FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! (not really)

Chicken dinner.

Not content with humiliating me in the Best Novella 2011, Lindenmuth has now had the bright idea to host an Ebook tournament over at Spinetingler. I believe Dead Money is in there, but faces inevitable first round annihilation at the hands of David Cranmer's pseudonym. Go vote, have fun. I'll be sitting here in the dark weeping and eating.

Coming Soon: Grift Mag

Grift magazine is coming at you real soon. Here's John Kenyon with the scoop, Betty Boop:

First announced in September on the eve of Bouchercon, Grift was something I have wanted to do for a long time. I floated the idea at the beginning of 2011, but didn’t get off the mark until fall. Since that time, I have waded through dozens of submissions, solicited some help from some friends new and old, and have worked to polish everything to make this a debut worthy of the fantastic contributions. The goal was to create a magazine that would mix interesting, hard-hitting non-fiction with some of the best short fiction in the genre. I believe we have succeeded, and I hope you will agree. 

The line up is: 

Scott Phillips on the Factory novels of Derek Raymond
Ray Banks on film adaptations of Charles Willeford’s books
Lawrence Block on his various experiments with storytelling styles
Chris Rhatigan’s long interview with author Julie Morrigan
My even longer interview with author Chris Offutt
My review of the three novels of John Rector

Also featuring brand new stories from Jack Bates, Ken Bruen, Alec Cizak, Matthew C. Funk, Chris F. Holm, Craig McDonald, Court Merrigan, Thomas Pluck, Keith Rawson and Todd Robinson.

That's a hell of a line-up. Didn't know I was in there with that lot. Can't wait to crack the fucker and get reading. Good job, Kenyon.

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."*

A brief word on the Smashwords "censorship" issue, because it ties in a bit with the previous post about entitlement.

Smashwords recently changed their Terms of Service to prohibit the sale of any book that hits Paypal's "hot buttons" of "bestiality, rape-for-titillation, incest and underage erotica". According to Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords, they've got a handle on that underage erotica, so rest safe on that, they've never allowed it, okay? It's the rest that those squares at Paypal have a problem with, and poor old Mark's got to pass on the bad news. I know, right? Comes from letting The Man control your company.

Of course, you ask anyone nicely not to write books featuring bestiality, erotic rape, incest or paedo stuff, you better prepare yourself for the shrill cries of "First Amendment" and "censorship". Neither has any real relevance to the subject at hand, but outragers gotta outrage.

The change of ToS isn't really censorship, not unless Paypal became some new payment-processing wing of the US Government. It's a business decision. You may not agree with it, just as you may not agree with Amazon's ham-fisted treatment of gay and lesbian books, or Wal-Mart not stocking Green Day, or Blockbuster demanding a re-edit of Showgirls. You may also disagree with WH Smith's refusal to stock soft porn magazines in their shops, or that there's no music in a Wetherspoons. The only real difference here is that Smashwords and, by extension, Paypal are the only organisations open to prosecution if they don't make that decision. It also doesn't matter how unfair you think it was that a 56-year-old woman with mental problems was prosecuted under obscenity laws for posting stories involving child abuse. What matters was that it happened. Combine that with a government more than happy to prosecute third-party sites for hosting illegal activity (torrent sites, for example), and it's no wonder that Paypal would rather cover its arse and offend a few mucky authors than suffer through another in a long line of embarrassing news stories.

The chief problem, it seems to me, is again that of entitlement. As authors we feel entitled to be treated fairly, and yes, we absolutely should, but we should also take the time to read the fine print before we go mouthing off that our rights are under attack when they're really not. Nobody is stopping you writing your Pedobear or shape-shifting Twilight slash-fic. And it's hardly an abuse of your civil rights if they don't want to publish it. Let's try to pick our battles a little more effectively, shall we?

*Oh and this quote isn't Voltaire, it's a paraphrase of Voltaire by Evelyn Beatrice Hall.

"I think it's the sense of entitlement that bothers me ..."

So I'm reading this piece by the handsome and talented Declan Burke, because it would appear that I'm a glutton for punishment, because it deals with ebook pricing and, as such, demands that opinions different to my own are given space. I know, right? It's disgusting. When I become your benevolent Presidente, all such dissent will be dealt with in a swift and bloody manner. Consider yourselves warned.

Until that time, however, my eyeballs and blood pressure are forced to deal with stuff like this:

"I've noticed people tagging the US Kindle edition of Stolen Souls with '$9.99 boycott' and similar at Amazon.com," says Stuart Neville, the bestselling author of The Twelve, about reader-led demands for lower prices. "I'm amazed that people are that cheap. Do they think a year of my life is worth less than $9.99? Do they really believe that 10 to 12 hours of entertainment isn't worth the equivalent cost of two or three coffees, or less than two beers?" 

"I think it’s the sense of entitlement that bothers me," he adds. "It's particularly common with those who believe they have some sort of right to download music and movies for free."

Yes, the Amazon boycott of $10 books is a childish and ultimately ineffective way of making your voice heard. Punishing an author is no way to punish a publisher, after all. But Neville isn't complaining about losing sales here - though he does present the desire for cheap ebooks as a pirate mentality - he's complaining about not making enough money to warrant that 350-page "year of his life". By virtue of the fact he's a bestseller (and rightly so, given what I've heard about his books), I dare say he's making a little more than the ten-dollar cover price of an ebook. And what he loses in revenue, he gains in readers, something he doesn't seem too bothered about, seeing as they're all freeloading arseholes.

