The Day After Groundhog Day

So, not that any of you have been counting (which is more than just understandable) but this blog was ‘born’ on this day (also a Friday by the way) six years ago. That makes me something of an internet old fart, if not an ancient like a few out there. I find it suitably ironic and appropriate that it was the day after Groundhog Day that this was founded. Certainly I’ve evolved a lot over the years, but at the same time, there is certainly a very repeatable cycle to discussion in blogs that does indeed remind one of a certain Bill Murray movie (and yes, it is indeediSuntory time, though that isn’t the Bill Murray movie I’m referring to).

I’ve had many starts and stops along the way – from regular cover art posts, to rants, to travel posts, to Questions Five interviews, to the SFF Literary Pub Crawl, to something completely different photos, to room with a view photos, to whisky reviews, and of course, lots and lots of book reviews. I’ve gotten much better at reviewing and I’ve had the opportunity to meet and interact with many of my favorite authors (in person and on-line). It’s been a wild ride, and even though my ‘productivity’ has declined over the last year or so, I plan to forge ahead for the foreseeable future. So, thanks for reading, I’ll see you ‘tomorrow’ and now it is Suntory Time.

Cheers! Salud! Na Zdravi! Kampai! Noroc! Sláinte! Or however you prefer…

5 Years

On February 3^, 2006 I officially started this blog. At that point there weren’t that many SFF blogger-review sites and I really didn’t have any plans or ambitions. I just thought it might be a convenient way to store a few reviews instead of letting them get lost in forum archives. Imagine my shock when I discovered that people were actually reading those reviews – people from all over the world – a couple of who turned out to be editors and authors.

I should probably have some grand post that cleverly shows all the wild happenings on this blog that have ranged from asking an author in an interview about a book he didn’t write (thank you cut and paste) to an author making an idiot of herself responding to my review here and elsewhere (and a whole lot in between). I should have a list of my favorite books of these past 5 years and perhaps even my least favorite. But time is short and after 5 years I can be a bit of crotchety old blogger. I could have a great post with statistical analyses of my review scores, but I’ve done that before and I image I’ll do it again – so not here. I should have a summary of the most popular posts and a snarky discussion of some the crazy search phrases that have led people here. But, remember I’m crotchety in my old age. Below are a few general facts that don’t mean all that much.

·         180 reviews

·         ~600 blog posts

·         ~50 interviews

·         A few hundred followers through RSS, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

·         A few hundred thousand visits (exact number unknown due to RSS feeds)

·         Over 700 books received from publishers

So, it’s been a great 5 years. I’ve made a number of friends among other bloggers and fans and even perhaps a few authors. I’ve met a number of authors in person and a lot more through the internet. And I’ve read a few good books. So, hopefully the next 5 years will be as fun as the previous.

Cheers!

I’m Back, and I’m Catching Up

So I’m back from my trip to Romania. I may do another post summing it up, but I may not. It’ll largely depend on my mood and how busy I am next week. Over the past couple of days I’ve mostly caught up at work and I’m making good progress at home. I owe the blog a couple of reviews, but it’ll be next week at the earliest. I think I’ve even caught up on sleep and hope that I can actually stay awake long enough tonight to read a bit. My body doesn’t process jet lag as well as it once did, but I’m over the worst now.

Just to give you an idea of what I came home to – the picture below is all of the book packages that were waiting after about 3 weeks of travel.


I love getting books, but you can see why I’m always way behind here. There are so many good books and I have so little time for reading. If you’re curious, here they are out of the packages, 27 in total.


More regular programming should return next week, though defining regular programming would be a challenge anyway.

Ciao!

As For the Month of August…

I head out tomorrow to work on a project in Romania. I’ll be gone for several weeks, so blog activity may suffer a bit. Or it may pick up as I comment about adventures traveling through Romania – who knows. I have a few posts in the can and I’ll likely get quite a bit of reading in while traveling to and from Romania – though reviews will probably wait until I return. So, expect content to run a bit more in the direction of travelogue. Of course actual work days will probably be 12-hours+, 7 days a week, so once in country exhaustion will probably keep reading and blogging to a minimum. I do hope to squeeze in a bit of sight-seeing at the end of the trip. Below are the books that will be making the trip with me.

Now, behave while I am gone.

Oh and it looks like the project is already delayed, so I'll have a free weekend in Bucharest when I arrive. Any suggestions?

