business

Sharp End of the Stick Arrives

By / May 31, 2012 / 3 Comments

It is nice that I am sufficiently familiar with the printing and book delivery process that I don’t panic anymore. I remember spending an entire week eagerly anticipating the arrival of a truck full of books and fretting that somehow all the books would be broken or wrong. It was terrifying to be holding pre-order money and not have the merchandise in hand to send. It is still tense. I always feel something unclench inside me when I crack open the first box on the first pallet of books to see that all is as expected. Each shipment has had its own little adventures. Our first book, Under New Management, arrived a week late so we’d arranged a shipping party and had nothing to ship. Howard ended up renting a truck and driving to Salt Lake to fetch the books. I think it was Tub of Happiness that was delivered in several feet of snow. Teraport Wars was the book where the lift gate on the truck threatened to tip the pallets over as it creakily lowered them to the ground. Emperor Pius Dei gave us a brief fright because all the boxes were stamped with Emperor Plus Dei and we were suddenly terrified that all the books had been misprinted, even though we’d already seen advance copies. These stabs of terror are not rational and reason has trouble banishing them.

Today’s adventure was receiving an email from our printing company to congratulate us on receiving our books yesterday, which we hadn’t. I did not panic, because it is very common for there to be confusion and miscommunication about book delivery. Shipping over seas on a freighter is inexact. The time spent clearing customs varies. So until the books arrive in Salt Lake City, no one is able to give us an exact delivery day. Reason told me that our books had arrived in Salt Lake yesterday and that was what the email meant. But I couldn’t sit still, because What If… I called our printer to tell them that we did not have our books yet. She said she would call the shipping company right away. Then I proceeded to pace while trying to pretend I was not pacing. What if the books had been accidentally delivered to someone else? What if there were no books?

Fortunately about fifteen minutes into my pacing I wandered past the front window and saw a truck in our cul de sac. He had four pallets of books for me.

It turns out that he’d attempted to deliver yesterday, but someone with a forklift had stacked the pallets on top of each other and they were too heavy to move that way. So he’d hauled the pallets back to Salt Lake to have them unstacked. An automatic system notified our printer of the first delivery and confusion was explained. This is our 13th time receiving shipments of books. There is always something unexpected.

Now I can begin to nail down the shipping schedule in earnest.

Nebula Weekend and Going Home

By / May 20, 2012

I am at the airport. My Nebula weekend is over and I’m waiting for my flight home. Once I get there I’ll have to unpack my suitcases full of clothes and my brain full of thoughts. At this very moment my brain is trying to do post-convention imposter syndrome where I rethink half of my conversations and decide that people were just being nice to me because they are nice people rather than because I was actually interesting. Fortunately I am too tired for these thoughts to gain much traction. They just start to get rolling and then slip away as I stare out of the airport windows and various memories parade across my consciousness. Keeping a train of thought for a coherent blog post faces similar challenges, so I give you scenes instead.

The keynote speech at the Nebula banquet was given by Mike Fincke who is an astronaut. He’s spent a year in space. He showed us some video which amounted to the astronaut version of home video. However my favorite moment was when Mike stood at the podium and said “We at NASA actually believe every single thing you write. Then we try to make it happen in the real world.” Mike’s tone of voice and demeanor clearly showed that he was in awe of those who write the fiction which inspired him to become an astronaut. At the end of his speech all the writers in the room gave him a standing ovation. To us he was a rock star. To him, the writers were. It showed me the power of ideas and that writing matters.

Neil Gaiman showed up for the event. Once again I did not meet him. He was always surrounded. Perhaps I should keep count of the number of events that we mutually attend where I do not meet him. The truth is that I don’t actually have anything I need to say to him. I just suspect he is a fascinating person to converse with. Rather than futilely attempting to have that conversation, I spoke with people around me and found dozens of fascinating new people and conversations instead. This is one thing that new writers often get wrong. The person on the stage is not the most fascinating person in the room. In fact you’re more likely to find good conversation and career help by talking to whomever you end up standing near. I did not expect to forward any business purposes during this trip. I’m coming home with leads on half a dozen things simply as a result of talking to people. Some of these leads are career related, but I’ve got at least three parenting ideas to apply, new knowledge about care of the elderly which may be helpful for my grandma, and some recommendations about foods. My life is going to be improved and changed in lots of small ways because of conversations at the Nebula weekend.

