During the course of our discussions, we wound up spending a good deal of time talking about story and book titles, and I thought it might helpful for me to follow up with a post on the topic here at SFNovelists.  As with so many things in writing, there is no one right way to choose a title for our stories or novels.  For some people, the right title just seems to happen.  No struggle, no agonizing over what to call their latest work.  Just — Boom! — they have a title.  I hate these people.  Because for many of us, coming up with a suitable title is incredibly difficult.  I have no magic elixirs for making it happen faster.  I can only tell you what I aim for in choosing a title and work from there.

I want my titles to accomplish three basic things:  First, I want them to sound intriguing, to pique the interest of potential readers by combining words in new and unusual ways, or by turning common phrases into something that suddenly sounds odd or perhaps even sinister.  (Examples forthcoming.)  Second, I want my titles to tell those same potential readers something about the piece in question.  Not a lot — we’re talking about three or four words here.  We can only convey so much information in that space.  But we can help readers identify what kind of story or book they might be buying, and that can be helpful in marketing the work.  And finally, I want my titles to be memorable enough and easy enough to spell and pronounce so that potential readers can easily find the piece with a Google or Amazon search, or in a conversation with the employees at their local bookstores.

I should note here that with the title of my very first novel, I accomplished none of these things.  Yay, me.  I called the book Children of Amarid, because that was an important phrase in the story.  The problem is, the title is not really all that intriguing; it convinced many people who knew nothing about my work or me that I was writing a book for kids, which I wasn’t, while doing little to indicate that the book was an epic fantasy; and it used a word — “Amarid” — that few people could pronounce correctly, much less spell.  (It’s pronounced AM-are-id, by the way.)  It didn’t kill my career or anything like that.  The book did pretty well, actually.  But it was a weak title; the book might well have done better had I found a better one.

So, what are some good titles?  Well, I mentioned before that I like titles that put together words in unusual ways.  Lynn Flewelling’s The Bone Doll’s Twin, is, in my opinion, a terrific title.  Haunting, strange, intriguing.  Wonderful stuff.  A few others — The Wandering Fire, by Guy Gavriel Kay; Mad Kestrel, by Misty Massey; The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin; Dark Water’s Embrace, by Stephen Leigh; The Queen’s Bastard, by C.E. Murphy.  All terrific titles, in my opinion.  They are unusual turns of phrase, they give some sense of magic or intrigue, they tell you something about the book within the cover, but they are easy to remember and pronounce and spell.  (I’d add that all of these books happen to be fun reads, too, but that’s another matter…) As for those titles that turn common phrases into something alluring or menacing, I would point to a couple of Tim Powers’ books:  Expiration Date and Earthquake Weather.  And just to prove that I did learn something, I would also say that a couple of my recent titles, The Sorcerers’ Plague and The Horsemen’s Gambit, accomplish all that I wanted them to.

When I come up with an idea for a title, I usually search the Amazon database to if it’s been used before.  That’s not to say that I absolutely won’t keep a title that has been used.  If I really like my title, and if the book published under the same title is old or outside the genre, or (best-case scenario) both, I’ll go ahead with it.  Titles cannot be copyrighted or trademarked.  That’s why you will find books (and songs and albums and movies) with the same titles.  That said, I prefer a title that has never been used, and will search for one whenever possible.  Just as you want people to be able to search for your book online, you don’t want them to be confused by “impostors” when they finally find it.

Other factors that I consider when coming up with titles include length (I usually try for four words or fewer, although that’s just a matter of personal preference), alliteration (or not — it can work, but it can also sound really hokey and forced), and that intangible — how they sound.  But these are all far more subjective than the three criteria I mention above.  Yes, there are those who will tell you that you want your title to fit easily on the spine of a book.  And that’s true.  But which is a better title:  A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or Dune?  Strictly speaking, one is way too long; the other is so brief as to be enigmatic.  And yet, I would argue that both are effective in representing the books they seek to market.

Because ultimately, that is the test.  What title is going to sell your book or story?  When it comes right down to it, nothing else matters as much as that.  You can go against every accepted guideline in choosing your title if you believe that doing so will help you market the story.  Just be prepared to defend your choice to skeptical editors and production departments.

So, what titles do you like?  Which ones have grabbed your attention in a bookstore or library?  And which ones haven’t worked for you at all?

