Philippa Ballantine - Author

Award-winning Author of fantasy, science fiction, and steampunk

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Weather Child giveaway

Spreading the word about an indie book is quite a bit of work…but also kinda liberating. Weather Child has been out in the world a whole week, but it feels like a month!

I’ve started a goodreads.com giveaway, so go enter, and don’t forget to help spread the word about Weather Child, the historical fantasy, set in New Zealand. Big publishing said American readers wouldn’t be interested in reading that sort of setting!

 

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Weather Child by Philippa Ballantine

Weather Child

by Philippa Ballantine

Giveaway ends April 07, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

 

Authorial Darwinism

Evolve or die. That sounds harsh, but that is the reality of the publishing world right now.

Authors cannot afford any longer to be disconnected from their marketing, their brand, and what channels their work is in. The days of the author in their ivory tower are over—if they ever in fact existed.

What prompted this particular maudlin observation was this story from the Guardian newspaper, titled ominously From Bestseller to Bust: Is this the End of an Authors Life?

Chilling isn’t it? Doesn’t it make you want to curl up, turn away from your dream, and find something else to do with your life? If you are just starting out, doesn’t it just make you want to give up before you’ve even begun? Well I hope it doesn’t.

This article is about authors who are living in the past. It is as much a relic as a story of a nineteenth century novelist. Now that may also sound harsh, but it is also the way of the world. Evolution is happening all around us—even big publishing at long last is realizing that.

Some authors do not.

This story is from Britain, and I had it suggested on Facebook that that somehow the British culture is different as far as writing and the appreciation of writing is. I’m not sure if that is true, or maybe it is a product of the literary genre, which these authors mentioned in the article all seem to be.

All I know is that I find it hard to feel very sorry for an author whose major complaint is that he can no longer afford office space in London, and has been forced to convert his attic to a writing spot. My writing spot is at the kitchen table or on the couch.

For all this apparently is blamed the credit crunch (I can believe that one at least a little) and the internet (now hold on a minute!)

However, I do have some sympathy for authors who only get paid twice a year, which is how large publishing pays, but there are other ways that the internet opens up publishing. Far from being the reason that the authoring lifestyle is dying, it could be its salvation if only people cared to look around a little.

The thing is, authors these days have to be flexible. They have to be entrepreneurial. They have to keep their eyes open for new opportunities and markets, and for some people these things aren’t something that they are willing to do.

For those people, yes there will be losses, there will be changes, and maybe they won’t be able to make their living out of being writers as they once were able to.

It actually makes me rather sad. Just today I signed on with a new venture, Scribl, where the creators are working with the idea of crowdpricing. There are sites like glossi, where you can create an online-magazine to advertise your book.

All of these new ways of doing things I find exciting, and I think it is so sad when the writer Rupert Thomson mentioned in the Guardian article says  “I can’t really imagine a life where I’m not writing. I’ve got this ludicrous faith that I’ll be able to go on as I am now. That’s all I want.”

It’s sad because if he wants it to go on, he has to change, but you can read it in the article he doesn’t want to. For those people I really don’t see much of a bright future. Let’s hope not all of us are quite so inflexible.

Guest Post – Inspiration Hunting

As part of the Write by the Rails Endless Possibilities Blogtour, I’m happy to welcome Tamela Ritter to my blog with a little taster of poetry.

From the AshesPip invited me to come to her blog today and talk about inspiration, where I find it, where it comes from.

Where does inspiration come from?

I used to love this question. I had such an awesomely pretentious author answer.

*adjusts horn rim glasses*

*lights pipe*

*clears throat coated with Scotch*

“For me, it is simple; I dream what I write and write what I dream,” I would say, paraphrasing Van Gogh… badly.

Or I would talk about breathing fresh air, being out in nature. For you see, back when I lived pretty much smack-dab between the Cascades and the Rockies, I used to get inspiration on the lake shore, on the mountain tops, under the star filled sky with coyotes baying in the distance. Of course, I was also in college at the time so there was also a lot of inspiration found at dive bars.

But now? Now I scratch my head, shrug and say, “Um. Everywhere?”

Really, it’s the only answer I have anymore. Inspiration is out there everywhere, and sometimes what worked for you in the past, won’t anymore. That’s okay. That just means you have to find somewhere else, someone else, something else. Look in the most unlikely of places. If it isn’t there, move on.

Sometimes inspiration is a place. Like I’ve mentioned, I’ve found it while hiking, while sitting on a canoe, around a campfire and I have hundreds of scribbled napkins to prove that dive bars are great for inspiration. I’ve also found it at coffee shops, book stores, once on a Greyhound bus heading cross-country. And I always, ALWAYS find it on long roads in late night drives, not to mention the truck stops that I frantically frequent to get the words out before I lose them on those trips.

Sometimes inspiration is what you read, what you watch and what music is on your iPod. I get lots of inspiration from reading. Not in a “I want to write a book just like this one” way, but in a “Wow. That makes me think, makes me feel and makes me want to be better in what I put out there in the world” way. Sometimes movies do that to. Like when you come out of a theater and you’re surprised that the planet is still spinning just like it always has and nothing has changed except your perception of the world and all its inhabitants.

