Dec 7 2017

Outskirter Paperback is live!

Rosemary

I hit the switch a couple of days ago, but there was a delay on their end, as they suddenly required me to prove, absolutely prove that I really had the rights to this book.   Which I was able to do to their satisfaction.  So all is well.

No typos left. In theory. Probably.

Typically, Amazon.ca in Canada is lagging,  and if you buy it through them, you’ll really be buying from someone who bought from a supplier in the States, and who will charge you about double the actual cost.  Alas, Canada, I have no control over this.  It might be as much as a month before the real price comes through.  I suggest that you buy it from Amazon.com, ship it to a pal in the States, and then visit them for the holidays!  You know you owe them a visit.

While sloping around Amazon, checking on the status of the listing, I stumbled upon this:

Nah. Really.

There is no universe in which it makes sense for a copy of the first edition of The Outskirter’s Secret to cost $691.   Even less so $860.   Even autographed.  It’s got to be a cover for some illicit activity, like a kilo of cocaine or something.  Those in the know will know what they’re buying, wink-wink.

Okay, I’m getting punchy now.  Must go back to working on the cover and maps for the paperback of The Lost Steersman.  It’s really quite a long book, I’m discovering.

 

 


Aug 16 2015

On Maps

Rosemary

Way back in the misty depths of time, when I sold The Steerswoman to Del Rey Books, a conversation more or less like this took place one day:

Me: And I think there should be a map, too.

Them: That’s a great idea.  There should definitely be a map!

Me:  Great!  Let’s have a map.

Them: Right.

(silence)

Me: So… I guess we should get this book to whoever is doing the map —

Them: — and that would be you.

Me:  Me?

Them: You.

I had never made a map. I loved maps.  I’d read atlases for fun, and dream of far-off lands… but I’d never done one.

But now I had to do it — and it seemed I had to do it really soon. I grabbed every fantasy-style book with a map that I could find, got to the art store, figured out what I needed…

Hey, this was before the Internet, okay? Well, not completely before, but well before the Internet was a useful tool for the average tech-savvy person to use for research.  All my research was in person with physical books in libraries.

In the end, I managed to produce a map that did the job.

So… if you purchased a first edition of The Steerswoman, this is what you saw:

ouch

Ouch.

Sad. Very sad.  But the best I could do at that point.

And I discovered something: I liked doing it. It was fun.  And if you like something, you tend to get better at it.

Here’s the map that goes along with the The Steerswoman now:

Use CTL+ and CTL- to zoom in and out.

Click for full size, then CTL+ and CTL- to zoom in and out.

If you read the ebook on an iPad, or a Kindle Fire, this map is zoomable right in the book.  And you can zoom a lot. If you’re on a Kindle Paperwhite, or other non-color Kindle, it’s not zoomable — but still clear, and rather pretty (I also provide a URL to see the map online).

I’ve always had the idea that each book’s map will expand on the previous, so that your view of Rowan’s world will expand as her knowledge grows. When Del Rey did the omnibus of the first two books combined (as The Steerswoman’s Road) I had to combine the map for The Outskirter’s Secret with the map for The Steerswoman, and I feel we lost that sense of the world expanding. But now that they’re separate again as ebooks, I can have a different map for the second book again:

 

As ever, bigger is but a click away.

As ever, bigger is but a click away.

 

And by the time The Lost Steersman comes around:

 

Eastward expansion...

Eastward expansion…

Each map shows Rowan’s understanding of her world as of the beginning of the book (more or less).

The latest map, of course, is for The Language of Power —

Wait, do you really want to see that one? Because it contains MAJOR SPOILERS for The Lost Steersman!  If you haven’t read that yet, you might not want to go there…

Well, if you must, then click this link.

And what’s coming up?

More.

Also, more detail.  As well as widening the view, the next books will include some closer views of important locations. Of course, I’m really looking forward to The Crags map, because of the extremely interesting way that city is laid out.

And in other news: Going to Worldcon!  I might not be able to post much for the next, although I should manage a tweet or two (I am @rkirstein).

Maybe I’ll see you there…

 

 

 

 

 


May 5 2014

The Outskirter’s Secret now up on Smashwords (in all platforms!)

Rosemary

Which means that it will soon  be promulgated across to other ebook sellers (iBooks,  Barnes & Noble, Kobo, etc.).   But that hasn’t happened yet.

clickable!

clickable!

Only Smashwords so far.

 The Lost Steersman and The Language of Power should follow in the next couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, I have three days before surgery, and lots to do to set things up at home…


Apr 1 2014

Many thanks! Plus: Bumped by the blizzard

Rosemary

I want to thank all the people who jumped right in and bought copies of the ebooks for The Outskirter’s Secret and The Lost Steersman last week — My royalty check for the month of March is going to look very pretty!   And since my disability payments are only a fraction of my regular wage, the royalties help me a whole lot — so, again, my thanks to you all.

(Yes, Amazon pays out royalties on a monthly basis.  There’s a two-month delay between the month’s final calculation and the actual payment, so I’ll get paid for March at the end of May; but I can see what my sales are, and what my royalties will be, in as close to real-time as makes no difference.  This is VERY different from traditional publishing.)

I’ve emerged from my steroid crash, and am once again awake and alert.   So, The Language of Power ebook will be out before the end of this month.