Yet strangely, I find it oddly comforting that the world goes on without regard to my crisis. I mean, my friends have offered well wishes and help and they’ve really made me feel so much better about this. I’m scared, but I feel not alone in a way that I have in the past. I have a small family and they are always there for me, but suddenly my larger tribe has swelled with well wishes and positive thoughts and prayers. And yet their lives go on, as evidenced by their tweets and their blogs and facebook updates. I like this. I like that the world goes on, that “this too shall pass.” This surgery I’m going have is not one that is terribly difficult, though it has its risks. It does involve full anesthesia and a short hospital say, and a fairly lengthy recovery. I can recover from it, and I can work to improve my health so I don’t invite this trouble onto me again.

On a positive note, I’m between projects for the moment and I won’t be getting backed up and behind. That means for less stress. I’m not really sure where I’m going with this, except for just a couple of thoughts. I’m glad for a day job that means that I have insurance. I don’t know where I’d be right now otherwise. I’ve been in the ER twice this week already, had an MRI, and now the surgery. Right now I’m dosed to the gills with drugs. They’re the only thing keeping me together until I get this surgery. The pain has been awful. So I’m grateful for those. I’m also looking forward to a marathon of reading or the LOTR movies, or both. We’ll see. I’m also grateful my day job has been working with me so that I can have the time I need for this. They’ve been remarkable.

And I’m grateful that other people continue to live and to laugh and to divert me from wallowing in my fears. It has helped more than I can say. So that’s my post for now. I’ll let you know how it all turns out next time.

Until now.

Warning: If you’re easily offended or a time traveller from 1950s Eastbourne, step away from this screen now! But if you’d like to know more and help me choose a book cover then keep reading.

For years I’ve been trying to write a funny CSI with magic story. I’ve written several outlines and attempted several stories … but they all lacked that spark that turns a passable story into something memorable.

Cue the two-foot long penis. Why not have my detective wake up one morning and find he’s suddenly over-endowed in the trouser department? Naturally this would be a penis used purely for the purposes God intended – humour and crimefighting – not for lustful titillation.

But…

I’m a person whose characters rarely discuss matters below the waist. Could I really write something like this – even in a fun way? Would anyone read it?

I started plotting and the more I plotted the funnier the story became. I had mystery, I had magic and … I had a detective with an enormous complication.

A quick note before anyone thinks I’ve written a thirteen thousand word long penis joke. I haven’t. Like Jeffrey Deaver’s paraplegic detective, Lincoln Rhyme, my detective’s condition, though central to the plot, isn’t the plot. He has a locked room mystery to solve.

Okay, I’d written the story, now, I had to sell it. But there are only one or two traditional outlets for a 13k urban fantasy with or without a floor-length penis. How about selling it myself direct? As an ebook. After all, eReaders were on the verge of making the crossover from niche gadget to mainstream product. And I’d just joined the Book View Cafe author co-op so I could pick their brains about the best way to proceed.

So I found out all about ebook formats and ebook creator software like Calibre and MobiCreator and … the fact that I’d need a book cover.

This proved to be my biggest problem. My first idea was to spoof the archetypal urban fantasy cover – rear view of hot woman in tight jeans cut low enough to show the obligatory tramp stamp. I’d do the male equivalent with something large coiling around his left leg – inside his jeans, of course. I was going for bulge not porn.

Not having a budget or Fabio’s home number I decided I’d have to model for the picture myself. I wriggled into my tightest, most elastic pair of jeans. I stuffed a vacuum hosepipe down my trouser leg…

Too weird. I tried rolled up towels, stuffed socks. I had several pictures taken.

None were ideal but I mailed the best I had to Lori, one of my BVC author colleagues who had PhotoShop. Now mailing a picture of yourself with several large socks stuffed down your jeans is not the usual way to become acquainted with a fellow author. Neither is beginning your email with, ‘I am not a perv.’

But what choice did I have? I didn’t have PhotoShop and I needed a dark urban background for my cover and cool fonts for the book title.

The title? Well, see if you can guess. My psychic profiler had a twenty-four inch penis and his partner was called Tulsa. Gene Pitney would not have approved.

Lori added a background and title text to the cover and sent it back. That’s when I began to have second thoughts. The cover was turning out nothing like I’d pictured it in my head. It wasn’t Lori’s fault. Neither of us were artists and we were having to cobble together a cover from our own photos and public domain work.

I sent the cover to a handful of writer friends for a second opinion. Remember what I said about sending out pictures of yourself with socks stuffed down your trousers? Add the title ‘Twenty-Four Inches from Tulsa,’ a liberal spattering of the word penis in the text and you’re on the road to spam block hell.

