On the road again: Balticon, day 3

My convention work day began with my presenting the Baen Traveling Roadshow, a fun sneak peek at upcoming Baen books.  What makes this event special is that we get to see not only the covers of the books, but the original art behind those covers.  I've led this event for some years now at Balticon, and it's always fun.  As usual, we nearly filled a big room, everyone in attendance seemed interested and attentive, and we gave away quite a few free books.

We then dashed out for lunch at at nearby Noodles & Company.  A small frozen yogurt from a neighboring shop topped off the meal. 

After a work break, I joined a memorial event for Peggy Rae Sapienza, a friend and fan whom I quite miss.  (I wrote about her death back in March, when I learned of it.)  As you would expect, the mood in the room was at best bittersweet as a large crowd of people told stories about how Peggy Rae had touched them.  I went second and discussed my first two interactions with Peggy Rae, the same two I covered in that earlier blog post.  Peggy Rae was a good woman who performed an amazing amount of work for SF fandom, and everyone I know who knew her will miss her.

In the small break available to me, I strolled through the dealers' room, said hi to some friends, and then found the location of my next panel.

This one, "It's for a Good Cause," focused on how writers can user their work to help charities.  I talked about the giveaway program I created with Children No More, my fourth novel, and I also discussed some of the charitable work that PT does.  I enjoyed learning about the ways the other panelists used their fiction to help causes of interest to them. 

My final panel of the day--and of the con, because I'll be leaving in the morning--was about "How To Keep Writing After the Workshop."  The question the con posed the panelists was how one could stay in contact with fellow workshop attendees and also keep writing after a workshop.  We focused on the writing part, with all of us agreeing that the only secret was that there was no secret:  you sit in a chair and do the work, or you don't.  The audience remained interested as the conversation wandered, so all went well.

Dinner was a good but not remarkable meal at Azumi, a well-reviewed local Japanese restaurant.  The fish was fresh and tasty, but the omakase menu did not feature any outstanding dishes, and it did unfortunately contain a few disappointing elements.  Though I enjoyed the meal overall, I feel no need to eat there again. 

And now, to sleep.

Forthcoming fiction from me

A few folks have asked me to run down the fiction I've got coming, so here's the scoop on the next year.

July - the paperback of Children No More. Buy the book, and I'll donate my royalties from it to Falling Whistles to help rehabilitate and reintegrate children affected by war. Pop for the hardback, and I'll donate even more money to help those kids.

August - The Wild Side! This trade paperback original anthology features ten cool tales, including one of mine that introduces a new character, Diego Chan. I think you'll find him interesting.

April, 2012 - A new, never-before-published Jon and Lobo short story will appear for free--that's right, for the low low price of absolutely nothing--on Baen.com. Publisher Toni has sent me the contracts--you may get it for free, but she's paying me--and I will shortly sign and return them. No, I won't tell you what the story is about, but I will say that it's going to fit into the chronology of the J&L stories and it's going to be awesome!

May, 2012 - After almost two years, the fifth Jon and Lobo book, No Going Back, will appear in hardback. As usual, I won't tell you much of anything about it, but I will share with you the promo copy that Baen will be using. Not tonight, of course, but soon. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe.

What I will say now is that in this book's case, the title is not an exaggeration. The events of this book rock Jon and Lobo's worlds.

Keeping the Children No More giveaway program going

As many of you are probably aware, last year I announced a program in which I said I would be donating all of my income from sales of the hardback of my last Jon and Lobo novel, Children No More, to Falling Whistles to help rehabilitate and reintegrate war-affected children. If you weren't aware of this program, you can learn more about it on the Children No More Web site.

I've decided now to change that program.

I'm going to donate to Falling Whistles everything I earn from all sales of all editions, electronic and print, hardback and paperback, of the novel.

This decision is going to cost me a fair amount of money. I had originally planned to keep the proceeds of the ebook and paperback sales because, well, it's nice to get some compensation for the year's worth of work that goes into writing a novel. I decided, though, that I could afford to live without the money, and the cause could definitely use it.

I won't repeat here all the information on the site I mentioned above. You can read it there. What I will repeat is this: we should not use children as soldiers, and we should help those poor kids whom others have used in this horrible way.

The paperback of Children No More goes on sale on July 5th of this year. Here's my request of all of you: Help promote it. Buy copies. Get others to do it. If you don't want to support the book, donate directly to Falling Whistles.

As we say on the site,

Lose yourself in other worlds, do a good deed in this one.

Let's meet at some upcoming readings!

In the space of a few days less than two weeks from now, I'll be doing two local readings and book signings. Here are the basic details, which you can also find on my site's Appearances page:

29 August 2010, 2:00
McIntyre's Books
Fearrington, NC

2 September 2010, 7:30
Quail Ridge Books and Music
Raleigh, NC

At both of these events, I'll be talking about the child soldier issue, Falling Whistles, and the Children No More giveaway program--as well as reading, answering questions, and all the usual signing stuff.