2010 Stats So Far (The Meme)

Well, I’ve resisted joining in on the latest SFF blogger meme going around about books read to date because I think it’s a bit pointless and defensive. But I really don’t have anything better to do, so I suppose I’ll jump into the mix. Since I actually track these things, it’s easy enough for me to do and easy enough for me to provide a bit more.

My life is busy and reading time limited, so I’ve only read 15 books this year. Here’s how the break down by publisher:

Angry Robot: 1
Ballantine: 1
Daw: 1
Del Rey: 1
Harper: 1
Orbit: 3
PS Publishing: 1
Pyr: 2
Roc: 1
Spectra: 1
Tor: 2

I suppose it’s worth mentioning that very little separates Ballantine, Del Rey and Spectra, so that is probably better reported as 3 for Random House. Likewise, Daw and Roc aren’t that far apart either and could easily be reported as 2 for Penguin Group.

Of those, 13 were provided by the publisher for review, 1 came from a contest and 1 was purchased by me. 6 were first published in 2009 and 9 are 2010 publications.

The demographic breakdown: 6 were written by women and 9 were written by men. At least 3 were written by persons of color (yes, the stats I keep track of include this as best as easily knowable).

13 fit the broad definition of fantasy and only 2 fit the broad definition of science fiction. 3 fit into the more classic category of epic fantasy. 5 meet a broad definition of urban fantasy, 1 fits into steampunk, and one is alternative history. Some books may meet more than one category and a few really don’t fit any of them. 11 are at least loosely part of a series, the remaining 4 stand completely alone, but may yet have sequels. 8 were novel debuts. 4 were written by authors I’ve read before and 11 were new to me. I’ve interviewed 5 of the authors at some point or another. The average rating for these books is 7.8, with a low of 6.5-7 (3 books) and high of 9 (three books). One was a novella and so far I haven’t read any anthologies/collections.

Thoughts?

Others that have participated: Adam, Pat, John, Larry, and Rob (aren’t I cool since I use the blogger’s first names :)

An American Blogger in Canada

So my trip to British Columbia for work is done and now I’m happily back at home. Ironically, it was snowing here in Arizona this morning and officially colder here than it was in British Columbia (though the actual mine site may have been slightly colder). I really don’t have that much to say about it all since work dominated my time.

Kamloops was fairly unimpressive. The town itself was just a bit boring. It sounds like there are great things to do around the town, but I didn’t have the time to visit them and it was really the wrong season to enjoy them. Vancouver is a great city, and I wish had longer to explore both the city and the surrounding environments. It’s definitely a place I hope to visit again. I didn’t do much – hit the Canada Line from near my hotel and the airport and took it to the Waterfront. I walked around the city center a bit – Canada Place, Gaslights District, etc. The weather was perfect: clear and warm, the cherry blossoms were just past peak. Then I had a nice sushi dinner (it was odd to find Bible verses on the chop sticks wrapping) and a beer or two in the Gaslight District. Steamworks Brewery was fairly unimpressive – next time I will have to make it to Granville Island, whose beers I was far more impressed with when I was laid over at the airport.

Did a bit of reading – I finished up The Midnight Mayor by Kate Griffin (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound) just before leaving and read Soulless by Gail Carriger (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound) while on the trip. Now I’m reading King Maker by Maurice Broaddus (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound). Expect the reviews to start arriving early next week.

I’m so bad at Birthdays

I fall into the typical male stereotype of not being very good at remembering dates. It’s not that I really forget, I just loose track. Thankfully, my wife doesn’t mind all that much and I do manage to remember the big ones (her birthday, our wedding anniversary, etc.). Though I did miss the 10-year anniversary of when we first got together earlier this month. But I digress.

Of much more importance (OK, of much less importance) is that I in fact missed the birthday (or anniversary or blogday – I’m not sure the correct term) of this blog earlier this month. It was 4 years ago in early February that I first started throwing reviews that I’d written on a message board up on this blog for no other reason than to put them in one place and see what happened. There weren’t many SFF blogger/reviewers out there at this time and those that were around often hadn’t embraced the blog format or become as closely tied with message boards and the wider internet fandom as exists now. So, I was a pioneer of sorts – not the first wave and probably not even the second wave, but the wave just before it became the cool thing to do. And at 4 years old, this blog is relative ancient among the fan/reviewer blogs that we all know and love today.

