Yesterday I opened my website and let out a little ‘Yippeee!’, because the fab team at Orbit have put up the first chapter of The Rogue for me. I usually put up an extract about a month before a book’s release. This time, because I am crazy busy preparing for Supanova, the Tour and writing The Traitor Queen, they’ve done it for me. Thank you Orbit!
So to read the first chapter of The Rogue, go here.
I’ve been getting a few questions about signings, so I figured it was time to write a post about signing etiquette. The dos and don’ts of book signings vary from place to place, shop to shop and author to author, but most are logical once you a apply a bit of common sense.
Time vs Number of Books:
I am happy to sign all of the books you bring to a signing so long as there’s time for me to sign them. If you have a lot of books I may sign a few and then ask you to go back to the end of the queue. Now, what constitutes a “lot of books” depends on the size of the queue. If the queue is short I will sign one of each of my books (and entire ‘set’ so to speak). If the queue is really long, I may sign a trilogy and then invite you to rejoin the queue. This is so that everyone gets at least a few books signed by me.
However, it’s also important to note that the shop hosting the signing may have their own rules and it’s best to contact them to find out. You won’t want to lug nine books to a shop only to find you can only get one signed. They have their own reasons for setting rules, based on plenty of experience with book signings at their particular location, which I respect and you should too. Don’t panic if they have a one book rule. You can always rejoin the queue. If the queue is short then there’s a good chance I can bend the rules and sign, say, a trilogy at a time. Also, if you hang about and the queue finishes before the end of the signing session, there’s a good chance we can have a little chat.
The Author is a Human Being:
Based on everything I’ve read and been told, signing tours are pretty grueling. Writing already makes authors prone to problems like RSI and chronic back pain. While we want to sign everything, we may physically not be able to. Remember, we aren’t just signing books at signings, but doing a whole lot of pre-orders and stock signings as well.
Stock signing from my 2005 visit to the UK
One thing I love about signings is the chance to chat, even if briefly, to people who have actually read my book (and liked it). Try as I might, I find it very hard to write and talk at the same time. The fewer books you bring, the more likely it is that I’ll be able to juggle the chatting and signing.
Also, the longer I’ve been signing for, the more likely I will lose the ability to speak coherently. Please be understanding if I make no sense at all after signing for a couple of hours or it’s the third signing of the day.
Occasionally I’ve signed books for people who are very shy or too nervous to speak. Sometimes if I chat to them they relax, sometimes it makes them more uncomfortable. I understand completely. Only two years ago I discovered, at Worldcon in Montreal, that I’m still capable of turning into a gushing fangirl when finally confronted by a favourite author at the end of a signing queue (which is the opposite reaction, but has the same cause). I think we should have a code word or phrase for these occasions. If you find you’re too nervous to speak, just smile and say “ugg boots” and I’ll know not to pester you.
Like most authors, I’m happy to sign things other than books so long as it’s legal, doesn’t involve charges of indecent behaviour being laid, won’t make a mess of me or the shop, and won’t take a long time. I’ve signed a quilting square, various human (living) body parts and a giant tentacle before. Bring an appropriate pen.
The giant tentacle at Aussiecon4
General Good Manners:
You don’t usually have to buy a book at the shop to get a books signed, but it is polite to do so. (Again, check with the shop.) If you already have all of my books, buy someone else’s (but don’t ask me to sign it!). If you find nothing you want, or can’t afford to buy a book, try to spend a few minutes having a look around while you’re there. Bricks and mortar bookshops have a hard time competing with online stores, and the more of them that go out of business the fewer venues there’ll be for signings. If you like being able to meet an author and get your books signed, support the shops that provide you with that opportunity.
Be considerate of others in the queue. This should go without saying.
Remember that I’m on a tight schedule and, due to my back problems, travelling as light as I can. A signing is not a good time to be telling an author the idea for that book you’re writing, or your ideas for a book they should write, or attempt to interview them, or listing all the typos you found in their books. Gifts are an awkward issue. The fact you came along to a signing is honestly a gift in itself. If you do really, really want to give me a gift I will be very flattered, but keep it small and light. If you give me a two metre tall statue of Akkarin or a painting of Mischief I’m not going to have room in the suitcase to take it home, and postage to Australia is very, very expensive. But I will, instead, take a photo of it.
(Also, there’s a lot of stuff that customs won’t like, including plant and animal material like wood and some food items.)
Going on tour takes time out of my writing schedule so when I get home I’ll be launching straight back into writing The Traitor Queen. Definitely do not attempt to leave your manuscript for me to read. I can’t read it on tour or at home, and you’ll have wasted a lot of good paper and trees. As with emails, I read all letters but don’t have time to answer them.
(You can probably tell the last three paragraphs are based on some horror stories I’ve read and been told.)
I’m always happy to pose for a photo with someone. Or their garden gnome. Or giant tentacles. So long as it’s not dangerous or likely to make a mess of me and the shop. I have no objection to holding your handknit sock in progress. (Waiting to see if anyone gets that reference…)
I think that’s it, though I may add to this if I’m asked questions I haven’t answered or something else occurs to me. Here are two signing etiquette links you may enjoy. Obviously I’m not as famous as these two authors and hope not to have to set some of the rules they have, but there’s some good advice here:
Neil Gaiman has a very good So You’re Going To A Signing post (scroll down to the section in italics). Great tips include opening anything covered in plastic first, and spelling out your name (which I usually have a notebook on hand for).
And this web page about signing tour etiquette at Terry Pratchett events is funny and has good advice about the number of books to bring.
Here are the details for the Reading Stations in Germany, as arranged by my wonderful publicity gal at Random House:
June 6th, 7:30 pm
Thalia Universitätsbuchhandlung (Thalia im Metropol)
Markt 24
53111 Bonn
For Tickets call: ++49/228/184978-0
June 7th, 8:30 pm
Buchhandlung Heymann
Eppendorfer Landstr. 77
20249 Hamburg
For Tickets call: ++49/40/2380-1696
June 8th, 8:00 pm
Buchhandlung Decius, Im Leine-Center
Marktplatz 11
30880 Laatzen (near Hannover)
For Tickets call: ++49/511/822000
June 9th, 8:00 pm
BABYLON
Rosa-Luxemburg-Str. 30
10178 Berlin
Tickets available at the BABYLON and various Advance-Booking-Centers
June 10th, 8:15 pm
Buchhandlung Lehmann’s Media
Grimmaische Str. 10
04109 Leipzig
For Tickets call: ++49/341/3397500-143
Each event will include an interview and readings by myself and a German actor, plus time for me to answer your questions and, of course, sign your books.
What did I find in my inbox this morning but an email from my lovely, hard-working publicity gal at Orbit containing details for the first half of my tour. So, as promised, I’ve listed the events below:
Forbidden Planet launch event
6-7pm Thursday 5th May
Forbidden Planet Megastore, London
With the following, check with the stores for the location of the event. They may not be at the bookstore.
Friday 6th May – 6pm Eason & Son Bookstore, Dublin
Monday 9th May – 7-9pm, Waterstones Woking
Tuesday 10th May – 4pm, Waterstones Twinterview
Wednesday 11th May – 3:30pm, Waterstones Bury St. Edmunds
- 6:30pm, SFF evening, Heffers, Cambridge
Thursday 12th May – 7-8:30pm, Alt Fiction/Lincoln Festival event, Lincoln College
Friday 13th May – 7-8pm, Waterstones Manchester Deansgate
(For Polish tour events, see new post.)
Tuesday 17th May – 7pm, Waterstones Guildford
Wednesday 18th May – 2pm, Waterstones Romford
- 6:30pm, Waterstones Basildon
Thursday 19th May – 7pm, Waterstones Nottingham
Friday 20th May – 7pm, talking at BSFA meeting
Waterstones has an events page where you can buy tickets here, though at the time of writing this it was only showing four events. I’m guessing that this means the other events are free – but don’t quote me on that! Definitely ring the store and check. Thanks to commenters, I can now tell you that you can’t buy tickets from the website, and that all stores will probably sell tickets. I’d still advise contacting the store to check.
