What’s with this middle book thing?

Posted on by March 14, 2021
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Some time ago (15th March), I wrote a post about how my middle book didn’t sell as well as books 1 and 3, which struck me as very peculiar. Now I have further confirmation of the missing middle book syndrome … it has spread to the persons in library acquisitions.

Some of you may not know this, but in Australia, local authors are paid a sum of money each year according to the (estimated) number of books of theirs in public and school libraries (AUD $1.43c per book). I have just received my statement for the past year – and whaddya know, there are almost the same number of books 1 & 3 (a difference of 3 copies throughout Oz!), but 14% less copies of book 2. Huh? Now why would libraries acquire 1 and 3, but not 2??

Or is it that library users, having not bought the middle book, are now stealing it from their library? Ah, the mystery to be solved by some inspired sleuthing librarian…

Originally posted in Glenda’s blog on Thursday, 25 May 2006 (3 Comments).

It’s a quirky world…

Posted on by March 14, 2021
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Check out the comments on the previous post for some insights into Malaysian (and other) prejudices.

Over on Pub Rants, the agent Kristin has some interesting stuff to say about covers and how they are chosen. If you are interested in the difference between Australian and US and Russian covers for the same one of my books, look here and here.

I think the most peculiar thing that came out of what Kristin was saying is that the marketing people don’t seem to care that they might be misrepresenting the product (which would, one would think, lead to a dissatisfied customer who is not going to come back to that author again). All they want to do is sell the book. That seems short-sighted. I’d love to know what readers think.

Originally posted in Glenda’s blog on Friday, 2 June 2006 (6 Comments).

Why fantasy and not sci fi?

Posted on by March 14, 2021
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russ cover.0

Over on the Deep Genre site for 25th June, there’s an interesting discussion going on about why fantasy outsells science fiction. They had some excellent theories, many of which might explain the difference. Here’s my (expanded) comment:

With fantasy, it is possible to have the ordinary person triumph over the most horrendous situations.

I think that in today’s society, we face a myriad problems which seem unsolvable (even to sf writers, unless there is huge intervention at governmental levels and the massive investment of capital). We have problems like global warming and the war in Iraq, to whether my office block/tube train is going to be hit by terrorists, to whether there really is going to be a future in which I can clear my credit card debt, find a decent job in a place I want to live in, bring up my kids to be decent human beings, and end up with enough money for my retirement and health care.

When people faced with this kind of life buy a book to read, they want to do more than just “get away from it all”. They want to be left with the feeling that an ordinary person can make a difference. Not some genius scientist, or an astronaut – but an office worker from Milton Keynes or Hoboken, or a medieval shoemaker from Upper Yikmak. Fantasy leaves them feeling better about themselves, and gives them a sense of the possibility of empowerment. So what if it took a magic spell or similar, the struggle to obtain that spell or that magic can still inspire if the book was a good one. The little man (or woman) can triumph.

In a topic like this, I think we should never lose sight of the fact that people who read a site like Deep Genre – and leave a comment – are a very small minority of sff readers. We are the writers and the fans, the editors and the con goers. The people who buy most fantasy and sf are just people who want to get away from it all and be left with a good feeling, when they put the book down, about the possibilities open to them in their own lives.

And, of course, everybody reading this blog is instantly going to think of twenty exceptions where complex, thought provoking, depressing books hit the best seller lists…

Originally posted in Glenda’s blog on Tuesday, 27 June 2006 (10 Comments).

When friends and booksellers rock…

Posted on by March 14, 2021
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A fellow writer and friend, Russell Kirkpatrick, once recommended a book of mine (The Aware) to a bookseller over where he lives in Hamilton, New Zealand (pop.130,000 – or so the town website tells me). The bookseller read it and loved it, then started to recommend it – and subsequent books of mine – to readers coming into her (independent) store. The nice thing is that they kept coming back for more…

Result: she has sold 20 copies of each title. Wow. Geez, that’s one book per every 2,160 people. I don’t know your name, Ms Bookseller from Hamilton, but I think you rock! Bless you.

Now if only Whitcoulls, the New Zealand bookchain with 80 stores, would stock my books with that sort of enthusiasm…

Originally posted in Glenda’s blog on Friday, 16 June 2006 (3 Comments).

For readers out there…

Posted on by March 13, 2021
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…Especially for the folk who have been complaining that the Isles of Glory is not, and never has been, available in Britain: there’s good news. 


It’s available now.



Set in an archipelago of sub-tropical islands with a history of magic, the trilogy tells the story of several ordinary people who end up as larger-than-life heroes. 


A conflicted priest, a citizenless swordswoman, a doctor with an extraordinary sense of smell, a runaway royal heiress, and a bore-wave rider are brought together by fate and accident, but end up challenging rigid citizenship laws, undermining corrupt and powerful rulers, fighting the horror of perverted sorcery — and, yes, sometimes paying a hero’s price. In between the adventure, the trilogy is also rollicking good fun…


I wrote The Aware back in 1990. It was the book that led to my obtaining an agent, the same agent I still have. It was not my first published book – that honour went to Havenstar.


