Archive for the ‘Publishing’ Category
Michael’s never-before-published “Columba” stories up at eQuill
This was a long time in coming, folks.
I’ve done my best to keep my beloved husband’s work alive since his untimely death in 2004. It has been a struggle, but I’ve managed to sell a few things now and again — my story “Trouble with Elfs” sold in ’07 (Michael added 10% to it, so it’s credited as a collaboration), “A Dark and Stormy Night” sold in ’05 (this was his story, which I’d added 10% to round it out a little), — after our first sale to the BEDLAM’S EDGE anthology in ’04 (“Bright as Diamonds, released in ’05).
But all this time, I knew Michael had three completed fairy-tale fantasy stories set in an alternate United States of America — technically, in the demense of Illinowa, where Princess-Coronet Columba had a great deal of distress trying to separate herself from all the drama of being royal. Columba, you see, wanted her own, independent life — she was a musician, and a mage, and a very strong woman, stuck in a life that wasn’t right for her.
Then she rescues a cat . . . and things dramatically change. The cat isn’t a familiar, quite — you’d have to read the stories at eQuill to understand what’s going on fully — rather, he’s the gateway to an unexpected romance between two lonely, complementary souls who are equal, but not the same.
Michael wrote these stories for me — the first, “Columba and the Cat,” was written in early 2002 after we became engaged to be married. The second, “Columba and the Committee,” was written to celebrate our marriage in June of 2002. Finally, “Columba and the Crossing” was written for our anniversary — our second, as it had been in progress for well over a year due to the vagaries of life (a move across country, some ill health for the pair of us, and trying to find work in a new, strange place). A fourth, “Columba and the Cromlech,” was in progress at the time of Michael’s passing in September of 2004.
I wrote the blurbs, checked over the Columba stories, and am pleased to offer them now for the very first time to the public. I also am pleased to announce that the fourth “Columba” story will be completed, by me, as soon as possible.
Don’t be put off by eQuill being an Australian e-book publisher, folks — they have a monetary conversion thing through PayPal that allows any currency to be used as far as I am aware. (I checked this before I placed any of my or Michael’s stories there.)
Please check out Michael’s author’s page at eQuill and the stories available for sale now:
http://www.equillpublishing.com/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=13
And if you wish to see my page at eQuill (so far only one of our stories is listed with me; the others are listed with Michael), it is available here:
http://www.equillpublishing.com/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=12
Thanks, and as Michael always said, “Good reading!”
Reprinted stories soon to go up at eQuill Publishing.
Finally, some good news to report — I have agreed in principle to place Michael’s Joey Maverick SF/adventure story “A Dark and Stormy Night,” my Elfyverse story “Trouble with Elfs,” and a poem, “A Love Eternal,” with eQuill Publishing. They are a new e-press located in Australia, and I know about them mostly due to my friend Piotr S. Mierzejewski, who has placed a number of stories there already.
At any rate, “A Dark and Stormy Night” is a novella — 14,000 words — and my contribution to it is about 1400 words to even it out a tad and up the romance a mite. “Trouble with Elfs” is 8,000 words — a long short story, if that’s not an oxymoron — and is an urban fantasy set in the same universe, with many of the same characters, as ELFY. The Maverick novella is the very start of Michael’s book MAVERICK, LIEUTENANT, currently being revised by me in order to add action. And for the record, the Maverick story carries the byline “by Michael B. Caffrey, with Barb Caffrey,” while the Elfyverse story carries the byline “by Barb Caffrey, with Michael B. Caffrey,” though I wrote well over 85% of that story. (I simply believe that without Michael’s 15%, the story wouldn’t be worth reading, which is my prerogative.)
As for my poem “A Love Eternal,” it is the best way I’ve come up with yet to describe how Michael’s loss has affected me — and how to describe how I felt while Michael was alive.
All three reprinted stories/poems accepted for publication originally appeared at the Written Word — “A Dark and Stormy Night” appeared in ’05 and is not archived online, while “Trouble with Elfs” appeared in ’07 and the poem “A Love Eternal” appeared in ’06.
I may have further good news in the reprint quarter to note soon — but for now, please check out eQuill Publishing here:
http://www.equillpublishing.com
Also, please know that while publishing remains a very difficult occupation to break into, there are good moments from time to time. This is one of those moments, and I’m pleased that my persistence has paid off in order for these stories to appear in the way I’d always hoped.
Michael did not live long enough to see our first story, “Bright as Diamonds,” published, though he did know it had been sold. (We cashed the check and enjoyed the proceeds immensely, going to a Japanese restaurant and seeing the “floor show.”) He was looking forward to seeing the BEDLAM’S EDGE anthology in print at the time of his passing, but did not get that wish. And Michael obviously did not get the chance to see any of his own work published, either — me getting Michael’s “Maverick” novella published in ’05, after adding the 1400 words to make it a legal collaboration and thus, much easier to sell, was an act of love, faith and persistence.
Michael believed very strongly in my ability to write. Without his faith in me, without his help (as he’d already completed a novel before I started on ELFY), I would not be the same writer. And I’d be no kind of editor, as Michael had major skills there that he did his level best to pass on.
I continue onward as best I am able though sometimes it seems like an inordinately difficult task. Still, I was not raised to give up, and my wonderful, amazing husband believed I could do anything I set my mind to do.
My mind is set on publishing, in case you hadn’t figured it out already, and I will continue onward toward this goal.
—
Btw, the title of “Trouble with Elfs” is not a misprint. (You need to read the story to find out why.)