I’ll put the details for the German part of my tour in another post. So far the only public event I’m attending in France is Imaginales – which looks like it’s going to be wonderful!
Let me know if you spot any errors. If there are any changes or additional information I’ll add them here for now, then perhaps do a new post containing all my tour details just before I leave.
Welcome, Danish readers, to the prequel to the Black Magician Trilogy. I hope you enjoy it! Nice covers. (Yes, the book has been divided into three.)
It’s both exciting and frustrating. I’m getting more and more emails and tweets asking for details about The Tour, but I all I have is a rough work-in-progress schedule. This appears to be due to some bad timing: some of the venues I’m going to be appearing in are advertising the fact and selling tickets. Nobody’s fault, really – it’s fantastic that they’re so keen – but it does force me to say that if you don’t want to miss out on tickets you may need to do a bit of snooping around on the internet.
(I also feel a bit ridiculous suggesting anyone might miss out on tickets, when I can’t help picturing only two people turning up and having to invent questions from the audience to have something to talk about, but I shouldn’t let author paranoia stop me from letting fans know they can buy them.)
To help in your internet snooping, here’s what I know:
The chances are pretty good that I won’t be going anywhere other than these places. I’m sorry if you were hoping that I’d come to your town or or city or country and are disappointed that I’m not. I’d love to go to more places, but The Tour is already taking up seven weeks, and The Traitor Queen will be at home waiting for me to finish writing her.
If you use the info above to track down one of my appearances, do check the details with the venue. The list above in unconfirmed. Otherwise you can wait for the confirmed, official schedule to appear here. My two lovely, brilliant tour organisers at the UK and German publishing companies are working very hard to finalise everything. Hopefully I will have a Non-Vague Tour Post up here next week.
The postie just delivered another foreign edition today – Last of the Wilds in Indonesian!
With Supernova and the European Tour coming up, I thought it would be nice to have some freebies to give out. So I dusted off my old graphic design skills and produced a bookmark:
It’s deliberately simple for two reasons. Firstly, to use any artwork from my book covers I’d have to get permission from the publisher and artist. I could use book cover, but then I’d have the dilemma of choosing not just which books, but my first six books have three different covers – and that’s just the english language editions.
Secondly, I wanted the bookmark to be able to do this:
It folds up to become a business card.
In fact, it’s a longer, colour version of my business card, which I find I use for one purpose over any other: when I meet someone who, upon finding out I’m an author, asks what the titles of my books are, I know that if I start listing them off their eyes will glaze over and they’ll never remember any of the titles. So I give them my card and they have the full list there and my website address, if they care to investigate further.
I only had a short print run of 250 done, but if I give them all away at Supernova I can always get more done for the tour. I don’t want to end up with lots of leftovers, because in a few years there’ll be another three book titles to add to that list.
Since researching the availability of my books as ebooks back at the end of January, I’ve been able to mostly answer all of my questions. Some with reader’s help, others by emailing my publisher and then enjoying a very interesting chat on the phone with the person who deals with ebook issues. That said, what I write below is in my own words.
So, what were my questions again?
Can customers in Australia buy eBook version of my books from Amazon.com, iBookstore and Kobo?
Thanks to the lovely commenters, Tim and Nicole, I know now that if you’re an Australian customer, only the ebooks available in this region will show when you browse Amazon. Nicole even went as far as buying a book – thanks Nicole! I’m a little doubtful that this is true of the Amazon UK site, though, as it is showing the UK editions of books and they shouldn’t be available to Australian customers.
Why aren’t Australian online stores stocking the ebooks of my books?
Why isn’t the full set of Age of the Five available on Amazon.com, when it is on at least one other US-accessible ebook site?
Now this is a stickier question, and the answer is complicated. The first thing I should make clear is that there are a lot of differences between a self-publisher putting ebooks online and a publishing company putting them online. The self-publisher format (Amazon and Smashwords) works rather like ebay. The publishing company format (Amazon, iBookshop, Kobo, book retailer websites) works a bit more like the traditional bricks and mortar style bookshop arrangement with all the complexity of pricing, promotional agreements, etc. Obviously my books are not self-published, so latter situation is what we’re dealing with here.
