News

In this bit: Q&A from St. Louis Signing of A Lick Of Frost, Secret
Santa Contest, Message Board, Amazon?s Best Of 2007, T-Shirt Sale,
Holiday Ordering, Release Dates, False Rumors, Upcoming Things
Q&A from St. Louis Signing of A Lick Of Frost
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For those of you who couldn?t attend or have never attended a
signing. Here is the Q&A portion of the first signing.
http://www.youtube.com/user/jondgreen
Secret Santa Contest
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Secret Santa is a contest for you and a friend. It ends 12/08/07.
The winners will receive two signed LKH books. Don’t know which two I
will send you. Just that it will be two. Your assignment as a Secret
Santa is to give one away to someone, preferably someone who is not
yet a fan.
Okay, I told you what to do with one, but what about the second? That
one is a gift for you, the Santa. Hey even Santa gets goodies!
Enter at the link below:
https://www.laurellkhamilton.com/SecretSantaContest.html
If you have difficulty with the link send an email to:
To: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Subject: Secret Santa Contest
Body: Name and address.
NOTE: Please do not worry about your spelling and grammar when
sending notes or answering contests! Really, I am totally serious
here. We are not highlighting every mistake you make. No one here is
that anal. Both Laurell and I are dyslexics. We both have problems
with spelling and grammar. We are working on it, which is all anyone
can ask or do.
I know spell and grammar checkers are there, we do use them. But
even they sometimes either want to change a word to something it
shouldn?t be, or worse give you more than one choice. So please
don?t worry about it. We won?t count it against anyone! Especially
not with a living language that is as fluid and ever changing as
English.
Message Board
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For those who have never been there: forum.laurellkhamilton.org. I
do ask you read the rules before posting so as not to run afoul of
them.
Seems we must have had a rather large influx of new folks or at the
least experienced folks (not sure which it is, mostly likely a
combination of the two) who are wondering the same thing. At least
from the messages we get and comments, about why we allow those who
claim to dislike the books to stay on the board.
If their not breaking the rules, then they are free to stay. The mods
truly try to apply the rules evenly and fairly. (Which is one reason
I stay out of it for the most part unless some thing becomes an
issue, hardly anyone thinks I am unbiased. Truly there is no such
thing as unbiased when you come right down to it. The mods truly do a
wonderful job, and a hard one at that. Like most things, I get mail
going both ways. This mod is too strict, and then a one that says
they are too lenient. Such is most things in life. What suits one
person will not another and they can both look at the same thing and
come up with different opinions.)
I know we answered the “Why” question not long ago in the Questions
section. Pretty much I didn’t answer it. Why not? Because no matter
what I say it will be taken from here, bandied about the web,
misconstrued and twisted. I now know why politicians rarely do
anything but live interviews.
Even my non-answer was treated as if I said things I did not. It
wouldn’t have mattered what I said, it would be treated the same way.
Someone somewhere would treat it as if I personally attacked them.
Use my answer as if it as some rallying cry about how mistreated they
are by us. Even this answer will receive the same treatment I am sure.
So here is my final answer on the topic:
Think up any reason that suits you for their presence on the board
and/or their continued reading of books they say they hate. Be it
logical or wildly imaginative. Make it however you want: polite,
rude, nasty, funny, silly, stupid, outrageous, whatever makes you
happy. Just don’t post it on the board. Then that will be your
answer. It will be as good and as truthful as any opinion I could
offer on the topic.
Of course I have my own ideas and opinions on it. And it will vary by
person who is being discussed. I can only guess from the posts they
put up as to which fits. So my opinion may be totally wrong, it may
also be totally right, mostly likely some of each. But either way, it
isn’t important really. My opinion is just that, mine! So make your
own. Enjoy the heck out of it.
If someone truly disturbs you by their opinion, be it positive or
negative, then please use the Ignore function available on the board.
Then you can just pretend that person and their opinion does not
exist.
Should it cross the line into personal attacks either on the board or
in board IM’s, please notify one of the mods or me and we will handle
it.
Outside the board, there is not much we can do about someone?s
postings unless it moves in to the realm of threats of physical
harm. Sadly, it has in the past. If the threat is directed at
anyone here, we can take it to law enforcement for proper action even
if it is meant as a joke. We no longer bother with taking it to the
board owners or their ISP?s. Both proved to be a waste of time and
effort in the past. Please do not bombard me with emails about Free
Speech. Yes, you have free speech, you do not have the right to yell
fire in a crowded theatre, you do not have the right to make threats
or encourage others to do so. Think about if you would want someone
to make a similar threat against someone you know and if you would
think it funny. All I can say if you do, you have a strange sense of
humor and I don?t get it.
As my final word on the topic, I offer the following two quotes from
Salman Rushdie:
It is very, very easy not to be offended by a book. You just have to
shut it.
Be sure that you go to the author to get at his meaning, not to find
yours.
Amazon?s Best Of 2007
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Both The Harlequin and A Lick Of Frost made the top 10 list! Whoo hoo!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=pe_19830_7361460_as_txt_28/?
docId=1000159331
T-shirt Sale
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Sale! $5 off all Comic Con shirts, $2 off all Brett Booth shirts.
Why? Because I want to do more shirts and cannot till we have room!