The Aware evolved from the 1990 version to become the first book of a trilogy, The Isles of Glory. It was first published in 2003 in Australia and New Zealand where it was hugely successful, and a little later in the USA with Ace (Penguin). But alas, never in UK.


 Until now.


Now, thanks to FableCroft Books, it is available — worldwide — as an ebook.


It can be found at Wizard Tower Books (clicking on the button on the left sidebar will take you there). 

Note: all maps for the trilogy can be found at my website here. 


Book 2 Gilfeather should be out next month, and Book 3 The Tainted in October.   
The Aware can also already be found at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk and
Weightless Books
  
It should also turn up at Kobo soon.

The magic house…

Posted on by March 13, 2021
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The block next door yesterday
The block next door today

And this is how they do it.
They start with a very large crane 
and  those dangly bits form a sling around the house… 

This is a crane in the next street, as seen from my house.

And they pick the house up from the back of a truck in the sling (the house is that blue bit you can just see) and…


… they put it down where they want it on the block…

Fantasy Maps

Posted on by March 13, 2021
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Dr Perdita Phillips, who is a professional artist, pointed my way to the book below, which refers to one of my fantasy worlds, and the maps that Perdy did for the Isles of Glory trilogy. (She does all my maps.)


The book is:
Here Be Dragons
by Stefan Ekman

The back blurb says he “provides in-depth discussions of fantasy maps and how to read them” and “shows how fantasy settings deserve serious attention from both readers and critics”.
 The Isles of Glory map is reproduced in his book as an example of something which is not all that common in fantasy mapmaking. In most fantasy books with maps, there is no unknown world to discover beyond the edges of the map. Sometimes there is only water; at other times the secondary world beyond the edges of the map is simply unknown and unexplored. What Ekman found interesting about the Isles of Glory is that the world beyond the Isles is actually the known world, while the Isles are the newly discovered world. The map makes this quite clear. 
Ekman is intrigued by the idea that “Known and unknown are turned around here, the well-known residing off the map. Wherever the political, financial, and cultural centres are to be found in this secondary world, they belong in the regions beyond the map’s margin – the Isles of Glory, in the middle of the map, are part of the world’s periphery.” 

It’s an interesting book, and an easy read. It’s also loaded with lots of examples. How common is it for fantasy novels to contain at least one map? Of the 200 novels in his sample, 34% contained one or more maps, the incidence being more than double that number if the world portrayed was not the one of the writer and reader, but of a world that we would not recognise — what he calls a secondary world.


The book is published by Wesleyan University Press ISBN 978-0-8195-7323-0

And here’s today’s totally unrelated photos, from the “primary world”:

Where our daily walk took us on Friday
The view from our front windows this morning

HAVENSTAR REDUX

Posted on by March 13, 2021
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HAVENSTAR, my first published book, is now available in any format that you could possibly want. And I am utterly delighted to have it that way.


There is something extraordinarily special about a writer’s first published novel. You never forget that moment when you receive the news that you’ve had a book accepted for publication. The delight, the sheer disbelief, then wonderment that all those years of trying have not been in vain after all. 

eBook Smashwords cover

For me, there was also a devastating sadness. I received the news just before my mother’s funeral. She died without knowing that I had at last achieved a lifetime goal.

Although the first publisher went belly up very shortly after it was published, Havenstar has never failed me. You see, the people who read it have almost universally loved it. And that is incredibly rare. In fact, one thing an author has to get used to is a variety of reviews — you can’t hope for any book to be loved by everyone. 

Nonetheless, no other book of mine has been so widely loved as Havenstar has. Others have done well, but this one has been special to so many people, and they have told me so with their reviews, with their five stars, with their fanmail. Better still, new readers are telling me it hasn’t dated, not even 14 years after its initial publication.

Readers may love the book, but I am so grateful to them. Those readers have carried me through the bad years and at times when I’ve wondered if it was all worthwhile, or if I had another book in me.


I dedicated the original Havenstar, quite obviously, to my mother. But in this new edition I have added something: an appreciation to you, my reader. Thank you. You are special.


And to the new reader, I hope you enjoy it too.

Where to Buy 

TICONDEROGA PRESS: 
Is offering editions in hardback; Limited Edition hardback; trade paperback. Buy online here.

Isn’t this hardback edition gorgeous???


Australian bookstores: Try the independent bookstores first. Ticonderoga has a list here, where you have a good chance of finding recent Ticonderoga editions.

In UK and US and elsewhere, you can always order physical versions through your local bookstore.

At Amazon (if you must…)
Amazon  US $17.99 trade paperback, $26.60 hardback
Amazon UK ₤15.75 trade paperback, ₤21.94 hardback, (prices at the moment of writing)

Book Depository has copies too (also owned by Amazon).


Ebooks: $US 5.99
Available through
SMASHWORDS (click this link) offering versions for Apple, Kobo, Kindle, Adobe, Nook, Stanza, Aldiko, Sony,  PDF, your computer, etc.
 
 Note: The ebook version will eventually go up on Amazon, but I get a bigger slice if you buy your Kindle version through Smashwords!