As days go by

[kinzel]

In the last three years or so I've accumulated all kinds of software and hardware and connections, with the intent to *do* things and I've been hit by a series of "do this now" that would make an editor tell me that I was overdoing it if I stuffed it all into a book. In fact, I have so many of these things sitting around that I just found something I started playing with in late 2007 -- and geewhiz, it got back burnered so far that it went from being cutting edge to kinda old fashioned.

But, here it is anyway, a book trailer for our dark fantasies Duainfey and Longeye. Right, DARK FANTASY.  These are books we've taken many licks for, mostly because they did not, as we supposed they would, come out under a pen name.  Although intended for such, when it came time to market these books it was felt it would be more efficient not to have to build a persona, and so they came out under our names, to much confusion among readers looking for a  -- less challenging, less edgy experiment on the dark side of dark fantasy.

These books were a challenge for us, but that was because we wanted to explore that "fairy tale" boundary where modern regency (as based on Georgette Heyer approach) and  fairy fantasy overlap, an over-troped genre where fantasy tends to minimize the fairy tropes into Disneyesque blandness... and we wanted to start right there at that boundary and go charging over, dragging readers with us.

We did that , that charging over the edge, and discovered that sometimes reader expectation is a more powerful force than actual words on a page and that some readers buy books by authors they know without reading the back cover, nor considering "what's different about this one?"

So no, this trailer is not for a Liaden tale. Do not mistake it. This trailer is for two books finishing one story far from Liad, and far from the Madding crowd, as well.

And so, somewhat late to the fray, my slightly remodeled experimental book trailer can be found here:

And yes, Duainfey and Longeye are available today via webscriptions, and from many bookstores, if you're up to a challenge.

And yes, Duainfey and Longeye are available today via webscriptions, and from many bookstores, if you're up to a challenge

Comments

[mardott.livejournal.com]

Longeye is on my wish list. I very much enjoyed Duainfey, notwithstanding my surprise at the content. Because yes, I bought it since it was written by Lee/Miller and I was pretty darn sure I'd like it.

I did like it, although it disturbed the hell out of me. Which I sort of think it was supposed to do.

I understand about wanting to write "other" things. People are not all one thing, after all. And writers are people.

[redpimpernel.livejournal.com]

I'm not a fantasy reader, so until now I haven't even looked at the Fey books. Now I'm intrigued enough to at least go and read the dust jackets (or e-equivalent).

[keristor.livejournal.com]

It's the Vegemite Effect (http://deird1.livejournal.com/67823.html). Briefly, it's the problem when you are expecting something sweet and you get savoury instead (or vice versa), the reaction is that it's 'bad' because it is unexpected, even though you may have liked it if you were expecting it (putting salt in tea, however, is not very good even if you are expecting it; I do these things so that others don't have to try it). Keeping the same author name can be a problem, especially when the author is known for writing one particular style (if you're like Roger Zelazny and write all over the genre readers know tp expect the unexpected). It's why Iain M. Banks writes as Iain Banks when he's writing non-SF fiction, everyone knows that it's the same author (so no need to invent a pseuodonym) but they get warning which to expect.

(Incidentally, I heard a reverse problem recently, someone saying that they wouldn't be buying Saltation because (they thought) it "wasn't Liaden"! They didn't realise that it's the other half of Fledgling, when I pointed that out they then put it on their list.)

Out of interest, how have Duainfey and Longeye sold in practice? Did they work well enough that you can write more in that genre if you want to, now that readers know about it?

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

If we'd have used a pseudonym, and kept it relatively secret, and got the numbers we got as a "new author," I suspect the new author would been able to continue on to a reasonable "starter' career. As it is, the "this is not the book we wanted" noise has muffled the impact of the fantasies ... the real irony is that when we sold the fantasies the legal fate of the "Liaden franchise" was still in doubt because of the catastrophic failure of the old publisher ... and we needed to keep working. We haven't see any figures on Longeye yet, since it only came out last April.

[kay-gmd.livejournal.com]

I'm reading Longeye now, just finished Duanfey. It is very different and haunting. I might not have continued on to the second book if I didn't know that I liked the authors. I'm really glad I did.

I think it's good to try different things. I'm always happy to see old friends as characters, but it's exciting to make new ones as well.

[pezazul.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to say I VERY much enjoyed these two books and I'm glad you took the risk to experiment with something different. Hope you write something else in this style at some point.

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

some readers buy books by authors they know without reading the back cover, nor considering "what's different about this one?"

Some authors write books that I know I'm going to want to read without caring about "what's different about this one?" I haven't regretted that with any of your books. I have confidence that "different" isn't going to translate to "bad" in your case.