Project: Shadow - dashPunk

Diane Duane wrote an interesting post responding to a shocking post from Teleread. They are both facinating reads about the travails of the eBook market, and the odd problems publishers are having moving their content over, including these new editions are adding horrid typos to the text such as:

“The reader is invited to examine the next Jew chapters…” (Teleread)

Ack, how could a publisher miss that?

Enter the eBook

Publishing is in crisis. I don't think there are any readers or writers out there that are unaware of the problems the industry is having. The eBook market, like the audiobook market, was seen as a small niche market by the publishers, so they didn't pay much attention to the quality of either.

Now that both are taking off as preferred methods for reading their lack of attention is biting them in the butt.

Compounding issues is that as these formats are taking off, more authors are checking out of the old school publishers and moving to publish their own books. This gives rise to new issues.

Where have all the editors gone?

Small press and self-publishers often don't have the money or the prestige to attract editors, and the work suffers.

I have had this issue. I enjoy working with editors, and feel like it makes my work better, but as a self-publisher, the cost of an editor is a problem. Most services are just for copy editors, and that is important, but I am more interested in having a content editor I can develop a relationship with.

There are not many options for folks like me. We are desperately in need of a new model.

Beta Readers?

I have thought about setting up a beta reader site to control who has access to it so I can gather a group of trusted readers together to comment on my fiction while I am working on it. My biggest problem with that is that I would probably have to consult a lawyer to make sure that everything works smoothly, and to help me write a license explaining in legalese what the relationship between me and the beta readers would be.

Wow, that is starting so sound complicated. I am not sure if I want to get involved with all these issues. Complexity stifles innovation.

I am not sure what the solution to this would be. Maybe there should be a beta reader license foundation like the Creative Commons Foundation to maintain such a license, but that seems like a dream at this point, but it is something to look at.

What solutions do you have? How can we make eBooks better?

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Bad Publicity for Established and New Writers

Eric Dorsett |

Wednesday, March 30, 2011 at 10:54AM |

1 Comment

We have all heard the cliche that all publicity is good publicity, but a new survey show that is now not entirely true.

For books by established writers, a negative review led to a 15% decrease in sales. For unknown authors, a negative review increased sales by a healthy 45% (The Millions).

I can testify to this. When my first book came out, an author (that I don't want to continue to argue with so I will not name her) and I got into a big argument at a convention. So she blogged about me, and my sales went up. When Amazon banned my second book because it had a gay character in it (or as they say, because it was accidently caught by their porn filter), my sales went up.

I do not recommend either of those as a route to success, but I found the negative press helpful. On the other hand, I have received several really positive reviews, and I didn't see an effect from those at all.

Publicity is hard

I wish I had some wise words to share here to everyone looking to promote their work, but there is no magic bullet. If there were, the magic would soon be drained away.

The best thing I can say is to write and get your words out in as many places as you can. The best thing I did for my work in a long time was a story I wrote for Horror Addicts. In fact, I will probably do that again.

The moral of the story is: don't be devastated by bad press. It may help you out, especially at the beginning of your career.

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Fantasy Hero: Men v Women

Eric Dorsett |

Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 11:00AM |

1 Comment

You don't have to be around fantasy for a long time before you realize that the roles of men and women are portrayed very differently in fantasy fiction. There are probably a lot of reasons for that, but I've often felt that is to make up for the frightfully asexual characters that inhabited the Lord of the Rings.
I also wonder if this is a result of the odd stereotype of a fantasy fan as a socially inept, over weight male who had no idea of what it felt like to be touched by members of the preferred sex. Oddly enough, most of the fantasy fans I have met are women, but I suppose that is of little interest to the marketing types who love this image of their audience.

Sex sells, or so they tell me, and I fear that Fantasy costumes are the way they are because of an antiquated and misogynistic porn aesthetic that needs to pass away.

Women are dressed in scant wisps of fabric and metal because, simply enough, heterosexual males find them pleasant to look upon, as well as fantasize about. That part of the mystery is simple enough, but what about the men.

Men are dressed in covering, if form fitting, clothes and armor that often mimics the ripped muscular forms they cover. Why depict the gorgeously masculine bodies of men with coverings that match that same form? The only reason I can think of is to protect the heterosexual male ego.

Metal breastplates in the form a muscular male body replace the unattractive male porn star to insulate the heterosexual male psyche from the possibility of being turned on by the image of a handsom male body. If, perchance, they are aroused at all by the image, well, everyone loves a fine piece of metal work. It is a macho, even if only in their own minds, to be aroused by the elements of war. What could be more masculine after all?

Once I realized this, I felt a strange pity for the heterosexual male. They seem to be such delicate and fragile things. I understood what a Victorian man must have thought when he looked at a woman. I never really wanted to understand that feeling, but nevertheless, here I am, wondering how to toughen up these poor, fragile, heterosexual men so they could bare the realization that man can be sexy too.

The comic I included in this post is from Dueling Analogs at Dorkly Comic. It reminded me of this problem, and interested in a solution.

I doubt that neither hyper-sexualization of the male form, or modest portrayals of the female form will amount to anything more than a cosmetic mask, easy to wash off. It is difficult to strengthen a fragile thing, and I am sure quite a few people will be upset with me bringing this subject up, but I feel like we need to talk about it if we are ever going to remedy it.

Maybe this is just something that time will fix on its own, but I doubt it. Perhaps I should just go my way, and let this sort itself out. (Everyone who knows me knows that won't happen)

I suppose I feel that it just needed to be said.