A Demon-Eater's Perspective

About my novels....

2009-12-06T22:27:12Z

My vampires like take out

My necromancers like to nibble in bed

My lycans eat table scraps.

My demon-eater adores Bloody Marys.

My tritons prefer Venus on the half shell.

My trolls have simple tastes: if it wiggles eat it.

Learning to laugh at yourself, among other things

2009-12-06T21:54:56Z

"The reviewer clearly has no taste in prose, probably because they were too busy sipping lattes and sniffing their own farts to develop one, but the point still stands." Encyclopedia Dramatica.

Although they referred to me by name on the Nickolaus Pacione entry (he wrote a story about me called The Fandom Writer), they haven't yet done so here. But they keep adding to it.

I just have to alert them to the truth here. I don't sip lattes. I drink Folger's Instant and put one and a half tablespoons of instant coffee, add pumpkin spice creamer (when I can get it, it's seasonal) and loads of Hershey's coco, and then sugar. As to the farts, I don't choose to sniff them. I'm stuck with them. They're so horrendous you can smell them from the bathroom into the bedroom (seriously. I grew up on Tex-Mex and can't live without lots of bean dishes)

All kidding aside. One of the most important things in life is to learn to laugh at yourself.

It doesn't come easy. And I will get into that in another post.

-------------------

My friends and I have checked that entry several times just because they keep up with her so well. I've been getting some very strange PMs at various places and one of them claimed to come from a fan of Melissa's.

I encountered Melissa the first time on a poetry board that I owned. I did not go there often as I had set it up as a favor to a friend and then just became an absentee landlord who dropped in from time to time. The friends who ran it did not have the time to keep up with it any longer and I closed the board recently.

I have renewed the domain name. And I put a redirect to my main message board on the site.

For the past couple of months while playing Warcraft, I have been hollering "Kill the poooeeets"

I can honestly say that I am not certain if poets have cornered the market on stupid or whether other groups are equally obnoxious.

Then again, I may simply have become more cranky in my old age.

-------------------------

The 'washed up has been' bothered me for a day. Mostly because I have been slapped with that label so often since 07. But that's another story.

On the other hand, I chuckled at the image of sipping lattes and sniffing farts. One of the more interesting aspects of farts is one I discovered as a small child. Farting in the bath tub makes bubbles.

________________

And another note. I log IPs and I have definite proof that Melissa left that anonymous comment on the previous post.

I don't want another nitwit war. I have had three of them in the past 10 years. That's enough. However, I don't back down. So hopefully, the PMs and such will eventually stop.

Note to Vamp Fans

2009-12-05T20:24:53Z

Vampires are hemovores and hemophages.

They are not carnivores and they certainly are not vegetarians.

I'm a Washed Up Has Been says ED

2009-12-04T16:52:11Z

Well, actually they grabbed a review I posted on Amazon, plunked it into the entry on someone who calls herself delirium's child and attributed the review to "a washed up has been."

I'm getting used to the label.

I'll have to tell the folks who are still sending me fan letters in email that they have to stop reading my works because I'm not all that sane any longer.

To miss quote Shakespeare, "Better to have (professionally) published and been forgotten, than never to have published at all."

cussedness @ 2009-12-03T00:29:00

2009-12-03T05:29:26Z

Victoria Strauss has an excellent article on self-publishing vs vanity publishing and she answered some of my long standing questions about my own effort to re-issue my books myself.

There's a lot going on that blurs the distinctions between vanity and self-publishing. Language is being cheapened by this. Good words are going bad as the nasties try to make themselves look like the good guys.

Caveat emptor.

Torchlight

2009-12-03T03:23:29Z

I've been relaxing with a new PC game. It's in-expensive. Just $19.95. Torchlight is a load of fun, operates in a similar fashion to Diablo 1, and the graphics are awesome. They are also allowing people to make mods for it.

I beat the game yesterday playing on normal and now I'm going through again on hard. One of the things I like best is that you get two stashes. One for the character and a shared stash where you can pass items between characters. I have one mule to stash a lot of the set pieces and another just for the gems that you can socket into armor and weapons.

It's also nice that you get a pet and you can send it back to sell stuff without leaving the dungeon.

Freakangels

2009-12-01T03:00:20Z

If you're not already reading Freakangels, then it's time you started.

Warren Ellis puts up a new installment every Friday.

He has taken the basic concept of Midwich Cuckoos and carried it to its logical extreme. The psi kids have destroyed the world.

It's a great post Apocalypse tale.

I'm totally addicted to it.

I have finally found something to keep me from endlessly re-reading Transmetropolitan.

I'm building a huge collection of graphic novels written by Warren Ellis, who I believe is one of the finest writers of our time.

For one thing his work is gritty and not afraid to show the dark side of humanity in graphic (no pun intended) detail.

