Tag: writing

Categories
publishing writing

The Kobo UK splashzone (dude, where’s my ebook?)

Okay, so a thing happened: WH Smith has taken their site offline after discovering that there’s some grody self-published erotica in its catalog. As of this time, they’re still offline. WH Smith apparently partners with Kobo. Oh and, from the WH Smith holding page:

Our website will become live again once all self published eBooks have been removed and we are totally sure that there are no offending titles available. When our website goes back online it will not display any self published material until we are completely confident that inappropriate books can never be shown again.

Now, obviously the UK and US have very different laws in regards to porn, and I honestly have no idea what those differences are. (Though apparently, this isn’t an issue of things being legal or not even? Great.) Nor am I at all interested in writing a bombastic American defense of porn that makes people vomit into their mouths because first amendment and stuff. Not really the topic up for debate here.

What has my attention is that apparently, Kobo has pulled all of their self-published books for now. Not just the erotica ones. No regard for genre. See this post on the Digital Reader. And in the splash zone has been titles by my the small publisher I’m with–so possibly others as well.

I’m currently in the UK, so I get the UK kobo site by default even when I click through on my American Kobo links. Time for fun with screenshots! So here’s The Ugly Tin Orrery;

And I don’t currently exist in general as a searchable author. (Full disclosure: I have never had a reason to look for myself on the Kobo UK site before, so I can’t tell you with 100% certainty that I was searchable before… but the existence of the above “currently unavailable” book is a thing that makes me go hmmmm.)

And while I’m posting screenshots, just for the record I did once exist on the WH Smith site. (Google cache is a magical thing.)

So we’ll see if I’m still around after they bring their website back up.

Anyone in the US want to check and see if I still exist on Kobo there? I’m curious due to some comments on the Digital Reader post. ETA: A couple people have let me know that I’m still available on Kobo in the US, so that’s a relief. Thank you!

I don’t write rapey incest bestiality erotica. I don’t write erotica at all. I write Steampunk, and the steamiest that’s ever gotten is two women kissing. (Shock! Scandal!) No, really. I’m also not self-published. All of my ebooks are published through Musa Publishing. (Always time for a little self-promotion, eh?)

Now, if I’ve ever gotten any sales from Kobo UK or WH Smith isn’t something I can tell you, since I think those go under the Smashwords umbrella on my statements. But frankly, it’s in the interest of any writer to want their titles available in as many places as humanly possible, just in case some reader will stumble across them and fall in love. Will the “non-objectionable” books get brought back eventually? I hope so. But there’s been no word from Kobo thus far. And why is “self-published” in general being equated with incestuous dog-raping erotica?

(And of course this doesn’t even touch on the idea of books that are “objectionable” being blanket removed from catalogs and how deeply it disturbs my little American soul.)

One of the reasons I find this all really disturbing is that it’s a reminder of one of the creepier major drawbacks of ebooks: It’s laughably easy to make them vanish. And to do so in a massive blanket that drags up a ton of people who are unrelated to whatever “problem” this supposedly will fix. Particularly for ebooks (we can’t even get dead tree copies of our own work to hump around in a suitcase and sell if it comes to that) we are incredibly dependent on these websites, and have no defense at all when it comes to our titles being removed.

And apparently being with a publisher isn’t an automatic defense either. So that’s fun.

I wanted to get this out there because I think it’s important, and I hadn’t even heard of the issue until someone mentioned it on a mailing list of which I’m a member. I think this is a thing that really deserves more attention, because there are so many issues to be unpacked in it and I’m just not capable right now because it’s three in the morning and seriously I only got up to pee and that was like an hour again and fuck my life, hahaha, etc. But anyway. I swear I’m going back to bed for real now. BELIEVE ME.

Categories
writing

Writing Update #2: New stuff for you to read!

On with the show!

  1. First off, Blood in Elk Creek is out! Buy it from the vendor of your choice! You can’t go wrong with snark and zombies in the Black Hills.bloodinelkcreek-500
  2. Another story of mine is out, this one free to read: Stranger, from Silver Blade
  3. Karen over at Unfiltered Speech in a Politically Correct World had me as a guest at her blog for an interview, so that was fun. You can read it here.
  4. I had a torrid love affair with the Iron Throne at Worldcon. And had a lot of fun working the SFWA and Broad Universe tables.
  5. I upgraded my SFWA membership from associate to active, since I now have the three pro sales to do it! I’ve also joined Codex because holy shit guys they were everywhere at Worldcon kind of like a nerdy, nerdy cult, and they brought me the good news.

  6. I was on the Skiffy and Fanty podcast when they were doing walk ins at Worldcon. Episode 1 here. I actually dropped in on each one of those episodes because I love podcasting and never get to do it. Huge thanks to Shaun and Jen for being so generous and letting me play!

#SFWApro

Categories
steampunk writing

You should go buy Blood in Elk Creek now. No, really.

