I’m still taking interview questions.  I’ve got a dozen or so good ones, but nothing silly yet.  Knowing y’all, this surprises me.  If you’re interested, e-mail a question at mermaid@jimchines.com and I’ll add you to the drawing to win a copy of Strip Mauled.  All I ask is that you post the Q&A on 10/6 when Mermaid officially comes out.

---

This was what I saw Sunday afternoon in the SF/F section at Schuler Books in the Meridian Mall.  Isn’t it a beautiful sight?*  That little hand belongs to my son, who lit up at the sight of Daddy’s books on the shelf.  He was almost as excited as I was.

Of course, he got bored fast when he had to wait for Daddy to sign everything.  But then I took him back and showed him the dedication page for Goblin War.  He read the letters one by one, and all the energy came rushing back.  “That’s me!”  Then he looked up at me and asked, “Why is my name in your book?”

It’s a good question, and got me thinking about the dedications I’ve done, and why.  In part, dedicating a book is a gift I can give that feels special.  But there’s more.

Goblin War: To My Son

• Because you embody everything I love about my goblins–the cleverness, the humor, the berserker attacks against your Daddy…
• Because even if you betray me and ascend to the rank of Death God, I’ll still watch over you and protect you.
• Because of Shadowstar’s “He’s my son” scene on pages 300-302.

Stepsister Scheme: To My Daughter

• Because my wishes for you include Snow’s joy, Talia’s strength, and Danielle’s heart.
• Because you’re as beautiful as any princess.
• Because you don’t need to be rescued.
• Because without you, this series wouldn’t exist.

Mermaid’s Madness: To My Wife

• Because this was the worst deadline pressure I’d ever experienced, and you still loved me when it was all over.
• Because in so many ways, you are the Beatrice of this family.  (Even though your Dad’s pontoon boat isn’t quite as cool as the Phillipa.)
• Because part of this series is about family and teamwork, and you’ve taught me so much about both.

I didn’t know how to explain all of this to a four-year-old.  So I just told him it was because I loved him, and that I’d explain it more when he was older.  He seemed content with this.  But the whole thing left me feeling unusually sappy, so I thought I’d share with you all.

—
*Most bookstores won’t have it in stock yet … though it might be worth a phone call to check

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

Note the 1st: Stephen Leigh, aka S. L. Farrell, aka sleigh invited me to guest blog for his series on Capturing the Elusive Novel. He's had some great guests so far. Check it out!

Note the 2nd: I came across the cover art for the Polish edition of Goblin War [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] yesterday, which I share here 'cause I love what Poland has done with these books. Click the thumbnail for the full version, or check out the goblin artwork page on my site. I'm a little sad that Jig lost his glasses in this one, but I love the prominence Smudge has gotten in all three covers. And the wolf? Oh yes, that's definitely Bastard :-)

Also, check out the flash animation of Smudge at the Fabryka Slow site.

Note the 3rd: I appreciate the comments, stories, and discussion on yesterday's post about rape. I also apologize for not posting a warning. I know the post and discussion were triggering for a few readers. I'm going to try to do one or two follow-ups, and I'll remember to include that warning the next time.

Note the 4th: On a related note, shadesong is doing her annual fundraising for the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center Walk for Change, which is this Sunday. Link is here: http://www.firstgiving.com/shiralipkin

By a single vote, Goblin War has made it to the next round of the Bookspotcentral Tournament where it faces off against Victor Gischler's book Go Go Girls of the Apocalypse.

This one's going to be tough. Like me, Gischler has also been sending his fans over to vote. He may not have cool posters, but he is posting boxing girl pics to help get out the vote.

Remember, you get one point for voting. Provide a clear reason for your vote, and that's a second point.

Thank you to everyone who has chimed in. To be honest, I didn't expect Goblin War to make it this far, but it's been a great deal of fun. I've also got several more books I want to check out now as a result of people's comments in the tournament. And if we make it one more round, I might get to face off against my friends sleigh or matociquala, both of whom are still in the running.

Jig has survived everything from dragons to goddesses to nose-picking goop. Are we going to let him fall before a bunch of go-go girls? Click the poster to vote!

