I promise I’m not dead, just retired

I promise I’m not dead, just retired

Well, for a week or two the jury was kinda out. But here’s a brief recap of what’s been going on since I’ve been out gallivanting around and doing a piss-poor job of telling anyone where I am or if I’m alive.

I went to the Southeastern Theatre Conference in Chattanooga for the 19th consecutive year. It was pretty apropos that I essentially ended my career with Barbizon at this conference, since it was at this conference in Norfolk, Virginia in 1995 where I first heard of Barbizon and met anyone from there. A year later in Louisville, KY I was working in the Barbizon booth!

Some of my best friends in the world were there, and my buddy T-Bone bought what amounted to a bottle of Patron to do a round of shots on Friday night. If you ever stay in Chattanooga for anything, I highly recommend the Chattanoogan. The rooms are lovely, and Alan the cocktail server was amazing. Which reminds me, I need to send him a book for taking such good care of us all weekend. We ended up with twenty people outside by the fire pit on Friday night because it was a lovely night and the band sucked. That marked another first for me – we helped get the house band fired because they were absolutely dreadful. The above pic if just a few folks that were part of the toast, but I wanted to commemorate them here. Thanks to Jeremy K for the pic.

Then I came home and turned up with bronchitis. This happens to me once a year or so ever since I caught pneumonia a few years back. My lungs are a little sensitive, and if I try to go too long without reasonable rest (like doing StellarCon then working a week and doing SETC right behind it), I get sick. This was a doozy, too. I ended up flat on my back for a solid week, and barely recovered for the following week. I was sick enough that it was Wednesday of MidSouth Con before I was 100% sure I was going to Memphis. I watched a lot of Supernatural, broke down and went to the doctor, got some antibiotics that kinda worked, got some hydrocodone-laced cough syrup that certainly made me feel better, then went to see John Hiatt and Lyle Lovett in concert.

Or at least most of John Hiatt and Lyle Lovett in concert. I’d paid a lot of money for those tickets, and there was no way I was staying home, but I only lasted about 2/3 of the show before it got too warm in the theatre and my cough came back with a vengeance. But they were still amazing, and I highly recommend their acoustic set to anyone, especially if you can see them in a converted church that still has the antique Tiffany stained glass windows. But I might be a little spoiled seeing as many shows at Spirit Square as I have. For those of you that have read Back in Black, yes, Spirit Square is a real place, and it’s one of my favorite concert venues ever. If you’re in Charlotte for anything, I highly recommend seeing a show there.

Then I went back to bed for most of a week. Then I tried to get moving again, because I still had a couple days’ worth of my notice to work out, an office to clean, and another con to attend. But more on that later. Now I’m up, I’m healthy (ish) and it’s time to get some writing done!

Guest Post – KJ Hannah Greenberg – State of the Short Story Market

KJ Hannah Greenberg has a new book out called Don’t Pet the Sweaty Things. Check it out and check out her views on the short story market today. I’ll be back tomorrow with photos from the last couple of weeks and stories from my fevered hallucinations while high on cough syrup.

Given the advent of convergent media and their impact on the world of publishing, these days, editors and writers agree that the contemporary short story market is much like the seemingly amorphic colossus described in “The Blind Men and the Elephant.” More explicitly, whereas groups or individual gatekeepers and creatives get the gist of some aspects of this bold, new bazaar, no one understands this souk in its entirety.

Contemporary social expectations have evolved alongside of contemporary telecommunications, too, in a race to determine not who has the most toys, but, furthermore, whose toys are the shiniest. In simple terms, burgeoning innovation has complicated the industry. Championship, to a significant degree, has become a guessing game. It seems, nowadays, that it’s better to be morphed into a gelatinous wildebeest, transported to Planet Nine, or else exposed to outer world experiences than to win a Pushcart Prize or National Endowment for the Humanities monies. Fortunately, feelings are not facts.

What continues to be true is that “the rules” have been vaporized. In their place sit poorly fitting literary brannocks. At the same time as meagerly fashioned fluff rules “popular,” i.e. mass market publications, the literary and the pulp markets, the publishing world’s extremes, respectively, are shifting. No longer do writers sell only science-based speculative fiction. Instead, we sell an array of imaginary stuff including, but not limited to: alternate history, bizarre fiction, cross-genre fiction, cyberpunk, slipstream fiction, soft science fiction, steam punk, and weird tales.

