Okay, as you’ve probably noticed, I’ve been running for the last week on questions and topics asked at the con I attended the week before.
I’m not going to make this a completely mail-bag driven blog. I’ll continue to write about things I wish to write about. However, somedays I’m just empty on things to blog about, and perhaps I can run an “Ask Auntie Sarah” column once or twice a week.
In that spirit send me any questions on topics you want to see written about by posting in comments, or, if you’re bashful, by emailing me or sending me a private message on facebook or twitter. If you’re bashful you can make up any “handle” you wish to and I won’t reveal your name.
Questions about writing, publishing, book marketing, or even my own books or their backgrounds, as well as about the future of books, are welcome and will be answered as the spirit moves me.
The weekend was singularly unproductive for writing, so hopefully today will be better, as I labor to finish Darkship Renegade.
According To Hoyt 
I’m just going to list a few so you can pick one in case there are many you feel you can’t answer due to the story. I’m sorry if these have been answered before (Interviews, Baen Bar, etc) and I just missed it. Some are as vague as I could make them and keep a point so that if you feel you can answer you might be able to avoid spoilers.
1) Will we learn why Tom currently seems he is the last of the Nordic dragons? Is the dragon type perhaps related to racial ancestry? Asian to Asian type dragon and European to European type dragon?
2) Will we learn the reason behind Kyrie’s abandonment as a child?
3) Tom’s last fight in book 2 seemed to go the way it did because of the mental block he put up. The enemy wasn’t said to have employed any of the tricks in previous fights. Was that due to the block or simply because of the room to fly? Will we learn if the ability to block is unique to Tom or could Kyrie have produced the same results with the right motivation?
4) How old does a shifter have to be to start developing unique abilities as shown with the dire and the Great Sky Dragon?
5) There seems to be a few instances of shifter effectively living forever. Are these exceptions to the rule or can shifters as a general rule not die of old age?
6) Depending on the answer to 4 this may not matter, but how long would a Mayfly shifter live? :)
7) I can’t seem to find it now, but how many additional books did Baen agree upon?
I’m sure I would have some Darkship Thieves questions, but I’m still reading that one. As a suggestion you might make people aware that Baen e-copies of your books do have a Kindle format version. I had the dead tree versions of the shifter books, but was hesitant to get e-version as it was a little vague if all books had Kindle versions.
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Will answer! :) Except some which are er… going to be answered in Noah’s boy. The series is open. Right now I’ve sold one more book, but if it sells well… there will be more.
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I have a Baen question for you.
Baem has always been before the trend with ebooks, I remember getting a CD with one of Weber’s hardcovers that had every Honor Harrington book on it. That was like way cool, and it was some time ago, too.
However, Baen doesn’t seem to be on the “blast the ebook everywhere!” bandwagon. For example, Darkship Thieves doesn’t show up for the Nook, nor is it on Smashwords. And while you can read it on your Kindle, you have to manually transfer it, and that only works for the Kindle itself or Kindle for the PC. Kindle on my phone doesn’t see it because it’s not on the Whispersync net.
Do you think Baen will ever get to a place where the book is on iBooks, Smashwords, Baen’s Subscription, Kindle and Nook all at the same time?
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You do realize I can’t speak for Baen? My short answer is — Baen has told me it is in negotiations with Amazon, etc. I’m hoping they get it done soon, too, but it’s not my part of the job. And I try to tell anyone the books exist as ebooks…
Of course,t he advantage of non drm books is that you can reformat them as you need, but I know it’s a bit of work.
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Hopefully they get it worked out. For the longest time I kept asking Amazon for a kindle version of your books because I didn’t know Baen even had their own section for ebooks. Being on Amazon could make a nice difference. I’m proof that just because you own the book doesn’t mean you wouldn’t want to get a hold of an e-copy.
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First off, a request, to add me to your list of co-conspirators with blogs, if you don’t mind. I’m at larryatchleyjr.wordpress.com
Second, What do you feel a new writer should focus most on? Writing a lot of short stories and getting your name out there as much as possible, or concentrating more on writing a novel and submitting fewer shorts? Thanks for your insight.
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will do.
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Okay. I was just reading a plea from a new writer (Baen’s Bar, Slush) who is trying to figure out how to handle the background exposition of setting without dropping infodumps everywhere — how to do “heinleining” I think? He seemed to think that the two options were writing the story and getting sidelined into expositions all the time (infodumps all around!) OR write the story, then go back and insert exposition as needed. I started to write a response, then thought, “Wait, let’s get Sarah to do it!” So… how do you manage that? Do you spend a lot of time worldbuilding? And how do you put that into your stories? I think part of the problem here is that it feels easy to drop into “lecture style” and simply write an expository info lump, BUT that’s what makes readers trip. So how do you convert those info lumps into little diamonds that suit the story?
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