On the back of my publishing contract with Random House and film deal with Columbia Pictures, I’m happy to announce that I’ll be taking a brief break from the Rittenhouse books to collaborate with the world’s most significant living author. Mutt and Stray have caught the eye of none other than J.K. Rowling.
Rowling, who needs no introduction, sought an outlet for new young adult fiction ideas after the publication of her first adult novel, The Casual Vacancy, in 2012. Upon discovering Mutt, Rowling contacted me about potentially collaborating on a one-off novel.
The yet-unnamed project deals with young magic-users, but it should be quite different than either Rittenhouse or Harry Potter: set in the 1950′s in Alabama, it addresses themes religion and prejudice in the 20th century American South.
“I’m quite excited to work with Evan,” Rowling said. “The Rittenhouse Saga has renewed my love for young adult literature. I’m presently reading Stray with David [Rowling Murray, her son].”
I’ll be traveling to Edinburgh this summer for a three-month stay to begin writing the book.
Today, I am overjoyed to announce that my books Mutt and Stray, along with their forthcoming sequels, have been accepted for publication by Random House Publishing Group.
The series, which has already found thousands of readers and won glowing reviews from the book blogging community, will be published in yearly intervals between now and 2017, starting with Mutt’s Random House re-release on November 27, 2013.
Random House is delivering $200,000 advances on the first two books, and for each subsequent book at the time of delivery. In addition, the publisher will be investing $200,000 per book on the series’ publicity campaign, for a total of $1,000,000.
Publishing Group President Gina Centrello called the deal “an enormous opportunity for our company,” also describing Stray as “quite possibly the best damn book we’ve ever read here at Random House.”
One of my favorite aspects of Stray is how the uncertainty, fear, and urgency is felt throughout the novel. We, as readers, are made to empathize with Emery as he races against not just the odds, but the clock. We cringe with him as he uncovers truths, and feel deep sadness for the past secrets he shares.
Just like Mutt, Stray has a fantastic series of heart-pounding scenes where Emery is tested beyond his limits, and where the story reaches suspenseful climaxes. Fuller has a skill for creating anticipation and delivering what the reader seeks with style.
I’m sure a few of you remember that I did a Name Your Price week for Mutt on Smashwords a couple of months ago. Well, being negligent, I forgot to change it back to regular pricing. It was no big deal; the book’s Smashwords page doesn’t get many hits, so without the promotion nobody was paying attention.
Nobody, that is, except Amazon. Somebody on their site found the Smashwords promotion, and as per their policy, Amazon matched the price. I should mention here that I’ve been very sick* for the past couple months and have failed to manage my online presence, which includes checking my sales reports. Tonight, I checked Amazon on a whim and discovered that I’ve “sold” about 900 free copies of Muttin the past few weeks.
Right now I’m baffled and laughing out loud (I should note here that, with daily, round-the-clock promotion, I gave away about 50 free copies of the book for Name Your Price week). Mutt, the dystopian fantasy novel that’s won love and adoring reviews from all over Tumblr, will be free until I can be bothered to fix the price, so go get your copy on Amazon now!
Pass the word along!
*I’ll update about this at some point, but know for now it’s nothing life-threatening.
This summer has been a great one for Mutt. The book’s first roundof reviewshas seennot one, not two, but sevenglowing opinions. The unanimous praise from reviewers and overwhelming support from the book’s small but enthusiastic fanbase are more than I could have asked for. It’s time to take the next step–getting the book into as many hands as possible to spread the word. So I’m doing something unprecedented for the end of summer:
Q. What’s this Name Your Price thing?
It’s exactly what it sounds like. You choose how much you want to pay for the book. You can download it for free, pay something crazy like $100, or anything in between.
Q. So wait, I can get the book for free?
Yes.
Q. Is that, like, cool?
Yeah. If you download the book for free and decide you really like it, feel free to go back and pay for a copy! Anything you can spare helps. But my immediate goal is to get the book out there. So if you don’t have spare cash (or credit card access), this is your one-time chance to grab the book with no strings attached.
Q. If I really like the book and want to support it but don’t have any money, what can I do to help?
Just spread the word. Force your friends to read it through threat of violence, post about it on your blog, tell your parents to buy a copy for your little siblings. Whenever a new person is being exposed to Mutt, I’m doing better than I was before.
