Today is my day at SF Novelists, where I wax not-so-eloquently on what makes a story. I also offer another free book, ’cause I like giving away books

http://www.sfnovelists.com/2009/06/24/whats-a-story/

Oh, and before I forget, it looks like Goblin Quest is going to be released in Kindle and other e-book formats on July 7.  I’m excited, since this means the entire goblin trilogy will finally be available in electronic format.

Finally, I’m told I should be getting page proofs for The Mermaid’s Madness [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] very soon now.  Between this and the rewrite on Red Hood, blogging and e-mail might be a little light for the next few weeks.

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

I haven't seen a contract yet, but my agent posted it to the JABberwocky site, so I figure it's safe to announce that we've got an offer to translate Goblin Quest [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] into Hebrew. Yay!

And now, time to vote for a book. Thanks to everyone who offered jokes -- they brought many smiles to my face, and were a great deal of fun to read. I picked some of my favorites, and then used a random number picker to choose a few wild cards. Jokes and voting are behind the LJ cut, since some of these get a little long.

Voting will be open through Friday, at which point the winner will receive a copy of The Stepsister Scheme [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] direct from the wilds of the Amazon.com.

( Vote for as many as you'd like )

Thanks to everyone who offered their condolences on Becka yesterday. The family is doing okay. I suspect my son will spend the next few weeks going up to people and randomly telling them, "Becka died." Because that's what 3-year-olds do. My daughter had a rough morning, but she and Mama comforted each other. (Everything seems to happen in the morning after I'm off to work, somehow.)

Originally, I meant to post some happier news yesterday. I picked up a few replacement copies of my goblin books, and discovered something cool. Goblin Hero [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] is now in its third printing. And Goblin Quest [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] is now in its fourth! Looks like Jig and company are still going strong, which is nice to see.

Yesterday also brought bookscan numbers for The Stepsister Scheme [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy]. I can't give out actual numbers, and Bookscan is only an estimate. It's also worth noting that this book doesn't seem to have made it to Walmart, unlike the last goblin book, which might be throwing things off. So really, we need to wait and watch the trends before we'll know much.

But with all those disclaimers out of the way, the numbers for Stepsister are almost half again the highest weekly sales I've ever had for any book. And remember, these are the sales numbers for the week before Stepsister officially came out.

I'm pretty happy with the books right now. Overall though, it's been even more of a roller coaster this week than usual...

I did have one Stepsister-related puzzler, though. The Amazon listing has zero reviews. Which means Harriet Klausner has not posted a review on Amazon. She's got one on B&N, but not Amazon. If I recall, isn't that the eighth sign of the apocalypse or something? Harriet hasn't started boycotting Amazon, has she?

Before we get to picking a winner, check out this entry. Basically, jpsorrow is going to pick a random commenter from the dawbooks community in the month of November. The more you comment, the more you're entered. The winner gets a free DAW mass market paperback of your choice. That includes the goblin books, of course. (You could probably request a pre-order of The Stepsister Scheme [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] as well ;-)

Given the response to my own giveaway, I'll definitely be doing this again the next time Amazon sends me a gift certificate, though I'll probably do it a little differently next time. (So if you're planning to shop at Amazon, doing so through one of my links will also help someone else win a free book.)

Looking through the entries and the supporting votes, I narrowed it down to five popular finalists:

ruralwriter: "I've given copies to two of my friends, but have never kept one for myself."
cedunkley: "Well, since my only source for forming an opinion on Goblins stems from their presentation by Tolkien in The Hobbit, I imagine I'm in desperate need of some proper Goblin Re-education.
crinklequirk: "We can't afford things like this (we are trying to keep our house) - anything extra usually goes into bills, groceries, or homeschooling supplies (exciting stuff, like printer paper); It looks like fun! ... It would be really nice to win something, even nicer if it were a book ... And I promise to read it to my kids!"
sarramaks: "I would like to win a copy to read (as I read your blog but haven't as yet read any of your novels) and then to place it in the school library where I teach (ages 11-16). It's a secondary school in the North of England and we have quite range of sci-fi and fantasy as lots of our pupils enjoy the genre."
betsywhitt: "Also, I'll cry "tight finances" since I'm finishing up an MA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University and my husband is halfway through his Masters of Divinity from Denver Seminary (he reads fantasy, too! Pick me for both of us!) ... Oh, and did I mention that I have a fabulously cute dog?"