There’s not really anything else to say – I’m not going to say anything profound and I’m not going to go all nostalgic. Heck, it’s only a 4th anniversary, which doesn’t any mean much. So, back to work for me and I hope you enjoy your February.

Goodbye Amazon

Well, Amazon has finally driven me to end my relationship with them as a customer and affiliate. I’ve been a customer pretty much since the beginning and spent thousands of my hard-earned dollars at their store. The pricing and convenience simply can’t be passed up. However I’ve never been pleased with how they have become something of the Wal-Mart of the book world that helps drive the smaller guys out of business, I don’t support their eBook practice of loading up the books with DRM and having proprietary format for the eBooks and eReader, I was unhappy to learn that if you buy an eBook from Amazon that they can take it back from you whenever they want, no explanation needed, and I was very unhappy when a supposed computer glitch lead to all GLBT and related books being dropped out of their search engine and rankings. But that was all just annoyances that didn’t cause me to end my relationship with them. The latest fiasco happened when Amazon went nuclear and de-listed all of Macmillan’s books in what should have been a behind-the-scenes negotiation. Not only was this a very hard-ball and ultimately childish tactic, but it hurt authors who have no control over the situation and showed a complete disregard for their customers – apparently power is what really matters to Amazon. This was the last straw.

Below are a few links that sum up this latest fiasco – Amazon ultimately has caved in, but while I was writing this post, they still hadn’t followed through by actually putting links back up to Macmillan’s books – childish and dishonest now.

• SF Signal – a good summary with links to many reactions (a bit out of date now)
• Tobias Buckell – a good summary on the economics
• Charles Stross – a debatable take on the issue
• Andrew Wheeler – a couple of good posts on the subject
• Washington Post
• NY Times
• Macmillan CEO response
• Amazon gives in (poorly)

And the Best:

• John Scalzi sums it all up
• Scott Westerfeld sums it all up
• Suvudu "Nobody blogs like a pissed off science fiction writer."

So, I am no longer going to include Amazon links to the books I talk about here. For now, old links will remain, but I’ll slowly take the time to go back and remove them in older posts as well. Instead I will link to these books through the affiliate programs of Powell’s Books, The Book Depository, and Indiebound. For some disclosure – in the 4 years of this blog I have only received about $50 in referral revenue (all from Amazon.com) and that all immediately turned around to buy books. I don’t expect to make money and that’s never been the goal of this blog, but I do want to help facilitate getting books into the hands of book lovers, so I do the links. And if along the way I can get a little extra cash to feed my addiction then great. So, if you appreciate what I do hear, click on the occasional link and help feed my addiction.

Best of 2009 at Neth Space

It's that time of year again – when a blog like this one is all but required to produce a year's end post prior to the actual end of the year. So, here we are.

Well it’s been another busy year here at Neth Space. The real world has kept me from reading as much as I’d like – but that’s nothing new. I did manage to read 33 books this year (though by true year’s end I’ll probably be at 34 or 35). I suppose a few milestones were reached – sometime over this year I officially went over 100,000 site visits, though with RSS followers who knows when this actually occurred – I’m up to several hundred followers through various RSS feeds. I took the plunge and joined the Twitter phenomenon and I’m up to nearly 250 followers there. A few interesting stats are summed up below.

So, Happy Fesitivus, Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, Happy End of a Decade (though I believe it technically ends next year) or whatever season’s greetings you would like.

Stats:

• 33 books read
• 27 Published in 2009
• 4 Published in 2008
• 2 Published earlier (2006 and 2001)
• 5 are YA
• 24 are part of a series
• 30 were provided by the publisher
• I read more books published by Tor (9) than any other. The next closest were Pyr with 4 and Del Rey and Bantam/Transworld with 3 each.
• 5 books were published by ‘small press’
• 2 are short story collections
• Only 3 are written by female authors and only 3 were written by a person of color (possibly more since this is a difficult thing to keep track of)
• Only 4 are what I consider science fiction
• 18 are what I consider epic fantasy
• 3 are what I consider steampunk
• 5 are what I consider urban fantasy
• 2 are what I consider alternative history/historical fantasy
• I conducted 12 Interviews and I was interviewed twice
• There have been approximately 50,000 site visits this year (not counting RSS) from 124 countries. Roughly 50% from the USA, 10% from the UK, and 9% from Canada.
• The Westeros Forums and Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist are the top referring sites (other than google).
• My review of The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson was the most popular post by far. The next most popular post with under half of the views was a post discussing the release of the prologue for Dust of Dreams by Steven Erikson.
• The top referring search phrase (other than ‘Neth Space’ and ‘nethspace) was ‘eon dragoneye reborn sequel’ – but adding up the various combinations of ‘Brent Weeks’ and ‘Black Prism’ would push it to the top.
• People visited the blog via such varied search phrases as ‘cow skin soup’, ‘deep fried haggis’, ‘how did bloody mary got kill’, ‘giant escape r sub zero aus england’, ‘chicken springs road arizona’, and ‘secret agent game where the guy gets to the door and opens the door and gets to win’

