Blog Archives
Book Signing Promotional Ideas (Rejected)
Hi! Did you know I have a book signing this coming Thursday, September 8th? No?
Well, I do! Come to Pandemonium Books and Games in Cambridge, MA for me to sign copies of No Good Deed and even, perhaps, do a little reading! I’ll be there from 7pm to 9pm. It’s free!
And…and I also desperately want this thing to be at least a modest success so the guys and gals over at Pandemonium continue to like me and the book sells and I’m not sitting there at a table, all alone, while people shuffle past me to buy Magic: The Gathering cards and try not to make eye contact with me because oh GOD would that be awkward.
I’ve done 3 book signings in my career thus far. Two have been successful (yay!), and one has involved me sitting alone behind the Nook displays at a Barnes and Noble mostly by myself, save for a handful of friends and that one guy who talked to me for a good hour and then didn’t buy the book.
So, in brainstorming over how I can improve my chances, I’ve come up with a variety of things that I probably shouldn’t try. Here they are:
- Anyone who enters the store between the designated hours is trapped inside of a labyrinth (complete with minotaur) that they have exactly two hours to escape and win fabulous prizes. The only way to avoid being devoured by the minotaur is to BUY MY BOOK.
- I shall impose a geas on all in attendance. They must either buy my book and recommend it to friends or turn into an attractive topiary garden-version of themselves until I get 50 reviews on Amazon.
- I will bring cookies. The cookies will contain a slow-acting poison. On one of the pages of my book will be the antidote. Or maybe there isn’t any poison. Maybe I’m making that up. Maybe.
-
Your move.
Anyone who refuses to buy the book will have to face Trial By Combat. My champion is Ibtihaj Muhammad.
- Two words: Mind Control.
- I grow much more hair, make it more curly, and then wrap my book up in the dust jackets of Patrick Rothfuss’s Name of the Wind. Then we see how long it takes people to catch on.
- I summon up Lucifer and we negotiate (through my agent) for a distribution deal in which every bookstore I sign in has a line of the damned stretching out the door. You know, to drum up a whisper campaign.
-
Saaay…is that big-time fantasy author Auston A Habershaw?
I do the whisper campaign Kermit the Frog tries in Muppets Take Manhattan, but instead of in Sardi’s, I do it at every PokeStop in the northeast, and instead of Rizzo and his friends, I use white guys in clever T-shirts and cargo shorts.
- I coax the Kaiju to attack Boston. There is only one Jaeger pilot left, and he is holding stick-fighting auditions in the basement of Pandemonium. It’s the perfect plan.
- Rather than sit there at the table like a chump, I stalk through the book stacks, stealthily slipping signed copies of my book into everybody’s purse, bag, back pocket, or waistband. I whistle the Pink Panther Theme the entire time.
- I slip flyers under the windshield wipers of every car in a mile radius. Written in a hasty scrawl are the words “No Killer Clowns in Pandemonium.” The genius of this, of course, is that it is literally true.
- My cthonic spawn lay their insidious eggs in the water supply of the Boston area. Soon they will hatch, and all will be my slaves. I will use my newfound power to have them buy my book and then force them to use public toilets and outhouses responsibly and cleanly for the rest of their natural lives.
Alas, due to budgetary concerns, I have foregone all of these brilliant strategies. Instead, I merely ask you to show up, bring friends, and give a new(-ish) author a chance.
See you next Thursday!
I’m Going to Kansas City, Kansas City Here I Come…
…which is the song I’m going to be humming in my head the whole time I’m at WorldCon later on this week (I’ll be getting in about midday on Thursday). As I have never been there, I cannot vouch for the sanity of their women nor am I going for the express purpose of acquiring one. I am going because I plan to meet with a bunch of friends, possibly run into my editor (or agent), and basically take it all in. As I didn’t get my act together this year to put in for a panel (mostly because I didn’t think I’d rate one), I am not there in any official capacity. You’ll be able to find me sitting by myself in the back of various rooms, standing alone in corners, and maybe even awkwardly trying to insert myself into conversations with writers I admire and then completely and utterly embarrassing myself so that I will never look at nor speak to that person again.
So, you know, my typical convention experience.
I have high hopes this time around, anyway, that this will be more fun than I typically have at these things. You see, now I know people (well, virtually) who I will be able to link up with and whom, possibly, might not object to my presence or company. That’s the goal, anyway.
In the meantime, I am editing a novel (which is currently a torturous, miserable train wreck of a book), getting ready for the arrival of the fall semester (sigh – why does summer have to end?), and planning for my Book Signing and Reading at Pandemonium Books and Games in Cambridge, MA.
I’ll be there between 7pm and 9pm on Thursday, September 8th. If you’re in the area, come on down, hang out, get a book signed, and check out the Boston area’s best scifi/fantasy book and game store.
