Hodgepodge

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

Last August, I received several emails from writers who’d had a very strange experience.

They’d submitted to a literary agent in Boston called Sara Levine, only to be informed by Levine’s assistant, a few weeks later, that Levine had died suddenly of a heart attack. The regretful assistant suggested they contact Levine’s colleague, Julia Levin of the Florida-based Julia Levin Literary Agency, who was taking over Levine’s business. Other writers who’d submitted to Sara Levine were approached by Julia Levin herself, with much the same story.

No one had ever heard of Julia Levin before. Her profiles on MySpace, LinkedIn, and Facebook (the only info that could be found on her, online or off) indicated that she’d been in business since 2005, both on her own and as a co-agent with Sara Levine. In emails to prospective clients, as well as in a September Open House on Facebook, through which she hoped to add to her agency roster, she reported a number of recent book sales to major publishers.

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i_hope_that
For many of us, the holidays can be kind of rough. If you're searching for a network of understanding friends, this ultra-nurturing community encourages you to express your heartfelt wishes and offer other members encouragement and acceptance. Not for the terminally snarky or emotionally-challenged, this is a good-spirited place to lend comfort and support.

diygifts
Feeling crafty? If you've got a few last folks on your holiday gift list, this is a great place to seed your creativity and generosity. You'll also discover wonderful DIY tips to decorate your home and entertain guests. Offering a no-frills-no-skills attitude that welcomes the cash-challenged and arts-phobic, you're sure to get ideas and make friends in the process.

cooking_club
A fun and friendly community dedicated to those who love to cook, whether you're a meat-and-potatoes type, an aspiring gourmand, and/or a vegan. In search of a brilliant dish to use up those weekly leftovers? Post your ingredients and you'll be whipping up a feast by dinner. You can also share favorite recipes. For Type A chefs, you can spice up your culinary repertoire with exciting cooking challenges.

Resources

• Three links from Victoria Strauss: 1) Thoughtful article from author Jason Pinter on social networking & the authorial mystique, 2) American Library Assn urges Justice Dept to "actively supervise" Google Book Settlement, 3) French court finds Google guilty of copyright violation, orders it to pay damages.

Member News

• Welcome to SFWA's newest Associate member, Lou Berger!
• Welcome to SFWA's newest Affiliate member Allen Lewis!
• Welcome to SFWA's newest Affiliate member Joseph Adegboyega-Edun!

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Resources

• Looking for a reprint market? SFWA member Jason Sanford talks to Russian SF magazine ESLI.
• And in summary: Writers, responding to negative reviews will never End Well. So just Don’t Do It.

Member News

• The Seattle Examiner interviews SFWA member Jennifer Brozek.

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stepstomarrow
When granddaughter, Jada, was born with leukemia, a donor-match was located and Jada made a miraculous recovery. In honor of her grandaughter's health, Jeanna has decided to walk across the country (in the dead of winter) to raise awareness and build support for the bone marrow registry (all that's required is a cheek swab). Follow Jeanna's remarkable journey as she travels the United States by foot.

When working on the world-building for your secondary fantasy world, here’s an interesting thought to chew on. Did you know that Northern Europeans are uniquely depigmented?

“White,” of course, is a a social designation. The question really is, “Why are northern Europeans depigmented?” Here is a map of human skin tone. The natives of northern Europe are oddly light-skinned. They are paler than anyone else on earth.

Most people know that it has something to do with sunlight, UV, latitude, and vitamin D. Here is a map of solar UV at the surface taken from satellite. It matches the skin-tone map everywhere but Europe.

Read the entire article as it traces development back step by step to figure out why Northern Europe is unique in its depigmentation.

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Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

Given Random House’s recent claim on electronic rights in older contracts, Macmillan’s recent announcement that it will be issuing “enhanced ebooks” simultaneously with some of its hardcover releases (and charging even more than for the hardcovers), and the thorny rights and payment issues raised by the rapid expansion of the ebook market, this seems an especially relevant piece of news: the UK’s Society of Authors has issued guidelines on ebook licensing and royalties for authors and agents.

The full text of the statement (which I found via the excellent TeleRead blog) can be seen here. The guidelines are below, and seem to me to make a great deal of sense.

