Today, it’s Joanna Penn.

Who is Joanna?

Joanna Penn, writing as J F Penn, is the author of thriller novels Pentecost and Prophecy in the ARKANE series. Her site TheCreativePenn.com helps people write, publish and market their books and has been voted one of the Top 10 Blogs for writers two years running. Follow Joanna on Twitter @thecreativepenn

What are you tooting about?

Joanna’s 2nd novel, Prophecy has just come out on Amazon. Joanna’s style has been described as Dan Brown meets Lara Croft, fast paced thrillers based on religious stories with a kick-ass female heroine. The books aren’t Christian but delve into the myths and legends behind the Biblical stories as well as visiting places of spiritual significance.

“I looked, and there before me was a pale horse. Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.” Revelation 6:8

The prophecy in Revelation declares that a quarter of the world must die and now a shadowy organization has the ability to fulfill these words. Can one woman stop the abomination before it’s too late?

From the catacombs of Paris to the skeletal ossuaries of Sicily and the Czech Republic, Morgan and Jake must find the Devil’s Bible and stop the curse being released into the world before one in four are destroyed in the coming holocaust. Because in just seven days, the final curse will be spoken and the prophecy will be fulfilled.

If you like fast-paced thrillers that involve spiritual mysteries, a dash of the supernatural and amazing locations, you’ll enjoy Prophecy. It can be read stand-alone but the first in the series, Pentecost is only 99c or free for Amazon Prime members if you want to start from the beginning.

Prophecy on Amazon.com
Prophecy on Amazon.co.uk

Currently the books are only available on Amazon Kindle but you can also sign up to be informed of print and other ebook versions here.

[You'll remember I mentioned this book as part of my holiday reading a little while ago. It's a rollicking good read and very well researched. Joanna's background, with her degree in theology, really shines through on this one. - Alan]

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Amazon single-handedly made ebooks the ubiquitous force they are today. Others helped it along, of course, but Amazon made it happen in the timeframe we’ve seen. They’ve opened up the playing field to let indie authors and small presses compete realistically with the Big Six. They’ve made books and other items readily available and affordable to millions of people who may have had trouble accessing those things before. I don’t like everything about the Kindle model – exclusive file format, etc., but it’s very good overall. Amazon are very good overall.

There’s no question that I would rather have Amazon around than not. Although, on a slight digression, when the hell are we getting an amazon.com.au? Seriously, Amazon, why do you hate Australia?

But there are changes happening at Amazon that I don’t like. I’ve never been able to ignore a bully and I don’t like monopolies. They’re bad for everyone except the person in control of said monopoly. And while Amazon are still doing many good things, they’re starting to do many questionable things as well.

The major problems are these:

- Setting up as a publisher, not just a retailer;
- Starting the KDP Select program;
- Cutting publishers out of control;
- Propogating the cheap and free model.

Why are these things bad? Let’s look at them one by one.

Setting up as a publisher:

This is not a bad thing per se – another opportunity for writers to get published is a good thing, right? Well, not if it restricts the writer’s ability to sell their work. Whenever Amazon set up a service, they make it exclusive to themselves. For example, their CreateSpace POD printing venture means stock is only available through Amazon.com – not even the other Amazon branches internationally. As a result of in-fighting, Barnes & Noble have said they won’t stock any Amazon published books. This is a direct result of B&N’s problems with previous Amazon exclusivity policies, and I can’t really blame them. But it means that writers being published by Amazon have a greatly restricted range of outlets for their work. And Amazon encourages that in order to gain monopoly share.

Starting the KDP Select program:

This is a program where authors can make their Kindle ebooks available free for 5 days out of every 90. The idea is that it will greatly enhance their profile, drag more readers to their work and they’ll see greater sales in the long tail. Amazon have a pool of cash and for every author with a free book, Amazon distributes a share of that pool based on how many free downloads that book saw. Sounds great, but it’s not. That distribution pool is already getting smaller, the vast majority of people involved will only ever see a tiny fraction of it and, worst of all, those books can only be included if they’re exclusive to Amazon. No iBooks, no Smashwords, no Nook, etc. That means that once again, Amazon are forcing exclusivity and using sweet, sweet cookies to lure authors into snubbing every other retailer. Then you find out that the cookie is made of mud and dog crap.

Cutting publishers out of control:

It’s getting harder and harder for publishers to manage their stock at Amazon. My novels are published by Gryphonwood Press. They recently commissioned new cover art for both books and tried to get Amazon to update the art. Nothing happened. No responses, no changes, nothing but huge frustrations. Eventually, after talking to my publisher, I went to my Amazon Author Central page and requested the changes myself. The update was made inside 24 hours. This is Amazon responding to authors, not publishers. That means they’re actively cutting publishers out, which actively encourages authors to do their own thing. That’s not an author’s job. It’s their publisher’s job. But this strikes me as an underhand way of getting authors to distrust their publishers or decide they can do without them and go the indie route, which is better for Amazon.

Propogating the cheap and free model:

So many novels are on Amazon for 99c. I’ve already talked about the free option on the KDP Select program. This is a big problem. For one, many readers are starting to undervalue work. They decide to wait until something is free or reduced to 99c before buying it and that’s bad for authors. This is our job – we’re trying to make a livng here and there’s a lot of work in writing a novel. It’s worth more than a single dollar. But Amazon don’t care. They’ve got something set up where anyone can upload an ebook, charge a buck for it and think they’re on the author gravy train. 99.9% of those people are unlikely to sell more than a handful of books. But that’s all right with Amazon. After all, if they make 75c for every book sold, they don’t need to sell millions of every book. They just need to sell a few copies of millions of books. Each author is making fuck all, but Amazon are raking it in. And those authors who stick exclusively with Amazon are told they’ll do even better, with no guarantee that that is actually the case.

You can see how all these things are set up to benefit Amazon, at the expense of everyone else – authors, publishers and readers. It’s better for all of those people if price points reflect the effort involved in making the work being sold; if product is available through a range of outlets for a range of devices to give readers a choice and therefore give authors a greater chance at more exposure and sales, leading to a stronger career. The only beneficiary of the models described above is Amazon.

Now I don’t mind Amazon doing well for itself, but not by monopolising an industry and not at the expense of authors and readers. That’s where I have to step in between the bully and bullied and say, “Wait a fucking minute, here, what do you think you’re doing?”

What can you do about it? Lots of things.

If you’re a writer or publisher:

Don’t make your work exclusively available in one place. It benefits everyone to have it available in as many places, for as many devices as you can.

Don’t price your work ridiculously low and devalue it. Equally, don’t price it stupidly high and drive all the readers to pirate sites instead.

Don’t saturate the work with DRM, inconveniencing readers who can’t read a book they paid for on seperate devices.

Stand up against monopolising policies wherever you can.

If you’re a reader:

Check various venues for the availability of the work you want and don’t always buy in one place.

Try to buy non-DRM versions in order to encourage greater openess in the future. DRM is not the way to fight piracy.

Don’t go for pirated work. If you respect the authors you’re reading, pay them for their work.

Don’t only read free books and those you can get for 99c. At the very least, you’re cutting yourself off from some really good stuff out there and only encouraging the lowest common denominator.

Chime in with a comment below if you have an opinion or an idea about this. Or if you completely disagree with me – I’d love to hear why.

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It can be upsetting sometimes, when we feel like language is dying or being killed off by the uneducated youth of today. But it’s not. It’s an organic thing, doing what it’s always done. After all, you don’t call a happy man gay any more. Unless he’s happy and likes cock, then it’s okay. And you could call him gay even if he was unhappy. Woah, this crazy thing called language!

So I got to thinking about the nature of storytelling, as that’s my thang, and how it’s changing. And, by extension, how the language around storytelling is changing. It came up when I was sitting on the couch with my Kindle the other day and my wife called out from the other room, “What are you doing?”

I panicked and quickly checked that I wasn’t up to something, but rallied and replied, “Just reading a book… er, novel.”

And it surprised me. I was reading a book. Albeit an ebook. It was a novel. I could as easily have been reading a short story, novella or saved web page on my Kindle. I should have simply replied, “Just reading.” But it was out there. I was etymologically stunned for a moment. Why had I corrected myself? I wondered if the word “book” would change in meaning. At what point might it refer only to an actual paper and pages physical book? Would that ever happen? Would we then refer to ebooks by their type – novel, novella, collection and so on?

Let’s look at some definitions (all from dictionary.com):

book
noun
1. a written or printed work of fiction or nonfiction, usually on sheets of paper fastened or bound together within covers.
2. a number of sheets of blank or ruled paper bound together for writing, recording business transactions, etc.
3. a division of a literary work, especially one of the larger divisions.

While “a written… work” is primary, the bit “usually on sheets of paper fastened or bound together within covers” is a key part of the definition. It seems that book applies to the artefact as much, if not more than, the content. That’s why we specify ebook when we’re referring to an electronic copy.

So perhaps it’s better, when reading on my Kindle, to say, “I’m reading a novel.” I don’t think I’ll ever say, “I’m reading an ebook”, as it seems irrelevant in some way. It’s not a papery artefact, so I don’t say “book”. The fact that it’s an ebook does little to impart what I’m actually reading.

novel
noun
1. a fictitious prose narrative of considerable length and complexity, portraying characters and usually presenting a sequential organization of action and scenes.
(Interestingly – 2. (formerly) novella Origin: 1560–70; < Italian novella (storia) new kind of story. That's evolved now to mean a short novel.)

So that definitely describes better what activity I’m engaged in. Of course, I could say that I’m reading a story.

story
noun
1. a narrative, either true or fictitious, in prose or verse, designed to interest, amuse, or instruct the hearer or reader; tale.
2. a fictitious tale, shorter and less elaborate than a novel.
3. such narratives or tales as a branch of literature: song and story.
4. the plot or succession of incidents of a novel, poem, drama, etc.: The characterizations were good, but the story was weak.
5. a narration of an incident or a series of events or an example of these that is or may be narrated, as an anecdote, joke, etc.

This would work well if I was reading a short story, collection or anthology. But, as you can see from the definition, it doesn’t really work linguistically in terms of a novel. It’s come to indicate something shorter.

Of course, when reading a short or a novel, we’re absolutely enjoying a story. After all, regardless of the delivery system, the story’s the thing. That’s what we’re there for. When it comes to my own work, much as I love the beautiful artefact that is a paper book, all I’m really interested in is people reading my stories, be they short or novel. Read them on paper, ereader, computer screen, whatever. I don’t care. You could read them transcribed in felt pen on a hooker’s breasts for all I care, as long as you’re enjoying the story. And now I have this urge, at some point in my life, to read a story written on a hooker’s breasts. Ah well, something else for the bucket list.

So have I solved the conundrum? Actually, no. Because what if I’m reading a non-fiction work on my Kindle. It’s an ebook, so not a book in the artefect sense. But it’s not a novel either. Maybe I could then say, “I’m reading a book about literature on hookers’ breasts in the early twenty first century.”

My wife would come stumbling into the room saying, “What!? I haven’t seen a book like that lying around.”

To which I heft my Kindle and say, “It’s an ebook.” *sigh*

Language. It’s a funny old thing.

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Anyway, we finally decided enough was enough and, with the Xmas generosity of some family members, we got some new bookshelves and at last managed to unpack some boxes. There are still a few more boxes to go, but we’ve broken the back of it for now. We have several other bookshelves around the house, but we now have this major feature in the front room:

The unit on the left is just over six feet tall. If you can make out any titles, don’t judge my cataloguing. It’s completely unsorted at the moment. The important thing was to get the books out of boxes and onto shelves. Next step is to sort them into some kind of order. That includes moving stuff around from the other shelves in the house and finally bringing order to our books.

Notice the top left two cubes in the picture above? That’s my brag shelf, where all my books, or books and magazines containing my work, live. If only there was a way to somehow represent all the digital publishing on the brag shelf, as there’s a fair bit of published stuff that will never see a meatspace shelf any more. But that’s the way of the future. Maybe I should allocate some space on the brag shelf to an iPad, with all my online work bookmarked like a little digital library. Or maybe not.

Mmmmbooks…

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People kept sending me this YouTube stop motion bookstore video, and finally I watched it. Now in love.

And I have to agree with him. It’s just beautiful and it must have taken an incredible amount of time. If you watch the section with a clock in view, two hours pass just for that short sequence. And, while I’m a big fan and proponent of digital publishing, I do also agree with the final sentiment of the film (read the cover of the last book).

Enjoy.

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Firstly, there were a couple of contributor copies of things I have work in that I hadn’t got around to yet. Apart from the obvious joy of getting published and sharing a Table Of Contents with some seriously talented other writers, having a story in a publication usually (and should!) means that I get a copy of said publication. Free reading material – one of life’s highest pleasures.

Midnight Echo 6 – I’ve mentioned this a few times recently, so I won’t bore you again. Suffice to say that it is a bloody brilliant issue of the magazine, and I don’t say that only because I have a story in it. The standout story for me was Joanne Anderton’s Out Hunting For Teeth. But every story is great and there’s extra interviews and all sorts of stuff. This is the sci-fi horror special and you’d think that might make for saminess. (Yes, that’s word, so get fucked.) But it doesn’t. There’s a great variety here and as the issue also includes the winners of the AHWA Flash and Short Story competitions, there’s a couple of non-sci-fi horror stories too. Great bang for your buck.

Anywhere But Earth – This is another contrib copy for me, as it features my story, Unexpected Launch. However, mine is only one of 29 stories in this 728 page epic tome of a sci-fi anthology. I think this book will go down as a must-read in modern science fiction. The scope of the stories and the talent of the contributing authors is astounding. It really is a fantastic array of ideas and style. If you’re a sci-fi fan, you’ll dig this book. If you’re not, it’s a great place to start. And if you know someone who says they don’t like sci-fi and you want to try to convert them, buy them this book. There were a handful of stories that didn’t really work for me, but that’s the case with any anthology. And this one has 29 stories, so there’s definitely something for everyone and I would bet that the majority of people would really groove with the majority of stories in here. Probably the standouts for me were Penelope Love’s SIBO, William R D Wood’s Deuteronomy, Robert Hood’s Desert Madonna, Damon Shaw’s Continuity, Brendan Duffy’s Space Girl Blues, Angela Ambroz’s Pyaar Kiya and Steve Cameron’s So Sad, The Lighthouse Keeper. Although the real star of that last story is a secondary character. In fact, a brick.

Blue Grass Symphony – This is the debut collection from Canadian-born Australian writer Lisa L Hannett. It’s an outstanding achievement. A selection of tales of magic, darkness, intrigue, mystery. Hannett’s style is clear throughout, even though the stories cover very different ground. There’s a brilliant vampire story here that’s worth the cover price alone. Seriously, if you thought vampire stories had been done to death, buy this book and read From the Teeth of Strange Children. There isn’t a bad story in this book and it’s a superbly dark and twisted exploration of life in mythical Blue Grass towns and counties. Great characters, great stories. Lisa is a friend of mine, but this isn’t just mate’s favours. I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

The Boys, Vol. 9: The Big Ride – Garth Ennis is one of my favourite writers and I’ve been loving this series. The Boys is about a world where superheroes exist and they’re a bunch of dangerous, narcissistic prima donnas and The Boys exist to keep them in line. If you like your graphic novels to be powerful, irreverant, digusting, offensive, thought-provoking and just downright fucking brilliant, you should read The Boys. In fact, you should read everything by Ennis. And volume 9 knocked me sideways. The end of the book just takes your guts and wrenches them out. Stunning. And for the comic book nerds out there, check out the cover and think about The Dark Knight Returns. Classic.

Prophecy by Joanna Penn. You may remember I was talking about Joanna Penn’s first book, Pentecost, a while back. This is the new one, a sequel and the next ARKANE thriller. It’s a short book, around 65,000 words I think, and rocks along nicely. It’s a religious thriller, with a kick-arse female protagonist called Morgan Sierra. Sierra is a bit like a female James Bond/Jason Bourne/Indiana Jones hybrid. In this book she’s in a race against time to unravel a mystery before a powerful international health and wellbeing company can destroy a quarter of the world in accordance with the prophecy of the Four Horsemen. Penn’s ability as a writer is improving and her characters are developing well. There’s clearly going to be a series of ARKANE books (the next one is touted at the end of this one) and I think they make for great reading. Penn has a degree in theology and her knowledge and research, of ideas and locations, really shines through in these stories. In some ways I preferred the story in the first book, but I loved the ideas in this one. There’s nothing world-changing here, but as rollicking thrillers these books are great – perfect for holiday reading.

So that was my recent word consumption. I’ll also post these comments on Goodreads and Amazon. Remember, folks, we’re the gatekeepers now. If you read things and enjoy them, talk about them – blog, post reviews at online stores, tell your friends and families. As authors, we’ll love you for it.

So what about you? Did you read any great books over the end of year break?

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While I can’t fault Baxter’s writing from a technical viewpoint, the dude can certain string words together, I think it’s the pacing that will turn people into firm fans of the Writer. Baxter doesn’t waste any unnecessary time getting his action happening, and constantly winds up the tension as things start to look very tricky for Isiah and his allies. Magesign gathers momentum from page to page and hits break neck speed as the final confrontation rockets over the horizon. You better hang on there kids, inexperience readers are going to crash and burn on this one.

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I would simply point out that if you are after a well written, enthralling read, that doesn’t let up with the surprises and impact, then look no further. Alan Baxter once again delivers an excellent novel, full recommendation on this one.

I do love a good review. You can read the whole thing here.

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My story has been translated by Vincent Corlaix. I’m intrigued to think about what he may have done. I wonder how much of my voice and style survives a translation. I guess that’s the sign of a good translator – one who will keep those things intact. I’m sure Corlaix has done an excellent job. In translation, my story is called Pêche en haute mer. Which is kinda cool. It’s a Lovecraft-inspired yarn and fits the monsters theme well.

The other good thing is that Celephais have released the cover art, and it’s bloody brilliant. See for yourself – click it for a bigger image:

You’ll notice the list of contributors on the back cover and I’m very proud to share a Table Of Contents with a couple of very good friends – Kaaron Warren and Bill Congreve. It’s also nice to see my name right next to Lavie Tidhar. It’s actually the second time I’ve shared a ToC with Mr Tidhar – last time in Murky Depths, #16. Lavie, we must stop meeting like this. People will talk.

This antho will be available in early January and I’ll drop another mention then for those French-reading friends and readers. Or perhaps you could buy a copy for the French friends in your life. You’ve got a French friend or two, right?

Here’s the full ToC:

Blue (Blue), de Pablo Dobrinin, traduction Jacques Fuentealba
Dieu est argent (Working for the God of the Love of Money), de Kaaron Warren, traduction Benoît Giuseppin
Les reines de l’évasion, de Célia Deiana
L’heure des suicidés, Marc R. Soto, trad. Jacques Fuentealba
Fantômes (Fantasmas), de Carlos Gardini, trad. Jacques Fuentealba
Blood Faerie, une symphonie nocturne, de Yohan Vasse
Tania (Tania), de Fermín Moreno, trad. Jacques Fuentealba
Les meilleurs partent toujours en premier, Nelly Chadour
À l’aube de la nuit (Until Sunrise), Bill Congreve, trad. Luc Kenoufi
Mater Insania, de Marija Nielsen
Altera in alteram, de Léonor Lara
Ma femme est un shoggoth (I married a Shoggoth), de Jeffrey Thomas, trad. de Maxime Le Dain
Lien de sang (Blood Relations), de Lewis Shiner, trad. Élodie Meste
En préparant le pot-au-feu, de Timothée Rey
Grand-père Loup (Grand-Father Wolf), de Steve Rasnic Tem trad. Mathieu Rivero
L’Évolution des espèces (La evolución de las especies), de Nuria C. Botey, trad. Marie-Anne Cleden
Pêche en haute mer (Deep Sea Fishing), de Alan Baxter, trad. Vincent Corlaix
Le vieil homme et la mer. Et l’étranger. Et le Kraken. (El viejo y el mar. Y el extraño. Y el Kraken.), de Pedro Escudero, trad. Jacques Fuentealba
Zombi Revenge psyché, de Marc-Olivier Aiken
Lanjnoir (Blakenjel), de Lavie Tidhar, trad. Thomas Bauduret
Je ne suis pas un monstre, de David Pierru

I’ll get back to regular blogging when my mind and body recover from this seminar, hopefully towards the end of the week.

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Check it out here: http://www.tarasharp.com/author-in-focus-alan-baxter/

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