Stacia Kane

First some YAYNEWS! My wonderful agentman has just sold UNHOLY GHOSTS, UNHOLY MAGIC, and CITY OF GHOSTS to Schibsted Forlag in Norway! I have no idea what the titles might translate to or when the books will be published there or anything else, but it’s awesome just the same. So I’m very excited.

Second, just a quick note re the blog. From now on, all links posted will open in a new window.

So. This is fun. Remember last week when I blogged about those two YADS? And basically just said hey, these sites don’t tend to work for me, because I don’t personally want to wade through slush? One of those sites took great offense, I guess, to the fact that I pointed out on AW that their stated goal of getting two thousand reviews for a book before it’s published is an extremely difficult one to reach (I assume that was the issue, since as far as I could tell they didn’t even see my blog post), and sent me a nice little email about it. Only, they didn’t actually email me about their site or why I was wrong about it. And it wasn’t actually a nice email. And they didn’t even mention their site. Instead they informed me that my writing “sucks shit balls,” that my books are dull and unoriginal, and that “you new authors” (I guess having only five years of being commercially published still makes me a “new author”) are “all the same” and don’t know how to tell a story “old school.”

Of course, since they apparently don’t understand what an IP address is or how one can be tracked through websites, I guess they thought this was a very clever little attack on me, sure to leave me crying into my pillow. Unluckily for them, I do know what an IP address is and how it can be tracked through websites, and so was able to identify them pretty much immediately, even between bouts of laughter and head-shaking at the feebleness of that attempt to upset me.

So, my initial “Sigh, people have tried this before and it doesn’t work” reservation about that particular YADS has turned into a much stronger “Avoid avoid avoid,” because rather than discuss the actual issue, they send childish insults through email using someone else’s name (they claimed to be “Jason Biggs”) or leave nasty comments on someone’s blog (not here, but a friend who participated in the AW thread got some fun ones). Which display site was it, you ask? Well, it wasn’t PUBSLUSH.

In other news…beauty news: I don’t know if any of you ever read Jezebel, but I do. And commenters there often discuss using the Oil Cleansing Method to wash their faces. Since we’ve gotten to England–a different climate–my skin’s been a little unhappy, as it often gets when seasons change, etc.; it tends to be a bit dry and quite sensitive anyway, and it hasn’t been a major problem, but enough of one that I was curious to try the Oil Cleansing thing, especially since A) I’ve seen so many people raving about it, and B) when we got here I decided to try a new cleanser & moisturizer, switching from the Shiseido stuff which served me very well and trying Fresh’s soy cleanser and a Murad moisturizer; neither of which I particularly liked. Well, I liked the cleanser okay (though it was awfully pricey for such a small tube; more expensive than the Shiseido, which was already not cheap at $35 or so for one tube, but which was a bigger tube and which required me to use such a small amount it was actually worth it; that one tube lasted me over a year and a half and there’s still a decent amount left). But it was my birthday so I decided it’d be fun to do something new. I definitely don’t like the Murad moisturizer, though. It made me feel greasy and heavy, like my skin was covered in plastic. Ick.

Anyway.
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Just in time to celebrate the exclusive excerpt of Chapter Two over on Dark Faerie Tales (part of the Summer Supernatural Smackdown event; comment there and you could win all three Downside books!), I get to finally how you the cover of SACRIFICIAL MAGIC!

I’m so, so happy with it! It’s a new look, a new model (and she’s just gorgeous), and I couldn’t be happier.

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Whee!

A while ago I found out that the lovely people at Random House were planning to offer UNHOLY GHOSTS at a special promotional price. VERY exciting. I didn’t want to say anything about it because we hadn’t set on a specific date or anything, but now that’s it happening I can shout it from the rooftops (and if you all would help me do so, I’d be very grateful).

So, UNHOLY GHOSTS is now available for Kindle AND Nook–and I assume, any number of other ebook sales sites in North America (Random House only publishes me in Canada and the US, so the special price only applies to those territories)–for ONLY NINETY-NINE CENTS.

Yes, NINETY-NINE CENTS.

So if you haven’t read the book, now’s your chance. If you have a hard copy but just got an ereader and are converting your paper library to electronic, now’s your chance (wouldn’t it be cool if you could buy the paperback, and like for an extra buck or two the ebook would be bundled with it?).

If you’re still on the fence, you can download and read the first five chapters for free, just by clicking here: UNHOLY GHOSTS sample.