As always, this was harder than I expected. 'Twould have been nice to get a $500 gift certificate from Amazon so I could give books to everyone. So congrats to the finalists. From here, I went with the highly scientific process of having the kids pick a number between 1 and 5. (So if you're a finalist and didn't win, blame it on the children!) And the winner is...

...crinklequirk! Congratulations! Could you please e-mail me your mailing address at jchines42 -at- hotmail.com?

Thanks to everyone who entered. Keep an eye out for future contests, and don't forget about the dawbooks giveaway!

I generally link to both Amazon and Mysterious Galaxy when I post about a book. You know, things like:

The Faery Taile Project [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy]

Goblin War [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy]

To my surprise, people actually click on those links. Sure, the Amazon Associates report says they usually end up buying other people's books instead of mine, but hey, I still get my little associate's bonus.

Another of those $10 gift certificates just showed up in my e-mail. I figure, this is your money -- you're the ones shopping through those links. Why not give the reward back from time to time?

So I'm going to go ahead and have Amazon send someone a free copy of Goblin Quest [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy]. Just leave a comment and tell me why that person should be you. OR, if someone else's comment persuades you, tell me why that person should be the one :-) I'll pick a winner later this week.

($10 will cover most of shipping to a U.S. location, but anyone outside the U.S. will have to be extra persuasive to win. Sorry!)

ETA: If you're not on LiveJournal, please make sure you leave me a way to get in touch with you if you win!

Bookscan is a company that tracks "some or most" of all commercial book sales. Amazon and the big chain stores all report their sales to Bookscan. Direct library purchases, independent bookstores, and Walmart do not report to Bookscan. So the accuracy of their numbers is questionable. Estimates vary ... one author will tell you Bookscan captures half of her sales. Another will say it captures 80% of his sales. Both are right - it depends on the book, whether it's hardcover or paperback, whether it got a lot of library-oriented reviews, and a host of other factors. Basically, Bookscan is still more accurate than trying to decipher your Amazon rankings, but it's hardly a precise measure of your book sales.

And of course, a Bookscan login will generally cost you several thousand dollars. If you're fortunate, you either have a friend who can access those numbers for you, or you belong to a group that can negotiate a joint contract and get you limited access. You also have to sign a confidentiality agreement, which means I can't tell you exactly how many books Bookscan says I sold last week.

What I can tell you is that I'm a math geek, so I long ago calculated exactly how many copies of Goblin Quest [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] I would need to sell in order to earn out my advance. As of Saturday August 30, Bookscan says I've moved that many books, plus one.

I know I've sold more books than Bookscan thinks I have. I'm guessing several thousand more, but that's just a guess. The goblin books have done well in the independent stores, which are less likely to report to Bookscan. But my verified sales are officially over the line, and therefore it is time to do the goblin dance of joy.

Quick Primer on Advances and Earning Out: Your publisher pays you an advance when you sign with them. Let's call it $5000, which is your average first-time SF/F advance. Your contract also specifies the royalties you receive on each book sold. We'll say 10%, which is high for a mass market paperback, but makes my math easier. If your book sells for a $5.00 cover price (yeah, right), you make $.50 per book.

That $5000 is an advance against your royalties. The first 10,000 books you sell bring in 10,000 x $.50 = $5000. That goes toward earning out your advance. You don't receive any additional money until copy 10,001 sells, at which point you get an extra $.50 in addition to what you received in your advance. Sell 11,000 books, and you get an extra $500. Get the gist?

Some books earn out within weeks. Many never earn out. The nice thing is that if you never sell those 10,000 books, you still get to keep the $5000 advance.