And sometimes you find inspiration in a person or persons. This happens to me a lot. I’ve had to stop thinking of writing as a solitary endeavor because of the frequency I get inspiration from the company of others. Whether it is an online community of writers like National Novel Writing Month and the like, a loved one who lets you bounce ideas off them or people who gather to write and almost more importantly, commiserate.

A few years ago, I had a group of writers that we self-titled “Writers On the Rocks” because we met at the best bar in the world–most of those napkins are from this bar–and wrote and eavesdropped on patrons. Between those nights and the ones I shared with a friend in her tiny apartment and writing frantically as we marathoned The West Wing, I accomplished so many things I never thought I’d find anything to replace them when the bar closed down and the friend moved away.

For a while, I lived completely uninspired and unmoored, and yet, words still needed to be written. How unfair is that? Truth is, I stopped looking for inspiration long ago. Now, I make it when I can, and if I can’t, I soldier on regardless.tamela

Like Jack London said: “You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” Or if you need your truths harsher, like Stephen King said: “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”

 

Tamela J. Ritter was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, her debut novel From These Ashes was published in March 2013 by Battered Suitcase Press. She now lives and works in Haymarket, Va. You can find her on Twitter or on Facebook.

Guest Post – A Small Poem

As part of the Write by the Rails Endless Possibilities Blogtour, I’m happy to welcome Katherine Gotthardt to my blog with a little taster of poetry.

A Small Poem

Fruit fly on a slice of thin toast,
hard-to-read font (Times, I think),
a puppy’s eyelash,
the one-inch Buddha on my desk—
we’re operating in small today.

The freckle on my knuckle,
the blanket lint on my pants,
the birds’ distant dialogue,
and politics.
It’s all small.

It’s all in the eye of the beholden:
the crumb, the text, the hair, the silver statue,
the pigment, the bedding,
the sparrows, Congress.
It’s all small.

The willing squint to see,
reach to touch,
strain to hear—
or not to hear.
Maybe they just close their eyes
and keep their hands to themselves.

Not me.
I move in closer.

Katherine M. Gotthardt
Copyright Oct. 26, 2013
Originally published by Dagda Publishing, 2013

Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt is a poetry and prose writer residing in Western Prince William County, VA, where she enjoys exploring history, art, culture and nature.  An advocate for preservation, conservation, education and civic engagement, Katherine volunteers for several non-profit organizations.  A former community writer for the regional News & Messenger newspaper, Katherine has taught college English composition online and English as a Second Language (ESOL) at an adult detention center.  She currently freelances as a writer and editor, sets up websites and blogs, teaches blogging and writing and reports for Haymarket Beat.

Katherine’s poetry and prose have appeared in various online and text journals.  Poems from the Battlefield, a collection of her Civil War themed poetry, original and archival photos and period quotes, was published in 2009.  Katherine’s children’s book, Furbily-Furld Takes on the World, was published in 2010.  Approaching Felonias Park, a novel focusing on predatory lending, was released in November, 2011.  Weaker Than Water, a second collection of Katherine’s poetry, came out in April, 2013.

Weather Child is HERE

So here is the day.

Weather-Child-CoverIt’s been over six years since I wrote Weather Child, and five since I first podcast the story. Despite all that time, this is still a story that is very dear to my heart.

I don’t think I could quantify how many stories of family, and fond memories of New Zealand are contained in this novel. Faith and Jack are so deeply woven into my past, that is seems strange that they are now out there on the page, and in your e-readers.

If you like magic, romance and adventure, run through with history and mystery, this is the story for you. It’s a love song, not only between two people, but also about a place and time now distant.

It is also a story of determination, not only of the characters, but mine. Weather Child is firmly a story of New Zealand, and apparently publishers in New York don’t think Americans are capable of enjoying those sort of stories—even though they manage quite fine with other, more fantastical worlds. I find it ironic that this year a story set in New Zealand won the Booker Prize…so perhaps this is the perfect time for Weather Child.

You can now purchase the story, along with the beautiful cover by Alex White at your favorite e-book store of choice, and even if you want to see the beauty of a printed page, I have you covered there too. Katie Bryski and Tee Morris did the layout and it is full of Art Deco wonderfulness that matches the time period it is set in.

Above all, even if you do not buy the book, please help spread the word. This is entirely my own endeavor and without people knowing about it, it dies on the vine. I really do have a wonderful sequel planned, so spread the word on your social media networks, write reviews, and talk it up.

Here’s where you can find it

Ebook

Amazon – Barnes & Noble – Smashwords – Kobo

Trade paperback

Amazon

Sample from Weather Child: Book One of the Awakened.

If there was one thing Jack’s mother believed in, it was aiding those not as lucky as she. He recalled her bustling around the kitchen, gathering supplies for those who had none, and her voice had been so happy. “If it wasn’t for someone like me, your own father would have died in England—think about that.”