Q. Why isn’t the book free all the time?
Artists love to say they’re “not in it for the money.” While that’s a good sentiment, and while I write because I love to write, money is vital in two ways: it allows me to spend less time at my day job at more time writing, and it covers the direct costs of publishing the books. I’m still working toward regaining what I spent on Mutt, and once that’s covered, I’ll be raising money for the publication of Stray. The amount I raise from sales of Mutt will determine everything from Stray’s release date to whether and when a print version is available.
I’ve seen some early alpha builds of the game, and I can say with confidence (and without the slightest bias) that it’s going to be as awesome as it is unique. The game design combines elements I’ve never seen together before, the presentation is gorgeous, and the story is subversive without being obtrusive or overly serious. Also, every donation gets a personalized thank-you video:
I’ve known Justin since we were in diapers, and the other people in the company are super rad. They’re also much better at promotion than I am, so I see no reason why this shouldn’t take off. Go donate to the project, and you’ll get eternal bragging rights when the game is a huge success.
This past week I had the utterly awesome opportunity to do an author interview with Dayla at Bookaddict24-7. Dayla was the first blogger ever to review Mutt, and the interview was a total blast. The interview has the first details about Stray, the forthcoming sequel to Mutt, and a photograph of me if you’ve been wondering what I look like. Here’s a little sample:
What’s the best thing anyone has ever said about your writing and what is the worst?
“That first one is hard to answer, just because my friends and the bloggers reviewing Mutt have been so kind. So I’ll go with a curveball: one blogger who wrote a very positive review of the book half-jokingly called me a dick for one late-book plot development (this was in an e-mail, not the review itself). I was really honored and excited to see that the story was captivating people to that degree and producing those gut reactions
And I’ve had some pretty critical things said about my work, mostly in workshop classes at school, but the most offensive thing to me was when a perfectly well-meaning person called me an “aspiring writer.” I would’ve been less offended at “unsuccessful writer” or even “bad writer,” because “aspiring writer” suggests that I want to write in the future or think about writing a lot. I don’t aspire to write; I sit down and write.”
Go check out the whole interview on the site, and be sure to follow Dayla for all-around good content. She’s a writer too and posts updates with her progress, which can be great encouragement for those banging away at our own manuscripts. And as always, grab your copy of Mutt on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords if you haven’t already. Peace and love!
With a bigger, better RAM stick installed, I was ready to revisit the world of Pottermore with hopes of actually being able to run the site. I noticed two things in rapid succession: first, the interactive “moments” were indeed running far more smoothly, and second, these pages were painfully boring. I’m sorry, but I have yet to understand how clicking through some mostly-static scenes to collect salt shakers and seaweed is supposed to enhance my experience of the fiction. I progressed slowly through these scenes, thinking I must be missing something: this couldn’t possibly be the point, could it?
When I reached the Diagon Alley scenes, things began to open up a bit. There were items to buy with different attributes, and it appeared that these would aid in actual gameplay sections later on (at the time of this writing, I still haven’t reached a section where I make actual use of these items). Having kept both birds and toads in real life, I selected a cat as my magical creature. When all that was done, I went to Olivander’s and got myself a larch wand with a phoenix feather core. Eleven inches, rigid. Damn right.
Wand in hand, I hurried through the next few scenes to the one I’d been waiting for since I started on site: the Sorting Hat. I was subjected to the rather awkward and obtrusive video of Rowling explaining the sorting process (my friend had mentioned this to me before, and its awkwardness did not disappoint) and then began the quiz itself.
I have to stop here to ask if anyone, while reading the Potter books are watching the films, ever actually thought to herself, “Hufflepuff is totally the coolest house.” Friends of mine have described it as “the stoner house;” it’s where you go if you get into wizard school but don’t really stand out beyond that. I mean, Slytherin is kind of strange in that it seemingly exists only the harbor the fiction’s equivalent of neo-Nazis, but I do have friends who favor that house (probably due in no small part to the awesome that is Alan Rickman). I haven’t met a single person in real life who wants to be in Hufflepuff.
So while the rational part of my mind knew I was destined for Ravenclaw, there was a fear that my nice-guy tendencies (combined with a possible desire on the part of the site’s creators to distribute users somewhat evenly among the houses) might push me toward Hufflepuff. Try as I may to answer the questions honestly, that fear might have influenced me when I chose to save Merlin’s book before the dragonpox cure. In the end, the fear was unfounded; some users end up on the cusp between two houses and have to choose for themselves. I wasn’t one of them.