But Jim Hines and Jennifer Stevenson were gracious enough to respond and confirmed my fears. I had a cover that neither said spoof, nor fantasy, nor fun nor magic. If it did say anything it said porn. Self-pubbed porn.

But their comments make me think … and analyse what I’d written. I was writing a funny CSI with magic tale with a hint of 1950s seaside postcard humour – risqué in places but essentially innocent. I could magine an embarrassed Colin Firth playing the lead in the movie version.

And with that epiphany came a name – not Colin Firth but Donald McGill. Donald McGill was the seaside postcard artist. He sold over 6 million and was a national institution. So, I Googled his images and couldn’t believe my luck. There it was. The ideal cover. It was eye-catching. It said fun, it said tongue-in-cheek, it said … ‘giant penis.’

So, I licensed the copyright and here it is. One of the most famous postcards in British history. A postcard that, coupled with the caption ‘Stick of rock, cock,’ caused such apoplexy in 1950s Britain that the artist was charged with obscenity, fined £75 and ordered to burn every postcard. The borough of Eastbourne even banned him from ever setting foot in their town.

With the artwork purchased, it was time to look at the title. The cover said monster penis, so the title didn’t have to. It had to say something about magic and crime. I toyed with CSI: New Magic but then settled for Magical Crimes. It described the tale and it was the name of the unit my psychic profiler and forensic magician worked for.

Now all I need is to settle on the look of the title. I used the colour of the sea for my name and thought I’d use the red of the rock for the title but an all red title was difficult to read against the darker blue in the top right. So I experimented with fading it. What do you think? Do you prefer the even fade from red to light pink or the redder version? Or is the red-orange-yellow version the best? Or plain black?

*Update* I’ve added a dark blue and a contoured yellow sand  

I can’t decide and would like to throw this open for comments.

Magical Crimes will be coming to an online bookstore near you in early January. Price $0.99. Free download available for reviewers.

Q:  So what’s BURNING SKIES?
A:  The follow-up to last year’s MIRRORED HEAVENS—the second book in the Autumn Rain trilogy.

Q:  So I gotta read MIRRORED HEAVENS first?
A:  Your call.   I wrote BURNING SKIES so that you can leap into the trilogy that way.  The opening scene tells you pretty much all you need to know about what happened in MIRRORED HEAVENS:  we’ve got rogue cyborg Claire Haskell hacking into an  impregnable orbital fortress to confront her imprisoned spymaster Matthew Sinclair, and they have a Very Critical Conversation Which Covers a Lot of Ground.  So even if you *did* read MIRRORED HEAVENS, you’ll learn a lot more about what was *really* going on in that book.

Q:  So tell me what goes down in BURNING SKIES . . .
A: BURNING SKIES centers on the Europa Platform, an O’Neill cylinder, and the site of the secret summit conference between the U.S. president and the leadership of the Eastern superpower.  Naturally, the elite terrorist group Autumn Rain crash the party, and Claire Haskell is the only one that can stop them. . .

Q:  Back up a sec.  What’s an O’Neill cylinder?
A:  A massive space station—a rotating cylinder more than thirty kilometers long, and several kilometers across, with three “valleys”; you can stand in one valley and look at the other two inverted overhead.  Gibson had one in NEUROMANCER, but it’s hard to find pictures of the darn things that don’t date all the way back to the 1970s.   I’ve got a bunch of new art on my website; my O’Neill cylinders also have giant asteroids stapled onto their south poles, just to make the topography extra tasty.

Q: Did you have a particular strategy for writing about the U.S. president?
A:  I wanted to approach Andrew Harrison like a historian would—to try to provide a balanced view of the man who ends up ruling the United States as a military dictator in the year 2110.  Too often, it seems that authors use their fictional presidents as a reflection of their own politics—Larry Niven’s FOOTFALL has the Cowardly Liberal President; the Judge Dredd universe has the Evil Right-Wing Warmonger, etc.  Incidentally, Harrison made it onto io9′s recent list of “future presidents”. . . the highlight of my career so far. . .
Q:  I hear there’s a lot of F-words in these books.
A:  Let’s just say I’m unlikely to get onto the shelves at Walmart anytime soon.  Maybe I shoulda done what Norman Mailer did in THE NAKED AND THE DEAD, and just replaced them with the word “fug” . . .

