Nattering Social Justice Cook: How to Prepare to Protest

Really pleased with the current project, a continuation and expansion of A Seed on the Wind:

He took a landing towards Neryon neighborhood, a narrow outjut of stone augmented with board and rope buildings dragging at the stone, which was carved with a sinewy overlay of snakes and bees. In midday, it seemed to be drowsing. In a few hours it would begin to stretch and yawn itself awake. The caffeine vendors, selling chai and kaf and a dozen teas would range about filling cups and mugs or doling out thick cups that could later be chewed to mushy fiber for a quick thirdmeal as the evening began in earnest.

He made his way to a sleepy tavern, and slouched in a rear table, nursing leedink, mind thumbing through the possibilities as he fingered the wicker and wood puzzle centered on the table.

He could always go back to Poit. Or Ellsfall. Either of those choices itched him wrong, though.

A being sliding onto the bench across him in the wall niche. The stone shelf under its elbow as it leaned forward. “Pleasance, chum.”

Expensive clothes. Rasp-skinned, narrow-headed, not-human. Flat dark eyes, cold as shadowed caverns. Smile tied on with insincerity.

“Fuck off,” Bill said.

The smile widened, deepened, showed pointed teeth, filed sharper. Gold inlay in the closest one, a design of fish and flowers, a spray of rubies in a line down the front. “An asking for you, Mr. Bill.”

Panicked question stabbed through his stomach. Why did this stranger know his name? He sat back. “What’s that?”

“You know a guy, cook at Fleur, name’s John.”

Chef John. One of the possibilities that had been flickering through his minds. He shrugged. “Don’t ring no chime.”

“All I want is you to takespeak a word or two.”

Bill waited. In the room, the clackclask of pool balls, two youths playing, dressed in leather and thorns. The electric light flickflickered on arcs of white and jasper plastic, stacattoing light.

“Tell him the big companies don’t mind freelancers trading bittybit on the side. But he’s getting bittybig. Needs to step back.”

He hunched his shoulders in a shrug. “Happen to run into him, may say. What’s the what if I do?”

The stranger’s fingerscales were pointed, each tipped with a flower of gold, a stinger of steel, as it spread them as though to smooth the shrug away from the air.

“Bittybit money for you, friend. Just come here an asking.”

(If you want to make sure you get to read the finished version, sign up for my Patreon campaign and get two stories a month for as little as $1 each!)

I have several maxims that I have developed over the course of my writing career. One of them is, “If Kris Rusch invites you into a project, you say yes.” Because Kris is one of the people who understands independent publishing and its possibilities, and she is a savvy, savvy marketer.

When Kris came and asked about including my book Creating an Online Presence in a Storybundle, I was thrilled and also a little panicked, because I knew it had to be updated before it went in there. Too much had happened on the Internet in the two and a half years since I’d first put it up. I was also flattered that she thought the book was worth including, because I value her opinion.

And the truth is, if you’re a writer, you do need to at least think about this stuff enough to make an informed decision. If you’re being traditionally published, your publisher will probably expect you to be helping out with the marketing in the form of social media or other Internet efforts. Every book launch, for example, seems to involve a slew of guest blog posts and similar promotions.

If you’re small press published, again the publisher will probably expect you to be helping out with the marketing and I would regard a lack of such expectations as a possible danger sign.

And if you’re going indie, there’s no way around it. You’re going to have to think about this stuff, and the more you do, the more it will pay off — IF you are writing good stuff and making that the focus, not the marketing.

The world is changing rapidly in many aspects; publishing is definitely part of that change. Writers must stay informed of that if they want to make a living at it. Look at this Storybundle. E-bundles are easy to do and even easier to download. Storybundle and Humblebundle have both been making big strides in this area. Kobo lets you bundle your books, I found out in talking to Mark Lefebvre from Kobo last weekend at the Nebulas.

Here’s what you get beside the brand new version of Creating an Online Presence:

• The Rational Writer, Nuts and Bolts by Mindy Klasky
• Weinberg on Writing – The Fieldstone Method by Gerald M. Weinberg
• How to Make a Living With Your Writing by Joanna Penn
• Heinlein’s Rules – Five Simple Business Rules For Writing by Dean Wesley Smith
• How to Negotiate Anything – Freelancer’s Survivor Guide by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
• Stages of a Fiction Writer by Dean Wesley Smith
• Writing the Novel from Plot to Print to Pixel by Lawrence Block
• Business For Breakfast Vol 2.: The Beginning Professional Publisher by Leah Cutter
• The Writer’s Business Plan: A Plain English Guidebook by Tonya D. Price, MBA

Part of the success of such bundles is using online marketing like this very blog post. So please — help me out by spreading the word of this excellent bundle (which might make a great graduation gift for a new writer) and its contents.

#sfwapro