If the tone turns too grim, I may even do a few bits from my stand-up shows!

If you're anywhere in the area, I'd greatly appreciate your support--particularly if you buy a copy of the book, which would help make the booksellers happy and send more money to help rehabilitate and reintegrate child soldiers.

I hope to see you there!

A quick update on the Children No More charity program

(In this entry, I assume you are aware of my goal of raising a lot of money to help child soldiers by donating all of my earnings from sales of the hardback of Children No More to Falling Whistles. If you're not, you can go to the Children No More site and learn more there. I'll be here when you return.)


We're in the mysterious phase of the process now. The book is in bookstores and available online. It's not a bestseller--I'm pretty sure we'd know if it was--but its Amazon ranking was for at least a week respectable (below 10,000), and a lot of copies moved in the dealers' room at the con. But, really, we know nothing yet of its sales, and we won't for many months. Hence the mystery.

What we do know is that a lot of people have pitched in to help, and I appreciate it. For example, Edmund Schubert, the editor of Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine show online magazine, offered me his editorial column to promote the cause; check it out here. More folks than I can possibly list comprehensively have been nice enough to blog it; I thank you all, and each time I've seen a blog, I've tried to thank its writer.

So, you may reasonably ask, are we done?

No. The book has at least two more weeks on the shelves. We need to keep pushing for those weeks. You can help by spreading the news as far and as wide as you can and, of course, by buying the book. If you don't want to buy it, consider donating to Falling Whistles to help those kids; they have an easy-to-use donation page.

We've established a little momentum. Let's keep it going and see if we can't pick up speeds. We can help these kids.

Thanks.

The worst thing...

(In this entry, I assume you are aware of my goal of raising a lot of money to help child soldiers by donating all of my earnings from sales of the hardback of Children No More to Falling Whistles. If you're not, you can go to the Children No More site and learn more there. I'll be here when you return.)


People often begin discussions of rough topics with that phrase. When it comes to child soldiers, though, there are so many aspects of the problem vying for the title of "worst" that it's almost impossible to pick one. Over the next few weeks, I'm going to touch briefly on a few of them. I'm starting with the one that most clearly explains why we need to raise a lot of money:

Nobody wants these kids.

Think about it: They were trained to kill. They were traumatized by experiences no human, much less a child, should have to endure. Their socialization was screwed up in unthinkable ways. Let's be honest: would you want one in your house?

That's exactly why we need to help. With the right rehabilitation and reintegration programs, these kids can return to normal society. It takes time and skilled people to help them, but it is possible. Many kids have gone through successful rehabilitation programs. We shouldn't be satisfied until they all have. Falling Whistles works to help these kids, which is why I'm giving them this money.

Let's help these kids return to normal lives.

Children No More hits bookstores today

Which means we have about three weeks to raise money to help rehabilitate and reintegrate child soldiers, because after that, unless we've made it a bestseller, bookstores are likely to remove it from their shelves. (Fortunately, online vendors generally keep a few in stock longer.) So, the big push begins now.

One tradition in my company is to send a copy of each new novel of mine to each of our most valued clients. Here's a photo of a table covered with stacks of most, but not all, of those books. I will sign each and every one; we value our clients greatly enough that I'm willing to endure a lot of wrist pain.



We paid for those books, so we indirectly donated money to the cause--as each buyer does.

Over the next three weeks, I'm going to talk more about the book, the issue, and related topics, but that's not all I'm going to blog. The issue is bleak, and we all need fun breaks, so I'll be interspersing some oddities as well. In addition, I'll provide some coverage of the NASFiC, where I'll be a guest from Thursday to Sunday.

A lot of folks have already helped spread the word. I'm hopeful that more will. With luck, we will sell a ton of books, raise many thousands of dollars for Falling Whistles, and ultimately help give new lives to a lot of kids who should never have been soldiers.

We can do it.

One week from tomorrow

Children No More will officially go on sale. I'm not mentioning this date so I can make more money; I'm telling you so we can raise more money to help rehabilitate and reintegrate child soldiers. If you're not aware of the connection between the two, the short form is that I am donating 100% of the money I receive from sales of the hardback edition of this novel to Falling Whistles to help with this cause. (The long form of the story is in this post.)

A press release will go out soon, and the placeholder Web site will soon contain much more information than it now does. Multiple people are now working hard to have a fair amount of supporting material ready for launch day.

If you'd like to help, you can. You really can.

One way is easy: Buy the book. You'll enjoy a good read, and in the process you will have done a good deed.