Greetings to all my new housemates. Check back soon for Part III!
My curiosity to experience Pottermore reached a boiling point yesterday after I learned that the site was not only an interactive way to interface with the Harry Potter story but also Ms. Rowling’s coming-out party as an indie publisher of the Potter ebooks. As an indie myself, I find Rowling’s “Radiohead move” from traditional to independent distribution to be of especial interest, so I’ll be documenting my experiences with the site.
There was a moment of fear for me when the text surrounding the Sign Up button said, Before you can begin your Pottermore journey, you need to find out whether or not you are magical…” What? Would I get my hopes up, only to find out I was some mere muggle after all? Thankfully, no. When the first page after the account creation screen announced, “Congratulations! You Are Magical,” I did feel a momentary excitement seeing my name above Mr. Potter’s own. Maybe this was some grand new beginning for the Harry Potter story, and this time I’d get to slay Voldemort myself, with Harry as my loveable sidekick with the cool scar and bad temper.
Then I reached the next screen. Wait, what the hell? I had to choose from five preselected usernames? I’d just hoped to use “kingofautumn” like I do on most sites. I hadn’t intended to name my account “ButtS3KS” or something involving my social security number. And even given the preselected usernames, why isn’t there a way to see more options than the first five presented? (Even refreshing the page did nothing here.) I ended up choosing “LightSeer 16166,” trying not to think that there were probably other LightSeers before me, as many as 16165.
So I got into the main portal for the site, which I found could barely run on my netbook. (I made a long-needed memory upgrade today, and the site is running for more smoothly now.) It was on this page that I began overwhelmingly to feel what I’m sure countless other users of the site have felt: a profound disconnect between Pottermore and the Harry Potter aesthetic familiar to fans. It takes a bit of external knowledge to discern the cause of this.
As I said, Rowling is self-releasing the Potter ebooks exclusively through the site. A bit of background, as best I understand the situation: Rowling’s contracts with Scholastic and Bloomsbury were written before the Kindle and similar devices made ebooks a significant force in the market, so the publishers included no provision granting them rights to the ebook versions of the Harry Potter books. Rather than sign the rights to these books away, Rowling decided to maintain complete control over the ebooks and publish them independently. She has also made Pottermore the exclusive vendor of the books, bypassing major retailers such as Amazon.
While she has the rights of the books themselves, it appears that a lot of the art assets have been retained by the publishers—or, in the case of the assets created for the films, by Warner*. Even the ubiquitous Harry Potter font is absent from the site design, and trademark visual elements like the house insignias had been redesigned from the ground up. (Once I realized this, I was surprised to see that Rowling had even been allowed use of the original book covers for the books.) Pottermore is about creating Harry Potter experience controlled by Rowling and Rowling alone, one she can do with as she pleases in every regard. I’m not quite sure what I think of it just yet, but it’s a noble endeavor, at the very least.
*EDIT: I’d originally cited Disney as the distributor of the Harry Potter films. Oops.
As an independent author, it’s probably a foregone conclusion that I love ebooks. They’ve created a market that didn’t exist before, giving self-publishing writers a feasible way to release their books affordably and reach their audiences. Every review of Mutt published so far has been written by someone reading the ebook. The digital medium has also given me cause to rethink story structure entirely; my next series after the Rittenhouse Saga will likely be a sequence of very short (30-40,000-word) novels released biannually at a $2.99 price point.
It may surprise you to learn I don’t actually read ebooks.
Well, that isn’t entirely true. I’m presently making my way through a Poetry Magazine anthology on my phone’s Kindle reader. I also use it for a lot of nonfiction reading, as it’s easier to annotate and reference texts than in print. But I don’t own a dedicated e-reader, and I’m still reading fiction almost exclusively via dead-tree books.
After getting all those books yesterday, I had immediate buyer’s remorse—not at my selections but at the medium in which I’d purchased them. In addition to all the benefits I see from the perspective of a content creator, idea of an e-reader appeals to me from the customer end because it’s a way to consolidate my physical possessions. So should I just put down the $99 for a Kindle, return the paperbacks, and get the same books digitally?
