How to order from an Australian bookstore…

Posted on by March 13, 2021
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UPDATE: Galaxy bookshop in Sydney have since very kindly and promptly taken note of the problem and will be fixing it – if you want to order the book from them, look for it under Glenda Larke, or as Last Stormlord (without the “The”. They do have copies!)

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I wanted to send my books to a few people down in Oz. So I go online.

Geez, that was an exercise in futility. Galaxy in Sydney has never heard of the book. Neither has Abbey’s. Infinitas says they’ll have to order it and it will take 2 weeks. Down in Melbourne, Slow Glass doesn’t take credit cards. Over in Perth, neither White Dwarf nor Fantastic Planet deal with online sales.

So in the end I forget about the sff specialists and I went to the book chain Dymocks. They want the recipient’s email (no problem with that) – but then, blow me down, they also want their bleeding telephone number!!!!!!! How the @# should I know?

And they say shopping online is easy??
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Good news day

Posted on by March 13, 2021
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Got the all clear from my biopsy today, so that was a relief.

And I received the copy edit back from Harper Collins for Book 2, Stormlord Rising.

As usual, the copy editor remarks that wasn’t anything much to do.
As usual, I then glance at the text. It’s covered in red.
As usual, I wonder how something I thought was well-nigh perfect can come back looking like it has the pox.
As usual, I start to wonder about other writers – if this is a light edit, what on earth are all the other authors doing????
And I know that, as I begin, also as usual, I shall look at the proposed corrections and blush, slap a hand to my forehead, wonder just how many times I typed ‘of’ when I meant ‘on’, or ‘that’ when I meant ‘than’. Or why I didn’t pick up that grammatical error, or the fact that I used the word ‘effort’ four times in two paragraphs, or misspelled a character’s name.
Thank the Big Publisher in Teh Sky for copy editors.

Untitled Post

Posted on by March 13, 2021
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Today’s post of mine is over at SFNovelists. It’s about what makes a successful writer, and when you should give up if you never manage to get published.

As Satima has pointed out over there on that blog, there is something to being appreciated too – not that people who read a writer’s work are always appreciative! The ideal situation is to have a paying audience, but one of the nice things about today’s technology is that it is possible to have an audience without publication. And I don’t mean necessarily self-publishing or PoD on a large scale, although that is a possibility. It’s so easy to print your own books for friends and family, or just email them digital versions. Or read to the kids/grandkids. Or post the story on your blog in episodes. There are so many options out there if you can’t get your work published.

I am perhaps really, really odd. I stopped showing my work to others aged about 13. And with a few exceptions, I wrote for more than 30 years without showing anyone anything. I did read a kid’s book of mine to my children. And a couple of times – when I could afford it, which wasn’t often – I sent something off to a publisher. Seems strange to think of that now, but it was once a major expense to both print and to post a MS off overseas, with a SAE. My solitary life as a writer was more or less a secret only my immediate family knew. All my friends fell over backwards when I produced my first book, already published. No one had ever had the slightest idea of what I was doing.

Whew…people seem to be liking it…

Posted on by March 13, 2021
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Is it a sign of the times? One of the first reader reactions came in by twitter, from someone who read the book on the plane flying to Japan…

Interesting – and encouraging – is that several people have remarked that it is by far the best book I have written so far. It is one of the things I strive for all the time: to make the next book better. And it is lovely when I think I may have succeeded, because it isn’t necessarily a given by any means.

(And my editors say that Book 2 is even better than Book 1!!)

Australians: you can win my books

Posted on by March 13, 2021
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So, pertainingto yesterday’s post, I had eleven requests to be the villain in Book 3, and one desperate request not to be because my villains are too awful!

Still over at the Harper Voyager site, they have a competition to win a complete packet* of my books, including the new trilogy (as it comes out). Here’s what they say:

Voyager is giving you the chance to win the complete Glenda Larke pack including The Mirage Makers and Isles of Glory series, a finished copy of The Last Stormlord and the next two books in the Stormlord series as soon as they are released!

To win, send your review** of The Last Stormlord to voyager@harpercollins.com.au

And to sweeten the deal we will give FIVE runners up a Glenda Larke backlist pack with the Mirage Makers & Isles of Glory books. So your chances of winning are 5 times greater!

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*That packet would not include Havenstar, as they did not publish that…though I live in hope, one day….

**And I trust they will reward proper reviews and not fulsome flattery aimed at wheedling a way to a prize – 🙂

The Last Stormlord online

Posted on by March 13, 2021
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If you want a free look, The Last Stormlord is online at the Harper Collins site, for a limited time. Two weeks I think.

Of course, our hope is that you:
a) like it so much you rush out and buy half a dozen copies
b) like it so much that you will blog and tweet about it till your fingers are sore
b) like it so much you will buy books two and three when they become available
c) like it so much you will tell friends, family, co-workers, enemies, strangers on the street, plus any odd aliens you happen to meet, that they have to go out and buy it too.

If you don’t, I’ll make you the villain in book three.

Happy reading!

More translations!

Posted on by March 13, 2021
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Some time ago I hinted that I had some more translation deals in the offing. I have gone official on these over at the Voyager blog in this post: Writers: do we really starve in a garret?, which is about how writers try to scrape together enough money to keep heads above water, when their name doesn’t happen to be Rowling-Meyer D. Brown.

Anyway, here is the official news re translations:

FRENCH
Some time ago I sold the translation rights for the Isles of Glory trilogy to J’ai Lu. However, they had some reorganization of the corporate structure (parent company Flammarion) after only Book 1, The Aware (Clairvoyante), was published. The rights were then passed on to Pygmalion, which is also part of the Flammarion group. I have heard some talk of an October release for Gilfeather (titled Guérisseur in French), with The Tainted next year, and the possibility that The Aware will be re-released under a different cover. But who knows.* Anyway, that it not a new sale.

The new sale is this:

Pygmalion is also going to publish the Mirage Makers. Yay!

GERMAN
I have just sold the rights for the Isles of Glory German translation to Blanvalet (Random House). I’m really glad about this one. I used to have a huge following in Germany because of Havenstar (Die Fährte des Blinden) and I was delighted when the same publisher, Heyne, bought The Aware – but alas, the editor concerned left, the book languished, the rights reverted…

Now Blanvalet have stepped into the breach.

So there you are. I may not starve next year, either. (Ok, ok, no wisecracking about my excess insulation, thank you …)

*authors are sometimes the last to hear…

Yesterday, with vampires

Posted on by March 13, 2021
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As you have probably gathered from my twitter etc, I spent most of yesterday in a hospital having a health problem I mentioned some weeks back being attended to. Needless to say, I didn’t get much work done. I have also decided that having veins that aren’t micro-sized and only accessible to something called a butterfly needle (for surgery on butterflies perhaps?) would be an advantage.

Now I know I have of late acquired considerable insulation, but even in my spare days this “hunt the vein” was a problem. Yesterday, it went to all new levels. A surgeon and an anaesthetist, each working on an arm – with the aid of a leaf blower (for warmth), three nurses and an assistant – were only successful after some 15 minutes.

At least I will never have a problem with vampires.

Photos from Charlottesville

Posted on by March 13, 2021
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Taken around the area where I was staying in my daughter’s house.
Above: her street

Above: her street again
Above: the very arthritic, ageing dog that had to be taken for two walks a day.

I love all the trees and quiet streets. Alas, I came home to find my beautiful raintree that grew in our front garden had been cut down for no reason that I can see. Ok, so it was growing across the wires, and did need lopping… It was a gift from a dear friend, who now lives elsewhere, so it was a double blow.