Sadly, I suspect we're a ways from Goblin Hero or Goblin War earning out. Goblin War showed up in Walmart, which should mean a lot of extra untracked sales, but according to Bookscan we've got a long way to go. Each book boosts sales of the previous books, so Quest has gotten two extra bumps to push it over the magical number. Hopefully Stepsister Scheme will bump all three of the goblin books when it comes out in January.

Other good news: "Haunting of Jig's Ear," the first goblin short story I ever wrote (first published in Andromeda Spaceways), will be reprinted in the YA issue of Coyote Wild Magazine, guest edited by Sherwood Smith (sartorias). Imaginary Friends [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] is out, and includes my story "Images of Death". And yesterday's mail brought a well-timed check for the foreign goblin translations, just in time to cover what will be the biggest credit card bill of the year. (Isn't back-to-school time fun? Especially this year, when I'm the only one in the family not going to school.)

Life is good :-)

I was chatting with my agent about the foreign sales of the goblin books, and who to target next. (I want to see Danish and Finnish goblins, for my cousin and my in-laws, respectively.) After our chat, it occurred to me that the Polish version of Goblin Quest [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] should be out by now.

Lo and behold, look what I found:


I like this one. It's a very different interpretation of Jig & Smudge, but still feels fairly true to the character. Maybe a little darker in tone than I would have gone, but definitely not as much as the original Five Star cover. The Goblin Artwork page has been updated, and I can't wait to see what they come up with for the next book. (They've bought books one and two. Hopefully the agent will be persuading them to pick up book three as well :-)

According to my agent, Goblin Hero [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] has gone back for a second printing.

Not only that, but I talked to my editor this morning, and Goblin Quest [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] is now in its third printing.

None of my print runs have been enormous, and I'm not one of these authors who sells out a print run in the first week of release. But this is still very good news. It means people are still buying the books. It means my publisher has enough confidence in me and the series to invest in a few thousand more books. And hopefully, it's one more sign that my career is on an upward slope. Maybe it's not as steep a slope as I'd like, but I'm okay with slow-and-steady.

ETA: And now, I see a delightful review of Goblin War by Sherwood Smith, over at the SF Site. Today just keeps on getting better!

ETA II: Another e-mail, this one from Bakka-Phoenix. Guess who was number three on their April mass market bestseller list? And also number four. And number seven, too. That's right, all three goblin books made their April list. Looks like that book launch I did with them at Ad Astra paid off! :-)

Looking at the bookscan numbers, sales are starting to fall off for Goblin War [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy], but that's to be expected. The book's been out for two months, after all. The initial thrill has passed.

But hey, if anyone in the Grand Rapids area wants to help push book three toward another print run, I'll be doing a signing at Schuler Books on Alpine on May 8 at 7:00 pm. I'll probably be doing a chat and a little reading, as well as signing books. Who knows, I might even give folks a sneak preview of The Stepsister Scheme.

Remember when I gave out a bunch of free copies of Goblin Quest [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] a little while back? I still have no way of proving whether or not the free books impacted sales in any way, but if people keep writing such nice things about the book, I'll consider it a successful experiment. (Thanks, mizkit!)

When I was writing the goblin books, a number of people pointed me toward the webcomic Goblins: Life Through Their Eyes, by Tarol Hunt. I had glanced at the first few comics, which were amusing, but I refused to read any more. The comic is about showing adventures in a literal D&D world (the characters talk about hit points and levelling up) from the goblins' perspective. Sound vaguely familiar?

Hunt and I writing about the same basic idea didn't worry me. An idea is only the seed of the story, and a dozen writers with the same idea will still produce a dozen different stories. But I didn't want to risk Hunt's ideas sneaking into my brain as I was working on the goblin books. I admit, I was also a little worried about seeing something clever in the comic, then feeling grumpy because I hadn't thought of it myself.

