Small press books

Well, we didn't get any snow after all. It just turned back into rain and melted. That was after Mom and I rushed out in excitement to the store and bought marshmallows, Hershey bars, brownie mix, and hot dogs--in case we were SNOWED! IN!--and the clerk said she wished she could come home with us.

A lot of folks are talking about supporting small presses, which has made me think about it too. I haven't been too good about that this year. I don't read a lot of short fiction so I don't have any subscriptions to anything, but I did order a few anthologies this year, notably the excellent 52 Stitches antho. I also ordered and very much enjoyed Catherine J. Gardner's chapbook "The Sour Aftertaste of Olive Lemon."

Mostly, though, I supported small presses this year by buying books. At the moment I'm reading The Crown Conspiracy by Michael J. Sullivan, which I started earlier this year but never finished (I was probably distracted by something shiny). So far I'm really enjoying it; it's taking off in unexpected directions, which I like.

I've read several other small press books this year, and I hate to say it, but I have not been terribly impressed. I blogged (twice) about Nathalie Mallet's book The Princes of the Golden Cage, but I never mentioned how little I liked Anne Logston's Shadow because, you know, I'm not cruel. I did enjoy Emily Veinglory's Father of Dragons, but that was the bright spot in the small-press offerings this year.

I don't want to think small press books are on the whole of a poorer quality than the books big commercial publishers release (my own Jack of All Trades came out this year from a small press, and I have another book coming out in 2010 from another small press)--but of course they are. The good stuff is there, but it's harder to find. That just means it's important to look harder (oh, and read Aaron Polson's new review blog that focuses on small presses).

In 2010 I vow to read at least ten books published by small presses. That's support where it counts.

Snow splats

I'm home! I'm off work until January 4! And it's snowing!

Actually, it's not exactly snowing. Rain is falling along with what Mom calls "snow splats," big drops of rain mixed with sleety snow. We might get some snow tonight or we might not. Except that snow will ruin the family's plans to get together at my aunt and uncle's house, I don't care what the weather does--because I don't have to go to work!

I've got a lot I want to do while I'm off work, like read five books and write at least one short story (which will finish off a couple of 2009 resolutions). I also want to finish the Bell-Men rewrites. I really should have finished them by now, but I'm very, very close to the end. I think I can get it before the end of the year.

Finals week is killing me

I used to update almost every day. I used to have time to read other people's blogs too. Funny how the end of the semester still gets me even though I'm not taking classes. I guess that's the way it is when you work in a college.

(That sounded like a punchline, but it wasn't funny.)

I'm still lacking six books in my "read 50 books in 2009" challenge. I think I may have to pick up six really thin YA/MG books to make it, although after this week I'm off work until the new year! Maybe I can settle in next week and read and read and read. Er, no, wait--I have to spin and spin and spin up the nice old neighbor's dog hair and then knit and knit and knit it into a muffler to give it to him for Christmas, and at this rate that's going to take every spare minute of my time since right now I only have enough fur spun up to make a doll's muffler.

I've had this fur for an entire year, too. I have absolutely no excuse for leaving it so late.

Support Tu Publishing

This one has received the imprimatur of Boing Boing, so it might very well reach its funding goal. I've been keeping an eye on it for a week or so and finally donated.

Tu Publishing is a going to be a multicultural publisher of SF, fantasy, mystery, and historical fiction for children and young adults. That's an awesome goal, and the founder, Stacy Whitman, has worked as an editor for Wizards of the Coast and other publishers. She knows what she's doing. She's also pleasantly low-key about the whole multicultural thing. It's not a militant view; she just wants to publish books with characters who aren't all white, with settings that aren't all America, with viewpoints that aren't all the same. I think this is awesome.

I just donated $15--you can donate any amount you like, using Amazon's pay service (just like you were ordering books through Amazon). They have gifts available if you donate over a certain amount. Moreover, if they don't reach their goal of $10,000 by the end of this week, your card/account won't be charged for the donation. Currently they're 50% toward their goal, and I know they were only 40% toward their goal yesterday because I dropped by to see. Hopefully they'll make it.

Quitcher bitchin

There's a link going around to a Salon article by an anonymous writer talking about how difficult it is to be a midlister. It's an interesting article, but by the end of it, I was frankly fed up with anonymous writer. Basically, she's upset because her first book got her a six-figure advance but didn't do well, and her next three books have gotten her smaller and smaller advances--barely five figures!--and only one has earned out, and that one that's earned out was the smallest advance of all, and she's all sad because she's had to take a day job.

Excuse me while I tune up the world's tiniest violin.

I think big advances are a big problem. Agents push for them because they get paid right away, writers want them because hey, money!, and publishers--well, I have no idea why publishers offer bloated advances. I do know that the higher the advance, the longer a book takes to earn out. Duh. That was fine back in the olden days when only, like, four books were published every year and they stayed on bookshelves for decades before being returned and remaindered. Things move a lot faster now. Oh, and there's a recession on.

So no, I'm not very sympathetic to an author who's written four books in two decades and is whining because she finally has to get a day job. My advice: write more books and branch out into genre fiction if you really want to keep the money coming in. In the meantime, I'll be cranking out one or two books a year and hoping to eventually sell one to a big publisher and get a low four-figure advance. I won't be able to quit my day job, but I never expected to.

My thoughts mesh beautifully with Aaron Polson's post today about short fiction pay rates, incidentally. Also, I'm seriously considering writing one of those cheesy category romances. Apparently that's where the money's at, if you write enough of them. The advances are low, but they almost always earn out.

Today was made of suck

I'm really surprised I haven't gotten a rejection today, since everything else has gone wrong. I guess it helps sometimes to have just one story out.

We're supposed to get a little bit of snow overnight or tomorrow morning--like, less than an inch, but that's exciting! because it's snow! in December! If we do get snow here, it's almost always in late January or early February. The last several years we haven't had any snow to speak of at all, but it's been so rainy this year that I'm hoping we'll have at least one day where we get a few inches of accumulation (even if it melts the next day, as it always does).

If it snows a whole lot overnight, they might close the college where I work, which means I would be able to sleep in tomorrow morning. Since I've been staying up way too late all week to read, I could really use a sleeping-in day. I suspect lack of sleep may have contributed to my rotten day. (Oh yeah, you think?)

That odd paradox

If I didn't have to work, I'd be able to spend all day writing, right? Except that on days when I'm off work, I usually actually spend less time writing than on days when I do have to work. And that's one of the reasons why I'll probably never quit my day job*.

I haven't typed up what I wrote longhand today, but I probably cleared 1,000 words on my Bell-Man rewrites. I'm about to link to a scene that's already written, which encourages me. Of course, then I have to rewrite the entire climax of the book from scratch, and I'm not sure what precisely I want to happen. I just know I want it to happen a lot better than it happened the first time around.

*Other reasons include health insurance, steady paychecks, and the fact that no one's paying me all that much money for my writing.