1. Consider granting publishers a licence for 10 or 20 years, rather than for the full duration of copyright;

2. Limit any grant of ebook rights to the verbatim text. Wider electronic rights (e.g. for enhanced ebooks) should be negotiated separately and only if there is a definite intention to exploit the rights.

3. Royalties on ebooks should be much higher than they are. Until the economics and scale of the market become clearer, we consider that publishers should share ebook income equally with their authors. In any event we particularly encourage authors to try to negotiate steep increases to their royalties at agreed sales thresholds (as publishers recoup their set up costs). When a book has become well-established, it may be reasonable for the author’s share to rise to as much as 75%. On other forms of electronic access – e.g. rental and pay-per-view – authors should receive at least 50%, preferably nearer 85%, of the publisher’s receipts.

In suggesting these royalties we have taken into account that:

(a) publishers need to cover their overheads and make a profit; but

(b) the direct costs of originating, producing and keeping an ebook ‘in print’ are low (e.g. no printing costs); and

(c) the cost of making an ebook available through a third party distributor such as Amazon is minimal. Publishers’ warehousing and distribution costs are eliminated, as are losses from dealing with returns and unsold stock.

4. Authors should have the right to initiate a review of ebook royalty rates every 2 years and have the right to insist that royalties be increased to match those then prevailing in the trade.

5. When enhanced ebooks are developed, authors should have the right to approve – and be involved in – adaptations, abridgements, and dramatizations, as well as decisions on musical, interactive or other embellishments.

6. Contracts must allow authors to regain rights, if they so choose, once sales have all but ceased. When the work is POD and / or ebook only authors should be able to terminate their publishing contract on one month’s notice if sales in the home market in traditional and/or electronic form fall below an agreed level (or if the author’s income falls below an agreed amount) over 12 months, once the advance has been earned or more than, say, three years have passed since publication, whichever is the sooner.

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by Mary Robinette Kowal

Let me talk about conventions and their relationship to my writing life. Everyone will have very different experiences, depending on their personality. Here’s how it works for me.

I primarily go to conventions for three reasons.

1. To see other people in the field whose company I enjoy.
2. Improve craft/business sense.
3. To be “visible.”

1) To see other people in the field whose company I enjoy.
I relish the social aspect of SF. There are people that I just plain like and a convention is like old home week. It’s fun! I like you guys.

2) Improve craft/business sense.
A convention with a really good list of panels is going to appeal to me more than one in which I only hang out at the bar (though I love that, too). I want to know what’s happening in the field and to think about things that aren’t just products of my own brain banging against the inside of my skull. Even if I only learn one new thing, that’s a thing I didn’t know before.

3) To be “visible”
I’m a new writer, so I’m building my “brand.” I’m not going to get that many new readers at a convention, but the people at cons are the ones who vote on things and frankly, nominations can be leveraged ((Nominations and awards do not automatically mean a reader increase. You have to know how to work them, but the power of narrative on career is a different topic.)) into getting more readers which means…that cons are filled with a good target audience. Cons also tend to have editors at them and those are good people to know.

Now, I’ll be frank about how this works, because a lot of people don’t understand how to do effective schmoozing. Yes, yes, I’m aware that admitting this happens is distasteful. But, I’m going to talk about how to schmooze, anyway.

Schmoozing 101

These are all ideas to employ but none of them are hard and fast rules. Schmoozing is all about being charming and that will vary somewhat depending on the situation. So, here are the basic ideas behind successful schmoozing.

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Resources

• Victoria Strauss: How not to run an eppublishing startup (from the EREC blog)

Industry News

• Read about previous rulings against Random House's "in book form" ploy.
• Odyssey 2010 details announced.
• The Authors Guild response to Random House's digital rights grab.

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Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

I received the statement below this morning from the Authors Guild. I’m not happy with the Authors Guild these days, because of the debacle of the Google Book Search Settlement. But I agree with their position on Random House’s recent attempt to claim electronic rights on backlist titles whose contracts do not include a grant of those rights.

—————————

On Friday, Random House CEO Markus Dohle sent a two-page letter to many literary agents regarding e-books. Much of the letter is devoted to Random House’s efforts and investments to market traditional and electronic books.