At one point during the Nebula evening I stood back from talking with people and surveyed the room. Like at the Whitney Award ceremony this represented a chance for me to assess how award ceremonies as events impact me emotionally even if nothing is at stake for me. The impact is significant. There are lots of emotions flowing around the room and I pick up edges of them whether I want to or not. Once we exited the hall, this effect was much reduced. By this morning people had either accomplished what they’d come for, or they’d given up on it. The vibe was much more mellow and relaxed. I spent a leisurely morning wandering around and talking with people.

Next I go home and as good as Nebula weekend has been, that will be even better.

Book Announcements and News

By / May 15, 2012

It is a newsy sort of day.

First and most important. Pre-orders are open for Sharp End of the Stick. They opened yesterday morning which meant that yesterday was not a good day for clear thinking. You’d think we’d be more relaxed about this after 8 books, but we aren’t. Too much depends upon pre-orders. I always have a pocket of fear that this will be the time that the whole system falls apart. Then we’ll have massive bills and no big pile of money with which to pay them. One of the scariest things about running our own business is accumulating bills that run to four and five figures. Book printing and shipping costs do add up. Lots. So on pre-order day I do one of two things, I either hover over the internet checking figures and obsessively doing math to see if we’ve made enough money to breathe easy for the next six months. OR I run away from the internet and try to pretend that it is not pre-order day. (I call this the “la la la, I can’t hear you” approach. Very mature, I know.) Yesterday manifested as a run away from the internet day. Today I settled in and began to process orders and do math. So far so good. I must say it warmed my heart to see that at least a couple of people ordered copies of Cobble Stones.


Which leads me to the next newsy thing: Cobble Stones is available as an e-book on Amazon. It will soon be available in the Barnes & Noble online store as well. (Any time now. *drums fingers*). And of course you can buy a physical copy in our store. If you have already pre-ordered Sharp End of the Stick and would like to add Cobble Stones to your order, just place a separate order for Cobble Stones and then email schlockmercenary at gmail.com with both order numbers. I’ll happily combine the orders and refund the extra shipping costs. This is the sampler book for which I’ll someday actually create a marketing plan, which will probably include sending copies to book bloggers and encouraging people to do interviews. The trouble is that I launched this book right in the middle of also launching the SEOS pre-order and that simply has to get more attention right now. But one thing I learned from Hold on to Your Horses is that my creative works do not need to be blockbusters right out of the gate. Hold Horses took three years to pay back its expenses, but it continues to sell at a steady trickle. More importantly it continues to be useful and make people happy.

While I’m finally putting my writing into formats where people can actually buy it, my sister has put together two anthologies containing my stories. The Awards Weekend Anthology includes my short story Immigrant, previously published in the DAW anthology Ages of Wonder. The Mind of the Beholder features one of my earlier stories Bethan’s Garden. For the longest time this story only existed on my website, but Nancy felt like it was a perfect addition to a book which addresses science fictional characters who are neuro-divergent in autistic ways. The book also features Nancy’s Nebula and Hugo nominated story Movement, which is worth the cover price all by itself.

Preparation and Follow Up

By / May 10, 2012 / 1 Comment

In the category of preparation:
Preorders for Sharp End of the Stick open on Monday. Before that can happen I have work to do. I spent a portion of today setting up our online store. I also need to set up some rules and logistics so that we can run a social media contest. At least three lucky Schlock fans will be able to get copies of SEOS a month before anyone else. These advance copies ought to go somewhere that they’ll be loved.

The other thing that is happening next week is my departure for Nebula weekend. I’ve got some sewing to do in advance. Howard needs some alterations for his steampunk costume. He departs for World Steam Expo only a few days after I get back from Nebula Weekend. I do not want to count on having brain cells available for sewing in those three days, so it needs to be done now. I’ve also got a couple of things I want to alter before taking them with me to Nebula Weekend.

In the category of follow up:
I went to a writer’s conference last weekend. While there, I met several lovely agents and editors. I need to package up some queries and send them off to these lovely people. My book has zero chance of selling if I never send it anywhere. I’ve also made some notes about things to update on my website. Even more importantly, I released Cobble Stones in a manner that was more like sliding it under the door than giving it a fanfare. I should do an actual marketing push for the book, which means contacting some of the nice book bloggers I met at the writer’s conference. Also, I should write new things.

My office is 85% complete (the remaining 15% is organization and shelving), but our family room is still a jumbled mess. It contains furniture and things which I evicted from my office for construction and have decided will not be going back. Some of it needs to be hauled to a thrift store the rest needs to be sorted and given new homes somewhere else in the house. Hopefully I’ll be able to vacuum the family room sometime before Sunday.