So, the best books I read this year are listed below (the exception is Escape From Hell! which was actually read at the end of 2008 but after the best of list had already been posted). It’s not a top 10 list (you’ll find 11 or 12 entries depending on how you count) and it’s not presented in any particular order – though my ratings of the books generally get higher as you move down the list.


Canticle by Ken Scholes (US, UK, Canada, Indiebound)

Scholes’ second book, Canticle, shows significant improvement over his already impressive debut, Lamentation. This is an epic fantasy series that all fans should be reading – this is a series that should be talked about – this is something special. The song that is Canticle demands a response, a response that will come in the forthcoming Antiphon, a response that I cannot wait to see. (full review)

Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie (US, UK, Canada, Indiebound)

Series come to an end – and I’ve said before how it’s often a bitter-sweet kind of moment. With the Last Argument of Kings, Abercrombie seems to have poured on the bitter – which makes it all the more sweet. Abercrombie hasn’t been writing the standard epic fantasy trilogy – and the proof is in the ending. This series has overwhelmed many and under-whelmed more than few – but it something that fans of epic fantasy simply must read for themselves. (full review)

Buyout by Alexander C. Irvine (US, UK, Canada, IndieBound)

Buyout by Alex Irvine caught me by surprise. I was looking for a change of pace and the obvious message behind this book looked to be the thought exercise my brain needed. It proved to be much more. So, science fiction isn’t dead, though it does beg the question of what kind of buyout it could get. (full review)

World’s End and Darkest Hour by Mark Chadbourn (US, UK, Canada, IndieBound)

Originally published in 1999 in the UK, World’s End by Mark Chadbourn begins the Age of Misrule trilogy and a series of books that follow. Simply put: it completely blew me away. I was sucked into the fascinating tale of Celtic magic in conflict the modern world, where evil seeks the end of the world, where ‘good’ may be little better, and those charged with saving us all have their own problems to deal with. Highly recommended. (full review)

Escape from Hell! by Hal Duncan (US, UK, Canada, Indiebound)

Escape From Hell! is a wild ride through the literal Hell – a pulp adventure and angry condemnation. I suppose that some may consider it blasphemy – I consider it brilliant fiction. It’s rare for me to think such, but Escape From Hell! would make a great movie, if anyone had the guts to make it. (full review)

The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson (US, UK, Canada, Indiebound)

While part of me triumphs over completing another series, I also lament the passing of a great story. The Hero of Ages shows how well a series can end and has left me greatly satisfied. (full review)

Twelve by Jasper Kent (US, UK, Canada, Indiebound)

Whether your are looking for a beautifully told historical novel, a cunning vampire tale, or a stark war novel, Twelve will satisfy. Kent embraces both genre and history, resulting in a book that defies classification and spans multiple boundaries. Early success has already lead to the expectation of more to come – the Danilov Quintet will span important events throughout 19th and early 20th Century Russia, with Thirteen Years Later coming soon. After Twelve, I can’t wait to see what Kent throws at us next. (full review)

The Last Hot Time by John M. Ford (US, UK, Canada, Indiebound)

So, what is The Last Hot Time? Well it’s an Americana, elf-punk, urban fantasy, gangster tale, love story hiding the classic American coming-of-age story that can serve as a metaphor for so much more. Or more simply it’s a new classic of SFF literature from a sadly deceased giant of genre and a must-read book. (full review)

The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (US, UK, Canada, Indiebound)

In all this, The Gathering Storm comes across as I expected – this is a book that those who are still excited about The Wheel of Time will love and it’s a book that will have plenty to complain about for those seeking it. Sanderson does an admirable job of picking up a series at its climax and staying true to it and its fans. Exciting events occur, longstanding mysteries revealed, plots and arcs come to fruition – some scenes in this book will become iconic to the series as a whole. But, the Last Battle hasn’t yet begun, the characters still haven’t been brought together, and major anticipated events remain. All in all, I couldn’t be happier – reading The Gathering Storm brought back my love for these characters and this world. They’ve been a part of my life for nearly 15 years and getting more was a joy. The series is on the right track and Sanderson has proven to me that he deserves to be in the driver’s seat – I simply can’t wait to read what comes next. (full review)

