Vote now on which cover you prefer!

Cover image coming soon

Yeah look I know I should be all cool and detached and everything but the hell with that, the cover of The Gamble of the Godless is starting to come together and it's a scorcher. It's not finalized yet and probably won't be for another day or two, but trust me it rawks.

I don't mean to be a tease and I'll get an image up as soon as I possibly can. Just had to blurt something out about how fantastic this thing is looking. Cheers.

Take the Poll!

Hey kids, immediately to the right of this entry is a special Dave Maine Blog Poll which I invite you to participate in. It's a little hard to read--sorry about that--but it asks: "How much would you be willing to pay for an eBook by an author you've never read?" The answers are 99 cents, 1.99, 2.99, 5.99, 9.99 and "I wouldn't buy it."

I know it's impossible to answer this definitively because it will depend on the book itself and so forth, but I'm looking for a general consensus. I'm curious about this because eBook pricing is still wildly variable; my St Martin's eBooks (The Pres, Fallen and Monster 1959) are 9.99, which is cheaper than their bound versions, but many eBook exclusives sell for a lot less than that.

Here's an interesting article on the vagaries of this issue at the moment, focusing on B&N's pricing of a book series:

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2011/ebook-marketview-the-value-of-promoting-the-first-title-of-a-series/

How this will all play out, nobody knows. But I'm curious about people's gut reactions, so even if you don't read eBooks, pretend that you might, and take the poll! Thanks.

eBook or Not eBook?

Interesting discussion going on over at the SF & Fantasy Novelists web site (an interesting site in general BTW) about whether and how eBooks will harm the publishing industry and reading habits in general--or salvage them. Worth a look if you're interested:

http://www.sfnovelists.com/2011/06/20/the-book-is-dead-long-live-the-book/

This is something that's been on my mind, needless to say, as my own eBook creeps toward its birth. (And I got some news regarding that today... It's happening! Slowly, yes, but it's happening.)

So I finally got in touch with cover design people this evening and started that conversation, which makes it feel somewhat more likely that this project will in fact get off the ground one day. Hooray!

Act fast! Free book!

While waiting for The Gamble of the Godless to appear, why not download a free eBook fantasy novel by Evelyn Zant? It's called Shadowing: A Henchman's Tale and I just read chapter one, which has me hooked.

Evelyn is selling her novel through Smashwords (great site) but is giving it away for free this week. Unfortunately, today is (ahem) Friday, so you have only another day or two to grab it. Go for it--you get a great book for free that you can read on your computer or Kindle, plus you support independent publishing and a fun author. What's not to like? If you don't care for the book, just hit delete. If you do like it, please consider writing a positive review on Amazon, Goodreads or your blog.

The promotional code to enter to get it for free is: AU93B .

If you've never used Smashwords, you'll have to sign up (takes about 30 seconds). Then you "buy" the book, enter the promo code and choose your format (PDF, Kindle, Word, etc). It downloads in about 15 seconds and BAM! You've got your weekend's entertainment. And in case you're wondering: no, I don't know Evelyn, never met her, just stumbled across this on Goodreads and thought it was worthwhile. So, no hidden agendas. Just hop on over to Smashwords and have fun.

More great stuff from The Mast

Here's a trailer for their debut album, Wild Poppies, out on Tuesday (June 21). The Mast are a Brooklyn-based duo featuring Haale on vocals/guitar and Matt Kilmer on percussion. They manage to be ethereal and rocking at the same time.

Here's their web site where you can download a free song:

http://themastmusic.com/

Gearing up

So, obviously The Gamble of the Godless is not going to be seeing the electronic light of day in mid-June because, ahem, that's what today is. But fear not, I do have a tentative release schedule, which looks something like: end June/beginning July. This should give us time to get a cover done, along with an ISBN number and all that. So hoorah. It will become available at Amazon first, probably, as they're the quickest at this sort of thing, with B&N and the Apple following relatively soon.

IF YOU ARE A BOOK BLOGGER and are interested in writing a review, let me know, because it seems likely that there will be a number of hard-copy Advance Reading Copies of this eBook (?) printed up. Just drop me a line at dmloveletters@yahoo.com and I'll write you back for your mailing address. When I get the copies I'll send one to you. I only ask that you make a good-faith effort to review the thing, as the supply will be quite limited. I understand that I can't require you to write a positive review. Too bad!

