I know I shouldn’t, because nothing ever goes away on the internet, and it’s up to us to be professional all the time, blah blah blah. But for crying out loud, [certain authors on Facebook], cut down on the rabid promotion, already!
I am not, here, talking about any of my colleagues and friends who hang out with me on LJ and have spoken to me on my blog or on Goodreads or wherever. Pretty much if you’ve spoken to me at all – even once – on any topic whatsoever that isn’t your book, we’re OK and I’m not talking about you.
If you confine your promoing to your own blog/facebook/twitter, or guest posts on the blogs of other people, so that maybe an occasional post about a new release, or your writing process comes up when I go to read your wall/latest post, this is fine and dandy, and I’m reading it because I’m interested in what you’re writing and I might want to read your latest novel when it comes out.
If, however, you have friended me on Facebook, entirely so you can add me to groups about your book, so that I get emailed every time you discuss your book with your friends; if you tag me in photos of your book, so that I get emailed every time someone comments on or likes your photo; if you add me to your newsletter without asking, so that I get dozens of emails about your book about your adventures in Lithuanian alpaca knitting; if you do any other form of rude and intrusive thrusting your assets into my face without my express invitation, not only will I never read the book you’re yammering on about today, but I will make it a point of principle never to read any of your books in the entirety of your writing career. You see where that might be a little counterproductive? I hope so.
*Calms down a little*. Dear Lord, there is enthusiasm and then there is downright rudeness. Why did Facebook think it was a good idea to let people add other people to groups without their permission? Why? *Tears hair.* *Nope, actually still not calm at all.*
This story has a remarkable story of disasters, obstacles overcome and dogged persistence all of its own. It’s possible that some of you may remember the first time I announced the sale of what was then a long short story called 90% Proof to Freya’s Bower. I can’t now remember how many years ago that was, but it was supposed to go in an anthology with various other stories. It got through two rounds of editing before the editor became ill and all the authors in the anthology were offered their rights back.
After that, I took out all the editing that had been done on it, reverted it back to how it had been and sent it elsewhere. The second publisher I sent it to accepted it but said that it might take a little while to assemble some other historical stories to go with it to make up an anthology. So I waited a little while, and a little while became two years. At the end of two years I decided that probably they were not quite as enthusiastic about the story as I might have hoped. I asked for the rights back and got them.
Then I thought “well, it’s already a long short story, and I think it would be improved if I gave the POV of both men instead of just one. And it really needs to start earlier if Hal isn’t going to come off as a completely obnoxious git. And I should really show Robert being a prankster rather than tell people about it. Perhaps I can rid the story of its curse if I re-write it as a novella.”
So I rewrote it as a novella, retitled it Poison and Poetry and sent it off to Carina, where it has now gone through all of its edits and been given a release date of 18th of June 2012. I’ve learned better than to suppose it will now be published – there’s plenty of time for something to go wrong again – but this is certainly the furthest it has managed to get down the publishing road so far.
It has also been given a new name. Carina have a special department for titles, apparently, specially for thinking up properly romantic things to call their stories. They’ve outdone themselves this time, I think – I don’t think I could have thought of anything that said “old school Romance with a capital R” better than this.
Drumroll please…. Anyone who wanted to read 90% Proof, you should soon be able to find it under the title His Heart’s Obsession.
It’s perfectly appropriate to the novella, which is indeed a story about the differences between love and obsession, but I have to admit it does make me laugh and suspect that there’s going to be decorative swooning on the cover. If we could have Rob carrying wounded!Hal in a bridal carry, surrounded by the smoke of cannons, so much the better 🙂
Now here’s a petition that really should help:
Thank you for calling on the European Parliament to save the Internet.
Now please help amplify the impact of this campaign. The more of us join, the more powerful it becomes! Send the email below to friends and family, and post this link on your Facebook wall.
http://www.avaaz.org/en/eu_save_the_internet/?tta
Thanks again for your help,
The Avaaz team
——–
Dear friends,
Last week, 3 million of us beat back America’s attack on our Internet! — but there is an even bigger threat out there, and our global movement for freedom online is perfectly poised to kill it for good.
