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Friday, February 17, 2006

Okay, seriously...



Dear readers,

I must admit that I'm less than impressed with the lack of response so far to my feedback request.

But the one thing I learned in 20 years of writing is that persistance pays off. However, I WOULD like to make this site more attractive to you. I cannot do that without your input. No writer should alienate his audience, but it would also help if the audience let said writer know what their gripes were. In fact, that was kind of the fucking POINT.

Granted, the decision to go with Publish America was a controversial one; however I believe it will prove more beneficial in the long run than not.

And I also admit that the "How-To" articles have more or less stopped, but I think they were thorough for what they were.

I know I haven't elaborated on my marketing strategy, what I'm doing with the e-book or the audio book, but given that I am devoting a great deal of money that I can't afford (except as the tax write-off) towards these plans I don't want to risk spoiling the strategy ahead of time. Rest assured that there is going to be a print campaign and I will be targeting Canadian colleges and universities; the e-book will launch shortly after the book and the fate of the audiobook depends a great deal on whether I can accomplish what my friend Tom and I have come up with, or not. Beyond any of that I really don't want to let the cat out of the bag.

Anyway, on to other news from me (Writing-wise):

So while waiting for the pre-production end of things to be done over at the publishers, I'm still working on other projects: one is completely non-genre related, set in and around my alma mater John Abbott College, during the years from 1991 to 1994. A grunge-era novel, basically, so it's got a lot of sex, drugs and the Seattle Sound thrown in.

It should be ready just in time for the inevitable (and always tacky) "retro" phase that pop-culture fashion-slave teens go through. Thank God the whole 80s "retro" was more of a flash in the pan than anything else. Who knows? Maybe the "retro Grunge" era to come will last longer than the 4 years that the Grunge Era did...

Sorry...crotchety old man bitching about the Good Old Days...

I also plan on soon re-visiting Crossroads, a novel I wrote and e-published several years ago. The story's about a man who commits suicide and then must undo the damage he has done to his friends and family, or face being consigned to oblivion.

Another novel I'm working on is a bit more on the Q-T for now; I go back into Sci-Fi with it and explore what happens when people who muck about with alien technology they know little or nothing about are suddenly stranded when all that superior hardware simply stops working as it should. Tentatively, that one's titled The Darkness and the Stars.

As an added treat, you'll very soon (Hopefully by the end of this weekend) be able to download the first four chapters of The Unearthing for free from this website--without having to go through the plodding dinosaur of slowness that is OurMedia.

That's about all the writing-related stuff I have to report this time out. In future weblog entries I'll be talking about more personal, non-writing stuff; like the fact that the grandfathers of Goth, The Sisters of Mercy are going to be playing a show here in Montreal. I'll not discuss things like my pregnant kitty cat or the new dishes my wife and I bought, but I have been told by a couple of people that more personal blogging is warranted. And so it shall be.

That's it for now. I'm off to bed.

Stay tuned--or for that matter please, tune the fuck in--K Space is about to re-launch.

4 comments:

Paul said...

Hi Steve,

I was just wondering how Google Books was coming on, so logged on and did a search on Black Holes. Saw your novel and started reading... And then couldn't stop. Before you know it (over 500 pages later) you're at the end and thinking very hard.

Great novel, especially great for a first one.

I won't try and go into a detailed review, I'm sure other people can do that much better than I can. Just to say that it's one of the best Sci -Fi 'faction' books I've read in a long time.

Couldn't see the paypal button (I maybe being blind), so let me know where it is, or if there's another link to it somewhere. I certainly feel the need to contribute something. Cheers, Paul.

Paul said...

Whoops... Only just read that you've written other novels. Are they available electronically anywhere?

Steve Karmazenuk said...

Hi Paul.

Is this the Paul of FWF?

Anyway Thanks for reading and enjoying. The PayPal button was taken down simply because I wasn't getting revenue from it.

I'm glad you liked the story; the best thing you can do for me in lieu of PayPal is tell your friends (and anyone you know) who likes a bit of SciFi (Or Speculative Fiction as one person has called it) about my site.

However I'm a little dismayed that I'd forgotten to remove it from Google Books. See, it will soon be published and so I had thought I'd removed it from everywhere online.

As for my other works, none are currently available online, but I may e-release something shortly. I'm setting up a web space to link files from (As I've chosen to make this Blog my web-page home) and am toying with the idea.

I will be releasing the first four chapters of The Unearthing (The Artifact's new title) as a "preview" for free from this site.

Paul said...

Sorry, not Paul from FWF, just Paul from Johannesburg.

Rest assured I will recommend it. Thinking it over last night, there was one loose end that I remembered. Jude and Ashe... What happened to them. Last I remember they wree shut one room together. Is this to lead to a second "Unearthing' novel? Or is it for the reader's imagination?

Cheers