North American Science Fiction Convention (NASFIC) in Buffalo

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JULY 17, 2024 – NASFIC MINUS ONE

     Well, here we are in Buffalo, nine hours travel to get here. Checked into the hotel, napped for an hour. Travel always takes it out of me.
     Then I wandered around outside the hotel, to get a grasp of the Convention geography. Then headed outside to experience downtown Buffalo and get my 11,000 steps in.
      It was an odd experience – the downtown was empty on a late Wednesday afternoon. I barely saw anyone. Buffalo is about 300,000. The Buffalo-Niagara Metropolitan area is about 1.2 million. So about the size of Winnipeg. But the streets were shockingly vacant. It was peculiar.  As it turned out, through the whole of my trip to Buffalo, whenever I went out, wherever I went, even looking out through the hotel windows, the downtown was always remarkably empty. There were people and cars now and then, but nowhere near what you’d expect for an urban downtown.
      I had mixed impressions. There’s a lot of grand ambitious buildings, mostly early 20th century from the looks. From the era when steel frame construction was coming in, but the look and feel of the previous eras when all you had to work with was stone and beams is apparent. You can spot the difference, the old ‘stone and beam’ buildings have arches everywhere in door and window frames to redistribute weight. Steel buildings don’t need that, the steel carries the weight, so square windows, everything is a bit more blocky.
      And big. Some seriously colossal buildings for the era. There were limits to how big you could go with nothing but stone, but with steel frames, you could go big. So a lot of the downtown buildings are imposing, there’s a lot of old fashioned grandeur to admire.

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Perversions & Infidelities, an Erotic Collection

Welcome to Fossil Cove Publishing’s foray into Erotica, Perversions and Infidelities, the first of a four book series written by Eve St. Albert, with cover by Dawne Dominique.

Perversions and Infidelities, is a collection of four erotic novellas of women’s erotic. In particular, it focuses on women stepping out of assigned roles, refusing to accept the place life designates for them, and struggling to break free, to find fulfillment and adventure, even if their satisfaction requires transgression.

The stories explore themes of identity, both identities assigned and identities assumed; fantasy, and self discovery. Each character finds themselves in a position where they go beyond the rules to discover themselves. Sometimes they stumble there accidentally, sometimes they flee in desperation and restlessness, and for some a doorway into temptation opens. It is erotica with a literary edge, nasty stories of women who unapologetically want what they want.

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NAVIGATING THE PUBLIC DOMAIN

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   Recently, at a Science Fiction Convention, I had the opportunity to do a panel on this subject. I’ve decided it’s interesting enough to write up my notes into an article.
Okay, we all know what Copyright is, or hopefully we do. Copyright is all about the right to make copies, and particularly, it’s about who owns that right (creators hopefully), and how that right operates.
     Public Domain is the other side of the coin. It’s about work that no one owns, and therefore is free to any member of the public to use. Basically, if something is not under Copyright, it’s in public domain, mostly. That’s the theory.
     Sounds simple, right?
    Yeah, everything is simple. Until you dig into it, and then you’re done for. That’s one of life’s rules.

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KICKSTARTER! WELL, THAT’S DONE.

THE KICKSTARTER EXPERIENCE

Well, the Starlost Unauthorized Kickstarter is over. Frankly, I’m a bit relieved.  It’s been a trip, but honestly, I felt a little bad about bothering people with my promotional efforts.

It worked though – I reached 230% of goal, or almost $2300.00 which is more than I’ve made for any other single book I’ve written… for a book I haven’t written.  I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry.

First, I should express my thanks: To Stephen Kotowych, who provided an incredibly clear, straightforward and useful presentation on Kickstarters at the Indy Writer’s Conference in Toronto, back in April, and who was kind enough to review my draft Kickstarter.  Tao Wong, who organized the Indy Writer’s Conference, which ended up a cornucopia of useful ideas, advice and opportunities. Alex McGillivary, who also inspired with his Kickstarter for Bigfoot Country, and offered useful advice.  Dean Naday, cinematographer and video editor who saved me from going over a cliff, and Anna Valdron, for support. Without each of them, this Kickstarter wouldn’t exist, or it wouldn’t have been nearly as effective.