Yesterday, I read the comic in its entirety. The goblin books are written and done, aside from page proofs on Goblin War. I was finally free to read and enjoy! And enjoy I did. The comic can be very violent, even brutal, but goblin life isn't going to be pretty. Things are pretty black and white when it comes to good and evil, and I wouldn't have minded a bit more subtlety. But overall, it works. I like the different goblins and I laughed at the role-playing jokes. Hunt's goblins are far more heroic than mine (but I'm amused to see that they have the same attitude toward bread as Jig).

So in the interest of goblin solidarity, I'd encourage folks to check it out. It gets pretty bloody and "mature" at times, especially in the later comics, but overall I enjoyed it.

I can't believe I didn't post this sooner. Fantasybookspot.com is giving away a free, autographed copy of Goblin Quest. Go to http://www.fantasybookspot.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4804 to enter. You'll need to register on the discussion board and send a private message to Patrick, but it's a good board. (I won a copy of Tobias Buckell's book Ragamuffin over there.)

Deadline is tonight at midnight!

Also, tonight at 9 pm (EST), I'll be doing an online chat/interview in the Fantasybookspot.com chat room. It would be great if a few folks wanted to stop in and say hi.

All righty then. The poll results from earlier tell me to get moving to use up all 35 of those LJ userpic slots. Will do!

But first, I have one last winner to announce. The very last winner of a free copy of Goblin Quest is...

( LJ cut for suspense )

In happy news, I saw my weekly sales numbers, and while sales of Goblin Hero were steady, sales of Quest actually jumped up a bit. It's impossible to say for sure, but I'm going to assume it's all because of the signing I set up, and the nice word-of-mouth I got from you wonderful folks. So thanks!

Sadly, this isn't something I can do every single week. I wish I had enough books to give to everyone, but I hope the winners enjoy 'em.

As for me, I'm going to go enjoy my extra-special, mine-all-mine, no-I-won't-share, Advance Review Copy of Sword & Sorceress XXII!

Okay, I double-checked my stockpile, and I've got three more books to give away. Not quite as many as I had remembered, sadly. Still, that means about 1 out of 12 people who entered get a free book. Much better odds than the lottery, right?

• One is going to stinabat, who runs a teen book discussion group down in Texas and works in a bookstore.


• Another will go to ckocher, who writes, "I have also been known to buy copies of my favorites for friends and then stand over them in a very ominous manner until they read the book I am forcing on them. In short, I could be your next goon." Awesome! I need more goons!


• The third ... will be announced later today or tomorrow, because I take sadistic pleasure in drawing out the suspense.

Working on The Mermaid's Madness, I finished the first scene of chapter 10, which is incidentally the first scene not from Danielle's point of view. So far, so good. It's a bit clumsy ... I've done a book and a half from Danielle's perspective, so this is going to be a bit rough at first. But already I'm seeing the advantages. Snow knows more about magic, so I was able to examine some of the nasty curse stuff in more detail. And Snow's fighting style is completely different, which made for a refreshing change of pace.

This will definitely create more work in the rewrite, but I think it's also going to make this a stronger book. And it means I continue to push myself as a writer, which is something I've tried to do with each new book.

Last week, I offered to give away free copies of Goblin Quest. Why? Because I'm just a nice guy that way. And also, I'm hoping people will be grateful and say nice things about the book and I'll end up as famous as J. K. Rowling.

Well, it's time to start picking some winners. Being a dork, I haven't double-checked exactly how many books I have to give away. So I'm going to pick a handful of people right now, and I'll draw more winners tonight and tomorrow. (Which means if you haven't entered yet, you still have time to post a comment and convince me that you should get one of these lovely prizes.)

But just to get things started, congratulations to the following folks who will be getting free books! (Is there any more beautiful phrase in the English language than "free books"?)

scifibookcat, who just happens to work at a bookstore, where she's the in-store expert on SF/F.

elven_wolf, who writes, "I was going to say you should send me one because I'm a goblin, but decided that might actually not be a wise move. Then I thought of telling you my dog looks like a goblin, but he actually looks like a giant fruitbat." Fruitbat dog for the win!

shartyrant, who writes, "I would love to "pimp" your books and am on several yahoo groups, author groups, and livejournal communities that allow for this as well as myspace..."

karistan, for the LJ icon.

