Jay Lake: Writer

[links] Link salad flies back to Oregon

Reading the Leaves reviews Green [ Powell's | Amazon | Kindle | Barnes & Noble | Borders ] — A bit of a mixed bag, but largely positive. Some interesting (also mixed) comments after the review, as well.

Scrivener’s Error makes an interesting point about publishing and quarterly reports

The evolution of retweeting — For those who might happen to be interested in Twitter.

Made of Myth — The workshops where videogame props are built. (Via Drawn!.)

IBM Takes First 3D Image of Atomic Bonds — Holy frick.

Lunar boreal halo — Bad Astronomy with a gorgeous lunar photo.

Republican Senator Inhofe on healthcare reform — We can stall it. And that’s going to be a huge gain for those of us who want to turn this thing over in the 2010 election. Yep. There’s your principled opposition right there.

GOP congressman praises, defends, man for calling himself a “proud right wing terrorist” — My conservative commentors keep telling me that the people I cite aren’t like them, but, guys, when your own political leadership endorses this kind of crap, that figleaf is getting awfully thin. Thought experiment: imagine the reaction if Barney Frank praised a self-declared “left wing terrorist.”

?otD: Are vampires afraid of steaks?

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8/28/2009
Body movement: n/a (slept in to allow blistered foot to heal)
Hours slept: 7.0
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a (traveling)
Currently reading: The Real Wizard of Oz by Rebecca Loncraine; Acacia by David Anthony Durham

Tags: Art, Books, Culture, Green, healthcare, Links, Personal, Politics, Publishing, reviews, Science

Posted: 2:57 am Fri August 28 2009 | Comments(0) |

[politics] A few simple questions about healthcare

I’m back to politics, but I’m taking a different tack today from my usual snarky critiques. I thought I’d approach the healthcare reform issue from the top with a series of simple questions for people to think about. Some things to consider, no matter what your political (or apolitical) stance might be.

• Do you or your family rely on health insurance through your workplace?
• Would you have trouble affording COBRA extensions to your health insurance if you lost your job and did not have a paycheck to cover the premiums?
• Do you or your family have any chronic health issues, such as diabetes, cancer, arthritis, and so forth, that would make finding affordable market-based insurance difficult?
• Would you be under significant financial stress if you or someone in your family ran up thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars in medical bills?
• Do you have to think carefully about what you can afford before going to the doctor or the emergency room?

If your answer to any of those questions is “yes”, then even if you have good health insurance today, you stand to benefit strongly from a constructive reform of the American system of healthcare finance.

• Do you or does anyone in your family participate in Medicare or Medicaid?
• Do you or does anyone in your family participate in the VA health system?

If your answer to either of those questions is “yes”, then you already are part of a major government healthcare initiative. Medicare is a “public option” payer, following the Canadian healthcare model, that covers 45 million Americans today. The VA is a government owned and operated healthcare system following the British model, that covers millions more.

Ask yourself how Medicare and the VA have affected the American healthcare system. That’s all the “public option” does, which is to say, extend benefits already enjoyed by tens of millions of Americans of all political convictions to more of their fellow citizens without disrupting standards of care or physician choice or availability.

It’s all pretty simple. We can do more of what we’re already doing, and offer compassionate, life-enhancing medical coverage to everyone in our society. The real debate isn’t whether we should have healthcare reform, it’s how we should go about it that benefits everyone at the most efficient and responsible cost.

Tags: healthcare, Politics

Posted: 4:05 am Thu August 27 2009 | Comments(3) |

[photos] Your Thursday moment of zen

Your Thursday moment of zen.

Photo taken by me on the Long Beach Peninsula, Washington State.

Tags: Northwest, Photos, zen

Posted: 3:01 am Thu August 27 2009 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad wanders into another day in scenic Omaha

A reader reacts to the Escape Pod reading of my short story, “Skinhorse Goes to Mars” — Not so much with the liking.

Nun study update — Low idea density and low grammatical complexity in autobiographies written in early life were associated with low cognitive test scores in late life. Low idea density in early life had stronger and more consistent associations with poor cognitive function than did low grammatical complexity. Huh.

Marfa Lights — I’ve seen these, actually. (Snurched from Dark Roasted Blend.)

Best Wank and Gaza: this year’s top exam howlers — Academic follies redux. (Thanks to .)

A dark sky over Sequoia National Park — More APOD awesomeness.

Changing A Cell’s Biological Battery — Hacking mitochondrial DNA.

Nudges by chopstick — A relationship between BMI and Chinese restaurant behaviors.

Cheney’s Breathtaking Reaction to Holder Terror Probe — Once again, facts and conservative rhetoric are not located in the same area code.

?otD: Who’s the boss?

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8/27/2009
Body movement: 65 minute suburban walk
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a (traveling)
Currently reading: The Real Wizard of Oz by Rebecca Loncraine; Acacia by David Anthony Durham

Tags: Food, Funny, Language, Links, Personal, Politics, reviews, Science, stories, weird

Posted: 2:53 am Thu August 27 2009 | Comments(0) |

[publishing] A bit more on the Kindle

If you haven’t caught it yet, check out the growing discussion on Kindle, ebooks and pricing here: [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ]

I want to address a few points which have emerged in the comments threads on both sides of my blog.

