It’s funny. Even though Robert and I have lived in Ottawa for several years, we don’t do a lot of stuff to promote our books there. This changes this weekend as Robert and myself are attending Ottawa Comiccon.

We’ll be hosting a Doctor Who panel at 6 pm in Meeting Room D. We’ll be talking about Who is the Doctor, Who’s 50 and anything about Doctor Who you want to ask us. So do stop by!

And we’ll be signing copies of Who is the Doctor at the table of our good friends at the Doctor Who Society of Canada (you can’t miss them—they have a lot of Daleks on display!). We’ll be there to sign books at 1 and 4 Saturday and 12 and 3 on Sunday. We also have postcards for our new book Who’s 50 to give away.

If you’re there. Do stop by and say hello. We love to talk to people!

And now for some news I’m really proud to share. Who is the Doctor has won a Silver Medal in the Independent Publisher Book Awards!

You can see the results on the Independent Publisher website. We’re in the “Popular Culture and Leisure” category (that’s Category number 62, a long way down…). We lost out to a book about Michael Jackson and a book about Batman. I don’t know what that says about the state of popular culture or not. It’s a real amazing honour: 2500 books were entered and only 300 odd books were awarded.

I wasn’t aware we were nominated for this (the kind folks at ECW press nominated us; our fellow ECW books Fifty Sides of the Beach Boys: The Songs that Tell Their Story and Walking Into The Ocean also won) so this is kind of like finding a winning lottery ticket on the ground. It’s wonderful, wonderful news.

Best of all we actually get a real medal! Sadly I won’t be able to go to New York for the ceremony, but when it comes in the mail, I’ll show a picture of us wearing ours!

A question I get a lot from future or would-be authors is “How do you propose a book to a publisher?” Now when it comes to fiction, I have no idea. As near as I can tell the answer to that is: “submit your manuscript, get rejected, rinse, repeat, revise until someone says yes, if ever.”

With non-fiction though, it’s a more interesting process. Whereas with fiction you need to have a completed manuscript (or at least some killer sample chapters) to sell the book, with non-fiction you can get away with a little more. You can often simply submit just a proposal; some will require some sample chapters, but fewer in my experience.

In the case of Robert and my work in non-fiction writing, we have day jobs which require us to know how to write a proposal (Robert’s an academic who has to apply for grants; I work for a non-profit and often do fundraising writing), so we just try to describe in vivid terms the context, the basic idea, the basic outline for the book and some marketing ideas.

The other thing we try to realize when we pitch a book is this: publishing is a business.

You’d be amazed the number of people who don’t get this. People who think that a proposal is “Well I’m kind of interested in cabbages so I want to write 140,000 words on cabbages. Give me the money to write my book about cabbages” That’s not how it works.

No one is in the publishing business as a hobby. And if they are, they should get out now. There are all sorts of business elements to publishing I dreamed of as a writer, ranging from making the book shorter so money can be made in foreign markets (they’re more apt to translate a work if it’s shorter) to coming up with a cover that major book chains will buy the book to having the product the right trim size so shipping it is easier.

A publisher will sink thousands of dollars into a book before it goes to market: paying the author (and they bloody well should), paying the editor, paying a designer, paying a cover artist, paying people to market the book. Even if one person does many of these tasks (as often happens with small presses) there’s still a major outlay of cash. The question before any author writing a proposal should be: what is it about this book that is going to make a publisher risk several thousands of dollars to produce this book?

If the best you can do is “I want to write a book about cabbages” don’t even bother.

A proposal for a non-fiction book is a business proposal albeit a creative one. You’re basically giving a business case why they should publish your book.

A proposal should be like the back cover copy of the book, only a bit longer: it needs to articulate what it’s about, where it will go and why it’s unique in a crowded market. (And if you can—this was an innovation of my editor Jen Hale—state how you can help market the book). All this should make visualizing what the end product will be like easy for the reader.

There needs to be a simple distillation of what the book is about. With Who is the Doctor, Robert and I said, “This book is an episode guide of Doctor Who that’s fun.” With Outside In, Robert’s pitch to ATB Publshing was “This is not your father’s collection of Doctor Who reviews”. Who’s 50 was “What Classic Doctor Who stories should I watch if I’ve never seen it before?” All of them had a unique selling point articulated as part of the pitch.

Everything has to be conveyed in a way that grabs the reader. I remember 10 years ago I showed a friend who was a former senior editor for McClelland and Stewart (and now teaches publishing at Humber College) a proposal for a book I wanted to write on Canadian TV (it never went anywhere both then and when I revived it 7 years later; some topics are just death for publishers). She took all my stately prose and rewrote it into something far better that began with “Did you know: One of the most watched Canadian TV series globally is… The Littlest Hobo?”  My friend was right. And while my proposal never went anywhere I did get feedback that my proposal did get read.

Unless you want to self-publish (and I don’t honestly recommend that), you need to abide by the rules of business to get a book published. Chief among them is making any potential investor feel like you’re going to be something they can get a return on their investment.

Basically, what I’m saying is… yeah, it’s a bit like Dragons’ Den. Good luck with that.

With new episodes of Doctor Who (too few in my view) starting this weekend, I suddenly realize that we don’t have anything about our upcoming book here! I need to change that.

This is what I’ve been neglecting my website, my social life and my poor spouse for all these months…

ECW Press’ Fall Catalogue has a pretty good write-up about what the book is about: Take it away…

Travel through space and time with this guide to the best of Doctor Who

Doctor Who has been a television phenomenon since it began 50 years ago on November 23, 1963. But of all the hundreds of televised stories, which are the ones you must watch? Who’s 50 selects the best of the best of Doctor Who and elucidates behind-the-scene details, exhilarating moments, connections to Who lore, goofs, interesting trivia, and much, much more. Written to be enjoyed by those new-to-Who and by die-hard fans alike, Who’s 50 explores every corner of the imaginative, scary, and funny universe that has made Doctor Who an iconic part of science-fiction storytelling for half a century.

As ever with marketing, it’s not quite right. It’s not really “the best” of Doctor Who. We make that quite clear in our introduction. We’re not doing “the best” stories. We’re doing the ones you should watch. Many of the stories we’ve selected in Who’s 50 are indeed the best. But other choices are much more idiosyncratic: they’re stories you should watch because they’re of interest, or they have some curiosity value, or they show something unique about Doctor Who. Again, they’re not necessarily the best stories; in fact, some of them are stories that one or the other of us disagree about their very inclusion in the book. But they’re ones we think you should watch nonetheless.

While the book had to be written really fast (and still has a little bit left to write!) it was a lot of fun to go through selected stories in Doctor Who’s 50 year history. As we went through the book we realized that in the same way Who is the Doctor provides a primer on the Classic Series as we’re doing our New Series guide, Who’s 50 is an exploration of the very history of Doctor Who from its infancy in the 1960s to becoming must watch TV of the 2010s. I think it’s going to be a great book. I’ll let you know when I’m done editing it…!

Here’s a new thing for the Gem Geek or Rare Bug writer’s blog: I’m writing this in an airplane as it soars at 10,000 feet on its way to Los Angeles, where I’ll be a guest at the Gallifrey One convention in Los Angeles. Yes it’s that time again. It’s so exciting! I’m taking advantage of the wi-fi to get caught up on some blogging.

I’m doing 4 or 5 panels (I don’t honestly remember!) one of which is on Writing and Editing Doctor Who Books where I’ll be talking with my co-author Robert Smith?, my dear friend (and co-editor of the recent publication Chicks Unravel Time) Deborah Stanish, ATB Publishing guru Arnold T Blumberg (the man who gave us Smith?‘s fabulous Outside-In. It’ll be a lot of fun. We’ll also be doing autographs at a couple of junctures, so pick up a copy of Who is the Doctor if you haven’t and get it signed (or if you have a copy, we’ll sign it too!)

Gallifrey is an incredible convention and Shaun Lyon puts on something special every year. I can’t wait to land and get there!

If you see me wandering the halls, feel free to say hi. I’d love to meet you!

Good grief!? What on earth happened? 2013? But it was 2012 just a minute ago…

Hold on, just let me dust off this website…

Sorry faithful internet hoboes. Basically what happened is this:

Our deadline for our new book, Who’s 50: The 50 Doctor Who stories you should watch before you die (oh, wait… I didn’t even announce that…) turned out to be tighter than usual owing to co-author travel and the lateness of the commissioning. Consequently, the last two months of 2012 (and much of early 2013) has been spent frantically writing, re-writing, and arguing with Robert in track changes. Pretty much most of my focus went into that (and what was left went into my actual day job, where I’m also quite busy). As a result, this website has been really low on the list of priorities.

But we’re getting near the end of the writing process and hopefully I’ll have some more time to put into blogging again soon. So stay tuned…

Haven’t posted here in ages because… well, I’m busy writing. This new book has an insane deadline. But hopefully things will lighten up.

As most of you know, I have written and edited four books with Robert Smith?, the Paul McCartney of our McCartney-Lennon pairing. Today he turns 40. Last night a wonderful party was held for this occasion and Robert’s lovely partner Shoshana asked me if I could make a speech for the occasion. How could I say no to her? This is what I said…

——————-

I have been asked to give a few…ish words tonight about our honoured guest, Dr. Robert Smith? Robert…what is there to say about you that hasn’t been said? Tenured professor. Published author. World traveller and adventurer. Media sensation. The most famous mathematician in the world outside of Winnie Cooper from The Wonder Years. Legend of manhood. Really, what is there to say on the occasion of your turning 40?

What is there to say except…about bloody time.

No. Really. On behalf of those of us who have passed the threshold into our fifth decade, I want to say: thank god you’re 40. We’re sick to death of you making achievement after achievement and having the inevitable subtext of it being “and it’s so remarkable he’s achieved this while so young.”

Do you really think it’s been fun hearing about your super spectacular achievements on the boundaries of curing AIDS, charting Bieber Fever, publishing book after book (oh, wait I think another one got published right now), having exploits that are a combination of Indiana Jones, Paul Bunyan and Paul Erdos and generally rubbing it in our faces that you’ve been doing all this in your 30s?

Today, that is over.  Today all your remarkable achievements become ordinary, contextualized into part of a long lived career. Dr. Smith?, we have a cardigan for you and some butterscotches for your office.

Personally, I think you’ve been faking it for the past couple of years. I mean, honestly, listen to your Facebook status updates:

spent all day being a media personality. I guess Hallowe’en must be around the corner!

“Dr. Smith? This is Saskatoon Radio calling. Justin Bieber’s in town. We need you.”—Actual phone call I got today.

working on three books at once: just starting to write one, submitting a second to the publisher and proofreading [another]. Somewhere in there he has a day job as well.

in Boston, where tomorrow he’ll be interviewed for a documentary on zombies for Discovery Channel. As you do.

My Bieber Fever model made the Huffington Post!

flying to Senegal. Well, it does involve a two-hour limo ride to Montreal first and a stopover in Morocco. But he’ll be based in Senegal for the next three weeks, teaching disease modelling to French-speaking students.

went to an axe-throwing party tonight… and survived not only unscathed, but with some successful targets to his name.

just took a microlight plane over Victoria Falls (just him and the pilot, in the open air). He even got to fly it for a while! Fear of flying: officially over.

You can’t be possibly doing this yourself. You must be cloning yourself, or hiring a sweatshop of look-alikes or something.

I swear to god, if this keeps up I shudder to think of the Facebook status updates of the future:

Found out that the King of Norway is a fan of Doctor Who; or so he told me when he pinned the Abel prize to my lapel. And gave me his phone number.

Going to the premiere of Braaainnns! The Movie and meeting Winnie Cooper. Squee!

