Punk Publishing: A DIY Guide, by Andy Conway & David Wake (Books 2023, 8) 📚
I bought this on my recent visit to Eastercon, from one of the authors, David Wake.
I hadn’t really thought about the possibility of self-publishing before this, but Wake was on a panel about what to watch out for when you first get a publishing contract (his point: nothing, if you self-publish). He made some good points about the advantages of doing it yourself versus the traditional publishing route. For example, you don’t send your sample chapters and synopsis in then wait two years for someone to decide. And even if they say yes, it could be another two years before your book is published.
I don’t know which way I’ll go with my recently-finished draft, but I thought it was worth spending a fiver on this to check out the possibilities. And it seems a decent guide to how you can approach publishing both ebooks and paperbacks, for minimal outlay.
It doesn’t go into things like cover design and marketing, which, of course, are some of the things that traditional publishers handle.
I might give it a spin, though, with a novella that I’ve got sitting around. We shall see.
Anyway, take a look at this if you’re interested in the possibilities. Their website is here.
Everything Everywhere All at Once, 2022 - ★★★★½
Saw this in Paris on a recent trip. In English, with French subtitles.
The only problem: it's not all in English. So there were a number of scenes where I was relying purely on the visuals and a very hazy understanding of a very few French words.
But I think I got the gist of most of those parts, and I'd have wanted to watch it again anyway.
It is, of course, totally brilliant.
Beyond the Reach of Earth by Ken McLeod (Books 2023, 7) 📚
The sequel to Beyond the Hallowed Sky, which I read at the start of last year.
It’s an excellent followup, with a very good summary of the previous novel at the start, which is useful. Top quality SF with politics. Scotland, and the Union (the EU++), are expanding into interstellar space, joining the other two power blocs.
Like the last, and perhaps even more so, this ends in a place that is quite satisfying. No cliffhangers, and if there were no more books, it wouldn’t matter.
Though at the same time it’ll be great to see what happens in book 3.
Conventions conventionally drink the real-ale bar dry too early.
Here at Eastercon, apparently we’ve drunk the bar dry…
… of low-alcohol beers.
On my way to Birmingham for Eastercon. Been a few years since I’ve been to a con. It’ll be good to see folk.
Just after midnight last night I finished my novel, Casino Soul. The first draft, anyway, or maybe only the zeroth draft. There’s a lot to do to make it anywhere close to good.
But that can wait for later. For now I’m feeling a combination of elation and deflation.
92,000 words and two years elapsed. Writing takes time.
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson (Books 2023, 6) 📚
Atkinson’s Life After Life was the wonderful story of Ursula Todd, who kept repeating her life, dying in different ways each time. One interpretation or explanation for this strange experience is that she was trying to create (or find, or reach) a version of her life in which her beloved brother Teddy survives the Second World War and lives to grow old.
A God in Ruins is the story of that timeline.
Or maybe a couple of timelines. While this is in most ways a more straightforward tale than its predecessor, we do see two or three possible different endings for Teddy. It’s also about his descendants: his daughter the infuriating Viola, and her two children. It’s kind of a redemption tale for some characters.
I enjoyed the bits about Teddy’s wartime expreiences as a bomber pilot most. Overall it’s not as good as Life After Life, but not bad.
Extremely rare software update this morning: Scrivener for Mac updated to version 3.3. A huge number of changes from 3.2.3, and I can’t help but wonder if they’d be better off doing more frequent, smaller updates, just so we know they’re still there.
The best writing app.
Interzone 294 Edited by Gareth Jelley (Books 2023, 5) 📚
I posted a photo of this when it arrived, to show its new paperback-book format. It’s an issue of Interzone: it’s fine, but nothing in it was particularly outstanding. Several decent stories, an interview with Christopher Priest, the usual book and film reviews and ‘Ansible Link’, the cut-down version of Dave Langford’s Ansible newsletter(the mailing list of which, I realise as I type, I seem to have fallen off; I haven’t seen it in a few months).
Interzone is worth getting to keep up to date with the scene, if nothing else.
That all sounds bad. People worked hard on these stories. I think I just don’t really get on very well with short stories, something I’ve mentioned here before.