Author: Scott William Carter

New Book: The Man Who Made No Mistakes

Exciting news!  I’m pleased to announce the publication my latest short story collection, The Man Who Made No Mistakes, available as both a trade paperback and an ebook.  Although I sometimes release ebook-only mini collections, this is what I consider my third major collection.  (The Dinosaur Diaries and A Web of Black Widows being the first two.)  It contains stories published in Analog, Realms of Fantasy, and other magazines, as well as a few original tales.  It also bears a striking cover by Billy Norby.  I’m very happy with the book and hope you enjoy it, too.  A little more information is below.

The Man Who Made No Mistakes

What if you had the power to rewind time?

Make a scene in a restaurant, give your boss the finger, rob a bank just to see how it feels — you could satisfy any whim, fulfill any desire, make any wish you’d ever had come true. The man who wanders into Father Holder’s Las Vegas confessional says he has just such a power. The ultimate in wish fulfillment, he calls it. And if something goes wrong? No problem. He just rewinds. He’s the man who never makes mistakes.

Until, in a moment of weakness, he succumbs to the darkest impulse he’s ever had — and can’t find a way to undo it.

This remarkable tale leads off Scott William Carter’s latest short story collection. A dragon addicted to eating humans, a robot on a devastated planet with a spellbinding story to tell, Abraham Lincoln in a world of one-eyed dragons and drafty castles — hopping across time and space, genre and style, Carter offers up eleven provocative tales that are sure to please his growing number of fans as well as win him new ones.

Ebook:
Amazon | B&N | Smashwords

Trade Paperback:
amazon-logobandn

Praise for the stories:

“The Man Who Made No Mistakes is by far the most ambitious and morally complex story in this issue and arguably in any issue of the magazine since its last resurrection . . . It’s one of the strongest stories I’ve read in months, and I expect to see it on the awards ballots.”–Adventures Fantastic

“Beautiful and haunting.” —SFRevu

“A touching story about loss, and what it means to have someone with whom you want to experience life . . . Riveting.” —Tangent Online

“Carter shares the story of Karvo Portano, a biological-robot hybrid grizzly bear who sings opera. Well at least he used to, until someone pilfered his voice module . . . The story dazzled me. It is a witty, zany trip across the universe with a nice twist at the end and even a message of hope.”–Reading with Mo

“Carter weaves a successful tribute to old-school detective stories with the modern twist of exposing man’s foibles.”–Tangent Online

“I really enjoyed the spin on the classic android becomes a human motif, and this story is a great example of putting a fresh view on old ideas . . . Overall, the witty dialogue was one of the greatest strengths of the story . . . The plot was well stitched together, admirably so. I enjoyed the twists and turns of Duff’s journey, and its profound alieness transported me to this other world . . . a pulpish romp through space. —Nicky Drayden, Diary of a Short Woman

FREE: The Care and Feeding of Rubber Chickens: A Manual (and other news)

Here’s an attempt at a little out-of-the-box marketing for my book, The Care and Feeding of Rubber Chickens:  A Novel.  In the book, Trevor Livingston’s father owns a rubber chicken factory in Las Vegas (as you can see, it’s a very serious book, right up there with War and Peace) and he wants Trevor’s help writing what he sees as the perfect gag gift — a how-to manual on rubber chickens as pets.  If you buy the print edition of the novel, you’ll see excerpts from the manual at the beginning of each chapter.  For the ebook, however, I’ve done something a little different.  I’ve made the manual available for free (and included the first chapter of the novel at the end of the manual, hoping to entice you to buy it).

You can download the manual for free at Amazon.com, BN.com, or Smashwords.com.  Check it out!  It’s very short, just excerpts, really, but I hope you get a laugh or two out of it.  For those of you without e-readers, Smashwords will let you download the ebook in many different formats — including PDF or HTML, so you can read it on your computer.

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In other news . . .

For those of you who are fans of audio books, Flying Raven Press has now published the audio version of A Tale of Two Giants, which you can download from Audible.com or Amazon.com.   And of course it’s available in print and ebook as well.   It’s read by the very talented Alexander Edward Trefethen.  FRP has another half dozen audio books in various stages of production, so stay tuned for more news on this front.

I’m putting the finishing touches on my next major short story collection, The Man Who Made No Mistakes. While I do release individual stories and mini collections in ebook-only format from time to time, this is a definitive collection of what I consider my best stories.  It’s got a handsome cover by Billy Norrby.  It’ll be published in ebook and paperback next month — and audio as well, though it may be down the road a bit.  I’d actually like to narrate this one myself, but I don’t have time at the moment.  Audio production, especially if you’re doing all the back end work yourself, is very time consuming.

In some exciting news, my next book from Simon and Schuster, Wooden Bones, the untold story of Pinnocchio, got a nice boost from the Junior Library Guild, which made it a spring 2012 selection.  While this doesn’t ensure the book will become  a bestseller, it is a major book order which will put the book in thousands of libraries across the country, and because JLG is very selective about the books they buy for their members, it does bode well for the book’s future.  Now all I need is Tim Burton to call and want to turn the book into a movie . . .

The hardcover and the ebook of Wooden Bones, which is due to be published August 7, are already available for pre-order.

On the teaching front — with the day job and the family thrown into the mix, I don’t have a lot of time to teach, but I sure do love paying it forward to other writers when I get a chance — I’ll be co-teaching the Think Like a Publisher workshop again with Dean Wesley Smith July 19-22 in Lincoln City, Oregon.  If you want to know how to run your own publishing company, publishing ebooks, print, audio, and other formats while keeping your costs down and maximizing your profits, this is the workshop for you.  It’s taught at the beautiful WMG Publishing office, which is a treat all by itself.  We’ve taught this workshop four or five times now, I forget how many, and each time we’ve had 25-30 writers from all over the world attend.  I’m not joking when I say that, either.  Not even a majority of the people who attend these workshops are from Oregon.  Contact Dean if you’re interested.  It’s a lot of fun and you’ll learn a ton.

The summer is going to be busy.  What else is new, eh?  Camping trips, a cruise to the Mediterranean with my wife, shuttling the kids to various camps and activities, hikes, working in the yard, bike rides, and of course lots of new words to write — I’m really looking forward to it.

What I’ve Been Reading Lately:

  • Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman. I’m a late comer to this comic book, but as I work my way through the collected graphic novels, I’m really loving it.  Gaiman seldom if ever lets me down, regardless of the medium.
  • Ray Vukcevich’s latest collection, Boarding Instructions.  Reading Ray is like a drug trip without the drug  but just as addictive.  Fantastic stuff!
  • Sins of the Fathers by Lawrence Block.  I’ve read other books by Block but hadn’t gotten to the Matthew Scudder books yet.  Figured it was about time, and it only took me a few pages to see why they’re so popular.
  • Bid Time Return by Richard Matheson.  An oldie but a goodie, and similar to another time travel book, Time and Again by Jack Finney.  Bid Time Return was the basis for the cult hit movie, Somewhere in Time, which is also one of my favorites.
  • Michael Totten’s latest book, Where the West Ends, which I’m reading as an ARC.  A great travel book sprinkled with lots of local color about the Balkans, it’s quite a page turner.  I’ve been reading it a little at a time, savoring it, and I’m sure you will want to do the same.

What I’ve Been Watching Lately:

  • The Walking Dead and Downton Abbey. These two series, one about a zombie apocalypse and the other about a rich British family and their servants during the first world war, share almost nothing in common except for their rich characters and fantastic writing in general.

New Gage Book Now Available: A DESPERATE PLACE FOR DYING

As many of you know, I also write mystery and suspense books under the name Jack Nolte.  Well, after far too long a wait, I finally have exciting news to share:  The next Garrison Gage book is now available — A DESPERATE PLACE FOR DYING. As of this moment, it’s only available as an ebook, but the paperback should be out in early April.  Special thanks to all the people who helped bring this book into being, from my wife, who always serves as my trusted first reader, to the copy editor who helped me weed out as many typos as possible.

I really enjoyed writing this one and hope readers find it fun as well.  I’ve also appreciated all of your wonderful emails.  And if you want to help?  Well, spread the word any way you can!  Facebook, Twitter, random graffiti . . . Oh, and most importantly, if you enjoy the book and have a few minutes, please consider posting a review online at Amazon, B&N, or wherever you bought it.  Even if just the people who emailed me did this, it could really make a difference.  Most readers don’t realize how much those reviews help, and only a tiny, tiny fraction of readers ever do it.