Thanks to everyone who helped Goblin War get to the second round at Bookspotcentral. Now Jig is up against Jhegaala, by Steven Brust.

Brust is tough competition. I've met the man and got to sit on a panel with him a few years ago. Brust is a fun guy, and I like him. I've also read and enjoyed his work.

That said, Jhegaala has a big ol' dragon on the cover, and they don't call my goblin "Dragonslayer" for nothing.

Click the image to vote, and thanks again!

So normally I don't do much in the way of campaigning for various awards and honors, mostly because it makes me uncomfortable. The Hugo award for best novel should go to the best novel, not to the author who did the best job of rounding up votes. Idealistic and maybe a little naive, I know. And I'm not saying anyone is wrong to campaign for votes or list their eligible works. But it's something that makes me uncomfortable.

Enter the Bookspotcentral March Madness Tournament. This one is just plain fun, and nowhere do they claim the winner is the best book. They start with a list of 64 titles from 2008 and pair them off. Survivors move on to the next round. They want it to be fun and silly.

I can do that.

In round one, my book Goblin War goes up against Kelly Link's collection Pretty Monsters. Which inspired me to play around in Photoshop while the rest of my family was out walking the dogs. Click the image to go vote for whoever you'd like, but if you vote for Link, I will have no choice but to sic Veka on you.



I hereby promise to make goofy campaign posters for every round the goblins survive in this tournament. I'll probably put the rest behind cut tags though ... assuming I survive more than one round. If not, well, goblins are used to getting slaughtered in the very first round, so that's okay too.

Goblin War [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] is #7 on the Locus Bestseller List for March.

I also see some guy named Anton coming in at #9 with his debut novel Dead to Me [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy]. Congrats, antonstrout.

And now is the time on LiveJournal when we dance :-)

Last week was a great one for the goblin books. Rounding off the week was an e-mail on Saturday from Tobias Buckell, complete with a pic of Goblin War [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] sitting pretty on the shelves of a local Walmart.

Sales of Goblin War (the green line) were already starting off higher than the other two books, according to Bookscan. This is even better news, because Walmart sales aren't tracked in Bookscan, which means those numbers are probably even higher still.

I haven't run around to all of our local Walmart stores to see if this is a chainwide goblin conquest, but Tobias pointed out that the Walmart in Lima, where he spotted the books, is a smaller one. So if they have Goblin War, odds are a lot of other stores do, too.

Whatever you might think of Walmart, they're another powerful outlet for book sales, so this is a very good thing. Here's hoping they decide to keep me on the shelves for the next book, too!

I was having a frustrating morning. Work stuff ... which I shouldn't talk about. And then there was some writing stuff ... but I shouldn't bring that up in public either. Grumble. Let's just say I was having a bad day and leave it at that.

Fortunately, my agent is ever-ready to cheer me up. This time, he passed along some sales numbers for Goblin War [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy].

Are you ready for this?



The dark line is sales of Quest. Pink is Hero. And that green line? The one that goes half again as high as the other two books? That's the first week's sales for War.

Thanks again to everyone who participated in the blog tour, or mentioned the book's release in their own blogs. I've got to believe the wonderful word-of-mouth I've gotten is part of the reason for the jump in sales.

I spend way too much time looking at these graphs and numbers, I know. And we still have to wait and see if sales stay at this level, or if we're looking at a dramatic drop-off next week. But while I'm obsessing, there are two other things I'd point to. The jump in the dark line at week 29? That's when Hero came out, which boosted sales of Quest. Looking at the latest numbers for Hero and Quest, it looks like the release of book three has led to a similar (if smaller) bump. All of which comes back to the idea that the best promotion is to write the next book.

I wouldn't expect to see sales of the previous two books jump quite as much this time. Hero came out six months after Quest, which meant the first book was still on the shelves in a lot of stores, so it was easier for people to buy both. This time, it's been 10 months since Hero, and 16 since Quest, which means a lot of stores have stripped and returned the first two books. Still, I'm happy with the bump, and delighted with the initial numbers for War.