Ann, from MySpace. I'm paraphrasing her reasons here, but they included things like, "I've known you since kindergarten" and "I have no problem posting those elementary school photos of you on the Internet." One free book coming right up!

I know I have more copies of the trade paperback, but I don't know exactly how many more. (Because I'm a dork. See above.) So congratulations to the first batch of winners, and I'll announce the rest once I know how many books I can give out.

Today was fun. Thanks to ellameena (& son), aurantifolia (& husband), and stevenagy, and also ... um ... Lizz. You need to get a LiveJournal ID, Lizz! Anyway, these wonderful folks all stopped by and visited for a while, chatting and helping lure unsuspecting readers over to my table.

My signing was scheduled for 11 to noon, but I had talked to the CRM (community relations manager) beforehand about possibly staying longer if things were going well. She was happy with the idea, and since we were doing pretty well, I decided to stick around. I figured things would die down around 2:30, which is when the U of M game officially started. So I told myself I would leave either at 2:30, or when we sold the last copy of Goblin Quest.

They had both Quest and Hero, but Quest sold a bit better ... people aren't necessarily going to buy book two in a series without buying book one.

At exactly 2:30, I signed and sold the last copy of Goblin Quest in the store. I left them with 4 copies of Goblin Hero, and a promise to stop by in 3 weeks on my way to Ohio. They're going to order another batch of Quest, and I'll sign those on the way through town.

After I left, I drove over to Borders, where they had 3 copies of each book. All were signed, stickered, and returned to the shelf.

Best of all, it sounds like I'll be going back to this Barnes & Noble in March or so for another signing when Goblin War comes out. The Ann Arbor curse is officially busted. (And now I want to write a silly D&D-style parody of Mythbusters about a pair of clerics: the Cursebusters.)

I did notice myself slipping too much into Public Writing Persona. I've always been a bit of an introvert, but I've learned to push past that at signings, readings, conventions and such. But it means I tend to run my mouth a bit more than I'm used to, and sometimes my mental filter can't keep up. It's always strange to watch myself in that mode. It's not exactly a manic thing, but there's definitely a heightened energy.

Anyway, it was a very good day, overall. I even got to hold in my hands a real, live copy of Heroes in Training. Life is good.

A moment of silence, please. Today marks the last comic in Shamus Young's DM of the Rings. It's done with Lord of the Ring screen captures, retelling the story as a role-playing game. Worth reading, if you haven't already.

I'm still getting a handful of comments from people who want a free copy of Goblin Quest. Thanks to everyone who's spread the word! I'll probably start picking some winners at some point on Monday.

In the mermaid book, I reached a scene I've been planning for about a month now. I probably overwrote it, because I've been looking forward to the build-up and excitement of this bit for so long, but that's okay. I'm still pretty pleased. There's been an unexpected consequence, but I can deal with that on Monday. For now, all is well.

Finally, a reminder to anyone who might be in the Ann Arbor, Michigan area tomorrow -- I'll be doing a book signing at Barnes & Noble starting at 11:00 am as a part of their National Literacy Day celebration. So come by and say hello!

Wow. Huge thanks to everyone who's been spreading the word on my Goblin Quest giveaway. I've got four pages of wonderful comments to go through. I wish I had enough books (and enough money) to give one to everybody...

I'm not going to pick any official winners for another few days. Unofficially, I've notified two. They'll be getting copies of the DAW edition, not the trade paperback, so these unofficial winners don't detract from the number of books I'll be giving out to the rest of you. But one person was a friend who has bought at least a dozen copies of the books to give away, and I thought he deserved a freebie. The other said the magic words, "...my 12,000 readers."

So far, here are a few things that catch my attention in trying to decide who to give books to:

-Bookstore employees. That always makes me pay closer attention.
-I've got one person who may win a book because her icon made me laugh.
-Comments that are friendly, and give me more than just an address.

