Too Much Coming Home.

I'm home, and it's... well, nowhere near as cold as it should be. It was (in case you are interested) the warmest January 5th on record in this part of the world. And I'm really enjoying the warm weather more than I feel I should. 

So, I last posted on New Year's Eve, in Melbourne.

January the First was quiet and extremely hot. Amanda completed her blog about our wedding, which she'd started writing almost a year earlier. (You can read it at http://blog.amandapalmer.net/post/15120706154/the-wedding-blog. When I finished reading it for the first time I got extremely sniffly. You have been warned.)

For the curious, my own Wedding blog is here: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2011/01/yes.html. It's much shorter than Amanda's, but was written closer to the event. It ends with a paraphrase of a line from Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.

By perfect coincidence, we celebrated our first wedding anniversary on January the Second in Melbourne watching The Importance of Being Earnest, starring Geoffrey Rush as Lady Bracknell, seats thanks to actor Toby Schmitz, who played Jack Worthing, and had noticed me on Twitter asking for suggestions about what to do that night in Melbourne. Great cast, great production, beautifully designed and put on. It made me think a lot about surfaces and about Oscar Wilde, and what art means and what it does, and the tension between those things. Then, somewhat subdued, as if it had become real that I was flying away and Amanda wasn't, we had dinner and went to the posh hotel we were overnighting in, and, in the morning, I went to the airport. I won't see her now for about three months. Expect occasional wistful posts in the next three months.

I stopped off in Los Angeles on my way home. I saw Scott and Ivy McCloud and their daughters, my fairy goddaughters, Sky and Winter. I don't see any of them enough. The best thing about being my age is knowing people for a Long Time. Long enough that they've had children. Long enough that the children are now adults, or young adults.

I saw Harlan Ellison, and kvelled at his book of essential short stories and essays Encountering Ellison: Harlan 101, for which I'd written the introduction.

(You can get your own copy of it at http://www.cafepress.com/harlanellison).

I had a meeting at HBO about American Gods. Then I flew home. And it was unseasonably warm for January.

It is unseasonably warm, think the dogs. Not that we're complaining. Hunting season has stopped and Cabal's neckerchief is now only for show.

I've been keeping a tumblr blog for a few months now, at http://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/ and rather enjoying it, posting links to small things or odd things that caught my eye or made me smile.

Yesterday was Charles Addams' Hundredth Birthday, so I posted this on Tumblr, the Addams Family cartoon I bought myself when I won the Newbery Medal. It was originally done as a British Telecom ad, and I saw it in the tube, in London in the late 80s. (Addams had lost the rights to the characters at the time, so only drew them when other people got the rights then hired him to draw).

The captions read:  “I do hope it’s who you think it is, Fester.” And then, “It’s all been wonderful, Grandma – and Fester has at last established his ancestry!” It was to tell people - Americans, mostly -that it was cheaper to phone America than they thought.

...

And all that was just by way of prelude to posting about Viriconium by M. John Harrison, a book I introduced in 2005 and helped to bring out an audiobook of in 2011. But I think I'll put that off one more night. Viriconium deserves its own blog entry.

(Also, in Neil Gaiman Presents: Anita has her first review, while Swordspoint just garnered its first award, an AudioFile "Earphones" Award, with a review that says:

Richard St. Vier, swordsman extraordinaire, often fights duels to protect the honor of a noble—or just the highest bidder. But to fight for his own and his friends’ honor is a more complicated matter. There are so many rules for every kind of engagement—battle, politics, and, of course, love. Author Ellen Kushner delivers her utterly unique blend of modern fantasy and nineteenth-century novel of manners with absolute conviction, affectionate humor, and perfect phrasing. “Neil Gaiman Presents” has provided original music, lively soundscapes, and the voices of some of the audio world’s most distinguished performers. Hearing Katherine Kellgren, Dion Graham, and others sharpen the cutting, insightful dialogue is pure pleasure. B.P. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award

Congratulations to Ellen Kushner,  author and narrator, and to the cast, and to Sue Zizza, who is not namechecked here, and who directed and conceived the production.)

Incidentally, while I was in Australia I read Lift, by Rebecca K. O'Connor. I'd been curious about it ever since I saw that Rebecca saw me tweeting about ACX, decided to do an audiobook of her book using it,  and Kickstartered the money to get into the studio and record it. It seemed a very creative way of using the world to make things happen. I hoped the book was good. It was, and now I'm really looking forward to the audiobook.

...

I should go and write some more.

Labels: bloody labels, Charles Addams, dog photograph, Ellen Kushner, Harlan Ellison, Scott McCloud, the absence of Viriconium, Unseasonable warmth not that I'm complaining, why I am a Fairy Godfather, Winter

Audiobooks: A Cautionary Tale

I was talking to an author last night. Actually, we were sending text messages to each other, something I don't do a lot of, but it was sort of fun, texting. I'm not going to identify her, or the book.

She had a novel published recently by a major publisher. I read it. I really loved it.

I thought, Why not see if I can do it as a Neil Gaiman Presents Audiobook, through ACX?

I asked if there was an audiobook. She said, "No, no audiobook."

I asked who had the rights, and whether I could do it in ACX. She was thrilled and said of course, and she'd find out if she had the rights or if her publisher did. We talked about what kind of voice narrator she'd want, and whether a male or a female narrator would suit the book best.

And then I got a message from her saying "Oh. Bizarre. I just looked online and see there is an audiobook of (the novel) which no-one ever told me about. It apparently came out in November."

I went online and looked. There was indeed an audiobook, and it had a terrible cover. And this morning brought an email from the author saying, sadly "Don't listen to the (novel) audiobook. It might be the worst thing I have ever heard."

I felt so sorry for her.

It was the same stuff that I'd been talking about in the interview that Laura Miller did for me with Salon.com
(http://www.salon.com/2011/11/23/neil_gaimans_audiobook_record_label/)

Why is there so much hesitation?

For me, the tragedy of audiobooks is that the physical limitations and impossibilities of putting out complete novels as audiobooks in the days of LPs and then pretty much in the days of cassettes, meant that the costs and the odds were always against you. Most books aren’t out as audiobooks. If you like a book, it’s probably not been done as an audiobook.

Publishers would take audio rights but then never do anything with them. ... That process is that you persuade your publisher to do an audiobook and then you have no control over who gets cast, or who reads it. You have no quality control over pronunciation or goofs or anything like that. And then your publisher brings it out and then your publisher remainders it.

That is the problem that ACX was created to solve — and for me it’s also the problem that it’s highlighting. I’m hitting it more and more. All I know is that there could be lots and lots of audiobooks out there that aren’t. For years it didn’t matter that the rights were held by people because nobody could do anything anyway. But we’re not in that world anymore.

Can you talk a bit about the importance of the right narrator, and how much that person can add to or subtract from the audiobook experience?

I remember once talking to a best selling author about audiobooks. He’d written a book that was narrated by a 20-something black male and the audiobook was read by a 50-something white female. He had no say in this and after listening to it for five minutes he stopped, feeling physically sick.

In some cases, when the author is alive and available, I cede that choice to the author. I become the production entity and I’ll cast a deciding vote if the author says it’s between three narrators he or she likes equally. If the author’s alive, I want the author happy. That’s the most important bit.

And I felt really extra sorry for my anonymous sad author, because I was SO happy about the release two days ago of Swordspoint -- mostly happy because of how amazingly happy author Ellen Kushner is. (See http://ellen-kushner.livejournal.com/tag/audiobook for proof and background.) Swordspoint's an audiobook narrated by the author, with additional soundscape and acting from such luminaries as Simon "Arthur Dent" Jones, and it's a thing of joy. She's happy, I'm happy, the people listening to it seem amazingly happy, the people at Audible.com are ridiculously happy because people are downloading it and the reviews are already coming in and they are happy reviews.

(Go and listen to the Swordspoint extract, or listen to me introducing it, or read more about it at http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B006FJJDBW&source_code=NGAR0002WS101911)




And I don't want to turn this into a big plug for Swordspoint, or a rant against publishers wasting or not using audio rights. I think what I want to say mostly is, if you are an author, Get Involved in Your Audiobooks Early. Get your agent involved and interested. Talk about them at contract stage. Find out if you're selling the rights, and if you are selling them then find out what control you have or whether you are going to be consulted or not about who the narrator is and how the audiobook is done.

Also, make sure that your publisher has worked out a way to give you free copies (obvious if it's out on CD, much less so if you're on download-only platform).

If you're an agent, notice that we are not living a decade ago, when audiobooks were expensive bells and whistles that meant very little, that normally wouldn't be done for anything outside of major bestsellers, when abridgments were often the order of the day: we're entering a golden age, in which there is no reason that any book shouldn't be available in professionally produced audio. Unless you know that the audio rights are going to be used and used well, keep them for your author. And if they are being sold with the book, then guard your author, and make sure that she or he gets rights of approval.

I love, am thrilled with, and am getting a huge kick out of the ACX way of doing it, where authors (or rightsholders), producers and voice talent sign up and get together and make audiobooks that Audible put up. It's there for you if you're an author, an agent, a publisher with lots of rights you don't know how to exploit, a director/producer/studio engineer, or an actor, and interested. (Right now, it's US only, but they are working on that.) (Find out more at http://www.acx.com/) (End of plug.)

But this isn't an ad for ACX, either. Honestly, you can do it on your own, if you want: Find a narrator or a studio; you can release it through the web; you can give it away as a promotional item, or because you can. Or you can make sure that if your publisher is putting out an audiobook that you have a say in it, and it's the book you want it to be.

Because otherwise it might be you writing to friends telling them not to listen to the audiobook of your book. And that would be a terrible thing indeed.

Labels: ACX, audio books, Ellen Kushner, swordspoint, the mysterious way the labels for this post keep vanishing and I have to keep writing them again

Things that go Bump in the Night and other dangerous nighttime problems

Remember the power outage I talked about in my last blog? The one that made the power go on and off (and lost me a small chunk of bloggage) (and taught me that the black bricklike BLACKOUT BUSTER that the computer is plugged into is about as useful as plugging it into a brick when the power actually goes out). It turns out it was caused by a driver about a mile away crashing into a telephone pole and taking out a power line, which blew out a local transformer with a bang so loud that my assistant Lorraine, fast asleep in her house a couple of miles away, woke up to the explosion and banged her head on the bedpost.

I mention this mostly because Lorraine came in to work this morning, made sure I was awake, made me tea and porridge, got me off to the Twin Cities to spend a day in the radio studio, and only when I was actually driving to KNOW in St Paul did she nip off to a medic to find that her scalp needed to be glued back together and that she had concussion.

I do not expect her at work tomorrow (and if you're trying to get hold of me or you need me for something, and you're wondering why nobody's answering the phone, that's why). (And Lorraine, if you're reading this, go back to bed. I will make my own tea, and there's nothing that won't keep until Monday.)

Anyway. I went and did Talk of the Nation. You can read about it and listen to the interview at http://www.npr.org/2010/12/09/131937258/neil-gaiman-selects-top-american-comics-of-2010

Here's a link to the book on Amazon (which fascinates me by people's reaction to it, good and not-so, and what they liked, and what they didn't. With a collection like this, I'd be sad if everyone liked or disliked the same stories, but the likes and dislikes seem fairly well spread around).

(Here's the link to obtain the book from your local independent bookshop: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780547241777

and to find your local comic shop: http://www.comicshoplocator.com/)

TALK OF THE NATION was followed by an abrupt change of gear, as I stayed in the same studio (News Studio 3) but instead of being interviewed, I... well, I acted.

Simon Jones (whose work I have loved since he was Arthur Dent in the original The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio series, and who is, as I am, an Honorary Lifetime Member of Hitchhker's Appreciation Society ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha - http://www.zz9.org/) plays my father in the play, co-written by the wonderful Ellen Kushner, and he and I got to act. He was in New York, with the director and Ellen, and I was in St Paul, but still, we were acting together. Simon was the absolute master of the accent we'd been asked to do -- a sort of 1940s mid-Atlantic accent you used to hear on American Radio and in movies. I was a lot less masterly.

There's a bit of cellphone of me recording my lines (taken through the glass of the studio, so you can't really hear what I'm saying, but you can hear Simon at the end) at http://www.whosay.com/neilgaiman/videos/6143 and it was only when I saw it that I discovered the shocking truth: I act with my hands.

I wonder if that happens when I do audio books.

Ellen writes about the afternoon (and the project, The Witches of Lublin, here: http://ellen-kushner.livejournal.com/333363.html)

...

Hi Neil,

You've said in the past that you wouldn't want to self-publish. Considering your established sales, I absolutely get that. But I wonder, if you were just starting out today, would you consider it? Or would the answer still be, "I like writing," and let someone else figure out the business aspect. It seems like more and more people are only succeeding if they wear many different hats. (or get extremely lucky and get a behemoth behind them).

Just wondered if you'd mind considering that for a minute. And then, maybe consider what you'd do in this era, with a number of rejections behind you. Would it become more appealing at that point?

It depends how you define self-publishing. If I wanted physical books to be sold in your local bookshop, no, I wouldn't self-publish. But given the rapid rise of e-books, the existence of the web, the rise of things like Lulu.com, there are lots of ways of self-publishing that don't actually involve printing books, storing them in your basement, advertising them and somehow getting them to people who want them.

I'm sure it's possible to make money self-publishing physical books, if you're willing to be all the different things that a publishing house contains, from sales and marketing to editorial and design to shipping and receiving. But I still don't think I'd want to do it.

I read your latest blog today (9.12.-10) about cold weather. Living at the arctic circle (though, thankfully in Finland, so it is not that extreme) means that I fully get how one gets fed up with the, say, two weeks of -25 C, 5 layers of clothing, only going out of necessity and so on. I walk 25 minutes to the university.

However, freezing at -18 C means that you're doing something wrong. Curiously, that does fit within a stereotype we Finns have with English people but that's a story for another day.

a) As I presume money is not an issue, you should consider a down jacket. Canada Goose is an excellent choice. Essentially, -18 C means a jacket and a t-shirt then. The thicker down jackets of many brands start being usable at around -30C.

b) Merino wool underwear, synthetic fleece or wool over it too.
For example Patagonia has rather environment aware clothes line.

Essentially, if you're freezing at -18 C you're doing it wrong. If you're uncomfortable at -18, you've bought the wrong clothes.

Snow is so much fun too, sometimes I do need reminding of in the dark moments, try buying cross country skis. ( Well, that was probably a too Finnish advice. )

Thank you for all you books and letting us see the worlds you create.

Tuomas Tähtinen.

ps.
Fireplace is the best insurance for electricity blackouts during winter...

I didn't say I was freezing at -18C. I didn't even say I was uncomfortable. What I said was, I get really really sick of having to dress in layers and dress up and undress in order to walk the dogs. It gets old.

And as I said in the post, or thought I had, the temperature as it gets colder is very different to the one you get on the way back up. After a few weeks at -30 and -40, I get all cheerful and cocky when it rises to levels that don't actually threaten your life, and I understand the people who, when it gets to freezing in the spring, walk around with just tee shirts, or even bare chested (I understand them. I do not join them).

But there is a reason why so many Finns and Scandinavians came to the American Midwest. It's because nothing would make you people think about moving to Australia...

Hi,
I just wanted to thank you about your resent journal post "The anatomy of Snowbirds". It really cheered up my day. Someone else is also out there in snow and cold, thinking of Caribbean.

I live in Finland and this year we have this nice Siberia-style winter with 0,5 meters of snow fall each week. My husband has been whining about the weather for the six years we have been together and now we are planning to move to Australia, for real this time :D I just found myself one night wondering how I'm going to pack my Sandman-collection and all the other books with me... Oh well. Maybe I come up with some brilliant idea before next year.

Best regards,
Anna the Snowqueen from Helsinki

...well, practically nothing.

...

Lots of Letters to Levi, but I think I will save them for tomorrow. I mean later today.

And finally, this just came in from David Lenander - if you're in the Twin Cities Area today (Friday the 10th) and fancy a free C.S. Lewis conference before the blizzard hits, then you're in luck:

Just wanted to tell you that we're having a little C.S, Lewis conference at the U of MN Children's Literature Collections later today, and your Mythcon 35 address and "The Problem of Susan" are important inspirations, along with Laura Miller's book, The Magician's Book. I'd had good intentions of writing and asking you to mention us in your blog, but things got done too late. Still, Thanks for your writing. And I'm about to bundle up and take the dog out for her walk, and I really have understood why people like Will & Emma probably moved south.

http://web.me.com/david_lenander/NarniaCon

Labels: cold [the extreme kind], completely abandons the idea of writing lots of labels and goes to bed instead, Ellen Kushner, things that go bump in the night, What Lorraine does in the evenings