Currently available from SmashWords.  (Coupon code available)

Coming hopefully soon to the iBook Store and the Sony Reader store.

This online distribution stuff is fun.

Gene Weingarten: You want big and famous? Here is big and famous:

On Jeopardy! a few weeks ago, this was the answer:

“He is a South Florida writer whose comic novels often deal with political corruption and criminal intrigue in Miami.”

The buzzer-ringer said:

“Who is Dave Barry?”

–

That’s big. To be a WRONG answer on Jeopardy!

When I told Dave about this he wrote back:

“It’s about time I got credit for Carl.”

Damnit, now I want that!  Oh, and to be a member of the Rock Bottom Remainders, who I apparently just missed last week at the 9:30 Club.  Is that so much to ask for?  It’s not like they already have a trombonist, and doesn’t every band need a trombonist?

PS:  Look for Rust on Kindle in the next 24 hours.

Also this week, look for my first contribution to Unleaded: Fuel for Writers, which I’ll cross post here.  Ya know.  For all my faithful readers.

Thing One: Look for me soon (this week?  next?) as a regular contributor to Unleaded – Fuel for Writers, a blog that is slowly turning into a group blog for the Cat Vacuuming Society, and is going to be a major focus of our new cross promotional plans.  These contributions will include both blog posts and related podcast episodes, with all posts cross linked back here when I make them.  My focus will be on my experiences writing near future science fiction, my problems with horror, and my experiences playing with new channels of self promotion.  To that end…

Thing Two: I announced a few months back my plan to start serializing my first novel, Rust.  And then I never did.  Did you notice that?  Of course you didn’t, because no one reads this blog.  Seriously, post a reply and tell me I’m wrong!  Anyway, I’m looking at two new channels of digital distribution, one which will happen quite earlier than the other.  First up will be Rust’s availability on Kindle, which I hope will happen within the week.  Right now I’m doing a quick editing pass that involves searching for all the bugaboo words and phrases I used to over use.  Such as “started” and “had been” and “a bit” and “seemed”.  This process had been starting to seem like a bit of a bad idea for awhile, but I’ve made it through most of them.  Had is the biggie, since it is a legitimate word so often, but not nearly as often as I used it.  The other distribution I’m looking at is podiobooking Rust.  Right now I haven’t even started recording, and I’m not likely to start serializing the podcast until at least half the chapters are in the can.  Still, I’m working on my setup and my delivery, so look for that in the future.

This Three: I’m working on a few ways to self promote myself, especially with Balticon fast approaching.  First idea is something I played with a few years ago, the idea of publishing a 1000-1500 word story as a little eight page booklet, printed on just one sheet of paper and clipped and folded up to a book form.  Second idea is something newer: QR codes.  Not sure if everyone who is reading this (seriously, post a reply, let me know you’re out there) knows what these are, but they’re two dimensional barcodes that can hold up to 250 characters of information and can be read by smartphones with cameras and the right application.  The best of these apps will automatically recognize links.  They can be used for business cards to put a lot of information on them, including a full range of phone numbers, email addresses, and web sites.  I’m planning on using them on business sized cards, with both some human-readable text, and some teasers.  For example, a QR Code after the break:

Scanned and decoded it reads: “A human for a human’s work! –King Ludd. Rust, a steampunk murder mystery by DL Thurston.  Available now for the Kindle, coming soon to podiobook.  http://DLThurston.com/blog”.  I’m still working on exactly what to include, I still have a good 90 characters left, but I’m happy.  It’s got a key phrase from the book, identifies the book, advertises its new availability on Kindle, and provides a link to this blog.  I might also include a price point, once I figure one out.

Yes, I see the potential irony in using a smartphone technology to spread a message used by Luddites in the book.  The idea is to catch people’s eyes in a different way, and I hope this succeeds in doing so.

That was until two weekends ago when I brought a copy to a book swap.  I brought it as a joke to the other member of the CVS present, not realizing that there would be more people there than just the writing group.  And sure enough, someone grabbed the book.  Who wasn’t a member of the group.  So that means that, once again, there are copies out there.

So I’ve been thinking “what the hell”.  This is a book that I originally serialized as I wrote it on my old Livejournal account.  This is a book that I put onto Lulu for the world to see.  I did both of these knowing full well that I was blowing away the First Publication Rights on the novel.  So it’s time to do it again.  New website, new blog, new year, same old book.  Keep an eye out, as over the next few months I’m going to start serializing Rust here on the website, probably over at my Burn Bin, for anyone who has heard of it and been curious.  I’m not rewriting it, I’m not doing another editing pass, it will be there in its full glory in the format available on Lulu.

Enjoy!