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Book Club Finn Fancy Fun!

January 23, 2016 / Randy Henderson / No comments

I’m having a blast visiting book clubs to discuss the Finn Fancy series. Here’s a couple of photos (more to come):

Greater Tacoma Scifi/ Fantasy Book Club

Bellingham Scifi/Fantasy Concern Bookclub

Other Realms Book Group, Seattle

If you are in a book club, might I humbly suggest this is a great time for you to pick Finn Fancy to read? Here’s why:

* Reviews describe it as a fast paced and fun read full of laughs, laughs and more laughs — a great way to stave off those post-holiday winter blues!

* It came out in paperback January 5th! Or you can get the Hardback for nearly the same price with all the deep discounts — WHAT A DEAL! But wait, there’s more … 😉

* The sequel, BIGFOOTLOOSE AND FINN FANCY FREE, comes out February 16th! So no long wait to see what happens next!

* If your book club is within reasonable driving distance, I’ll happily come join your discussion of the book if you’d like, and answer any questions you have!

* If your book club is in distant lands, or is online, I will happily participate in any online Ask Me Anything-style discussion you set up (e.g. via Skype, Google Hangouts, or invite me to your Meetup group or email thread, etc).

So when you all go to vote for what to read in next month, might I humbly suggest that Finn Fancy Necromancy (or Bigfootloose) is, if not the best choice, then the even besterest choice!

Finn Fancy Tor US Cover

Category: Books and Ebooks / Tags: books

Why Your Book Club (or you) Should Read Finn Fancy in January

November 10, 2015 / Randy Henderson / No comments

While I hate promoting myself, I just have to mention that January 2016 is the absolute perfectest month to read my “dark and funny” contemporary fantasy novel from Tor Books, FINN FANCY NECROMANCY.
Why?

* Reviews describe it as a fast paced and fun read full of laughs, laughs and more laughs — a great way to stave off those post-holiday winter blues!

* It comes out in paperback January 5th, and you will have all those gift cards to spend! Or you can get the Hardback for nearly the same price earlier.

* The sequel, BIGFOOTLOOSE AND FINN FANCY FREE, comes out in February!

* If your book club is within reasonable driving distance, I’ll happily come join your discussion of the book if you’d like, and answer any questions you have!

* If your book club is in distant lands, or is online, I will happily participate in any online Ask Me Anything-style discussion you set up.

So when you all go to vote for what to read in January, might I humbly suggest that Finn Fancy Necromancy is, if not the best choice, then the even besterest choice!

Finn Fancy Tor Cover

Finn Fancy ARCs and Cover Reveal

September 11, 2014 / Randy Henderson / No comments

Today was a good day.

A box arrived on my doorstep, and inside was a little piece of a dream come true. 15 pieces, actually, all smelling delicious and booky.

Finn Fancy Anticipancy

Finn Fancy Happy Face

Finn Fancy Happy Dancy!

Such a captivating read!

The Cover Revealed!

Category: Books and Ebooks, Finn Fancy / Tags: fantasy, Finn Fancy, writing

My Upcoming Readings and Signings – Not Just for Writers of the Future

May 6, 2014 / Randy Henderson / No comments

The point of my readings and signings will not truly be to sell copies of Writers of the Future volume 30 (although that is encouraged), but to celebrate our love of the genre together.

All questions will be answered, many laughs will be had, and many words shared.

And I understand that many folks may have already bought the anthology by the time of the reading, possibly in e-form, or maybe don’t want the anthology for some strange unknowable reason (possibly involving alien probing and the suppression of human emotion through nano technology). If so, bring your copy, or buy something else! I’ll have Other Stuff to sign freely for you if you do.

Let’s share in a celebration of speculative fiction, and support other authors and the bookstore as well (ideally through sale of the anthology which does so much to support new writers, and is also of course a handy way to understand the market if you wish to submit to them; but if you buy any book, that is a good thing in my, er, book).

Perhaps you were wanting to buy awesome fiction from other local authors like: Forged in Fire by J.A. Pitts; or The Age of Ice by J.M. Sidorova; or Hild by Nicola Griffith; or Requiem by Ken Scholes; or The Thousand Names by Django Wexler; or the latest Greywalker Novel by Kat Richardson; or The Creative Fire by Brenda Cooper; or Reflected by Rhiannon Held; or Copper Head by Tina Connolly; or The Book of Joby by Mark Ferrari.

Or you wanted to pick up some mind-expanding goodness, like: Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor; or Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie; or Authority by Jeff Vandermeer; or 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami; or Sister Mine by Nalo Hopkinson; or We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler, or Cory Doctorow’s latest, Homeland.

Or grab the latest (or first) book in a series you are interested in, be it the Dresden Files or Game of Thrones or Divergent.