We’re three weeks out from the end of school. There are all sorts of trailing educational ends which need to be tied up before the school doors close for the summer. Kiki has to finish her AP art portfolio. Link needs to bring up his grades. Gleek and Patch have projects and performances nearing completion. My brain tracks all of this, even the things that the kids ought to be tracking for themselves.

By this time next week I hope to have it all done.

I Keep My Brain in My Office

By / April 28, 2012 / 3 Comments

I am very tired today and I have learned an important thing about myself; I store parts of my brain function in the organizational structure of my house. Once I got the correct desk installed in my office and set up my computer on it, much of my inability to prioritize vanished. This effect increased as I moved my books and projects into their new places in my office. I depend upon visual reminders to help me keep track of what I need to do during the day. I post school notes on the kitchen bulletin board and on my fridge. My old computer hutch was papered with post-it notes. A business card sitting at the foot of my monitor would remind me of an email to send. With all of that stuff packed away in boxes I carried a level of stress and internal confusion. My written to do list has all of those reminders as well, but apparently my back brain requires spacial orientation to the tasks. It is fascinating. I may get more analytical about why this works for me at some other time. For now I am very tired.

In the last two weeks I’ve been to IKEA four times (Howard once), Home Depot six times, Lowe’s twice, and I think there was a Walmart run in there as well. Each time I was making expensive purchasing decisions or returning the results of last trip’s bad decisions. I helped three kids keep track of their work so they could get it done. I kept in touch with my parents (Grandma is better, moved back into the physical rehabilitation facility). The prom dress was altered, not perfectly, but well enough. Kiki was sent off smiling to prom. Gleek is into the middle of her time swap. All of this week’s critical tasks are done all of it despite multiple nights of insomnia followed by mornings where I had to get up early. Next week has a new list of critical tasks, I am not going to think about them tonight. Instead I’m going to show you pictures of my remodeled office, because it is pretty. …

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The Next Seven Weeks

By / April 9, 2012 / 1 Comment

In the next seven weeks we have:
re-building the shipping system
all the end-of-school activities of which I’ve not yet been notified
advance copies of Sharp End of the Stick (SEOS)
a school art gala
opening pre-orders for SEOS
Kiki’s AP art portfolio
receiving the SEOS shipment
teaching at LDS Storymakers conference
sending me to the Nebula weekend in DC
a time-swap week during which Gleek will pretend to be living in a pre-computer era
sending Howard to World Steam Expo in Ann Arbor
a dance festival
a week long visit from my mom
office remodeling
unspecified child crises which will pop up randomly and inconveniently
field day
preparations for Deep South Con in June

All of those things are important, as are preparations for GenCon and WorldCon. But this week contains the most important event of the entire year. This is when Howard and I gather the kids and flee our work to go do nothing in particular in southern Utah. The only agenda is to be together. Hopefully fun will be had, but even if crankiness is had, that is fine. Uninterrupted time together is the point.

As for the other stuff, I’m not particularly stressed about it all. I can see where everything fits. It is going to be busy, but not crazy. I hope.

Brief updates

By / April 7, 2012 / 1 Comment

Copy edits for Cobble Stones are done. I’ve got a cover draft done. Schlock book layout is done. Up ahead are Cobble Stones back cover copy, Cobble Stones page layout, preparation and packing for a family trip. This next week is spring break. It is going to be an internet light week for me. I’ve got to meet deadlines and then spend focused time with family. Our trip location does have internet, but I’ll have to access it via my phone, which doesn’t allow blogging, or via my little laptop, which is currently limping along. When I get back from the trip I’ll probably have lots to say and some lovely pictures to go with the words.

In other news: my grandma is doing well. She’s been moved from the hospital into a rehabilitation facility where they’ll be helping her practice walking on her newly-pinned and healing leg. She’ll probably be back at my parent’s house in two weeks. The customs issue is completely resolved and the packages delivered. Patch’s book project is complete and turned in. The kid drama has also calmed down considerably. Having a week off from school is going to be really good for everyone.

