Marketing Tuesday & Fiction + Classes Wednesday

By Holly Lisle

Here’s what I did yesterday for Marketing Tuesday:

  • A new cover for Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood:

Hunting The Corrigan's Blood - New Cover

  • A new cover for Warpaint:

New cover for Warpaint

And I worked on getting the books out wide. Not done yet, but I’ll work on that more today.

TODAY…

The first thing I did was get 2187 new words on Tori and her increasingly weird problem, which includes Mr. Yeager getting absolutely shitfaced on a bag of fresh cookies she baked for him and passing out on her floor.

But it also includes him telling her how her mother died. And why.

Good fiction day.

So now I’m going to see if I can fix the front page of this site. And then, work on the LAST lesson of How to Write a Novel. Which is going to be open for registration all of June at the current (NOT completed) price. It’s part of what I’m doing for our Summer of Fiction Writing event.

 

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved


Why I shut down my Patreon fundraiser

By Holly Lisle

I’d intended to send a Questions & Answers email to my How to Write a Novel launch list, but that’s going to have to wait.Instead, I did THIS.

Closed my “Move out of Florida while writing fiction” fundraiser.

Here’s why — it’s this clause in the Patreon Legal Agreement

https://www.patreon.com/legal

By posting content to Patreon you grant us a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, sublicensable, worldwide license to use, reproduce, distribute, perform, publicly display or prepare derivative works of your content.

Understand that I read that clause and all the rest of them before signing up.

BUT… I’m not a lawyer, and I understood that clause to mean that Patreon was claiming the right to use my Patreon-created content (in other words, my POSTS) to promote the site.

I DID NOT think that they were claiming the right to use and abuse the content I was giving my patrons. In this case, three monthly chapters of the raw first draft of one of my current novels in progress, Dead Man’s Party.

A friend emailed me with a link to this post, however:

https://www.thepassivevoice.com/the-beginning-of-the-end-for-patreon/

Turns out, I was wrong. Patreon is claiming rights to my novel.

So I’m out. I sent the first copy of this email to my patrons using a private Patreon post, and then I shut down my Patreon fundraiser, and am now trying to figure out how to actually close my account.

I’m not letting this kill my dream of moving us out of Florida…
…(hopefully before the next hurricane, if not the start of the hurricane season).

How you can help, if you want to —

IF YOU’RE HERE AS A WRITER:
I have created original classes ranging from under ten dollars to way over a hundred. If one of the classes I offer could help you, then you buying it would help me.

MY COMPREHENSIVE CAREER-LEVEL CLASSES (in recommended order)

*** How to Write a Novel *** 

http://hollyswritingclasses.com/class/how-to-write-a-novel.html

(IN LAUNCH: On sale ONLY through Tuesday APRIL 8 — Final Discount Launch)

How to Revise Your Novel: 

https://hollyswritingclasses.com/go/how-to-revise-your-novel.html

How to Write a Series: 

https://hollyswritingclasses.com/go/how-to-write-a-series.html

How to Think Sideways: Career Survival School for Writers: 

https://hollyswritingclasses.com/go/how-to-think-sideways.html

WRITING CRAFT SERIES (Each class is under $10)

Create a Character Clinic: 

https://hollyswritingclasses.com/go/characterclinic.html

Create A Plot Clinic: 

https://hollyswritingclasses.com/go/plotclinic.html

How to Write Page-Turning Scenes: 

https://hollyswritingclasses.com/go/pageturningscenes.html

WORLDBUILDING SERIES (Each class is under $10)

Create A Language Clinic: 

https://hollyswritingclasses.com/go/languageclinic.html

Create a Culture Clinic: 

https://hollyswritingclasses.com/go/cultureclinic.html

Create a World Clinic: 

https://hollyswritingclasses.com/go/worldclinic.html

WORKSHOPS & MID-SIZED CLASSES (PRICES VARY)

