Blogger Be Gone!

Blogger has let me know that in a few weeks they will no longer support ftp accounts on private domains.

i.e. THIS blog.

So there may be a temporary break in services as I figure out how and where to transfer my blog.

The url www.ericnylund.net, though, will always be your way to find me.

...Stand by.

German Mortal Coils

This is the German edition of MORTAL COILS.

I very much like the YA-ish feel of the cover.

Contest Winners

I love and hate contests.

I love giving my books away. I hate not being able to give them to everyone.

The winners are:

M. Entrekin
A. Wiggins
J. Carpenter
J. Carson
J. Xian

I’ve notified them my email.

Thanks for participating everyone. I’ll be giving away more stuff soon.

Free Books!

(I mean “free” as in no cost, and “free” as in liberated from tyrants)

I don't have much to add to the tsunami of internet buzz over Amazon v. Macmillan (Macmillan, who also owns TOR books, one of the publishers of my books, btw!)

Indeed, words are insufficient.

So, I’ve decided to take action--drastic action!

To protest all my loyal fans NOT being able to buy the latest, HALO: Evolutions on e-tailer, Amazon… I’ve decide to give away five signed copies of Evolutions--yes, for free!

I know that doesn't make any sense… but neither does Amazon’s temper tantrum of de-listing every Macmillan book on their site.

If you want one:

1. send me an email by Midnight Pacific Standard time, Wednesday February 3rd .
2. only one entry per person.
3. U.S. only. Sorry or the postage would be more than the cost of the book.

I’ll announce the winners Friday.

Free books!

Tips on Querying Agents

For people wondering how to query a literary agent, you need to pop over to the blog of literary agent (and all-around nice guy) Nathan Bransford. He has links with all the essentials of doing it right.

One post of particular interest details the queries he received over this latest vacation — broken down by genre, length, and other factors… and then shows how many he requested to read.

The odds are long in this business (like AC/DC said “it’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock ‘n roll…”), but you can substantially increase your chances by educating yourself on what an agent likes and doesn’t like and learning the proper etiquette of doing business.

Good luck!

Electronic Copy Edits

A few weeks ago I got the copyedited manuscript for ALL THAT LIVES MUST DIE…an electronic version.

This is a huge deal because for the last fifteen years when I’ve received copyedits they were manually written onto a printed version of the manuscript…with tiny Post Its attached all over the thing with queries and comments made by the copy editor.

This copyedited ALL THAT LIVES MUST DIE was a WORD doc with track changes turned on and comments inserted.

Nice. Very Nice.

It was a heck of a lot easier and faster to insert changes, see what was altered, comment back, and zip back and forth through the entire 700+ pages.

And it was especially useful because we’re now close to a half a million words in the MORTAL COILS series, and keeping track of all the people, places, and things is just that much easier electronically.

I hope this also mitigates one of the ways typos creep into finished books. The old way, someone at the publisher would take the hand-copyedited manuscript and manually transfer all the changes to an electronic version. Yikes! Often new errors are introduced.

I’ll update you all when I go over the proof pages for ALL THAT LIVES MUST DIE and we'll see if the typo count went down.

Big kudos to TOR books for embracing technology!

If you’re an author, copyeditor, or editor chime in and let me know if you’re using electronic or old-fashion copyedits. What’s your take on each method?

Not Dead—Busy

Starting around Thanksgiving three "drop-everything" projects hit me, and things like getting 6 hours of sleep a night and social networking sank to the bottom of my priority list.

I should have things under control in about two weeks.

In the meantime, thanks for all the emails asking about my whereabouts. If you’ve sent email and it has gone unanswered—please re-send, and I’ll get to it.

Best wishes to everyone for the New Year!

Sparkly

Birthday

My 45th birthday is coming up. Yes, I’m middle aged.

I’m lucky to have so many friends asking what they can get me.

I’m especially blessed this year to be in a place where I already have almost everything I’ve ever wanted.

Please (really!) don’t get me anything—if you want to get me something, it would mean a great deal more to me if you gave to my favorite charity: Child’s Play.

Even if you want to get me a card—just donate the $4.00 you’d spend on card and postage to Child’s Play. They make it easy via PayPal or direct Amazon wish list to your local hospital. Even a tiny bit will make a difference to those kids who are going through the toughest of times.

Peace.

Mass Market Proofs

I got the proof pages for the mass-market version of Mortal Coils a few days ago. This is the stage where I go through and look for errors and omissions in the text and correct them.

Extra special thanks to people who have emailed me any typos they’ve spotted! It’s a huge help.

I like the font treatment on the pages: More Victorian, less Gothic.

Everything is in this mass-market edition that was in the original trade, including the reader’s study questions--and there’s a teaser chapter at the end from All That Lives Must Die, so you can get an advance sneak look at what will be happening to Eliot and Fiona....