ACTA – a global treaty – could allow corporations to censor the Internet. Negotiated in secret by a small number of rich countries and corporate powers, it would set up a shadowy new anti-counterfeiting body to allow private interests to police everything that we do online and impose massive penalties — even prison sentences — against people they say have harmed their business.
Europe is deciding right now whether to ratify ACTA — and without them, this global attack on Internet freedom will collapse. We know they have opposed ACTA before, but some members of Parliament are wavering — let’s give them the push they need to reject the treaty. Sign the petition — we’ll do a spectacular delivery in Brussels when we reach 500,000 signatures:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/eu_save_the_internet/?tta
It’s outrageous — governments of four fifths of the world’s people were excluded from the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations and unelected bureaucrats have worked closely with corporate lobbyists to craft new rules and a dangerously powerful enforcement regime. ACTA would initially cover the US, EU and 9 other countries, then be rolled out across the world. But if we can get the EU to say no now, the treaty will lose momentum and could stall for good.
The oppressively strict regulations could mean people everywhere are punished for simple acts such as sharing a newspaper article or uploading a video of a party where copyrighted music is played. Sold as a trade agreement to protect copyrights, ACTA could also ban lifesaving generic drugs and threaten local farmers’ access to the seeds they need. And, amazingly, the ACTA committee will have carte blanche to change its own rules and sanctions with no democratic scrutiny.
Big corporate interests are pushing hard for this, but the EU Parliament stands in the way. Let’s send a loud call to Parliamentarians to face down the lobbies and stand firm for Internet freedom. Sign now and send to everyone you know.
http://www.avaaz.org/en/eu_save_the_internet/?tta
Last week, we saw the strength of our collective power when millions of us joined forces to stop the US from passing an Internet censorship law that would have struck at the heart of the Internet. We also showed the world how powerful our voices can be. Let’s raise them again to tackle this new threat.
With hope and determination,
Dalia, Alice, Pascal, Emma, Ricken, Maria Paz and the rest of the Avaaz team
More information:
If You Thought SOPA Was Bad, Just Wait Until You Meet ACTA
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/01/23/if-you-thought-sopa-was-bad-just-wait-until-you-meet-acta/
ACTA vs. SOPA: Five Reasons ACTA is Scarier Threat to Internet Freedom
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/286925/20120124/acta-sopa-reasons-scarier-threat-internet-freedom.htm?cid=2
What’s Wrong With ACTA
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number10.1/whats-wrong-with-ACTA
The secret treaty: Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and Its Impact on Access to Medicines
http://www.msfaccess.org/content/secret-treaty-anti-counterfeiting-trade-agreement-acta-and-its-impact-access-medicines
And the link to the AVAAZ petition again,
http://www.avaaz.org/en/eu_save_the_internet/?tta
OK, so this was not what I intended to blog about this morning, but this was just more important:
We defeated SOPA and PIPA, but the battle is not over yet. You have another head on this hydra to slay, and it’s getting frightfully little attention. Feel free to repost this anywhere you like.
ACTA –
1. ACTA isn’t the “European” SOPA. It’s nearly GLOBAL, and will apply to every country that signs the treaty.
2. ACTA is far more aggressive. ACTA will not simply affect websites and have them blocked out of the internet – its measures go as far as surveillance of anything you share through private channels.
3. ACTA doesn’t have a campaign against it that is as wide-spread and organized as the SOPA one. This is DANGEROUS, as there’s less time between now and the final signing of ACTA.
4. ACTA has effects on healthcare, trade, and even tourism.
5. ACTA has to be stopped.
Let’s start spreading the word and organizing a good, solid response to it.
More information:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ56UNL5zeo
There is a petition against this one here: http://www.petitiononline.com/stopacta/petition.html
This petition is to stop ACTA(Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement). The ACTA is an international treaty that will create problems such as these.
(Via http://boingboing.net/2009/11/03/secret-copyright-tre.html)
” * * That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn’t infringing will exceed any hope of profitability.
* * That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet — and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living — if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.
* * That the whole world must adopt US-style “notice-and-takedown” rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused — again, without evidence or trial — of infringing copyright. This has proved a disaster in the US and other countries, where it provides an easy means of censoring material, just by accusing it of infringing copyright.
* * Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM, even if doing so for a lawful purpose (e.g., to make a work available to disabled people; for archival preservation; because you own the copyrighted work that is locked up with DRM)”
With this petition we hope to stop the unelected officials proposing this treaty, and keep the internet free.
We must also remember this is just the first in may steps to take our other freedoms away.
for more information
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XoFGApjhFE
http://ipjustice.org/wp/campaigns/acta/
and again, here’s the URL for the petition http://www.petitiononline.com/stopacta/petition.html
As it says on YouTube “ACTA, SOPA, PIPA all at once as soon as 2012? hit!…. I didn’t beleive in “2012 is the end of the world” until now”
Edited because that petition site seems to be down, and this one goes directly to the UK Government:
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/20685/
Seriously, this fight against piracy is a lot worse than the piracy itself. I used MegaUpload a lot in order to send perfectly legal high resolution book cover art which I made with legally bought stock photos over to publishers so they could put them on their books. The high resolution files were simply too big to send in an email.
How am I going to get my cover art to its legal purchaser if people keep taking down file sharing sites just because some bozos are using them illegally?
I thought I’d pass this along:
Originally posted by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=88.6)
dmatkins at Why SOPA is dangerous, an explanation of the bill
Originally posted by ![[info]](http://l-files.livejournal.net/userhead/116?v=1320915525)
nyxmidnight at Why SOPA is dangerous, an explanation of the bill
Why SOPA is dangerous
To Sum Up
SOPA:
- Gives the government the right to unilaterally censor foreign websites.
- Gives copyright holders the right to issue economic takedowns and bring lawsuits against website owners and operators, if those websites have features that make it possible to post infringing content. [A comment feature is enough.]
- Makes it a felony offense to post a copyrighted song or video.
This bill turns us all into criminals. If it passes, then you either stop using the Internet, or you simply hope that you never end up in the crosshairs, because if you’re targeted, you will be destroyed by this bill. You don’t have to be a big, mean, nasty criminal — common Internet usage is effectively criminalized under this law. This bill will kill American innovation and development of the Internet, as it will become too risky to do anything of value. It is toxic and dangerous, and should not, under any circumstances, be supported.
And to reiterate that this does affect those of us who are not American if
(a) we want people in the USA to be able to see our sites,
(b) we want to be able to continue to use American sites like YouTube, Fanfiction.net, LJ, wikipedia (too late for poor old MegaUpload, alas) etc,
(c) we don’t want our American friends to be living in a country where they can no longer take free speech for granted and
(d) we don’t want America to become a huge black hole in the middle of the internet, with who knows what kind of gravitational consequences.
On a more personal note, I only just finished revamping my site after taking advice from Jessewave’s readers on my post about authors who write in more than one genre. Everyone seemed to be unanimous that they didn’t mind an author writing in several genres as long as there was no likelihood of them picking up one kind of book in mistake for another. So I’ve re-vamped my website to sort my books out by genre. Take a look now while you still can, I guess!
My newly revamped site.
And now I think I’m off to write some fanfiction while there’s still a chance of being able to find readers for that.
Copied wholesale from Erastes
I think if you are going to do one political act today, then do this one rather than the other.
(from thimble_kiss
If you are a transgender person in Sweden and want to legally change your gender, the government forces you to undergo surgery that will render you permanently infertile and forever unable to have children. That’s right: in 2012 Swedish law still mandates forced sterilization in order to do something as simple as changing your gender on a driver’s license.
Right now a reform of the law is being debated in Sweden. We need a massive show of support across Sweden and Europe against forced sterilization that will finally convince Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfledt to speak out and break the deadlock.
Whether you are straight, gay, lesbian, bi or trans, Swedish or European, will you take a moment to raise your voice and ask Prime Minister Reinfeldt to take a stand for human rights?
Take action now : http://allout.org/stop_forced_sterilization
Whoops! I had a bit of time this morning, so I thought I’d organise my ebook reader. One slip of the keyboard later and all my m/m books are gone. I thought I had them all backed up on my computer hard-drive, but now I go to look, I find I don’t.
