He has the same backlist problems as everybody is having, and has e-books. I’ll be putting his link on the sidebar, but meanwhile I’ve invited him to introduce himself and say something about how he’s going about the same kind of operation—different, but the same as far as getting readers books they might not otherwise have access to.
Ran into an old friend who’s doing what CC is doing…meet Stephen Goldin.
by CJ | Apr 16, 2010 | Journal | 39 comments
39 Comments
Submit a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Thanks, CJ. I’m an sf/f author, not as famous as CJ, but I have over 30 novels to my credit. I used to think that was something of an achievement–but I found that if no one can find the books, they forget about you real fast.
So I decided to change that. I first signed some of my titles with E-Reads, and you can find those on Fictionwise. I also assigned a few titles to a small publisher, Midnight Showcase Fiction. But for the most part, I wanted control over what I was doing, and I think I’m finding it.
I’m working through Smashwords, a company that converts your files to ebooks at no cost; you pay only a small–*very* small by publishing industry standards–percentage of any sales. Right now I’ve got 19 titles listed there…soon to be 20. And I have pretty much complete control over what happens to them. And, for those people who just *have* to have something on paper to make it real, I’m doing some editions as print-on-demand as well.
My site is called Parsina Press, and it offers such things as my new 10-book space opera series, “Agents of ISIS”; my recently revised and updated classic THE ETERNITY BRIGADE; my Arabian-Nights style fantasy Parsina Saga; my recent boy-meets-girl fantasy satire, POLLY! (which contains an excerpt from a previously unknown Marx Brothers movie); and other things as well. Look for the link CJ will be putting up.
As another prong in my attack against publisher complacency, I’m hoping to work with podcaster J. Daniel Sawyer to do some audiobooks…but that’s a little bit in the future yet. Still, I’m a science fiction writer, so I suppose I’m allowed to look into the future just a bit.
One of my favorite quotes is from Joseph Heller’s CATCH-22: “Yossarian was going to live forever, or die trying.” I don’t know if my books will live on forever, but I’m sure as hell going to give them a chance at it.
Where is the link?
Shiny new info: swipe and paste (drat the lack of options within the sidebars): ———–> over in the left sidebar.
Stephen and I go way back to my earlier days at conventions. He happened to contact me re a project he’s doing, and I wondered what else he was doing.
Conversation led one thing to another, and lo! he’s doing a CC of his own, via a different kind of source, and those of you who are collecting e-books may enjoy taking a walk through his bookstore. He has a several-pronged operation, distributing through Smashwords, to several regular outlets, and also selling from his site.
He’s a witty fellow and a good storyteller. In our struggle to make sure that writers don’t get caught in the backlist meltdown, having thought of the idea of introducing Stephen formally here, so the younger readers can meet him, hey, we may do that for other folk you should meet. He’s now a member of our site, so welcome, Stephen!
“Shiny new info: swipe and paste (drat the lack of options within the sidebars): ———–> over in the left sidebar.”
Psst! CJ! I think that’s your other left. “E-BOOKS FROM CLOSED CIRCLE AND OTHERS”–the one your arrow points toward. And it’s not a click-able link.
The link is http://parsina.com/ (and, you know, it’s easier for me to put the link in here than into even Firefox. Now, I can just click my own message (I think–no preview; though, to be sure, I opened a new tab and tested the link first!)
(As always, feel free to delete or edit this message.)
You’re onto one of my dark secrets, which Jane knows well. My brain knows where I mean, but the word it produces is the opposite direction. Jane’s always saying, “Your other left!”
Don’t we all have that problem now and again?
BTW, 21 titles are available for Kindle directly from Amazon. (Including Eternity Brigade and the Isis books).
I remember hunting the bookstores in the early eighties waiting for the next Family d’Alembert novel to sneak out onto the shelves. Gawd. That’s such a long time ago, it seems like another age of the world!