Publishers, e-books, and why the Baen Free Library Exists (UPDATED).
The e-book is here to stay. So the question now is, how should publishers deal with e-books? More importantly, how much in royalties should be paid to authors?
My friend Jason Cordova wrote a very interesting blog tonight about publishers and e-books and these questions exactly, available here:
http://warpcordova.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/publishers-and-e-books-round-ii/
What set Cordova off was an article by Michael Bhaskar at BookBrunch (written on 7/29/2010). There is a long-standing fight going on with regards to e-books, Amazon.com and its Kindle device, and MacMillan, which may be why Michael Bhaskar wrote his article; at any rate, that article is available here:
The Bhaskar article attempts to frame the narrative in such a way as to make authors look greedy for wishing to have more than 25% of net royalties. Yet this is only one part of the entire narrative, as Cordova ably points out in his blog.
Random House, according to Bhaskar, believes 25% of net receipts is fair. Whereas to many authors, including Cordova, that simply isn’t enough considering the lesser overhead of an e-book compared to a “dead tree” version.
The second question has to do with the fight between Digital Rights Media (DRM) and open source coding being used in order to sell e-books. Cordova’s points need to be read in their entirety, but the upshot is that many publishers put out e-books in a way that is intended to keep people who haven’t paid for an e-book to read an e-book. I know that sounds clunky, but the idea behind it is clunkier still — DRM, or to use a less fancy term, encoding or encryption, is to blame for any real long-term costs to the publisher, because it’s the cost of keeping a book encrypted and making sure no one has cracked the encryption that tends to cause long-term problems for publishers.
Yet several publishers, including Baen, Tor, Pyr, Twilight Times Books, Paladin Press and the new MuseItUp Publishing, have not chosen the way of DRM. These companies believe it is far more important to be friendly to the customer and make it as easy and as rewarding as possible for the customer than to encrypt their books using DRM.
Baen in particular has made it as easy as possible to buy e-books through something they call WebScriptions — they come in as many formats as need be, using non-encrypted materials. This has been a big marketing draw for Baen.
Better still, there’s something called the Baen Free Library, where many of Baen’s authors have chosen to allow one or more of his/her books to be put up so anyone, anywhere, can read it free of charge. This has not hurt Baen’s business model; it’s actually helped instead. Because most people want a dead-tree version of their favorite book; it’s still the easiest way to read a book, and will almost certainly continue to be so until and unless the Kindle, Nook and other electronic book devices become more user friendly. (I know there’s been progress in this regard. But I can still read a regular book far faster than an e-book, partly because it takes me less time to flip an actual page than it does to hit a mouse key or toggle downward.)
Not every publisher can put out their e-books in multiple formats; it’s almost certainly time-consuming to set up such a system, and I know Baen requires at least one full-time Webmaster to keep things running along smoothly. But there must be some “wiggle room” between a publisher that puts out everything using DRM and those who don’t; customers like it when a company like Baen or MuseItUp Publishing offers several different, easy ways to buy an e-book, which tends to drive customer loyalty and satisfaction over time.
I wish I were more of a computer “geek,” because the esoteric points being made by those who swear by DRM (many of the publishers, including MacMillan and Random House to the best of my knowledge) tend to get lost in the aether. That’s one reason I can’t explain them in more than general terms, though many of my friends are computer specialists and do completely understand all sides of this taxing and frustrating issue.
I do know that I very much appreciate what Baen Books is doing with its Webscriptions and the Baen Free Library, and that I’m very pleased to update this post by adding Tor, Pyr, Twilight Times Books, Paladin Press and MuseItUp Publishing to the list of smart publishers that want to please their customers and their writers. Because it’s a simple equation for readers: if a publisher puts out books that are high quality and well-edited — Heck, puts some of them out for free! — that aren’t encrypted, this leads to higher sales, better royalty payments overall, and far higher customer and writer satisfaction.
That, my friends, is a win-win. Which is why it puzzles me so much that the other heavy hitters in the industry haven’t followed the Baen model — which works — rather than continue to swim stubbornly upstream.
—-
** Note: Jason Cordova’s comment about other publishers that do not use DRM have been incorporated into this blog post. In addition, I heard from Lea Schizas, the publisher of MuseItUp Publishing, and she assured me that MuseItUp plans to offer several user-friendly options with regards to e-books, and that absolutely, positively, MuseItUp will not be using DRM.
Quick Note about MuseItUp Publishing
Some days, the best thing any writer can do is get up, peruse the writing boards, and congratulate people. Because when we do — as I did today at Forward Motion, the writer’s group I’ve belonged to for seven years — we often find links to new publishing houses we’ve somehow missed hearing about in the past.
Such is the case with MuseItUp Publishing, which is maybe a year old (if that much), but already has a good reputation in the SF, fantasy and romance communities due to the strength of its publisher, Lea Schizas, affectionately called a “force of nature” by her writers.
At any rate, after reading about them, I queried MuseItUp regarding ELFY because ELFY has paranormal elements; can’t guarantee they’ll want to see it, but trying is the first step toward getting an acceptance.
Note that I normally do not discuss which agents or publishers I’ve tried here at my blog, but in this case I thought I would as I know many writers with works in the science fiction/romance, fantasy/romance and flat-out romance categories. Not to mention straight-up SF, straight-up fantasy, etc.
This seems to be a reliable place with a solid reputation; they’re young, but growing, and they have the word of giving good quality feedback, which is why I have made an exception here.
Check them out at http://museituppublishing.com/musepub/
Barb Caffrey's Blog 