How to Write Short Stories: 

http://hollyswritingclasses.com/go/how-to-write-short-stories-class.html

How to Write Villains: 

http://hollyswritingclasses.com/go/how-to-write-villains.html

How to Write Dialogue with Subtext: 

https://hollyswritingclasses.com/go/dialogue-subtext.html

Title Cover Copy Marketing Basics: 

https://hollyswritingclasses.com/go/titlecovercopy.html

How to Find Your Writing Discipline: 

https://hollyswritingclasses.com/go/writingdiscipline.html

How to Find Your Writing Voice: 

https://hollyswritingclasses.com/go/writing-voice.html

How to Motivate Yourself: 

http://hollyswritingclasses.com/go/motivate-yourself.html

Beat Writer’s Block: 

https://hollyswritingclasses.com/go/beatwritersblock.html

FREE, INCLUDED WITH (also Free) SITE MEMBERSHIP

How to Write Flash Fiction That Doesn’t Suck

https://hollyswritingclasses.com/go/free-flash-fiction-class.html

===================

IF YOU’RE HERE AS A READER:

You can help out by buying some of my indie-published fiction.

SHORT STUFF, CURRENTLY AMAZON ONLY:

Light Through Fog: 

https://www.amazon.com/Light-Through-Holly-Lisle-Singles-ebook/dp/B0096F4HY0/

Rewind: 

https://www.amazon.com/Rewind-Holly-Lisle-Singles-Book-ebook/dp/B00AY1OHAE/

Strange Arrivals: 

https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Arrivals-Twisty-Fantasy-Tales-ebook/dp/B00EOWMYRW/

FANTASY – ARHEL TRILOGY

Fire in the Mist: 

https://books2read.com/FireInTheMist

Bones of the Past:

https://books2read.com/BonesOfThePast

Mind of the Magic:

https://books2read.com/MindOfTheMagic

DARK SCIENCE FICTION-ISH

SETTLED SPACE

Both of the Cadence Drake novels Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood and Warpaint, are off sale while I come up with new titles and new cover art for them, and new key words, descriptions, and other marketing that allows me to correctly put them in front of the audience that likes a few vampires and a bit of horror with its spaceships.

The Longview Chronicles (complete Series) is in the same universe — still dark, but without the vampires:

https://books2read.com/longview-chronicles

Or you can get the individual stories:

Born from Fire: 

https://books2read.com/born-from-fire

Suzee Delight: 

https://books2read.com/the-selling-of-suzee-delight

Philosopher Gambit: 

https://books2read.com/the-philosopher-gambit

Gunslinger Moon: 

https://books2read.com/gunslinger-moon

Vipers’ Nest: 

https://books2read.com/vipers-nest

The Owner’s Tale: 

https://books2read.com/the-owners-tale

STANDALONE URBAN FANTASY

Minerva Wakes: 

https://books2read.com/minerva-wakes

PARANORMAL SUSPENSE

Author Page: 

https://books2read.com/ap/xbzgyx/Kate-Aeon

Midnight Rain: 

https://books2read.com/midnight-rain

Last Girl Dancing:

https://books2read.com/last-girl-dancing

I See You: 

https://books2read.com/i-see-you

I have much more fiction that’s commercially published, or which is out of print and has reverted to me, but which I have not yet republished.

I’m not linking to ANY of that fiction, because your purchase of used books or books where publishers haven’t paid royalties in years will not help me.

So there we are.

I want to thank all my patrons again, and I am so sorry that I had to do this, but there is no way I can permit this:

Excerpted from Patreon Legal Terms

You keep full ownership of all content that you post on Patreon, but to operate we need licenses from you.

By posting content to Patreon you grant us a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, sublicensable, worldwide license to use, reproduce, distribute, perform, publicly display or prepare derivative works of your content. 

No. Just NO.
Holly

P.S. I have had one of my Patreon patrons already ask me how she could continue to support me on a monthly basis.

