Blog Without A Name

Them what’s innerested can read all about it here.

Today is the Official Release Day for Dragon Ship, the fourth book of Theo Waitley and the Fifteenth Liaden Universe® novel!

And!

Today is the Official Audiobook Release Day of All Fifteen Liaden Universe® novels!

We have a Big Bunch of Celebrating planned for y’all, so I  hope you’re well rested.

One!

Dragon Ship free sample chapters, right here (helpful hint:  hit the link that says View Sample Chapters)

Two!

Free one-hour audio sample chapters!  Links below:

Crystal Soldier
Local Custom
Agent of Change
Fledgling

Three!

A handy break-down of which audiobooks are in which Sequence:

The Books of Before Sequence:  Crystal Soldier, Crystal Dragon, Balance of Trade

The Space Regencies Sequence:  Local Custom, Scout’s Progress, Mouse and Dragon

The Agent of Change Sequence:  Agent of Change, Conflict of Honors, Carpe Diem, Plan B, I Dare

The Theo Wailtley Sequence: Fledgling, Saltation, Ghost Ship, Dragon Ship

Four!

The Liaden Universe® Landing Page is live at Audible, right here.

edited to add:

Five!
Meet the Narrators!  Audio interviews with Kevin Collins, Bernadette Dunne, Andy Caploe, and Eileen Stevens

Is that a celebration or what?

*happy sigh*

Cake and ice cream for everybody!

Eileen Stevens narrated the four novels that comprise the Theo Waitley Sequence — Fledgling, Saltation, Ghost Ship, and Dragon Ship — contending with a point-of-view character who was growing up through the books, and! narrating the brand-new Liaden novel.

Here’s the link to Steve’s interview with Eileen.

Meet Andy Caploe, who had the non-trivial task of narrating the five books that comprise the Agent of Change Sequence:  Agent of Change, Conflict of Honors, Carpe Diem, Plan B, and I Dare.

Here’s the link

Keep a eye on the sky; we’ll be uploading Steve’s interview with Eileen Stevens, narrator of the Theo Waitley Sequence, a little later today!

 

Number Two in the Meet the Narrators sequence — Bernadette Dunne, the voice of Local Custom, Scout’s Progress, and Mouse and Dragon. Here’s your link.

Y’all know what Tuesday is, right?

…I can’t hear you…

Y’all know what Tuesday is, right?

Tuesday is Dragon Ship’s Book Day!

Yes.  Yes it is.

But do you know what else happens on Tuesday?

Besides, yanno, having to go back to work/school full-time forever and ever?

Lean close.

Tuesday is the day that every single Liaden Universe® novel ever committed — from Agent of Change to Dragon Ship! — will be released by Audible.com.

One of the more fun things we got to do lately was interview each of the four sequence narrators — Steve interviewed Kevin Collins and Eileen Stevens, and I interviewed Bernadette Dunne and Andy Caploe.

We’ll be posting those interviews — I’m talking high-class, audio interviews, now, done by people who know what they’re doing — on Korval.com between now and Monday night, as a sort of warm-up for the main celebrations, on Tuesday.

The first interview — Steve and Kevin — is up now, right here.

 

Slept late.

Two cups of excellent coffee with a breakfast of cottage cheese over fresh tomato with toast on the side.

Loooooong shower. Found my hairbrush in the second drawer of the vanity, right where I put it! And? The new vanity is tall enough.  For eighteen! years! I had to bend double to wash my face over the sink.  No longer, thank ghod.

The bathroom is pretty.  The only things left to solve are the mirror, which hadn’t even been on my radar as “could be a problem;” the so-called baseboards; and a couple spots that have to be painted.

Going to go chop up broccoli for cream of, which will be lunch.

Life is good.

 

Socks is worn out with all this supervising!

So, there’s been a minor kerfuffle on teh intertubes regarding an author named Emily Griffin Giffin, who reallyreallyREALLY wanted to see her new book hit the Number One spot on the New York Times Bestseller List.  She tweeted her fans and urged them to buy her book and push her into the winner’s circle.

Well, OK, fine.  We all want our books to hit the NYT list.  And apparently Emily had more reason than, say, I do, to think that her book had a shot.

Except…the book missed Number One.  It did, I’ll note, hit the Number Two position.  But still, Emily was sad.  And very, very disappointed in her fans.

And she told them that.

You may imagine the uproar that ensued, or, if you have a hankering to view a train wreck, you can Google on Emily’s name.  I’m not here to talk about bad author behavior, but I am going to talk about assumptions.

There was a meme going around a couple years ago, I guess.  It was apparently designed to make authors feel like inadequate slackers, because it made certain base assumptions and asked questions from there.  Questions like:  How old were you when you won the Campbell?  How old where you when you won your first Nebula?  How old were you when you won your first Hugo?  How many books had you written when you won your first Hugo?  How many of your books have been on the New York  Times Bestseller List?

. . .and so on.

The assumptions are clearly that All Writers Worth Reading have achieved these career milestones — Campbell, Nebula(s), Hugo(s), bestsellerdom.  And that you can quantify artistic success by using the same measuring stick used for corporate success.

And that’s a sad, and bad, set of assumptions.  Not that it isn’t nice to win a prize.  Very few things are as heady as Feelin’ the Love.  But winning a prize is…a privilege, not a right, and certainly not a career move.

The bestseller lists are a little different, and subject to manipulation, but for an author whose book hit Number Two to throw a hissy fit and scold her readers for not taking her to the top slot?  That writer needs to take a step back and look at what she’s doing, why she’s doing it, and what she hopes to achieve in her life.

I’ve said it many times, and here I am saying it again — the writing business is brutal; if you do not love to write, if you don’t have stories that you must tell; if you’re in it purely for the fame and riches, for ghod’s sake, get a day-job.  You’ll have a far  better chance of making real money, achieving recognition in your field, and security for your old age, than you ever will as a writer — even if you hit all of those “career milestones.”

I’m happy that people buy my books.  And I’m very fortunate that I’m able to devote myself to full-time writing.  The vast majority of writers never, ever achieve that.  I still have stories I want to tell, and all I ever wanted to do with my life was to be a writer, so I’m living the dream.

How many people get that in their lives?

So, what I guess I’m saying here — there’s rich.  And there’s rich.  And by the yardstick that matters, I am wealthy beyond belief.

Thank you all, so very much.