But wait! There’s MORE!

UNHOLY MAGIC and CITY OF GHOSTS are both also on sale, for $4.99! That’s UNHOLY MAGIC–book 2 in the series–on Kindle and Nook, and CITY OF GHOSTS–Book 3–on Kindle and Nook.

Yes, that means you can download the entire series for eleven dollars.

I’m very excited about this!

In other news, I handed in my “final” version of HOME, the short Downside story I sold to Heroes and Heartbreakers, a couple of days ago (I had a couple of minor changes I wanted to make before it went to the editor there) AND–tah-dah!–handed in my “final” draft of Downside 5, CHASING MAGIC, to my editor at Del Rey. Of course, I know she’ll have edits for it, so the book isn’t “finished” yet, but still. It’s done, and the handed-in version ran 108,000 words. I figure after her edits it’ll be around 110 at least. So, shorter than SACRIFICIAL MAGIC, but long enough that I feel you guys are getting some value for money. And I’m still quite excited about this one; I think it’s pretty fast-paced and exciting, and there’s a whole bunch of twisty-turny stuff happening in Chess’s life, and of course I just really hope you’ll all enjoy it.

So. Go forth and read!

*drumroll* Downside book 5 is officially titled:

CHASING MAGIC

I’m really, really excited about it; I think it’s a great title, and I’m quite pleased with the book in general, and yay etc. etc.

Also, as I promised on Monday, Stellar Four has posted a big huge excerpt of the opening chapter of SACRIFICIAL MAGIC up on their site, as both a cool thing to do for their first-ever Urban Fantasy Week and as a thank-you to all of you; the winner of my Downside T-shirt in the L.A. Banks auction was one of the ladies from St4, and she wouldn’t have had to cough up anywhere near as much cash as she did if not for all of you amazing, generous, and awesome people. The excerpt will go up at around 11am PST, which is still a while away and I didn’t want to wait to do my blog post for today. So you can check back here–I’ll update the post when the excerpt goes up–or you can check back there directly.

Last night I got my first look at the cover art for SACRIFICIAL MAGIC. It made me very, very happy. I can’t wait to show it to you! Which I will do as soon as I can. It’s getting a few little tweaks here and there at the moment, so fingers crossed it’ll only be a few more weeks.

A small but interesting discussion has been taking place over whether or not authors should rate their own books at Goodreads/LibraryThing/B&N/Amazon/wherever else. I’m actually surprised the subject is still coming up; I thought it was rather obvious that rating one’s own books makes one look like a tool? (Yes, I know, I wasn’t going to discuss this stuff anymore, but this isn’t really a long discussion and there seems to be a consensus anyway. Of course, we’ll see how long it takes for “Stacia Kane says you’ll never ever get published if you rate your own books on Goodreads” to pop up.)

Rating one’s own books is one of those things you see recommended/mentioned a lot on the message boards of vanity presses, along with the usual other useless stuff like having your friends and family review and rate your books so it looks like lots of people love them. Or trading reviews with other authors from the same press, and having your book’s name in your reviewer handle/sig/whatever to attract attention to you and your books, too. The problem with all of these ideas is that readers aren’t stupid. A 5-star review from the book’s author is a red flag. That red flag gets even bigger when you add a few other reviews from people in the same geographic area (and/or with the same last name as the author), especially when those reviews tend to be rather shallow, like “This book is wonderful. I couldn’t put it down. What a beautiful story!” and nothing else. Like I said, I think readers are smarter than that.

It just looks bad, rating your own books. It’s tacky. It looks desperate. I’ve never seen an author I respect or admire do it; I’ve seen one or two I have the exact opposite feelings for do it. Anyone who tells you it’s a good idea is someone whose judgment should be questioned, thoroughly and comprehensively.

This is just a quick update today; I’m knee-deep in a bunch of stuff–not least of which, of course, if the fifth Downside book, which crossed the 13k mark last night and which is (touch wood) going really well so far. Dastardly deeds already abound, and we’ve so far had injuries and creepiness and corpses and blood all over the street.

And of course I have edits for Downside 4, as well, which you may or may not have heard now has an official title!

SACRIFICIAL MAGIC

I’m excited about it; it fits the book really well, and yes, that is sort of a hint, but you’ll never guess the big thing it’s hinting at/referring to, trust me.