Perhaps you prefer the comic stylings of Jim C Hines, John Scalzi, or Terry Pratchett, or the magic realism of Charles de Lint?

Or heck, come in and place pre-orders on books like: Hurricane Fever by Tobias S. Buckell; or The Ultra Thin Man by Patrick Swenson; or Last Plane to Heaven by Jay Lake; or Prophet of Bones by Ted Kosmatka.

But again, of course, the hope is to sell many copies of Writers of the Future Volume 30, officially called by The Critic** “The besterest volume ever.”

Hope to see you there, with (some) book or eReader or receipt in hand*.

*No purchase required to participate as a viewer. Mileage estimated based on in-city reading. See book dealer for additional details.
**That’s me. I’m The Critic. I may be biased, but I’m also completely biased.

See my Schedule page for details on upcoming readings/signings/Q&As.

Category: Books and Ebooks, fantasy, scifi, writing / Tags: fantasy, readings, science fiction, signing, writing

Guerrilla Promoter Guy Strikes Again

February 28, 2012 / Randy Henderson / 2 comments

I continue my quest to make good spec fic books and spec fic magazines easier to find, despite bookstore tendencies to do otherwise.

This time, I targeted Saladin Ahmed’s “Throne of the Crescent Moon.”

While not as difficult to find as some books, it still takes only a minute to make it stand out even more.

First, I found a few copies on a table far from the Fantasy section. I made them easier to see in passing:

Hiding in the corner

Ah, Much Better.

Next, I found something lacking on the Scifi/Fantasy New Releases shelf, even though the in store locator system said it should be here:

No Ahmed in the As, but two stacks of Cards?

So I remedied that:

So Much Easier to Buy When It Is On the Shelf

Finally, I went ahead and searched for his book on every search screen I passed, so that anyone who came along behind me would first see his book (at least until the screen timed out).

I Need to Find a Good Book and ... Huh, What's This?

Again, all of this took only a minute or two as I passed these spots anyway, but sometimes that makes a difference between a good book being missed, and being bought.

And speaking of buying, you can buy Ahmed’s book here.

Category: Books and Ebooks /

“Surviving the eBookalypse” Live on Escape Pod

January 21, 2012 / Randy Henderson / 6 comments

My story “Surviving the eBookalypse”, a satire about the future for books and their authors, is now live on Escape Pod: http://escapepod.org/2012/01/19/ep328-surviving-the-ebookalypse/

I wrote this story during Clarion West, partly as a response to a doom and gloom speech I heard on the future of the publishing industry. But folks like Mary Robinette Kowal and Cory Doctorow reaffirm my belief that we who create or consume the fiction, we have power to affect the course of things. eBooks are really not so different from paperbacks if we push for the right to truly own what we purchase. Books as objects can return to being lovingly crafted pieces of art, to be collected and displayed proudly in order to impress your date/guests. Er, I mean, to show your love of the written word. And in the end, all of us time-conscious readers will still want someone to filter out the good from the ocean of crap for us and will pay a little extra for that service. Sparkly vampires aside. So I believe the future of the written word remains bright. And if I’m wrong, I will happily accept patronage offers.

Interesting note: the recorded pod cast is actually from an earlier version of the story, and the online text is from the updated version, which I see as a happy accident because A) I went back and forth over the beginning and am still not sure which I like better (though the printed version is tighter), and B) it is a record I think of how my writing (or at least editing) improved over the time between versions. Although the very beginning of the story is the main difference, there are also a number of small differences that demonstrate opportunities to eliminate unneeded words and poor sentence structures. The story synchs up pretty quickly (once Andre enters the library) so if you listen and follow along with the text, you’ll spot the differences.

Thank you to Roberto Suarez for his podcast reading.

Cheers, and I hope you enjoy it.

Category: Books and Ebooks, Clarion West, humor, scifi, writing / Tags: clarion west, science fiction, writing

Mass Market eBook Pricing

August 15, 2011 / Randy Henderson / One comment

WTF? How are BACKLISTED EBOOKS $9.99? Do I get an eMassage with that? Seriously.

I can understand the publishers having to raise prices for Mass Market print books due to the changing publishing, supply, distribution and market factors. But BACKLISTED EBOOKS? Yes, there’s a certain amount of work to convert books nicely into eformats. And if they were NEW books, there are costs associated to editing and formatting the book, etc. But seriously. BACKLISTS? Of cheap-fun pulp mass market paperbacks converted to EBOOKS? I love books, and support books, and am all for supporting authors, but many backlisted genre paperbacks are not great works of art I will be reading over and over, especially in eBook format, they are disposable consumable entertainment, and surely they’ve sold through by now, so really, what’s the justification for $9.99 eBooks?

All you’ve done is made me NOT buy those books now. Unless I find them in a used book store. Now, let’s see what we have available for a SANE price …

Category: Books and Ebooks / Tags: ebooks