Where pop culture meets geek culture and they make out a little.
Posts tagged Writers, Authors, Various Wordsmiths
Bookishness is in my blood…god help me
Feb 18th
I mean, I have a master’s in English, an MFA in creative writing, teach writing and I work in a bookstore. You all (all six of you) know this. Everyday, though, I am starting to become ever more concerned about the state of publishing/books/literacy in this country.
Remember the HarperCollins is just Harper’s thing from last week? Well, I currently (stupidly) hold a “supervisory” style position at the bookmines and everything I keep hearing from further up the chain is…what’s bleaker than bleak? My particular bookmine is actually not doing too badly, but my bookmine is also at one of the most affluent malls in north america. Even when the other 99.9999999 percent of the country has no extra money OC asshats driving BMW’s will still drop money at my mall. Now that’s good for me personally because it means I keep getting checks from bookmines inc., but in general the company is expecting things to get a lot worse. What’s bad for us, the humble bookminers, is even worse for the publishing companies because we also sell other shit that isn’t books. Hell, our “stationary” division is one of the most profitable parts of our business.
So I’m idly waiting for the inevitable implosion of the NY publishing industry when I happen upon this (thanks mojo), which I’ll now share the most important (I think) excerpt of:
If King, Dan Brown, JK Rowling and Patricia Cornwell were all to decide to move to selling their books online themselves, rather than going through a publisher, they’d certainly benefit financially. Typically, an author only receives about £1 for every copy of their book sold. Rather than relying on a publisher, big-name authors could afford to simply employ an editor, a PR person, a typesetter and a designer. They could price their books at only £2 or £3 and still make much more money than under the current system.
But without the revenue from these authors underpinning the publishers, the current system would be unworkable. And what would happen then? It’s hard to know. Clearly publishing houses would have to become much smaller, and authors who aren’t international bestsellers wouldn’t be able to benefit from the useful upfront advances. It would be harder to keep writing as a midlist author if you didn’t have a private income. People would still want to seek out great new writers, and so the brands of well-known publishers would still be valuable, enabling readers to sort the wheat from the chaff. But Penguin, Harper Collins and Random House could just become badges on ebook aggregator channels rather than the book-production engines they are today.
In a lot of ways, I would like to see the major houses crumble. If stroll through the “Fiction” section of any bookstore you find (there are exceptions, of course) a lot of novels that sound alike, look alike, and are written alike. Say what you want about music labels stifling the evolution of music (indie labels/bands have been making and selling music for decades) it is WAY harder for a small publishing house to sustain itself. God help you if you are an author with even wisps of non-traditionality in your writing (again, there are always exceptions). In my mind, I see the crumbling of the NY publishing houses as a way of freeing writers, both artistically and logistically. Maybe it would be harder to make money as writer if Stephen King were to self publish, but last I checked it’s nearly fucking impossible to make money at it while he isn’t self publishing so from where I stand it’s no different.
One thing it would definitely change, though, is book retail. If the larger houses no longer accounted for a majority of fiction sales in this country (if all the major writers followed the above formula) then retailers (if there were any left) would be more free to stock their stores as they saw fit. Either that or every non-used book store in the country would just fold up as well.
Anyway…
On a slightly related matter, click this link and vote for Knights of the Cornerstone for Best Fantasy Novel. Even if you haven’t read it!
Kate Nash — We Get On
Second Post Today, Also Not a Comic
Feb 13th
See, I have free time today between class and work. I also have a short story to finish but there were some news style items from the past week I wanted to highlight.
First off, HarperCollins is now just Harper, I guess. It was announced this week that the Collins division (and Bowen Press) would be shut down and the publishing duties distributed through the remaining imprints. Basically, it means that several executives/editors/probably a lot of underlings got the boot which always sucks but especially now in this reading less society with no foreseeable economic future that isn’t total ruin.
Reports of my demise have been…slightly…exaggerated.
Feb 4th
So it has been a month since the renewal of the gregorian calendar we affectionately know as “the new year” and there has been little to no activity on the ol’ NR. I am, in theory, less busy now than when I was still in school. I’m only teaching one class this semester and I don’t have any of my own to attend.
For those that haven’t had an infant in the house…how should I put this…it’s annoying.
Look, I love my son, but at six weeks old he’s still not sleeping more than 3 hours at a time, and somehow he came down with a virus which he’s had for a few weeks now (immune systems being new and all the colds linger in the youngins) which means that half the time, he won’t sleep…check that, even stop screaming, unless he’s being held. At six weeks old he can’t be manipulative so the screaming is for realz, yo!
Just a bit before the real post
Nov 22nd
I’m not gonna make a long post here, because there’s to be a longer one up on NR soon enough. But in the same vein as the upcoming NR post (WITH a NEW comic!) I also made this quick gif which i thought I would share… and yes, I have absolutely no love whatsoever for this horrid series, or the tepid piece of cinematic trash that it has spawned and released into theaters nationwide as of today (Friday, which is now yesterday, whatever). Enjoy… or don’t.
