Before I present to you this week’s outrageous video, just a friendly reminder that the Hint Fiction anthology is now up for pre-order at Amazon. It’s also now listed at Goodreads, so if you’re kind enough to mark it as “to-read,” that would be spectacular.
Now, we all know everyone gets excited about weddings and all the stuff that leads up to the big day. But this? Come on, have a little more self-control …
The Hint Fiction anthology isn’t slated to be released for another eight months, but it’s already up for pre-order at Amazon for those of you kind generous folks who like to pre-order now so you’ll be pleasantly surprised months down the line when a package arrives at your place.
According to the product details, the book is 192 pages long and its dimensions (because we all worry about such things) are 6.2 x 4.5 x 1 inches. They also list the release date as November 1st, but I’m not sure if that’s definite — the month, yes; the specific day, no.
Alas, there is no cover yet. I’ve seen the color sketch, and it’s pretty groovy, and once all the final touches are done you better believe I’ll post it here.
In other news, remember how I’d made The Silver Ring available for free download on Smashwords? Well, it’s been exactly one month (only does February count as a full month or am I slighted a few days?), and in the course of that month the novella has been downloaded, as of this moment, 396 times. That comes out to about 100 downloads a week. Again, just because it was downloaded doesn’t mean it’s actually being read, but still. Something to definitely think about, I’d say.
It seems every week there’s another journal or small press publisher launching, just as every week there’s another journal or small press publisher folding. And with how e-books are catching on, it’s no surprise that more and more e-book publishers are popping up.
My question is: why?
It’s pretty clear by now that “self-publishing” is becoming more acceptable, and with certain platforms — like Kindle and Smashwords — it’s almost too simple for an author to upload their work to be read on different e-book readers. I don’t pretend to be an expert on e-books, but from my limited experience, all you are doing is formatting a Word document and uploading it. Yes, it’s a little more in-depth, but still, that’s the basic idea.
So why, exactly, would some authors feel they need a publisher to publish their e-books? Is it because they feel there’s still that awful stigma of “self-publishing”? Is it because they just aren’t aware they can easily do it themselves?
Last week the New York Times did the breakdown of just how much it costs to make an e-book. Yes, we’d all love dirt cheap e-books, but the truth is a lot of time and effort is put into them, just as in print books.
No print publisher is the same. Each has a different style and look and feel. Many small press publishers are going the POD route nowadays, but some are still staying with the traditional way of printing books.
Electronic publishing, however, is a bit different. What stays the same is the actual text; how it appears on different e-book readers varies from person to person, as one is able to play around with the font and the size and whatever else.
A few weeks back I saw an author post that they were happy to have signed with a new e-book publisher, which would bring a particular previously published work out as an e-book.
I thought: Hmm, okay ...
I Googled the publisher. The website was pretty impressive, at least in terms of most crappy websites that publishers have. They seemed to have been signing a lot of authors, too, but had yet to even release a book yet. Interesting.
After talking with some online friends about this particular publisher (one person said, “It’s just two guys with a PC”), I decided to do some digging of my own. This is what I e-mailed the publisher:
I’m curious to know what more XXXXXXXXX does for their authors that those authors can’t do for themselves, in terms of uploading their work onto Kindle or a website like Smashwords.
This was their vague reply:
Many things that I cannot discuss because we do not talk contract terms with anyone but our authors. There is a reason why authors sign with us.
I thought: Well that’s a bunch of bullshit, and sent back this e-mail:
Okay then. Well, seeing as how Smashwords is able to offer writers 70% royalties, if XXXXXXXXX is matching that or even coming close, I’m happy for your authors. Good luck with everything.
That seemed to have struck a nerve, because this ended up in my in-box a couple hours later (note that I have not touched it up whatsoever):
We already know/have known about smashwords for a long time. You should know that they do not get your book in to devices unless you sell a certain amount of books and meet criteria, the majority of material released through smashwords does not get on to ebook readers, or distributed through amazon, sony, barnes and noble, etc. They also do not provide covers, art, or formatting, which most authors cannot do on there own, or have the budget to pay someone to format properly in to the main formats (.epub, .mobi, .prc, .pdf) which can run hundreds of dollars. (see kindleformatting.com as a quick example, or bookmasters, a company the mainstream companies use, and which charge hundreds of dollars minimum per release just to set up.).
