The Darkness of Shirley Jackson

 An excellent article from The Atlantic about the author, Shirley Jackson.

Haunted Womanhood

The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered

 Many years ago, Clive James wrote a poem expressing his joy at realizing a fellow author’s book wasn’t selling. (Schadenfreude, anyone?) If you haven’t read it, you should, for it’s quite rightly one of his most liked, and well known poems.

The Book of my enemy has been remaindered

And I am pleased.

In vast quantities it has been remaindered.

Like a van-load of counterfeit that has been seized

And sits in piles in a police warehouse,

My enemy’s much-praised efforts sits in piles

In the kind of bookshop where remaindering occurs.

Great, square stacks of rejected books and, between them, aisles

One passes down reflecting on life’s vanities,

Pausing to remember all those thoughtful reviews

Lavished to no avail upone one’s enemy’s book –

For behold, here is that book

Among these ranks and banks of duds,

These ponderous and seemingly irreducible cairns

Of complete stiffs.

The Books Machine – Reading by Telepathy

On the 16th of September I received a flattering e-mail from  Meryl, who works for a website called ‘The Books Machine’. Her e-mail informed me that, “The Books Machine is a website that connects authors and readers. It helps writers promote their work, gain in reputation and prestige, and reach a potential audience.”

It also said, “I have recently come across your book Bootleg on Amazon and due to both its quality and plot, it qualifies to be promoted in our community of readers.”

There’s just one teeny tiny problem with Meryl’s pitch. Bootleg is only available on Kindle and my sales reports from KDP informed me (much to my despair), that Bootleg has sold precisely zero copies since July. KENP Read pages were flat as a pancake as well. And I hadn’t run a campaign for freebies since 2015.

Which does raise the interesting question of how Meryl from ‘The Books Machine’ managed to read Bootleg and decide it was awesome in both quality and plot.

Here are some possibilities that spring to mind...

• She read a copy over the shoulder of a coworker – who downloaded a freebie back in 2015.
• She read it over the shoulder of someone she was sitting next to on a bus or a train – who downloaded a freebie back in 2015.
• She borrowed someone’s Kindle or iPad – who downloaded a freebie back in 2015.
• She read the reviews and decided she didn’t need to actually read the story.
• Telepathy.

I’m going with ‘telepathy’. Mainly because that implies an exciting super power and that one day Meryl will reveal her secret identity and that she will only use her power for good. And I’ll be able to proudly say, “Hey, she sent me an e-mail about how awesome my short story was!”

When an Author’s Pseudonym Goes Ever So Slightly off the Rails...

 

Great movies you should watch (if you haven’t already): The Big Short

“The truth is like poetry. And most people fucking hate poetry.” Overheard in a Washington D.C. bar by author Michael Lewis.

I missed The Big Short when it was first released. After I missed it at the multiplex, I read some great reviews and purchased the Blu-ray edition as soon as it came out. I’ve just watched it for a fourth time. It’s a movie that serves as a reminder that running with the crowd, going with the flow or just ‘being like everyone else’ isn’t always the best course of action.

The topic of the movie may be the start of the GFC (Global Financial Crisis) but at its core it’s all about the usual human foibles: greed and stupidity.

Adam Savage: My love letter to Cosplay

Once again, Adam Savage proves that you should never, ever stop being passionate about the things that interest you.

Adam Savage’s Advice on Making Stuff and Failure

Adam Savage talks about the thing we all battle with: making stuff and the failure that comes with the territory.