I am delighted to announce that the latest book from Wizard’s Tower Press is now available for purchase. As I mentioned last week, Turns and Chances is a stand-alone novella set in Juliet McKenna’s world of Einarinn. It introduces us to the country of Lescar, which became the setting for the Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution series. Juliet talks about the book here. You can buy it in our bookstore now. It will become available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Kobo over the next few days.
Wizard’s Tower
ChiZine Books in the Bookstore
Regular visitors to the bookstore may notice that some of the titles from ChiZine publications have disappeared. The reason for that is that ChiZine has done a distribution deal with HarperCollins Canada and Cooke International (who handle foreign rights). This is great for them, and for their authors, because they get their books into a lot more stores. But it means that the books are now subject to region restrictions, so I can’t sell them any more. You will, of course, still be able to buy the books from stores that impose region restrictions. Most of the books will be back in the store in a few months time when the exclusivity agreement in the Cooke International contract expires.
June Magazines
Another month, more magazines. This month’s Clarkesworld is full of science fictional goodness. All three stories this month have an SFnal tinge to them. We have:
- “Immersion” by Aliette de Bodard (also in audio)
- “If The Mountain Comes” by An Owomoyela
- “You Were She Who Abode” by E. Catherine Tobler
The non-fiction opens with a great article by Stephen Gaskell that surveys the various sources science fiction novels have used for energy — all the way from Verne shooting his astronauts out of a cannon to zero point field energy.
Also in non-fiction, Jeremy has a round table about economics which ought to be interesting but has a very mixed bag of participants. Daniel Abraham talks about multiculturalism, and Neil presents some fascinating statistics about the magazine.
This month’s cover is “Target Detected” by Max Davenport.
Also new out is issue #25 of Lightspeed. It has plenty of great short fiction, but as usual I’ll focus on the carrots for buying the ebook edition — material you won’t find for free online. If you enjoyed the first part of Jeff Ford’s novel, The Cosmology of the Wider World (which I reviewed here when it first came out from PS Publishing) then you can read the concluding part in this issue. There are also sample chapters from the new novels by David Brin and N.K. Jemisin.
New Book – Turns & Chances
Next week Wizard’s Tower will be releasing the next volume in Juliet McKenna’s back catalog. Turns & Chances was originally published as a standalone novella by PS Publishing, but is now out of print. The story is set in the country of Lescar, and on reading the book Chaz Brenchley told Juliet that Lescar sounded ripe for revolution. As Juliet explains here, this led her to write the Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution series, so Turns & Chances has a very important place in the story of Einarinn.
Our ebook edition uses the same magnificent Edward Miller artwork as the original (see below) and includes an introduction from Chaz that explains his thoughts about the book.
Turns & Chances will be on sale late next week. I’ll let you know as soon as it is available.
A Mythopoeic Award Nominee
One of the things that makes me very happy about my bookstore is that it contains a book by Ursula K. Le Guin. Normally, of course, Le Guin gets published by the big multi-national companies who put DRM on their books and don’t want anything to do with little stores like mine. When it comes to non-fiction, however, even the greatest authors don’t always get big deals. Cheek by Jowl, “a collection of talks and essays on how and why fantasy matters”, is published by Aqueduct Press, and so we have it in store. And it is just been short-listed for a Mythopoeic Award. Find out more about the book here.
New Magazines
We have two new PDF magazines available in the bookstore.
Bull Spec #7 includes fiction, poetry, interviews, essays and reviews.
Icarus #12 has a similar mix of content, but with particular emphasis on gay characters.
And I think I am now up to date with the shop, at least in terms of what I have. Now to chase things I would like to have.
New From Prime
With all of the back catalog now loaded into the bookstore, I can start on the new releases. As expected, our friends at Prime have been very busy. Here’s what they have produced for you in the last few weeks.
Not one book, but three. This is a classic cyberpunk trilogy from one of the founders of the genre, John Shirley. It has nuclear war, religious fundamentalists, and rock starts. A Song Called Youth – John Shirley (£13.45).
A novel of crime, gods and demons: Powers – James A. Burton. (£4.49)
Book One of The Vampire Musketeers. Yes, you read that right: sharp rapiers, and even sharper teeth. Sword & Blood – Sarah Marques (£4.49)
A new reprint anthology from Rich Horton & Sean Wallace. This one features stories about war in space. Featured authors include Ken Macleod, Al Reynolds, Cat Valente, Robert Reed, Sandra McDonald, Nancy Kress, Genevieve Valentine and Paul McAuley. The book also features the fabulous Hugo-nominated novella, “The Political Officer” by Charles Coleman Finlay. War and Space – Rich Horton & Sean Wallace (£4.49)
And finally a second anthology, this time from Paula Guran. Witches: Wicked, Wild & Wonderful features stories from big name writers such as Neil Gaiman, Ursula K. Le Guin, Elizabeth Bear, Margo Lanagan and Kelly Link. Two of the stories, including one by Tim Pratt, are original to the collection. (£4.49)
I’ve also taken a quick peek at what they have lined up for June. Top of the list is Worldsoul by Liz Williams. Oh yes!