I love you all,
–Aleister
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Seabound
In Case You Ever Wanted to Meet My Hero…
Oct 28th
Here’s your chance!
For those of you who don’t know, James P Blaylock’s (yes THAT James P Blaylock) latest novel, Knights of the Cornerstone comes out on December 2nd. I believe I mentioned that he will be at Mysterious Galaxy on December 13th, but if you live north of San Diego then you’re in luck!
James Blaylock will be doing a reading/signing at the Borders at South Coast Plaza at 2 pm on December 6th.
It just so happens that is the bookmines where I lately toil, so I’m trying to get as many people (I’m looking at you faithful, California based, Normalinauts! Kerri gets a pass on this) to show up as possible. If you have never read anything by Blaylock I can’t recommend him highly enough. Unfortunately, because he hasn’t published a full length novel in almost a decade, a lot of his stuff is out of print. We’ll certainly have the new book on hand that day, and I have a couple of other things in the store that has his name is on.
As I said, he agreed to do a reading as well, so it should be a good time for all.
Dropkick Murphy’s — Gonna Be a Blackout Tonight
Instead of a comic….?
Oct 25th
Apologies for not updating the comic yesterday as planned it should be up either Mon or Sun…. put simply, shit is wack, and shit done got out of hand. But so it goes.
But, instead of comic, how about a live appearance, and better yet how about the chance to meet creators less dubious than myself? Such awesome folk as the lovely Tommy Kovac and the infamous Steve Niles? Well, here’s your chance:
For anyone interested the Gilgrim clan will be trucking our way to Bellflower this afternoon for the 10th Anniversary Celebration of Metropolis Comics. Come on down and join us and take hold of your chance to meet the amazing Tommy Kovac, and dastardly Steve Niles in person, hang out, buy shit, get autographs and all of that fun stuff ^__^.
10th Anniver-Scary party at Metropolis Comics in Bellflower,Ca.
MAP
Metropolis Comics Bellflower
16509 Bellflower Blvd.
Bellflower,Ca. 90706
(near the corner of Bellflower and Oak)
Saturday Oct 25th 4pm – 7pm
Steve Niles – 30 Days of Night, Criminal Macabre
Aleister Gilgrim – Cemeterians
Tommy Kovac – Wonderland, Autumn
I love you all,
–Aleister
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Project Pitchfork – Chaka Red
Some Interesting Developments
Oct 16th
Behold…
Your regularly scheduled comics will continue shortly.
Until then, I did want to take a moment to offer to all faithful Normalinauts a piece of literary advice.
Attention Exsulis: Engage Nerdgasm!
Oct 9th
After it was announced that Brandon Sanderson would be the man to finish The Wheel of Time, our friend Exsulis took it upon himself to read everything that Mr. Sanderson has written.
Well, I’m trying to remember Exsulis’ exact itinerary (he’s headed off to the land of koalas) but I’m hoping he’ll still be in this hemisphere on the 22nd, because Brandon Sanderson (and David Farland) will be doing a signing at the Border’s at South Coast Plaza from 4-5:30. Anyone else interested in high fantasy is, of course, invited.
I am a swimming in, how do you say, books.
Sep 30th
I’m reading three books right now; Geek Love, The Street of Crocodiles, and The Posthumous Memories of Bras Cubas. I just finished The Names three days ago. I’m also trying to write three (reasonably short) papers and grade 37.
As I type this, there are more than 25 books in my car. If I take a corner too fast I am randomly hit in the head by something like this, or this, or this.
Of course, all of this is of secondary import today.
Of course we knew how it would end.
Sep 8th
JK Rowling, having scored one for the BIG GUY, has won her copyright case against Steven Vander Ark and his publisher RDR Books.
You, faithful Normalinauts, may remember I opined on this subject most vehemently once…
To this day it remains one of the busiest, in terms of site views, we’ve ever had here at ol’ Normality Restored. Most of that thanks to a group of…let’s call them “fans“…of Rowling’s who thought I was wrong, deadly wrong.
In any event, I think we all knew where this case was headed, right? I mean, there was no way a small publisher in Michigan (hint: if you are a publisher in Michigan, then by definition you are small) was going to beat the massed forces of darkness known as the Warner Brother’s Legal Team.
So, no hardcopy HP Lexicon for us. Now on to things that actually matter.
Either this guy is stupid or…no, he’s just stupid.
Jul 11th
So a dude walks into a library in D.C. with a copy of Shakespeare’s first folio and asks if the staff there can authenticate it.
It just so happens that exact folio was stolen from Durham University Library (in Jolly ol’ England!) 10 years ago.
The guy claims to have bought the folio in Cuba.
More Delay Horrors…
Jun 6th
For me, this has been a thoroughly terrible week. Mostly thanks to family related issues, I’ve not slept very much, or very well. I’m tired, and bitter, and sick of being at work.
For Gilgrim, as near as I can tell from our scant communiques of the past few days, he is sleep deprived.
I’m not entirely sure, but my guess is there is no forth coming comic today…