Anyway, gotta run–I’ve got to bash my head against this intractable manuscript a bit more. I’ll be back next week with a full recap of the magic of WorldCon!
NO GOOD DEED: Now in Paperback!
Click the cup to find the book!
Hello, friends!
This is just my friendly reminder telling you to get out there and buy my book in paperback! Yessiree, NO GOOD DEED is now available as a real, actual book so you luddites out there can get your fill of Tyvian and his mischief while smelling the sweet aroma of bleached, tattooed tree carcass. You might even get a paper cut or something.
Not convinced? Well, how about this BLURB:
Cursed with a magic ring that forbids skullduggery, Tyvian Reldamar’s life of crime is sadly behind him. Now reduced to fencing moldy relics and wheedling favors from petty nobility, he’s pretty sure his life can’t get any worse.
That is until he hears that his old nemesis, Myreon Alafarr, has been framed for a crime she didn’t commit and turned to stone in a penitentiary garden. Somebody is trying to get his attention, and that somebody is playing a very high-stakes game that will draw Tyvian and his friends back to the city of his birth and right under the noses of the Defenders he’s been dodging for so long. And that isn’t even the worst part. The worst part is that the person pulling all the strings is none other than the most powerful sorceress in the West: Lyrelle Reldamar.
Tyvian’s own mother.
Eh? Ehhh?
Okay, okay – maybe you need a little more. For instance, perhaps you want me to scribble my name in your book and say something pithy. Fine. FINE – I will do that for you. On September 8th at Pandemonium Books and Games in Cambridge, MA I will be signing books and even doing a reading. Come on down to meet me in person and allow me to guilt you into purchasing a paperback. Last time was lots of fun so, with any luck, the streak will stay alive!
As for whether there is going to be a third book, well, time will tell. Stay tuned to this space (or follow me on Twitter or Facebook or Goodreads) and you’ll find out!
Interview on Grim Tidings Podcast!
Hi, folks! More fun stuff about me has hit the inter-tubes. I have an interview up on Grim Tidings Podcast, where the guys ask me about all kinds of things, from my Writers of the Future win to how I got an agent/book deal to my favorite edition of Dungeons and Dragons and so on. Go check it out here!
Man, do I ever talk a lot, huh? Sheesh.
Casting the Saga of the Redeemed
Every author, from time to time, imagines what their books would look like as a movie of television show. Now, the vast majority of us never have that experience, granted, and an even smaller sliver of those that do actually see the book come to life in a way they imagined it, but that doesn’t stop us from trying anyway. So, I’ve been thinking about how to cast my books, and this is what I’ve come up with.
Ron Perlman (Banric Sahand)
Yep…that sums Sahand up pretty well.
So, first on the list is the big bad from Book I, the Mad Prince of Dellor, Banric Sahand. I needed an actor who was big and an imposing presence, somebody with a big voice and who can be really menacing. I got Ron Perlman, which I think is pretty damned spot-on. He’s been playing a lot of heroes in the movies of late, but this guy can play a hell of a villain.
And that’s just what Sahand is.
Michelle Pfeiffer (Lyrelle Reldamar)
Tyvian’s mother needs to look regal and sharp. She needs to bear her age well and have the Reldamar eyes. This is a tough one – I had a lot of ideas here – but I settled on Michelle Pfeiffer for her ability to command a scene above most other things.
Levi Miller (Artus)
It’s something of a fool’s game to bother casting somebody in their early adolescence, since in two or three years this kid will look nothing like Artus anymore, but this guy (from the movie Pan) is the right age with the right look and so on. Granted, if the movie ever were really made (and I’m not holding my breath, superfans), I’d honestly expect the Artus role to go to an unknown. You’d need somebody to grow with the role, in any event, as those who are reading No Good Deed right now can probably attest.
Charlize Theron (Myreon Alafarr)
Myreon is supposed to be tall, graceful, and no-nonsense, all of which Theron can definitely pull off with panache. She’s also able to effortlessly take Tyvian’s breath away, and Theron does that to me, why would Tyvian be any different?
Part of me, though, would like to see Theron play Lyrelle, though, if for no other reason than her portrayal of the evil queen in Snow White and the Huntsman.
You see it, too, right?
Gwendoline Christie (Hool)
Since Hool is mostly going to be CGI, what I was mostly looking for here would be the voice. Christie’s voice fits really well, but I also gave some serious thought to Viola Davis. In any event, it should be a woman with a relatively deep voice or someone with a lot of vocal force. Plenty of options there, I suppose, but Christie was who jumped to mind first.
Challenge. Accepted.
Neil Patrick Harris (Tyvian Reldamar)
Took me a long, long time to nail this one down. I went from Damian Lewis to Chris Pine to any number of other leading men, but I’ve settled here, on Harris, because he’s got the best damned smirk in the business, and that is Tyvian’s go-to expression. He’s also got the right build (though Harris is a bit too tall), and we’ve all seen that he knows how to dress, so yeah, he’s got the whole thing sewn up. Honestly, to some extent Tyvian is a weaponized Barney Stinson, so it all makes a perverse kind of sense.
Well, that’s all I’ve got for now. I have ideas for some of the more minor characters in the two books, too, but let’s not get bogged down in minutiae. I’ll let the casting directors have fun with Carlo diCarlo or Gethrey Andolon, Hacklar Jaevis and Maude Telversham. Authors can’t have all the fun, can we?
More Blog Tour News!
Hey guys, me again. I know, I know – I’m being annoying this week. But I’m just so EXCITED, see? Why? Well:
Ta-DAH!
Anyway, if you’ve been keeping up with the blog tour, here’s some new entries:
I’m Interviewed over at Legendarium by the incomparable Jason LaPier!
Also, more guest posts! Friends Bishop O’Connell and Ruth Vincent have hosted my “But What About Your Second Novel” post!
Finally, the wonderful Beth Cato has hosted an excerpt of NO GOOD DEED on her blog – check it out, and may it give you a taste for more!
More to come soon! Carry on! (and I promise I’ll get back to my regular posting habits in a week or so. Pinky swear.)
IT’S RELEASE DAY!
Hey there, Tyvian Reldamar fans! It’s time to delve back into Tyvian’s massively dysfunctional life as the second book in the Saga of the Redeemed, No Good Deed, has been released in e-format TODAY! Yes, today! Behold:
Cursed with a magic ring that forbids skullduggery, Tyvian Reldamar’s life of crime is sadly behind him. Now reduced to fencing moldy relics and wheedling favors from petty nobility, he’s pretty sure his life can’t get any worse.
That is until he hears that his old nemesis, Myreon Alafarr, has been framed for a crime she didn’t commit and turned to stone in a penitentiary garden. Somebody is trying to get his attention, and that somebody is playing a very high-stakes game that will draw Tyvian and his friends back to the city of his birth and right under the noses of the Defenders he’s been dodging for so long. And that isn’t even the worst part. The worst part is that the person pulling all the strings is none other than the most powerful sorceress in the West: Lyrelle Reldamar.
Tyvian’s own mother.
Still skeptical of the magnificence in store? Then read an excerpt of the book on Laura Bickle’s blog!
Want to know how I got to this magnificent turn of my fledgling writing career? Head over to Michelle4Laughs site and hear all about my journey to publication, with its twists, turns, and incredibly long wait!
“But Habershaw,” you say, “that’s about your first book! How was writing the second one different?” Well, as luck would have it, Teresa Frohock has a post by me describing that very thing! Check it out!
Over the course of the week I’m going to be making a lot of noise, here, but to give you a heads-up, here’s a handy-dandy overview of the blog tour I’ll be doing at 3 Partners in Shopping. The first feature over at VoodooPrincess is already up!
Let’s see…what else…oh, right! BUY LINKS:
Go go go! Read! Also: Review! Thanks to all of you for your positivity and support, and here’s to more books in the future!
Living In The Future
On the one hand, I could make this blog post about how I was getting on the T the other day (Boston’s subway system) and saw a LCD screen displaying the warning that hoverboards are not allowed on the MBTA, which I take to be proof positive that we are, in fact, living in the future (no matter how lame that future has turned out to be). I’m not, though. I’m here to talk about what it’s like writing while stuff you’ve written is being published. Because it’s weird.
Did you know I have a novel coming out tomorrow? No? Why the hell not? Well, I do – NO GOOD DEED comes out tomorrow in e-book form (sold wherever fine e-books are found). Over the past few weeks, I’ve had a lot of friends and acquaintances come up and express how excited I must be and congratulations and so on. What’s weird, though, is that I’m not thinking all that much about NO GOOD DEED. I mean, yeah, I am excited and I’m very pleased it’s coming out and so on, but my thoughts aren’t on it that much. I’m on to the next book, you see. I’m eyeball deep in the umpteenth draft of my next book, trying to pry my way out of plot problems, trying to breathe life into the characters and so on. When somebody interrupts that internal thought stream to talk about NO GOOD DEED I’m forced to stop and remind myself “oh, right -everybody else is still six months behind me!”
NO GOOD DEED comes out tomorrow? Great Scott, Marty!