The High Price of Medicine

2009-11-29T02:34:47Z

I have just finished the first draft of the first short story I have written in over two years. The title is The High Price of Medicine.

It is not worksafe.

I will be posting it on my website under Creative Commons.

While I will not tolerate people pirating my novels, I do want to give people some freebies. So all shorts and partials appearing on my website are Creative Commons.

Hoorah! Better options

2009-11-23T16:12:09Z

I found out today that I can still release ebooks through LSI even though I'm not currently doing print versions.

That means I will still have their distribution.

Going that way gets the books into a lot of places, but still not fictionwise.

So I can do a few titles in print through LSI and a host of ebooks through them. That should give me plenty of distribution opportunities.

The only area that I'm still falling down a bit is PR and Marketing.

But I can't do much about that until after the holidays.

I have canceled the weekly meetings for the Daverana staff until the first Thursday after January 1st.

Getting going is rough, but we're still working on it.

RWA Throws A Hissing Fit at Harlequin

2009-11-21T17:30:09Z

The vanity / self publishing trend has gotten hotter and heavier recently with the launch of Harlequin Horizons.

The full text of RWA's decision is here.

Victoria Strauss has made some strong comments about the situation.

It is becoming more and more important to distinguish RE-publishers from SELF-publishers.

I agree with Victoria that the self publishing bubble will have to burst soon. The economy is not going to be strong enough for the masses to continue to do it at high prices.

Lulu may keep going, but I am of the opinion that even there people are getting tired of the no win self publishing world.

A Downturn in the Economy = Ignominity

2009-11-21T00:46:21Z

Well, maybe not, but we've gone to lulu with our books.

It started with a series of set backs and the fact that so far nothing published sold enough copies to sneeze at.

Then we had the brohaha over Death in Common that ended up with us taking a $600+ loss and finally returning the rights to it to the anthology's editor.

We will no longer do anthologies of any kind.

We need 20 books and 5 name authors to get onto Fictionwise and Fictionwise is where the real money is for the small press.

A few hours ago, I sent out emails to the contributors of Flashing Swords. We are suspending publication on the magazine indefinitely and using the website as an ezine doing only non-fiction.

Flashing Swords is now our fantasy imprint.

I am hoping that once I get those 20 books out (and we have them) and go to Fictionwise, sales will pick up and I can then start releasing books through LSI again.

Lulu has a bad rep, but there are some good authors, such as Jerrod Balzer, who use it and are satisfied with it.

Hopefully this next year will bring a turnaround in our fortunes.

Sarah Palin makes me vomit.

2009-11-17T05:21:06Z

Quoted from the Washington Post:
Palin asserts herself as a woman of appetites. "I love meat," Palin writes. "I eat pork chops, thick bacon burgers, and the seared fatty edges of a medium-well-done steak. But I especially love moose and caribou. I always remind people from outside our state that there's plenty of room for all Alaska's animals -- right next to the mashed potatoes."

Publishing myths and changing times.

2009-11-16T22:12:11Z

I meet a lot of interesting people at warcraft.

I run around with surgical techs, former prison guards, a NY accountant, several published authors, a Canadian police officer who trains rescue dogs, and a host of others.

So I should not have been surprised at all to meet more would be authors. One of them asked me the other day about finding markets for horror that were like the magazines of the Golden Age. I had a hard time explaining to him that such things no longer exist. There are a handful of struggling zines, but most of them are already overbought. None of them pay to equal that of the Golden Age.

The Golden Age is never going to return.

Another myth appears to be that all self publishers are created equal: they are all piss poor.

Well, the need for gatekeepers is great for the bulk of them, but I would like to bring up and talk further about another class of self publisher and put forth that we need a definition and a name for them. If there already is one, I will embrace it with joy.

When the corporations bought out all the publishing houses starting in the early 80s, and then large numbers of mergers caused the shrinkage of the market in general, they did several things wrong that have only been partially healed.

One of their first actions was to get rid of any titles that were not meeting their corporate concept of a bottom line. (I think most, if not all, Harvard MBAs ought to be taken out and shot for their part in this debacle or at the very least carted off to the guillotine)

They killed the back list and then the mid list. Many authors were able to make the transition from working full time to writing full time because of the steady sales from the back list. When that was wiped out, a lot of older authors lost their key livelihood. Same with the mid list. However, the publishing houses got hurt by this also.

The back list and the mid list were steady sales, but in smaller numbers than the titles at the top. The dependable flow of money from those two lists supported the development of other authors.

With the advent of PoD, many of the authors who got lost in that sea change went and tried to sell their own reprints. It was a salvage operation. And it is still going on.

The back list and the mid list eventually returned to corporate publishing, but those who had been lost mostly remained lost.

