My Book Country story actually goes back to when I was a teenager.  My father works at Random House, currently as a divisional sales manager, formerly as a sales representative in the Midwest.  I first met Colleen Lindsay, the Community Manager for Book Country, through my father and his work at Random House.

Since I started getting really serious about writing, I looked her up again and started following her social media efforts.  We ran into one another at my first BEA in 2009, and stayed in touch here and there since.

Going into Book Country, I was already a little of an insider, with a personal connection to one of the staff. I also made an effort to stop by the Book Country booth each day during Book Expo last year, to chat and have a break from work but also to meet everyone and make connections.

In my first few months on Book Country, I tried to be very active, starting a lot of discussions and trying to post widely. I found myself gravitating to the ‘getting an agent’ portion of the discussions, since I was neck-deep in querying for Shield & Crocus.

I think that being a beta user, being active at the beginning, and focusing my efforts in one area all helped my exposure to other users. I also agreed to do an interview with Dana Kaye, Book Country’s publicist, as a part of their efforts to get regional media attention for Book Country and their authors. That interview hasn’t lead to any other media hits, but it was good practice for me and showed my investment in Book Country – I really believe in what they’re trying to do, and I think we’re already seeing the results it can bring, with fellow betafish (beta user) Kerry Schaefer getting a two-book deal with Berkeley: http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/kerry-schafer-lands-book-countrys-first-deal_b45120

The first project I posted was my New Weird Superhero novel Shield & Crocus, which I’ve had on the market for a year and a half or so, querying agents.

Last December, after finishing the first draft of Geekomancy, I decided to put the whole revision process on Book Country, uploading the first five chapters of my initial draft and intending to update it as I went.  It’d give me a larger feedback community during the revisions, and it seemed like a cool thing to try.

There are two big things that I think helped draw attention to Geekomancy in specific. The first was when the Book Country Editorial Coordinator, Danielle Poiesz, followed my book — I know at least I will scour her ‘following’ list to get a sense of what projects might be worth reading, so I bet others do as well.

The other one was that one user, after reading and reviewing Geekomancy, went onto a thread of ‘recommend other people’s projects on Book Country’ thread and gave a strong recommendation.

I can’t be sure what factors exactly lead the editors to look at my project in specific, but those are what I can point to as possibilities, for anyone playing at home and considering participating in Book Country themselves. I had fairly positive thoughts about it before this last run of excitement, since it can be helpful to get reviews from people you don’t know, some of the discussions are enlightening, and the staff brings in professionals to do articles and twitter chats on a regular basis.

This week, I got not one but two manuscript requests for Geekomancy, both from editors at major houses.  They’d found the first five chapters of the rough draft that I’d posted on Book Country (totaling about 17K words) and asked to see the rest.  I was floored, and sent each notes that I was happy to submit the full manuscript but that it was quite rough and I was in the middle of revisions.  Each of them opted to read the as-is version rather than waiting for revisions (as I offered to submit more polished versions later).

That has gotten a lot of attention from my writer friends, and several have asked to hear more about Book Country, hence this post.  If you have any other questions about Book Country I’d be happy to answer them to the best of my ability.

RJ Blain, another Book Country betafish, posted a really good beginner’s guide to Book Country, which I will shamelessly link to now: http://rebeccablain.com/2011/12/14/on-book-country-user-guide-information/

Last week, while I was in NYC for sales conferences, I stole away time and finished the first draft of my novel, Geekomancy.  I’ve been working on it off and on since Thanksgiving 2010, though it originally started as a weekend’s diversion during the break, a ‘this is a fun little idea so I’ll play with it a bit and then put it away’ to while away the weekend and get some perspective on my ‘real’ project, Children of Bladecraft, a YA fantasy novel which I will return to after Geekomancy is on the market.

The problem was, it was far too fun to write.  For Geekomancy, I got to take my years of working at a game store, my time as a barista, and a young lifetime of geeky references and genre-mashing ideas and put them into one place to go crazy.  It was at times the easiest and most difficult novel yet for me (fifth started, fourth completed), as I pushed myself to make it fun but also hit the emotional notes as hard as I could for the characters.

I’m very excited to get it in front of some discerning readers and get feedback on how to make my revisions as efficient as possible.  I’d love to get the book on the market by the end of 2012, which is a much faster development cycle than I had for Shield & Crocus.  I wrote S&C over one year, from 2007-2008, but have done at least one major revision a year since then, including this year, and it’s been on the market for about 18 months.  I’ve put the project up on the writing community Book Country (www.bookcountry.com), as well as submitting it to the novel contest in my online writing group (www.codexwriters.com).  I’ve had a very productive year in 2011, despite big seasonal chunks of no-writing thanks to work.