International Day Against DRM
Today is apparently International Day Against DRM. The fine folks at Angry Robot are running a one-day 50% off sale on all their ebook titles, which are all DRM free. There are some fine books in there. There are titles by Lauren Beukes, Kaaron Warren and Lavie Tidhar, plus a couple I have reveiwed recently: The Alchemist of Souls by Anne Lyle, and Debris by Jo Anderton.
You may ask why I am not running a similar sale at my own store. Well, that’s because I don’t have the margins. Almost all the money I take in goes direct to the publishers (which in many cases are the authors). Organizing a sale of that type would require a lot of negotiation. But all of my books are DRM free, and there are lots of really great authors including Gwyneth Jones, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Adam Roberts, Ekaterina Sedia, Nisi Shawl, Catherynne M. Valente and Genevieve Valentine.
Lesbian Werewolves, Anyone?
Yes, I’ve got a new book from Lethe in the bookstore.
Silver Moon by Catherine Lundoff got a nice review from Publishers Weekly. So if lesbian werewolves are your thing, you know what to do.
Locus Award Finalists
These were released last night shortly before I went to bed. You can see all of the lists here. Remember that these are not short lists. The winners are already known, and there is no additional round of voting. Locus simply releases the names of the top five in each category early so as to build interest in the awards.
I’m delighted to see Clarkesworld in the Best Magazine category, and “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” by E. Lily Yu in the Short Story category. I’m also very pleased to see people like Cat Valente, Ian McDonald, Kameron Hurley, Ken Liu, Nnedi Okorafor, CaitlÃn R. Kiernan and Genevieve Valentine in the lists.
We have two finalists in the bookstore. Here they are:
| Mechanique by Genevieve Valentine (Best First Novel) |
Silently and Very Fast by Catherynne M. Valente (Best Novella) |
B&N Meets Microsoft
The big industry news from yesterday, which I was too busy traveling to comment on, was the deal between Barnes & Noble and Microsoft regarding the Nook e-reader. John Scalzi has some thoughts on it here.
My own view is that this is a very smart move by both of them. B&N in particular was handicapped by the poor quality of its online presence compared to Amazon. Microsoft has the software expertise and deep pockets required to invest heavily in a better shopping experience, and hopefully a worldwide presence. And as far as Microsoft is concerned it gives them a content platform for their Windows-based mobile devices.
Scalzi talks about wanting a better way for independent booksellers to enter the market, which is an issue I talked about here. Somehow I don’t see either Microsoft or B&N being interested in building an open distribution platform. However, the more competition there is in ebook selling, the more incentive there will be for someone to create one.
May Clarkesworld & Lightspeed
It’s that first of the month time again. Being somewhat travel-frazzled today, I’ve not paid a great deal of attention to the new magazines, but I have got them into the store. Here’s what we have.
The lead story in Clarkesworld is “Prayer” by one of my favorite SF writers, Robert Reed. As usual, that’s available in audio, read by the fabulous Baker girl.
Also available in fiction are “Synch Me, Kiss Me, Drop” by promising Canadian author, Suzanne Church, and “All The Things The Moon Is Not” by Alexander Lumans. Alexander got his first ever short fiction sale in Clarkesworld five years ago, and we are delighted to see how he has prospered since.
Jeremy’s interview for May is with fantasy author, Michael J. Sullivan. Jason’s column is “The Fairy Tale in the TV Age” by Alethea Kontis (hi Princess!). And the new Another Word column sees Elizabeth Bear sit speculative fiction down and have a little chat.
Neil’s editorial, fairly inevitably, focuses on the honors Clarkesworld has once again collected in the Hugos. And this month’s cover is “Sci-Fi Farmer” by Jessada Sutthi.
The new Lightspeed has new fiction from Linda Nagata, C.C. Finlay, Dale Bailey and Melanie Rawn. Charlie Finlay’s story is called “The Cross-Time Accountants Fail To Kill Hitler Because Chuck Berry Does The Twist”, which you pretty much have to read. There is also reprint fiction from Nicola Griffith, Dave Langford, Cat Valente and Kage Baker.
Lightspeed does that marketing thing of putting exclusive content in the ebook edition, which you have to pay for. This months offerings are extracts from the new novels by Paolo Baccigalupi and Kim Stanley Robinson.
Both magazines are available from the bookstore.
Ditmar Nominations
The nominee lists for Australia’s Ditmar Awards were announced recently. I note that the Best Novel nominees are all women. Aussie women also dominate (I keep using that word to wind up Mondy) all of the other fiction categories. There has been much talk about them on the latest Galactic Suburbia podcast. Naturally there are many Twelfth Planet books and stories on the ballot, and most of them we have available for you to buy. Here they are.
| Above/Below – Stephanie Campisi & Ben Peek |
Bad Power – Deborah Biancotti |
| Love and Romanpunk – Tansy Rayner Roberts |
Thief of Lives – Lucy Sussex |
Back In Store – Book View Cafe
I’m on my way to Zagreb, but to keep you amused while I’m traveling here is more news of the book store re-stock. All 57 titles from Book View Cafe are now available. Some of the authors they publish include:
Probably the most famous book in their catalog is Lord of the Two Lands by Judith Tarr, which was a World Fantasy Award nominee.
DRM-Free and the Indy Bookstore
The big news today is that Tor, probably the best known SF&F publisher in America, will be going DRM-free on their ebooks by July. You can read wise words about this from two of their authors, Charlie Stross and John Scalzi.
Charlie and I, together with Bella Pagan of Tor UK, will be on a panel about e-publishing at the Eurocon over the weekend. I’m sure this topic will come up.
Why is this happening now? Well I guess it may have something to do with the ongoing unfriendliness between Macmillan (Tor’s owners) and Amazon. Being DRM-free makes it much easier for Macmillan to sell books outside of Amazon. Why? Well for an independent bookstore like mine implementing DRM is a major expense. I just couldn’t do it. People like Weightless Books and Webscriptions can’t do it either. Angry Robot don’t do it, and I suspect that the problems of implementing DRM is one of the main reasons why Gollancz doesn’t sell books directly from SF Gateway.
By going DRM-free, Tor is removing one of the main obstacles to selling their books through independent bookstores like mine. And they can then encourage people to buy from those stores rather than Amazon.
Does that mean that I’ll be selling Tor books soon? Well, I don’t know. I’d like to, but the Tor folks will be making their own decisions as to where to put their books on sale. There are other issues to consider. Here are a few.
Firstly, selling through ebook stores is still a pain in the butt, because there’s no sensible distribution system. With paper books all a publisher has to do is sign up with one or more of the major distribution companies and then sit back and wait for orders. With ebooks the relationship is generally direct with the store, and each store is different. Crucially all the big stores have their own, idiosyncratic submission systems and contracts. So a publisher won’t want to deal with a new store unless they think it is worth their while (which means they expect big sales).
Some of the existing distributors are trying to provide an ebook service, but the one I have looked at requires that all books have DRM. There are aggregation services as well, that offer to submit your books to multiple stores, but they seem set up to prey on independent authors rather than provide services to small publishers.
Another issue for big publishers is region restrictions. That’s something else that an independent bookstore can’t afford to implement. Any book I sell has to have worldwide rights. That may preclude Tor from working with me, at least for some of their catalog. But I think it also means that region restrictions will start to go away more quickly.
Finally there is Amazon to consider. They don’t back away from a fight, and if Tor starts selling books through other outlets you can bet that Amazon will go after those outlets aggressively. I don’t know how, as yet, but I know they will. So a big publisher will want to pick their allies carefully.
Back in Store – Lethe Press
The bookstore re-load continues, and I’m delighted to report that all of the books I had from Lethe Press are now available again. They have produced a lot of great books. Here are a couple of favorites.
| Diana Comet and Other Improbable Stories – Sandra McDonald |
Shadow Man – Melissa Scott |
Shirley Jackson Award Short Lists
The nominees for this year’s Shirley Jackson Awards were announced over the weekend. Ellen Datlow naturally figures prominently, and I see many of my other friends on the ballot: Deb Biancotti, Liz Hand, Peter Straub, Jeff Ford, Kelly Link, Ann & Jeff VanderMeer. Not to mention some fine writers I wish I knew better, such as Lucius Shepard, Mary Rickert and Genevieve Valentine. Special congratulations are due to Kit Reed for getting on the ballot at the age of 80.
The book I want to highlight, however, is the one that I have for sale. Engines of Desire: Tales of Love & Other Horrors, by Livia Llewellyn, was published by the fine folks at Lethe Press. It is a nominee in the Single-Author Collection category, and a story from it, “Omphalosâ€, is in the Novelette category. You can find out more about the book, and read an extract, here.
Some Smaller Presses
I’m slowly working through getting all of the books from Lethe and Book View Cafe back in the store, but in the meantime here are a couple of small publishers you might want to check out.
Firstly we have Peggy Bright Books from Australia. I haven’t, as yet, figured out how to configure the store to allow me to sell their paper editions as well, but you can now get ebook copies at very reasonable prices.
Also I have a book by one of this year’s Hugo nominees. Clearly many of you love the blog that Jim C. Hines runs (and quite right too, IMHO), but have you read any of his fiction? We have his collection, Goblin Tales. Only £1.99. Worth a try, yes?
Welcome Back, Aqueduct
More news from the bookstore. I’m delighted to have all of the Aqueduct Press books available again. That includes Gwyneth Jones’ magnificent Aleutian trilogy, and Kelley Eskridge’s wonderful collection, Dangerous Space. Aqueduct’s catalog contains so many award winners that it was hard to pick one to highlight for this post, but eventually I went with Mindscape by Andrea Hairston, which was on the Tiptree Honor List, was a finalist for the Dick, and won the Carl Brandon Parallax Award.
Andrea’s latest book, Redwood and Wildfire, won this year’s Tiptree. I’m hoping that Aqueduct will let me stock that one too.
Frawgs In Store (again)
The bookstore re-stock project continues as fast as I can manage. I’m now pleased to report that I have Ann & Jeff VanderMeer Cheeky Frawg Books available. You can see all seven titles here. They are all delightfully weird. If you are looking for something really bizarre, why not try The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals.