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Writer things, reader things, and other nonsense.
So Friday I said I’d do a bunch of things to the site over the weekend. Well, best laid plans and whatnot. I did get around to uploading some new files and deleting old ones. What does this mean? It means that the links on the Stories page are currently broken. That’s because I meant to revamp the Stories page with sections for Short Fiction, Flash Fiction, Novellas, Novels and (gasp!) poetry, but I didn’t. Why? I’m lazy. Sorry. Hate to break it to you folks like this but, well, I just can’t hide it anymore. Or maybe I’m just too lazy to try?
In any case, I will get around to doing that this week. The files are on the server. It’s just a matter of making it look pretty and accessible (and writing the copy to go along with it – ugh).
Since I’m short on actual content today, I’ll update with some writer things for you:
Frequency
Good Friday snuck up on me. I’m not complaining, though. It’s a three-day weekend, which means I’ve got a day to play catch-up on things since I’ve been slacking these last few days. Time to slog through Google Reader and pick out some flagged points of interest.
I’ll also be doing various little things around the website this weekend as well. New things will be added and I hope to (finally) get the Store section up and running.
I meant to write about this earlier but I simply didn’t know what to say. I was also rather tired this week and went to bed rather early most nights when I would normally blog. Anyway, in case you’ve been living under a rock, acclaimed scientist and sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke passed away this week at the age of 90. I admit I’ve never read any of his work, nor did I particularly enjoy the film for 2001: A Space Odyssey (and before any of you film geeks start flaming me over it, allow me to specify that I do agree it is an amazing film, but the story itself is just too slow for my taste), as I’m not really much of a reader of science fiction. Still, I do recognize his importance to the genre and the scientific community, and he will be missed. Rest in peace.
Following up on my blog about the implications of Borders’ new face out policy comes two new reports on Galleycat about possible reasoning behind it. Not only did Borders receive a 42.5 million dollar “stimulus” (that’s a popular word here in America these days, isn’t it?) to boost its waning performance (which deeply saddens me), there is also murmurings in the corporate industry of a potential buyout or merger with Barnes & Noble. So much for all those Mom & Pop stores. This, too, saddens me. When I read the Galleycat article, I felt a bit like this.
Moving on to a bit more uplifting matters is an interview with Neil Nyren, the Editor in Chief of Putman, over at Murderati about the state of the shrinking book market and the investment in upcoming authors. It’s really worth a read.
I uploaded the first volume of NIN’s Ghosts to the media player on your left. You can listen to all nine tracks and, if you like what you hear, I strongly encourage you to go buy the whole thing. Five bucks gets you all 36 tracks in digital form. Ten bucks gets you the CD. It’s worth every penny.
In ALT-related news, I’m hoping to make the book available on Amazon as a Kindle-ready download. Also on my list is something I’ve been meaning to do for ages now, and that’s upload a couple of pieces of fan art I received (I’ll probably include that awesome piece of fan mail too). And now that I’m thinking about it, I just realized I forgot to post something months ago. I received an email from a former co-worker back in October (I know, I know, I’m terrible), and now that I’ve remembered, I’m going to share it with you:
Your book was great and a thoroughly enjoyed it! I guess you don’t ever really know anything about the people you work with day to day…you think you do but you have no idea! From the first chapter to the end I was pulled into the Monochrome world!Makes you realize that every once in a while that you have to change things up and make your life less of the usual and make it a little unusual. Anyway, congratulations on the book and your engagement! Thank you for getting me to read again. I ride the train everyday and usually would take a nap or stare blankly at the window…now I am inspired to read again (if only for 20 minutes) and be taken far away.
“Thank you for getting me to read again.” This, folks, is one of the reasons I do what I do, and I think that’s a great place to end this entry. Have a wonderful weekend and, for some, a great holiday as well. I’ll write when the updates are made.
Best,
TK
Sign of the times.
It’s during a conversation with a co-worker yesterday that I learned about Border’s announcement of their new face-out policy - meaning you’ll no longer have to turn your head to read the titles on the spines. Spines? Who needs spines when you’ve got full cover real estate to play with, right?
Then I read this on Galleycat today.
When I was younger and a little more stupid than at present, I wondered why most bookstores seemingly hid the awesome covers of some equally awesome books. Those better books should’ve been facing outward so others could see them, right? So they would know how great the book is too, right? Sometimes, as a kid and well into my teens, if I saw a book I loved hidden among a dozen others, I would pluck it from its hiding place and turn it face-out so others would notice. I’m sure this pissed off the clerks at the bookstore (as it did me when I finally got a job at a bookstore), but hey, my heart was in the right place. After all, supporting the artist is a win-win situation, as it allows the artist to continue to produce more great work. Right? Right.
Then I got that job at Books-A-Million several years ago and my perception changed. Aside from special promotional tables, end-caps (those little displays on the ends of aisles), and the Best-Sellers rack, all of the books were turned spine-out. Why? Because there are a lot of books and not enough space. Sometimes we had to jam books into their proper shelves so tightly that customers would need a crowbar to pull them out. Yeah. Space was limited.
Reading about Borders’ change of procedure made me wonder. Sure, there’s speculation in that Galleycat article about the good it will do for small publishers (I’m going to go out on a limb and say little to none, if not even less - but hey, I’m a cynic), and I understand why my corporate bookstore of choice would make such a change as the economy is currently going tits-up and everyone has to do what they can to make ends meet, but the one thing that stood out in my mind was a simple, single, two-word sentence: Less books.
I love Amazon. They also happen to own Borders, but that’s besides the point. Amazon is a godsend sometimes, and their free shipping for orders over $25 is a brilliant up-sell technique that works every time. But is this a sign that they’ve won whatever kind of economic power struggle between brick-and-mortar stores and the online empire? For as much as I love Amazon and its convenience, I also love going to a bookstore and getting lost in the aisles of books. The thought of walking into my local Borders and finding fewer books kind of makes my heart hurt a bit.
Sign of the times, maybe? What are your thoughts?
TK