Category Archives: Publishing

Discussions about the business of publishing.

Zen and the Art of Beating Your Head Against a Wall: Who Am I This Week?

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YamadaEmperor-600Most of this post will have nothing to do with the image above. It’s the likely final cover for the next Yamada book, due out in September. I saw a working image much sooner, but since the publisher (Prime Books) has officially put it up on their website, I’m showing it here for the first time.  I am working furiously to make sure the book happens on schedule, but taking a few minutes to surface here because I feel bad about missing my post yesterday. I try to keep the posts themselves on schedule too, but you’re always doing battle with the day, and sometimes you don’t win. Yesterday I made my word quota on the book but the rest of the day was spent on an errand to New Hartford and a new air compressor for the next phase of trim work in the house. Soon: back to painting. The fun never stops on the quirky castle on the hill.

All that aside, a day or two ago I sold a reprint story to a new anthology(details TBA). Writers love reprints for a couple of obvious reasons. 1) It’s money for work we’ve already done and 2) Every appearance helps raise the profile and name recognition just a tad, non-trivial if you’re trying to build a readership, and what writer isn’t? Yet again, the post isn’t about that as such, nice though it is, but an event it triggered.

I have to provide a bio.

Yep, I’m here to fuss about bios again. Probably the one thing none of us should complain about is having to provide brief author biographies for whoever is publishing you. When I was just starting out I’d be thrilled at the idea, and struggle to keep the thing within the 100-200 words you’re generally allowed. Now if I can manage more than a couple of sentences it’s only a victory of the will. I went through a phase of just making stuff up, because that’s what I do anyway, but bios are supposed to be non-fiction, at least in theory. I finally judged it inappropriate to claim I had a side career teaching T’ai-Chi to polar bears, though stressed as the poor things are now, they can probably use it. So I generally end up writing something like this:

“Richard Parks’ work has appeared in Asimov’s SF, Realms of Fantasy, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and several “Year’s Best” anthologies and has been nominated for both the World Fantasy Award and the Mythopoeic Award for Adult Literature. The fourth book in the Yamada Monogatari series, The Emperor in Shadow, is due out from Prime Books in September 2016. He blogs at “Den of Ego and Iniquity Annex #3”, also known as: www.richard-parks.com”

Seriously, can you get any more boring than that? Possibly, but you’d really have to work at it. And they’re all variations on this one. Believe me, I take comfort in the knowledge that a lot of readers don’t even bother with them, and why should they? It’s the story that counts. The paradox is that I hope publishers keep asking me for them for a long, long time to come.

History Lesson

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Library

Library

Believe it or not, that mess on the left actually represents progress. There hasn’t been a lot of that, at least in the library. I can see about a third of the bare floor now. I also know that, judging the remaining books with the remaining shelf space, the numbers just don’t work, and I can’t add more shelves…well, maybe one.

That’s for later. Part of the point of at least attempting to get organized is that I have a book to finish, a book set in a specific historical period and at a very important historical crisis point. In short, my references—and one specifically—were packed up, and I needed them. Not to get into many details, but there was a particular point in the story where Imperial and clan politics interacted in a very specific way, and in order to understand how that all fit into the narrative, I needed a specific book. That is, I thought I did. Until I was able to unpack said book.

Funny thing about that—what one person considers important, another just skims past. In other words, the book I was depending on was no help at all. I shouldn’t have been too surprised. What I was looking for was a fairly obscure series of events that happened over nine hundred years ago. Unless you happen to have a large university reference library at your disposal, you’re probably not going to find what you’re looking for. I don’t happen to have that. Nor do I have the shelf space to stock every reference I might possibly need, even if they did exist in translation, and usually the ebook edition in any language simply doesn’t exist.

What I do have is Google. I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but online it took me maybe twenty minutes, tops, to track down what I was looking for, thanks to a Japanese site pulling from primary sources, with English translation provided. The internet does make some things more difficult with its constant distractions. But it also makes a lot of things possible. The information I needed simply wouldn’t have been available to me without it. Fortunately, I am not without it, so no problem.

Also no excuses. Funny how that works.

