Jason Stoddard, author and founder of Centric, joins us to discuss the marketing of science fiction and fantasy literature. What can we do to improve SF’s visibility? How can we grow the audience? And what can authors, small press, and big publishers do without breaking their wallets? Jason has some ideas.
Show Notes
Publishing News: After her entire manuscript was leaked online, Stephanie Meyer has put the final volume in the Twilight series on hold indefinitely, leaving her readers astounded, confused, and outright angry.
Email: Merrill writes to discuss the importance of audio books and hopes to see more science fiction titles produced in the future. Steve informs us that Wizards of the Coast has reached a deal with Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis, and the final Dragonlance novel will be published in August 2009.
Links from this episode:
David Webber’s Oopsie Novel
What’s an Author to do?
What’s a Small Press to do?
What’s a Big Publisher to do?
Move to Where the People Are
Promo: Playing for Keeps
Promo: Sideways in Crime
Podcast: Download (Duration: 48:04 — 33.1MB)
This is on the intro.
Midnight Sun is essentially Twilight from a different perspective, so it isn’t really the conclusion to the series, it’s more of a parallel novel — not crucial to the actual story line already established. She describes it as an exercise in character development that got out of hand. The only thing the fans are missing is a better understanding of Edward, and, honestly, you can infer as much from the other novels.
And in terms of worrying about the movie release, I don’t think it’ll effect her mainly because Harry Potter was pushed back, and they share a similar fanbase. So without Harry Potter, what else are they going to see over Thanksgiving break? Twilight.
So…yeah…I just wanted people to know that she isn’t cutting off the story line. Midnight Sun is just extra material, like all the post-dh stuff let loose after Harry Potter was concluded.
Thanks for the great podcast, I really enjoy it.
Kate
I weighed in last month with a blog post on Stephenie Meyer’s decision to pull her book. My comments — and those of the folks who left passionate comments of their own — might be interesting to you and your listeners.
Interesting interview. It is pretty mindboggling that a 30 billion dollar industry hasn’t even made a map to the clue shop, if what Jason says is correct. Too many English/literature students, not enough analysts?