My first two book giveaways at Goodreads.com finished this week. Was it worth it? My gut feeling is yes, but as with most promotional efforts, results will take a long time to play out, and I’ll never have a good way to measure them.

A giveaway is easy to set up. I pick the title, the number of copies, and the start and end dates for people to sign up. At the end of the giveaway, I get an email from Goodreads linking me to a page with the names and addresses of the five winners. I send the books out.

Hopefully those five winners will like the book and give it a good review, or maybe even try some of my other books. But the real gain is that all those other people who didn’t win a copy at least took a look at it. 1002 people signed up to win a copy of The Dread Hammer; 136 have it marked as “to read.” 672 signed up for Skye Object 3270a; 62 have it marked as “to read.” Not overwhelming numbers, but it’s a start.

The cost to me was printing for the books, postage to get them here, and postage to send them out individually to the winners. I live in Hawaii, so shipping costs can get pretty absurd. “Media Mail” isn’t an option for me, because that can mean up to two months in transit, so everything goes via Priority Mail.

Would I do another book giveaway? Probably. When I have the right sort of book to promote.

What would the right sort of book be? An original book, that was not second or later in a series. Basically, something no one’s ever heard of because it’s that new, and one that doesn’t require the reader to be familiar with an earlier volume.

If any of my Goodreads winners (or readers) ever happen to wander by here, I’d love it if you would comment on the experience from your point of view.

@DannieC_Hill on twitter just asked me my thoughts on pen names** and if I’d done a blog post on the subject, so here I am.

Until very recently I’ve always written under my own name, Linda Nagata. This was done largely out of naivete and partly out of defiance (see the very current and continuing discussions around the Internet of women writing science fiction). Suffice to say that the intervening years have convinced me that “Linda Nagata” might not be the best name I could be writing under.

With my latest book, The Dread Hammer, I did a radical genre change from hard science fiction to unabashed fantasy. What better time to try out a pen name? So I published TDH under the name Trey Shiels. There’s nothing secret about it. I want my long-time readers to know that’s me, but I also want to see if having a different name on a book might make a difference in sales to people who have never heard of either of us. (Not that this is in any sense a scientific experiment. Whether the book is a roaring success or an abysmal failure, there’s no way to isolate the contribution of the pen name.)

That said, pen names are a pain! On my first pass at a print version for The Dread Hammer I managed to put “Linda Nagata” at the top of every left hand page in the book, instead of “Trey Shiels.” This cost me $110 and a couple weeks of time to fix. When I go to sign the book, I have to repeat over and over “Trey Shiels” — “Trey Shiels” — “Trey Shiels” — or you know what I’m going to write. Someone won a copy of the ebook, and I realized afterward that the name of the file I sent was “The Dread Hammer-Linda Nagata.epub.” (now fixed)

I do not ever think of myself as “Trey Shiels.”

Other authors have multiple pen names, but if I did that I think I’d have to have an assistant at my side to keep reminding me who I am at the moment.

It’s only been a couple of months. I suppose that in time I’ll adapt. And maybe, in the end, “Trey Shiels” will be a more successful author. But my advice, where pen names are concerned, is tread cautiously!. Better to pick the right name from the start.

**every time I start to write “pseudonym” I have this deep fear I won’t spell it right, so I write “pen name” instead

1. Sit down at laptop, ready to work.

2. Realize mouse is still upstairs. Go get it.

3. While upstairs, check email on desktop; process some photos; look for a file; realize file is on laptop.

4. Go downstairs to get file from laptop.

5. Realize mouse is still upstairs. Go get it.

J Daniel Sawyer has a long but very interesting post up titled Literary Studies, Anyone?, discussing the dubious value of formal Literary Studies.

Having been a biology major, I freely confess I snarled my way through the required “literature” classes in college and otherwise avoided the English Department. It’s not that I don’t like “literature,” (see my post in which I am head-over-heels for the novel The Story of Edgar Sawtelle). It’s just that my idea of a great book didn’t include much of what I was required to read in college. On the positive side, we were required to read books, but not to analyze them.

My only experience with analysis is second hand, via an honors class my daughter took in high school. I talk about it in this post, Pick Books You Like. We learn to be avid readers when we like what we read–and we learn to be writers by reading, by studying diverse fields, and by writing, writing, writing.

I’m a novelist by nature. I’ve only ever written a handful of short stories–and most of those are on the long end of a short story–plus a few novelettes and novellas.