It's also been interesting to hear the number of folks who have said they meant to buy the book, or they even picked it up in a bookstore but put it back down. For new authors, there's a kind of First Purchase threshhold. It's a bigger risk to buy someone new. That same level of interest might lead someone to go ahead and buy a book from an author they know. So giving away free books is (hopefully) one more way to help some people get past that F.P. threshhold.

Thanks also to everyone who's linked back to the giveaway and sent folks my way!

On the writing front, it was another good day. I keep expecting to hit some serious draft-hate. 30,000 words or so is where it usually happens. But so far, so good. Maybe stopping to redo the outline means I can postpone that phase for another 10K words or so :-)

To celebrate my generally goofy mood today, here's another of Jim's famous first draft snippets:

Suddenly, it occurred to both of them that the author had been grossly miscalculating distance and visibility on the open sea. "Oh look," said Danielle. "I can see the ship after all. Huh. That wasn't as difficult as I expected...."

Also, there's something awesome about being quoted in someone else's work. (aurantifolia, you should definitely check this one out.)

As of 9/12/07, I have now given away all of my extra trade paperbacks, so this giveaway is officially closed. Huge thanks to everyone who entered!

-----

All right, my sales numbers came in for the week, and they ain't as pretty as I'd like. So it's time for an experiment.

Folks have told me that giving away free copies of a book can help sales. Let's find out. I've got some copies of the trade paperback edition of Goblin Quest, and I'm giving them away.

What do I hope to get out of this? Ideally, I want you to read the book, fall in love with Jig, write glowing reviews on every web site you can find, tell all your friends and family to go out and buy it (the DAW edition, if you don't mind), and then I want you to go buy Goblin Hero and preorder Goblin War. Also, if you're friends with Oprah, I want you to hook me up.

Realistically, it's up to you. If you hate the book, that's fine. If you like it, but don't feel like recommending it, that's okay too. There's zero obligation here. Do what you feel comfortable with.

So how do you get your hands on one of these books? Simple. Just post a comment with your name and address, and whatever you think will convince me to send one your way :-) Comments are screened, so nobody's going to see your info but me.

And yes, I'll autograph them, so if you hate the book you can still sell it on eBay and turn a profit.

If you already own a copy, you're not disqualified ... but I'd prefer to get new readers with this, if at all possible.

I'll pick recipients in a few weeks. Possibly sooner, depending on how fast people snatch them up. Preference will probably go to people in the U.S., because I'm a cheap bastard. But if you live elsewhere, feel free to persuade me :-)

Finally, please spread the word to anyone you think might be interested. Because hey -- free book!

ETA: Lots of good comments. You'd think my friends list was made up of a bunch of readers or something! Also, you folks are fun! :-)

ETA2: I'm not going to start picking names until at least next week, possibly later. So don't feel rushed!

ETA3: Dang ... this is officially the most comments I've ever gotten on a blog post. If I sent a book to everyone who's commented so far, it would be over 100 books, to at least 5 different countries. Keep 'em coming! Also, sorry about my comment that managed to slip through unscreened last night, and probably confused some folks...

With the standard disclaimer that Amazon rankings aren't all that significant in the greater scheme of things...

It's two months since Goblin Hero started appearing in stores. Eight months since Goblin Quest started showing up. As of this morning, Quest was at 10,000 at Amazon, and Hero was at 12,000. According to TitleZ, neither book has been higher than 100,000 more than once in the past two months.

In conclusion, I love you all!

This is a first. Simon Fraher, aka captainsimon, has created a fan site for my goblin books at http://captainsimon.proboards92.com/

He just started, so it's still pretty small, but I'm both flattered and entertained. He's got a poll on how Jig's going to meet his end, and another poll asking for your favorite character. (He even included, "The Guy Who Punched Braf's Fang Into His Nostril". That one would definitely get my vote :-)

There are some spoilers, so if you haven't at least read Goblin Quest, you might want to wait.

And can I just say how wonderfully strange it is to see a quote from my book used as the tagline for someone's User ID?

Here's another bit of goblin fanart. It's cute! I'm particularly fond of the little silhouette of Smudge. Thanks hyptosis for pointing this one out!