Despite this upheaval in what constitutes content fit to be marketed, we writers, and the folk who befriend us, remain motivated to broadcast patterned words. Presently, electronic and audio venues vie with traditional print forums for the best short fiction. Roll call URLs such as Ralan’s SpecFic & Humor Webstravaganza and Duotrope’s Digest  help established and emerging writers, alike, find homes for their short works.

When assessing the short story market, in addition, it behooves us to appreciate that writers are no more likely to make a living being word players today than we were ten or one hundred years ago. Most short stories authors sagaciously keep their day jobs. Despite the fact that odd ducks, because of merit, fortune, or both, make five and six digits on works issued by traditional presses, by print on demand presses, or by vanity and self-publishing presses, most skilled folk are happy to get, if not membership in SFWA, then bylines at respectable locations.

All things considered, even the end that is peer recognition is not freely given.  Half of the problem is the tonnage of garbage that gets mindlessly submitted to people populating mastheads (I can vouch for this phenomenon since I edit for Bound Off and for Bewildering Stories). Many newbies, but also a good per cent of older, cantankerous sorts, think it costs nothing for them to submit, at the touch of their keypad, work to multiple outlets, and to do so simultaneously; they forget someone has to read the received work.

The other half of the problem is the half-baked efforts offered up by otherwise good writers coupled with the diminishing energies available from good periodicals’ exhausted staffs (see above for the rationale for droopy masthead members). Although getting published takes more than a roll of the dice, it can be very confounding either to find a welcome mat or to find work worth welcoming.

What’s more, not each and every published morsel is created equally. I remember, during my stint as a literary critic at Tangent, feeling loss at the nearly formulaic, i.e. safe for sales, nature of most of the stories that managed to squeak onto the pages of renowned magazines. Fortunately, we have places as Critters.org, where “the best and the brightest,” alongside of newcomers unafraid of risks, send their work for peer feedback. I’ve enjoyed proportionately more of that latter group of manuscripts, bumps, warts, and so forth, then the methodically published, albeit technically “well written” stuff splat on the big guys’ pages.

Auxiliary to the aforementioned, in publishing, as in many other industries, the socio-economic activity of networking counts. Publishers who enjoy their authors’ work often open back doors for them. Less frequently, but more astonishingly, publishers invite their favorite writers to contribute tales. In my own modest experience, I’ve enjoyed both modes of getting my writing into print. I’m disinclined, however, to name where I enjoy such accommodations.

Related to the boons of networking are the drawbacks of scams. From publishers who insist that their naïve contributor must buy copies of anthologies, in which those writers’ work is presented, to broadcasters who create unrealistic literary contests, money is being made from the energies of innocent writers. Watchdogs such as Preditors [sic] and Editors and such as Absolute Write Water Cooler exist, yet writing remains a “sellers beware” business.

More exactingly, we live in a span during which base individuals have no compunction preying on we creatives’ longing for success. Just as labdanum was produced mainly for the perfume industry, but was used, by unscrupulous sorts, as an adhesive for royalties’ fake facial hair, Internet opportunities have both multiplied writing outlets and have attracted hoards of nasties. It’s of small wonder that some writers prefer to obsess over pretend beasts than to struggle to get our short works to audiences.

Nonetheless, in the end, we writers can’t help but respond to our urge to reveal, to scrutinize, and to gather together fantastic moments, no matter the state of the publishing industry, specifically, or of the economy, in general. Writers write and will often do amazing things to make sure that their readers can read.

As for me, I confess to continuing to be incorrigible when it comes to generating texts. Happily, my gatekeepers and readers encourage me to do more of the same. To wit, my latest book, Don’t Pet the Sweaty Things, published by Bards & Sages Publishing, was born.