Q:  I also heard that you’ve given the third book to your cat to write.  Is this true?
A:  The last book in the trilogy is THE MACHINERY OF LIGHT, and Spartacus the Cat has been granted a week’s extension due to his catnip habit.  If a million monkeys will eventually type HAMLET, I figure 10 more days should suffice for Spartacus to come up with a shattering conclusion to this trilogy, which hits bookstores next year.

Q:  Spartacus, do you share Dave’s confidence?
A:  dfjklafklasfalfdkafdkafkaskdjfaskldfasdfkasdfkla

BURNING SKIES is available now at Amazon and other fine bookstores!

Q: New book?

A: Yes indeed.

Q: What and why?

A: Cyber-fantasy with hacking as sorcery…again. It is book IV. And, because they pay me of course. No, that’s not really it. Well not all of it, though it helps. I write because I love it and because I can’t not.

Q: Can’t not write?

A: It’s an addiction. I tend to turn my books in early so that I have a few free months between contract obligations. Then I write spec books to reward myself for turning in early.

Q: Huh. This is starting to sound too much like an interview. Can’t have that. So, quick: The eternal urban fantasy dilemma: vampires or werewolves? Which and why?

A: Neither, geeks and Greeks—computer geeks and Greek gods, that is. Well, and honestly, the gods in this particular book are mostly Norse. Also, goblins and trolls and giant wolves. But if forced to choose between vampires and werewolves, I’ll go with vampires because they’re sexier and they don’t shed on the couch.

Q: Have you got something against shedding?

A: I’ve got five cats who help me write and keep all my electronics warm by producing little fuzzy blankets for them. What do you think?

Q: I think I’m the one who’s supposed to be asking the questions, though if you’ve got no vampires or werewolves, I’m not sure I should even be talking to you. At least tell me you’ve got leather jackets and firearms.

A: Of course. What do you take me for, a cretin? Don’t answer that. I’ve also got a plausible reason for swords and a hot redhead. Literally, she’s on fire.

Q: Norse gods…fire giant?

A: Nope. The Fury, Tisiphone. I love my job.

Q: And she’s on fire. Doesn’t that make it hard for her to find clothes that fit and survive?

A: She’s not that into clothes. Either figuratively or literally, being a spirit of naked vengeance. Again, figuratively or literally is dealer’s choice.

Q: That’s an interesting character choice. Why’d you go that way?

A: Originally, because she was a minor side character in Book I, back when it was going to be Book Only. But as the sequels followed she kept demanding more and more screen time, and the naked thing was already established.

Q: Speaking of sequels, how many of these are there going to be? Do you know when to stop?

A: I certainly hope so. Currently there are five books planned and the last one is already on my editor’s desk.

Q: Does that mean that you’re closing the door on this world and these characters forever and ever after book V?

A: Well, I’m not going to pull a Conan Doyle and kill off Ravirn at Reichenbach Falls, because I might want to revisit Ravirn and co. some day, but I am tying up all the major threads of the story. More than that I’m not going to say. Spoilers.

Q: So, back to this book. Why “MythOS?”

It’s a pun, Mythological Operating System.

Q: A pun? I thought this was gritty urban fantasy.

A: Really? Weird. Have you read the first four books? I admit it’s certainly closer to Urban Fantasy than it is to a lot of other genres, but it’s also got a strong thread of sarcastic humor running through it. Think Glen Cook’s Garret meets Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden and….

Q: You trailed off there. What was that about?

Imagining for a moment that my sales figures looked like Cook plus Butcher. I’m not doing bad, but that’d be something to see. I’ve always wanted a Ferrari.

Q: Now I know you’re writing fantasy. So Ravirn is Garret plus Dresden? Is he a royal prince too?

A: Not anymore. He’s been cast out of his family.

Q: So he could become a prince. Sounds a little Mary-Sue.

A: Nope. Not going to happen. The casting out was permanent. Besides, if I map onto anyone in the books it’s the goblin sidekick.

Q: The bald one with the bad attitude. I can see that.

A: I’m noting that wasn’t a question.

Q: Nope. I’ve met you. But back to the main thread. You’ve done three books in a row in the Greek milieu, why go Norse with this book?

A: More beer, less wine. Okay, that’s not true, but let me pretend to make an analogy of it by talking about changing dynamics. I wanted to keep things interesting and I think one of the big problems with series fiction is that the protagonist often becomes too powerful as they accumulate skills and allies over the course of multiple books. I wanted to take Ravirn off his home ground and reduce his options and powers. Force him to shift his habits from wine to beer.