For one thing, I did some comparative shopping and found that the subtotal for the four books would only have been $1 less than the cost of the print versions. Graceling was a bit cheaper; American Gods was inexplicably more for the ebook than the 500-page print version. And in addition, while American Gods and Neuromancer were mass-market paperbacks, both Graceling and Paper Towns were inexpensive trades. The money a publisher saves on ebooks versus print (and trust me, the claim that that cost difference is negligible is a myth) should reflect in retail. If we indies can manage to offer deep discounts on our ebooks, the major houses should be able to afford a discount of at least a dollar versus the cheapest print version of the same book, especially for a book like Neuromancer that’s been on the market for decades.
I’m also concerned by how digital media is redefining the idea of ownership. When I buy a print book, I obtain a physical item that is irrevocably my possession. When I buy an ebook, I’m actually only licensing that data on a limited and reversible basis. I read a story a month or two ago (link when I find it again) that a man whose Amazon account was deleted, Kindle library and all, on a rather ludicrous suspicion that someone had been trying to illegally access the account. When the man’s ebooks were ultimately replaced, he had lost years’ worth of annotations. This sort of thing is obviously very rare, and I don’t really have a legitimate fear of it happening to me if I buy a Kindle, but it does underscore the fact that in the digital world, “ownership” can always be reversed.
(A sidenote: if you ever lose access to a purchased copy of one of my books for any reason, please just let me know. As long as I control the rights to my work, I’ll happily replace anything lost due to a hard drive crash, a car running over your e-reader, etc. )
One thing is for certain: if I do by a Kindle (and it will likely be a Kindle, if only because Amazon’s royalties to writers are slightly better than B&N’s), I’m going to avoid the 3G model. Connecting the device to my computer for ebook purchases may be inconvenient, but it also ensure that I more frequently consider buying from vendors like Smashwords. I do love Amazon, given that they’re the ones who opened the ebook market up in the first place, but I never want to become so attached to one outlet that I don’t shop around.
I’d love to hear some thoughts on this one, both from writers and readers. Does the idea of ownership vs. licensing matter to you? How have people’s transitions to the ebook medium gone so far?
Hey, guys and gals! I’m happy to present the latest review of Mutt, this one by Madeline at Read Like Breathing. She’s super cool, and I was happy to find that she had some great things to say about the novel. From the review:
I also loved the characters. They’re so human in these inhuman circumstances, they question and fear and strive to be better against all the odds. You’re also introduced to some people who are obviously striving for power regardless of the consequences, which ends up adding glorious and painful twists to the story. There are a lot of different elements that work together, and for once, guess what? NO TEENAGE ANGSTY ROMANCE. I thought I was going to die and go to heaven when I realized that. Just average human encounters, without all the disgusting appeal to the 14 year old masses.
Go check out the full review, and be sure to follow Read Like Breathing for other reviews and quality content in general. And as always, don’t forget to grab your copy of Mutt on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords if you haven’t yet!
Back in May, I posted about “Muttbombing,” my subtle and complex strategy to attain placement on book store displays (by sneaking copies of Mutt into the store and putting them there). For all you indies and readers out there wondering whether the books flew off the shelves or were discovered by store staff and discarded, here’s an update on how the plan has worked out so far.
A couple weeks ago, a friend texted me this picture:
It appears that when the kind staff found the books, they simply shelved them. (They’re ending up in adult sci-fi and fantasy rather than in YA, which I’ll have to look into.) I haven’t received a royalty statement yet, but given that there are only four instead of the five I left, I’m assuming someone bought one of them. Better yet, the friend who sent this picture felt compelled to buy one upon seeing them there.
Now for the next part of the experiment. If you live in Philadelphia, go to the Rittenhouse Barnes & Noble and buy yourself a copy, or even better, buy all three and give the other two to your favorite people. I want to see if they’ll order more once they’ve sold through them all…
It seems like I have a new review to report every few days now. The most recent is by Rebecca at Good, Bad, And Ugly Books. The review awards the book with an awesome score of 9.7/10, as great a rating as I could possibly have anticipated. From the review:
Even if this “isn’t your type” of book, you have to try it. I loved it so much! You will love the setting, plot, characters, and writing. And those are, for me, the four great-book keys. And this book has it all. So go read it!
Read the full review here, and be sure to follow the blog for coverage of more great books. Thanks to Rebecca for taking the time to read Mutt (on a computer screen, no less) and for offering such a stellar appraisal. More to come in the very near future.
One of the most crushing moments growing up in the information age was when I first realized there were other, better-known individuals who share my name. It’s a matter of luck and the creativity of one’s parents, but one may find himself in line behind any number of other people for the use of his own name. Thankfully, none of the other Evan Fullers in the world are ultra-famous, but it’s been clear to me for years that in order to achieve name recognition as an author, I’d need to either build a more prevalent web presence than the rest of them or use a pseudonym.