Here’s the answer I gave her:

“I’ll look into what’s available. Right now, I’m crushed to discover the rights Patreon actually claimed, and worried about getting involved with any other site. So I’m in limbo. You’ll find my blog at HollyLisle.com. I’ll be keeping my folks there up to date on how I deal with this. It sucks.

Hugs, and thank you for asking.”

Why is EVERYBODY on my blog, my mailing list, and in my forums getting this?

Because if you know me, you’re probably either a reader or a writer. If you’re a writer, you may be considering using Patreon, and you need to know. If you’re a reader considering funding someone on Patreon, THEY need to know.

And this is the ugliest, broadest rights-grab I have personally ever seen. Or sadly, been caught up in.

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved


I’ve UNPUBLISHED Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood, and Warpaint

By Holly Lisle

This was a tough decision to make.

I’ve pulled both Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood and Warpaint from circulation.

They will be back…

But not until I know I’m going to put them in front of the readers who will love them.

I’m going to have to get (or make) new covers for both books, completely redo keywords and blurbs, change my books’ categorization, and give them a chance to cool (though sales have been small enough that THAT part shouldn’t take long… I had them so badly categorized that they haven’t been “hot”).

Based on what I’m learning today, I’m going to have to split-test covers and blurbs to jut the folks who like to read the kind of stories these are.

I’m finding the face of my audience today — my real readers — and my big, happy news is that I’m not going to have to change what I write. There’s already a market I’ve been writing in that has a lot of readers who would love what I do. Which is thrilling.

But I’m definitely going to have to change the way I present it to readers, so that the folks who would love it can find it (which hasn’t been happening), and the ones who wouldn’t will never see it.

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved


Just discovered the actual genre for Cadence Drake… derp!

By Holly Lisle

Biopunk.

Biopunk?

BIOPUNK!

Real genre, I write it, I have been writing it since the late nineties… <le sigh>

So how exactly did I miss this?

How did I not realize this was a thing that those of us who love science and genetics and SF and fantasy were writing?

That would be the Epic Fail.

Thanks, guys. You are helping me beyond words, and I’m gonna write you a kickass story as thanks.

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved


The Wishbone Conspiracy: Tangerine Returns

By Holly Lisle

Today, a blast from the past who yesterday showed up for this party uninvited today became a major part of the story.

Tangerine was a one-scene character in Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood. He was in that story to change Cady’s appearance when she was in trouble but did not yet know exactly how much trouble she was in.

The rule of thumb with characters you don’t want to have popping up uninvited is exactly the same as it is with stray animals:

  • Don’t name them
  • Don’t feed them
  • Don’t get to know them too well

I did all three things in Tangerine’s one scene.

I gave him a name, I discovered that he, like Cady, was a Maryschild, and I let him say the bunch of funny lines that he threw at me.

And then I came up with nine more novel concepts for Cady that I planned to pitch to Baen, one of which actually had Tangerine in it. That was Number Eight, I think.

But then… Baen didn’t reprint Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood, a book that hit the Locus bestseller list two months in a row and sold out its first printing in two months.

And refused to look at any more SF from me.

YEARS passed before I finally reacquired the rights to Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood. More years passed until I made the time to get it back into print and to write its sequel, Warpaint. That second book rode off into the sunset with the idea for The Wishbone Conspiracy firmly planted in my brain.  Where it sat simmering for several MORE years, because… <sigh>

Life is what happens while you’re making other plans.

This is my planned third book.

But Tangerine was nowhere in my concept for this book.

He showed up yesterday as an uninvited extra, and today made himself a main character. The Wishbone Conspiracy is not — and has nothing to do with — the novel I plan to write that actually features him.

Oh, no.

This is him showing up dragging something useful to prove me how much I need him, in much the same fashion my much-missed cat Bouncer used to bring me squirrel hindquarters as his contribution to the family. “See, I’m taking care of you.”

The squirrels, the birds, and I were a lot happier when I turned Bouncer and my other cats into indoor-only cats. Bouncer? Probably not so much. He’d sit on windowsills and shit-talk the wildlife outside the windows.