Contemplating My Hats

By / March 26, 2012 / 11 Comments

We were in the middle of a pre-convention stress-fest. Howard had a pile of priorities and worries, I had a different set of priorities and worries. Both of us needed to be two people in order to get everything done and discovered that neither of us could solve problems by handing them to the other. In a moment of stress I found myself muttering “I hate this” under my breath. In that moment I truly meant the words, but I worried that the feeling existed. We’ve spent a lot of time and effort building up this life and now I was saying that I hated it. The trouble was the unreferenced “this.” Days later when the stress levels were back to normal I realized that in my life I do a lot of jobs. Often I picture these various jobs as hats that I wear. In a moment of clarity I realized that it is okay for me to not like some of the hats. Not liking a necessary job is normal. I don’t expect myself to love the job of laundress, I do it because it needs to be done. However identifying which jobs I like and which I don’t helps me to be better at planning. So here is an incomplete list of hats that I wear and how I feel about them:

Accountant: This job is fairly routine and soothing, except when the money is running low. It used to be scary. For a long time I lived in fear that I was doing everything wrong.

Convention Liaison: This one has lots of little details to track and lots of advance planning. I keep track of Howard’s appearance and travel schedule. I make arrangements for all to go smoothly. I kind of like this one. It feeds my inner need to keep track of things.

Graphic Designer: I like getting to exercise the artistic portions of my brain. Playing with text, color, line, and flow all please me. However I’m very aware of the gaps in my graphic design education (self-taught) and am often afraid that those gaps will cause me to fail in an embarrassing or expensive way.

Shopkeeper: Running a table while at a convention is in the “do not like” column. It is not miserable, just draining.

Inventory manager: Don’t mind this one. It just is. Although I wish I could do a better job of keeping the storage room organized.

Shipping manager: This one wears on me. Not all the time. Mostly it is routine. I guess right now it is wearing on me because I’ve got a bunch of new things to learn really soon.

Business Manager: Again this is a job that gives me the opportunity to track dozens of things. This is the hat I wear when I’m assigning jobs and work flow to the graphic designer, convention liaison, shopkeeper, accountant, etc.

Art director: I don’t like this job. The art director has to hand out assignments and deadlines to the artist. The artist in this case is Howard, which means I’m piling on stress. Howard, naturally, then complains about his stress to his wife. Then I feel guilty even while knowing the stress is necessary to getting the job done.

Wife: I like this job. I plan on keeping it for a long time.

When I was talking to a friend and rattled off something close to the list above, she asked me if there were parenting hats that I don’t like. At the time I answered that I didn’t think that there were. That most of the parent hats I wear fill me up as much as they take from me. That conversation was several weeks ago and I’ve been paying attention since. Here are the parenting hats I do not like:

Homework warden: The homework belongs to the kids. It is their work. They should be allowed to succeed or fail at it according to their efforts. Except that teaching them how to succeed at homework is my job. It is a job that can only be done if I’m standing at their elbow to help, either figuratively or literally. Also I can’t stop my brain from tracking their homework. My brain has an auto track function which tells me that my teenager mentioned a huge report two weeks ago and that I’ve not seen him work on it since. Then my stress levels rise because I can sense the impending storm when said teenager will have a complete meltdown because now the work is due and he planned poorly. Then it is my job, not so much to rescue the child or make sure the work gets done, but to help the child navigate consequences in such a way that perhaps a different path can be picked next time. Often it gets to the point where I cringe at any homework at all.

Short order cook: In theory I cook food, the kids eat the food and all is well. Sometimes it actually works that way. Usually though I cook food, various subsets of kids complain about the food, we have arguments about eating, and stress is spread all around. So then the next time I cook I try to base my cooking decisions on past experiences. I make sure to have a low meat option for one child and a non-potato option for another. I use all sorts of creativity to try to provide food that will result in no complaints. Sometimes I even stand around waiting for them to decide what they want and then fix four different meals for four different kids. Other times I place a standard in the ground and fight the battle of “I’ve cooked for you, therefore you should be grateful and just eat what is in front of you.” I have a guilty suspicion that if I could be more consistent about food and meals that this would be less stressful for everyone. But I don’t like spending creativity on food. I want to save it for other things.

Pack mule / garbage can: If the kids don’t know where a garbage can is and I’m near by, they give it to me. Thus my purse becomes a repository of wrappers and other sticky things. If we’re out of the house and they don’t want to carry something anymore, they give it to me. This happens a lot less now than it used to. However each time I have to decide whether to quietly accept what ever is being thrust at me or whether to make an issue of it.

And so that this is not a post more filled with complaining than good things, a couple of hats that I love:

Snuggler: When they need comfort, they come to me. Even the teenagers.

Listener: I love listening to people sort their thoughts and tell me about silly things. Sometimes I am tired and listening is hard because it takes energy. Other times listening invigorates me, filling me with hope and happiness. It is a good hat, much treasured.

