Scott William Carter

Weird Tales Subscription Drive

March 14, 2007January 17, 2008Scott William Carter

I just received word from Weird Tales that my story, “Directions to Mourning’s Deep,” certainly one of the strangest and shortest stories I’ve written (only a couple of pages, and written in second person), is scheduled to appear in the April/May issue. They’ve done a major revamp of the magazine, and in honor of this, they’re doing a subscription drive in which you can get six issues (a full year) for a mere $12. A fantastic deal. If you like weird fiction, take advantage of it. Here’s a shot of the new cover:

Also, you may have noticed a few changes to the website. I decided that the old site needed a little revamp, and since my day job is working in instructional technology for a university, it was a good excuse to learn a little more about PHP, CSS, and other geekery, things I needed to learn anyway to help faculty and students. I wanted to better embed my blog on my site as well as take advantage of tools which allow me to have the same content appear on multiple pages without actually having to update that content on every page. I’m still by no means a professional web designer, and it’s still not exactly what I want, but I’m happy with the progress. Probably more small tweaks, as time allows.

Okay, I had to do it . . .

March 13, 2007January 17, 2008Scott William Carter

Apropos of yesterday’s post, I got bitten by the curiosity bug and had to do it. Here’s the word counts of the Harry Potter books (based on Scholastic’s published information):

I – 76,944
II – 85,141
III – 107,253
IV – 190,637
V -257,045
VI -168,923

Total: 885,943 words

If we assume that all monies related to the books (movies, toys, etc.) all directly flow from the books themselves (which we should, since none of those things would have happened without the books), then a billion dollars in income translates into the following word rate:

$1,000,000,000 / 885,943 words = $1128.74 per word

All I can say is . . . wow. Most writers would be happy with a word rate starting to the right of the decimal point.

So what’s the word rate on that?

March 12, 2007January 17, 2008Scott William Carter

For anyone who doesn’t think there’s any money in writing fiction, this just in: J.K. Rowling made the Forbes list of billionaires.

That’s right, a billion dollars, just from writing.

A New Year

January 17, 2007January 17, 2008Scott William Carter

It’s been a couple months since I lasted posted — no surprise, I guess, me being the not-really-a-blogger that I am — so I thought I should do a quick update. Of course, there really isn’t much to update, at least not anything I can talk about in detail, but I wouldn’t want anyone to think I’ve vanished. (Well, come to think of it, maybe I would, that might create a sense of mystery, and I do love a good mystery, but I guess by making this post I’ve missed that opportunity, darn it.) My agent went to market with the fantasy novel, and there’s interest brewing from a number of publishers, which could be very good indeed, but we have to wait to see how it all shakes out. It could all end up being a lot of smoke, too, so I’m trying not to get too excited. Needless to say, there are lots of hurdles a book has to jump over, even after an editor is interested in it. Other editors in the department have to get behind it, the marketing department has to get behind it, etc, etc.

Otherwise, work on the new novel progresses, I’m working on a collaboration with another writer on a new short story, I got a rewrite request back from a magazine on another, and I’ve got a number of other stories in various stages of completion. Lots of good stuff. I like being a busy writer more than anything else.

The good news is that I think my productivity is getting back, maybe even surpassing, what it was before my son’s birth back in February. You wouldn’t think having a second child would be that big of an adjustment, but I found it a lot harder to carve out time with two children than with one. Not that I’m complaining. My kids are both a joy and a wonder to me, and I cherish every minute with them, even those minutes when I’m simultaneously changing a poopy diaper while dealing a three-year-old’s temper tantrum, but there’s been a fair amount of mental anguish while I tried to find the right balance again. So let’s put it this way: 2006 was a good year, but it wasn’t an easy year. I’m hoping 2007 is both better and easier.

Anyway, on to 2007. A belated Happy New year to everyone!