David G. Hartwell

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7b0d3f0e5b-fc2e-4ffe-b6f1-a01ee1f81da57dimg400  I, along with pretty much everyone who works in science fiction and fantasy, got the word yesterday that David Hartwell was in very serious condition and not expected to survive, and unfortunately so it proved. It’s not my place to give details, partly because I’ve only heard specifics second and third-hand, but mostly because that is for those closest to him to do or not as they see fit. I’m here for a different reason.

I only met David Hartwell once, at World Fantasy Convention 2003 and doubt we exchanged more than 20-30 words total then, but the reason I’m writing today is to say a long overdue (and in Mr. Hartwell’s case, sadly too late) thank you to both him and his wife and editing partner, Kathryn Cramer. The reason I spoke to David Hartwell that one time was because he was making sure he received a copy of my first collection, The Ogre’s Wife. I was on my way to give a reading at the time and had one copy with me. Not being a complete idiot, I gave that one to him. I should have thanked him then, since he and his wife and editing partner Kathryn Cramer had shown an interest in my early stories, taking two to reprint in their first two yearly editions of their Year’s Best Fantasy. In another incident where I wasn’t present, a (reliable) friend reported that, on a panel about newer and emerging writers, my name had come up as Ms. Cramer reportedly said something to the effect that, “If you haven’t read him yet, you should.” Such kindnesses were a huge boost to me at the time. Maybe writers shouldn’t need validation other than the work itself, but as human beings we savor it as much as anyone, and getting those two reprints at that point in my writing career was a big deal for me. So I should have said “thank you” to David Hartwell when I had the chance.  It never occurred to me at the time that life and circumstances would dictate that I never spoke to him again.

So I’ll say it now, and especially to his widow Kathryn Cramer who is still with us and I hope will be for a long time: Thank you.

 

Publisher’s Giveaway

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WRITING 02I didn’t do it this time. Prime Books has arranged for a giveaway for two Prime Books editions: The War God’s Son, but also Word Puppets by Mary Robinette Kowal. Go here to enter. Deadline is November 24th for Word Puppets and November 25th for The War God’s Son.

I may be scarce for a few days. I’m back in Mississippi to help finish packing for the move, and then to transport the rest of our household back to Upstate. I’ll try to get back on something as close to an even keel as I ever manage once we’re settled. However long that takes.

Words have power. You can tell, because in the wake of the tragedies in Paris and Beirut and Baghdad, so many people are misusing them. Sad and angry as I might be at the moment, I want to think about that for a bit before I say anything.

Reporting From Upstate

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IMG_0377Don’t you hate it when someone gives you the “I know something you don’t know. It’s really cool, but I can’t tell you.” That one? Well, this one is sort of like that one—I’ve seen the preliminary cover art (by Alegion) for The Emperor in Shadow. It’s pretty much done, but I can’t show it to you just yet, so you’ll have to take my word for it that it is indeed very cool, in my opinion the best cover on the series so far. And I’ve seen it and you can’t. Don’t you just hate that? Don’t you wish I’d just curl up and DIE? Or worse, send me to the Harmony Hut? Your call. I’ll be over here fretting about something else entirely. I got a million of ’em.

I’ve been sleeping on a thin quilted pad with a quilted quilt over me for the last two weeks as I’ve attempted to get the new house sorted before the move. I rather fancy the experience mimics that of the way the Heian (and a lot of other era) Japanese slept, with a roll up futon for a bed and their clothes or blankets as covers in however many layers the season required. It’s at once uncomfortable to someone used to a western-style bed and yet I sleep very well, to my own surprise. Almost too well, sometimes. Things to do.

A contact in Belgium has licensed non-exclusive French Language rights to translate “Cherry Blossoms on the River of Souls” into, yes, French. Looking forward to seeing it, even though I can’t read French. It’s just the idea. So far I’ve had stories translated into Russian, French, Chinese, and Japanese. Germany and the Latin and Nordic countries remain holdouts. If anyone in those countries would like to read anything of mine in their native language, bug your local publisher. They’re in charge of those things, not me.