Now, there are a lot of things there I don’t quite agree with. For starters, the nice thing about Smashwords is that it pretty much formats your e-book in almost every format (epub, mobi, pdf, etc.). Yes, they are only available then through the Smashwords website, but an author is then able to earn over 70% royalties. Places like Amazon and Sony and Barnes & Noble are starting to make it somewhat easy for authors to self-publish their own works onto their websites too (and if they haven’t yet, they’d be fools not to).
True, those places do not provide cover art either. But you know what? It’s not that hard to find cover art. My friend Wyatt did the cover art for my two e-books just for fun. I’m sure if I didn’t have his kind generosity, I could have found an artist to come up with something for a decent amount. Plus, say if I were an established author and looking to self-publish an e-book and I approached some artists about doing a cover. How many do you think would be willing to do it for a reasonable price, if not free?
Yes, formatting can be a bitch, but I’d rather spend a couple of hours doing it on my own and keep that 70% royalty then to have someone else do it and only earn … well, we don’t know how much the authors earn, obviously, though you’d think the publisher in question would go with a standard publishing contract. Ah, but we’ll never know for sure, not unless we become one of this publisher’s super lucky authors, right?
Anyway, read into their lengthy response any way you want, but to me this publisher is basically saying some authors are too stupid and lazy to do it all themselves. Then again, maybe there is a good reason why authors sign with them. Maybe this publisher is the greatest publisher in the world. Maybe James Cameron still isn’t crying his eyes out for losing to his ex-wife.
Whatever the case, writers do what they want to do. If they want to sign with an e-book publisher, good for them. If they want to try to do it themselves, good for them.
What should one take away from my little investigative reporting? Quite simply that with e-books on the rise, one should be more conscious of the different types of options out there. Remember, what works for one writer doesn’t mean it will work for another.
Now, if you haven’t done so yet, go do yourself a favor and watch The Hurt Locker.
A lot of crazy stuff happened this week — like a kid directing air traffic at JKF International Airport — but the craziest (at least that I saw) was Bill Cosby snapping at a publicist during an interview. The clip below is a little over two minutes, but you only have to watch the first minute to see all the good stuff. Enjoy, and have a great weekend.
My story “An Insurrection” is up today at Necessary Fiction. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like this story a lot. I’m very happy to have finally placed it, and with such a great market — big thanks to Steve Himmer for not only accepting it, but for helping me make it better — yet something does worry me. You see, the story is about 2,000 words, one of the longest pieces of fiction I’ve published in the past year. If it were in a print magazine, I wouldn’t be too worried, as longer fiction is suited for print magazines, but this story is online, and you know how people are with their short attention spans …
Anyway, please do check it out if and when you get the chance. Like I said, I like it a lot. Hopefully you will too.
Ever notice how in almost every magazine’s writer’s guidelines you’ll find the ubiquitous phrase: “We want your best work.” Like that’s really going to stop writers from submitting shitty stuff. Or what — are those writers with the shitty stuff only submitting to the markets that don’t put that in their guidelines?
Come to think of it, I think I even included that “we want your best work” line in the guidelines for the anthology. Obviously not many people followed that, but oh well.
Where am I going with this? I have no idea. But last week I saw a listing for a new print magazine that plans to publish in — get this — April. It pays twenty bucks. Thing is, this magazine doesn’t have a website, at least not one I could find. Hmm, okay. I Googled the editor’s name to see what would come up, but hardly anything did. So you have a brand new magazine that you hope to publish within two months but you don’t have a website yet? How, exactly, are readers (let’s assume of course there are people interested in not just buying a copy, but actually reading it) supposed to order? Yeah … thanks but no thanks.
This of course begs the question: in today’s modern era, does every writer need a website? Not necessarily, though some kind of web presence would be preferable. But a magazine or publisher — do they need a website? Um, that would be a most definite yes.
Recently I borrowed a bunch of burned DVDs from a friend of mine. Last night my wife and I watched Hostage. Or tried to watch it. Everything was fine until the very last few minutes of the movie, where it skipped to the ending credits. Nothing I could do would give us those last few minutes. I’d seen the movie before, so I wasn’t too bummed, but this was my wife’s first time watching it and she wasn’t a happy camper. Not after investing over an hour and a half into a movie and then being thwarted out of the last couple minutes. But I guess that’s just a risk you take when watching burned DVDs. If you listen carefully, you can hear the FBI sniggering …
By now I’m sure everyone’s seen that post about a bunch of famous writers’ ten rules for writing. My favorite from the whole bunch is Philip Pullman’s:
My main rule is to say no to things like this, which tempt me away from my proper work.
