There’s a lot going around about the SOPA/PIPA legislation and why we should black out our websites and why it’s a bad idea. There are a lot of people who have said it better than me. Here’s one of them.
Here’s another one – Wil Wheaton
Please, write your congressman/woman/person/puppet and tell them why they should be unemployed if they support this bill. Because a lot of us who create content certainly will be.
I got my schedule for Chattacon this weekend – I’m on two panels and have a table in the dealer’s room. So if you’re in Chattanooga come on by the ChooChoo and say hello!
Saturday at noon I’m on a panel called “Out of the Closet and Onto the Page:Self Publishing” with Alan Gilbreath from Kerlak Publishing. As two of the most out-of-the-closet and out-of-bounds panelists in the building all weekend, it oughta be fun. Alan is a good panelist, he has opinions on everything, has experience in the publishing biz, is witty and articulate. And he’s fun to drink with. So I expect us to have fun there.
Saturday at 2PM I’m on “Technology – Help or Hindrance for Writers?” with Mark Van Name and Stephen D. Rogers. Mark is a best-seller for Baen Books, and Stephen has a bunch of books out and teaches workshops on writing and publishing, so that should be fun. I’ve never met either of these guys before, but that’s pretty common for panels.
I’m still looking for a Con Assistant – and I’m willing to take on multiples for different cons. My friend Melissa has already volunteered to minion for me at ConCarolinas and DragonCon because I hang with the other authors she minions for, so adding one more kitten to herd isn’t that tough. Suzy will be my minion at MidSouth Con and Fandom Fest, and I’m sharing a table with folks at Heroes Con, so I really only need a minion at a couple of events. I can’t offer money, but I’ll cover your con costs and most if not all of your food for the weekend. You’re probably going to have to ride with me to the con to keep costs down, but if you already live where I’m coming for a con, then it’ll be easy!
Here’s where I’ll be and when –
March 2-4 – High Point, NC – StellarCon
July 20-22 – Chattanooga – LibertyCon (unconfirmed)
August 3-5 – Columbia, SC – RoundCon (unconfirmed)
Hmm, looks like I need less minioning than I thought – excellent! I knew I got married for something other than love and laundry.
Sales are going awesome so far this month – the Bubba the Monster Hunter Collection Monsters Beware is doing very well. I think it might have dipped into the individual short story sales a little, but since I make more on one collection than I make on all four short stories put together, I’m pretty happy with that.
Doesn’t make sense? Here’s the math – I sell the collection for $2.99, which qualifies for Amazon’s 70% royalty, so I get $2.04 per copy sold. Each individual short story sells for $.99, which qualifies for Amazon’s 35% royalty rate. So I get $.35 for each short story sold. There are four shorts, so $1.40 for each set of four short stories. $2.04 is better than $1.40, so I’m better off selling the collections. Of course, my hope it that someone buys (or freebies) the first one, then buys the collection, so I double-dip for an extra $.35. I know, thirty-five cents is less than a pack of gum, but in multiples of a hundred it adds up. I’m still not making Konrath money, but I’m making decent cash, enough so that I can still plan on quitting my day job in March.
Livin’ the dream, baby. Livin’ the dream. See you out on the road!
Here’s an idea – because I don’t have enough to do, I’ll publish an anthology. This year. With an exclusive short story.
Yeah, I’m not too bright. But I want to write a story about a bad vampire. You know, the kind of guy who just does what he wants and damn the consequences. No angst, just fangs. Since I want to write this story, I of course think people will want to read it. Since I think people want to read one story about a bad guy, I think they might want to read a whole anthology of stories about bad guys.
So here it comes – The Big Bad – an anthology of evil
Send me your best short story (6,000 words max, if it has to be longer contact me first) that features a bad guy or evil character as the protagonist. It can be fantasy, urban fantasy, superhero, horror, whatever. Just send me your best bad guy story. I’m taking twenty.
I’m paying $50 for one year’s exclusive electronic and print rights plus two contributor’s copies. After that we retain rights to publish electronically in the anthology only, and in print in this anthology only, but you can take it and sell it somewhere else, or sell it yourself as a standalone.
Deadline is July 31,2012.
There will almost certainly be a blog post that comes out of this one, and it is highly likely that it will be called “Drinking Jolly Ranchers with Space Jesus.” My weekend started off with getting to my room too late at night on Day 1 of the con to pick up my badge, noticing that the door to the room across from mine was open, and realizing that meant I was NOT getting to sleep early. That’s something to understand about cons – if a door’s just standing open to a room, it means there’s a party going on in there. And that means it’s pretty fair game to just wander in. Especially if your room is directly across the hall. So that’s just what I did – I wandered in and found myself in Davey Beauchamp’s whirlwind of fun and Jolly Rancher-infused vodka for the next three hours. I love con folk.
Bet you never thought you’d read that here, did you?
Full disclosure – I’m not terribly religious. I believe in stuff, but I’m as organized in my religion as I am in everything else in my life, which is to say not much at all. So I don’t love Tim Tebow because he’s the second, third or fourth coming of anything.
I like him because he’s a winner. He’s a quarterback who wants to win. This scene from The Replacements shows what a winner is – he’s the guy who wants the ball when it’s all on the line.
Tebow wants the ball. He’s a winner. He’s not afraid to put the entire team on his back and carry them across the goal line. He did it at Florida, and I remember watching him in a press conference where he was so fired up about losing a game that he basically promised not to do it again. And he didn’t. On his way to a record-setting college season and another national championship, he put the Gators on his back and carried them to the title.
I don’t think he’ll do that in Denver this year. I don’t know if he’ll ever win a Super Bowl. Dan Marino didn’t, and is still considered one of the best of all time. And I don’t think Tebow is a Dan Marino, a perfect passer and field general with a Hall of Fame career. But I think he’s a winner.
And I think he’s a nice guy. Everything I’ve seen about him says that he’s a genuinely nice, respectful human being. And he’s pretty unlikely to commit a felony, unlike certain other starting quarterbacks I could name in the league. My point is not that Tebow is a better person than Mike Vick, I don’t know either of them. My point is not that Tebow is a perfect quarterback, because he certainly isn’t.
But if I couldn’t have Cam Newton and had to take a QB that entered the league in the past two years, I’d take Tebow over any other rookie or sophomore QB. I’m certainly not going to trade Newton for Tebow, because I think Newton is amazing now and will be an elite QB in the next few years.
But Tebow is one of my favorite quarterbacks in the league right now. Because he wants to win. He knows how to win. And he gives a lot back to the community. He’s a sports star that kids can look up to, and I really hope that it stays sincere and he doesn’t get caught up in the cult of personality that we can create. Because it’s awfully fun to watch a nice guy win now and then.
Tim Tebow is the kind of guy I can root for. As long as he’s not playing against the Panthers. 🙂