I chose the former option, and thanks to all of you who’ve been reading this blog every day, I’m making progress toward that goal.
In the time since starting my daily updates three weeks ago, I’ve risen to #3 result on Google searches for Evan Fuller, as well as #1 on Yahoo. I’m staking out three of the top five spaces on Google searches for “You’re Just a Mutt.”
Getting associations for “Mutt” has been quite a bit more difficult, given it’s a much more common word. I haven’t broken the top 100 for that one just yet, but at the rate things have been going, I’m sure we’ll see some kind of progress relatively soon.
Thanks again to everyone who’s been reading. If you haven’t already, grab a copy of Mutt. As the reviews coming in are saying, it’s a good read.
Good evening, boys and girls! Today I am happy to report another glowing review of Mutt. Written by Minerva and Marie at Reading Our Way Through Life, the review awards the book a superb four and half stars, and both critics recommend it “for anyone intrigued by dystopian novels or just craving a good adventure.”
The unanimous praise the book has received so far is really overwhelming, and several more reviews should be appearing in the coming weeks. I’d like to thank Minerva and Marie for taking the time to read the book and share their thoughts.
This is my first entry written using speech recognition, and as such, it’s probably going to be a lot more free association than actual content. It occurred to me that using speech recognition is less a terrible interface and more one akin to learning to drive a manual transmission: painful even after one masters the basics, but ultimately a useful tool once one is comfortable with it. What I’m learning is that it’s less straight speech and more a combination of the two interfaces, using the keyboard for punctuation and the like. (Having to explain an opening parenthesis to the computer takes more trouble than simply typing it, but on the other hand, long swaths of text are easier to dictate than to type, on such occasions, at least, as the program understands them correctly.) I’m told that adapts to the user’s voice over time, so hopefully with discipline it will become less painful. I’m also stuck using Microsoft software until I can afford the RAM upgrade to run Dragon. As frustrating as it is, however, my various doctors were correct in that it does take much of the strain of my hands. I’ve only had to type about ten words in this paragraph so far and about half of the punctuation.
I should add that I’m doing this in the coffee shop and I’m sure I look and sound absolutely insane to the other patrons.
Today I hope to finish proofreading and revising my manuscript, which you know I’ve been saying every day since I started it and probably for several months prior. After that a single take advantage of the great weather and continue my stickering campaign. A friend of mine spot and one of the stickers about town today in texted of me a picture of it. I’m glad to see the magic is spreading already; hopefully once the stickers everywhere, they’ll generate traffic to the site and find a host of delightful new readers for Mutt.
More reviews should be coming very soon to some wonderful book blocks near you.
Most of my work today was focused on reading/revising the draft of the sequel rather than promoting Mutt. Writing comes more naturally to me than promotion, so I’m totally in my zone right now being totally fried on too much coffee at going on 4 AM.
What started out as a simple proofreading, with the intended addition of one scene, is quickly evolving into a complete second draft of the book. I’ve added more than 3,000 words (including that new scene) and changed a few things about some character conflicts, and I’m less than halfway done my proofreading. I’m also cutting out unneeded words everywhere I can. It’s going to be a noticeably longer book than Mutt, but I’m trying to stick to the same principals of brevity, tight pacing, and no wasted pages. It’s a more complex story that explores a bit more of the world at which Mutt only glimpses, but I’m hoping it’ll never feel like it’s getting sidetracked in that exploration. I’m trying to keep my world-building largely in the margins and never present the reader with any information that feels like it’s tangential or not immediately relevant. This is a fine line to walk for a SF/F writer given that so many readers of the genre dig exhaustive world-building and detail, but hopefully these books will appeal to people who are turned off by that style, as well as those who need something a bit lighter after braving The Wheel Of Time or A Song Of Ice And Fire.
Related: I finishedA Dance With Dragons. It was pretty good. I won’t drop any spoilers for all you people watching Game of Thrones on HBO, but I will say the books are well worth your time, if you can stomach the 5,000 page investment.