On the second page, Mr. Dohle gets to the point. After noting that most of Random House’s backlist titles grant the publisher electronic book rights (we agree, since most backlist titles are from the past ten years, a period in which authors have generally licensed electronic rights in tandem with their print rights), he writes that “there have been some misunderstandings concerning ebook rights in older backlist titles.” He then proceeds to argue that older contracts granting rights to publish “in book form” or “in all editions” grant electronic rights to Random House.

The misunderstandings reside entirely with Random House. Random House quite famously changed its standard contract to include e-book rights in 1994. (We remember it well — Random House tried to secure these rights for royalties of 5% of net proceeds, a pittance. We called it a “Land Grab on the Electronic Frontier” in our press release headline.) Random House felt the need to change its contract, quite plainly, because its authors did not grant those rights to it under Random House’s standard contracts prior to 1994.

A fundamental principle of book contracts is that the grant of rights is limited. Publishers acquire only the rights that they bargain for; authors retain rights they have not expressly granted to publishers. E-book rights, under older book contracts, were retained by the authors.

There’s no need to take our word for this, however. A federal court in 2001 examined this precise matter in Random House v. Rosetta Books. Judge Stein of the Southern District of New York was unequivocal in his 10-page decision: authors did not grant publishers the e-book rights in the old book contracts at issue. Judge Stein specifically dismissed notions, raised by Mr. Dohle in his letter to agents, that the non-compete clauses of these old contracts in some manner acted to grant Random House electronic rights to the works, saying that this “reasoning turns the analysis on its head.” The court pointed out that the license of rights comes solely from the contract’s grant language, not from the non-compete clause, and that non-competition clauses, to be enforceable, have to be narrowly construed. Using the non-compete clause to secure future rights is unsustainable. An appellate court affirmed Judge Stein’s decision.

We are sympathetic with the difficult position the publishing industry is in at the moment. The recession has been tough on book publishing, as it has been on many industries. And everyone with knowledge of the dynamics of the industry properly fears that Amazon’s dominance of the online markets for traditional and especially e-books will give it a chokehold on industry profits. Difficult times, however, do not justify this attempt at a retroactive rights grab.

It’s regrettable and unhelpful that Random House has chosen to try to intimidate authors and agents over these old book contracts. With such a weak legal hand, it would be well advised to stick to its strength — the advantages that its marketing muscle can provide owners of e-book rights. It should also start offering a fair royalty for those rights. Authors and publishers have traditionally split the proceeds from book sales. Most sublicenses, for example, provide for a 50/50 split of proceeds, and the standard trade book royalty of 15% of the hardcover retail price, back in the days that industry standard was established, represented about 50% of the net proceeds of the sale of the book. We’re confident that the current practice of paying 25% of net on e-books will not, in the long run, prevail. Savvy agents are well aware of this. The only reason e-book royalty rates are so low right now is that so little attention has been paid to them: sales were simply too low to scrap over. That’s beginning to change.

If you have an old book contract in which you haven’t granted e-book rights, patience is likely to pay off. The e-book industry is still young — there’s no need to jump in. And we strongly suspect e-royalty rates are at a low-water mark.

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CHESTERTOWN, Md. – Joe Haldeman will be honored as the next Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master for 2010 by Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. The Grand Master represents SFWA’s highest accolade and recognizes excellence for a lifetime of contributions to the genres of science fiction and fantasy.

SFWA President Russell Davis announced the decision after consulting with the Board of Directors and participating past presidents. The presentation of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award will take place at the SFWA Nebula Awards® Weekend in May. The Nebula Awards weekend is available to the general public with advance registration.

“Giving the Grand Master is one of the true pleasures of serving as the President of SFWA,” said SFWA President Russell Davis. “Being able to give it to Joe Haldeman–a past SFWA president, an extraordinarily talented writer, a respected teacher and mentor in our community, and a good friend–is not just a pleasure, but a genuine honor. I can think of no one more deserving that I’d be more pleased to recognize.”