When readers find that their work day has diminished their endorphins, that they need a new reason to slip under the covers with a flashlight, or that they simply want to laugh a loud, a bit more, they ought to open Don’t Pet the Sweaty Things. This book’s anthropomorphic tales are populated with: spacelings, with anxiety-prone rabbits, and with literate penguins. This collection of seventy yarns includes stories of: postpartum tree hoppers with libido problems, multi-headed aliens intent on altering Earth’s fiduciary systems, couch potatoes on notice for otherworlders’ attack, and juvenile chimera chicks tilting against human culture’s prejudices. Besides being good for a few hours’ worth of entertainment, the existence of Don’t Pet the Sweaty Things demonstrates that writers can find means to broadcast their musings in this upside down, contemporary short story market.

 

About the Author:

KJ Hannah Greenberg has met few imaginary friends with whom she hasn’t wanted to consort. Her short, speculative fiction, particularly, blows bubbles at many addresses, including at: AlienSkin Magazine, AntipodeanSF, Big Pulp, Danse Macabre, Morpheus Tales, Strange, Weird and Wonderful, Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction, and Weirdyear. More globally, her short fiction can be found at dozens of outlets, including at: American MENSA’s Calliope, Fiction365, The Medulla Review, Pulp Metal Magazine, and Raphael’s Village. Look for her online, “Jewish” Science Fiction, writing class this May.

Randumb House hates libraries, and other stupid publisher news

I try not to be one of those indie authors that’s constantly bitching about the Big Six, especially since I don’t have a deal with them and have no inside knowledge, but some days it’s hard. Today is one of those days, so you get a full-on publishing rant.

First, this story from Digital Shift is a must-read. Randumb House has decided, in their finite wisdom, that since libraries are one of the largest groups of book buyers in the US, that they should pay TRIPLE the cover price for their ebooks. The statements from Randumb basically sum up as “because you can lend it, you should pay more.” I’m sure there are issues of publishers losing some revenue with an infinitely lendable item, such as an ebook, as opposed to a lendable item that wears out over time, like a print book. But really, do you need to TRIPLE the price? For the institutions that provide books to people who often can’t afford to buy the books new in the first place? It seems horribly misguided to me.

Another thing that seems misguided is backlist pricing from publishers. I wanted to buy a copy of a thriller last week. This book was first released in 1997 or so, and probably released in ebook within the last five years. The mass market paperback price – $7.99. The ebook price – $9.99.

I don’t think so.

I understand paying a premium for portability. I understand paying a premium to be the first one to read a book, thus the higher price for hardback. But backlist books are the books that you’ve already made your money on once. Or twice. Or in the case of this book, which was made into a movie, several times over. A fellow panelist at StellarCon brought up a good point that the cost of ebook conversion of backlist titles is a new cost, so that piece of overhead has yet to be absorbed. Which is valid.

But ebook conversion is cheap. Just a couple hundred dollars at worst. So pricing the ebook at $2 more than the mass market paperback is downright silly. It’s one of those things that makes you rail against traditional publishers, makes indies like me all look like we’re anti-publishing, which we aren’t (not all of us), and makes publishers look like assholes.

I don’t believe that Randumb House hates libraries, but I think somebody there is making a terrible decision. I don’t think that their backlist pricing is highway robbery, but I think somebody there is making a terrible decision. And maybe some of the folks making decisions about publishing oughta get out of New York once in a while and hang out with folks in the rest of the country to get some perspective. Because if you’re making all your business decisions based on life on one small island, you’re probably missing the other 290 million people in the country’s point of view.

World Book Day Giveaway winners!

Rafflecopter makes running blog giveaways ridiculously easy by integrating a random number generator into the plugin, allowing me to pick the winners super quickly and easily. So that’s what I’ve done – I’ve picked the winners, easily.

First Prize – Alex Aguilar

Second Prize – Sam Kamens

Third Prize – Sandee Barry

Congrats to the winners and thanks to everyone who entered! Don’t forget to enter the March is for Monsters giveaway where you can win a Kindle Fire!

I’ll have a StellarCon report coming before too long, then I’m off to Chattanooga for SETC for the rest of the week.

Happy World Book Day!

I’m not an official book-giver-away-er-er (I just made that up), but I do have books, and I’ll give some of them away today. I just made this up when I saw that it was World Book Day, so there’s no notice. Sorry, I’m a bit of a flake. It happens. Here’s the Rafflecopter Giveaway!


a Rafflecopter giveaway