Speaking of bookstore stocking policies, Joshua Bilmes of JABberwocky recently started a blog at http://brilligblogger.blogspot.com/, and one of his latest entries talks about how stores are looking at what to carry on their shelves. JABberwocky is my agency, so I'm biased, but the man knows a heck of a lot about the industry. The blog is definitely on my Must Read list.

Starting next week, I'll stop obsessing so much over Goblin War [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] and go back to my more random style of posting. But I figure I'm entitled to obsess a bit during release week, right?

So to start with, I've posted two deleted scenes from Goblin War on my web site. I may add more later, but this is a good start. Go. Read. Laugh (I hope).

Next, I have a guest blog post at the League of Reluctant Adults. Check it out for a rare interview with Jig Dragonslayer as he discusses his candidacy for president. (Is it a bad thing that I laughed at my own jokes when I re-read this?) Remember to vote Jig/Smudge in November!

The past 24 hours have also brought wonderful reviews from SciFiChick and Monsters and Critics. Charlie Finlay (ccfinlay) tops them both with one line, "he made my kid love to read."

What higher praise could a writer possibly hope for?

Well, this was a nice thing to wake up to:


Amazon rankings don't mean much, but it's the only thing we authors can see when the book comes out. Even Bookscan data won't be available until next week. What does that number mean in terms of sales? That's hard to say. If I had to guess, I'd say it means we sold between 10 and 20 copies on Amazon yesterday. But hey, it's the best sales rank I've seen for any of my books, so I'll take it!

You know, looking at yesterday's post and all of the interviews I've done in the run-up to Goblin War, I'm starting to understand why I've been feeling burnt out lately. Maybe there's a reason I'm having a harder time getting back to work on the mermaid book! (Well, that and the fact that my son caught my daughter's cold, which means ain't nobody getting a good night's sleep this week.)

This is, I think, one of the reasons some authors warn against self-promotion. You've only got so much time and energy in any given day, and the more you put into promotion, the less you're going to have for things like actually writing the next book. You'd think that would be a "Duh!" moment, but somehow I seem to have forgotten again.

And even as I write this, I know there's another interview sitting in my e-mail, waiting for me to respond. Ah well. I've got until August 1 to turn in the mermaid book. No worries, right?

It's official. Goblin War [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] is now available, which means the goblin trilogy is complete. All three books are done and in print.

I have a trilogy. Whoa. It makes me want to go on a world tour and hug all of my readers.

But I don't have that kind of cash, so instead, I'll be hanging out on Amazon, madly clicking the "Refresh" button. I may also blog a bit more today, because it's hard not to ramble on book day, ya know? ;-)

In the meantime, as many of you know, I did a blog tour for this release. Those interviews started popping up a few days ago, and I'm going to do my best to keep a master link list here for your reading pleasure. Thanks to everyone who participated!

• SciFiChick interviewed me! She also interviewed Summer Glau a while back, so I'm in great company here.


• Tiffany Trent (tltrent) talks to Relka the goblin about Jig's campaign for president.


• John Glover (jtglover) asks what I plan to do after I become King of the World.


• Apparently, I gave Anton Strout (antonstrout) a virtual lapdance as a part of our interview. The things we do for self-promotion...


• Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore made me their affiliate of the month for March.


• Chris Dolley (chrisdolley) interviews my cats, who are far more entertaining than I am.


• Catherine Shaffer (ellameena) asks about goblin culture, finding an agent, and quitting the day job.


• Writersplot: Confessions of a Fantasy Humorist (where I talk about writing humor)


• Steve Nagy (stevenagy) gave me the chance to talk about such important issues as Hostess cupcake ads


• Maria Schneider asks interesting questions about whether the entire trilogy was planned from day one, and who should be the voice of Jig for a hypothetical audio book.


• Charles Tan asks about me, the books, and the blog tour.


• Sylvia (sylvia_rachel) asks about American Idol and my panel suggestions for Jimcon.


• David de Beer (david_de_beer asks about the goblin books, and notes the completely unintentional similarity between Jig's appearance and my own.


