My first four novels were published in the 1990s. They went out of print in short order, and the rights reverted to me long ago. Now I’m putting them out into the world again, this time as e-books.

At this writing, Tech-Heaven and The Bohr Maker are already up on Amazon.com and available in Kindle format. Deception Well should follow in the next few days, and Vast within a week or two. After that I’ll work on getting them up on iTunes, and B&N if possible.

I thought I’d share some of the process I used, in case there are other writers out there who might find it useful. If you know a better way to do this, let me know! Same if you read any of my books—please let me know how the formatting holds up for you.

Step 1— Obvious, but worth mentioning: make sure you’ve got the rights back!

Step 2— Decide who’s going to publish them. For myself, I wanted a publishing company, and since I have some other projects in mind I set up an LLC, which is relatively easy to do in the state of Hawaii. My publishing company is called Mythic Island Press LLC.

Update:
Step 2a— You’ll need to purchase an ISBN number, or package of them if you have more than one book. I’ve read that an ISBN isn’t needed, but personally, I wouldn’t think of publishing without them. You cannot re-use the ISBN from your original publication. There will be a specific agency selling ISBNs depending on what country you’re in. Google it.
End update

Step 3—The cover.
This is the step that held me up for a long time. Yes, it’s an e-book and doesn’t really have a cover, but you need a picture to sell it online, so you need a cover. I looked at a few options, but in the end I did the covers myself.

I had a design theme in mind, to tie all four books together. I’m not really interested in covers that illustrate a scene from the book and I certainly don’t have the skill to create something like that anyway. So I set out to find images that illustrated the books in an abstract way.

It took a few days of exploring stock photo websites, but I ultimately purchased pictures from Veer.com, iStock.com, and canStock.com. I also had access to a beautiful galaxy photo by my daughter, which served as the background for all four covers.

Using Photoshop, I put together high-resolution files that will work for trade-size books, if I ever decide to print them. For the ebooks, I then created *.jpg versions at a web resolution of 72 pixels, and a size of 600×800 pixels.

For better or worse, my covers are pretty different from what’s usually seen in the genre. Here they are:

Cover: Tech-Heaven, 2010-version

Cover: The Bohr Maker, 2010-version

Cover: Deception Well, 2010-version

Cover: Vast, 2010-version

You might have noticed they all have a subtitle: “Book X of the Nanotech Succession.” That’s a new invention. The books are not a series but they all share the same story world, so I decided to wrap them up as a set, and numbered them according to their place on the timeline, rather than by publishing order.

Next time—Step 4: preparing the manuscript.

Add me to the long list of readers who love this novel. I found it fascinating from beginning to end. The story is often slow and sweet; at other times it reads like a thriller. But at all times it’s propelled by a romantic vision of the world and the people who inhabit it.

It seems to me life can be made enthralling or dull depending on the filters through which we view it. In this book the lyric language is a filter that imbues everything–the land, the forest, the animals, the characters and their inexplicable mysteries–with a resonate meaning.

And what is the book about? A boy, his family, his family history, and the dogs they raise on a farm abutting a primeval wilderness in Northern Wisconsin. That’s all I will say on it, but I’ll also add a warning to avoid reading the teasers used to sell this book. The one I read basically conveyed every major plot point of the story—highly annoying!

So do I recommend this book? Always a tricky question. Depends on you. If you love to read for the sake of words and story, you might love this book too. If you need a steam-rolling plot trimmed of all excess, that ends in positive fashion . . . maybe not so much. The opinions at GoodReads.com span the spectrum, but for me The Story of Edgar Sawtelle worked perfectly, from beginning to end.

Setting aside any other issues I might have with Tor Publishing, they do know how to put together a beautiful hardcover book. I’m not including the cover image in my praise because that’s an entirely different issue. But the books themselves, separate from the dust jacket, are lovely, sensual examples of the book binder’s art, perfectly sized, opening easily, with the text artfully laid out, and all on acid-free paper so they will presumably age well.

And as it turns out, by some fluke I have a significant stock of the hard cover edition of Memory, originally published by Tor and now officially out-of-print.

After Vast, Memory is my favorite of my books thus far published, and I think it’s also the most accessible for readers who are new to science fiction.

So if you’re looking for a literary Christmas present this year, how about a signed, hardcover edition of Memory? Cost is $25, which includes shipping in the USA.

Click here to check it out >>

Kate Elliott writes adventure stories. That’s what I’m in the business for, they’re what I most enjoy reading, and I’m happy to say I’ve enjoyed all ten volumes I’ve read by her since I first picked up King’s Dragon last year. No, wait–Cold Magic makes eleven.

I’m a lousy book reviewer so I’m not going to bother sketching the plot (and such summaries can easily be found elsewhere on the web). Just know that this book is a great read, with entertaining characters in a fascinating and detailed story world.

I have a couple measures of how involving a book is to read. One is obvious: how much sleep do I lose by reading much too late into the night? I had several late nights with Cold Magic.

The other, I suspect, is my own personal quirk. I insist on reading a story in the proper order. So when a fast-paced story starts to get really exciting and my eyes are tempted to leap ahead, I slap my hand down on the page so I can only see the next line, and then the next, and then the next. (Yes, I really do this.) I’m happy to say I was forced to this extreme several times in Cold Magic.

I do have one complaint though. Since I came in late, I’ve been able to consume entire Kate Elliott series at a time, but now I will have to wait for the next volume. Cruel fate!

I wanted to see this movie from the moment I saw the beautiful cinematography in the trailer—and once I decide I’m going to watch a movie, I try to avoid all reviews and opinions so I can come to it fresh. So I didn’t know much about it going in, except that it involved a post-apocalyptic setting and perhaps, a reawakening of religion, probably Christian.

