In addition to the other panels/sessions, I’ll also be appearing on Friday night’s panel “In these days of globalisation and the Internet, is there still such a thing as British SF and Fantasy”. I’ll be alongside Paul Cornell, Stephen Hunt, and Peter Hamilton.
I think my answer will be a vague yes and no, and I might sound grumpy realistic about modern publishing. (I can see my editor rolling her eyes right now.)
Hope to see you there.
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Also, I’m hearing interesting noises about the release of Nights of Villjamur in the US. More news as and when I have some.
Sadly Saturday events are never going to be a possibility for me. Why does everyone hate Sundays so much?
By the way I tried to buy a copy of Nights yesterday in paperback before discovering that the Kindle release coincides with the paperback release. I just don’t like hardbacks. When the Kindle version comes out I’ll write a review for BSCreview.com
Might be good to discuss the Amazon.com & Macmillan spat, Mark! They and about two or three like them are going to strongarm publishers and reduce them to 1p a battery farm chicken producers eventually with their exclusive proprietory software for book downloads by making publishers offers they either eventually won’t or can’t refuse.
That’s why e-books *right now* are bad for publishing.
I actually blogged recently about the differences between British & American fantasy as I saw them. Of course, as usual, I might be speaking rubbish.
http://manmela.livejournal.com/876219.html
Mark,
Shall look forward to seeing you there.
Publishers are like farmers – they’re always complaining about how its been too rainy or too dry, about the fact that they’ve got so many sugar beet in the bottom field they’re afraid its going to rot before they can move it or that they haven’t got two beet to rub together etc etc.
Farmer Simon
Phil – because Sundays at conventions are for hangovers, mainly. š
Thanks, Nick. I’ve no doubt that will come up at some point.
Adrian – yes, good points. I noticed similar qualities in UK vs US submissions when I worked in editorial.
Farmer Simon – if publishers (and writers) didn’t complain, what else would we talk about? We’d all be sitting there in silence, staring into the bottom of a beer glass.
What sorts of interesting noises?
Could you describe them onomatopoeically?
Yes it’s a sort of ‘cha-ching’ sound. All rather good stuff.