Shorts & E-Publishing

I drafted this post a couple of months ago, and then promptly forgot about it.  I stumbled upon it earlier this month, but figured it was slightly out-of-date as both the serials I talk about have finished.  And then John Scalzi posted today that the two extra short stories in the hardcover of THE HUMAN DIVISION was now available for free on Tor.com, which kind of makes this post relevant again.

So with some minor edits, here are my thoughts on serials – or rather, e-publishing experiments, because that’s what they really are – and some updates below on my current position now that both the John Scalzi and Eloisa James serials have been completed.

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I’m a sucker for short stories and anthologies.  The number of themed anthologies I have is well into double digits (I blame the editors for coming up with amazing ideas and tossing in a few must-read contributors – they know me so well), and yet, the “theme-iness” of anthologies sometimes doesn’t work for me. I’m still halfway through Jonathan Strachan’s UNDER MY HAT anthology because I can’t read too many witch stories at one go without thinking “oh no, not another witch”.

With the advent of e-publishing, it gets a lot easier to release single short stories, but yet I don’t find myself hitting that Buy button for very many standalone shorts.  I’ve been pondering the reasons, and here are some rather rambly thoughts on what short stories work for me, pricing, and whether the serial format would work in any other genre.

On the first, you may have seen some of my mentions of John Scalzi‘s THE HUMAN DIVISION serialisation – we’re now up to week 7 (update: the last episode was released April 9) and I’m still eagerly turning on my Kindle every Tuesday evening to get the latest episode.  Reasons why this set of shorts is working well (and specifically) for me:

• Each episode is self-contained enough for me to feel entertained and satisfied when I turn off my Kindle.  There aren’t any cliffhangers – sure, there are points to speculate about in each episode, but there is no “To Be Continued…” kind of ending.   
• The weekly gap between episodes feels right.  I’ll caveat that by saying this may be due to the fact I’m not invested enough in the overall story or characters to the extent that I feel I *must* know what happens next. I do like the recurring characters, especially Harry Wilson and Hart Schmidt, but I don’t feel short-changed if they don’t show up in an episode.
• The time commitment works.  They’re not ultra-short stories (though the length varies), but I know I don’t have to find a spare hour in my day to finish the story.  
• Most importantly, the price feels right – £0.63 (or £0.64 for the latter ones (I’ve no idea why the 1p increase but I’m guessing the exchange rate, boo). 

Which brings me to the price point question. The good old “coffee v an ebook” price debate made its rounds a couple of months ago, but we won’t go into that.  I think the not-very-helpful answer is that the “right” price point for me as a reader is the point at which I feel I get value for money, which in turn is tied to how much enjoyment I get out from the story (and I have some thoughts on that and recent self-pubbed releases by auto-buy authors… but that would be another post).  That’s a rather vague answer – talking specifics, why am I happy to pay £0.63 for each Scalzi episode?

I can’t help comparing the price of a short story to that of an anthology – take John Joseph Adams’ THE MAD SCIENTIST’S GUIDE TO WORLD DOMINATION anthology for example.  It retails on Amazon UK for £7.20 and has 22 short stories in it – I make that 33p each.  Jonathan Strachan’s UNDER MY HAT, which I mentioned above, is £7 for 18 stories, so again approximately 38p each.  So each story is half the price of the Scalzi series, but on the other hand, I know I’ll have hits and misses with an anthology. I’m not going to love every story in this book; heck, I may not even like any of them.

With the Scalzi shorts, I know I like his writing and he’s been consistent.  For 13 episodes, I’m paying around £8.30* – that’s more expensive than a mass-market paperback, but probably what I would pay for a hardcover (including discounts).  And THE HUMAN DIVISION is being released as a hardcover at the end of the serial run, so I don’t feel short-changed, even for the shorter episodes.  If it was £0.99 an episode, I think I would hesitate because of cost – that’s 3x the cost of a short story in an anthology.

The other point I was thinking about was if an SF serial works for me, would it would work for another genre, such as romance? 