Discovered Time Travel and decided to go out dancing with Anneke Wills and Twiggy in 1966. As you do.

Who knew? My theory of stopping a zombie invasion actually *worked*

Now a few of you might be asking, “what is it like to work with such an internationally famous mathematician and writer.” Honestly, I don’t interact with him all that much. Most of the work we do for our books tends to go through his agent. I kid. Actually, I can offer one piece of insight: Robert Smith? The man who has a question mark on the end of his name as a manifesto and not an affectation at all?

Don’t let the iconoclasm and fabulousness fool you. Robert is, without a doubt, the world’s biggest pedant.

Oh my god. I have written two books with Robert, edited another two with him, and worked on another couple with him, and the biggest argument we ever got into involved whether or not internet should be capitalized (he won that one by the way). We can get along through just about anything that’s contentious but we’ll have a ten-round fight about whether or not it’s appropriate to use italics to emphasize prose.

Honestly, you haven’t lived till you have received an acerbic lecture in track changes about grammar from “RS?”. My favourite remains to be this one to our copy editor Crissy on our last book Who is the Doctor about the word Scooby-Doo being hyphenated. Said Dr. Smith?, and this is a direct quote, “You don’t need this hyphen, because both the capitals and the italics take care of it. No one will imagine that it’s a ‘Doo affair’ that’s being modified by ‘Scooby.’”  It was then pointed out to Dr. Smith? that Scooby-Doo was being hyphenated by our copy-editor because the name of the cartoon character is a hyphenate…

But that’s Dr. Robert Smith? for you. There’s a reason why he’s number two in page ranking on Google to the guy from the Cure: he’s a man of singular vision, talented, brilliant, funny, iconoclastic, and a genius. He’s also a wonderful collaborator and I’m proud he’s been one of my very best friends for the past 17 years.

But more than that… I’m so glad he’s finally 40. About bloody time.

——————-

Oh, about that party… the theme was to dress as the person or profession they most wanted to be. Naturally, I dressed as Robert Smith? Here’s a cameraphone photo of me with Robert (who apparently wanted to be Colin Baker’s Doctor Who)

And Shoshana really loves him. Who else would go to the trouble of getting Robert a vegan birthday cake with a TARDIS on the icing!

It all started with an e-mail to our editor…

Four months later all the waiting is over, all the discussions have been concluded, all the contracts have been signed… and it’s official: Robert and I are doing a follow-up book to Who is the Doctor which will come out autumn 2013 for Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary.

We’ll share the details of what it is we’re doing down the road, but suffice it to say Robert and I are very busy right now. (You might find updates to this site a little sporadic for one thing!)  But yay! The second book has been commissioned!

1) Uniball Vision Elite pen (0.8 mm)

2) Legal Pad (usually one that’s full of stuff. This is my work version, which I tear off stuff from all the time)

3) Notebook (you don’t write a book without one of these babies)

4) Vessel with which to drink something (tea, coffee, scotch…)

(This is a mug I got for appearing on a panel on SPACE. The logo has almost worn off. Note to self: get on another panel on SPACE. They provide nice mugs. And tote bags. And hoodies… SPACE swag is not essential to writing. But it’s still cool…)

Another fabulous book featuring me. But that’s not why you want to purchase it.

It’s also an exciting collection of reviews of every Doctor Who story in the classic series, edited by my frequent collaborator Robert Smith? as his McCartney solo project. But that’s not why you want to purchase it.

Outside In has the bravest remit for a Doctor Who book ever: 160 reviews of all 160 classic series stories, written by 160 people. In 160 diverse styles.That’s still not why you want to purchase it.

It includes some massively talented writers. Still shouldn’t be affecting your purchasing choice.

No, you want to get Outside In because it features the first published work of my wife Julie as she reviews the Tom Baker classic, The Robots of Death!

So go order it from ATB Publishing when it becomes available later this month. It’s out this November!

