretty unpleasant things about the source of his family’s power, which leads him to question everything he’s been taught.
Although the book was enjoyable enough, I can’t say that it was an unqualified success. My biggest gripe was that there were places where Green just went completely over the top. Early on, Eddie is attacked by carnivorous automobiles, dragon-riding elves, the ghosts of people who died on the motorway, and evil techno-magicians with flying saucers. All in the same scene. Individually, there’s nothing wrong with these these foes, but it’s a bit much to have them all attack in the same scene. That’s by far the most egregious example, but there are many other places where Green throws everything but the kitchen sink at the reader, making it harder and harder to suspend disbelief.
On the whole, the characters are dynamic and interesting (I especially liked Molly). Sometimes, however, they behave in ways that defy common sense. Toward the end of the book, when Eddie and Molly are infiltrating the Drood family home, she ends up “pouting rebelliously” because she’s not allowed to look at something in the house. Rebellious pouting just doesn’t seem like a logical response when you’re behind enemy lines and could be killed at any moment. There’s also a supernatural entity at the end of the book whose behavior just makes you scratch your head and go “huh?”
Green’s “Secret Histories” series is basically an homage to James Bond (Eddie’s secret agent moniker is actually “Shaman Bond”), so perhaps I would have appreciated this book more if I were a fan of 007. I’ll probably read the other books in the series, but only when I have a gap in my To Read list.
Reasoning with Vampires has got to be one of the best things I’ve ever stumbled upon. It’s a forensic examination of the Twilight series where the books are carefully dissected and their inner workings exposed to the harsh light of day.
Never having read the Twilight series, I hadn’t realized just how flawed they are on almost every level. Not only is Bella’s relationship with Edward pathologically unhealthy, but she literally forgets to breathe on several occasions. Honestly, Urban Dictionary could define TSTL with a picture of Bella Swan.
If that wasn’t bad enough, the books also suffer from all kinds of mechanical problems. Stephenie Meyer’s sentences are often so large and unwieldy that they collapse in on themselves and become literary black holes. She also never met a dialogue tag that she didn’t like. Her pronouns stubbornly refuse to be tied down to any clear antecedent. The list goes on and on.
Snarkiness aside, RwV is a valuable resource for any writer because it can actually teach you quite a bit about grammar. It’s certainly much more enjoyable than The Elements of Style.
Codex Lochianus 