Friday, July 25, 2008

Friday Publishing Update

Well, I had hoped to at least start on Ron Sanders' book For Readers Only, but Real Life (tm) interfered. Until I get to it, here's some publishing news of interest.

First, I recently became aware of Francis Hamit, chief cook and bottlewasher at Brass Cannon Books. Hamit, who has traditional publishing credits to his name, self-published what appears to be an interesting novel, The Shenandoah Spy, about a real-life female Confederate spy. I have a copy coming, so more on that later. I should note Hamit took the "traditional" self-publishing route, and had his book printed in bulk.

Via Hamit, I learned of Carol Buchanan, who recently released a POD self-published effort, God's Thunderbolt: The Vigilantes of Montana. This story is set at in a gold mining area at the very beginning of white settlement in Montana, when the nearest law was literally 500 miles away. Although I'm always interested in a good story, my real attraction is more science-fictional. The science fiction I write takes place in isolated settlements which have by necessity created their own laws, much like the real-life place Buchanan writes of.

Speaking of science fiction, the large New York-based SF publisher Tor has unveiled their new Internet site Tor.com. There are blogs, behind-the-scenes discussions, and some free short stories written by name authors. Also, until Sunday July 27 there are 24 free novel downloads and quite a few cool artworks. So, if you want to catch up on your SF reading or try out a new author, hustle on over to Tor.com this weekend!

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