Q: Interesting. Silly, but interesting. Any last words?

A: Ragnarok.

Q: I guess words don’t get much more last than that. Thanks, I hope your book launch goes well…I guess that really was the last word from Kelly McCullough.

The first chapter of MythOS can be sampled online: Chapter 1. Or if you want to buy the book now it’s available both on paper and electronically: Kindle, Mobipocket, Indiebound.org, Barnes and Noble, Borders, Amazon

Kelly’s website. He also blogs along with several other f&sf authors from his writers group at Wyrdsmiths.

Kelly is an award winning short story writer and novelist. His first book, WebMage, was released by Ace in 2006 to considerable critical praise. WebMage was followed by Cybermancy, CodeSpell, and now MythOS, with SpellCrash forthcoming 2010. His short fiction has appeared in numerous venues including Weird Tales, Writers of the Future, and Tales of the Unanticipated. His illustrated short story collection, The Chronicles of the Wandering Star, is part of a National Science Foundation-funded middle school science curriculum, Interactions in Physical Science.

But what if we don’t?  I’ve written about this book a lot on my personal blog and on another that I share with a small group of fantasy authors, including fellow SFNovelist C.E. Murphy.  And every time I write about the novel the sentiment is pretty much the same:  I love the book and I hope I can sell it.  The thing is, I’m starting to realize that my assessment of the book is completely tied to its financial future.  If I contract this novel and some of its sequels, I’ll feel that it is a success.  But does that mean that if we can’t sell it, I’ll consider the book a failure? 

My first impulse — and, I’m sure, the first impulse of many reading this — is to say that no, completing a book can never be deemed a failure.  An act of creativity ought to be its own reward.  Writing a book is hard work; the completion of that book ought to be celebrated.  That’s the feel-good answer.  It’s also true on some level.  What’s also true, though, is that I do this for a living.  Finishing a novel might feel great.  It might hone my craft; the mere act of writing this book might make my next project that much better.  But I need to contract books.  That’s how I make my living.  So if I don’t sell it, the accomplishment is sort of beside the point.  That might sound harsh, but it’s reality.

I’ve written thirteen novels now.  Ten of them have been published, one of them is in production and will be out early next year, and this one is with my editor and agent.  The thirteenth novel is one that I wrote a couple of years ago.  It was under contract, but the publisher that had bought it went out of business before the book could be released.  My agent and I managed to get the rights back and for two years we’ve been trying without success to resell the novel.  I love this unsold novel even more than the one I just finished.  I love it more than any of my other books.  That said, I’m a bit embarrassed by it.  Fairly or not, I view it as a failed novel, not because I think it’s unredeemably flawed, but because the market has judged it as lacking in some way.

So my question is this:  For whom do we write?  And before you answer that you write for yourself, and that you’d write even if you knew you could never sell anything, think long and hard about whether that’s really true.  It’s my knee-jerk response; it’s certainly the answer I want to give and want to believe.  The truth is a bit more complicated.  I write for myself because thus far I’ve been able to make something of a living at it.  There are easier ways to make a buck (at least there were; they seem to be disappearing) and I would never deny that I have chosen this career path because I love it, and because I have to write to be happy.  But again reality rears its ugly head:  If I couldn’t sell books I’m not sure that I could afford to write them.  Oh, I’d write in my spare time, but I used to be an academic; my wife still is.  I have friends who are lawyers and doctors and business people.  I’ve seen how hectic their lives are.  Once they’re done with work and family, they don’t have a whole lot of spare time or energy for creating worlds and writing novels.

I write for me because I can afford to, because I’m fortunate enough to do for a living what I love to do anyway.  But if I’m to be completely honest, I write for myself and also for a whole host of other people.  I write for my agent, because she has to believe in my books to sell them.  I write for my editor, because he has to contract the book before it can be published.  I write for my readers, because their purchases of my current novel make the next contract possible.  I’m pretty sure that my fellow professionals would join me in admitting that they don’t — can’t — write solely for themselves.  And what about those of you who aren’t professionals?  I’m sure that you take great pride in your creative accomplishments — as you should — and that you write to satisfy your passion for storytelling.  But don’t you also write because you want to see your stories in print?  I’m an amateur photographer, and I’m also a musician.  I do these things “for myself.”  Still, I was thrilled when I was able to display my photography in a gallery.  I used to perform music in bars and restaurants and to this day I occasionally fantasize about doing so again.