It’s out! It’s out!

bloodinelkcreek-500

The deadline for this novella ate my life for a week. You see, when it was time to turn it in, it was about 20K words long… and nowhere near finished. I had to go into writing overdrive and did nothing but eat and sleep and breathe Blood in Elk Creek when I wasn’t at my job. I literally just sat on the couch and frantically typed.

And I’m really, really happy with how it turned out. I hope that you like it!

Blood in Elk Creek: 

Once called the Great Plains, the Dead Plains are a place in which no sane citizen of the Duchies dares set foot. The Infected roam the lands in starving packs and rare is the man who returns alive from an expedition. But when one of the regiments of the Grand Duchy of Denver disappears into those wilds under false pretenses, Colonel Geoffrey Douglas dares the Dead Plains to investigate. And Captain Marta Ramos, infamous pirate and thorn in his side, is not far behind.

Foul events are afoot in the Black Hills: Lakota hunting camps leveled, and the Infected move as an army in purposeful, terrifying ways. Captain Ramos and Colonel Douglas must form an uneasy truce and venture deep into the hostile terrain of the Black Hills to discover what has prompted this invasion and how to stop it.

If the Infected don’t kill them first.

And have an excerpt:

Marta looked upstream, but the view was occluded by rocks and more pine trees. There was a loud splash, followed a moment later by another surge of clouded water.

She levered herself to her feet, then drew her machete. The heavy blade felt strange and clumsy in her left hand. Feeling a bit drunk on adrenalin, she made her way around the rock with exaggerated care.

The stream took a sharp turn on the other side of the rocks, widening. Two corpses were laid neatly out in the shallow water. A coyote stood over one, worrying at its arm—the source of the splashes and the gouts of old, coagulated blood.

Blood.

Hand still clutching the machete, Marta bent over and retched, forcibly ejecting all of the water she’d just drunk from her stomach. She wiped her mouth with a handful of grass and looked up to find the coyote now staring at her, a profoundly unimpressed look on its face and a forearm and hand dangling from its jaws.

Marta’s stomach cramped again. Stop that, she mentally commanded herself. It was a reaction entirely in her mind, nothing but fear.

Tail at a cocky angle, the coyote trotted off with its prize, though the animal did give her a wide berth.

Marta approached the bodies with more trepidation than she had ever felt when faced with any number of corpses. Neither of the corpses had heads; each simply had a stump blackened with blood and rot. She recognized the look of the cuts, knew them before she’d even pulled her goggles properly on and snapped in one of the surviving magnifying lenses.

They’d each had their head removed with two or three strikes from a machete. She’d had to make similar cuts herself before, more times than she cared to consider. Each corpse wore the tattered remains of leather clothing, just trousers and no shirts, feet yet covered with moccasins. A few decorations partially obscured with muck and blood were made from colored porcupine quills; this was not the clothing of those who resided in the duchies.

All of these small details, building readily into a disturbing picture in Marta’s mind, felt curiously beside the point. Her left hand shook as she raised it to her goggles again, flipping through the loupes until she found those of treated calcite. The delicate lenses had cracked and crazed into a thousand tiny rhombic shapes, but even through that she saw the telltale glow that oozed from the bodies, that swirled through the water that touched them and confirmed her worst terror.

The corpses and stream, the stream she’d so greedily drunk from, were alive with Infection. Bright flecks showed on her left hand, which she’d used to scoop water to her mouth. A horrible sort of laugh squeezed from her throat.

She’d survived the most impressive aeroplane crash of her career just long enough to kill herself.

Order now! 

#SFWAPro

Categories
writing

Biweekly(?) writing update #1

Okay, we’ll see if this is going to be a thing. An awful lot of writing stuff seems to be happening to me these days. This covers a bit more than a week, though–just everything that’s happened in my awesome writing life since the last update on July 31.

  1. I have sold a story to Lakeside Circus for their first issue! This is my new record for fastest acceptance ever, at 16 hours. From their post is sounds like issue #1 will be coming out at the end of NOvember. And that issue #1 is currently only about 1/4 full, so if you’re a writerly type you might want to check that out. They pay $.01/word.
  2. Blood in Elk Creek has a cover! Isn’t it purty? The next adventure of Captain Ramos (aka: Captain Ramos is a giant pain in the ass to someone) will be out on 9/6, so less than a month away.bloodinelkcreek-500
  3. The Ugly Tin Orrery was reviewed by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam of Short Story Review. Spoiler: she liked it. The fact that she enjoyed it when she has previously not liked steampunk fills me with the sort of glee I normally reserve for puppies.
  4. In other Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam love stories, Comes the Huntsman also made it to her list of top 10 fairy tale short stories on SF Signal.

  5. I well be participating in the Broad Universe Rapid Fire Reading at Worldcon! The reading is at 10 AM on Sunday you should come see me.

Also, WANTED:

  1. I’d like to try start getting some guest blogging going. If you’re interested in putting a post of yours in this modest little space, I’d be happy to have you (WITHIN REASON). Just drop me a line on twitter (@katsudonburi) or at katsuhiro at gmail dot com.
  2. My ravenous ego demands more reviews, because the first two have been so awesomesauce. MORE REVIEWS I SAY. If you have a book review blog or column, I will make it rain digital ARCs for you. Or, you know, politely send one to your inbox all while showering you with kisses from across the internet.

#SFWAPro

Categories
writing

It’s a cover!

 

bloodinelkcreek-500Less than a month away–Blood in Elk Creek releases on 9/6! I can’t wait to share this one with you!

 

Categories
free read writing

Quick writing update

I know some people were wondering about the digital download for Waylines #4, which contains my story Samara and a little interview with me. Wonder no more! The digital download went live this morning and you can grab it at the Waylines website. There is also some additional content in the download that wasn’t in the original issue.

The digital download is free. As always, I encourage you to consider donating to the magazine if you like what they’re giving away. (I’m looking at it right now-it’s a nice pdf.)

I’m now in the thick of editing Blood in Elk Creek, by the way. I’m really pleased with how this one is turning out. (Been wondering about the Infected?) A little over a month until it will be available!

Man, I have just fallen in love with writing novellas. Long enough to have some real meat to them, but still short enough that writing then doesn’t feel like a marathon.

Categories
writing

On Rejection

image

Guess this is another day for the calendar of my writer life. Just started on my third bulldog clip of rejections. This, like salt crust on my cheek after a bike ride, is what effort looks like.

Cat for scale. Because geologist.

And because he’s cute.

Categories
writing

Current writing news

Just in case you haven’t watched me whining on Twitter (and if not, WHY NOT), I want to catch you up on what I’ve been doing:

  1. Last night I submitted the rough draft of the next Blood in Elk Creek, the next Captain Ramos novella. It’s due out in early September. This week has been a giant pile of stress because I was trying to finish the story up–and the story got away from me entirely and it’s something like 15,000 words longer than I intended. We’ll see if my amazing editor at Musa (hi Tricia!) helps me tame it a bit, but I think it’s fair to say this one has a lot of meat on its bones.
  2. Speaking of Captain Ramos, I wrote a guest blog post for my writer friend Catherine Lundoff in regards to the good Captain and the question of why Sherlock Holmes is always a white guy.
  3. And speaking of guest posts, here’s another I wrote about the film project I’m involved with: The Reel Britain. You should check out our IndieGoGo page. We are awesome have have cookies. And by cookies I mean perks.
  4. My story Breaking Orbit went out on the Daily Science Fiction mailing list on July 23rd! Super exciting since this is my first sale with Daily SF, and it’s also the shortest story I’ve written to date. It should be online on their website next week.
  5. I just sold The First Bone to Stupefying Stories. It’s a weird west short story, and I’ll let you know as soon as I find out when it’ll be published.
  6. I also just sold another story to Strange Horizons! Lightning has struck twice, and I’m so excited you wouldn’t believe! Significant Figures is a story of maths and waffles, and will be published later this year–I’ll let you know when I find out the exact date.

This has been an amazing year for writing so far, and there’s still five months left. I’m kind of stunned, to be honest. Stunned, and very, very happy. Very, very happy and very, very, very busy. Which is good. Or at least I’ll think it’s good once I’ve caught up on my sleep.

Categories
feminism women in science writing

In which I am interviewed

I was kind of surprised when I got a request for an interview for Laurel Zuckerman’s Paris Weblog. Turns out I caught her attention with my strongly-worded ire about the SFWA Bulletin issue #202 mess. This is actually the first interview I’ve ever had (even if it was by e-mail) and I was very nervous about it. But I think it turned out all right! Dimitri Keramitas asked me some really good questions, and I think I managed to not drool on myself as I typed. The topics ranged from the issue #202 thing to women in writing, women in science, and out from there.

I had a lot of fun, and hopefully you’ll find it interesting! (…and then I found out it was online by the President of SFWA tweeting about it and I may have peed just a little.)

Funny enough, right as I was working on this interview, Waylines also asked me to do a much shorter interview for issue #4. So you should check that out too for more interview-y goodness. It’s under “This Month’s Writers & Filmmakers” in the TOC.

Categories
writing

Samsara in Waylines

Surprise! I have a new short story out. This was actually a bit of a surprise to me, since while the editors had told me Issue #4 was going to go live at the beginning of the month, I somehow didn’t make the connection that my story would be in it. Surprise! Happy surprise.

To read the story, go to Waylines and look at the Issue #4 table of contents.

I’m super excited. I love the illustration they put with the story! And here’s how it starts out…

Dearest Chandra:I was the first to wake, one month out from our new home to be and twenty-four hours before everyone else. The bulk of the deceleration is already done; we’re at a bit less than normal Earth gravity now. Remember those little sleeper jaunts we used to do out to Io? It’s nothing like that, Chandra. I feel like the inside of my head’s been scrubbed with a wire brush, sinuses desiccated and tongue glued in place. I don’t think any language has suitable words for how I feel.
Look at that, I wrote science fiction… To read the rest, head over to Waylines! It’s free to read, but if you like the story please consider donating to them!
(#SFWApro)