Publishing

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A Confession, A Reveal, and A Promise

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A Confession, A Reveal, and A Promise

I am a bad person.

Now, hopefully this will come as a surprise to most of you. Some of you, perhaps not so much ;).

MY CONFESSION: After Starshine was published, amidst much angst over its cliffhanger ending, I said the following: “Aurora Rising is the story. Starshine represents Act I in what is, in effect, a 3-act play in novel form.”

It wasn’t a lie—but it also wasn’t the entirety of the truth. It was very important to me that Aurora Rising be a self-contained, fulfilling story that will forever stand on its own. Aside from the obvious reasons, early on I didn’t know if I’d have the time, finances or will to continue writing beyond it. But after a year and thanks to all you amazing people the three novels of the Aurora Rising trilogy have—from my perspective—done phenomenally well both in sales and in critical praise from the readers. By any standards I can find, Hypernova Publishing and the Aurora Rising trilogy are blockbusters in the indie publishing world and there is no way I am going to stop now.

So here’s the entirety of the truth.

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The Long Way Around to a Book in Your Hands

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The Long Way Around to a Book in Your Hands

I know you guys are sitting there looking at Transcendence’s full word meter and wondering why the heck the book isn't out yet—a perfectly valid and understandable question.*

So I thought it would be fun (for me, hopefully for you-I promise there is humor) to walk through how my books get from idea to publication. Every person’s process is different and intensely personal to them, but this one is my own.

 

1.  Outline the outlines (aka, make pretty graphs)

I spend a lot of time outlining, and in different ways:

  • What happens in what order?
  • What happens where in what order?
  • What happens to whom in what order?

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Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything ) Transcript

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Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything ) Transcript

I was honored to be invited to host an AMA on Reddit's /r/suggestmeabook and /r/sciencefiction last month. I had a terrific time chatting with everyone and hopefully provided some interesting answers to their questions.

In case you missed it, here is the transcript of the AMA, unaltered except for formatting and specific-to-Reddit details. It includes more details on my writing process, thoughts about writing and publishing, and juicy tidbits about Aurora Rising than I could ever consciously fit in one blog post, so I hope you enjoy!

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Behind the Scenes with VERTIGO

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Behind the Scenes with VERTIGO

If you’ve been around here for a while, you’ll remember that as Starshine neared completion I began posting little excerpts from it every couple of weeks. I haven’t done so with Vertigo, primarily because all the excerpts are spoilers. All of them. I mean it. I do hope to start releasing some quotes in the coming weeks, which are too short to be spoilers. Right?

 

(As an aside, one edit made last week was at the urging of my husband, who said, “This is the actual book, you are supposed to spoil them!”)

To try and make up for my overly secretive and neurotic fear of revealing too much too soon to you guys, I thought I would share some other details about Vertigo, both fun and legit.

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Amazon, Hachette, Kindle Unlimi— Oh, Who Am I Kidding?

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Amazon, Hachette, Kindle Unlimi— Oh, Who Am I Kidding?

The internet writing community is all aflutter this summer about business clashes between Amazon and the publishing companies – specifically Hachette (the smallest of the ‘Big 5’ publishers). There is also the breaking news that Amazon has rolled out a subscription service for books called Kindle Unlimited. The announcement of KU intersects and influences the previous debate and sets off new discussions about how and why people do and should be able to read books, treatment of and compensation for authors, indie vs. traditional publishing, book pricing, price fixing, antitrust and monopolies, capitalism and fairness.

Like many writers, I have thoughts and opinions on these issues, and I wanted to share them with you. In summary, they consist of:

VERTIGO

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Five Things I Learned Writing (and Publishing) Starshine

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Five Things I Learned Writing (and Publishing) Starshine

Seven weeks after publication the craziness has started to settle down, and I’m finally getting used to a “new normal”—which means I’ve had the chance to muse a little on the whole experience.

In the tradition of the terrific (and irreverent) blogger and author Chuck Wendig’s series “Five Things I Learned Writing…”, I present five things I learned writing (and publishing) Starshine:

1.  Google will not send the FBI to your door if you spend six hours on the internet researching the fastest-acting deadly toxins.