Finch by Jeff VanderMeer (US, Canada, Indiebound)

Finch answers many of the mysteries posed in the first two books of the Ambergris Cycle while standing well enough on its own to introduce new readers to Ambergris. It must be described as noir though the setting of Ambergris sets it apart – is it fantasy, urban fantasy, horror, a political thriller, noir, fungalpunk? Is it all of the above, none of the above? Finch is what you make of it – for me, it’s one of the best books I’ve read this year. (full review)

Medicine Road by Charles de Lint (US, UK, Canada, Indiebound)

In short, I cannot recommend Medicine Road highly enough – though please take note that due to the place I am in the world, it reached me at an exceptionally personal level. I’ve been awed by the writing of de Lint in the past and haven’t read him in some time, and now I feel that it would be a terrible shame to go as long before I read him again. (full review)

Honorable Mentions

Of course there are quite a few very good books that didn’t quite crack the uppermost tier, but are certainly books that I recommend.

• Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
• A Madness of Angels by Kate Griffin
• The Other Lands by David Anthony Durham
• Lamentation by Ken Scholes
• No Dominion by Charlie Huston

And for kicks – the worst book I read in 2009:

The Sheriff of Yrnameer by Michael Rubens (US, UK, Canada, Indiebound)

Frankly put, if I hadn’t been in a small Arizona town on a work assignment that gave me the choice of watching other people work or reading while watching people work with a choice only 3 books (all of which I read), The Sheriff of Yrnameer is not a novel I would have finished reading. Of course, this is a humor novel, which means that if the novel doesn’t appeal to your sense of humor, it’s unlikely you’ll enjoy it. The Sheriff of Yrnameer clearly didn’t appeal to mine – maybe it will appeal to yours, but I won’t bet on it. (full review)

 

Kindle Blogs

Amazon now lets people publish their blogs on Kindle so that Kindle users can subscribe for a fee. A few of the SFF blogs I follow (such as SF Signal and Grasping for the Wind – who has a good write-up about it) have set it up. The blog owner gets 30% of the proceeds with the rest to Kindle – I believe the fee is on the order of a couple of bucks a month, so proceeds are very modest unless a blog has a large number of subscribers.

So, what are your thoughts on this? Should I set up Neth Space for this service – would any of you actually subscribe? I can’t ever see me making much money, so it wouldn’t be about the money but about giving my readers more ways to easily read this blog.

But, I’m not really a fan of the Kindle. Not only am I just not ready to embrace e-readers yet, but the Kindle uses proprietary format and Kindle e-books can’t be read by other e-readers (such as Sony). As long as this is the case, I won’t consider purchasing one myself – but should I allow this stance to keep me from publishing my blog for Kindle. If no one out there would subscribe anyway, then it doesn’t matter, but if there people interested, I’ll consider it. So, let me know your thoughts – would you pay money to read this blog on a Kindle when it’s free here? Do people believe that this is a good additional form of blog promotion for getting new readers? How many of my regular readers actually own a Kindle? I’m guessing a fairly low percentage that probably works out to numbers that can be counted on my hands and feet.

Rating Trends

In all honesty, I’m not a big fan of giving numeric ratings in reviews even though I have chosen to do so. There are so many factors that go into what makes a book good, bad, week, strong…that it is really unfair to sum it all up in a single number between 0 and 10. Just look at the books I’ve reviewed and rated – two books that are vastly different will score the same.

All that complaining aside, ratings do provide some useful information for some people. And they allow for me to geek out and look at things through a statistical lens. The chart below shows the distribution of ratings for the 78 books and series I’ve reviewed since starting this blog. It’s interesting to see some of the trends that are evident.


As I’ve described elsewhere, I have some general guidelines as to what the ratings mean and I’ve included them on the above chart. Simply said, below 5 is bad, between 5 and 7.5 is good with some reservations, and above 7.5 is great. Since I ultimately choose the books I read, and I only rarely read a book that I’m not already pretty sure I’ll enjoy, the ratings are skewed significantly toward the good and great end of things. But looking at the data trends makes me think that a better division of the ratings might be what’s shown in the chart below. While I’ll still aim to rate as I always have, I think that I’ll have to keep this distribution in mind as it just might more accurately reflect my feelings.