• Mike Jasper asks about my fondest memories of the goblin trilogy, and whether I'm still having fun.


• Jonathan Moeller (jonathanmoeller) asks how the goblin books went from a small press release to being THE premier goblin fantasy trilogy of the early 21st century.


• My High School friend Katie, of PeacefulBend Wineries, helps me figure out the best wine for Jig. (Hint: the bottle must be sturdy enough to be used as a bludgeoning weapon.)


• Joshua Palmatier (jpsorrow) gives me the chance to confront him about something that's been bothering me for months.


• An interview I did through SFNovelists has been reposted by David B. Coe, Di Francis, Andromeda Spaceways, Wyrdsmiths, Alma Alexander, Mike Brotherton, Mindy Klasky, and Simon Haynes.

---

I'm still working very hard to keep from obsessing about the release of Goblin War [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] tomorrow. It's not easy, especially since the world keeps conspiring to remind me.

Take Friday, for instance. There I was, innocently surfing the web to keep from obsessing over my Amazon rankings, and what should I discover but the Goblin Defense Fund? It's a fun site, with such features as Ask Mr. Goblin (I can assure you, goblins never, ever eat human babies without good cause. And by “good cause”, I mean “ketchup.”), talking points for confronting the goblin-haters, and a petition!

Finally, I decided the best plan was to keep distracting myself from my own book by talking about other people's. Take Mike Brotherton, whose book Spider Star [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] comes out tomorrow as well!

Hard SF fans should appreciate this one. Mike is a professor of astronomy at the University of Wyoming, an observer who studies quasars with the Hubble Space Telescope and other facilities on and above the Earth, so he knows what he's talking about. In Mike's own words, Spider Star is:

...a story about an interstellar colony on the planet Argo orbiting Pollux, and what happens when the people there accidentally set off a doomsday weapon left behind by the original inhabitants of their system. The original technology behind the weapon came from an even more advanced alien species living in something referred to as the "Spider Star."

You know, this still hasn't helped to distract me. "Spider Star" reminds me of spiders, which of course reminds me of Smudge, Jig's pet fire-spider. And I'm right back to obsessing about my book.

I give up. None of this is working. Clearly it's time to take the distraction to the next level. I need something powerful enough to bleach my mind of anxiety. And I can think of only one person who can provide that level of silliness.

I need ... Disco Prime!



Yep. The fanfic possibilities alone ought to keep my brain busy for a while....

When I started the Book Donation Contest, I thought it would be a nice way to get a copy of the goblin books to a worthy cause. Good karma and happy feelings all around, and if it helped generate a little buzz for Goblin War, so much the better.

Happy feelings indeed. Thanks to the generosity of certain people to be named very soon, I'll be mailing seven sets of books to:

• 12-year-old whose family had to leave most of the library behind when they moved


• A local children's hospital


• A battered women's/children's shelter


• belladonnalin's homeless/street-dependent shelter


• A high school librarian in Wisconsin who's on a mission to get kids reading


• The Books for Kids foundation


• PV2 Lucas Dalton, US Army, "an amazing human being, fantastic husband and wonderful father"

That is simply awesome. Thanks to everyone who participated, especially my donors:

• robinbridges, who was the first to ask about sponsoring a set of the books, and was also the first to do so.


• twintrauma, who sponsored not one but two sets of books, making her my new favorite person on the whole Internet.


• guinwhyte


• oneminutemonkey


• ellameena

I'll be gathering addresses and shipping books out in the next week or two ... you know, once the third book is actually out, and I've managed to secure copies.

I've done a fair number of contests over the past few years. This is officially my favorite. You can bet I'll be doing something along these lines again in the future.

Voting is still open in the book donation contest. Several of my readers have been generous enough to chip in, which means we'll be giving the complete goblin trilogy to the top five six!!!!!! choices. Life is good.

I hope you're not tired of voting and contests yet, because we've also got a LOL caption to pick for Goblin War [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy].

There are almost 80 comments on that post, people! This is more participation than I've had in any other contest, and I hadn't even figured out what to offer as a prize! Clearly, LOL books are the key to a successful contest.