I’m also working on a new project, which a few people have asked me about. I’m not saying anything about it, really, because I don’t want to jinx it. It’s something I’ve actually been sort of fiddling with for a while, but have had a bunch of false starts on, so I’m hoping this is the one that will stick. Keeping my fingers crossed, anyway. It’s called DREADFUL THINGS. Only about 7k words so far, but words I’m really pleased with. Lots of worldbuilding, which is tons of fun, and hints of Dark Doings in my heroine’s past, and murders and magic and rooftops and sewers and all those things that make books worth writing. So we’ll see where it goes, anyway.

Let’s see, what else. I was going to blog today about why we don’t get real men in movies/TV anymore, but I was so busy playing with the WIPs last night I forgot to write it. Or rather, by the time I got around to it, it was 4 am, and that’s my bedtime (I have started forcing myself to go to bed at 4, because otherwise I’ll never go to bed at all). Of course, since I go to bed so late, I also sleep late, which is why I try to do my blog posts the night before, which is why I didn’t do the Man one. So look for that on Wednesday, and then the long-promised Write What You Know post will be along very soon too, and I’m looking forward to that one.

Anyway. Since this is rather short and all, here’s a snippet from Downside Five, just for fun. I’m making the print white, because it does contain a very minor spoiler; it may be important to the plot or it may not, but just in case you don’t want even a hint of what sorts of things may happen in the fifth book, you can skip it.

This is from the second chapter, and Lex was waiting for Chess when she got home.

He walked the few more steps into her living room, plunked himself down on her new couch. Well, maybe not exactly new—she’d had it about two months—but it still seemed new.

Without asking she grabbed a beer from the fridge and handed it to him.

He nodded his thanks. “Coursen…now you mentioning it, could be maybe I got a favor you could do me.”

Uh-huh. She let the totally-not-fooled expression sit on her face another few seconds. “Really. Like what?”

“Thinking maybe you ain’t mind working me up a chatter with Terrible.”

If she’d had any liquid in her mouth she would have sprayed it everywhere in shock; as it was she just sort of sputtered. “What—but—why? Why would you want to talk to him?”

“Got my reasonings, I do.”

Oh, and happy Valentine’s Day and all of that if you’re into that sort of thing.

I turned in Book 4 last night, at about one in the morning (I would have kept it until this morning, but we’re having this storm here and there were some predictions that the power could go out etc., so I didn’t want to take a chance). I’ve suggested a title that my editor seems to like, and my agent seems to like, although I can tell he’s not super enthusiastic about it, so we’ll see.

Final word count–this is after my edit, there’s still at least one more edit to come after my editor gets a look at it–is 122,920 words. That’s about 13k more than CITY OF GHOSTS, and that’s pre-epigrams (I add those in editing).

I’ve done a re-read of it and while I’m never happy with them–I feel this one is particularly dull–even I have to admit that at least the writing is good, which pleases me. So we’ll see what happens from here.

As I’d predicted/intended, it’s much more Lex’s book than anyone else’s. But don’t worry, Terrible fans, he’s still in there, and the next book will be extremely Terrible-heavy.

Anyway, there we go. I have a short to write which is due February 1st for a different antho–and I’m going to do a non-Downside story for this one–so I’ll be working on that, and at some point in the next week or two I’ll start Book 5. Which also does not have a title yet.

Neither of them have a release date. I promise, as soon as I have one I will tell you!

Later tonight I think I’m going to have the hubs take some pictures for an updated author photo, which is kind of scary. I hate the way I photograph, to be honest. And my current photo is, I believe, the best picture ever taken of me. So that’s going to be hard to top. Of course, if I don’t get one I like as much I’ll just keep that one, but we’ll see. It snowed here last night–the “winter storm,”–so I’ll have a snow-covered tree in the background, which will be pretty cool, I think.

I’ve had a lot of questions lately about the Downside Market. I’m working as hard/fast as I can to get all the designs transferred to Spreadshirt, and to come up with some fun new ones. Now that the book is turned in I’ll hopefully be able to get it up and running soon, maybe not with all of the designs in place–a few of them are too small for Spreadshirt’s qualifications, and I’m waiting for resized versions–but with enough, and in enough color choices etc. So again, if you have any suggestions or ideas for something you’d like to see on a shirt, don’t hesitate to say something!

So later I may very well be posting some pictures, and later in the week I’ll be doing some more relevant posts again, but for now that’s it.