He had and did again. The yawning chasm of loss started to open up before him. “I would like to see her grave at least…”

“You shall not!” Royal roared, throwing back his chair. “Keep your foul magic ridden self away from it. Let her rest in peace!”

Jack felt rage and grief near to choking his throat. “Don’t tell me then! I’ll find out from Olive!”

“You’re not to see your sister either,” his father spat. “She’s to keep away—or be disinherited just like you.”

It was getting hot under his uniform. Jack tried to swallow his rage, and find that icy cool place he’d thought he’d mastered. “I could look after her, and better than you ever looked after Mother…”

He ducked on instinct. Royal’s half-empty whiskey glass smashed spectacularly just where his head had been. Without his battle trained reflexes, Jack might have well been killed on his first day back in the country.

The lamp above their heads flared once, casting blinding light into the room for a brief instant before shattering. Royal was now the one forced back, his eyes wide.

A rumble echoed in the study. Jack’s father’s rows and rows of books, leather-bound and weighty, danced in the shelves in random patterns like Irish jiggers gone mad. The brass and oak desk twisted on itself as if it were made of Indian rubber and sent the decanter of whiskey flying. His father stepped back in horror—not at what was happening, but who was causing it.

“Demon!” he shouted one hand already searching about him for something else to hurl. “Thank God your mother is not alive to see this! Get out of this house!”

Jack stood there a moment, just to make sure the old man understood it was going to be his own decision to leave. He tried to quiet his magic, but it was unreliable as ever and took a while to obey. Finally, the books dropped back into place with a thump that made Royal jump, and the desk settled back into its spot. Only the broken light bulb and the spilled whiskey told that anything strange had just happened.

Father and son glared at each other in the half-light. Jack smiled and tucked both hands into his pockets, showing the old crook that he wasn’t going to offer him physical violence. The shattered light fixture swung and creaked in the quiet.

“Ashamed of what I am now, Father?” Jack asked. “Afraid that the old boys down at the Club will think you did this somehow? It’s awfully common to have a magician in the family isn’t it?”

Art or Commerce? How about both?

After jumping in with both feet to the Authorial Darkside last week, I am going to throw myself on another writerly hand-grenade this week.

Arguing writersArt vs Commerce.

Among many arguments writers have engaged in over the centuries, none have raged harder and deeper than which of these is more important.

Art is all about passion. If you don’t have art then what is the point of writing.

Commerce means you can exist as a writer. If you can’t make a living off it how can you survive as a person let alone an artist.

To my way of thinking it is all totally subjective, based on who you are, and what you want to do with your writing. Is it just about getting out ‘the novel I have inside me’, or do you actually want to make a living at this?

For those with the comforts of a day job, where writing is a hobby or a daydream, the ability to have firm beliefs in everything being about art is entirely possible. They can talk at great length, how everything must be about passion, and art. People who don’t need to take into account pesky things like living and eating, can very well look down their noses at people who write to market.

Personally, I think people would be very surprised at the number of books that are written to market, mashing up genres to produce some very popular series that folks really probably think were entirely passion productions.

Very few authors will announce they wrote to market though (it tends to be whispered to other authors at conventions, or maybe a bit more loudly at the hotel bar), because that somehow implies that they are not invested in a project, and that they are filthy capitalists whoring out their muse.

Believe me, if you spend months and months in writing, editing and marketing a property, you are invested in it right up to the eyeballs. As to the muse, well I have never entirely believed in that comfortable imagery writers indulge in. Inspiration can come from any number of tiny details in day to day life, I don’t think it comes from anywhere otherworldly.

Here’s the truth of it. Many, many writers have had to walk away from writing, or even died while waiting for some commerce to come their way. My favourite poets died waiting to be paid for the work they did. (I always thought it was a cruel trick of fate that their best career move was shuffling off their mortal coil.)

So yes, the people who make their living off writing do not have the luxury of waxing philosophical about art. They make it about work. Craft and passion are damn useful, but the writer is the master of words, the words are not the master of him or her.

Art and passion are all very well, but books (at least the ones you plan to sell) must also be a commodity.

People on the art side, like to flog the commercial writer with the implication they are a sell out…but I think the real reason is, it makes them feel superior. Even if their book never sells enough for them to make even one car payment, they can at least fall asleep at night, knowing that they make ‘ART-DAMNIT’, unlike those filthy, successful people who actually sell their books.

So in short, you need both. Art is all very well, but no one wants to write a book that only their friends and family read. Anyone who tells you so is just plain out lying.

As for writing just commercially, with not one flicker of investment in the project. I tried it once…it is like pushing a stone up hill. I ended up pulling the eject seat on that short story, and I cannot imagine having to do that for a whole novel.

However, a passion project that I know is never going to sell, I also will not pursue. I have a virtual desk draw full of lost concepts that I might enjoy writing, but I know my time is better spent finding a story I can enjoy writing and sell.

So find a project that is both commercially viable and one that you have some passion and interest in. If anyone turns up their nose at your success then just understand…it’s helping them sleep at night knowing that they are totally more artistic and better than you.