Anyway, I hope that people out there might actually find all this interesting – I know I did.

New Arrival

The picture says it all, so I'll probably be a bit scarce around here for the next week or so. If you've sent me an email in the last week, I'm not ignoring you, I've just been very busy and very tired.

Neth Space on Livejournal

Well, I know a lot of you out there are on Livejournal and prefer its format to those of other blog/social networking sites. I've had an account for a while, but since I don't pay up, I can't syndicate my blog. Well, Valashain was kind enough to do the syndication for me, so now all you LJ people can get Neth Space syndicated. Just add me (well the syndication) as a friend and enjoy reading.

Who Knew?

Well I got bored and did this blogalyzer thing. It thinks I'm a clear, selfish intellectual focused on the present who writes like a girl. Interesting. Of course I doubt that their method is worth much, but I find it curious that I have a feminine writing style - I never would have thought that. Anyway, I consider it a compliment.

The Blogalyser reveals...

Your blog/web page text has an overall readability index of 16.
This suggests that your writing style is intellectual
(to communicate well you should aim for a figure between 10 and 20).
Your blog has 6 sentences per entry, which suggests your general message is distinguished by clarity
(writing for the web should be concise).

CHARACTER MATRIX

male		female
self		world
past		future

Your text shows characteristics which are 17% male and 83% female
(for more information see the Gender Genie).
Looking at pronoun indicators, you write mainly about your social circle, then the world in general and finally yourself. Also, your writing focuses primarily on the present, next the future and lastly the past.

Find out what your blogging style is like!

Book Giveaways – Everywhere!

I love books; I really love free books, so it’s no surprise that I love all these book giveaways going on.

I think I started advocating for book giveaways as a way to reinvigorate the Wotmania OF message board in early 2004 – at this time there were only the occasional sweepstakes programs here and there. Now, if you know what you are doing, you can find seemingly countless book giveaways that really don’t have any strings attached – all you need to do is supply an email or private message, sometimes with a name and address, that actually isn’t used for anything other than getting you a book in the case that you win. There really is no reason not to sign up.

Excepting bookstore and publisher sweepstakes, I think I first noticed on-line giveaways sometime in 2003. At that time, it was limited and author sponsored – I think the giveaway was a R. Scott Bakker book at Wotmania OF, and not really a true giveaway, but more of a contest. Starting a few years later, Pat over at Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist really got book giveaways going – he has them all the time. Other places like FantasyBookSpot had occasional giveaways, but nothing like Pat. Now it seems that everywhere I look there are more – SFF World, Wotmania OF, SFX, Fantasy Book Critic, Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review, My Elves are Different, SF Signal, The Fantasy Review, etc… And you can find many other sources for free books such as the reader review programs at many of the major publishing houses, bookstore giveaways at places like Waterstone's, publisher direct contests at their own blogs (such as Orbit), other blog contests (like what Carl sponsors at Stainless Steel Droppings), and even the occasional giveaway from the authors themselves (such as this one from Tobias Buckell).

Clearly the combination of every fanboy/girl out there getting into blogging and the realization by publishers of the power of on-line marketing through the fanboy/girl is making these giveaways even more popular. And why not – it makes good marketing sense (to me anyway). Even this survey indicates as much. Now the specific category of contests is really low, but if the winner of the contest starts recommending it to friends, or writes a review on a blog, or talks it up on a message board or a book club, the chain reaction starts and the cost of that single book has more than paid for itself in more than one way.

And who doesn’t love free books – I am a bona fide bibliophile and I sure do love these contests. I almost compulsively enter just about every one that I see, even though in many cases I could request said book from the publisher or I may even already have a copy. I don’t care, I get selfish, gimmeee books, gimmmeee more books. And if I don’t win, I often do buy that book.

So, my little blog is pretty successful – I’ve had over 20,000 visitors (not counting RSS views) and at a rate of several thousand per month, that’s growing fast. But I haven’t done any giveaways – should I? Perhaps I should declare my blog giveaway free just to be different. Well, that sounds good to me – Neth Space is and will remain giveaway free*.

*this is mostly due to laziness rather than any actual principled stand or desire to be different. In fact if offered giveaways, Neth Space would happily reverse this stand almost instantly – after all, I do love giveaways.