Royalties: Authors make different amounts of money depending on the edition of the book sold. Our royalty percentages are different for each format: paperback, hardback, Kindle (or other ebook) and audio. The exact numbers vary per contract, and are often subject to intense negotiation. But it’s not a simple “$1 per book” or whatever. (In fact, it can be even more complicated than this, as ebooks are sometimes treated as subsidiary rights, but the point remains the same.) [edited for clarity]

Digital rights: One commentor noted that digital rights are supposedly easy for the author to retain, and therefore authors should self-publish on Kindle. My experience in negotiating trade publishing contracts is quite the opposite. Publishers, for a variety of good reasons, are intensely interested in retaining digital rights. As an author, this is fine with me — by definition Tor is much better positioned than I am to package and market a book, be it Kindle or print or other format. That’s why they’re the publisher and I’m the author.

What is owed to authors: I didn’t mean to imply that the boycotter who originally wrote me, or anyone else, owes me anything. Having a publishing contract is not an entitlement, something I try pretty hard to keep in mind. What I did mean to imply is that like any (sane) author, I’d prefer my books to rise or fall on their own merits rather than be compromised by externalities. The sad truth is that all books are compromised by externalities. For example, due to the timing of the book’s release, the Escapement mass market paperback got caught up in the Andersen News failure, which resulted in an orphaning of part of my print run, and a resultant weakness in the book’s P&L numbers. That’s life in the big city, and part of why so many of us authors have day jobs. But what I did want to point out to the boycotter was that they were creating a negative externality which would have far more effect on the author than it would on the intended targets of the boycott, which is to say, either Amazon or the publisher.

Pricing of books on Kindle: Several commentors said that Amazon sets the Kindle pricing. I don’t think this is quite accurate. Per the Kindle terms of service, Amazon sets the Kindle sales price, but that is a net retail price discounted (or maybe not, depending) based on the “Suggested Retail Price” which is set by the publisher. For example, if the publisher were to set the SRP at $9.99, then by definition Amazon would not price the book higher. I’m not suggesting this should be the case, merely pointing out that the question isn’t that simple. From the Kindle TOS:

4. Pricing and Program Terms. As part of your Application, you will provide us with a suggested retail price for each Title (“Suggested Retail Price” or “SRP”). The Suggested Retail Price you provide to Amazon must be consistent with the SRP you have provided to other retailers and wholesalers. However, we have sole and complete discretion to set the retail price to our customers for Digital Books.

Tags: Process, Publishing

Posted: 3:37 am Wed August 26 2009 | Comments(0) |

[photos] Your Wednesday moment of zen

Your Wednesday moment of zen.

Photographed by me along the Eagle Creek Trail in the Columbia Gorge, Oregon.

Tags: Photos, zen

Posted: 3:19 am Wed August 26 2009 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad makes it to hump day, again

Lookie here! A Kindle edition of Green

Speaking of Green and the Kindle, last night’s post on the Amazon boycott has spawned very interesting comment threads on both sides of my blog: [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ]

Getting My Hands Dirty — John Klima on how Electric Velocipede gets made.

The Trash Project — Industrial dance. (Thanks to .)

Finding out What Colors Dinosaurs Were — Wow. Not quite as impressive as the headline suggests, but still, wow.

Building Infrastructure: The Tether Option — Mmm. Skyhooks. Centauri Dreams explores alternate methods of reaching orbit.

We’ve Got 35 Times More Horsepower in Our Cars Than in Our Power Plants

The GOP’s Top Chef Starves a Beast and Poisons a Debate — Some snarky takedown of the GOP “contribution” to the healthcare reform process, courtesy of The Washington Post.

The late Senator Kennedy in his own words

?otD: What color is the sky in your world?

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8/26/2009
Body movement: 65 minute suburban walk (saw the owl, and a skunk)
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a (traveling)
Currently reading: The Real Wizard of Oz by Rebecca Loncraine; Acacia by David Anthony Durham

Tags: Art, Books, Green, healthcare, Links, Personal, Politics, Publishing, Science, Tech

Posted: 3:05 am Wed August 26 2009 | Comments(0) |

[publishing] The Kindle $9.99 boycott vs Green

I received an email recently from a reader saying, in part:

I recently was browsing Amazon for new books when I saw your title Green after reading the blurb I quickly added it to my wish list to down load later. I am dismayed however to find that the digital version is priced well over the $9.99 most publishers price digital books at. I just thought you should know that almost all Kindle users honor the $9.99 boycott of digital books. With no publishing costs I am not sure how some publishers price digital versions but I suspect that the digital market is not fully understood by “dead tree publishers.” They also may be testing the waters to determine what the consumer will pay. Green looked like a wonderful book but with the user tag “9 99 boycott” most kindle users will just skip it by.