I have to smile every time I read that line. On a personal level I’ve found it to be more and more true lately, in terms of writing flash and short stories. I have fun writing them, I like having them accepted and then published, and I love when I hear from people who’ve read them. But honestly? It’s all very distracting from bigger projects that actually carry more weight. Not that flash and short stories aren’t important, but right now I need to focus on projects that will, hopefully, bring in some money. Not “proper work” yet by any means, but one can always dream.
I have some stories coming out this month, about four or five if I’m not mistaken. And looking at them, it seems these are all “realistic” stories. Or “traditional” stories. Or whatever you want to call them. Basically, if you like your stories weird and off-beat and speculative, you’ll have to look elsewhere. You ain’t gonna find ‘em here (or wherever they’re published).
The first is up today at Emprise Review. It’s called “Point of View.” It appears along with stories by Gay Degani and a bunch of other writers you probably recognize. My thanks to Roxane Gay and Patrick McAllaster for being kind enough to publish the piece. Later this week I’ll write a bit more about where the story came from, but for now, enjoy.
(In case you’re wondering, this post’s title is a reference to Mystic River — the book, not the film; in the film Penn plays Jimmy Markum. And yes, this is old news, but thanks to this, it’s fun to watch again.)
Oh, the glamorous life of a big Hollywood celebrity. All that fortune and fame. All that power. And all that scuzzy paparazzi. Honestly, the paparazzi are the scum of the earth, but as an actor — especially a big Hollywood actor — you just have to ignore them. Right? Well, maybe not …
Months back I showed the original artwork by Allen K for my novellette “Through the Guts of a Beggar,” a piece that was supposed to appear in the pulpy monster anthology Tooth & Claw, volume 2, but never did. Then last month I showed the new cover art. Now, as the novellette is only weeks away from launching, I thought it only appropriate to provide a little bit of the beginning. (Just like David Beveridge from The Silver Ring, the narrator here is also a teenage boy; any surprise I’d originally written these in high school?). Enjoy.
* * *
Here’s how it starts: the phone rings and I answer.
“You’re grounded.”
I can tell by the static on my father’s end that he’s on his cell. Lying in bed, I glance at my alarm clock and see it’s almost 11:00 a.m. Four extra hours of sleep on a Friday; thank God for whoever invented parent-teacher conferences.
I yawn. “Say what?”
“Goddamn it, Josh. I knew you weren’t doing well in school, but … this just isn’t acceptable.”
I can hear Mom in the background, telling him to settle down, to watch his language. He mutters something to her, then says, “This is your senior year, Josh, and—and you might not graduate.”
Slowly I sit up in bed. My room’s a mess: papers all over my desk, clothes all over the floor. How many times have I been told to clean everything up? Way too many, that’s all I know. Dad even told me to clean it up this weekend, and I had nodded and said sure, I’ll try, but it’s all become a charade.
“Do you hear me?”
“Yes,” I say quietly.
“Then what’d I say?”
Seems like the only person you can never BS is your old man. I try to think of something smart to say, but I just woke up thirty second ago and I’m still pretty much dead to the world.
“God, Josh, would you listen to me? I said you’re ground. That means no friends allowed over. Not even Amanda. And don’t leave the house. Just … get your room cleaned.”
“Okay,” I mutter, because really, what else am I supposed to say?
“Okay, what?” In the background, Mom tells him to ease off, to not be so hard. He tells her to stay out of it, that he knows what he’s doing. Then: “Are you there?”
“I’m here.”
“You better mind me, son. I’m very disappointed in you.”
“Sorry, Dad.”
And then he says it. No hesitation, no reluctance at all in his voice. He just comes out and says it. And truthfully, it doesn’t surprise me. Not one bit.
“God,” he says, “sometimes I wonder why we even—”
So I’m adopted. Big deal. The same goes for Tyler—only I look more like my parents. Ty’s Korean, has the tan skin and black hair. But he’s my brother, and I’ve known him nearly all ten years of his life, and I love the kid.
For one quick moment, I wonder if Dad would have said the same thing to Ty just now.
The phone starts beeping in my ear. Dad must have hung up. Pity, I think—I wanted to wish him and Mom a happy anniversary. Tell them to have a good ole time up in the Pocono’s for the weekend.
Yeah, right.
I hang up the phone. Stand up and put on a pair of shorts and undershirt from off the floor. Head out of my disaster area of a room, go to the bathroom to take a piss. Then I’m heading down the stairs and walking into the kitchen for something to drink, and it’s as I reach the fridge that I realize just how quiet the house is. The TV in the living room isn’t on, there’s no radio blaring music anywhere in the house. Ty probably went out to a friend’s, or took Laddie for a walk. Either way, I’m alone.