More information is below, including where you can currently buy it.

A DESPERATE PLACE FOR DYING

by Jack Nolte

An old flame.  A killer on the loose.  A crazy cult on the rise.

Nearly a year has passed since Garrison Gage became the reluctant guardian of a troubled teenage girl, but neither fatherhood nor the the intervening months has improved his mood. His right knee is still mostly worthless. He still prefers to drink his bourbon alone. And even with a certain blonde bombshell a persistent part of his life, he still can’t be bothered to buy a cell phone. Or any phone, for that matter. Why? Then somebody might call him.

But grumpy as Gage can be, he still finds that life on the Oregon Coast has settled into a comfortable if not happy routine — until the man who murdered his wife shows up in town.

That’s just for starters. A desperate plea from an old flame — his first love, in fact — soon entangles Gage in a high profile case involving a famous and brazenly outspoken lecturer on evolution and atheism, a crazy fundamentalist cult that uses all means necessary to silence its critics, and a brutal local murder of a far more personal nature.

Before the mystery can be unraveled, Gage’s abilities and beliefs will be put to the ultimate test. And the man who claims he doesn’t need anyone will discover he may just lose everything.

Available in Ebook Format Now:

Amazon | B&N | Smashwords

Paperback:

Coming soon

The Care and Feeding of Rubber Chickens Now Available in Paperback (and some thoughts on the future)

For those of you who prefer reading books the old fashioned way, The Care and Feeding of Rubber Chickens: A Novel is now available in trade paperback.  The printed book also includes something the ebook doesn’t — excerpts from The Care and Feeding of Rubber Chickens:  A Manual. Here’s a shot of the cover flat (click it for a larger image):

It’s a handsome book and I’m quite proud of it.  Right now you can only buy it from Amazon.com, but it should be available at other online retailers in the next few weeks.  The ebook is already available everywhere.

Writing has been going well lately, though making sure I spend my time on the most productive things has been increasingly challenging.  Since I both work with traditional publishers (like Simon and Schuster, who will be publishing Wooden Bones in a couple of months), and help run Flying Raven Press, I’m busier than ever.

Battling a bit of a cold doesn’t help, but that comes with the territory of having two kids in school.  Teaching the “Indie Publishing” workshop a couple weeks ago was a lot of fun.  Not only did I get to hang out with old friends and meet new ones, I also got to pay it forward a bit.  (Since I really can’t pay back all the people who have helped me over the years with my writing, the best thing I can do is help other writers any way I can.)  The modern publishing world is dramatically different than it was even three years ago, and the skill set that a writer needs to survive and thrive in the coming years is also different.  Writing blurbs, cover design, understanding how to promote and how not to — these are vital skills.   At one point, I summed up everything we talked about all weekend by saying that there were three primary ways you could sell better and make more money as a writer working today:

  1. Produce more products.
  2. Produce better products.
  3. Sell in more places.

That’s it.  That’s the key.  It means being prolific (I have little doubt that the prolific writers of today will be the ones doing the best in five or ten years) but also mastering the storyteller’s art.  It means not only writing better books, but learning how to craft catchy blurbs and design snazzy book covers — if you decide to combine traditional publishing with indie publishing, which is exactly what the smart writers are doing now.  (Self-publishing, though it got something of a dirty reputation recently, has always been the most common way for writers to reach their audience.  Charles Dickens, Ben Franklin, Edgar Rice Burroughs, the list goes on and on. )  It means making sure your books are available in as many places as possible and in as many formats as possible — paperback, ebook, audio, etc. It also means — and this is probably the hardest part — making sure you’re spending your time wisely.  This is one of the reasons I’ve given up all social media, why I attend few writing workshops or conferences, and why I seldom blog.  Usually these things don’t pass what I’ve taken to calling the W.I.B.B.O.W. test, an ugly acronym which is short for Would I Be Better Off Writing?  And for me, writing means fiction writing, since that’s the guiding passion of my life.

I have nothing against writers who enjoy conferences, Facebook, blogging, or Twitter.  It’s just, for me, I mostly prefer to spend that time writing fiction.  It’s nice that I now live in a publishing era where the smartest business decision for a fiction writer, at least in my opinion, is to do exactly that.  We’ll see if time proves me right.