I find it hard to imagine a romance novel published serially in such a way that would leave me feeling satisfied after each installment, yet with a HEA that I would believe in.   I did notice Eloisa James is doing an online serial for her new novella(?) WITH THIS KISS – it looks as though it’s £0.99 for each installment (three in total) or £4.49 for the entire book AS YOU WISH, which will also include a previously-published e-short.  I’m hesitating – partly because I’m not sure if the length will be right for £0.99, but also because I’m thinking cliffhanger-type endings based on the descriptions.  I’m looking forward to seeing how successful it is, though.

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Update 28 May:

• I still haven’t bought Eloisa James’ serialised story, and that’s really due to pricing.  As much as I love her writing,  I’m balking at the price for three short stories, which (based on Goodreads reviews) aren’t complete stories in themselves – it sounds like one story split into three, which is slightly different to the Scalzi serialisation. I’m not saying never – I may feel like an EJ fix one day, and decide to splash out on it, but it’d be a special occasion kind of purchase.
• I finished THE HUMAN DIVISION and liked it well enough (I rated the majority of the shorts 3 stars on GRs, with a couple of 4s, IIRC) – would I buy the second “season”?  It’s interesting, because I don’t think I would have bought the hardcover of THD (John Scalzi’s more of a wait-for-the-paperback-release kind of author for me), but that’s essentially what I ended up doing by signing up to the serialised version.  I probably would buy the next serialisation, just because I thought it was good value for money.  However, I would have answered differently if you had asked me the same question back in April – see next (and final) point.  
• I was annoyed when it was announced that the hardback version of THE HUMAN DIVISION would have exclusive extras not available to the purchasers of the online serial, but held my peace.  Obviously I didn’t feel strongly enough about THD to blog about it, though I have posted previously about my feelings when “extras” are only available in either hardcover or mass market paperback (hint: it really annoys me).  However, the fact that Tor is now offering the additional shorts for free a couple of months after the hardcover release makes me a lot happier – I would have voted with my cash otherwise (as I’ve done when publishers have offered exclusive content specific to certain formats) and not bought the sequel.

So, your thoughts – do serialised releases work for you or not?  Did you buy either (or both) of the John Scalzi or Eloisa James serials?  

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*One could also argue we get 13 pieces of cover art for the serialised version. Or that editing 20 short stories written by 20 different authors is more overhead than editing 20 short stories by a single author. I don’t know.

Linkage Time

It’s been a while since I last posted some links, so here are some links, both old and new:

• Baen announces that they’ll be selling via Apple iBookstore soon (logon required) – I don’t have an iPad myself, but more venues can only be good.  I’m hoping they get their books on Kobo soon.
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• Authors talk about money and sales: Jim C Hines posts about his 2012 writing income and John Scalzi talks about sales of his latest hardback, REDSHIRTS.  Interesting stuff.
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• If you’re reading John Scalzi‘s serialised SF novel, THE HUMAN DIVISION, Tor.com is doing a read-along of each episdoe, with some author/editor insights.  The second episode, “Walk the Plank”, was very different from the first (here are my brief thoughts on “The B-Team”, and also Hilcia’s), but I pre-ordered the rest of the episodes after I finished reading it.  I never thought the serial format would work for me as I’m more on the instant gratification side of things, but I like that each story is self-contained (though I am expecting an overall series arc to appear) and it’s not a massive time commitment on my part.  Also, the first episode was the longest while the second was the shortest, so now that I’ve a feel for the various story lengths - the price (£0.63, or £0.99) feels right for what I’m getting (I probably wouldn’t pay if it was any higher).
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• I’ve never read a Joe Abercrombie book (though they’re on my list to try one day), but this new cover for his fantasy BEST SERVED COLD caught my eye – it’s what I would picture a Kate Daniels cover to be, not quite what George RR Martin called “[...] a bloody and relentless epic of vengeance and obsession in the grand tradition, a kind of splatterpunk sword ‘n sorcery Count of Monte Cristo…”.  What do you think?
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• Diana Peterfreund posted a short excerpt from her upcoming book ACROSS A STAR-SWEPT SEA a while back.  It’s set in the same world as her previous YA SF, FOR DARKNESS SHOWS THE STARS (which was one of my favourites of 2012), and this time it’s a retelling of THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL.  Which I haven’t read, but really should, because it sounds amazing.
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• There’s a mini-Bloggiesta taking place next weekend (Feb 2-3) – I want to take part but not sure if it’ll work out time-wise.  Is anyone planning on taking part?
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• I’ve never been to an SF/F convention before, but World Fantasy Con is being held in Brighton this year AND next year’s WorldCon is in London.  I kind of want to give one of them a go (probably the latter, because it’s, well, in London), but not quite sure who I can persuade to go with me (because I really don’t want to attend by myself).  I’ve until April until the Loncon 3 membership rates go up, so I have some time to decide…
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• Non book-related: I’m addicted to Downton Abbey, and these Facebook-style episode recaps are hilarious.

One SF, One (Almost) Fantasy

I posted a while back about my plan to start talking about free (or bargain-priced) ebooks.  And then that kind of fell by the wayside, as many of my grand(-ish) blogging plans do.  But new year, new start, so here are a couple.

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Firstly, you may have heard about John Scalzi‘s THE HUMAN DIVISION, which is a serialised novel being released in 13 parts on a weekly basis from around now onwards. Once all installments have been released, it’ll also go on sale as a single book (both hardcover and e), but at a price point comparable to buying each individual short.  I like John Scalzi’s writing – I’ve read his debut novel, OLD MAN’S WAR, and its immediate sequel, and I have ZOE’S TALE sitting in my TBR pile somewhere.  He writes accessible and entertaining SF – and while that may sound like damning with faint praise, it’s not.  It may not be ground-breaking SF, but it’s good storytelling of the sort that keeps you turning the pages.  And I like his blog – which counts for quite a bit too!

So I pre-ordered the first installment, THE B-TEAM - my thinking being that if I liked the story, I would order the next in the series.  If not, well, £0.63 (or $0.99, I believe) wasn’t going to break the bank.  And then last week, I had an email come through from Tor – apparently, I had signed up on some sort of mailing list, and as a result, I got a free copy of THE B-TEAM a week in advance of the on-sale date.  Win.

And I really enjoyed THE B-TEAM.  I liked that it was a standalone short with quite a bit of story packed in (Scalzi does note that it is one of the longer stories in this serial). I also liked that I was caught somewhat off-guard after the first chapter – I thought the story was going to go one direction, but it ended up going down another route, and that certainly caught my attention.  I didn’t find the setting confusing, though having said that, it is set in the OMW universe, so I do have the benefit of having read previous books set in the same world.  All in all, it’s a great introduction to a bigger story and I’m looking forward to following the characters on their next adventure (or at least, I’m assuming it’s the same cast of characters), and if you’re in the mood for some SF, I’d certainly suggest you give the first story a go.

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Hilcia @ Impressions of an Reader is taking part in the 2013 Science Fiction Experience and she’s been reviewing a few Andre Nortons.  While I’ve read a few Nortons, they’ve not been a big part of my SFF reading past.  So inspired by Hils, I “dusted off” an Andre Norton that was in my e-TBR – THE PRINCE COMMANDS was offered as a freebie a while back and so I had it sitting on my Kindle.

So first off, this is not an SF.  In fact, it barely qualifies as a fantasy – the only fantastical element being the setting, it being one of those made-up Eastern European kingdoms.  I did some research (i.e. Googling) when I finished the novel, and it turns out that this is actually Andre Norton’s first book.  I know – fail on the SFF history front.

Anyway, once I figured out what I was getting into, this turned out to be a very fun, very Ruritanian adventure.  Michael Karl, the young protagonist, finds out that he is the heir to the kingdom of Morvania, and reluctantly sets out to be crowned king.  But it’s obviously not going to be smooth sailing, and well, hi-jinks ensue with escapes and near-escapes, conspiracies, hidden identities, secret passages, passwords… It has some unexpectedly touching moments, and ended up being slightly more than just a straightforward adventure.