In other news: I was supposed to get my Herceptin-only infusion on Monday, but to everyone’s surprise, the day dawned with rain, hail, sleet and snow coming down in remarkable amounts at astonishing speeds.   Last day of March!   You know the proverb about March coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb — but apparently this year “going out like a lamb” refers to some poor lamb being born in a blizzard (which I understand does happen) and then DYING OF EXPOSURE to the cruel elements before the the shepherd manages to find it and carry it to the shepherd hut to warm up (I’m picturing Granny Aching from Terry Pratchett’s Wee Free Men series, here).

We tried to get out to the hospital, but every route we tried had a spinout, or an accident, or a bus spinning its wheels, unable to make it up an unplowed hill.  We had to turn around.

So, doing it today instead.  The Chemo suite is jammed with people: Tuesday’s regulars, plus those bumped from Monday.

The trend is still generally good — the tumor’s shrinkage means we’ll be doing a lumpectomy instead of a mastectomy.   This is excellent.  However, lumpectomies “come with” radiation therapy, as my oncologist puts it.   Previously we’d thought we might be able to do without the radiation.  But this is a trade-off I’m happy to make!  Because: no mastectomy.

One fairly inconvenient thing: a significant percentage of patients being treated with Taxol have a side-effect called peripheral neuropathy, where they develop pins-and-needles sensations and numbness, which starts at the tips of the fingers and toes, and can sometimes creep further and further up.    I’m one of those patients, unfortunately; but fortunately, my symptoms are comparatively mild.

But, a further downside: it can be permanent.   We won’t know if it’s permanent in my case, unless it actually fails to go away — and even the temporary kind can take many months to clear up.   But I count myself lucky that it’s no worse than it is.   Because: Hey, I’m not dead!   I win!

Other good news:  when my pal Brian was here filling in in as caretaker while Sabine caught some sea & sun in Florida, he discovered a good Indian restaurant just down the street from me.  Excellent, another win!

It’s Wins all around, basically.


Feb 19 2014

Con or Bust auction: All the Steerswoman books, plus map and jewel

Rosemary

I finished my offering for the Con or Bust auction, and it’s up for bidding right now!

Here’s what you get:

all the books.  A map.  A mysterious jewel-like object

all the books. A map. A mysterious jewel-like object

These are the trade paperbacks, published by Del Rey.  The first book, The Steerswoman’s Road combines The Steerswoman and The Outskirter’s Secret in combination, so with these three books  you get all four volumes of the series.

The map is Rowan’s world as of the beginning of Book 4, so it includes the Dolphin Stair from The Lost Steersman.   The map is framed in a shadowbox, and I’ve included an example of the so-called jewel that started the whole story back in Book 1.

If you win the auction, I’ll ship these to you anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere.  (South of the equator, shipping costs get crazy.  I’m looking at you, Australia and New Zealand.  If you really want these, have me ship to a pal of yours in the Northern Hemisphere, and you and he or she can work it out from there.)

Secret fact not mentioned on Con or Bust, known only to you: the paper on which the map is printed was hand-made by me, back in my paper-making days.  I think it came out pretty nice.  And I’ll include a blank sheet of that same paper for your own use.

And naturally, I’ll autograph the books at your  request.  You can choose just the autograph and date, or I’ll personalize it (“To YourNameHere, SomeNiceComment, etc.”)  Sometimes people don’t want autographs  to be personalized, since it affects the book’s resale value — and these books are now out of print, and very hard to find.

So, if you want these, head over to the Con or Bust auction, and put in a bid.   Bidding ends on February 23 at 5PM Eastern Time.

And while you’re over there, browse through the other items up for auction.   There are some lovely, interesting, and exciting items and services donated by all sorts of people.   If you look at the tags list in the right-hand column on the Con or Bust page, you can browse by categories — or you can just continue to click through page after page of random cool stuff (my preferred method of exploration).

And don’t forget Delia Sherman’s auction offering: a critique of your novel, via Skype!


Oct 21 2013

As you may have noticed… (Plus: out-take)

Rosemary

I’m still digging in on the writing, and will continue for the rest of October. Hence, blog posts remain far between. I had been spending a lot of time wrapped up in peripheral writing-related and writing-supportive activities, when it occurred to me that the best writing-related and writing-supportive activity of all was — hello!– WRITING! So I’ve let pretty much everything else sit on the sidelines and cool its heels for a while.

The 4-day dayjob work week is still very helpful — although the reduction in take-home pay does require some careful attention to my weekly spending!

With the Thanksgiving holiday coming up, I managed to score some days off in November, and I once again have the whole sweep from the weekend before until the weekend after completely free. I’m planning on doing my usual thing of skipping the holiday entirely, leaving my sister to her own devices, and decamping to an undisclosed location for a whole bunch of talking to no one and doing nothing but writing, thinking deep thoughts, and contemplating the universe.

Presently searching for a location to do that — but airfare anywhere (not to mention a rental car when I get there) is pretty much out of my reach right now. I’m thinking smaller, local, drivable or public transportable. Research and consideration is in progress.

In other news: Oh, look! Another out-take!

This is a scene from The Outskirter’s Secret that got left on the cutting-room floor for very good reasons.    Not that it’s bad — just that it was not needed, and the book was running rather long.  It was located in a place where it did not help the pacing, and it’s message is largely “The Outskirts are strange,” which fact is covered in many ways, throughout the book.

But I find it fun, so I thought I’d share it…

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