I also want to express my thanks to everyone who knew me and pledged.  I am touched.  Maybe it was just the project was kick ass and amazing, but I can’t help but narcisstically feel that it was a personal gesture of faith and friendship, and that means a lot.

And my thanks to all the people who had no clue who I was, but decided that this project was worthwhile and deserved support.  I think that was about 60% of my backers.  To you, I say: Brothers! Sisters! Indeterminate strangers! I love that you love this subject, I’m passionate about it too!

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STARLOST KICKSTARTER – FINAL WEEK

Starlost Unauthorized by D.G. Valdron — Kickstarter

Hello Boys and Girls and Other, Children of all ages, Sapient beings of any description!  Welcome to my Starlost Kickstarter!

I am thrilled to say, that we exceeded our initial goal in the first week!  We are now into our Stretch Goal of $2000 – $2500.

It’s been a great experience, I want to thank everyone for their support.  But now I want to do the final push. If you’ve pledged support, god bless you, and thank you so much.  I’m not asking you for money.  If you’d like to support, but don’t have money, that’s okay too.  But what I am asking for every single one of you, is to help spread the message, pass the word, email, post, repost this, send it to friends, send it to groups you think might get into it.

This is going to be a hell of a book, I am passionate about it. Help me make it great!

TIPS AND TRICKS DOING BOOK COVERS

At this point, I have published well over two dozen books for myself and other writers, and as a writer, I can say that covers are a pain in the ass.

So I thought I’d jot down a few notes to maybe help out other writers, including self publishers and people working with small presses.

Apart from either doing book covers myself, or being an active participant in the design of covers, I have a few other qualifications. Back in the day, when newspapers were laid out by hand, I was a production manager on small newspapers and magazines. Following that, I went on to design posters and promotional materials for stage plays, short films and arts and cultural events. As this was going on, I maintained a steady interest in art and audited art history classes. I don’t pretend to be some great authority, but I do know enough to make my way around a page.

THE CANVAS

In the old days, book cover design was pretty simple. Broadly, you had two sizes – paperback or pocketbooks about 4.5 x 6.5 inches, and trade paperbacks – loosely around 6 x 9 inches. Both had a width to height ratio of around 2 x 3. There was lots of variation, but those were decent rules of thumb.

The point being that you had a good idea of the space you had to work with, and the ratio you needed to work with, and subject to a little fiddling, you were fine. This may seem like mechanics, but the scope of the canvas dictates what you can and can’t do, or what works and what doesn’t work.

Now, however, it’s gotten more complicated. For books, we still have that 2 x 3 ratio, and pocketbooks and trade paperbacks. But now book covers are being presented in a variety of sizes, only some of which involve the physical books.

If you are browsing online Amazon or Barnes & Noble for instance, your first sight of the cover will be a tiny thumbnail, maybe 1.5 x 2.5 inches, and that first sight will be accompanied by a whole bunch of other similarly sized book covers competing for attention. That’s on a computer screen, if its on your phone, it’s even worse.

The key take-away is that for random online book browsing, your cover will be presenting under the worst conditions – a tiny image, with lots of competition.

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DARK CANDLE by R.J. Hore

THE LATEST RELEASE FROM FOSSIL COVE PUBLISHING

A JOURNEY INTO THE PAST. An experiment in hypnotic regression at a socialites party awakens a mysterious shadow of the past in the body of mild mannered accountant, Martin Owen. As the experiments progress, a band of friends are slowly drawn into a quest for King Arthur’s tomb and a Roman Emperor’s lost treasure. But the mysterious shadow has its own agenda, and as it slowly takes over Martin’s life, the friends must come to grips with their own desires, betrayals and illicit passions. Is the shadow from out of time leading them to glory… or doom!

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0D5H13HZM/ref=sr_1_1?crid=30DJGTKLRTE2Z