Thanks to everyone who participated. You made my life difficult, because you're too dang funny. I'm starting to think I should quit the LOL books and turn the job over to the rest of you.

In order to keep the voting manageable, I've narrowed it down to ten top contenders, in no particular order. The winner will probably receive an assortment of goblin goodies. (Autographed bookplate, bookmarks, tattoo, maybe even a goblin-lover button...) More importantly, they will be featured on the March 3 LOL book, thus earning the respect and prestige of the entire Internet.

Poll #1141462
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 118

Please choose only one

I promise to post something more writing-related tomorrow. Maybe an update on Stepsister revisions, or a few reflections on the chat with the editor a week or so back.

1. Jim C. Hines Week continues at Grasping for the Wind. Today we have an interview in which I talk about humor, conventions, Smudge the fire spider, the writing process, and instruct John on how to use the word "pizazz" while retaining his manliness.*

2. I've got a second story at AnthologyBuilder. "Spell of the Sparrow" is the sequel to "Blade of the Bunny," both of which are now available. AnthologyBuilder is adding stories and cover art every day, and it's exciting to watch the momentum. Here's hoping it continues to grow!

3. I'm a bad friend. I forgot to mention a third book that came out yesterday: J. M. McDermott's debut novel The Last Dragon [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy]. He's even got a big, cat-towering poster to go with it. Hmph ... I never got a cat-towering poster for any of my books.

4. Left-handed mousing is tricky. I spend an awful lot of time on the computer, and my right arm has been getting a little sore. Nothing serious, but I figured I'd give it a rest.

5. An author friend, Jana Oliver, noted that Romantic Times had given Goblin War [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] a great review, which said in part, "Hines presents hysterically funny, witty and surprisingly intuitive writing ... the whole cast is disarmingly and charmingly wonderful. This is a definite must read." I don't usually post every review that comes in, but I'm feeling anxious about this book, so it's really exciting to see such positive reactions. 27 days and counting...

6. Is anyone heading to any conventions in the next few months, and if so, would you be up for taking some Goblin War bookmarks to set out on the freebies table? E-mail me at jim -at- goblinquest.com.

---
*Those of you who know me in person may now laugh heartily at the idea of me instructing anyone in manliness.

They say that every review helps, but some reviews help more than others. Some help a lot more.

Publishers Weekly is one of the big trade magazines, read by many -- if not most -- libraries and other book-buying professionals. When Goblin Quest first came out, I was a bit bummed that the book was ignored by PW, Library Journal, and the rest. But I wasn't too surprised. I'm still new at this, and humorous fantasy isn't exactly a top-selling genre. Goblin Hero got no love either, which made sense. Why review book two in a series when you haven't reviewed book one?

For a while now, I've been pinning my hopes on The Stepsister Scheme, hoping that the new series would get more critical attention. So you can imagine my surprise when my librarian friend Jane e-mailed to congratulate me, and asked if I needed a copy of the January issue of Publishers Weekly.

Not only did they run a review of Goblin War [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy], they ran a very good review!

From Publishers Weekly:

Hines sidesteps the main question facing elvers—WWTD, or What would Tolkien do?—with a wink and his usual snort. His goofy elves, orcs, trolls, dwarves, humans and even an evil tree conjure laughter, not screams ... Hines’s funny bone is sharp and YA-friendly.

I tell you, it brought tears to my eyes*. The YA-friendly bit is awesome, since YA is pretty hot right now. I don't know how much a PW review will boost pre-orders and library sales, but I suspect it will help. Because of their acquisitions policies, my local library couldn't even order copies of my books ... until now, thanks to this review.

I know it's only one review, but I'm still riding the high. It feels a little like that first story sale -- excitement and validation and sheer niftiness.

I'm also hoping that, having reviewed one of my books, they'll now be a bit more likely to check out the next one. But like anything else in this business, the goal keeps getting higher. What do you think the chances are of getting a starred PW review for The Stepsister Scheme? :-)

---
*Anyone know what an elver is, by the way? I'm guessing they're referring to authors writing about elves, but I'm not 100% sure. Thanks to everyone who pointed out that an elver is a kind of eel. Though I'm still a bit perfuzzled why an eel would be worrying about Tolkien...