I’d never heard of the $9.99 boycott, but then I’m not a Kindle user. (Though I do read books on the Kindle app on my iPhone.) Here’s what I sent in response:

Unfortunately, like most authors I have absolutely no control over pricing, on Amazon or in the print channels. The $9.99 boycott may send a message to my publisher, but the people it hurts most is authors like me. This damage is done both directly by depressing the sales of the book (ie, reducing potential royalties), and indirectly by making the publisher less likely to buy future books from me as a result of the depressed sales.

While I very much appreciate — and agree with — your perspective, I do hope you and the other boycotters realize your largest impact is on the authors themselves, who have no control whatsoever over the situation. The boycott will mostly reinforce the presence of discounted bestsellers, and further marginalize newer voices. I certainly hope that as a book lover, that’s not your goal, but it’s definitely your outcome.

The law of unintended consequences comes to get us all, one way or another.

I can unpack this in a number of directions, and probably will in a future post, but for now I’m interested in your thoughts on this. What do you think of the $9.99 boycott? Do you see a relationship between the price of books and an author’s income, and how much do you think it matters? What else does this suggest to you?

Tags: Books, Green, Publishing

Posted: 6:02 pm Tue August 25 2009 | Comments(39) |

[personal] Non-cancer health

A quick update about a non-cancer health issue I’m having. I appear to have damaged my left rotator cuff back in May. After several months of screwing around while my arm grew progressively worse, I am commencing physical therapy next week on my return to Portland. In the mean time, I’ve reached a point where my left arm aches all the time, and I can be completely debilitated with pain for five to ten minutes simply by grabbing something moderately heavy with my left hand. This has also translated to intermittent pain in my left wrist and hand, and some minor pain in my right wrist and hand as I indulge in poorly-considered compensating behaviors.

You can imagine what the prospect of pain in my hands does to me.

Second order effects of all this include excessive sleeping, due to both the pain and the rather alarming amount of Ibuprofen I am now taking under doctor’s orders. Excessive sleep makes me logey and cuts into my exercise time (though I did fine this morning), which, when combined with the irregular food habits of travel, means I’m putting on weight beyond my normal baseline range.

All in all, this is not made of win.

It’s also perfectly solvable. I just need to be more diligent about exercise and eating, and, more to the point, stay ahead of the shoulder problems. But grr. Frankly, this is more of a pain in the neck on a day-to-day basis than the cancer has been.

Updates as conditions warrant. In the mean time, carry on.

Tags: Cancer, health, Personal, Writing

Posted: 4:37 am Tue August 25 2009 | Comments(2) |

[personal] Miscellany, writing and politics

Walked this morning here in Omaha. The fireflies are gone, and I never heard the distinctive, echoing peep of the nighthawks, but I did see the usual rabbits, along with an amiable skunk, as well as finally spotting the owl that patrols the stretch of Papillion Creek where I walk. She was sitting atop a power pole, visible only as a shape in the glow from some distant street lights. Still, I’ve been hearing her for months — sometimes I think she paces me — and it was nice to say hello.

Brad R. Torgersen rightly points out that I’ve been getting positively ranty about politics lately. I’ve still got a lot to say, this healthcare reform debate has really touched some nerves for me — both personally as a cancer survivor who has to cope with pre-existing condition limitations and the likely financial ruin when I reach my lifetime maximum coverage limits; and as a liberal-progressive with strong convictions about the obligations of a wealthy society such as ours to its members regardless of their financial or social status. To say the least, I find currently articulated conservative viewpoints on these issues notably lacking in facts, common sense or compassion. But I think I’ll lay off it for a while. At least a few days. I’m a writer who blogs about politics, not a political blogger. Thanks for the reminder, Brad.

On the writing front, I continue to bang out stories, but I’m about to shift gears to a book-length Sekrit Projekt in collaboration with a Sekrit Collaborator. It’s cool, I don’t know yet if it will pay off as this is a new direction for me, but we’ll see. Thinking about that led me to think about my writing plans over the next few years. Spent some time last night discussing this with and , to the point where they were laughing at me about the degree to which I was looking into the future. For example, the Tor contract I just signed has deliverables due in the spring of 2011, and the final edition in the contract won’t be out til the spring of 2013. That’s a four year cycle.

Roughly speaking, here’s what I think is going to happen:

August-October, 2009	Sekrit Projekt
October-December, 2009	Revise Our Lady of the Islands with
January-February, 2010	Revise Endurance
March-April, 2010	Draft Kalimpura (Green book 3)
May-June, 2010	Do something else (possibly revive dormant YA novel project)
July-December, 2010	Draft Sunspin (high concept space opera trilogy)
January-February, 2011	Revise Kalimpura
March-May, 2011	Revise Sunspin
June-December, 2011	Draft Original Destiny, Manifest Sin

All of that, of course, interspersed with copy edits, galleys, short fiction, commissioned work, possible novel projects that someone might throw money at me to do quickly, etc. In other words, very much subject to change without notice, most likely through date slippage. Of the above, only Endurance and Kalimpura are contracted, so everything else can flex as opportunity and inspiration permit.

Watch this space for more details.

Tags: Endurance, healthcare, Kalimpura, Omaha, Original Destiny, Our Lady, Personal, Politics, Sunspin, Writing

Posted: 3:37 am Tue August 25 2009 | Comments(3) |