What’s my point?  Simply this:  Nearly all of us who love art begin with that passion to create.  We start by saying that we’re going to do it for ourselves, for the sheer pleasure of creating and celebrating that accomplishment.  And we mean it.  But I would argue that all art is inherently a performance.  Painting, taking pictures, singing, acting, dancing, and yes, even writing — especially writing — it’s all done for an audience.  When a child creates something that she thinks is beautiful her first thought is to show it to someone else — Mom, Dad, a teacher, a friend, a complete stranger if no one else is around.  And I don’t think that impulse ever really goes away.  Nor should it.  Because art is inherently interactive.  Art is about creation and appreciation, passion harnessed and passion evoked.

So I write for myself, but I also write for everyone else who might read my work.  I want to create fascinating worlds and people them with intriguing characters.  But I know that on some level none of what I create will truly come alive until you read it

David B. Coe

First, ebooks. For the past eight months my first novel has been available as a free download via my website, an experiment which my (fabulous, progressive) publisher agreed to participate in. (40,000 downloads and counting.)

I’ve blogged about the reasons for the freebie release before, and they’re not the issue right now. Instead, I want to talk about DRM and price.

From next month all my novels will be available as low-cost, DRM-free ebooks. (My (fabulous, progressive) publisher agreed to this over a coffee.) But why did I push for a DRM-free release when people might copy and share the books, and why ask for a low price when the higher the price, the bigger the royalty per ebook?

Personally, I believe DRM (Digital Rights Management or Copyright Protection) is the worst idea since one-size-fits-all self-cleaning underpants. Electronic gadgets are released at a staggering pace, and you can imagine a situation where encrypted files purchased five years ago are no longer supported by any new and improved devices. It’s the equivalent of a paperback with a security device preventing you from opening the covers unless you swipe your credit card through the slot. New credit card? Tough, throw the book away.

You already bought the content once, so if you want to read that fave ebook again you can either look for a means to break the encryption, roam the seedy underbelly of the internet looking for someone’s unproofed ocr version, or buy it again.

I don’t think anyone doubts that ‘buy it again’ are the 20-foot-tall words marching through the commercial landscape, crushing readers and reason beneath their oversized feet.

The problem is, I’ve never bought an encrypted ebook, and I never will. Either I get the content I paid for, in a format guaranteed to work forever, or my pennies stay unspent. And if you think I’m alone, just look up the pitiful sales of ebooks versus paper versions.

Another point: Once the aggrieved victim of a DRM scheme has finally managed to get at the content, they’re MORE likely to share the book than recommend others buy the same file they were tricked with.

As for pricing, I believe that selling ebooks for the same price as printed books is the worst idea since DRM, whether it’s applied to ebooks, voting machines or self-cleaning underpants.

If you walk up to someone and offer them a piece of paper with a link to an ebook on it, or a trade paperback, which will they take? The paperback. And if you said they could have either for five bucks, which would they buy? The paperback. Twenty bucks? The paperback. Three bucks for the ebook and twenty for the paperback? Now they might hesitate.

And there’s the issue: it doesn’t matter what publishers think an ebook is worth, it’s the book-buying public who will open their wallets when the price of an ebook clearly outweighs the disadvantage of the format.

The cost of producing each fresh copy of an ebook is zero. Forget arguments about servers, power usage, etc … that’d be a cent at the most. (And if the biggest cost per unit is the encryption, ha ha.) As for laying out the book in a new format, publishers could always knock out a quick conversion and then, if the ebook really starts to sell, revise and tweak it down the track.

But if ebooks sell so cheaply, what about royalties? To which I say: would you rather have fifty percent of 10000 sales at $4, or fifty percent of 500 sales at $9? For the mathematically challenged, the former is twenty grand in royalties, while the latter is just over two. I’m not suggesting lowering the price of an ebook will make anyone rich, but I am suggesting that $3-$4 may be a tipping point, just like 99c MP3s.

I believe DRM is harming ebook sales, not protecting them, and that high prices are keeping readers away from the format. I’m betting my ebook royalties on this.

The ebooks of my novels go on sale in February, and don’t worry, I’ll report back the results of this experiment.

Next topic … awards. This isn’t a topic you’ll hear authors talking about in public all that much. Sales, readers, editors, publishers, writing … they’re all grist for the blogomill. Authors can control many things when it comes to their work, but awards – thankfully – aren’t one of them. They’re one of those icing on the cake things, and a bit like standing in the garden with your hand out, hoping to catch a meteorite.