Writing and publishing stuff steadily means there is no time for your to rest on your laurels. You’ve got to keep going, keep writing, keep editing, keep submitting – there is no “break,” really. So, while the thing you finished a year ago is just getting a publishing contract now and won’t hit shelves for another six months, you’re still moving. You kinda have to push what you’ve done out of your head for the stuff you’re doing now and the stuff you want to do next. When the things you publish (stories, novels, whatever) do hit print, it’s enormously gratifying, but it’s also a bit like traveling back in time. “Oh yeah,” you think, “I remember this now – that story was pretty cool!”
So, it’s a little weird. There’s the time-lag between you and the audience – they’re behind you, reading the stories you worked so hard to create, and you’re out in front, still creating new ones nobody will see for months. When you hear from them, it’s like a radio message from the past, telling you how you did all that time ago.
And that’s totally awesome, mind you. But it’s still a little weird.
Publicity Notes
The blog tour for NO GOOD DEED gets under way tomorrow – watch this space for updates! The book releases then, so be sure to pick up your copy!
If you like paperback instead, I’ve received intel indicating the paperback release of the book will be August 9th, 2016.
Also:
- I’ll be on an episode of Grim Tidings Podcast on this Friday, 6/24. I think.
- Again, if you’re in the Boston area, consider checking out a reading and lecture on world building I’ll be giving at the Hingham Public Library on June 30th, from 7:00pm-8:30pm.
That’s all for now! Be talking to you all soon!
NO GOOD DEED Excerpt – Read it now!
Hey, folks! Some publicity news, some No Good Deed stuff, etc, today. Check it out:
Read the Prologue to NO GOOD DEED!
It’s up on the Harper Voyager Facebook Page, so go there to read it RIGHT NOW! Yes, NOW! Put down the bagel sandwich, man, and read!
I’m going to be on Grim Tidings Podcast!
I’m recording a podcast with Grim Tidings this coming Saturday morning, so look for it soon! It’s a top-flight interview podcast with really, really awesome guests, hosted by the ever-personable Rob Matheny! I’ve very excited to have been invited and it ought to be just spectacular. If you haven’t listened to any of their other interviews, do so!
Reading/World-building Discussion on June 30th!
If you happen to live in or near the Boston area, I’ll be doing a reading of NO GOOD DEED and hosting a talk on world-building in science fiction and fantasy at the Hingham Public Library on Thursday, June 30th, from 7:oo-8:30pm. I’m going to read a brief excerpt from the book and talk about how worlds can be built, made real, and sustained throughout a novel or series of novels (or movie or television series, for that matter). It’s free, so come on down!
Pre-order the Book!
NO GOOD DEED is available for pre-order now! Also, if you’re new to the series, check out The Oldest Trick, which chronicles the beginnings of Tyvian Reldamar’s journey. It’s James Bond meets a high-magic Westeros in an adventure reviewers have called “a romp in the style of Scott Lynch and Patrick Rothfuss.” For a mere four bucks, you can’t go wrong!
Talk to you all soon – I got a lot of blog-posts to write for my publicity tour. Thanks for all your support!
I’m In Galaxy’s Edge!
Nice cover, eh?
Just out this weekend, my story “Lord of the Cul-de-Sac” can be found in this month’s Galaxy’s Edge. It’s a charming, light-hearted tale of a dragon moving to suburbia and the collapse of the housing markets in 2008. You can read it here. It’s free online, but you can also order it (and the rest of the issue) in dead-tree format by going here and following the links beneath the cover art.
Galaxy’s Edge is a great venue and I’m very proud that my work has made it there, sharing a table of contents with the likes of George RR Martin, no less (!). Go read the whole issue – good stuff!
In other publishing news, I’ve got at least three stories coming out in the next few months (well, at least one, but as many as three – the other two aren’t exactly upfront about their publishing schedules, shall we say), so stay tuned.
Also, a reminder that NO GOOD DEED, Book 2 in the Saga of the Redeemed, is coming out on June 21st! Pre-order your copy today (available everywhere fine e-books are sold)!
My semester is wrapping up and I’m starting to gear myself towards what my summer writing project will be. It’s a bit up in the air (currently talking with an agent about best career moves – exciting stuff, but I can’t really say more yet), but there are good odds I’ll be looking to dig into Book 3 of the Saga of the Redeemed and possibly plan on having a solid draft finished by the end of August. Either that, or giving the Saga a rest for a bit and working on a new stand-alone or maybe series. Hard to say at this point, as I’m at something of a crossroads in my career. My contract with Harper Voyager is complete with the delivery of NO GOOD DEED, but I don’t feel the series is finished – it’ll take two more books, I think. However, the series, while selling modestly well, isn’t selling anywhere near enough and isn’t getting enough attention to necessarily warrant 2 more years of my time to completing, as much as I love it. If there are better options, I might be better off taking them and circling back to this series later on.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. For now, go and check out the May 2016 issue of Galaxy’s Edge!
Auston Habershaw 