The author of 20 novels and five collections, Haldeman remains one of the most popular science fiction writers working today. His landmark novel, The Forever War, won the Nebula, Hugo and Ditmar Awards for best science fiction novel in 1975, and spawned two follow-up novels, Forever Peace and Forever Free. In total, his writings have garnered him five Nebulas, five Hugos and a host of other awards as well as numerous nominations. Other notable works include the novels Camouflage, The Accidental Time Machine and Marsbound as well as the short works “Graves,” “Tricentennial” and “The Hemingway Hoax.” His latest book, Starbound, is scheduled for a January release.

Haldeman is the 27th writer recognized by SFWA as a Grand Master. He joins Robert A. Heinlein (1974), Jack Williamson (1975), Clifford D. Simak (1976), L. Sprague de Camp (1978), Fritz Leiber (1981), Andre Norton (1983), Arthur C. Clarke (1985), Isaac Asimov (1986), Alfred Bester (1987), Ray Bradbury (1988), Lester del Rey (1990), Frederik Pohl (1992), Damon Knight (1994), A. E. van Vogt (1995), Jack Vance (1996), Poul Anderson (1997), Hal Clement (1998), Brian Aldiss (1999), Philip Jose Farmer (2000), Ursula K. Le Guin (2003), Robert Silverberg (2004), Anne McCaffrey (2005), Harlan Ellison (2006), James Gunn (2007), Michael Moorcock (2008) and Harry Harrison (2009). Until 2002 the title was simply “Grand Master.” In 2002 it was renamed in honor of SFWA’s founder, Damon Knight, who died that year.

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W. Skeffington Higgins has a fascinating post about his quest to find the actual location where the first science fiction fan club met back in 1929.

Last week Rob Hansen pointed out, to Boingboing and Tor.com, that 11 December 1929 was the occasion of the founding meeting of the Scienceers, which seems to have been the first science fiction fan club, at least the first club where the members met in person rather than corresponded.

Science fiction fandom is still going strong after 80 years, and many of us are curious about its early history. Rob has wondered if more information can be found about Warren Fitzgerald, who hosted the first meeting at his home.

An account of the Scienceers by Allen Glasser recalls that Fitzgerald and his wife were black, and they lived somewhere in Harlem in late 1929. They hosted multiple meetings of the Scienceers at their home. Fitzgerald also joined the American Interplanetary Society in 1930; its founders included David Lasser, Nat Schachner, Fletcher Pratt, and other SF people.

Read the rest of his detective work.

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Member News

• Welcome to SFWA's newest Active member, K. C. Ball. Read K.C.’s thoughts about joining SFWA.
• Special 20% discount for SFWA members at the Apex store.
• Welcome to SFWA's newest Associate member, Greg Mellor. His story "Defence of the Realm" is an Aurealis finalist.

Industry News

• Read the full text of the Random House letter regarding ebooks.

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Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

Last week, the publishing world was abuzz with news that Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and HarperCollins intend to delay the release of ebook versions of most of their hardcover titles by three or four months, rather than releasing the ebooks simultaneously with hardcovers (this delaying process is known as “windowing,” and publishers have historically used it to separate hardcover and paperback editions, allowing the more expensive and therefore more profitable hardcover to build sales before issuing the cheaper paperback). According to Carolyn Reidy of S&S, “The right place for the e-book is after the hardcover but before the paperback.”

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Written by Chuck Rothman

Index

1. What is an agent and why do I need one?
2. When do I need an agent?
3. How are agents paid?
4. Where to I find information about agents?
5. How do I choose an agent?
6. How do I contact an agent?
7. How do I create an outline and sample chapters?
8. What happens if I don’t get an agent?

1. What is an agent and why do I need one?

   An agent is a writer’s business representative. His job is to market your book, negotiate a deal with the publisher, keep track of rights sold, and generally handle the business end of things so that the author can concentrate on writing.

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taste_buds
Holidays provide a built-in excuse for indulgent entertaining. This all-purpose foodie community covers everything from homemade hangover cures to dinner party menus. Need quick advice? Get five-minute snack suggestions, low-fat ingredient substitutes, and even measurement conversions. Delicious recipes garnished with humorous advice. Yum.

naturesbeauty
Always on the lookout for compelling images, we were delighted to discover this flourishing community of artists who share a love of nature. Honoring the subject with photographs, paintings, sketches, prose, poetry, and other creative works, you'll be simultaneously riveted to your monitor and inspired to run helter skelter towards the nearest wooded dale.