Too late for Fan Expo (alas) but finally here! The second printing of Who is the Doctor has arrived!

Yes, that is a TARDIS shaped mug on my desk at work.

What’s different about the second printing? Mostly, we’ve fixed a bunch of mistakes, like the really embarassing one that inadvertently claimed Sydney Newman was responsible for Coronation Street and a bunch of airdates we got wrong (worst offender: The Time Warrior which was broadcast in 1973 but we said was broadcast in 1974. Every time!). We clarified a couple of convoluted claims. And we now correctly spell Gareth Roberts’ last name in one key instance.

It looks even more lovely than the first printing. Why not order it and own two copies of Who is the Doctor!

Wow. That was some weekend.

For those who have never been to Fan Expo Canada in Toronto… it’s hard to explain. It’s several hundred thousand fans of TV shows and comics in a ginormous convention centre. It’s crowded, but often the person in front of you is dressed like Yvonne Craig’s Batgirl (or something similar) so you find yourself not minding quite so much.

Dr. Smith? and I were there to promote Who is the Doctor. The Doctor Who Society of Canada were nothing short of amazing. They rounded up a huge consignment of copies of the book to sell. Lucky thing. ECW Press were hoping to have the 2nd printing of the book in but it got delayed getting across the border from the printer in the US. Consequently, the only copies of the book at the con were at the DWSC table.\

Right from the start Robert and I were thrown into the maelstrom, beginning with being interviewed by SPACE. I did slightly better than my interview at the launch (though I still look pained on air!). Dr. Smith? however handled it like a pro…

I hate him and his easy, telegenic manner…

In the midst of the insanity, two cool things happened: the first was that I found a beat-up copy of Justice League of America #3 for $50. (Not bad for the third issue, published 50 years ago!). The second was that, after several interminable line-ups and sitting in on the InnerSpace panel, Robert and myself got tickets to go to the special screening of Asylum of the Daleks a week before it airs on TV! Here’s me with my “Charlie found the Golden Ticket!” pose…

I signed my life away in non-disclosure agreements and agreed to turn in my phone before the screening (and they had security patrolling the screening with night vision goggles to ensure no trouble), so I can’t really say much about the episode. Except that it’s awesome. Oh you’re in for a treat.

The big day for us was Sunday. That’s when Dr. Smith? and myself did our big panel…Here we are with panel moderator, the Doctor Who Society’s Mike Deed.

We knew from our Doctor Who Society friends that FanExpo had booked a room too small for the crowd. (They tried to negotiate a bigger space, but failed, though their effort was valiant). Which was frustrating because we filled a 200+ seat room at Toronto Comic Con and it was the only panel talking about Doctor Who all weekend. People lined up over an hour to get in. In the end it was standing room only. I counted over 170 people. Our editor, Jen Hale, had to beg to get in!

So we’re in a room that’s packed to capacity. Good thing we know how to talk about Doctor Who…

It was a fantastic panel, and everyone seemed to love it.

We had a great signing afterward. Indeed we had great signings every day. It’s humbling to be told there’s a 12 year old boy waiting at the DWSC table to have his copy of Who is the Doctor signed. We also had an unbelievably enthusiastic teenaged girl come by having already throughly read the book. And there were all sorts of people who came and brought their copy having purchased the book before and having noticed we were there, which was really cool.

We had all sorts of people come by. In the end we sold every copy the Doctor Who Society brought. Woo hoo!

I had a lovely time hanging out with people I don’t get to see often, like Mark Askwith from Space and author J.M. Frey. Probably the nifitiest thing that happened all weekend was being able to have the opportunity to hang out with Dan Slott, the writer of the Spider-Man comic book for Marvel. (Who is also a massive Doctor Who geek. Yes, I gave him a copy of my book!)

We also had a great time talking with our pals from ECW Press, especially our esteemed editor, Jen Hale, who had some great news for us (that we’ll tell you about later).

Both Robert and myself would really like to thank the Doctor Who Society of Canada, especially Mike Deed and Cindy Peters, for their incredible work in making everything—our attendance, our signings and our panel—happen. Their work was absolutely astounding. And we’re very grateful to them.

And we really had a great time talking to fans of various sorts. For all the madness that is FanExpo what can’t be denied is that it’s populated by creative, thoughtful people who care about popular culture. What’s not to love about that?

Well, isn’t this kind of cool: Robert and myself among the Author Guests at this year’s FanExpo in Toronto! FanExpo is the mega mega convention in Toronto. Huge guest list (including Doctor Who and Torchwood’s John Barrowman!), loads of exhibitor space, and tons of cosplaying crazy kids!

Robert and myself will be doing a panel on Who is the Doctor (the only fan panel on Doctor Who the whole weekend) on Sunday at 3 pm. We’ll also be signing at the ECW Press booth (556) at 1 pm on Sunday, and signing after our panel at the Doctor Who Society of Canada table (L94) on Sunday at 4pm. There will also be a signing on Saturday at the Doctor Who Society table as well at some point, and we’ll be at the Elephant and Castle on King Street for the Doctor Who Society FanExpo after party on Saturday night.

Plenty of opportunities for you to say hi, ask us any questions about Doctor Who or or book and even get us to sign your copy. If you see us, stop by and say hello! Don’t be shy!

I was interviewed at an ungodly hour today for the Preacher’s Podcast, (which is a Doctor Who podcast and nothing to do with religion). Along with a lot of questions about Who is the Doctor I was taken aback by being asked “What advice would you have to aspiring writers?”

I fumbled through a somewhat decent answer, but it did make me think: what was the best advice I was ever given as a writer?

Once again, I go back to Andy Lane. Poor Andy has no idea how influential he’s been to me. Not only did he write my first rejection letter, not only did he inspire my first published short story, but he gave me the best bit of advice on writing fiction I’ve ever been given.

It was 1998 and I was living in Britain at the time I was out with him and some other friends, drinking somewhere, probably at the Fitzroy Tavern. (As I recall, it might have been when Dave Owen was in London on a visit). I was loudly complaining about some reviewing I was doing for Dreamwatch magazine at the time. I was the go-to guy for reviewing “uncategorized” materials (stuff that weren’t Star Trek. Doctor Who, X-Files and the like). At the time, one of those things was a recent series of novels based on the film The Crow. I had read two or three of them by that point and I was sick to death of them.

“The trouble with them is it’s impossible to write a good one.” I opined, probably with the aid of dreadful Samuel Smith beer, “Every book rigidly sticks to a formula.” The formula being (and forgive me if I don’t have this quite right, it’s been almost 15 years): a person in love is murdered, and the violence of their murder and the intensity of their love cause them to be resurrected by the power of the Crow to wreak terrible revenge. Every novel closely hewed to it. No matter what trappings they added to it, it never escaped the format.

Andy looked at me and said. “It’s easy. Break the format.” A micro-second’s pause and he demonstrated it to me. “Two people in love with the same person die violently and are resurrected by the Crow, and they wreak revenge on their killers while trying to kill the other to get their love.”

It was staggeringly brilliant.

Ever since, anything I’ve done—short stories, screenplays, non-fiction, even my professional communications work—has stopped and asked the questions: What’s the format? and How can I break the format?.

It’s a beautiful piece of advice that says you don’t have to be beholden to anything in writing. The best things to write are the things that challenge a common assumption.

I’ve only seen Andy once in the past decade (in Los Angeles in 2008). I hope I bought him some drinks then. I still owe him some now for that.

I’m back from a cycling holiday on Prince Edward Island. 7 days, 308 km (191 miles). Muscles I never knew I had are currently aching. Here’s a picture of me on the road, by the sea. (Not seen: the road.)

Not much else to report… oh, just one thing: Who is the Doctor is getting a second printing. That’s rather gratifying to hear.

Once I’ve recovered from cycling (and get caught up my day job) I’ll try to get back to writing some columns for this website. No, really!