Also, end of the year means inventory. I hate counting em. So please
buy some!
https://www.laurellkhamilton.com/Goodies.html
Holiday Ordering
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If you?re ordering from the fan club. You must order by 12/10/07 to
get it by the holidays in the US. I am not going to give you a date
for foreign, because of Customs it varies from country to country.
But figure at least 2 weeks minimum.
If you order from the Caf? Shop, http://www.cafeshops.com/lkhprem, be sure
to check the web for coupons and deals for Caf? Press. They are
available codes all over. So save some cash!
Release Dates
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Blood Noir will be out June 3, 2008.
The Harlequin will be out in paperback 4/28/08.
False Rumors
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For some of you this will be a repeat. But the rumor has again
surfaced, which it does periodically and emails are coming in asking
about it.
No we are not launching lawsuits against sites that hosts fanfic or
RPG?s. We do not have a cadre of lawyers scouring the ?net for
offenders.
Some of the sites who host such things have asked for permission and
been denied. They then chose to remove them. If you need a reason
why, here it is (taken from the message board):
It is true, we say NO to fanfic. The question of why comes up often.
So here below is the reason. I have also listed the sites where the
info came from it you want to look at all of it yourself.
Some of the fanfic sites require the originating author to give
permission. When asked, they receive a polite no letter. We have
never sicced a cadre of lawyers on fanfic sites as some rumor we do.
Nor do we comb the Internet looking for fanfic. No one here ever
reads fanfic. Of any sort. Mostly we are too busy to do so and it
holds no interest.
(Personally, my TBR pile is huge and I don’t like reading on screen.
There is something about holding a book in my hand, curled in bed
with a cup of hot chocolate that is almost magical to me. )
As far as we know, no court has yet ruled on fanfic legality under
the Copyright Act. I know there are many “Internet” lawyers out there
positive it is okay to do. But they are not judges and their opinions
have no legal standing. In fact, many copyright lawyers have no doubt
that fanfic is simply an unauthorized ? and therefore infringing ?
derivative work that takes without permission the originating
author?s plots, characters and other copyright-protected literary
elements. In any event, until a court ruling comes down that clearly
states one way or another, we will go with the blanket no policy.
Laurell is not the only author to have this policy. Many do now due
to the situation cited below.
MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY
She created the planet of Darkover as a setting for her own series,
writing a large number of Darkover stories as a solo author and later
collaborating with other authors to produce Darkover anthologies,
where once again she encouraged story submissions from unpublished
authors. For a time, Bradley actively encouraged fan fiction within
the Darkover universe, but this came to an end following a dispute
with a fan over an unpublished Darkover novel of Bradley’s that had
similarities to some of the fan’s stories. As a result, the novel
remained unpublished, and Bradley demanded the cessation of all
Darkover fan fiction. The Darkover novels may be considered fantasy
with science fiction overtones or science fiction with fantasy
overtones, as Darkover was a lost earth colony where psi powers had
developed to an unusual degree.
US COPYRIGHT LAW
Also noteworthy is the series of Darkover anthologies published by
Marion Zimmer Bradley, beginning in 1980, consisting largely of fan
fiction extended into her canon. At the time, the intent was to make
Darkover a shared universe similar to the Cthulhu Mythos. The author
eventually discontinued these after a 1992skirmish with a fan who
claimed authorship of a book identical to one Bradley had published
and accused Bradley of “stealing” the idea. The resultant lawsuit
cost Bradley a book, and her attorney advised against permitting fan
fiction of any kind. This incident is credited by some to have led to
a “zero tolerance” policy on the part of a number of other
professional authors, including Andre Norton, David Weber, and
Mercedes Lackey.
From Wikipedia
An excerpt from a letter to the editor of “Writer’s Digest”, March,
1993. The letter was written by Marion Zimmer Bradley:
“. . .While in the past I have allowed fans to ‘play in my yard,’ I
was forced to stop that practice last summer when one of the fans
wrote a story, using my world and my characters, that overlapped the
setting I was using for my next _Darkover_ novel. Since she had sent
me a copy of her fanzine, and I had read it, my publisher will not
publish my novel set during that time period, and I am now out
several years’ work, as well as the cost of inconvenience of having a
lawyer deal with this matter.
“Because this occurred just as I was starting to read for this year’s
_Darkover_ anthology, that project was held up for more than a month
while the lawyer drafted a release to accompany any submissions and a
new contract, incorporating the release. I do not know at present if
I shall be doing any more _Darkover_ anthologies.
“Let this be a warning to other authors who might be tempted to be
similarly generous with their universes, I know now why Arthur Conan
Doyle refused to allow anyone to write about Sherlock Holmes. I
wanted to be more accommodating, but I don’t like where it has gotten
me. It’s enough to make anyone into a misanthrope.”
http://www.fanworks.org/writersresou…ne&authorid=53
You too can hunt up articles that are far more extensive on the issue
through any of the search engines.
Upcoming Things
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It really should say Upcoming Things I can talk about!
Our annual Holiday Auction for three charities: Granite City APA,
Midwest Pug Rescue and The American Juvenile Diabetes Foundation
Got more in the works we hope to announce soonest!
That?s it for this bit! Hope everyone is having an enjoyable weekend.
Darla