When it’s a popular vote award it can be dicey to let people know you’re eligible without seeming to be asking for nomination. (Witness the rash of ‘I hate doing this, but …’ LJ posts from authors around Hugo time. Perfectly acceptable, but a very public form of torture.)

When it’s a judged award, you might as well roll a D20. Tastes, judging criteria, the alignment of the stars .. who knows which factors are in play?

However the winner is to be decided, months and weeks roll by until you’re five or six days out from the announcement, and suddenly your mind begins to play the ‘I know I won’t win, but what if?’ game. You tell yourself awards aren’t that important, that you shouldn’t be wasting thinking time on them, but you still ponder the what ifs.

As authors, we tell ourselves that readers and sales are vital, whereas awards are nice. This ignores the fact that awards can influence the trade. Bookstore buyers, publishers, sales reps and so on … a prestigious award can boost a title, perhaps securing reorders or the offer of a new contract.

Awards can also facilitate the sale of overseas and translation rights, which means more readers and more money. In fact, they’re more than icing on the cake, they’re very desirable.

And there’s still nothing you can do to win one except be eligible, and write the best book you can.

My latest novel, Hal Spacejock No Free Lunch, is one of five works in the Aurealis Awards shortlist for best Australian SF novel of 2008. The results will be announced on January 24. I’ve already laid a bet with myself as to which of the five will take out the prize. If I win the bet I get chocolate, which is a desirable outcome because it’s more edible than a trophy.

I’ve published 5 novels now, and have another out in May, and another out sometime in the fall. When I go into bookstores my books are on the shelves. All good stuff. But I realized today that despite having “fame” in the fantasy field (okay, I can’t help but giggle hysterically at that but I don’t have another word for it at the moment), I still presume that people who read sf/f have no idea who I am. I don’t mean that if they saw me that they couldn’t pick me out of a crowd (which most people couldn’t who haven’t met me–or perhaps have been horribly scarred by me and don’t want to, but let’s not go there). What I mean is that I simply presume that if they chanced to hear my name, it would mean nothing. It wouldn’t bring to mind my books or anything.

I find it odd that I should think that. I find it far more startling when people actually do recognize my name, but I digress (yet again). In particular, I find it odd that I would have this premise as a basic foundational assumption. Ego (or lack thereof) aside, I do happen to have five books in print and one can assume that because I’m still receiving royalties, that people are reading them. Which means that logically, my name should be somewhat recognizable.

I recognize all sorts of names of people I’ve never met. And that’s what brought this into the foreground of my thinking. (I think. My mind works in strange, mysterious ways.) I teach at a university and I also presume that most students on our very small campus don’t know who I am. But yet I’m only one of a handful of English professors and in fact far more students know me than I know. At least they know of me. (and fear me! Muwhahahahahaha!).

I’m trying to decide where this basic assumption in me comes from. Is it a living out of a desire to be relatively anonymous? (If I believe I’m anonymous then they won’t know me?) Is it reflective of reality?(which probably is not accurate, though I know I don’t have name recognition of Stephen King).  Is it a habit that comes with being a woman? (Thanks Virginia Woolf–I need to kill my interior Angel in the House). Or is it just a quirk of my personality? And if it’s the latter, I wonder how much of that sort of self-effacement works in my favor to allow me to step into characters’ shoes and become them?

I wonder if I’m slightly insane. I wonder if perhaps that is why I can write. Or perhaps I’m super-sane.

I don’t know. What do you think? Not so much about me, but about the phenomenon. Anybody else have it going on?

I HAVE A NEW BOOK COMING OUT!!!! 

There, that felt good.  The book is called The Horsemen’s Gambit.  It’s the second book in my Blood of the Southlands trilogy, and if you’d like to learn more about it, or would care to read the first few chapters, please visit my website here.

I’d love to play this real cool, and tell of you that this being my tenth published book I’m kind of blase about the whole thing now.  But it’s just not true.  I still get excited and nervous about a new release.  Perhaps not the way I did with my first novel, but we’re talking just a small difference of degree.  I’d venture a guess that most of my friends here on SFNovelists are much the same way.  This is what we work for, the culmination of a process that can literally take years.  There’d be something wrong with us if we weren’t excited.

The problem most of us have — certainly the problem I’m having — is getting the rest of the world as excited as we are.  You see, my release date is January 20, 2009.  Yes, THAT January 20, 2009.  Barack Obama’s January 20, 2009.  I want to say that aside from my wife and kids, no one in the world is even aware that my book comes out that day, but the truth is I’m not sure that my wife and kids know.  I mean, I put it on the calendar hanging in our kitchen, but there’s an Obama/Biden sticker covering that day and I had to use little arrows to indicate it and . . . well . . . let’s just say that it’s not exactly on the family radar quite yet.

I understand.  Really, I do.  No one is more excited about Obama’s inauguration than I am.  Well, all right, that’s not really true either.  I’m sure his kids are pretty excited.  And his wife.  I’m thinking that maybe if I’d promised my kids a puppy when the new book came out, they’d be a bit more excited about it.  I also have to admit that there are probably a lot of people whose excitement about the inauguration isn’t tinged with this whole jealousy/resentment thing that I’ve got going.  So maybe I should have said that few people are more excited by the idea of Obama’s inauguration than I am.  Because that’s true.  I really am excited.  I just wish they could have chosen a different day.  Yeah, I know what you’re thinking:  Why couldn’t Tor have chosen a different day for my book release?  But they chose this date way before Obama won….

Oh, well.  Water under the bridge, right?  But if you happen to be at an inauguration party, and there’s a lull in the action — Biden must have some stuff to do that day; you could do this during his part — if you could just mention my book to the people around you, I’d be really grateful.  Obama won’t mind.  He’s getting lots of air time.  He’d be willing to share.  I’m sure of it.  He seems like a nice guy.  So if you can just mention it to some people.  The Horsemen’s Gambit, book II of Blood of the Southlands, by David B. Coe.

I’d appreciate it.

Back in the eighties I worked in IT and one of my many jobs was to evaluate and adapt Michael Fagan’s technique for improving the quality of documents. Though primarily aimed at technical specifications the Fagan Inspection was touted as applicable to any document and highly adaptable. Could it work for novels?

But first, what’s a Fagan Inspection? The idea of the Fagan Inspection is to hand out a document to four or five people who analyse and fact check it to death. Not to be confused with the Fagin inspection which involves sending teams of small boys to steal code from your competitors.

What made the Fagan Inspection different from other quality control techniques is that each inspector could be assigned a role – analysing the document from a specific viewpoint. This reduced duplication of effort and imposed a structure on the process. Anyone who’s ever workshopped a story will know the human obsession with spelling mistakes. They’re the easiest error to spot and the least expensive to fix. Fagan was more concerned with the expensive errors.

To give an example, here’s how I adapted the process to inspect a system design specification. First, I brought in a business analyst to compare the design against the business spec. Had we strayed from the original user requirement? Then I’d bring in designers from other systems to check the interfaces. Were we compatible? Was the data being passed to and from our system in the expected format? Then I’d have someone inspect the internal consistency of the document and someone from programming look at it from the point of view of the persons who’d have to spec and code. The ethos of the process was, one, to point the inspectors towards the areas where the most expensive errors were likely to be and, two, bring in eyes and relevant expertise from outside the team.

So, could it be adapted for a novel?

Of course, one big difference between my IT inspectors of the 80s and today’s beta readers is that the IT inspectors were paid. It was their job to nit-pick a document to death whereas the beta reader performs the task as a labour of love. It’s got to be a fun experience. Here’s a shiny new novel to read for free, ages before anyone else gets a chance to see it and, in return, would you mind answering a few questions.

But the idea of recruiting fresh eyes and pertinent experience is, I think, a good one. Even if you’ve already sounded out an expert – be it in a science, a particular culture or a time period – before you started writing your great work, having a different pair of expert eyes read the end product can only be good, can’t it?

So, does anyone out there actively recruit specialist beta readers to check their novels? If you have, say, a fantasy with a strong romance element set in tenth century Spain I could see an advantage in actively looking for beta readers with an expertise/love of one or more of those constituent elements. And I’d give one the task to read the novel from the point of view of a Romance reader, another from the viewpoint of a lover of historical fiction, another to read it as a Fantasy, and so on. The same for location and foreign dialogue. As a Brit living in France writing books often set in the US, I look for American beta readers to check my dialogue. I might look for another who knows the geographical area I’m writing about.

The list of potential roles for beta readers is as long as the subjects we write about. You could ask someone to concentrate on the magic system, another to look at the worldbuilding or the science, the culture, technology, battle scenes etc.

Anyway, just an idea. And if there are any lovers of fun contemporary fantasies with no vampires but plenty of magic and crime fighting … I’m looking for a couple more beta readers from the American, female and under 35 demographic. More details here.