Well, this one is gonna be real short because my right hand is about to fall off. I have some kind of problem with them that produces arthritis-like symptoms and that a team of specialists has utterly failed to diagnose over the past year. My neurologist thinks that it might be repetitive stress-related, or that if it isn’t, the amount of time I spend typing certainly doesn’t help. I’m hoping to buy a new stick of RAM and a copy of Dragon soon, as I’ve been advised multiple times to switch to dictation. Here I am, going on about how much my hands hurt and making them worse. Umm, promotion stuff…
I did a bunch of stickering today! All totally legal, of course, thank you. I’ve started distributing the beautiful stickers to friends to help me beautify Philly. Most of my writer work today has actually gone not to promotion but to writing, or rather, proofreading and revising the first draft of the sequel to Mutt. I’m hoping the book will surpass Mutt in precisely the ways a should, retaining the good elements from the first while expanding the world, raising the stakes, and delving far deeper into the core characters. There are some exciting new additions to the cast as well, which I’ll be teasing in the months to come. I’ll hopefully have these revisions done and the draft, which is now something between a first and a second draft, will finally be going out to my beta readers tomorrow. Hopefully they strike that right balance of constructive criticism and stroking my ego enough to keep me going.
I swore I was going to get back on track yesterday. Here I am, a day late again, so I’ll be doing one now and one in about two hours.
Failing to be as diligent these last few days has proven at least one thing, though. More people visit my site when I’m promoting daily than when I’m not. This shouldn’t be something I even had to learn; it’s kind of self-explanatory. But it’s good to see that my work shows some kind of results (and enlightening to see that, when I slack off, that shows too).
I’ve spent two and a half weeks doing daily promotion, though some days I’ve worked at it more than others. In that time, I’ve seen no change in sales from what I’d been doing before this push began. That’s rather distressing, but on the other hand, I’ve about quadrupled traffic to my site. I’ve secured a glowing review of Muttand have about half a dozen reviews in progress, as well as more interested parties planning to book later in the summer. I’ve also started an awesome tagging campaign and gotten some friends involved with that.
When all this turns to increased sales and readers, I’m not sure. But the fact is that it won’t happen if I don’t keep working to make it happen. I look forward to the day when I can spend all my time cloistered away in a little cave, writing till my fingers fall off, and have someone else do this “expanding my readership” stuff for me. But in the meantime, expect more of my ceaseless rambling. Hooray!
Too many late posts recently; I’ll get caught up today. Anyhow–
1) Graphic design is very easy when you’re reusing art assets by an awesome illustrator.
2) You’ll notice my delicious iced coffee in the background. Good Karma Cafe receives my packages for me, because the baristas there love me.
3) I’m going to need some help plastering these all over Philadelphia and parts unknown. If you’d like to help, let me know! And please read my tagging policy before you put themabsolutely everywhere.
The past two days I’ve been having a glorious visit in Baltimore, and as a result my work time suffered immensely. I was actually pretty impressed that I managed to fit as much in as I did: Thursday and Friday were the first two days of the trip, and I managed to keep my update schedule and do a lot more correspondence. I might have to expand my tactics for finding bookbloggers soon; I’ve queried almost everyone I could find on Tumblr thus far (and gotten wonderful responses!).
On the bus ride back to Philadelphia, I continued the work I started two days ago of proofreading the first draft of the sequel to Mutt. When I wrote Mutt, I finished the first draft, then immediately proofread it and sent it to a few good friends for critiques. With this second book, I’ve been sitting on the draft since January; I haven’t had time to proofread it or add one final scene that I wanted to include before letting my beta readers have at it. So in the four and a half months since finishing the draft, only one person (my best friend Justin) has read it. Don’t worry, he says it’s excellent, and I don’t see how he could be even remotely biased.
Greetings, friends! Today I woke up to something wonderful. Alright, I really woke up to my good friend’s demonic cat, but shortly thereafter I discovered that Brianda at The Book Blabber has released a glowing review of Mutt. I’m linking to the version on my Tumblr because there were some spoilers and I wanted to mark them, but you should also go follow her on her blog.
For those who missed it, check out the first review of Muttby Dayla at Confessions of a Book Addict. Some more reviews should be out soon. Remember, if you run a website or blog that reviews books and would like to give Mutt a read, e-mail me and we’ll work something out.
Thanks to you lovely readers, I’m also proud to announce that I’ve reached 1,000 views on this site. (Technically the count stands at 988, but it’ll be 1,000 by the end of today.) I’d like to offer my sincerest thanks to everyone who’s been reading, and tell all your friends! I feel good things aren’t too far off.