Resources

• Writer's Rules for Survival in Animation.
• A good post by SFWA member Jim C. Hines on the conspiracy against new writers.

Member News

• SFWA member Henry Melton is having a Christmas sale (with autographed books.)

Industry News

• Random House's digital rights grab. Does "in book form" automatically includes ebooks?
• An article from the Wall Street Journal on the Random House rights grab.
• Richard Curtis has more of the text of Random House's letter about digital rights.

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Resources

• Mamatas has a interesting post (w/photo evidence!) of how Xlibris "markets" a book for which they've charged writer’s fees:

Member News

• SFWA member Yasmine Galenorn hosts a month long pre-release party for the release of Bone Magic, her 7th Otherworld book.
• Congratulations to Jennifer Brozek for her short fiction sale "Eulogy for Muffin" to the Ladies of Horror anthology.
• Congratulations to Laura Anne Gilman for her short story sale "Werelove" to the anthology RUNNING WITH THE PACK.
• Congratulations to Sherrilyn Kenyon whose SF novel Born of Ice is #1 on the New York Times and Publisher's Weekly lists!

Industry News

• Dr Peter Watts, Canadian science fiction writer, beaten, arrested at US border / Peter Watts' account of what happened.

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Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

Lately I’ve been getting a lot of questions from writers who’ve been solicited by Hudson Audio Publishing (which appears to be engaging in a major spam campaign).

Per Hudson’s website,

Hudson Audio Publishing is a boutique service company that specializes in assisting:
- Self published authors
- Unpublished authors
- Seminar speakers
- Owners of quality audio material
to get their works converted into audio books and sold through the three largest audio book distribution platforms in the world – Amazon, Audible and iTunes.

How does it work? You can record your book yourself, using free or low-cost software, in which case there’s no upfront fee due to Hudson (verbiage on the website suggests that this fee-freeness is temporary). Or you can pay Hudson to do it for you, using (they say) professional voice talent, which on average (they say) will cost between $1,500 and $2,500. Royalties aren’t overly generous (if you grant Hudson a 5-year exclusive license, you get 20% of net; for a non-exclusive license for a similar term, you get 12% of net) but Hudson takes only digital download audio rights, leaving other rights free.

(This is a limited claim on rights, but it’s still a claim. Despite that, and despite the fact that it calls itself Hudson Audio Publishing, Hudson alleges that it is not, in fact, a publisher.)

Basically, Hudson is self-publishing for audiobooks. I would imagine it carries about the same chances of success as print and electronic self-publishing (i.e., small sales and exposure for the average writer–depending, of course, on any individual writer’s definition of “success”). Another consideration: people who buy audiobooks don’t want to hear a bad reader droning on. They expect the books to be engagingly and expressively read. Can you do this yourself? Do you even want to? If you’re pondering using Hudson’s voice talent, however, there’s a concern beyond the substantial expense: is the talent really professional? It would be a good idea to obtain a couple of Hudson’s non-author-read audiobooks, just to make sure.

Something else to take into account: the audiobook market is small, a fact not noted by the hype-ish coverage on Hudson’s website. According to the Audio Publishers Association, revenue reported by member companies in 2008 was $331 million, with total estimated revenue for the audiobook industry of close to $1 billion–around 4%, my calculator informs me, of $24.3 billion in total book sales for the same period. And just as audio books are a fraction of the book market, digital downloads are a fraction of audio sales: just 21%, according to the APA. Digital downloads increased their market share in 2008 (up from 17% in 2007), but APA members’ total revenue slipped 6.7%.

If you are willing and able to read your book yourself, you probably don’t have much to lose by using Hudson (though be aware that there are other free or low-cost options for turning your book into audio–Podiobooks.com, for instance). If you’re considering paying for voice talent, however, do shop around–there are a number of companies that offer audio self-publishing for a fee, such as Spoken Books Publishing (a division of self-publishing service Infinity.com), or, if you’re enterprising, you may be able to create your script, hire the voice talent, and book the studio yourself.

Most important: be sure to evaluate whether it’s really worthwhile to spend a lot of money to launch yourself into such a limited market.