Which I hope you’ll like, though honestly it’s not a big deal or anything. I feel kind of silly saying it’s a gift, like “Oh look, I’m so great my mere words are presents to humanity,” or something, but I wanted to do something for you guys and this is what I came up with.

Back in October, if you recall (or if you don’t) I did a guest blog on the Paranormal Haven blog. And rather than do a “This is why I like Halloween,” I wrote a very short little story about the beginning of Haunted Week. Of course, not too long after I wrote it I thought of a new, better ending for it, so I’d always meant to change it.

Anyway, last night I got a little bee in my bonnet about it. I expanded the story and gave it a new ending (it’s about 2300 words now, so still very short). Then I went to stock.xchng and grabbed a free image, took it to Picnik, and made a cover, of which I’m hugely proud, to be honest. Check it out:

Isn’t that cool? I know it’s rude to brag, but considering how challenged I am in the visual arts–seriously, I’m not good at them–I’m totally impressed with myself.

So. I tried to load it to Amazon for the Kindle and Barnes & Noble for the Nook, but neither of them would allow me to offer it for free, and there was no way I was going to charge. For a present? Nonononono. Besides, it’s only 2300 words! Even 99 cents is too much to pay for that.

So I loaded it onto the site, on the Books page (it’s near the bottom, under “Other Titles”) as a PDF. You can download it there or here: The Brave Tale of Maddie Carver

I also put it up on Smashwords, which took hours. I mean, I got it up very quickly (heh heh, that’s what she said) but it took hours for Smashwords to get it converted. You can get it here, though.

Then I popped over to Scribd to offer it there, too.

(Incidentally, I also made a new cover for BE A SEX-WRITING STRUMPET, which I’m also pleased with; that’s on Scribd as well, and will be on the Nook, and I’ve changed the cover file in the Kindle store.)

So there you go, a free story for you. Merry Holidays! Thank you so much for everything!

Also, I’ve just discovered we have some more award nominations! Paranormal Haven is doing its Best of 2010, and if you click the Vote Now link it will take you to the actual voting, where Chess is nominated for Favorite Kick-Ass Heroine and the Downside series is nominated for Favorite New Series. So if you feel like voting, do! Heck, vote whether it’s for Chess and the Downside series or not; Paranormal Haven is a great blog, and you should take a look at it/participate! Voting ends tonight!

And of course, there are still the Goodreads Awards! Best Paranormal Fantasy and Best Goodreads Author.

…so I think that’s it for today! Enjoy the short, everyone, and of course feel free to let me know what you think!

Okay, I have been waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and WAITING to get to tell you guys this, because it makes me really happy and it was all done and agreed in, geez, June, I think? But there was this and that and blah blah blah and the ultimate outcome is that I finally have signed contracts and can finally tell you all that there will be three more Downside books coming from HarperVoyager for all you fantastic UK/IRE/AUS readers!

*collapses exhausted* It has been killing me not to say anything, especially when you guys ask (which you have).

So that’s what I’ve been doing today. Signing contracts and ordering gifts, and of course today my Faerie turned six and she is very excited about it and how it took her six whole years to get to this point.

I really am exhausted, actually. I just realized I’ve only been getting five hours of sleep or so a night for the last few weeks; I can handle that when I’m actively working because working is very, um, adrenalizing? It’s not really like doing speed at all, it just wakes me the fuck up, basically, so when I finally force myself to go to bed–which for the last couple of weeks has been edging ever closer to six am–I lie there awake in the dark (and luckily it is dark in the bedroom, although I also do own sleepshades which come in very handy sometimes) for a couple of hours trying to come down. And then I get up at–for the last few weeks–about one-thirty in the afternoon. So it would be enough sleep if I actually slept when I got into bed, which I didn’t, so there you go.

The point is that I’m very, very tired at the moment. But! I am also re-reading the enormous doorstop I just wrote and am actually kind of enjoying it; I think I have some ideas where to tighten it up and yeah, there will be a nice selection of deleted scenes for the website after this book comes out. (Which no, I do not have a date yet, sorry, I’ll tell you as soon as I do.) (Same with the title.)

So. News! There you go! More books!

We all know I’m pretty tech-stupid. We also know I bought a netbook a while ago. We may also know that I’ve been having problems with Safari (which I use on my Mac) for months and months; it freezes whenever someone even says the word “Flash” in its presence, for example. Or it’ll halt and stick when people have animations in their sig lines on forums. Stuff like that. But of course being tech-stupid–in addition to being someone with a semi-pathological hatred and fear of change–the idea of switching to a new browser made me Very Nervous.