Between now and the end of the year, I’ll be focusing on my short fiction, returning to the pieces I wrote this summer for the Clarion West Write-a-Thon.  I need to revise one piece, finish another, and finish expanding the third, which tried its best to be flash fiction but will end up being a 3-4K short story.  One day I will write a functional flash piece, I swear.

I’m also hoping to hear back from one or both of the agents who currently have the fulls of Shield & Crocus, and maybe even the editor who has it as well (though that was sent off about three weeks later than to the agents).

Part of my ‘finished the novel’ celebration is that I’m reading Urban Fantasy again.  I try not to read the subgenre that I’m writing while I’m in a first draft, so as to avoid too direct of an influence from work.  But in the time I’ve been writing Geekomancy, there’s been a pile of UF novels that I’ve stacked up to read once my brain wasn’t in First Draft Mode.  Right now I’m enjoying Seanan McGuire’s A Local Habitation, and I am going to do my best to plow through the Dresden Files before I dive fully into revisions on Geekomancy.

My writerly theme for this year seems to have been Building Momentum, and I hope that it leads to a 2012 of Things Happening (Big and/or Small).

Reminder:  these thoughts are only my own, and don’t intend to represent anyone else.

Guess who is #1 in this list?  My hometown, Bloomington, IN:

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-unequal-cities-in-america-2011-10.

This is not just a New York issue, an Oakland issue, or a Big City Issue.  It’s everywhere, as evidenced by the reportedly 1000+ Occupy sites around the country and beyond.

For Bloomington, my best guess is that the town’s small population overall (in comparison to the other cities on the list) makes it easier for a small number of rich oligarchs to swing the numbers.  Between the coaching staff of the sports teams, the other IU bigwigs and the Real Estate moguls, they easily overpower the undergrads, grad students, underpaid staffers, service industry workers and those left behind by shrinking/fading industry in Bloomington.

More broadly: I’ve been following the Occupy Wall Street for a while now, almost since the beginning thanks the joys of getting your news from social media in addition to broadcast/cable news.  I totally support the Occupy movement in their efforts to draw attention to the economic, political, and legal inequity in the USA.

As a movement run mostly on consensus and non-heirarchical decision-making, it’s hard for OWS to show a unified face and singular list of demands.  There are as many frustrations and ideas as people involved, more even.  There are many things in this country I’d like to see changed, from campaign finance reform to lobby reform, sentencing equality, repealing the Bush tax cuts, and more.  But my list of things to fix is likely to be just slightly different from someone else’s, and because there is no One Leader of OWS, the heterogeneous opinions remain, making it harder to get across a clear message in the manner of a campaign platform.

It’s been interesting to watch OWS for many reasons, but one of the big ones is seeing consensus decision-making getting attention — I lived in a grad student Co-operative for two years, and we used a consensus system for all major house decisions, from our ‘shoes off’ policy to how to spend our food budget to how to assign tasks to housemates.  Consensus is a fantastic system if well-implemented, and if the people making the decisions are all committed to working together as a community.  At the end of the day, we all still lived together, saw one another every day, were friends and colleagues.  Trying to make consensus work with larger groups or with people who don’t know each other as well, who have the chance to easily opt-out without major consequence is likely to be more difficult.  I wish them the best of luck, and the whole process makes me remember my co-op time fondly.

Occupy has gotten a lot of attention over the last few weeks from major media outlets, even after a delay in picking up the stories.  The violent evictions of Occupy Oakland, Occupy Boston and now Zuccotti Park have only increased the profile of the Occupy activities, and exposed a number of what I perceive as abuses of power by police, conspiracy to suppress free speech and legal but objectionable use of the letter of the law to control the activists.  Legally, the private owners of Zuccotti Park have the right to change the rules of use of their property, and it isn’t a violation of the 1st Ammendment — the problem is that the seemingly public spaces are not actually public when the Powers-that-Be don’t want them to be — allowing Bloomberg to restrict how and where the Occupy Wall Street activists can practice their rights.

All protests, when they reach a certain level, are illegal.  They may be re-cast as necessary and just by the pen of history, but from the perspective of the law, many were illegal.  And when the law prevents you from making the point that you feel powerfully you need to make, you either accept that you will be arrested or you do everything you possibly can to stay within the bounds of the law.

Here are things that Occupy groups can do, and I hope they are already doing (among other things):

If they receive notice that they are not allowed to use certain seemingly public spaces, make specific petitions asking for permits for protests, asking for safe times and routes, keeping immaculate documentation so that they have evidence to show if denied permits and legal protections.  Turn the legal process into a protection — act within the law so unquestionably that no one can attempt to call you a criminal, and if you are evicted or harassed by police, you can press charges for wrongful arrest, assault, whatever is appropriate.  Now, of course, it’s damn hard to make any of that go if you’re being tear gasses, beaten with a club, or if the officer is evicting you at 1AM and covering up their face and badge.  Find out what the policies are in your locality for police accountability — are they required to give you their name and/or badge number?  What is the official channel for making a complaint about the conduct of an officer, either with the department or their municipal/county superiors?

OWS represents a whole cluster of frustrations, and the longer it goes on, the more I hope that it actually coalesces into a unified or vaguely-consistent set of calls for reform/action, so that the enthusiasm and energy of that frustration can be put into action.  I’m surprised that Democratic candidates haven’t thrown in more aggressively on the OWS side, though of course any of them who are already established are likely to have their own corporate sponsors and are already economically/ethically compromised.

One of the big things I want is for Democrats to grow a backbone.  I’m fine with compromise, in fact, our system is built on it — compromise and checks/balances.  But when compromise seems to mean giving up 95% of what you want on Every Single Thing, you’re doing it wrong.  When the people on the other side of the table consistently hold the process hostage through unprecedented uses of obstructionist tactics and economic extortion, you need to do something about it, even if that something is Ruthlessly hammering home that obstructionism every campaign season.  Things like “Candidate X’ held the U.S. economy hostage to secure tax cuts for the corporations who bankrolled their campaign.”  Things like that.  You don’t have to fight dirty to fight hard.  And there are clearly Dems who are doing it.  Folks like Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz of Florida or Candidate Elizabeth Warren, running for Senate in Massachusetts.  But when I saw Rep. Nancy Pelosi (CA) on The Daily Show, she completely failed (IMHO) to explain why the congressional Democrats have let the Republicans walk all over them in general.  And while I’m too far left for most all of them, the Democratic party is where my voice can best be presented in a way that has any chance of being heard — the current system is rigged against third party candidates, turning them into spoilers that, in practice, only tend to hurt the party closest to them by splitting votes.

The 2012 elections are only going to get more omnipresent in our national attention, I just hope that politicians listen to what the OWS groups have to say as well as the Tea Party and everyone else.  And that the Dems grow themselves some gonads and take to the mat instead of making unhappy sounds and rolling over.

I have the privilege of working with several dozen of the Midwest’s finest independent bookstores, and in the two+ years I’ve been repping, I’ve seen a number of habits that these indies are using to hold on and serve their communities while Amazon.com gobbles up more of the market, while eReaders go mainstream, and while the big chains go through their own drama.

Here are some of the most important things that good indies do right (IMHO):

The Personal Touch — I have booksellers who know all of their regular customers by name, with personal relationships and investment in the customers’ lives.  When I go in to sell my new lines, these booksellers already have buyers in mind for books as they order them from me, maintaining a strong revenue stream by offering A+ customer service, acting as personal reading consultants to these avid readers.  That high level of handselling mastery and individualized service is something that, I think, simply cannot and probably will not ever be really matchable by digital bookselling.  Even if you have a relationship with a bookseller or blogger online, the in-person ongoing connection, with the bookseller-customer relationship growing into a friendship performed through direct interaction is a singular and marvelous thing.

The Thirdplace Effect — Digital bookstores are space-agnostic — they exist everywhere with an active internet connection, but they don’t have their own cafes, they don’t have cozy chairs or connections to a  local theatre to host a large author event.  Some of my best bookstores are also some of the best community centers, drawing people for the environment they create and maintain — often with a cafe, and always including great partnerships with local organizations, local authors, book clubs and book groups.  As a teen, my after-school hangout was a game store (The Game Preserve in Bloomington, IN), and much of why I loved that store was the way that it served as a community center for geeks of Bloomington.  Bookstores do that for readers, writers, and other groups.  Online relationships can be strong, but for me, online interaction with friends is just a hold-me-over until I get to see them next in person.

Giving Back — Indies make jobs locally, spend their money locally, and are invested in helping other local businesses.  Not that chain stores aren’t invested in local business, but in my experience, my indie booksellers are deeply invested in their local business bureaus, independent retailer organizations, philanthropic groups, and more.  When nearly all places online are one place, the preservation of the local is something that many people are re-discovering — trying to preserve and support local identity and local culture.

So when I see people complaining about independent bookstores charging for author events (http://www.edrants.com/paid-author-events-the-future-of-independent-bookstores/), I ask readers to remember everything indies do for the community, and that the real price for a bookstore to run an event is very high.  In times where many booksellers are overworked and fighting to keep the lights on, I’m happy to buy an author’s book to get into a signing/reading, or to pay a cover to give back a little to the store so they can keep hosting awesome authors and being community centers.

What if you already have the book they want you to buy?  Give it to a friend and share the awesome.  Especially since you can probably get that book signed and personalized to the friend, making it a fantastic gift.

Ok, that’ll do for now.

*Steps off of Indie Bookstore Cheerleader Soapbox*

I attended Clarion West in 2007 and it was a fantastic, transformative experience.  Those six weeks constituted a quantum leap forward in my writing skills and the work started there continues to bear fruit years later.

And so, when the Write-a-Thon comes along, I feel very strongly about participating.

But what’s a Write-a-Thon?  Simply, it’s similar to any other Thing-a-Thon (Walk-a-Thon, Dance-a-Thon, Pankration-a-Thon), where participants will ask for sponsors, and pledge do so some thing.  In this case, I’m pledging to write three new short stories during the six-week Write-a-Thon, and I’m looking to collect pledges which will go directly to support the Clarion West Foundation to provide scholarships to writers and to fund the workshop.

My participant page is up at the Clarion West Site: http://clarionwest.net/events/writeathon/MikeUnderwood

So if you are willing and able, I’d love if you could sponsor me for the Write-a-Thon, or sponsor any of the other awesome writers who are participating: http://clarionwest.net/events_page/write_a_thon#wat-list

I’ll be posting updates about my writing progress here, so you’ll be able to follow my trials and tribulations, trying to produce awesome fiction while traveling around the Midwest selling books.

I’ve been trying to read more this year, and my luck has been excellent (mostly due to the fact that I read things that come highly recommended or are written by friends).

So here are two short reviews of books I’ve read in the last couple of weeks:

Napier’s Bones by Derryl Murphy (ChiZine Press) — ISBN 9781926851099

This is a recent contemporary spec fic novel from Chizine, one of the publishers I represent (through Diamond).  It’s a weird, awesome urban fantasy kind of book where Math is magic.  A select number of people called Numerates can see and manipulate the numbers inherent in all things, traveling around the world to collect number-powered artifacts called Mojo.  Dom and Jenna, along with a Numerate ghost named Billy get swept up in a plot by a long-dead Numerate, and fight their way across three countries and two continents to prevent the ghosts of long-dead Numerates from seizing an artifact that would let them re-define reality itself.

I wasn’t expecting this book to fly like it does.  The pacing is fantastic, and made it a great book to read during plane travel.  The characters are decently defined, if not remarkable.  Strong plotting covers up many things, and I found myself happy to follow the leads through their weird Donald in Mathmagicland-esque adventures and throwing number blasts.  I was reminded of the tabletop RPG Unknown Armies, except the setting wasn’t as bleak.

Among Thieves: A Tale of the Kin by Douglas Hulick (Roc) — 9780451463906

Doug Hulick is a friend I met through the SCA, and his historical knowledge is put to amazing use in this premiere.  If you are a fan of Joe Abercrombie’s gritty fantasies or Scott Lynch’s Gentlemen Bastards books, you should definitely check out Doug’s premiere.  Among Thieves is the story of Drothe, a thief who works as a Nose, keeping tabs on other thieves (aka ‘The Kin’) and reporting to his boss.  Drothe is a sharp, morally grey character (grey at best.  He is not a good person, though he does have his own sense of honor, to his fellow Kin), but is very compelling and sufficiently sympathetic to make me happy to spend a book with him.

Drothe finds himself in possession of an artifact that if used by the wrong people, could swing the balance of power or even destroy the empire which his home city of Ildrecca is a member.  All Drothe wants to do is keep from getting shanked by the various factions maneuvering to obtain the book — either to destroy the book or use it to take power for themselves.

The two most notable strengths of this book for me are the thieves’ cant and the fight scenes.  Doug started Among Thieves after picking up an encyclopedia of thieves’ cant, and the love of language is evident throughout the book.  As the story moves along, Among Thieves masterfully enculturates the reader into Drothe’s version of the thieves’ cant, with shorthand, slang, and stock phrases.  By the end of the book, a reader can happily parse a whole paragraph where most all of the verbs and nouns are in the cant rather than the common tongue used by non-Kin.

And the fight scenes, oh the fight scenes.  Doug has studied renaissance martial arts extensively, and that knowledge grants his fight scenes a great sense of self-confidence and clarity.  The blocking and choreography of the fights in Among Thieves is some of the best I’ve read in years.

If you are looking for a fantasy romp with backstabbing, sneaking, rumor-mongering and a deadly game of ‘Where’s the McGuffin,’ give this book a try.

More reviews later if I have the time.  Right now I’m super-excited to start reading China Mieville’s Embassytown.

Here’s a link to an awesome two-part essay by my friend Kevin:

Part 1: http://grinding.be/2010/11/24/brands-prosthetic-identities-and-the-batman/

Part 2: http://grinding.be/2010/11/26/open-source-superheroes-idoru-and-the-batman/

The Man’s Guide To Love #120 from themansguidetolove on Vimeo.