No doubt some of them will still be on my various bookshop bookshelves for re-download, and perhaps some can be found on Calibre. But Calibre is no longer talking to my reader (what the hell did I do? How did I break things this badly without knowing what I did?) and I’ve kind of lost the will to live as far as finding everything again goes, even if that’s possible at all.
I don’t think “whoops” covers it, but any word that might is probably unprintable.
I’m not a political blogger, and politics in the USA often feel like something going on on the backside of the moon to me, with everyone speaking in acronyms and referring to things I’ve never heard of, and assuming things I would never in a million years assume (because things are different over here.)
So I’m not going to attempt to make any sort of coherent summary of this, except to say that there appears to be a bill going through the American government at the moment which will give the American government or Hollywood, or someone, power to take down anyone’s website without any kind of due process if that website ever embeds or links to any kind of copyrighted content at all. (Eg, if I talk about seeing The Avengers, and include a YouTube video of the trailer, or a still from the film, to illustrate the post, that will be illegal and will mean my entire site can be taken down. I can only get it back by suing somebody in America.)
That’s my understanding, anyway. This appears to me to be a very bad thing, so I have signed a petition to stop the bill from going through. Here are some links to people who do appear to thoroughly understand what is going on, and can hopefully explain it better than me.
http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2012/01/18/why-sopa-and-pipa-and-other-anti-piracy-bullshit-measures-matter-to-writers/
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/013466.html
http://thehathorlegacy.com/stop-sopa-hollywoods-attempt-to-kidnap-what-google-has-rightfully-stolen/
http://thehathorlegacy.com/sopa-supply-and-demand-doesnt-work-anymore/
http://vimeo.com/31100268
http://sopablackout.org/learnmore/
Even if big corporations in the US can’t take down the sites of people in other countries (which I damn well hope they can’t) do we really want our friends in the US to be living under such a regime? I wouldn’t trust my government with the power to silence me at will, let alone some faceless unelected corporation.
It’s not too late to join the strike http://sopastrike.com/ but I’m not sure if I have the technical competence for that, so instead I’m passing on links and info, and suggesting that if you haven’t bothered reading about this yet, it might be a good time to start.
This is where I found the petition to sign http://americancensorship.org/ There is a “contact your senator” box for Americans and an “if you’re not from the US, sign here” box for everyone else.
If anyone ever says to you – as English people seem inclined to say – “what a shame we have no culture of our own at all.” Tell them they should have been at the Straw Bear Festival this year, but that it’s not too late to go to next year’s.
Or perhaps they were just ignoring what we do have because it’s not noble or serious enough. If so, tell them to come anyway and learn to embrace the riotous, ridiculous, vulgar and fun spirit of the morris – on the streets and unashamed.
As for us, we had a great day on Saturday. It was one of those winter days when the sunshine is the colour of champagne, there’s an icy mist over the fens, it’s almost warm in the sun, but stepping out of it is like running face first into a snowdrift. We set off in the procession with hoards of other morris, molly, rapper and clog dancers at half ten in the morning, dancing through streets that were packed with onlookers, and then we danced, on and off, until 3pm, when the lowering of the sun made us all feel like we were about to die of exposure.
Ely and Littleport Riot’s kit may be partly at fault here. It’s great in the summer to dance in a light blouse, skirt and waistcoat, but not even adding a pair of gloves and maybe a regulation red woolly hat really makes it suitable in the winter, no matter how many thermal vests and long johns you wear underneath.
Read the rest of this entry »
It must be nice to be one of those writers who feels expert enough in things to answer other people’s questions. Wednesday’s blog post aside, I’m not really one of them. I have a head full of questions and doubts that rarely if ever seem to get resolved.
Today I’m airing my questions and doubts about genre and the single writer over on Jessewave’s blog. Do you think a writer who changes genre ought to also change their name for ease of reference? But what if they then combine those two genres into one crossover novel? Whose name goes on that? Should they, in fact, not write the confusing crossover at all? Should they have a third name for those? Should they keep one name and do something else?
I would be delighted to see anyone who has any opinions on these questions over here:
http://www.reviewsbyjessewave.com/2012/01/13/do-you-cross-the-line-by-alex-beecroft
I don’t guarantee I will take all advice I’m given, but I do promise that I will consider it carefully.
