Technical Difficulties

New LGBT historical mystery by Elizabeth Bear and me starring a teenage Christopher Marlowe! Available on Amazon. Also a bunch of other places.

The Goblin Emperor is now available as an audio book from Tantor Audio.

(I am SUPER EXCITED. This is the first time any of my books has been made into an audio book, and it's something I've lusted after for years.)

Please help spread the word, as I know many people find audio books fit better into their lives than text-on-paper/screen books.

The last of my guest posts is live at Bibliosanctum, on the court intrigues of the elves and the goblisn.

ICYMI, the master list of all the guest posts and interviews I did for The Goblin Emperor is here.

Also, thank you to everyone who invited me to write something for them!

The Goblin Emperor has gone back for a second printing!

On MAY SIXTH I am doing an AMA-type event at Bitten by Books. We kick off at noon CST and I would love to see you there! ETA: if you RSVP here you get 25 entries in the giveaway contest (5 copies of The Goblin Emperor to give away!) when you show up for the event.

I've done guest posts at:

• SF Signal (genre conventions in fantasy)
  
• The Booksmugglers (grimdark)
  
• A Dribble of Ink (hope in fantasy)
  
• Fantasy Cafe (women in Tolkien)

And interviews with:

• Dungeon Crawlers Radio
  
• The Book Plank
  
• Between Dreams and Reality
  
• My Bookish Ways

I will have at least four more guest posts and a podcast interview appearing like daffodils in the month of May.

And just a reminder, because seriously this cannot be said enough times, to help the career of ANY WRITER YOU LOVE, Buy, Read, Talk.

FIRST, Happy Book Day to Felix Gilman, whose book The Revolutions also comes out today. I don't know Mr. Gilman personally, but I admire his writing. And The Revolutions sounds awesome.

SECOND, Happy Book Day to me! To celebrate, my invaluable webtamer has put up the map of the Ethuveraz on katherineaddison.com.

THIRD, there's also a FAQ. I'm sure that more questions will need to be added for The Goblin Emperor, but I haven't been asked them yet.

FOURTH, John Scalzi graciously let me do a Big Idea post about fantasy and technology.

FIFTH, for Forces of Geek, I did a post about inventing languages.

SIXTH, for Tor-dot-com, I wrote a post about coming-of-age stories and quests.

SEVENTH, I also did the Pop Quiz at the End of the Universe for Tor-dot-com and can't remember if I posted the link or not.

EIGHTH and furthermore, there's a Q&A up at Riffle.

NINTH, if you haven't had enough of me yet, there will be other guest blog posts cropping up as my gracious hosts' schedules permit. I will, of course, post links.

TENTH, not one atom of this post is an April Fool's joke.

ETA: ELEVENTH, Tor-dot-com's That Was Awesome feature, in which I explain why you should be reading Scott Lynch.

First, THANK YOU SO MUCH TO EVERYONE who suggested a name. You are all awesome, and I love all your suggestions.

In fact, not only was I not able to choose ONE correct name and ONE favorite, I couldn't even manage to choose TWO.

THEREFORE.

The sock elephant's name is Eleftheria Ada Lavanda Snodgrass, and her nickname is Elsu.

Eleftheria Snodgrass was suggested by Zafar (who does not have an LJ account), and I combined it with Ada Lavanda from aerinha, because (a) I loved both names and (b) she just seems to need a ridiculously long dactylic name. On the other hand, you can't call somebody Eleftheria Ada Lavanda Snodgrass all the time. The nickname Elsu was suggested by nipernaadiagain.

My three favorite names, in no particular order, are:
1. Aerandir (@MollyKanHas)
2. Galahadral (ejmam)
3. Madame Socky-Trunk (neko_san)

SO. Zafar, aerinha, nipernaadiagain, @MollyKanHas, ejmam, and neko_san, you have each won a copy of The Goblin Emperor! Email me at semonette (at) gmail (dot) com. Put "sock elephant" in the subject line so I know what it's about. Then tell me:

1. Name and shipping address. (I will ship anywhere in the world, no need to worry.)
2. Do you want the book personalized? (If you don't, no harm, no foul.)
3. IF YOU DO, to whom? (If there's a particular version of your name that makes you happier, please specify it.)

Once I have your information, I will send your book to you as quickly as I can.

Again, thank you to the winners, and thank you to everyone who made a suggestion. You have all brightened my life considerably, and I appreciate it.

Eleftheria Ada Lavanda Snodgrass thanks you, too.

Tor.com has kindly collected the first four chapters of The Goblin Emperor here, for all your teaser needs.

Back in 2009, when my career as a novelist went into a nosedive, somebody asked me what my readers could do to help. I apologize wholeheartedly to that person, for I no longer remember who they are. At the time, I didn't have a good answer, both because I really didn't know and because there was, at that point, nothing readers could do.

But now, five years later, when The Goblin Emperor is finally coming out this April (under my penname Katherine Addison, since alert readers have pointed out that I should probably mention that), I do have an answer, and I'm offering it up--not merely on my own behalf, but so that you all, as readers, know how to help the career of any writer whose work you like. And, as it turns out, the answer is simple. There are three major things any reader can do to support a writer:

1. BUY THE BOOK

I cannot emphasize this strongly enough. Buying the book is absolutely the best thing you can do to help a writer. And that means buying the book when it comes out.

That's easy for my book in this particular instance: it's a standalone. But I know there are a lot of people--and I'm one of them--who much prefer to wait to buy the books of a series until the series is complete. The problem is that the message that strategy sends to publishers isn't, "I'm waiting to buy this book until I can buy all the books." The message it sends is, "I'm not going to buy the book." And you end up with a situation like I was in in 2009: by the time the fourth book came out, the second book was out of print (so that readers who were waiting for the series to be complete were now unable to buy all the books), and Ace had already decided not to offer me a new contract. By the time the series was complete, in other words, my publishing career with that publisher was already over; people buying the fourth book (and Corambis, like The Mirador, is still in print) had no effect on my career at all. It was too late.

Another grim--and frequently realized--possibility is that later books of a series never come out at all. Publishers don't necessarily buy all the books in a series when they buy Book One. (Again, to use me as an example, Ace bought Mélusine and The Virtu together, but they didn't buy The Mirador and Corambis until two years later when they'd had a chance to see the sales figures on Mélusine, which is the only one of the four that earned out its advance.) If they don't like the sales figures on Book One, they may choose not to buy the later books at all. Again, the people who were waiting to buy the series never register as potential sale; they register as No Sale.

So if you're one of those people who prefers to wait (and I promise you, I understand and I sympathize), buy the book anyway. Again, this isn't just about my career, because it isn't just in my case that publishing works this way. Any author you like, if they start a series, buy the books as they come out. Nobody will make you read them until the series is complete, and buying the books as they appear is the only direct way you can tell the publisher you want the series to continue.

2. READ THE BOOK

(I know this is self-evident, but it just felt weird leaving it out.)

3. TELL THE WORLD

There is an indirect way you can tell the publisher you want the series to continue, or the author to be offered another contract, and that is to tell everyone you know that you like the book.

Seriously.

Nobody actually understands why readers choose to buy the books they do. Nobody understands why J. K. Rowling took the world by storm and Diana Wynne Jones never did. Nobody understands why The Name of the Rose was a best-seller. Or Fifty Shades of Gray. Or A Game of Thrones. Publishers are trying their damnedest to find the books that will replicate this phenomenon, but they do it by guess and gamble, and when they succeed, they don't know why, either. Nobody knows why people buy books.

The thing we do know is that word-of-mouth is the best and most persuasive way for a potential reader to find out about a book.

So if you like the book, tell your friends. Tell your family. Tell your co-workers. Tell anyone you know who you think might like it. Blog about it. Write an Amazon review of it. Ask your library to buy it. (And if you can't afford to buy the book yourself, getting the library to buy it and checking the book out is an excellent alternative.) Get your book club to read it. Spread the word.

Now, none of this is obligatory. I'm not issuing commands here. I'm saying that, if there is a writer whose books you like, these are the best things you can do to help their career continue. And it holds true for self-published authors, as well. The mechanics are different, but those fundamental needs are the same. Authors need readers first and foremost to read their books, because without that, none of this even matters. But to make their careers flourish, authors need readers to buy their books and to talk about them.

Buy, Read, Talk. (Like Eat, Pray, Love, only for books.) That's my answer. That's how readers can help the career of an author whose works they enjoy.

And my first resolution for 2014 was to make this post.

Back when my career with Ace went belly up, a number of people asked what they could do to help. At the time, although I desperately appreciated the support, I didn't know what to say--and in any event, at that juncture the horse was already over the hill and far away and there was no point to mending the barn door. But now, I've got books out again, and I SWEAR TO GOD I AM GOING TO FINISH THIS NOVEL, and I have a couple things I've learned that readers can do to help any author's career.

1. Buy their books.
I know this looks obvious, but it doesn't hurt to say it again. If you like the author, buy their books. Or ask your local library (or libraries) to buy their books. And--and this is important--if they're writing a series, don't wait until the series is complete to buy their books. I understand the logic from the reader's end, but the problem is that publishers can't tell the difference between going to buy the book when the series is complete and not going to buy the book. It all looks the same in the sales figures for Book I. Which means that if you wait to buy Book I until Book V is out, odds are good that (a.) Book I won't be in print anymore and (b.), even worse, Book V may never get published at all. Buy the books when they're new, even if you don't read them right away. This benefits the author, whose numbers look better; this benefits the publisher, who is, hey, selling books; and in turn this benefits the reader, because Book V will get published after all.

2. Talk about their books.
This also looks obvious, but it also bears repeating. Because, actually, the one thing we know about how book-buying works is that it works best by word-of-mouth. People buy books because they hear other people (friends, relatives, bloggers, two guys on the bus, whatever) talking about them. So if you like a book, tell your friends. If you have a blog, blog about it. Share your enthusiasm. I don't mean this in a scary you-must-drink-the-Kool-Aid kind of way, and I'm certainly not saying that everyone who reads this must go out and proselytize MY books. But if you like an author enough that you want to help them keep authoring, spread the word. Give their books as gifts, even--which loops neatly back to Rule 1 and makes this a good place to end this post.

If you want to help an author's career, this is what I know about doing it.