But Tangerine… turns out that isn’t his real name… And who he was wasn’t and isn’t who he is, either.

He and Cady actually were acquainted with each other back in their Maryschild past, though in their previous meeting neither recognized the other.

And today he dropped the back half of a squirrel he’d apparently been holding between his metaphorical teeth and without saying the words, told Cady, “You need me.”

Turns out, he was right.


Oh! Words I got on TWC today? 2024

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved


Cady Drake meets the world – Sneak peek…

By Holly Lisle

HtCB Cady515X800Becky did a gorgeous job. The book with the new cover is already showing up in a couple places, but I’ll do a check and links tomorrow, along with the cover reveal.

This is just because it took me all day to get the book done and published.

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved


Lost Words Found: I’m having a strange and disturbing morning…

By Holly Lisle

I think in general we as human beings like to think we’re on top of things. That we have a pretty good bead on not just where we are, but where we’ve been, and where we’re going.

I’m working on Lesson 16 of How to Write a Novel this morning, which is about voice and tone, and to show writers what I’m talking about, was digging through my fiction backlist for demo material for the lesson. I’m adding and then discussing the first  couple of paragraphs of various published novels to demonstrate how changing voice and tone changes reader expectations and why mastering this is a crucial skill…

How could that go wrong?

Well, more like, “How could that go sideways?”

So this morning, the jury’s back, and the verdict on that whole “on top of things” business is:  Nope. Not so much…

Because I came across not one, but two really good Cadence Drake novel starts that I completely forgot I’d written.

The Ships

And we’re not talking about running a thousand words up a flagpole to see who salutes.

We’re talking 13,000 words on one…, 8000 words on another… and when I found these, I remembered a third that had five or six chapters in it and that I now can’t find, but I do remember that it featured the story of who Tangerine, the cheerful hairdresser in HTCB, really was.

Can’t find that one, of course, but finding the two I completely forgot, I now also have the third one in my head as a story I just have to tell.

Lost a chunk of time on the lesson hunting through my hard drives and backups. Getting back to work now. But after I write The Wishbone Conspiracy, I have some really solid starts for THREE more Cadence Drake novels.

Sheesh…

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved


Cadence Drake in Real Life: Now legal, soon possible. I win! 😀

By Holly Lisle

The main character of my current novel series, Cadence Drake, was a genetically engineered child. One mother, three fathers, and some slicing and dicing of her chromosomes to give her the exact characteristics her mother wanted for her:

From my mother I have my coffee-with-a- touch-of-cream skin and full lips and straight teeth. From one of my fathers I have high, sharp cheekbones and slanting almond-shaped eyes with a pronounced epicanthic fold, though the eyes themselves are a vivid and startling blue, the gift of another father. My hair is straight and the color of amber, my nose is long and thin. My body is long and angular. I look like what I am—an outdated fashion statement.

From Hunting The Corrigan’s Blood: Cadence Drake #1

 

And it just became legal in England to do this exact sort of genetic engineering in order to prevent lethal genetic disease being passed from mother to child.

I think this is a fantastic development, something that will improve the lives of future generations of human beings, and something that has tremendous potential for giving people a chance at longer and better lives.

However, I also think it’s cool as hell that I built the main character of my current main series on science that just went Real World.

The novel is also available here:

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved


Finally got the images for Cadence Drake posted

By Holly Lisle


A view of Bailey’s Irish Station, where The Wishbone Conspiracy will start.


A second angle.


The bonus station.


The spaceships from Bailey’s Irish.


A closer look at the ships.

If you have Minecraft, you can get all of the for free from the following download page:
http://howtothinksideways.com/cady-goodies/

Still not done with the WARPAINT songs.

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved


WARPAINT is now LIVE

By Holly Lisle

WARPAINT-FLAT- 193x300Coupon, gift link, details, book links and general info are on my Cadence Drake site.

http://cadencedrake.hollylisle.com/2012/12/warpaint-is-live/

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved