I was discussing poetry with asakiyume when an interesting challenge came up: what do you do with foreign words (real or imaginary) in fiction, text or poetry? Do you translate them into English? Add a foot-note? Put something in parenthesis but leave the foreign word in the text?

None of these are new solutions, of course. But publishing online gives us access to HTML and all its associated widgets. One of the things I've been toying in my own work is using Javascript to put a pop-up with a definition when you float your cursor over the word. You get the initial mystery of seeing the foreign term and if you want to try using context to extrapolate the meaning you can... but if you absolutely must know what it means (right now, without having to look down at the bottom of the page), you can point at it and get the translation.

What's interesting about this is that you can use it to play with people's perception of their familiarity with the language. A footnote requires a significant break in attention, one that evokes a new language student stopping to consult a dictionary. But the Javascript pop-up is more akin to how you do things when you're acceptably multilingual and run across an unexpected word from one of your known languages—that moment of context-switching as your brain shifts gears, calls up the right word, and keeps going. (Note that the truly adept are past this also, but simulating that level of knowledge probably isn't going to work when the reader knows they don't know the language).

So it's been something I've been toying with as I'm preparing some of my alien stories for web publication: how do I want to present foreign words to the reader? Do I want them to feel alienated from them, but give them the feeling of completely new discovery? Do I want it to function more as if they sort of know the language already? And how does that affect the emotional impact of the story?

New technology is often annoying. But on occasion, it comes up with fun stuff like this. :)

And yes, to forestall the inevitable tangent, you would have to code the page to gracefully break if people don't have Javascript enabled. But as with most things, they'd be missing out. Javascript isn't exactly brand-new, untried technology anymore. -_-


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Tags: language, linguistics, technology, writing
Current Mood: sleepy

There are an odd number of people at practice, so I get to do my drills with the Assistant Coach. I love this; sometimes the younger folk get bored and stop paying attention or want to wander off, but the Assistant Coach always takes it seriously no matter how simple the exercise. We're doing one of those simple exercises now: he steps forward and lunges, I wait until he begins the lunge to step back, parry and riposte (an attack after a successful parry). It's easy to do sloppily and hard to do well, so we are going at it, over and over, while I concentrate on different parts of it.

About ten minutes later, Coach comes by to demonstrate the second stage of the drill, which involves both parties advancing and retreating. I am trying to figure out who is signalling the attack: it's not the attacker, as I assumed, but rather the defender. I think, anyway, I'm still studying them. When Coach stops, he glances at me and says, "Do you understand?"

"I think so," I say.

"It's a trigger!" Assistant Coach exclaims, gleeful. "You see, he starts the footwork and I follow what he does, until something triggers in my head and says: "I'm ready for him to attack me," and then my body stops moving, causing him to say—"

I am already laughing; I've seen this precise body language before... in meetings. "What am I? A stored procedure in an Oracle database?"

"You see," the Coach says, pointing at his assistant, "I am thinking tactically and he is thinking... I don't know what he's thinking."

"Like a coder," I say, grinning at the Assistant Coach. "You are such a geek!"

He straightens, the tip of his practice sword digging into the floor. "I have claimed many things, but never not to be a geek!"

I laugh. "All right, all right. Bring it, IT guy."


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Tags: fencing, humor, technology
Current Mood: amused/tired

ruggels put forth this link about Harper Collins deciding to try launching a publishing branch that accepts no returns on books... but also pays no advances to authors.

I thought it was worthy of its own entry, because the writers on my list might find it... unexpected.


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Tags: marketing, technology, writing

Several people have asked me what I think of the Amazon POD thing. For those of you who missed the brouhaha, or who had it explained to them by Very. Excitable. People! here's my understanding of the matter, in a nutshell: Amazon owns a print-on-demand company. From that company alone, they are willing to issue orders without having any inventory. Every other print-on-demand company has to set up an Amazon Advantage account with them, becoming a bookseller, and supply them with inventory.

So for the people who wonder what I feel about this, my first answer is: Who's surprised? Amazon wants to push the overhead for order tracking, shipping and sales for print-on-demand companies they can't control back onto them. That's a reasonable business decision.

My second answer: I don't appreciate all the flailing and screaming being done about this. Amazon isn't refusing to work with other POD companies. They're just insisting they go through a lot of fuss and bother to do so. Is that good for those other POD companies? Of course not. But it's not censorship, and it's not going to form a monopoly overnight, unless those POD companies refuse to work with Amazon as a result. Which in itself is not a smart business decision, these days. Say what you will about Amazon: they give a lot of value. There's a reason so many people order from them. They're good.

My third answer? If I went to a random person on the street and asked, they would neither know nor care if Amazon was "boycotting" other POD companies. They would care if they could get my book from Amazon with free shipping and search inside, though. Particularly if the alternative was some company's website store they'd never heard of and would have to make Yet Another Login to buy from.


Now, having said all that, I am... let's say... mindful that the choices from here on out get odd or sticky. I've been watching Amazon slowly position itself to become an end-to-end supplier of content, buying Mobipocket, Booksurge, Createspace and issuing the Kindle. I'm not opposed to that, but it is a peculiarity: a publishing company, of sorts, without any editorial restraints. What will that mean to the changing publishing landscape?

I've also noted that Amazon's POD house isn't signed up with any of the retail distributors, like Ingram or Baker & Taylor. This might just be a corporate bottom line thing (they don't want to deal with the overhead of responding to those requests), a book-cultural thing (the distributors don't want to deal with the same inventory management issues Amazon is trying to shake off), even a technological thing (the channels don't exist yet, or it's too hard to manage sales information in this venue, or there's no way to do so). But I don't discount the possibility that Amazon doesn't want the books it puts out by its POD house in brick and mortar stores, because it would drive sales away from Amazon.com.

I don't know; I'm not in that driver's seat. But I'm curious to see what happens from here. The question for me is whether the physical presence of the books would make a huge difference to my sales figures. The authors doing the traditional route are going to think that's a ridiculous question, of course... but that's because they have 2000-10,000 books to distribute. With that many books wandering around, being in bookstores is naturally a plus, because you're going to see more customer passing your product. But I have no inventory, and my books would have to be ordered by a bookstore to be bought there, so there's no immediate gain. I pay no money; I take no risks... I also get no benefit.

Things I think about. Sometimes I regret not publishing the old-fashioned way... but what publishing company with traditional distribution methods would have put out something like the Aphorisms?


You know the answer to that already.


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Tags: books, marketing, technology, writing
Current Mood: watching

I know I am unusually post-tacular today, but if you're one of the people who wants to do the content strike, you should go read Chipotle's analysis of why your protests are irrelevant; you will be assimilated.

Err, okay, that's not what chipotle said, precisely. But if you really care about this stuff, you need to read it. It's got a graph and everything.


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Tags: networking, news, technology
Current Mood: post-tacular

For the people all up in arms about LJ "censoring" their interests... frankly, I think dracosphynx's explanation is a lot more plausible. In short, that adding the code to filter for adult content just filtered out the interests unexpectedly. Go read dracosphynx's entry. If you want to talk about LJ being dumb about forcing people to pay for Basic accounts, that's one thing. But this particular issue is a total non-starter. For me, anyway.

Really, it's not always People Out to Get You.




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Tags: networking, technology
Current Mood: *shaking head*

Yesterday I was talking with transdraconis about how I sometimes just want to toss people a couple of bucks, not for a thing, but for the less tangible value they give me by consistently offering something beautiful, thought-provoking or cool online, whether that's superversive's essays or trufflehog's storybook-charming art.

I don't want a thing from these people, a physical object I'd have to find a place for in my home. I have enough junk as it is. What I want to buy them a cup of coffee or tea or chocolate for is that reliably they make my trip online a better one. Sort of like a museum: I'm not going to walk away with anything more than the experience, but the experience is the point.

So it kind of surprises me that after having this long talk with the Dwagon about it, getting emails from people saying, "You should put Donate buttons on the bottom of each story so that we can hit it if it really moved us" makes me feel bashful.

Consistent on this issue? Not much....

(Shame likes the idea, but says the button needs to be black and white. I would accuse him of drama, but... uh... you haven't seen the next Admonishment. O_O )


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Tags: culture, new publishing paradigms, technology
Current Mood: thoughtful

I had high-minded plans to paint tonight, but instead I got sucked into re-reading a really good book that I was planning to give a friend.

Which is out of print, though it came out in the late 90's.

Which I had to buy used, which put no money in the author's pocket, because I couldn't find a copy any other way.

In absence of a legitimate paper copy, I tried to find an electronic version and couldn't. I went to the publisher's website, which lists no information on how to contact them to tell them there's at least one reader who wants to give them money for an e-book version. Or any version. Because no publisher would really care about whether readers want to buy copies of their backlists.

For maximum frustration and prevention-of-sales, the publisher's website doesn't even tell me how I can contact the author, so I can at least give him money for a copy if he's got some extras in his garage.

Compounding this problem, the author has neither website nor any web presence at all that I can find. Because a man who won the Robert Heinlein medal, two Prometheus awards, a Seiun award, a Sturgeon award and received five Hugo award nominations FOR HARD SCIENCE FICTION apparently doesn't do that internet technology thing.

When I was researching literary contracts in hopeful preparation for the time I'd need the knowledge (and I did need it, if only to turn down three horrendous offers), one of the things drummed into my head was how important the reversion clause was—the clause that allowed an author to get back their property if the publisher wasn't selling it—and I believed it.

But how, exactly, is this book making the author any money now?

That used copy? I bought it for one cent.

Try and tell me this industry isn't messed up. Please.


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Tags: marketing, new publishing paradigms, technology, writing
Current Mood: seriously irritated

I notice that The Ursa Major Awards have a Wikipedia entry. It's even got my name in it! But clicking on my name for some reason leads to the entry on the name Micah, which totally makes no sense. Particularly since I'm not listed on the "Micah" entry.

This is only slightly better than the anemic Wikifur entry that makes me sound utterly uninteresting.

Someone should put up a "cyberfunded creativity" entry on Wikipedia and cross-link it to "new publishing paradigms" and people like shadesong and the communities on Livejournal. How can anyone take us seriously if we're not on Wikipedia? Come on. Don't let people fool you, it's not an encyclopedia. It's where the Net goes for information on what's important to people who are on the Net. It's a cultural marker.

Anyone want to pitch in on this?


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Tags: culture, networking, new publishing paradigms, technology, writing
Current Mood: hmph

This morning, I was holding a print of "Ghost" in my hands and cackling because it looks like something out of a Thomas Kinkade gallery.

And then I realized... it looks like something out of a Thomas Kinkade gallery. Not in the "it's a colorful painting of a cottage with pink and blue lighting" sense. In the high fidelity "will last longer than the person who buys it" archival "hang it in a museum/gallery" sense.

And then my head exploded.

The long-term fans who watch trends will have noticed that I used to do a lot of marketing of my prints. I went to conventions, had a nice separate website for them, had sales, did matting, had quasi-limited editions, did the whole online auction thing. And then... I stopped talking so much about it, until these days, if you know I have prints for sale it's probably because I've mentioned it in a desultory, "I'm having a sale!" way, once a year.

There's a reason for that: setting up to do fine art reproduction is time-consuming and costly, and spending several hours to make $10 wasn't at all compelling. What can you buy with $10 today? You'd be lucky if that got you lunch at a cheap restaurant.

And that was when my time was cheap. You know, in college? I had no idea how free I was. I could spend time like air. Then I got a job, but even then I was free. Working full-time I still could goof off and play World of Warcraft a couple of hours a night while still writing a novel a year and painting two or three things a month.

Now... I steal time from every available corner, in one or two minute increments. I'm doing it now to write this, while eating and keeping an eye on the baby. I can't game if I still want to draw. I can't read if I still want to write. Right now, every moment is precious, because when I collapse around 10 PM, I'm done. There's no more work in me.

And I think about how my father quietly told me once, "We wanted to make sure both of you had a college education and a servicable car before you left home," and I know my minimum standards for my daughter aren't going to be any cheaper.


So I look at this thing in my hands then and wonder, "What am I thinking? Look at this thing! Look at how much time it takes me to paint, scan, color-correct, test-print and print it! I need to drive somewhere to buy the paper. I need to drive somewhere to mail it. How many hours of my life does this represent when I literally count my free time in minutes now?"

--ten minutes, quick, paint a couple more lines--five minutes, quick, edit one of the Admonishments, one minute, quick, jot down some notes or a thumbnail for the next project--

Pricing my art used to be part ego, part philosophy and all abstractions. But now... now it's precious. Every minute I spend on it. My life has changed. If I'm going to do this... I can't low-ball it for fun anymore. Not because I don't want to. But because I literally can't afford to.


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Tags: art, life, marketing, mom in spots, news, technology
Current Mood: !