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by Susan Hanniford Crowley

It all started at the 2007 Nebula Awards in New York. A friend of mine suggested I write romance. My heart has always been in science fiction and fantasy, but I also considered what this friend had to say. So when I got home, I went to the bookstore and into the romance section. I found ‘paranormal romance,’ bought one, then many, and read voraciously educating myself in this new world. I loved every wildly adventurous and sexy, yet romantic minute of it.

What attracted me to paranormal romance?

It’s the blending of everything that is the best in science fiction and fantasy with the best of romance. The plots are clever, sometimes humorous, breathtaking, sometimes chilling and always thrilling, whether in contemporary, futuristic, or fantasy worlds. To top it off, all these adventures are intricately woven in with some of the most amazing love scenes I’ve ever read. Writing paranormal romance has expanded my abilities into the writer I want to be. The adventures are exciting, even if there are pages that make your tongue hang out. (Yours not mine. I blush. LOL)

I’ve been asked to define ‘paranormal romance,’ so I’ll do so with the definition from the Romance Writers of America.

“Paranormal Romance: Romance novels in which the future, a fantasy world, or paranormal happenings are an integral part of the plot.”

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Dear SFWA members,

SFWA President Russell Davis has posted the most recent iteration of the new draft bylaws for SFWA, the review of the membership. Please log in to to the Discussion Forums to give us your feedback.

If you would like to read the draft of the new bylaws, they are available here in .pdf format and may be shared with non-members.

At the same time the membership is reviewing this, we will be asking our legal counsel in both Colorado and an associated office in California, to review the document as well.

Members have until February 1, 2010, to review these bylaws, ask questions, make comments, bring up concerns, etc. On that date, the Board will resume discussions based on the feedback from members and counsel, and will move to draft a final set of bylaws which is the one that the members will be asked to vote on.

Please give us your comments at the Discussion Forums

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backpacking
Want to embrace your wanderlust on the cheap? If you're tall on adventurous spirit, but short on funds, this community can help you plan a trip to anywhere. Offering plentiful tips on how to travel light, you can post about bargain hotels and hostels if you're into urban exploration or discuss camping gear and mosquito netting for the great outdoors. Hitch your backpack, pitch your tent, and carpe diem!

Today, Nielsen Business Media announced that it is shutting down Kirkus reviews.

Dear Colleagues,

Today, we announced that Nielsen Business Media has reached an agreement with e5 Global Media Holdings, LLC, a new company formed jointly by Pluribus Capital Management and Guggenheim Partners, for the sale of eight brands in the Media and Entertainment Group, including Adweek, Brandweek, Mediaweek, The Clio Awards, Backstage, Billboard, Film Journal International and The Hollywood Reporter. e5 Global Media Holdings has also agreed to acquire our Film Expo business, which includes the ShoWest, ShowEast, Cinema Expo International and CineAsia trade shows.

In addition, we’ve made the decision to cease operations for Editor & Publisher and Kirkus Reviews.

This move will allow us to strengthen investment in our core businesses – those parts of our portfolio that have the greatest potential for growth – and ensure our long-term success. We remain committed to building our trade show group and affiliated brands. These assets continue to be a key part of The Nielsen Company’s overall portfolio and we strongly believe they are positioned to grow as the economy recovers. In addition, we’ll continue to assess the strategic fit of our remaining portfolio of publications.

As a result of these decisions, many of our friends and colleagues within these businesses will be leaving the company or will begin to transition to the new ownership immediately. These venerable brands have long been an important part of our Business Media family, and we are pleased that e5 will continue to capitalize on the brands’ potential. The transition is expected to be complete by the end of the year.

Pluribus Capital was founded in 2009 by James Finkelstein, George Green and Matthew Doull to focus on acquiring and managing industry leading media properties with high growth potential, particularly those with strong brand recognition across multiple platforms including digital, print and events. Guggenheim Partners is a privately held, diversified financial services firm. Both Pluribus and Guggenheim have strong track records of successfully managing investments in a variety of companies.

I want to take this opportunity to offer heartfelt thanks to our colleagues who will be leaving the company for their dedication and commitment to Nielsen over the years. Please join me in wishing them well in their future endeavors.