I wish I had a cover image to show you but alas I don't. I have been noodling around on my computer, putting various ideas together based on public domain images and some photos of my own, but I don't think these are quite ready for prime time.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying the suddenly-hot summer, and I hope you're doing the same.

The Republik Music Festival, Honolulu, HI

There's not much better than seeing Steel Pulse playing outdoors in Hawaii. Big crowd, good-natured, not much pushing and shoving, and great tunes. The video below was not taken by me, or anyone else at the show--it's a couple years old--but it gets the idea across. The band played this song, and the singer is wired and the band is tight. Time to dance.

Spotted at Honolulu Zoo, June 9, 2011

Fennec fox by the name of "Puka," or possibly "Pooka." Pronounced POOH-kuh. About the size of a rabbit.

Sweetest. Pooch. Ever.

I never wrote these!

But I wish I had!

The first appears to be a French sci-fi novel from the 1970s entitled "Galactic Guerillas," which is totally a book I could get behind. I want a copy, pretty much NOW. let me know if you've got one kicking around in the basement... n'est-ce pas?

http://www.noosfere.com/icarus/livres/niourf.asp?numlivre=661

Thanks to my Goodreads page for tipping me off about it (and for giving me credit for writing it, which I didn't, as I was about 13 years old at the time... but hey, I'll take the credit for it.)

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/57843.David_Maine

POSTSCRIPT: While looking for cover images of Guerillero Galactique, what should I come across but a 1982 book by the same author called Invasion Cosmique. Gosh, I wish I spoke French better so I could understand what this title meant...

No Sleep Till (or even in) Brooklyn!

Ladies and gentlemen, for your consideration I present to The Mast, a guitars 'n' drums duo featuring lovely vocals and slamming percussion. The record is out on June 21, and this is representative of the duo's sound. Enjoy.

Maine = Vacationland

As promised, here are a few shots from our recent meandering in the Pacific northwest, starting with a view of the Cascade Mountains (I think) from the 500-foot-tall observation deck of the Space Needle. Yes, we went there, although it took a couple of tries, and yes, I even bought a T-shirt. But it's a really cool T-shirt.

We then headed south to portland, stopping along the way in Tacoma, WA to see the totally cool Museum of Glass and the Dale Chihuly-decorated Bridge of Glass:

And finally, in Portland we enjoyed the roses where we could find them, and also the wonky local design sense, like the storefront of our favorite restaurant. (Southpark Seafood--well worth a visit if you ever get the chance...)

Yes, I have sold my soul to the Devil of short attention spans.

That's right: I am now on Twitter.

in a blatant attempt to market myself, I have joined this thing that I don't really understand. But that's okay, as long as you understand it. So, go ahead and join me, or friend me, or follow me, or whatever it is you do to me on Twitter, and I promise to try and come up with clever things to say about myself several times per day. Oy.

And don't forget about Goodreads.com, where you can become my pal and receive timely updates about upcoming books and so forth. I actually prefer Goodreads to these other things like Facebook and Twitter. It's possible that I have said this before, however.

Back from vacation

So, Seattle was fun, but Portland OR is pretty much the city I would create if I had my way. Coffee shops, breweries, CD shops, a beautiful river, lots of greenery and (ahem) rain--okay, maybe a little more rain than my design might call for--and of course Powell's City of Books, where I got lost for about an hour, collected a stack of stuff I wanted to get, then got overwhelmed before returning the books one by one to the shelves and leaving with nothing. It was great! No, really, it was.

Also great was seeing Uzee's cousins and aunt for several days. They drove down from Vancouver (the one in Canada) and we all hung out and acted really serious most of the time. No, we didn't do that last bit. But we did hang out.

Uzee and I caught a couple of concerts: Iron and Wine and The Decemberists, who were playing an outdoor concert in scenic but frigid Bend, OR. They were good--too much new stuff, what can you do--but the revelation of the evening were opening act Rodrigo y Gabriela. Here's a video, but they're even more electrfying live. And I'll find some pictures from the trip. Stay tuned.