The back list, especially, is much weaker than it used to be. It never fully recovered.

A check of the books on Amazon will turn up a number of authors who have done their own reprints. I am not alone in this.

Yes, a reprint produced like this is a self published title, but it is a self published title that has already been approved by the gatekeepers at an earlier point in its lifespan.

In this sense, it fails to meet the general definition of self publishing, which in and of itself implies a lack of gatekeepers.

So what do we call gatekeeper approved self re-published titles?

We aren't self publishers, we are self REpublishers.

It pays to do your research

2009-11-16T00:48:33Z

buffysquirrel has often said that I need to find a way to turn off my scum bag magnet. I think it really goes beyond that.

I was informed today that I'm not a pro author. I'm a self-published wannabe.

I had been wondering why I was being closed out on a messageboard and a chat forum for the past several months. So I inquired and was informed that they do not encourage writers who are self published.

The past several years have seen more and more older pros bringing out their own reprints. People as respected as Storm Constantine bring out their own reprints. Richard Lupoff has brought out his own reprints.

With the fragile state of the once healthy back list, it is often the only way to keep older books in circulation.

I pulled my books from Renaissance Ebooks over a breech of contract, and have been re-issuing them through Daverana Enterprises.

Apparently that makes me a self published wannabe with no professional credits.

When professional credits get old do they expire?

Or should this individual just get themselves a solid course in google-fu?

Cutest guy I know.

2009-11-14T04:14:13Z

Bodi

An Hour Left

2009-11-13T04:02:38Z

There's an hour left in my chat. I'm taking a moment to post this.

The reason I like IRC is that there are no ads down the side or all around like so many web based chats. Just chat and nothing but the chat

Live chat tonight

2009-11-12T21:42:14Z

I am starting up my old chat sessions again, but at a new addy. I'm still at sff.net, however, since I have begun to use #thecorner as my spot to hold business meetings, I got a new one there. #Daverana.

Below is the addy for direct link. Daverana

For those with irc, the spot is irc.sff.net and the room is #Daverana.

The fun starts at 8PM Eastern time and runs until Midnight or we run out of things to say.

Reclusive, infamous, filled with attitude, RPG designer, Tim Willard has promised to put in an appearance. He created Year of the Zombie, which has been selling well for a looooong time.

Another trademark aggravation

2009-11-12T18:07:13Z

Apparently Oprah Winfrey and Mutual of Omaha have been trying to remove a word and a phrase from the English language that has been around since Chaucer. The vehicle of removal is a trademark.

Timothy Egan has an interesting article on the madness

Work, work, work

2009-11-05T20:43:55Z

On Tuesday I spent two hours in an IM conference with mikebrendan brainstorming on an epic scale battle scene for Loyalty of Wolves. Mike was awesome.

There is only so much you can glean from reading historical accounts of battles. Once you toss in the fantasy elements, it gets far more complex.

One of the things I tend to do is to think of mages as artillery and monsters as tanks. Yet it still falls way short of getting in all the aspects and potentials at epic length.

Word on the street is keep your eye on Timmons Esaias of Seaton Hill, who is currently doing research on a book that will revolutionize the way that genre writers understand warfare. Great things are coming. But I am not saying anything more.

My to-do list is insane today. I'm wired tired, going on 3 hours sleep and too much coffee.

Every time I get my priorities figured out and on a list, something else crops up that I failed to anticipate.

To say that I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed and maddened like the proverbial bull would be to put it mildly.

I have been trying to get the royalties figured out so I can get my writers paid in time for Christmas. I struggled with the way that LSI does them. You can only get the individual title sales on the website. When they send you a notice of royalties owed and payments, they shove it all together.

I had them email me a copy of them to import to excel. It was tab separated. When I tried to import it, excel had a heart attack. What I ended up with was a mess. So much for that option.

I tried using print. I had to do each month singly. So it came out with no dates and in micro sized print that requires using a magnifying glass to read. SIGH. But at least I have something to work with.

When I first found where to go for the royalties on their website (takes hunting to figure out), I mistook what I was seeing for total sales, when it was monthly sales.

If anyone out there knows how to do this in an easier fashion, I would appreciate suggestions.

I'm feeling very inept.

The Scratchware Manifesto

2009-10-31T01:45:50Z

scratchware manifesto was shown to me today by dungeoneer and it got me to thinking about other creative mediums.

It is a well-known fact that publishing is in trouble. The vast changes that came with the buy-outs in the 80s and the imposition of the corporate bottom line has hurt it ultimately.

I watched the changes happening. I watched the transitions. A lot of what the scratchware manifesto sees as the ultimate source of trouble for the gaming industry applies to publishing.