Right now the last thing I want to think about is everything my father was bitching about, especially what he said before he hung up, but I can’t help it; it all keeps racing through my head.
I pull out a carton of orange juice and slam the door, thinking maybe that will make everything better. It doesn’t. What it does, for some strange reason, is makes me think about Amanda, and what we’re planning on doing tomorrow.
Or, at least, what we were planning on doing.
Remember: I’m ground.
I go to grab a glass from the cabinet but then think screw it and drink straight from the carton. When I’ve had enough I set it down on the counter and just stand there by the sink. I stare out the window into the backyard.
I think about Dad again. I knew what my teachers were going to tell my parents even before they went to school today, but I hadn’t warned them. My hope was that maybe it wasn’t as bad as it seemed.
I keep staring out the window.
Amanda is stopping by later. We’re supposed to call and confirm tomorrow’s appointment, and she wants us to do it together. What am I going to tell her when she shows?
I keep staring out the window.
Maybe I’ll give Ralph a call. I’m sure he’ll know what to do. Sure, the guy’s almost seventy, but he knows me better than my parents. Hell, probably better than myself. Just our next-door neighbor, yes, but he’s pretty much been a part of the family since I was first brought home. He’s like our surrogate-grandfather.
I keep staring out the window, and this time I’m able to blink, to realize where I am and what I’m doing. Standing in the kitchen, tightly gripping the Tropicana carton, I’d been wrapped up in my thoughts, but I’d been conscious too, watching what was going on in the backyard.
Ty, my little brother, is out there with a shovel. He wore his khaki shorts today, and one of his white tee-shirts. Only now his shirt’s not so white. It’s filthy. I can see the dirt even from where I am. It covers his body, but that’s not surprising, because it looks like he’s just finished digging something up.
Or finished filling something in—I can’t tell.
He doesn’t notice me, which is probably best, because he’s crying. The sky is clear, the sun is shining, and I can see the tears as they streak down his small round face.
Then I notice something else.
The place where he’s standing, smoothing out the dirt, used to be nice and even with green grass. Now it’s completely torn up, like a dog was digging up his bone, and I suddenly realize just what it looks like, how long the dirt mound is, how narrow.
It looks like a grave.
I had fun reading and posting that excerpt of The Silver Ring last Friday, and I started thinking about some other stories I’d published that I could possibly read, and immediately I realized there are two stories that I couldn’t read at all, no matter how much I’d want to: “The Amazing Adventures of © and ®” and “The Killer Inside ©”.
Those stories cannot be read aloud for obvious reasons, but does that mean they are lacking? Storytelling, from what we’re taught in school, began as a form of oral tradition. It started with Homer telling the story of Odysseus so very long ago, and through the centuries it began to change where the stories were written down. That is not to say stories aren’t meant to be read aloud anymore, but a good percentage of stories and poems nowadays simply can’t. Many of these would be labeled “experimental” and deal with some kind of significant change in the text. Such as poetry, or even stories, that is formatted oddly, like some kind of special shape. For some reason the author feels the work has to be written and published in that specific way.
I remember one submission I’d received for the anthology, the author complained in his cover letter (note: never complain in your cover letter) how long it took for him to format his story in the e-mail because he couldn’t send a Word attachment; for some reason his “story” was twenty-five words crisscrossed as an X. It was less a hint fiction piece and more a poetry piece (at least to my eyes), and it reinforced the fact that I just don’t get the reason for that type of experimental work. It sometimes seems pretentious of the author or poet, moving words around the page like that, as if by doing so gives the work more authenticity than a traditional poem or story. These poems and stories are meant to be seen, not heard, but does that ultimately mean they lack anything? Or is this simply the way literature has evolved, to cut ties with oral tradition and become a form strictly confined to text?
Keep in mind that while I occasionally enjoy playing around with nontraditional texts, I’m a traditionalist at heart. Maybe this is something I just don’t “get”. So would anybody be willing to please illuminate me?
I’m mixing things up for this week’s Freaky Friday Fun. After my last post about The Silver Ring (which is now up to 221 downloads so far, thank you very much), I felt it was only fitting to read a little bit of it to y’all. (Well, the real reason is because Smashwords allows authors to post videos about their books, and I’m curious to see if a quick reading by the author has any effect.) This is my first time doing something like this, so please be gentle. And enjoy.