Book Promotion and Book Buying

I saw this survey via Tobias Buckell’s blog (which has some interesting commentary on it). Basically, about 400 people responded to a poll about what has influenced book buying in the past – they were asked to select all that apply from a long list. These are the summarized results on what promotional tools led to the purchase of a book.

1. Previous familiarity with author’s work – 98% (it’s cutoff, so I tried to back calculate it)
2. Recommendation of a friend – 90.6%
3. Reading about the book on another person’s blog or website – 80.3%
4. Reading about book on author’s blog or website – 64.2%
5. Reading first chapter of book online or in store – 63.2%
6. Cover Art – 62.9%
7. Cover or flap blurbs (promotional quotes) – 57.7%
8. Published (print or electronic) book review – 56.4%
9. Attending a reading or signing event with author (including conventions) – 53.5%
10. Bookseller or librarian recommendation – 42.6%
11. Other – 8.1%
12. Contest sponsored by author or publisher – 7.6%
13. Receiving promotional email from author – 5.7%
14. Receiving postcard in mail from author – 3.9%
15. Receiving toys or other promotional gimmicks from author – 2.9%

I find this all very interesting on multiple levels – partly because I’ve speculated on the actual influence of cover art in the on-line world (at least how I feel about it) and mostly out of general curiosity as an avid reader. Of course since I am a blogger and fan reviewer I’m also very curious to see what kind influence someone like me has.

Of course the study is very unscientific and highly biased towards on-line and blog answers – after all it was a survey on the blog. Also I think that it may underrepresent the actual impact of some these. What happens when that one person who bought the book because a promotional gimmick writes a review of it on their blog, talks it up on various message boards, and highly recommends it to friends and family? There is some quality factor in there. Also, message boards and social networking sites aren’t really covered – perhaps they fall under the ‘friend recommendation’?

So, where do I fall in this mix – am I a published review provider (number 8), or a simple blogger (number 3)? I’m merely curious as I don’t feel it matters – bias aside, the importance of the internet, and blogs in particular, is striking (and good news for someone like me).

Thoughts?

Just How Much Do You Like Author Blogs?

I have to say that I love author blogs - I like the greater connection that I feel when I read there thoughts on whatever they choose to blog. I like that I can interact directly with them in a way that simply wasn't possible even a few years ago. I think it's good for the author in a business sense as well. And I also think that many, many people also like author blogs.

But, what do you feel about the potential for unintended consequences? How do you feel about it be written into contracts that authors must blog __ amount of posts per __ amount of time? Does that make you feel uncomfortable? (I sure do) Well, this is exactly what seems to be happening.

This is news to me (but not entirely suprising) and I found out from a reference on Orbit's own blog. A new author of theirs (Jeff Somers) has started to meet his contractual requirement by blogging - and it's quite entertaining. Here's the blog where he talks about being required to blog - it sounds awefully tongue-in-cheek, but there is also some real bitterness there.


Thoughts?


PS - Also, what are the implications of even clicking on the link to the blog? Seems to reinforce the requirement to me? Isn't life simple?

PSS - I've read a bit of his blog - it's hilarious, really you should go and read many of the entries. And now I want to read his book - see I'm a sheep now.

PSS - Of course I really wonder if he's contractually obligated or not. It's certainly an entertaining way to frame his blog - maybe I'm not a sheep, perhaps a goat.

Cover Art - an Article and a Plea

Laura Resnick has posted this 5-part article about cover art that was originally published around 10 years ago. It is a fascinating and troubling look into cover art and its importance to a writer’s success. A writer’s career can be made or unmade by cover art, and they have very little control over it – of course do they have any true understanding of the market and how it works?

As interesting as it is, I have to think that this article is out of date. As I say here, cover art has almost no impact on my buying a book (the title is probably most important to gaining my initial interest). Either I’m very rare, or I reflect a new trend in the market. This is the world of the internet, on-line buying, blogs, endless reviews of books easily accessible with a computer, and fewer and fewer actual book stores (and it seems that more often they actively hide everything but the best sellers).

I believe that publishers, art directors, and marketers need to give us readers a bit more credit when it comes to cover art, and realize that to us end purchasers – the cover may actually be the last thing we see when we choose to buy a book. The buyers for the big bookstore chains need to get with the times as well – STOP JUDGING BOOKS BY THEIR COVERS! The out-dated model of reliance on cover art may be a reason for declining sales of books (among others of course). Work on a good title, a good jacket description, get the book out for reviews in traditional and non-traditional sources, and good cover art – but remember, in an on-line world, it’s the words that matter.