I recently downloaded a book from Smashpress (dog-related, not SF), and found it a fast and painless process. And they take PayPal!
Regarding podcasts, I’m using podbean.com for my book Policies of Exclusion, Poverty & Health: Stories from the front. With 22 episodes, each about 20 minutes long, I was able to stay within Podbean’s free plan. However, the site offers several packages.
I’ve made the podcasts of my book free so that anyone visiting the site can listen to them. This encouraged many listeners to purchase the book when it was still in print. (Now I’m selling the e-version.)
But you needn’t make your podcasts free. Podbean has an e-store option that enables you to sell any audio (or video) file you upload.
@Elaine: The current Kindle version of Eternity Brigade is the older E-Reads edition. The rights are in the process of reverting to me, and as soon as they do (*very* soon now) I’ll be replacing it with the updated, thoroughly revised Parsina Press edition (which is already available as print-on-demand as “Final Edition”). You might want to wait (if you’re tempted at all) for the later one. Of course, if you’re feeling rich, you *can* buy both editions, then compare-and-contrast. I wouldn’t object.
BTW, many of the books available through Parsina Press have coupon codes–so you can save some money ordering through my site. Just a bit of advice for those of you who aren’t independently wealthy. Oh, and the ones published through Smashwords allow you to read the first x% of the book for free before you buy (usually 25% on novels).
I remember you, Mr. Goldin, mainly from your older Star Trek novels! Good times, good times…
@ Apf: My new “Agents of ISIS” decalogy is actually built on the d’Alembert series. Those books may not have been great literature, but I did put a lot of time and effort into writing them…and the Smith estate wasn’t much interested in letting me do anything with them. The series was based on an E.E. Smith novella called “Imperial Stars”, which I novelized and then wrote 9 more books whose plots and additional characters were all mine. So what I’ve done now is write an entirely new first book, TSAR WARS (the title just called out to me). The universe, story and characters are all different and original to me. Then I completely revised the remaining books so that they now derive from the new first one. The universe, plots and characters are all 100% Goldin. Only “old-timers” like you will notice any similarity to what went before. For most of today’s fans, the books will be completely new.
Family d’Alembert! I knew I had seen your name somewhere before. I shall check this out, as they say.
@Stephen, I did wonder if they were related when I was having a look at the Agents of ISIS. What I do recall about the Family books was that they were fun but also that I enjoyed waiting for the next one to come along. That to me was always the sign of a good book.Literature is something I had to study back then; while those were something I could enjoy.
Good. Thanks for the compliment. I always meant them to be enjoyed. I like to think that, by freeing them from some of the artificial restrictions the Estate imposed on me, I’ve made them even more enjoyable now.
C.J.: I have the same left/right problem. Left and right can be ascertained but not under pressure. Like when someone says turn left! here! A friend gave me a gift of socks that fit your right and left feet with an L on the top of the arch for the left sock and an R on the top of the right sock. Works nicely, except for having to take off my shoes to error check.
I think the “other left” problem is caused by a person being pre-disposed to mirror another’s gestures. So when a person faces you and holds up their right hand and says, “This is my right hand.” I hold up the mirrored hand, my left hand, and it all goes down hill from there.
I even had a helpful someone tell me I must be dyslexic. The problem with that diagnosis was that I can read rather too well. Keeping myself in reading matter gets to be a tad expensive.
An easy way to remember left/right, if you aren’t driving, is to look at your hands when you stretch your thumbs out 90 degrees. The index finger and thumb make an L on the left hand, so you can just glance and check.
You can also use your knuckles to remember how many days (30 or 31) are in a month, but that’s a bit harder to explain.
