David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

As you may know, I’m a member of Book View Café, an author-owned publishing cooperative. BVC is the publisher of the Space Magic and Second Chance ebooks.

I’m very pleased to announce that BVC has just entered into a deal with Audible.com to publish audiobooks of over 100 BVC titles, with more titles to be acquired in the future. The press release about the deal is here.

What this means for me is that my novella Second Chance will be coming out, some time in the next year, as an audiobook narrated by James Patrick Cronin. This makes me very happy.

This deal does not include the Space Magic audiobook (which is available from BVC, Audible, Amazon, and iTunes). I started work on my own Space Magic audiobook before the Audible deal was negotiated, so I left it out of the deal.

My feelings about this are mixed. If Space Magic had been included in the deal, I would have gotten a nice advance check rather than paying out the expenses of studio and engineering time. But by doing it myself I did get to narrate my own book, which I would not have if it had been part of this deal. And although I did not get any money up front, my royalty rate is (somewhat) higher — if my Space Magic sells as well as the average BVC audiobook over the term of the contract, I’ll wind up with more total money in the end. Time, as they say, will tell.

In related news, I have recently narrated stories for two podcasts! I’ll tell you more about those when I can.

This is just a quick reminder that SFWA’s Pacific Northwest Reading Series is having our next events in Seattle and Portland in two weeks!

On Tuesday, August 13 in the Seattle area, we’ll have the multitalented Laura Anne Gilman, along with New York Times bestseller Carrie Vaughn and award-winning writer Barbara Caridad Ferrer. The University Bookstore will be on hand again selling books and all the authors will be available to sign.

When: Tuesday, August 13, 2013, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
Where: Wilde Rover Irish Pub & Restaurant, 111 Central Way, Kirkland, WA 98033

On Wednesday, August 14 in Portland, Laura Anne Gilman will be joined by Phyllis Irene Radford and Diana Pharaoh Francis. Wrigley-Cross Books will be selling books and all the authors will be available to sign.

When: Wednesday, August 14, 2013, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
Where: McMenamins Kennedy School, 5736 N.E. 33rd Ave. Portland, OR 97211

See http://www.sfwa.org/for-readers/sfwa-northwest-reading-series/ for more information on both readings. Tell your friends!

I hope you can join us! It should be a lot of fun.

#SFWAPro

SF Signal has posted the first review of the BVC edition of Second Chance, and it’s a doozy!

An evocative, emotional, character-focused novella with enough crunch to satisfy space travel SF grognards … has, in resonance with its title, a second chance to engage with readers in an ebook format from Book View Cafe … I highly enjoyed Second Chance. If I had been aware of the story in 2010, I would certainly have given it a Hugo award nomination at the time. Second Chance does deserve a second chance for readers, and I recommend it to any and all short-fiction genre readers.

Read the whole thing for even more embarrassingly effusive praise.

In other news, Daily Science Fiction has, for some years now, been paying pro rates and sending out a story every day for free. How can they keep this up, you may ask? Well, they’re having a
Kickstarter to fund payments to authors for the next six months. It’s a worthy cause, and if you pledge $100 or more you can get a short story critique from me (I’m tough, but fair).

Finally, my story “One Night in O’Shaughnessy’s Bar” will be reprinted in an anthology titled Mad Science Café, coming soon from Book View Café.

This is just a quick reminder that SFWA’s Pacific Northwest Reading Series is having our next events in Seattle and Portland in two weeks!

On Tuesday, August 13 in the Seattle area, we’ll have the multitalented Laura Anne Gilman, along with New York Times bestseller Carrie Vaughn and award-winning writer Barbara Caridad Ferrer. The University Bookstore will be on hand again selling books and all the authors will be available to sign.

When: Tuesday, August 13, 2013, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
Where: Wilde Rover Irish Pub & Restaurant, 111 Central Way, Kirkland, WA 98033

On Wednesday, August 14 in Portland, Laura Anne Gilman will be joined by Phyllis Irene Radford and Diana Pharaoh Francis. Wrigley-Cross Books will be selling books and all the authors will be available to sign.

When: Wednesday, August 14, 2013, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
Where: McMenamins Kennedy School, 5736 N.E. 33rd Ave. Portland, OR 97211

See http://www.sfwa.org/for-readers/sfwa-northwest-reading-series/ for more information on both readings. Tell your friends!

I hope you can join us! It should be a lot of fun.

#SFWAPro

So while I was busy with the ebook of Second Chance, a bunch of good news has crept up on me. Hence, a list:

• My video of “Dr. Talon’s Letter to the Editor” is a finalist for the Parsec Award in the category Best Speculative Fiction Video Story!
• I sold short-short story “Artist’s Retrospective” to Daily Science Fiction!
• Space Magic has received its first audiobook review at the Fantasy Literature blog, and it’s a hit!
  

  It rarely happens that I enjoy every story in a collection, but that’s what happened here. All of these tales are entertaining, I was pleased with the diversity of themes and styles, and I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the audio production. … [I]n my experience authors are not usually the best narrators for their own material, [but] I was surprised at how well Levine’s audiobook turned out. … Space Magic is a professional quality audiobook and one I have no trouble recommending both for the stories and the audio production.

• “I Hold My Father’s Paws” was recommended by the blog Ten to Infinity.
• I wax nostalgic over at the Book View Café blog about my first computer, a home-built CP/M machine.
• And, finally, I am pleased(?) to report that I will have a silly Green Lantern poem in Flying Higher: An Anthology of Superhero Poetry!

#SFWAPro