Documents of Tabat: Fashions of Tabat

Continuing to pack and sort and dispose of stuff. This morning I’ll take a box over to PC Recycle, send my brother yet another box of books, and haul one more trunk’s worth of stuff to Value Village. I find myself increasing ready to pitch things, but I still cling to some: a plastic crate full of notebooks I want to sort through, a few knick knacks, a favorite mug. Taco goes to the vet this afternoon and will be suitably appalled by the process, I’m sure, but I want to make sure the cats get all their shots and a good check-up before I leave them.

All the art is off the walls, carefully bubble-wrapped and ready to be stored, and the apartment is starting to feel empty. There’s plenty of little (and some major) maintenance work to do, including putting Pergo down in the bedroom, and culminating with painting all my turquoise and pink and green walls white again. Two weekends from now, I’ll rent a truck and take a couple of pieces of furniture over to my mom’s but all in all, we’re not keeping much. My bookcases, luckily, were bought several decades ago and disassemble easily to pack small. They’re recycled rainforest wood, purchased through some green catalog, and have served me very well through all my wandering. There’s a storage unit’s worth of stuff to get through still, but the ultimate aim is to get it all in a storage pod while we’re gone.

Stress levels are high but manageable. I find myself talking to the cats during the day, and worrying about them, despite the fact that I know both will be in excellent hands while we’re traveling. I am afraid that Raven will die while I’m gone, and I won’t be with him and that will break my heart. At the same time, I can feel an exhilaration creeping up as some stuff falls away, and right now there’s plenty of possibilities as we continue planning. Worldcon has become more optional — it ties us to Europe in August and we’re wondering if maybe there’s more pleasant ways to schedule that visit. Yesterday I was reading a book and ran across mention of the gardens at Menton, which hold the oldest living olive trees in the world. Now there’s a new push pin on the map, because I want to go commune with those trees.

If you’re interested in taking a class with me this year, be aware there aren’t many chances left. There’s a Podcasting Workshop on April 27 and a Flash Fiction workshop May 14, and that is it for 2014. I’m very happy with both the Writing F&SF and Advanced workshops in this last round; they’re full of strong and interesting writers, and that’s a nice way to end this round of teaching.

So much left to do. But so many possibilities are opening up. Planning how I’ll write on the road is something I’m thinking about. I think ipad plus wireless keyboard plus Dropbox should serve me well, as long as I’ve got a notebook and pen along too.

As you may know from the five bajillion posts and tweets and updates and god know what all else, I just had a book come out. I tried to have a somewhat coherent, or at least well-documented, promotion battle plan. Some stuff worked, some things worked better than others, and some stuff I dropped the ball on.

Things I did included:

• Making jewelry: Anyone following the blog has seen the jewelry based on the interior art that Mark W. Tripp and I put together. They turned out beautifully and were a lot of fun to make. I’ve used those pieces as giveaways at the book launch post, as well as various web giveaways, and people seem to like them. I’ve been able to post some pictures of people wearing those, and that’s been fun as well. I made sure the pieces I handed out at WorldCon had chains with them, so people could put them on immediately and many did. I also made special versions for blurbers and other people involved with the book design.
• Sending out an email: I sent out an email listing what people could do to promote Near + Far. I sent it to friends, fans, fellow writers, anyone I thought might be interested, and tried not to be too spammy about it, including a way they could remove themselves from my mailing list.
• Contacting book bloggers and reviewers: I contacted a number of people, making my list simply by poking around on popular spec fic sites to look at their blogrolls. I’d intended to set up a blog tour, but didn’t get my act together on that, so there was no organized effort along those lines, but I did do a number of interviews.
• Getting stories out there in both audio and print form: Figuring that samples of my work were one of the best ways to intrigue people, I sent out a lot of stories, including a number of audio reprints. I made sure that in the bio statements for each of these I mentioned the new book.
• Goodreads giveaway: I set up a Goodreads giveaway, following the excellent suggestions Emily Chand laid out in How to Run a Goodreads Giveaway with Maximal Results. The giveaway is currently on its last day, with 752 people requesting it, which seems like a good result, particularly since a third to half of them have added it to their to-read list.
• Blog giveaway: I gave away three pieces of jewelry on the blog, and had about a hundred entries all together. In retrospect, I might follow the poilicy mentioned in the Goodreads piece and just distribute one thing at a time, but next week I’ll be doing a sticker giveaway with stickers from the interior art.

So what’s in store for this week? Well, mostly preparing for a trip to the Baltimore Book Festival. I’ll be taking some stickers and jewelry along with me, but my focus is selling books. Beyond that, I’m continuing to send fiction out (got six pieces circulating over the weekend), preparing for another Goodreads giveaway, the aforementioned sticker giveaway, and trying a giveaway on Shelfari as well.

What all have I neglected? I’m still struggling with the mobile app intended to accompany the book, for one. I’d hoped to have more audio available, but still need to work on recording that (along with some other pieces I’ve promised to narrate). Overall, I’d give myself a solid B for my efforts, but I’ve made plenty of notes of things to do better next time.