Current polls show that LOL books prefer the Animal/Gonzo ticket by a margin of twelve points. Previous LOL Books are available at http://jimhines.livejournal.com/tag/lol.

So today we're doing another contest, this one for Goblin War [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy], which comes out exactly one month from today!

The rules are pretty simple -- y'all suggest captions for the book in the comments. Once I've got a bunch of ideas, we'll pick the best. Winner will get stuff*.

As you can see, I've gotten pretty lax about my contests these days. But the point is to have fun with it. (Please keep it PG-13 or less, though. I'm looking at you, antonstrout.)


---

*"Stuff" means I haven't figured it out yet. I might pick anything from a set of autographed goblin bookmarks to a cameo in a short story (if you wanted) to whatever book I have an extra copy of to give away.

1. For Goblin War, I'm going to do a blog tour. I'm thinking I'll answer any 5-10 questions about the books, writing in general, myself, or whatever else you want to ask. Hopefully you'll post the interview on or around March 4. Anyone interested? You can either comment here, or just e-mail your interview questions to jim -at- goblinquest.com. The only rule is to have fun.

2. Thanks to everyone who offered ideas on who should get a free set of the goblin books. The contest has been running for about 24 hours, and we've already got 11 great suggestions. If we make it to 100, I'm tossing in another set of books.

3. As some of you already know, CatsCurious Press and I are doing a project with humorous fairy tale retellings. It pays $.05/word, and I'll be writing a counterpoint story from the villain's POV to whichever story is accepted. The guidelines have now been updated with submission info. Submission deadline is March 31, 2008.

4. Back and neck are a bit better today. I've got about 120 degrees of rotation on the neck, and I was able to pick up my daughter this morning. (I leave shortly before she has to wake up for school, so part of my morning Daddy duty is to carry the sleepy girl in to snuggle with Mama for a few minutes and start waking up.) Still on Ibuprofin and Tylenol, though.

I mentioned a little while back that I had a few fun ideas for contests as we approach the release of Goblin War [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy].

As of March 4, I'll be the proud author of a complete trilogy. So I'd like to give away an autographed set of all three books, and I need all of you to suggest who should receive them.

Here's the catch: you can't suggest yourself.

In the past few months, I've sent a copy of Goblin Quest to a youth shelter, and donated both of my goblin books to a local domestic violence shelter (along with a number of other generous authors.) So that's the kind of thing I'm looking for. Maybe it's an organization that desperately needs books. Maybe it's a family that recently lost their library in a fire. Maybe it's an individual who just needs some cheering up.

The goblin books are fun, fairly light reading, and would be appropriate for anyone around 10 or 11 years and up. They're sword & sorcery, so an avid fantasy-hater probably wouldn't be the best recipient. Details about the books are on the web site, if you need to know more before making your suggestion(s).

Suggestions can go in the comments. (If you don't have an LJ account, or simply don't want to make a public suggestion, you can e-mail me at jim -at- goblinquest.com.) Tell me who you think should get the trilogy, and a brief summary of why. I don't mind multiple suggestions, but please give each one its own comment. Also, make sure I have a way to contact you either through LJ or e-mail.

I haven't decided exactly how to pick a winner yet, but it will probably be a combination of a group vote here and my own personal preference. Right now, I'm thinking I might choose my top five and let you all vote for the winner.

The deadline is February 19th, after which we'll start picking finalists.

Please feel free to spread the word on this. If I get at least 100 people making suggestions, I'll throw in another set of books.

Thanks to gaberax, I've achieved a fun new milestone as a writer: there now exists a gaming miniature of one of my characters. gaberax was nice enough to allow me to share pictures of this customized Jig Dragonslayer miniature, based on the artwork for Goblin War [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy].

To swipe a phrase from Sluggy Freelance, is it not nifty?


I love this stuff. Having people read your work is great. When they get into it enough to create fan art or miniatures, it feels even better. Thanks, gaberax!