If you don't want to do that, send a few bucks to the Falling Whistles folks; you can donate online here.

You can also help by spreading the word. Tell your friends. Blog about it. Mention it to your local bookseller. Whatever works.

Here's the thing, folks: Momentum really counts. Like most books from all but the very top-selling authors, the hardback of Children No More will stay on bookstore shelves for only three or four weeks. Then, newer books will replace it. To motivate booksellers to keep the book on display, we have to sell a lot of them in those first few weeks.

Many worthy causes are vying for your time and attention, but this one is unusual, because contributing to it is as easy--and as fun--as buying a book. Let's help these kids.

Thanks.

Today, I

finally got around to paying my bills and cleaning up my personal finances. The reason is that I am on day one of my vacation; tomorrow, we head to the beach. I intend to avoid email during this time, try to blog something silly and beach-y each day, relax, and heal from my fatigue and what feels like a very large, very inflamed soul bruise.

In the course of dealing with the stack of paperwork I had foolishly let build into a small but menacing tower, I also sent a little money to the reading charity for which I did some fund-raising at Balticon and a rather larger amount to Falling Whistles to get the Children No More program rolling. I hope we can be lucky enough to sell a lot of hardbacks and raise a lot of money.

Now, though, I must crash, for despite the timestamp on this entry, it's actually well past three a.m., and I am exhausted.

My next entry will come from the beach.

What you can do to help?

As I mentioned in yesterday's entry, the second most common question I received was, "What can I do to help?" Before I answer it with some ideas, I need to clarify that it's really two separate questions: what can you do to help with my particular campaign, and what can you do to help with the greater issue.

I'll focus on the former for most of this post, so let me address the broader question first: Get involved. Learn more. Start conversations. Donate money to my Falling Whistles partner or to any other organization that's working to help child soldiers and other children in war. As with any cause, if this one speaks to you, put some time and money into it.

That said, if you want to help with my particular effort, there are many things you can do. Here are five relatively straightforward ones.

Buy the book--or, even better, pre-order it from your favorite online or brick-and-mortar bookseller. Yes, it's obvious, but this is a very big deal. If we could get as few as ten thousand people to pre-order the book, that would help generate a lot of attention to the cause--and raise a lot of money.

The novel also makes a dandy gift, by the way. It really is a fun read--in a month or two, I hope to have real reviews to that effect--and at the same time its serious side will encourage people to think about this awful problem.

Spread the word via your social networks. Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, whatever--anywhere you hang out online is a good place to spread the word.

If you work at a company, see if they'll publicize this effort. Publicity will help spur sales, which will help raise more money.

If you attend a school, particularly a university, publicize it there. Post this news on all their activist listservs, tell your newspaper, inform your activist groups, and so on. If they bring in speakers, tell them about both the Falling Whistles people and me. For at least a limited number of groups, if they will cover my expenses, I'll come speak for no fee.

If you work at a bookstore anywhere near me or know people who do, encourage them to have me do a talk and signing there. I'll drive to them, it'll cost them nothing, they'll make money on the book sales, and more money will go to the cause.

You get the idea. Getting involved can be as quick and easy as ordering a book or as time-consuming as you're willing to let it be.

Let's sell a ton of books, raise a ton of money, and help these kids.

Just how much money could we raise to help children in war?

After reading my post yesterday, a few folks have danced around this question, but no one has been impolite enough to ask it directly. I want all the information out in the open, however, so I'm going to show you the math. I don't think I'll upset Publisher Toni or anyone else by revealing the basic hardback royalty terms I have, because they are pretty standard. With that data, we can talk about what's possible.

My royalties for this hardback, which as I said are quite standard, work as follows:

10% of the retail cover price on the first 5,000 copies sold

12.5% of the retail cover price on the next 5,000 copies sold

15% of the retail cover price on the first 5,000 copies sold

List price for Children No More is $22.00. (All figures will be US dollars.)

Thus, the arithmetic for some easy sales figures goes like this:

- Selling 5,000 copies => 5,000 * $22.00 * 10% = $11,000

- Selling another 5,000 copies => 5,000 * $22.00 * 12.5% = $13,750 more, or a total of $24,750

- After that, each additional 1,000 copies we sell => 1,000 * $22.00 * 15% = $3,300 more to add to our total

Let's go wild for a moment and assume we can gather a ton of momentum and hit the New York Times bestseller list in the first week--an unlikely outcome, but one that's possible. That would mean selling something like 25,000 hardcovers--again, unlikely, but possible, I have to hope. Doing that would yield $74,250--enough money to do a lot of good, I believe.

I honestly don't think there's much chance we'll get anywhere near those sales figures--but I sure as hell am going to try.

Tomorrow, I'll talk about another of the most common questions I received today: What can I do to help?