The profit margin on books has always been small. They have always been labors of love more than money. That is --- until the corporations came in. In order to maximize those minimal profits, the editor lost his throne. At one time the editor had the discretionary powers to buy the books he wanted. Now the editor's power has been replaced by the committee. If there is a king in publishing it is the marketing department.

The Mom and Pop bookstores are mostly gone. The independent jobbers are gone, replaced by centralized distribution.

The hosts of first readers have been replaced by agents.

All of the direct human to human components of publishing are gone.

I see the matter as very similar to how games are now produced and how they were once produced. The big companies put 50 to 100 people on the design team to make it a reality.

Books are now being decided by a host of people working in committee like swarms.

As a result it gets harder and harder to sell something offbeat.

And that's in both industries. Really, it's in all creative industries right now.

The result is what Fritz Leiber called "Word Wooze" (Silver Eggheads)

Warcraft for the ignorant

2009-10-30T10:36:39Z

I enjoy relaxing by playing warcraft. However, you have to take the bad with the good. My level 66 dk was challenged to a duel. I don't duel. I enjoy pvp, but I just don't duel.

And this is the exchange, typos and all that occured, and believe me it is typical

To [Goldheals] I don't duel.

[Goldheals] whispers: y?

To [Goldheals]: because it offends my sensibilities.

[Goldheals] whispers: taht made no sense
[Goldheals] whispers: dont attempt to act intelligent

To Goldheals: Then maybe you're too young to understand it or don't have the background in Medieval studies to understand it.

[Goldheals] whispers: no. your jsut a doek is tryin to look smart not working

To [Goldheals]: and you're a childish bastard
_______________________

I kid you not, that is a verbatim from warcraft. And it is typical. It is clear that he's a kid or teenager, but I have to wonder at just how he has been raised to be so ignorant and insulting.

Of course, I have had much worse encounters of this sort. This just happened now and I made screenshots.

Poetry Editor update and other news

2009-10-26T16:56:35Z

Adam Lowe is my new poetry editor. He's an awesome person. And the tale of how we met is hilarious.

You see, for a time I had two wordpress blogs with different log ins. Everyone who visited Rusty Nail regularly knew that I was Cussedness. It's been my handle since 2003. So I never paid any attention to which account I was logged into while posting comments there.

The thread / post at Rusty was about Dagstine and it derailed into analysis. I mistook the name of an award given to a magazine that had both Dagstine and Adam were connected to for an award given out at a gay sf convention. My comment was essentially innocent, especially coming from someone who has never made any secret of being a bi-sexual gender queer who leans most heavily toward women. I posted that comment from my janraefrank account.

Adam accused me of being a homophobe. I responded to that without noticing that I was logged into the other account. I just don't think about these things. And then Adam complimented Cussedness on being such an enlightened individual.

Soon after he discovered they were both me and we had a huge laugh over it.

And we have stayed in touch ever since.

________

Now, on other news.

I am finally worn out and tired of dealing with the 'horror community.' I requested that Nanci at Horror World remove my forum there.

I cleaned out my twitter account and no longer follow people connected to that community.

Although I'm writing about werewolves and vampires, which are classic horror tropes, I feel more at home in fantasy.

I am walking away and going back to my roots.

I have been moving in this direction for several years. Now I think I can safely say that it's over.

updates

2009-10-22T21:38:23Z

Okay, the bad news first.

We are still having troubles with LSI on Death in Common, but hope to have it released within two weeks.

Good news, is that the ebook editions of my first three lycan books are available from Powell's and other distributors that do not have proprietary formats.

On the personal side:

I have a doctor's appointment on the 26th and hope to finally reach the point where I"m not limping along the way I have been for several months. Right now for the first time in days my legs are not trying to twist themselves off my hips. The humming sensation has moved up from the bottoms of my feet and I can now feel it in my stomach and chest on bad days. That's plain weird. I don't know enough about neurology to explain it. There are some other matters. Turning 55 has not helped matters. LOL. And others that I'm not going to discuss until I have some answers.

Twitter blergh

2009-10-14T16:04:59Z

I have decided that I don't like twitter. By the time I notice I have a reply, I have forgotten what the question was. sigh.

Poetry Editor Wanted

2009-10-08T03:53:36Z

I am in the process of interviewing people for the position of poetry editor. I have turned away from the horror community in this search and gone over to the science fiction and fantasy community, but with an eye to someone who can appreciate horror also.

I am doing 3 poetry titles a year. The job pays $50 per book for editorial. The editor gets a cover acknowledgement. I want someone level headed who is willing to work to company standards. Acquisitions is part of the job.

On the personal level, I am starting to slowly recover from the debacle.

The redo on DiC is being uploaded to LSI as I write this.

We have gone to contract on a novel by Gustavo Bondoni entitled “The Curse of El Bastardo.”