Word count is the deciding factor on which category a piece of fiction falls into. According to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America:
Short story: under 7,500 words
Novelette: 7,500 to 17,500 words
Novella: 17,500 to 40,000 words
Novel: over 40,000 words

I’ve just published in ebook form a 7,000 word short. In the Tide was an Analog cover story back in the day, which was quite a coup for me at that stage of my career.

Here’s a tip for new writers: In the Tide was actually a “study” in much the same way that a painter will do sketches before tackling the big oil painting. I used this story to develop a feeling for the nanotech-drenched story world that later led to The Nanotech Succession books. I also used it to develop the type of evolved-human character that ultimately led to Nikko in The Bohr Maker. It’s a scheme I heartily recommend! Get paid developing the ideas for your novels. Where’s the downside of that?

In the Tide is a 99¢ short story. Here are the links:

Amazon USA
Amazon UK (£0.69)
Barnes & Noble

UPDATE: “In The Tide” is now available for free on my website, MythicIsland.com. Look for the box labeled “FREE FICTION”

The cover I designed for Memory didn’t seem to be too popular with y’all, so I asked artist Jenn Reese, a writer herself and owner of Tiger Bright Studios, to come up with something new, and here’s the beautiful result.

The new cover went live today on Amazon, and should show up at Barnes & Noble before too long. Find the ebook here:
Amazon.com USA
Amazon UK
Barnes & Noble

What sort of cover sells books? I don’t know, but I’m willing to keep experimenting.

Let me know what you think!

Oh Nook Reader App for PC,

I don’t know if I should admire you or despise you.

It’s true there was an extra curly quote “}” at the end of the second style sheet in my epub file.

And I know it shouldn’t have been there.

But Kindle managed to overlook it and correctly parsed the book’s styles.

Sigil managed to overlook it and correctly parsed the book’s styles.

Calibre managed to overlook it and correctly parsed the book’s styles.

But you, Nook, have higher standards! You insisted on correct code and refused to parse the book’s styles until I spent half an hour tracking down your complaint.

I’ve decided: I both admire and despise you.

Drove up to the top of the mountain this morning. “The” mountain–Haleakala–is a massive shield volcano that makes up all of East Maui. The summit stands at 10,000-feet, with views all the way down to sealevel, at least during those hours when the clouds allow it. This morning the summit was clear but it stood above a sea of gleaming clouds.

Middle of the day is a terrible time to take photos, but here are some samples anyway:

Sea of clouds surrounding Haleakala summit

An opening in the clouds showing the eucalyptus forests near the town of Makawao. This is looking down from roughly 9000' to maybe 1500' in elevation

I was told long ago the name of this peak, Hanakauhi, can be translated as "maker of mist." Not sure it's true, but it would be appropriate.

Looking across the south wall of Haleakala Crater, towards Mauna Kea on the Big Island, where I was a few weeks ago.

The To-Do List is like triage. Goals shift depending on who/what needs me the most. The top level tier of stuff I’m working on includes:

1-At least 1000 words/day on the work-in-progress

2-Tweak all the ebooks, prepping them for my upcoming launch at Book View Café

3-Upload new cover for Memory and do some promotion on this neglected novel.

4-Write a long overdue blog post for someone

5-Prepare print versions of The Nanotech Succession books (about 30% into this)

6-Proof and upload the first short story I’ve converted to ebook

7-Get more active in the marketing class I’m taking from Who Dares Wins Publishing

Not necessarily in that order.

Reading Martha Well’s terrific novel The Cloud Roads got me thinking about the archetype of the wounded man, because the hero of this book definitely qualifies, at least under my definition.

The “wounded man” isn’t physically wounded of course. Neither is he weak or incompetent and he can be wonderfully, overwhelmingly manly. But on some level he’s emotionally scarred from the mistreatment he’s received from life, and he’s got emotional issues, and usually he isn’t good at establishing relationships with men or women. So the inner plot is usually about our wounded hero learning to open up to others, in particular the love interest.

My thesis is that women tend to love the wounded man archetype, and men are much cooler toward it. Am I right? Am I wrong? Is it a generational thing? What do you think?

In my own work I’m going to point to two of my novels, Deception Well and Vast, which share two male characters named Lot and Urban. Lot sort of fits the definition of the wounded man. He has emotional issues (though he’s usually good at relationships, ha ha). Lot’s BFF, Urban, is emphatically not a wounded man. He’s cocky and confident. No self-esteem issues here.

My guess is that men prefer Urban’s character, and women tend to prefer Lot. Yes? No? Let me know what you think on the question of “the wounded man,” whether you’ve read the books or not. I always suspect I’m kind of “off” when it comes to being representative of my gender. I’d love to hear some opinions.