You do have to remember to look at the back of your hands, not the palms, for the thumb-makes-L look, and that tends to be enough to confuse me again. Like the rule about writing: right is the hand you write with, but left is the side of the paper you start writing on. Way too much thinking for emergency turns! 😆 (I go wrong 1-in-3 times, unless people point or specify your side – my side or something like that)
The knuckles-for-31-days and dips for 30 (or less, in February) works well, as long as you remember that index-finger-knuckle of the left hand (July) directly abuts index-finger-knuckle of the right hand (August), with no dip counted for the space between the two fists.
I’ve always liked the tip for seeing if the moon is waxing or waning, but it depends on knowing two french words: by adding a | to the curve you can see that ) spells p for premier = first quarter, and ( spells d for dernier = last quarter; the first might be translated to primary to make this donkey-bridge* work in English; but I don’t quite see how the d could be turned into an English word for last…
* that’s what these tips to make things easy to remember are called in Dutch; I don’t know if it means a way to get a fool across a gap (in their knowledge), or is supposed to be a comment on the animal’s memory: ‘a donkey won’t stumble on the same stone twice’ is another Dutch proverb (though a different stone, or step, or patch of ice is of course a totally different matter 😉 ).
CJ, seeing the progress bar at 28 pages, does this mean you’re finished with the outline and have started on the detailed writing of the next book?
It’s now in the expand-the-outline stage, which is sort of like when you’ve done a sketch and you’re going now to add paint, but it’s all underpainting, as opposed to the finish details. So I’m writing some loose dialog, no description, but some outlined ‘what happens next’ interspersed with things that have to get done. It’s not anything anybody else could make good sense of, but it is getting to be a detailed scene-by-scene, when before, it was just a list of things that were likely to happen, somewhat in order. Now I’ve pretty well stopped moving them around, and am building a structure in which they lead one to the next.
Hmm… I just use the left hand and start index to little finger and then repeat. Otherwise I would have to switch the finger that is tapping the knuckle/dip and counting off the months.
That sort of thing would make me crazy. I can’t write random bits and pieces–I have to write it all through from beginning to end. No jumping around while I’m working on rough draft, and very little on final draft.
On the other hand, I have little problem with right/left. I’m right-handed, so right is the hand I write with. Unless I’m doing a logic puzzle where the people are seated in a circle and the clue says Lucille is seated on Robert’s right…
The inability to recall where I am is why I’m doing this—which I can only do when I really, really, know the world. It’s kind of fun. Eventually you stuff the outline so full you just go back and plug in the finished text and constantly have an idea where you are. But I do shamelessly move events around. And have been known to forget where I put them. 😆 If Jane—and occasionally OSG—didn’t read my stuff and tell me when I’ve been insane, I don’t know what I’d do! Jane reads for sanity and OSG reads for dropped stitches and people who change names in mid story.
I knew the name Goldin was familiar from SF encountered
along the way…GRIN you are now a mnemonic of grey lensman
so I won’t forget.
I think Smith like R E Howard wrote a fast paced tale that
couldn’t withstand logical analysis in his early works.
I’ve been told, though I have no way of verifying it, that Smith was the first writer to write about *friendly* aliens, in the Skylark books. Before that, aliens were always just monsters out to conquer our world and rape our brass-brassiered women.
My bet, which I haven’t verified either, would be on
ER Burroughs, I seem to recall that Carson Napier and
John Carter met a few friendlies.
They also met a lot of very unfriendly types.
Smith probably gets the credit for introducing the idea
in the mass produced pulp magazines, without those other
stories the artistes would have had to do much different
covers.
archive.org has the Clayton Astoundings online with some
cover art to dazzle the eye. I think some of them have
been redone for gutenberg and are under various for the
author listing. I recall a couple of Weird Tales things
with covers using monsters carrying off our women also.
The real danger of reading such things is you start to
wish your hat had a propellor on it.
And Edwin Lester Arnold came before ERB with his “Gullivar Jones” novel.
Still, these are pretty much ‘lost race’ novels transplanted to another planet. Smith may well have been the first to have friendly alien aliens;, someone you wouldn’t be likely to become romantically involved with.