FTP Defeats Me Again

By / March 15, 2012 / 4 Comments

I have a pretty good basic understanding of computers and internet things. I don’t run the back end stuff for my blog, but I do all the cosmetic changes myself. I email daily with attachments. No problem. I manage facebook, twitter, and Google+. I’ve even re-installed an operating system on a computer and then re-installed all my software. I’m not a computer expert, but I’m computer literate. However FTP appears to live in its own little pocket of ignorance in my brain. Howard has taught it to me multiple times. He’s installed a client for me to use. I’ve used the thing a dozen times over the course of several years. I understand the theory of it, yet getting it to actually work must require some incantations of which I’m not aware. Something goes wrong every single time. I spent all day uploading a file to our book printer. Then I noticed that it would reach 100% uploaded and immediately state “connection dropped” and start over at around 80%. Email with the printer confirmed that the file was corrupted. They’ve deleted it. I’ll get to start over tonight at bedtime, when I won’t be tying up the internet for our whole family some of whom need the internet for homework. If I don’t wake up to find that FTP has worked. I’ll just FedEx a a disc instead.

The good news is that this whole thing is only mildly annoying to me. In the past, incidents like this would plunge me into terror that I’d done everything wrong, that all my book layout work was destroyed, that our business was therefore a complete bust and we were doomed forever. I would try to beat back those thoughts with a great big logic stick, but the battle was exhausting. I’m so very glad that I can scowl a little bit, shrug my shoulders, and just plan to mail things tomorrow if necessary. I’m really good at mailing things.

The Steps to Setting Up a Howard Tayler Convention Appearance

By / March 5, 2012 / 2 Comments

It begins with an invitation. This usually arrives via email to the Schlock box. I’ll look over the invite to make sure it is legitimate and issued by someone who has authority. I’m likely to google the event in question to determine what sort of an event it is likely to be. Then I’ll check our calendar to see if there is a conflict. If the invitation is less than 9 months before the event, then it is very likely that a conflict will exist. If all checks out, I pass along the invite and my gathered information to Howard.

The decision meeting comes next. This is not an elaborate process. It usually occurs as five minutes in the middle of a wandering conversation. “So you saw that invite from ShinyNewCon?” “Yes. Looks good. Put it on the calendar.” And then we go back to talking about who’ll go to the grocery store.

I email to accept the invitation. In my email I make sure to clarify any of the appearance parameters, because being clear early is very important. We must know that Howard’s travel and hotel will be paid for. This is the point where I begin to adore competent guest liaisons. A good one will give me email and phone contact information along with a list of deadlines for program / badge / tshirt art. Then everything is quiet for a long time.

About two months before the show things pick up. I get in touch with the liaison to make sure everything is in good order. I find out if there are an un-met art requirements. I try to get contact info for the art show if we’re being given panels. I also want contact info for someone in the dealer’s room who is willing to sell Howard’s books on commission. When Howard is being a guest of honor, we don’t want him trapped running a table in the dealer’s room. He should be out and mingling with attendees. I also ask about air travel reservations. All of these questions are useful because Science Fiction conventions are run by volunteers who also have day jobs. They have a million things to keep track of and not much time. My emails serve as good checkpoints for everyone to avoid last minute expense and stress.

Three weeks before the event I begin mailing things. I lay out the art into panels and create detailed instructions. I try to make everything as clear as possible because I know that the volunteers working in the art show are overworked and exhausted. Anything I can do to make the work easier, I try to do. Assembling the panels requires me to dig through piles of art, matte pictures, write up bid sheets and control sheets, etc. I box all the art and instructions then ship them to the Art show address. If I’ve got a dealer’s address and a three week lead time, I’ll send all the books for sale via media mail. It is worlds cheaper.

Two weeks out and one week out, I’ll mail merchandise or art by faster, more expensive, means if this is when I get the addresses. We also make sure that Howard blogs the event. Hopefully we have a panel schedule so that Howard can talk about the details of the event. This is also the period of time when Howard begins to be stressed about the work he wants to get done before leaving. There is always buffer to build or book art to ship.

Two days out, I help Howard pack. Sometimes this happens the day before, but knowing that the packing is done helps with the stress.

Then I put him on a plane and hope that the guest liaison will take good care of him. They usually do. Also he’s gotten much better at judging his own limitations and taking breaks when necessary.

When Howard returns, he has stories to tell. There are always business contacts and possibilities to follow up. The suitcases must be unpacked. And I have to liaise with the art show, the dealer, and the convention to make sure that anything remaining is shipped back to us. There is always post-show accounting. Usually this stage occurs across the top of the preparations for the next convention.

From now until November there is always a next convention.