While I enjoyed the story, something struck me as being slightly off, and it was only after I finished reading THE PRINCE COMMANDS that I pinpointed what was missing.  And it was that there was no women or POC playing any significant parts in this novel – from memory, the only female character with a couple of cameos played a vaguely mother-ish capacity.  This made me realise how far we have come in around eight decades (THE PRINCE COMMANDS was published in 1934), and the diversity that I tend to take for granted in the YA fantasy books on the market nowadays.  So yes, this book came with an unexpected social history realisation.

Links of Interest

I nearly missed a typo and the post title was almost Kinks of Interest – which may have attracted more attention admittedly.  LINKS to items that have caught my attention recently:

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Courtney Milan put up a post about royalties received from her self-published v. traditionally published novellas so far – fascinating reading.  Ebooks have completely changed the publishing landscape from where it was a few years ago.

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Congratulations to Mary Jo Putney on her marriage – I loved her wedding post and pictures @ Word Wenches.

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Kristin Cashore answers some BITTERBLUE questions on her blog – be warned as there are spoilers about GRACELING, but I definitely appreciate the thought she put into the answers.

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John Scalzi puts up a thought-provoking post about straight white males and umm… privilege – having just read (and loved) Ernest Cline‘s READY PLAYER ONE, it was an interesting (and timely to me) analogy he chose to use (and comments are worth reading too).

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Sourcebooks’ Discover a New Love is doing a cover vote for the re-release of Patricia Rice‘s MUST BE MAGIC historical romance – both options based on very different concepts.  I’m not massively keen on either (the elements in the non-traditional option don’t feel cohesive enough, while the more period version is on the boring side), but if pushed, would probably go for the second.

Speaking of Discover a New Love, has anyone signed up for their monthly subscription package?  I was briefly tempted, but not all their books would be available to international readers, and I wasn’t sure if the more limited selection would work for me.

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Meljean Brook has had a website redesign and is giving away ten copies of THE IRON DUKE (UK edition) to celebrate (and for feedback on the new website) – I read this earlier in the year and was completely caught up in the world she created.

She’s also put up the UK cover for the third book, RIVETED, which is out later this year – I love.  I’m really pleased these books are being released in the UK as well.

Me = Bad Blogger

Real life completely gets in the way. 

Ah, anyway, bank holiday weekend – hurray!  Dawdling home, I decided to stop by the library (rare occurrence, trust me) and came out with these two books:

John Scalzi’s “The Last Colony” (military SF):  I have the first two books in this very loose trilogy (or is it a series now that “Zoe’s Tale” is out?), but for some reason, never quite got around to getting this one.

The other book I grabbed was the UF anthology “Many Bloody Returns”, edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni Kelner.  I don’t *think* I have this – I say think because I have pretty much lost track of the anthologies I own!  Apart from the named authors on the cover (Charlaine Harris herself, Jim Butcher, and Kelley Armstrong), other MBR contributors I recognise are PN Elrod, Rachel Caine, and Tanya Huff.

So plenty to read this weekend.  But… Roland Garros also gets underway tomorrow!  I will definitely be watching – anyone else?

April Reading

So what did I read during April?  17 books in total (full list here) but some thoughts:

I finished the final Amelia Peabody book “Tomb of the Golden Bird” *sigh*.  I do hope Elizabeth Peters writes another.  Though I suspect she might have to dig up some of Amelia’s missing journals, else you’ll have a 70+ year old Amelia running around her Egyptian tombs and pyramids.  Heh.  That could be interesting.  

I tried to ease through my Amelia Peabody obsession by reading other Elizabeth Peters books – I started the Vicky Bliss series with “Borrower of the Night” and have the others in this series on order from Amazon.  I’ve also been reading other stand-alone books by Ms Peters (mysteries with Gothic overtones mostly) - they’ve been mainly B- books for me.  

On the romance front, I finally read a few books I’ve been meaning to read for ages:  Lisa Kleypas‘ first contemporary “Sugar Daddy”, Susan Elizabeth Phillips’ ”Natural Born Charmer” and Elizabeth Hoyt‘s “The Raven Prince”.  Unfortunately, none of them blew me away – still Bs though.

I’ll post my thoughts on Ms Phillips’ and Ms Hoyt’s books soon, but on “Sugar Daddy” in particular - it was weird, but I kept on thinking of Judith McNaught while I was reading this.  Maybe it was the “rags to riches” storyline and how everything just worked out perfectly.  Liberty was just a bit too good to be true for me, but I did like Hardy and Gage.  It also pretty much felt like two separate stories in one book for some reason.  Despite this, my feeling is that Ms Kleypas can write contemporary, even though I prefer her historicals.  Her follow-up book to “Sugar Daddy” will still be on my To Buy list (update on sequel here - with spoilers if you still haven’t read “Sugar Daddy” as it reveals who Liberty ends up with). 

Fantasy – it was mainly sequel month: I read Jim Butcher‘s third Codex Alera book, Karen Chance‘s “Claimed by Shadow” and Anne Bishop‘s “Belladonna”.  Again, all good books, but none that I fell in love with.

And finally, one new-to-me author who I discovered this month – John Scalzi, who writes SF (my thoughts on his “Old Man’s War” here), and whose books I’ll definitely be buying going forward.

Random Updates

The weekend’s finally here – thank goodness!  Let’s put it this way – it hasn’t been one of my better weeks, but it’s over now…

On to book-related news, Jo Beverley‘s latest newsletter is out, and she’s just put up excerpts from her latest book “Lady Beware” (June 2007).  This is part of her Company of Rogues series, and the book excerpt appears to explain the striking cover with the heroine in a red dress.  I admit I’m not a great fan of Ms Beverley’s fantasy novellas, but I love her historicals.  They’re richly detailed and you can sense the research that has gone into each one of them.  IMO, her Malloren books, which are set in Georgian times, are even better than the Rogues series, but then again, I’m a sucker for the Georgian time period.   

I’ve been reading more SF than romance lately.  I re-read Lois McMaster Bujold‘s “A Civil Campaign” just because – it’s one of those feel-good books that I could re-read over and over again.  Apart from the rather painful dinner-party scene which I skimmed over!  Also, two new books I’ve recently read:

Old Man’s War (John Scalzi) – Military SF.  I bought this sight unseen because I like John Scalzi’s blog, so that would be the power of the internet for you!  It’s written in the first person, and the main character sounds very much like the author on his blog, or maybe it’s vice versa, which makes sense in a way.  Slightly disconcerting though.

Anyway, it’s a rather original plot and a very readable book too.  Mr Scalzi’s ten-words-or-less description of this book is “Old people get new bodies and fight nasty aliens”.  That’s probably a very concise and accurate summary *grin*.  The main character, John Perry, signs up to join the Colonial Defense Force (CDF) on his 75th birthday – the idea being that the CDF will sort out your old and creaking bodies, in return for you doing a two to ten-year stint in their forces, helping protect Earth and its allies against hostile aliens.

If you don’t normally read SF, this would be a good introduction.  It’s more hard / traditional SF than Ms Bujold’s Vorkosigan series or Elizabeth Moon’s “Vatta’s War” series (see below), but not too hard-core.  Although it is part of a loose trilogy, it reads very well as a stand-alone novel.  The characters are very likeable, and I closed the book wanting to read more about them and their world.  I’ll be buying the next book set in this universe, which, I believe, is “The Ghost Brigades”.  Grade: B

Command Decision (Elizabeth Moon) – Military SF; fourth in the Vatta’s War series.  I’ve said previously that while I like Elizabeth Moon’s books, I don’t fall in love with her characters.  Maybe that’s the difference between this series and, say, Ms Bujold’s Vorkosigan books.  I don’t think this book’s changed my mind, but I did enjoy it – it is an entertaining series. 

The main character, Ky Vatta, is trying to organise a multi-ship force of her own to go after her family’s enemies.  While doing so, she ends up in a planetary battle.  Elsewhere, Stella (Ky’s cousin) is continuing her efforts to keep the family’s shipping business going.  Which actually vaguely reminds me of Pat Rin in Sharon Lee and Steve Miller‘s “I Dare” in their Korval series.  Which was probably one of my favourite books in that series and another of those feel-good books I can re-read over and over again.  But I digress.

There’s lots of action and politics in “Command Decision”, and while I still haven’t fallen in love with Ms Moon’s characters, I finished the book in one sitting – can you tell I’m so on the fence on this one?  It’s slightly frustrating – I think Ms Moon could very easily move to my auto-buy list, but it’s not really happening with this series.  I will get the next Vatta book though – no news yet as to what it’ll be called or when it will come out though. 

Oh, and although her website says this is in hardback, it was published in mass market paperback in the UK.  Grade: B-

Around the Web

Non-romance related, but still interesting – SF author John Scalzi reviews his income from science-fiction writing in 2006.  I’ve no idea if the same applies to romance authors, but this is fascinating info nonetheless.  And this reminds me that I’ve his latest mass market paperback “Old Man’s War” in my TBR pile – must read it soon…

There is an interview with Patricia Briggs here (via Karen Chance’s website) – I just finished Ms Briggs’ latest book “Blood Bound” and absolutely loved it.  Yes, I know – it’s yet another urban fantasy with werewolves and vampires, but it definitely stands out from the rest out there.  It’s not a romance per se, but there is sort of a romance subplot…  ”Blood Bound” is the second in the series (the first book is “Moon Called”), but can be read as a stand-alone, if you really wanted to.  There are two more books in this series – the third is tentatively titled “Iron Kissed”, according to Ms Briggs’ website.  I’m really looking forward to it!

New Books…

I’ve been a bit lazy with blog updates lately.  Ummm… I’m very busy at work.  Is that a valid excuse?  Seriously, I haven’t even enough time to read new books lately, let alone go blog-hopping.  I need a holiday.

Moving on to book-related stuff, I received a massive delivery from Amazon yesterday – and I didn’t even remember ordering some of the books.

“Blood Bound” by Patricia Briggs finally arrived, and I’ve already started reading it.  I love Ms Briggs’ books – I’ve all of her traditional fantasy books and I think her urban fantasy series has got off to a really good start.

What else arrived?  Oh, Roberta Gellis‘ second and third books in her medieval mystery series that I blogged about previously – I’m excited about them too.  The only thing is that the fourth book in this series is published by a different house (a small publisher called Five Stars apparently), and is more expensive than the first three.  Oh well, I’ll see how much I like these books before I decide whether to get the fourth.

And a new YA book I bought based on an online blurb (what can I say – teenagers nowadays have great books to read) – Ally Carter‘s “I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’ll Have to Kill You” is about a girls’ boarding school… where they’re trained as spies.  Brilliant concept, and I’ve linked to the first chapter on Ms Carter’s website.  If I like this as much as I think I will, I’ll definitely post a review.

Some of the other books that arrived:

• John Scalzi‘s “Old Man’s War” – Never read any of his books before, but I like his blog *grin*.  It’s a SF book.
• Elizabeth Hoyt‘s “The Raven Prince”  – This historical romance has been getting really good online press, I admit I have rather high expectations for this one.
• Emma Holly‘s “The Demon’s Daughter” - I liked her other book in this series “Prince of Ice”. 

And there were more too, but then this will turn into a really long post.

Also, on a trip to Books Etc today, I somehow ended up buying books five and six in Elizabeth Peters‘ Amelia Peabody series (even though I knew I had a ton of books waiting to be read!).  Now, I’ve read the first three books, but not the fourth.  And they didn’t have the fourth book in stock, dammit.  Now, I’m slightly anal about reading books in order, but I’m thinking that it probably doesn’t matter as much for this series because they’re all very much stand-alone… but I don’t want to!  Ah well, I’ve so many other books to read right now – I’ll keep an eye out for that elusive fourth book when I (hopefully) go shopping tomorrow.

Time to stop blogging and start reading, methinks!