Dancing to Dirges

Depressing and happy things Tim says, sometimes while drunk

Thursday, August 27, 2009

So rare it's purple

First, the good news. If you have a copy of the UK version of Heart of Veridon, you have a rare. The bad news is that it's rare because hardly any of the buyers for the various UK chains picked the book up. So...not many copies on the ground over there. The numbers are dismal.

It's not so bad inside my head, really. Every since I found out Solaris was putting itself up for sale, I was pretty sure the book was fucked. That those predictions are coming out true is disheartening, but I've been mentally bracing for this for a while. It hurts to have something you threw so much of your life into go down like this, but that's how life goes. You move on.

This doesn't bode well for the US release, btw. We're probably going to be in the same situation of bookstore buyers just not picking up the book, and therefore the book not appearing on shelves. Not many shelves. So if you see a copy, yay, but I'm not expecting it.

For the longest time I expected Veridon to be my make or break narrative. Not necessary this book, but maybe the second or third book of the promised series. That's not going to be the case. Now my success is utterly invested in Eva Forge. I love my Veridon, but I have to put it away.

So, yeah. Farm those rare drops. Get your copy now, cuz there aren't going to be many more. And when the Forge series does super-well and I'm famous, that book's going to be worth something.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

You have to judge your value somehow

I know I'm not supposed to be the wildly obsessive numbers guy, that the only way to approach this writing thing is with a reasonable mindset and a healthy dose of nonchalance, but I'm bad at that. Much as I don't want to, I check the Amazon sales rank of the UK release four or five times a day. Or an hour. Depends. And I especially know I shouldn't do this based on my observations of that number. It was 110,000 this morning, was 16,500 about an hour ago, and is now down in the high 20's. It's a valueless information set. But still...

refresh. refresh. refresh.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Things worth mentioning:

I like my new job, I do. But I've noticed that most of my coworkers are some or another breed of evangelical christian. And that's fine. Many of my friends are that type of person, and all of my family. But many more of my friends, and all of me, are not. It comes out in small ways. Swearing, for example. I have to watch that now. Just sitting around my cubicle, when things go wrong data-wise, I have to come up with something other than "Godfucking shit kicker" to express my displeasure. And that sucks. Because that exactly expresses my displeasure.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Bonjour Hello

Back from Montreal, with some time to think. It was a good Worldcon, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't my biggest. Consider this a weak, disjointed attempt at a con report. I wasn't taking notes. I wasn't even taking pictures. These are just things that occur to me, as they occur to me.

Impressions of Montreal. I like it. The first thing I figured out was just how much French I'd forgotten. Jen and I would stand staring at a sign, trying to remember the verb. Finding? Looking? No...maybe Washing? Washing. I think it's Falling, actually. Sad, sad. We did okay, though. A couple of times we ate at restaurants that had no english menu, and that was always interesting. It always seemed to be at breakfast, too, so we had to struggle with consciousness and verb tense. We did okay. Nobody ordered anything they weren't willing to eat.

They really do have infrastructure problems. Driving in, every underpass had an iron net to catch falling bits of concrete. All the bridges were crumbling, and the road surfaces were poor. On the plus side, we were never delayed by construction! Once we were downtown it was typically Canadian Clean. Our hotel was a couple blocks west of the Palais du Congres, which was the convention center. The palais itself was just west (well, slightly west northwest) of Old Montreal, so for food we usually just walked down to the palais, then continued on into ye olde city. Much good food. Beer selection was narrow wherever we went, at least on tap, but they were consistently good beers. I drank a lot of Chamblay Noire. As a rule the food was slightly rich and heavy, but very good. *shrug* The old city itself is kind of like a slice of Europe that got dropped on the new continent. Charming is the word. Gentil.

The convention itself was haphazardly organized. I was only on one panel, and its time got changed by an hour. No big deal, but you had to keep on top of the daily schedule, which would be modified throughout the day. Most of my friends were double booked at least once. One guy I know was double booked twice, so they rearranged his schedule and then he was triple booked once. Good show. I realize it's hard to manage all those assets, but there are these things called "databases" and they can really help. It's a science fiction convention. I expect some science.

Other than that, it was a good con. Interesting panels, good panelists, rooms were appropriately sized. The facility itself was great. Many dining options, easy to get around, all that boring technical stuff that can make or break a convention. The Dealer's Room was bleak. You know, that thing where no one wants to try to bring books into Canada? In full effect.

What else, what else....parties. There were parties. I went to some of them, I walked through and then left others. As always, I ended up spending most of my time at the Brotherhood without Banners party, as I did in Denver. Good people.

The pro bar was at the Intercontinental. It was kind of small, kind of hard to get to, kind of limited in beer selection...but they had absinthe fountains. I was saved, mostly, because I don't like licorice. But it was a fascinating little ritual, and there was much toasting to Hemingway and what have you. I stuck to beer and tapas.

I'm not going to drop names or anything, not on this post at least. I made some new friends, saw some people I was hoping I'd get to see (but not enough of them, alas) and completely missed seeing some people I'd like to spend some time with. That is the way of this strange, wandering tribe.

And now I am home, and refreshed, and writing. Well, not this second. But heading writing-wise. Because I've got deadlines, bitches.