Regards,

Greg Farrar
President
Nielsen Business Media

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Resources

• An article on gothic romance by SFWA member Angel McCoy at Backseat Nightmares

Member News

• Fantastic interview with Mike Resnick
• Shimmer magazine has audio of Jay Lake reading his story “Shedding Skin” for their Clockwork Junglebook Issue
• Congratulations! James Patrick Kelly Wins NH Literary Award
• Congratulations to Aliette de Bodard for her sale of “The Jaguar House, in Shadow” to Asimov’s
• SFWA members: The draft of the new bylaws is up for discussion. Please read and comment.
• Congratulations to SFWA members Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl whose novel “Beautiful Creatures” debuted at #3 on New York Ttimes list.

</ul>

Industry News

• Victoria Strauss: More on Google Book Settlement: France’s Sarkozy challenges Google
• Agent Jenny Rae Rappaport announces that she is closing The Rappaport Agency.

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Portland – The eleventh annual Endeavour Award winner was announced November 27 at Oregon’s major science fiction convention, OryCon.

Portland writer and SFWA member David D. Levine won for his collection of short stories, “Space Magic,” published by Oregon publisher Wheatland Press.  The Award is accompanied by an honorarium of $1,000.00 and an engraved glass plaque.  Levine’s book is the first collection of stories to win the Award.

The other finalists were “Anathem” by Seattle, WA, writer Neal Stephenson; “Ill Met in the Arena” by Dave Duncan, who lives in Victoria, BC; “Long Walks, Last Flights and Other Stories” by Ranier, OR, writer Ken Scholes, and “A World Too Near” by Kay Kenyon, of Wenatchee, WA.

The Endeavour Award honors a distinguished science fiction or fantasy book, either a novel or a single-author collection, created by a writer living in the Pacific Northwest.  All entries are read and scored by seven readers randomly selected from a panel of preliminary readers.  The five highest scoring books then go to three judges, who are all professional writers or editors.

The judges for the 2009 Award were Joe Haldeman, John Helfers, and Sarah Zettel.  Pyr Books editor Lou Anders presented the Award.

Award Eligibility for 2009

To be eligible for 2009’s Endeavour Award, a book — either a novel or a single-author collection — must have been published for the first time in English during 2008.  The majority of the book must have been written, and the book accepted for publication, while the author was living in the Pacific Northwest (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alaska, British Columbia, or the Yukon.)  Deadline to enter books published during 2009 is February 15, 2010. Full information on entering the Award is available on the Endeavour Web site: www.osfci.org/endeavour.

The Endeavour Award is sponsored by Oregon Science Fiction Conventions, Inc. (OSFCI), a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation.

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by Robert Metzger

Copyright © 1998 by Robert A. Metzger. First published in the Summer 1998 issue of the Bulletin of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

Interstellar space travel. We dream about it. We write about it. Science fiction writers have come up with all manners of interstellar travel, ranging from multigenerational arks, to wormhole generating warp drives that can spit you across the galaxy in a blink of an eye. As wondrous and amazing as all these approaches may be, most suffer from a very fundamental problem.

Traveling for long distances, over long periods of time, can be a colossal pain in the butt. You can never pack all your stuff. You always forget something. Did you lock the door? Did you turn off the iron? You forgot to say good-bye to Aunt Mildred, who will be dead by some 12,000 years when you return due to relativistic effects. And then there is that library book you forgot to return.

What to do?

The answer should be obvious. Just take it all with you.

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Resources

• Victoria Strauss: The Atlantic will sell short fiction on the Kindle & How publishing survived the Great Depression

Member News

• Aliette de Bodard: Get your Servant of the Underworld reading samples here
• Congratulations to Paolo Bacigalupi whose novel THE WINDUP GIRL is on TIME’s top ten novels of 2009!
• Check out Cindy Pon’s Indonesian cover for “Silver Phoenix.” It’s her first overseas cover.
• Congratulations to Alex Bledsoe whose novel BURN ME DEADLY is nominated for 2009’s “Best Urban Fantasy” award from RT.
• SFWA members, don’t forget you can add your readings and signings to the SFWA event calendar.

Industry News

• Huge Acquisitions Round Up: News about 14 novels acquired for Pyr Books
• Congratulations to the Knight Agency which has 14 authors up for RomanticTimes awards.
• Random House restructures Crown

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