Anyway. Last night I took a little break from working to mess around online. I’ve been using the netbook to write lately; I bought a portable hard drive to use for memory for it (it’s gotten lousy reviews, I see. Personally it works great for me, but again, all I’m using it for is extra memory for the netbook). I find the keyboard on that easier to work on; the keys aren’t as stiff as on the Mac so it’s less painful on my fingers. And–although this may change now–it wasn’t as easy to browse online on the netbook, which meant I focused more on work.

So I decided to do something bold, and download Google Chrome instead of continuing to use IE on the netbook. Yes, it was a crazy move, but I’m just wild that way. I also uninstalled Norton antivirus, because I’m sick to death of being constantly interrupted by it, and installed the Microsoft Malware/Virus tool thingie instead. If I could figure out how to uninstall IE and Netflix I would, because I like uninstalling things and making room.

Anyway. I played with Google Chrome for several hours last night, discussed it a bit on Twitter and io9, and today I decided I like it so much I wanted it on the Mac. So I’m not using it exclusively on the Mac and the netbook, and I’ve installed some nifty extensions (that I had no idea what they were until a Twitter pal and then my io9 pals told me about them and where to go) that make me all happy. It really is MUCH faster than Safari or IE were, and it’s pretty (you can customize the background & colors and stuff) and fun. So I’m recommending it, at least for now, assuming it doesn’t fall apart on me in the weeks to come. It imported all of my bookmarks and saves all of my passwords and does all kinds of nifty things. So I’m happy.

And, I’m about to get back to work. This is a pretty dull little post, I know, but what the heck. I’m in the final stretch of Downside 4–it’s never taken me this long to write a novel before, but hopefully it’ll end up worth it–and can’t really think of much else. All hell is breaking loose, and we have death threats and decayed bodies and nasty witchcraft and ghosts and bloodshed and the requisite personal intrigue and all of that. (And yes, I have used the name of my Name-A-Character-Contest winner.) So I’m at the point now where I’m having tons of fun and I’m about to have a LOT more. Heh heh heh.

And I’ll hopefully have a title to share soon as well; I just sent my editor a big long list of possibilities.

I’ve got a couple of longer ranty posts to go up, but those will have to wait until after the book is finished.

This is just a short one–I’ve had quite a crazy couple of days, not really very good ones, to be honest–but I did want to announce this because I’m so excited about it! And I think it might make you guys happy.

I’m sure you guys are all familiar with the UF anthologies Charlaine Harris and Toni Kelner have done in the past, like DEATH’S EXCELLENT VACATION and MANY BLOODY RETURNS. And if you’re not you should be, because they’re hugely fun, and Charlaine and Toni are wonderful writers and very cool ladies; it’s an honor just to know them a little bit.

But it’s an especial, especially, special honor to say that there will be a new Downside story in their next anthology, HOME IMPROVEMENT: UNDEAD EDITION, which will be released August 2, 2011 (at least so Amazon says; I just knew it was August).

I was invited to submit back in April, I think, and submitted in July, but of course I didn’t want to say anything and jinx it. So I can finally say something today, and there it is. A new Downside story for everyone!

It’s a fun little story, I think. I did something a bit different with it; I didn’t want to give spoilers, since I knew the fourth book wouldn’t be out yet, but I didn’t want to do something set in the past or anything either, so…well, you’ll just have to see. But I’m quite pleased with it, which is especially exciting since I have kind of a hard time writing shorts, and I’m just really thrilled about the whole thing.

Which comes in quite handy today, to be honest. I’ve had a pretty lousy couple of days; yesterday was especially bad, at least until I woke up this morning and got more horrible news. The news isn’t directly related to me, it’s just dealing with people I know, but it isn’t good and it isn’t fun, and I may talk more about that another time.

But for now I want to focus on the good stuff. There’s going to be a new Downside story next summer, and it’s not a story in continuity, meaning if you don’t read it you won’t miss anything important series-wise, nor will you be completely lost if you haven’t read the series, at least I hope not (I had a few people read it who hadn’t read the books and they all understood it, so that’s good). I just think it’s fun and kind of exciting, and I had a good time writing it, and I’m very pleased it’s going to be out there and available, especially in such great company.

Yay, such fun to have something positive to post!

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