Last night I finally had a chance to watch it, and oh my, was I disappointed. No . . . it was worse than that. This movie left me furious with the usual lament: Why spend so much money, why spend so much talent, and not include more than a snippet of actual story?

* * * WARNING: Everything after the jump is a spoiler * * *
Read the rest of this entry »

It’s usually agreed there are two kinds of writers. First are those who blaze through an initial draft with minimal planning and editing, powered by a passion that lets the ideas keep flowing—or so I understand the process. Then there are writers like me who plot and think and second-guess and polish (and despair) and who refuse to move on until the base is solid.

So in the latest project, which is a short piece outside of any genre I’ve worked in before, I decided to be the other kind of writer, the one who just writes. I did cheat a bit. I had a pretty decent outline of the intended work to guide me. But from there it was a matter of throwing words down, and when the words didn’t come I went to Write or Die, and punched out brainstorming dialog until I had some ideas to work with.

Was it a helpful process?

Well, yes, up to a point. I got three-quarters of the story down in what for me qualifies as a very short time. But then I hit a wall. When it came time to link up the plot threads and write a coherent, meaningful climax and conclusion, I couldn’t do it. The base was not solid. The story had changed en route. I desperately needed to go back and re-define the theme, the motivation, the goal. So that’s what I’m doing now, and after that I’ll tackle the ending.

But the work was not wasted. I’m guessing 80% of what I’ve got will still be there when this next draft is done. And writing fast was actually a lot of fun.

This one’s a little late, but I didn’t want to let it pass without notice. Over the summer the French science fiction journal Galaxies published an issue that included a “dossier” on yours truly, encompassing a review, an interview, a bibliography and a French translation of my short story Liberator, originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

Galaxies is a beautiful publication, very nicely designed and put together, and I’m honored to appear there. Sadly, my forebears stopped speaking French long, long ago and I’ve never taken it on myself to learn, so I can’t read a word of it.

In closing, a note to all you budding novelists out there—try to publish a few short stories, because down the line someone, somewhere will ask to re-publish one as a means to introduce a new set of readers to your work. I’ve only ever written a handful myself, but they’re nice to have around.

The Galaxies cover and first page of the dossier.

While taking the dog out for her nightly last night I noticed a “star” madly twinkling, fairly low in the west. It seemed almost to be changing colors, flickering between red and a greenish-white. I watched it for a minute or two, thinking it must be a distant aircraft flying directly away from me, but no, it didn’t go away. Intrigued, I got out my 10×25 field binoculars. They showed what looked like a red point of light flickering around a greenish-white point—very hard to distinguish though, given they were hand-held.

My best guess is I saw a star or planet in near alignment with a more distant star, and the flickering was a result of refraction as it sank lower behind the humid atmosphere. But I’m not good at reading star charts and would appreciate further thoughts.

This was between 10pm and 10:30pm HST, August 18. Approx lat/long 20.90 156.43

A few days ago the husband asked, “Do you want to help me hike supplies into Kapalaoa Cabin for my volunteer service trip?”

Kapalaoa Cabin, aka “The First Cabin” is located in Haleakala National Park, six miles in from Haleakala Crater rim. The trail starts at around 9800’ and descends to 7200’, with most of the descent in the first half of the hike. I’ve hiked in to and out from Kapalaoa Cabin many times, but never on the same day, so I figured, Why not?

It would give me a chance to take some pictures, and to try out the concept of hiking with two hiking poles.

I’ll admit that in my foolish youth I looked down on hiking poles—until a few years ago when a friend loaned me one on a long downhill slog. I was amazed at the difference it made and I’ve often used one since. But I never tried hiking with two poles.

The first thing I found out is that I cannot hike with a pole in each hand and a camera around my neck. I’ll have to look for a chest pack or something, because I can’t stand the camera banging against me. So I put one of the poles away until I got to the last, and roughest, part of the descent. At that point the camera went into the pack and I set out with both poles in hand.

By this time the husband was far ahead, since I’d been stopping to take pictures. So I set out at full speed—and with the help of those two poles I’m fairly sure I set personal records for the last leg of the descent, and for crossing the cinder flats that follow. Walking a trail through dry cinder is like walking through dry sand. The poles proved surprisingly useful in this situation, since they provided a solid point to push off.

We offloaded the supplies, and hiked out with little more than water and snacks in the packs. Overall, the trip went well—and today I have a good excuse not to work out!

Looking down Sliding Sands Trail from near the top. The trail follows the foot of the crater wall on the right of the photo.

The cinder flats, after the initial steep descent from the crater rim. This photo shows bracken fern on either side of the trail, but the fern soon gives way to a barren cinder area.

Kapalaoa Cabin, built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).

Oh yeah, we have to climb out again! This is a view of Sliding Sands Trail as it ascends to the crater rim.

Just over a year ago I announced that I wasn’t satisfied with the responses I was getting from readers on my novel-in-progress The Wild, so I was going to undertake yet another revision, primarily of the story opening. Later in the year I talked about the butterfly effect and writing—how the partial revision I’d originally envisioned had turned into a complete re-write of the entire manuscript.

The re-write turned out to be a stuttering, sputtering process, with periods of productivity interrupted by long periods of nothing much getting done. But late in the game things finally started to click. I was suddenly immersed in the process, and completely neglected my other projects, with the happy result that Draft 3 was finally finished yesterday.

Hoorah!

The next step is to send it to a few test readers, to see what sort of reaction it gets. I’ll confess I’m nervous. The last two drafts didn’t fare too well. Let’s hope this one does better!

In the meantime, I get to start something new.