Today, my stickers shipped, which is tremendously exciting. Soon thousands of people will be seeing the cover illustration for Mutt on a daily basis. I’m also continuing query work, which tires my hands but is totally worth it. I’m meeting some great people in the bookblogging world.
I believe a big part of promotion is promoting work by other indie artists who deserve recognition, and that isn’t limited to writers. Today, I’d like to share a new music release by a band I adore.
I first saw these lovely boys and girls a little over a year ago, and they’ve quickly become one of my favorite bands. They give a heart-stopping live performance, and from my interactions with them online and at shows, they all strike me as wonderful people. Their past releases, the Nautical Sabbatical EP and debut full-length The Unmistakable Man, are both among my favorites, and the new record is set to demolish the high bar they’ve set with those works.
I’m only one listen in so far, but I’ve heard most of the songs live or listened to them on repeat as pre-release singles. I’ll write further thoughts after I get a dozen listens or so into it, but I can promise already that it was my most anticipated album of the year and it’s living up to that high expectation. (Really, if the whole record was comprised only of the modern classic “Ballad of Oregon” fourteen times back-to-back, it’d still be worth your attention.) The album is produced by Brian Deck, who handled some of Modest Mouse and Iron & Wine’s best work.
The album releases on June 5th, and the band is touring for it now. If you come out to the D.C. date tomorrow night, you might see me dancing my little white-boy hips off.
Today I’m not going to provide my regular update (as if these have taken on any kind of regularity). I’m going to touch briefly on something unrelated that’s been on my mind for the past few days.
Yesterday, Chris Hayes at MSNBC published an article saying he felt uncomfortable calling fallen soldiers “heroes.” The article itself was quite moderate and measured, as is necessary in addressing such a sensitive issue, and even concludes, “Maybe I’m wrong about that.” Nevertheless, he was bludgeoned by conservatives the internet over. Mr. Hayes earned the descriptors “effete,” “fop,” and “commie,” and America’s favorite neo-Nazi Ann Coulter made a comment about him menstruating. (Regardless of your stance on the issue, the misogyny tied to attacks on anti-military speech is noteworthy.)
Attacks also used the old pro-military line of argument that Mr. Hayes is criticizing the military from the safety of the nation it protects and that that’s somehow hypocritical. I could write at length about how a great number of Americans don’t feel many of our recent military engagements are for our protection; on the contrary, they may endanger American citizens by stirring up anti-American sentiment in regions where our interference wasn’t required in the first place. But given that the quote at issue is about fallen soldiers, I don’t want to be irreverent or irrelevant by targeting national strategy. From my position of relative anonymity, I can say plainly what I think Mr. Hayes might have been hinting at.
I have a problem with using the word “heroes” to describe fallen soldiers because I think a more accurate phrase in many cases is “victims.”
I believe, as many others do, that one significant reason wars are fought is for control of resources; this has been true throughout history. If our national decision makers (be they oil giants or Northrup Grumman) decide that a military engagement is profitable, they pull the political strings, and to war we go. And the general populace, whose limited political power to resist such decisions is further undermined by government propaganda, supplies resources and recruits for the waging of these wars.
I’m sure a great many people enlist with the goal of serving their country, but it just isn’t as simple as that. I’ve been courted by recruiters (I took the ASVAB in high school to get out of class one day), and they promise that your college will be paid for, that you’ll be given a great (and safe) position in the service, and that you’ll be better positioned to make it in America when your contract is up. They prey on people who are lacking direction and on those kids who are financially or academically disadvantaged with regard to college. (Conveniently, the military does not publish family income statistics for new recruits.)
If you think this is an unfair assessment of the promise versus the reality of military service, you need only take a look at another, far larger group of victims: our veterans. I see countless of them living on the streets in Philadelphia, unable to even afford medical treatment for physical or psychological injuries sustained on tour. America memorializes its fallen soldiers because sentiment is inexpensive, but we aren’t isn’t half so interested in looking after the soldiers still with us.
The deaths of service members in combat are often heroic on their part, but in the conservative rhetoric, the word is employed to distract from the fact that those deaths are also a monstrosity on the part of our nation at large. There are both heroes and villains among soldiers, I have no doubt, just as there are among police, politicians, and revolutionaries. But when a kid five years my junior dies suddenly in a desert halfway across the world because he thought a recruiter held his only chance at a decent future, the word “hero” seems a distraction from a tragedy we could have prevented.