The obstacles a publisher faces in getting an ebook online have mostly to do with the technology being very new and there being multiple ebook formats. Some of the issues are complicated, so I’ve kept this post small by listing the main ones without getting bogged down in variations:
* New books are easier and less time consuming to convert because they don’t have to be dug up from an archive and converted from old program formats, like backlist titles do.
* With the enormous number of books to convert, getting an entire backlist of books out as ebooks can’t be done overnight. A lot is being done to speed the process but, well, as always when you hurry something errors will probably be missed.
* Data must be compiled for each ebook, and if there is just one error the ebook can ‘fall off the system’. Some errors are hard to spot (like, say, whether a date is presented with the month or day first).
* Different ebook formats require data supplied in different ways so a book has to be tweaked for each.
* There’s no clear feedback system for when an ebook fails to work. They don’t necessarily appear on the bookseller sites straight away and even when they do they can mysteriously disappear later.
Converting books to ebook formats, compiling and checking the data, spotting mistakes and fixing them all takes time. And time is money. I’ve read articles that say producing an eBook can actually cost more than producing a paper book, and now that I know what’s involved I’m inclined to believe it.
This is a new industry, but it is a growing one. I’ve heard that ebook retailers are advertising for hundreds of jobs at a time – huge opportunities there – and that typesetters, who adapted so well to the shift to digital production, are expanding to become ‘digital typesetters’ so they can take advantage of the extra work in converting books to ebook formats.
While there are inefficiencies in the system now, things will improve. After all, authors, publishers and booksellers are all in the business of selling books, so we’re all working hard to make them available. For my part, knowing how snowed under publishers are, I figure I can help out by keeping an eye on bookseller sites and letting them know if something has fallen off the system.
And for Australian customers, I’ve decided to keep a list of what’s available. I’ll update it when I have time and repost it on this blog. Let me know if you have any trouble buying an ebook listed as available at any of the sites below.
Key: BMT = Black Magician Trilogy, AotF = Age of the Five trilogy, TMA = The Magician’s Apprentice, TST = Traitor Spy Trilogy
Amazon – BMT, second book of AofF, TMA, first book of TST
Amazon UK – all books available (a bit odd as the UK editions of the BMT and AotF shouldn’t be showing up for Australian customers)
iBookstore – Second book of AotF, TMA, first book of TST
Kobo – BMT, first two books of AoTF available, TMA
Angus&Robertson – BMT and first two books of AotF available
Borders – BMT and first two books of AotF available
Dymocks – No books available
ebooks.com – No books available (what you can see is the US edition, which is a bit weird as they’re an Australian bookseller so ought to be selling the local edition)
As you may have spotted, the ebooks that appear to have fallen off the system are the first and last of the Age of the Five trilogy. I suspect that those books aren’t available to US customers either, but it looks like UK customers ought to have no problem getting any of my titles.
(A big thank you to the reader who got me researching this in the first place, Michael, who not only drew my attention to some missing titles, but also contacted one of my publishers to let them know.)
Yesterday this lovely edition of The Ambassador’s Mission arrived, published by Bragelonne. The French editions I receive are always beautiful, sturdy hardcovers and this is no exception.
Welcome to the start of The Traitor Spy trilogy, my French readers!
Trudi Canavan is an Australian fantasy writer and the author of the international bestseller, the Black Magician Trilogy.
The Rogue is the second volume of the Traitor Spy Trilogy, which takes up the action a generation after the events in The High Lord.
The Ambassador’s Mission is the first volume of the Traitor Spy Trilogy, which takes up the action a generation after the events in The High Lord.
Set hundreds of years before the events of Black Magician Trilogy, this stand-alone novel can be read as an introduction to, or an addition to, the story of Kyralia and its magicians. Learn More
All content copyright © 2010, Orbit / Trudi Canavan. All Rights Reserved
Theme/Cover Art by Steve Stone
Recent Comments