It's Nearly Time For The Ursvaal Exchange

It's in the nature of publishing that things move very slowly until suddenly they're moving very quickly indeed.  It seems only a couple of weeks ago that I was working to finish off the third draft of The Black River Chronicles: Level One sequel The Ursvaal Exchange, while Mike and I back-and-forthed about getting our star copy editor Anne Zanoni and our genius cover artist Kim Van Deun booked in.

And the reason for that is that it actually was only a couple of weeks ago.  But now the third draft is in Anne's more than capable hands, and now Kim and I have discussed where we'd like to go with this second cover, and basically it's all happening, with the finish line still a little way off but definitely in sight.  Having given my all to the third draft for the last couple of months, I'm rather glad that the book will be Anne's problem for the next few weeks, and that my main job now is just geeking out with Kim over how cool we can make this thing look.  Even based on the rough sketches I've seen, I can say that the answer is going to be, very damn cool indeed.  I sort of wish I could share them, but I can't, and not only for the obvious, publishing-secretiveness type reasons either.  Nope, I have to keep quiet because Mike's told me to sort out all that cover-related stuff myself this time around, and he doesn't want to see anything until it's done.  No pressure right?  Well, not really, as it turns out, since all I have to do is prod Kim in the general direction of ideas for an awesome image and then let him knock it out of the park.  Basically, covers are by far the most fun part of making books, and anyone who says differently is a liar.

(Though, hey, audiobooks are pretty fun too.  And I just reminded myself that the Level One audiobook that was recorded a while back has finally made its way through whatever labyrinthine process it takes to get an audiobook on Amazon.  It's also really astonishingly cheap - $1.66 at time of writing - and since it's not likely to stay that way forever, this might be the ideal time to nab a copy, yes?  And because I can't stop thinking or talking about covers right now, can I just say that this is my favourite version of Level One's: it's just so satisfyingly square, and I like the logo down there in the corner too.  Digital has cool logos, and they don't get showcased enough.)

Anyway, we were talking about The Ursvaal Exchange, right?  We don't have a release date locked down yet. at least not to the day, but I can say with confidence that it'll be out before Christmas, and hopefully by a comfortable margin.  There'll be more news, of course, as we have it; and who knows, perhaps a bit of a sample too?  That certainly seems like the sort of thing we could rustle up.

Help Someone Nice Go Somewhere Horrible

I've met many nice people in this industry since I became a published writer, and many very capable people, but high on either list would be Anne Zanoni, who as anyone who knows her even slightly will attest is both a lovely human being and a highly accomplished Copy Editor, with an understanding of and devotion to her craft that would do credit to anyone in any profession.  I know this at first hand because Anne did the copy edit on Crown Thief, which is notable amongst the three Easie Damasco books for being the only one where horses behave even vaguely like real horses, objects and people act remotely in accordance with the laws of physics and the geography actually makes a degree of sense.  (Actually I tell a lie, these things are largely true of Prince Thief as well, but only because I thought Anne would be copy editing that one too and was scared she'd tell me off.)

Get up close to the screen and you can actually feel the misery.

My point, lest I start to wander more than I already have, is that Anne is good people.  And she's not been having an easy time of it lately, for various reasons, and right now she has something she really, really would like to do - that being attending the 2014 Worldcon in London.  However, being as freelance Copy Editors are paid about as well as everyone else in this industry, she doesn't have anything like the funds to make that dream a reality.  For this reason she's set up an Indiegogo campaign to try and scrape together the requisite cash.

You can find Anne's campaign page here and her rather more coherent explanation of the whole thing here.  Please take a look and then consider throwing a few quid Anne's way.  Because all else aside, she has some funny ideas about London, and we should all help her to see it for the seamy, noisy, overcrowded hellhole it is.

(Sorry, London.)

Oh, point of trivia: that photo on Anne's Indiegogo page, I took that on my last day of regular work.  Man, I don't miss that city even one little bit.

(Sorry again London.)

More Power to the Electric Velocipede

In plenty of ways, Kickstarter might have been designed with the publishing industry in mind; or perhaps modelled after it, since the whole subscription concept is pretty much based on trying to sell your product before it comes out.  I've noticed Kickstarter being used quite a lot by the small press, and even the odd professional zine, and the results always seem to be positive.  It's interesting and a little exciting that something like that has come along to help our always-slightly-beleagured industry and that so many people are embracing it.  It's going to be interesting to see how this one goes, whether it's the beginning of a sea change in how magazines are funded or whether it'll peter out to nothing in a couple of years, like so many internet fads before it.

Anyway, the last time I talked about Kickstarter, it was in aid of an editor and a project I had plenty of time for, and that's equally the case this time around.  Electric Velocipede has had a troubled time over the last couple of years, with a lengthy hiatus while it shifted over from print to electronic status - but through all that it's remains one of the best and most deservedly Hugo-nominated magazines out there, under the editorship of John Klima and recently with the able assistance of world's bestest copy editor Anne Zanoni.  It very much deserves a new lease of life, and based on the results so far, looks set to get it.

Now, as usual I have a degree of bias here, since John published my story Dancing in the Winter Rooms not so long ago, and Anne hunted down and sorted out every last one of my dumbass mistakes and wild logical inconsistencies in Crown Thief while wearing her other, freelance copyeditor hat.  Still, that should only be taken as more evidence for the fact that EV is great and deserving of having money thrown at it.  And hey, if you pledge a thousand dollars, you get to travel back in time and witness the crucial and formative events in John's life that led to him becoming an editor in the first place.*  How cool is that?


* Sadly, not true.  Electric Velocipede in no way condones the abuse of time travel.