The Wordsmith's Forge

There is an interview of me by Tracy S. Morris on the topic of poetry that will be appearing in her blog on Tuesday morning.

 meeks has a new sketch up, this one from Addergoole, entitled "Ayla's Change."  See the cute girl with bunny ears!

Two of my bit characters have been approved as of 4-28-11: Denald is the father of Bai and Rai, while Jenorv is their mother.  Several other bit characters have also been added.

The first Torn World anthology is off to the printer.  We're currently discussing prices and other last-minute details for the print and electronic versions.  I will post more as details are finalized.

Family Ties and Torn Skies will include stories, poems, artwork, and nonfiction tidbits by various Torn World contributors; it's edited by ellenmillion.  There are 36 stories and poems listed in the table of contents, broken into northern and southern segments, presented in timeline order.  This is science fantasy with a theme of family, and it looks at some ways in which Torn World's different cultures organize families and share their lives together.  Topics include growing up, becoming an adult, parenting, family and the workplace, cultural rules, and funeral rites.

Below are the ones I wrote.  "Lament" is a poem, while the rest are stories.  "Ties We Twine" and "One-Tick Literature" will appear for the first time in the anthology.  The others are reprints from the Torn World site, although some of them have been locked for supporters only.  So if you want to get a big chunk of my work, this anthology is a good choice.  It's also an excellent introduction to Torn World, if you've been intrigued by the project but unsure where to start.

(Northern)
Ties We Twine
Fala the Leader
Odds and Ends
The Rats
Song of the Wind, Sigh of the Willows
These Teeth Like Stars

(Southern)
Acorn Coat
Flight of the Rose Butterfly
One-Tick Literature
Tokens of Appreciation
*Lament for an Unlicensed Child
The Empire Trusts You

Are you a book reviewer?  If so, please contact me, or you can go to ellenmillion directly.  There will be free ebook review copies available.  Right now we have PDF format; we may have others later.  We're interested in reviews on blogs, Goodreads, and other venues.  Do you have other ideas for helping to promote Family Ties and Torn Skies?  Let us know and we'll see what we can do.

haikujaguar has the posted first two parts of a three-part series on pricing.  Part 1 deals with value and competition.  Part 2 deals with market awareness and gating.  Part 3 is due out on Monday and will deal with practical applications of these theoretical concepts.

I was particularly intrigued with her observation that pricing in ebooks can serve as an indication of size.  Frex, it makes sense to sell a novella or novelette for $.99 because these are shorter than full-size books.  (The range between short story and novel has been referred to as "the gutter" because, while the stories may be excellent, there are almost no conventional markets for them.  Ebooks save the day!)  Novel-length ebooks are more likely to have higher prices.

Remember, "The Three Micahs" project is crowdfunded.  Please tip the author if you find her brilliant business writing of use.  I'm brokeass broke myself, but I boost the signal because I value the material.

Recently Melannen started a conversation in Dreamwidth about sex scenes featuring asexual characters, which inspired a similar conversation here on my blog.  Melannen has since posted "101 Asexy Sex Scenes" -- a list of prompts for stories involving asexual characters.  Some folks thought the discussion was going to lead to a how-to post, but that's not where the original author was headed.  Based on the discussion, however, it looks like such a post would be useful.  So, here's my take on it.  YMMV.

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