It’s a whole new world out there and I believe its past time for some evolution here…

…but what do I know, I’m just a guy who buys a lot of books.

Celebration Time!

I started up Neth Space in early February, 2007 - just over a year ago - today another milestone was passed. According to the stat counter, Neth Space had its 10,000th visit this morning - WooHoo! We passed by 20,000 page views early this week (these stats do not count RSS readers, so I'm likely a bit late with this post).

Readership has really jumped in the last couple of months (the 5000 visitor celebration post was only 3 months ago) - mostly due to changing over to the new blogger beta which greatly increased the number of hits from search engines (google in particular).

Ok, enough about me - I hope to get through this article about cover art that was reposted recently (since I now seem to blog about cover art a lot, even after figuring out that it doesn't matter much to me - strange that), and I saw this discussion going on at Malazan - again, curious timing. For those that don't already know about - every Friday there is this a weekly fantasy art post over at Stainless Steel Droppings - it's good stuff (link to this week's).

Do you want me to review your book?

I get a lot of inquiries about receiving books for review. The simplest answer is that I love books, so send them along. However, I do have tastes and I do stick to a few general guidelines.

First, look at the authors I have reviewed in the past. I picked most of these books, and I generally know what I like. If the book you want to send me fits in well over there, then I’m probably interested. Generally speaking, SFF is the genre I enjoy reading most, but I don’t read exclusively from it, and I enjoy the occasional challenge and something new..

Do you have a publisher, agent, and editor? I don’t read books from print on demand or similar sources (often referred to as vanity press). I find that the quality is way too variable, with most falling somewhere between bad and worse than bad. This is my opinion and you can disagree with it, but I don’t need to hear about it. I tend to believe that if an author is good enough to be published, they will eventually find their way to an agent and publication through more ‘traditional’ sources.

I read both e-books and print books. For review purposes I prefer electronic just because I have very limited shelf space, but I'll always consider a print book as well. This does not mean I want everyone emailing me direct a PDF (or other) copy of their book. That will get an email deleted. Pitch your book to me, and be sure you talk about who published it. As I said above, I don't read self-published (or indie - I really hate that term) books. And if I can't tell if your book is self-published or not, I will assume it is and delete.

I like supporting small presses and not just the big guys. I know that it can be a gray area between a small, independent publisher and the print on demand services that I don’t prefer to support. But in my private life I feel that the corporate model is not necessarily the best, and I’m happy to extend that to my reviewing. However, I need clear information to make this determination, if I suspect it's a self-publishing outlet, I won't even consider it.

It amazes me how often I receive books that are the third or fourth book in a series that I haven’t read – these are books I’m not planning on reading anytime soon. If it’s a series I’m already reading – great, it’s almost a guarantee that I’ll eagerly read and review the book. If not…well, I’ve got limited time and the queue is already long. If you really want me to review that work, consider sending me the other books in the series.

It also amazes me just how many paranormal romance, romance, erotica, parnaormal romance disguised as urban fantasy, generic woman kicking some parnormal ass, etc. I read very few of these books, particularly the closer they are to romance.

I get lots of inquiries about YA fiction. To be honest, I don’t read that much of it. However, if it is YA fiction that truly crosses over into an adult market, I’ll consider it. Some fo the best books I've read lately are marketed as YA, but then again, I'm long past my teen years, so it has to have appeal to someone my age.

I have a busy life – I have a standard day job that takes up normal working hours, I enjoy socializing with friends, I do lots of volunteer work, and I have a family. All this means that while try to read as much as I can, I don’t read near as much as I like (at least until I find a way to win the lottery). I currently have a Stack of books to read numbering 400+ and I only read about 30 books a year. Throw in the books I buy and the 300+ review copies I’ll receive in a given year and you get an idea of the hopeless backlog I’ve got going. The queue is long. If you send me a book, I’ll consider it, but I cannot guarantee a review. I’m genuinely pleased if you have sent me a book, so I will try, but time is limited. If I do choose to read a book I will try to read and review it by its release date if received with enough lead time.

If you’ve managed to get through all of that above and you still want me to review you book, email me at nethspace'at'gmail'dot'com and I’ll get you my mailing address (remove and replace the 'at' and 'dot' as appropriate or just click on the nice, realtively spam-proof link in the sidebar). Thank you for your interest in Neth Space.