Today’s piece of shameless self-promotion is shared between me, Jennifer Stevenson, and Book View Café, the publishing cooperative I helped found in 2008. Let’s dignify this with a little history:
Back in 2008, a bunch of women who write fantasy and science fiction were, as authors have done since the dawnatime, bemoaning the state of publishing, eyeing the internet with misgiving, and wondering how to get this “discovery” thing, which is constantly on authors’ lips but bloody hard to find. Cory Doctorow was talking about publishing ebooks, an exotic animal none of us had had any truck with. Some of us were between publishers, and the rest, like all authors, were disappointed with sales.
We looked with good old sensawonda and garden-variety dread at what the internet publishing pioneers were doing. None of us could imagine pulling that off. Although one of us could create a website. Another was unafraid of ebook formatting. A third was a publicity and marketing expert, a fourth an accountant, a fifth could manage a blog … and boom, we had Book View Café. On our maiden masthead were illustrious names: Ursula K. Le Guin, Vonda N. McIntyre, Sarah Zettel (our first leader), Laura Anne Gilman, Nancy Jane Moore, Brenda Clough, Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff, Phyllis Irene Radford … twenty-seven in all. After our launch, The Guardian named us their Site of the Week. (In those days, discovery was hella lot easier.) At first, we gave away fiction, which is what Doctorow, Konrath, and Scalzi were doing. Then we segued toward selling it. Now we are the oldest, largest, most prestigious author-owned publishing cooperative in the world.
Since 2008 we’ve added some excellent Y chromosomes, lost some old friends, added new ones, and tacked on a few more bells and whistles. What you need to know now is, we sell books.
Oh yeah, you’re waiting for the information about the S A L E !!!! (Is that enough exclamation points? I never know.) Every year on Boxing Day we put everything in the store on sale. Last year it was 25% off every book. This year, 50%.
Now for more personal shameless self-promotion: I’ve written three series in the Hinky universe: Hinky Chicago, Slacker Demons, and Coed Demon Sluts. They’re all silly as hell, and all sexy, except oddly for the Sluts, who are more about grrl power and a basic question: Aren’t you tired of doing everything right? Wouldn’t you like a second chance to go back and do it wrong?
This is your chance to get the first books in all three series under one cover, A HINKY UNIVERSE BUNDLE. Regular price $6.99, but right now, because of the S A L E !!!!, get it 50% off. Three books for less than the price of one!
After a year like no other, some comedy might be very soothing. You deserve a laugh in your day.
