A Plethora of Things!

[naomi_jay]

My boss is trying to make me learn about grant management and administration. I have discovered we have an allowance for rat brains and goat serum. Also that I am exactly as bad at accounting as I always suspected I'd be.

The Daily Mash has it's own take on the banning of The Human Centipede 2. Frankly I'm still finding it all baffling and hilarious. I've come to terms with the fact that I will watch this film one way or the other. I owe it to Beloved 3-Hund.

I'm having my best month so far with my self-published stuff. Twenty books sold, thirteen of which were WILD, which makes me happy*. Particularly as I've done pretty much no promotion. I organised a book tour via Book Lovin' Bitches, but other than a few mentions on Twitter and Facebook, that's it. Possibly this means I'll only sell twenty books this month, but hopefully it will be an upwards trend. I've yet to try a promotion technique that genuinely seems to work, and I really do not want to be one of those authors who's constantly all up in your face on Twitter being like FOLLOW ME! BUY MY BOOK! FOLLOW ME! because it's so annoying. So I'm leaving WILD and my other stuff to their own devices at the moment.

(I say at the moment because I'm actually planning a big ebook giveaway for the very near future, so stay tuned!)

So, in slightly-related news, I had a couple of gaslamp-esque pieces published by Static Movement recently, and now the anthologies are out, the rights are reverted to me. One's a flash piece, the other's a short story, and I thought it might be cool to bundle them together with some other gaslamp-esque pieces and put them up for sale. So I'm working on another short story and I'll do a couple more flash pieces too and that will be that. It's going to be called STEAM-POWERED DEAD AND OTHER STORIES. It sounds kinda steampunk-ish, but it's not because I don't like Steampunk. I know! I want to. I love Steampuink fashion, but the fiction just doesn't do it for me. Gaslamp (or is it gaslight?) is nicer, but these stories aren't really strictly gaslamplight either, more light-hearted alternative history with the occasional clockwork bug.

Anyway, that's another "stay tuned" notice. I suppose I should continue filing my grant reports now. Yay.

*I think putting a disclaimer about the drug use and violence in the book has surely helped. Maybe I should make up some outraged Daily Mail reader comments** for it too? "I have never read this book or even heard of it, but I am shocked that it exists." That sort of thing.

**I spent SO LONG last night reading outraged DM comments on THCII. Did you know watching horror films leaves your soul open to demonic possession? TRUFAX!!!


 

Comments

[naeko.livejournal.com]

The only "steampunk" fiction I've read was Boneshaker by Cherie Priest and it was pretty atrocious, if only for the fact that the author goes to AnneRiceian levels of 'I WILL BEAT YOU IN THE FACE WITH WHAT IS GOING ON UNTIL ONE OR BOTH OF US IS BLOODY AND EXHAUSTED!' The main characters were boring and unlikeable, as well. Even Will Wheaton's voices (we listened on audio book), which were fantastic, could not make the annoying son interesting.

I've kind of had an impacted ass full of fiction, right now. Most books I pick up tend to run along the same bullshit lines and I feel like I've read it all before and haven't liked any of it. The only books I can get into, lately, are JD Robb or Jim Butcher.

[naomi-jay.livejournal.com]

That makes me feel better - I assumed I was the only person in the world who wasn't jumping on the steampunk bandwagon.

[nathreee.livejournal.com]

How is Serve in Hell, Reign in Heaven coming along?

I plan to write a Steampunk story you will like. Also, I advise Wen Spencer's novel "A Brother's Price", which is not strictly Steampunk, but does have steamships, rifles and cannons. It's one of my favourite novels of all time.

[naomi-jay.livejournal.com]

You're doing steampunk fairies, right? That does sound cool. I think my problem with the genre (or what I'v read) is the emphasis on the technology, which bores me. Same reason I don't enjoy a lot of sci-fi.

Serve in Heaven is in editing! I'm about a third of the way through and hoping to wrap it up over the weekend. From there it goes to SM owner and after that I'm not sure of the process, but I'll be emailing authors to let them know when it's available.

[mardelwanda.livejournal.com]

Is it weird that the rampant drug use didn't bother me? (in Wild). I found it strangely refreshing in a realistic kind of way....lol. I'm not quite finished reading Wild yet, but I am enjoying what I've read so far.

[naomi-jay.livejournal.com]

Lol, well, I don't think it's weird but I may be biased... Glad you're enjoying it!