And this is the sense of entitlement that bothers me. In an ideal world, yes, every writer would be paid a living wage for his/her work, and that would be for one book a year (less for you literary types). In the real world, that doesn't happen for a vast majority of writers. It never has, and it never will. And nor should it. As a writer, you are entitled to nothing. You are entitled to neither a readership nor a living. You may think it's unfair that you spent a year on a book that you think is awesome but that doesn't pay you enough to quit the day job. Hey, join the fucking club. We don't live in a meritocracy. The real writers, to my mind, write in spite of the money, not because of it.

The irony of the situation is that I now know more writers who do make a living wage through ebooks, and that those ebooks are priced way lower than the industry average. Indeed, I make more money in royalties per £1.99 ebook (after the usual deductions and publisher split) than I ever did from a £9.99 print copy. And so when authors like Neville complain about the "race to the bottom", I can't help but feel that they're  victims not of their cheapskate readers, but of their own publishers.

How I got to be in The First Shift

That's right, I'm in the Australian edition of The First Shift. Why only the Australian edition? Well, it's really just a timing thing, y'know ... The only way to get your story included was you kinda had to kill a cop, and guns being relatively scarce in my neck of the woods, I had to make do with a couple of Lidl bags with the safety holes taped over. And so what happened was I did what I had to do, and I thought I'd asphyxiated the bugger, but it turned out I just put him in a coma.

I know, right? Fuck it, it could've happened to anyone.

So that was, what, September last year? God. Doesn't time fly when you're anxiously waiting on a family to pull the plug on their braindead breadwinner? Anyway, they flipped the switch the other month, just in time for the Australian edition (otherwise known as the hard as nails edition, on account of Australians being so much fuckin' harder than Americans). So, y'know, if you're of a mind to, buy the balls off it.

If you don't, you should be aware that I have many, many Lidl bags.

Tom Waits is a lying bastard

Tom Waits: Tom LIES, more like.

So you know that quote from Tom Waits that opens Wolf Tickets?

"Another one I like is wolf tickets, which means bad news, as in someone who is bad news or generally insubordinate. In a sentence, you'd say, "Don't fuck with me, I'm passing out wolf tickets." Think it's either Baltimore Negro or turn-of-the-century railroad use."

Well, Mr Waits defines "wolf tickets" incorrectly. Yeah, he's full of shit. How do I know? Because Les Edgerton told me, and he knows his stuff. You would expect nothing less from the man behind Just Like That, The Perfect Crime, The Bitch and Gumbo Ya-Ya. He even teaches people how to write good an' that - talk about your thankless tasks.

Les Edgerton: you WOULD buy a used car from this man!

Tell 'em what you told me, Les:

When Jeff Chandler was a popular movie star in the fifties, cons began using his name in a phrase to denote someone breaking bad on you. It came from the kinds of roles he played. It began (and still remained in that form, although with a newer, improved form) where inmates would say, about a guy with a big mouth who was breaking bad (but wasn't), that he was "Jeff Chanderlin' ya." Meaning he was "acting" like a tough guy, ala pretty-boy Hollywood actors like Jeff Chandler, who were actually ... pussies. It got shortened to the term "jaffin" from that, meaning he was "Jeff Chandlering" you, or another form was he's "jeffin' " you, meaning the same thing. From that, it went to "he's jaffin. He's selling you a wolf ticket." A wolf ticket is just a pussy trying to break bad (which nobody buys), by saying something like, "I'm gettin' your brown eye, punk," or "I'm makin' you my kid (punk)." Any kind of thing like that uttered by a phony is a wolf ticket. It was old when I arrived in prison in 1966 and it's still used today. I love Tom Waits singing and he's one of my favorites, but he doesn't have a clue with this one. If someone comes up to you and says, "I'm gonna bust you in the head" he's selling you a wolf ticket. A true con and a true bad dude doesn't do that. Only wannabes who think they're bad. Like weightlifters. Some of them think they're bad, but all they have are gym muscles and the truly bad dude who weighs 165 pounds is the guy to watch. He doesn't sell wolf tickets. He doesn't have to. He actually is bad.

For what it's worth, I had an inkling that Mr Waits was talking through his porkpie, because his definition went against every other one I could find, but I kept the quote because it's kind of fun though admittedly not as fun (and downright correct) as the above.  Maybe for future editions I should swap out Mr Waits and put Mr Edgerton in his place, whaddya say?

Cock Fisting at Criminal Complex

I'm over at Criminal Complex talking about cock fisting and Wolf Tickets. They have something in common, don't you know. Thanks to Big Jim Callaway for having me, and I apologise in advance for the kind of traffic you're going to get based on that title.

Alternate title for that post was going to be "Blame Doug Stanhope", by the way. Which you should do, anyway. If ever there was a stand-up eschewing the fame game, it's him. And maybe Daniel Kitson.

Wolf Tickets No Longer Free!

Well now, that was interesting. Over the course of this weekend, thanks to what I can only describe as an overwhelming interest, Wolf Tickets cracked the top 100 (the top 50 on Amazon US) and hit #2 and #1 on the Hardboiled charts respectively. Frankly, I'm amazed at the response and extremely grateful for the effort that people made on the book's behalf. On a personal level I'm glad because I didn't have to be (any more) obnoxious on Twitter. So thank you, everyone.

Of course, now the big challenge is converting those freebies into review. Tom Pluck and Jon Cavalier have already got that ball rolling - the pair of yez is gentlemens and scholars an' that and I owe you both a great big lickery kiss - but I'm wondering now, will people like it, and will they be vocal with their fingers? We shall see.

Wolf Tickets Soundtrack

Wolf Tickets Soundtrack from thesaturdayboy on 8tracks.

And here we go again - twelve (count 'em!) songs that inspired my new slab of digital book-love, Wolf Tickets. Enjoy your new (only slightly illegal) all-round multimedia reading experience. And for those of you worried about some of the songs mentioned in the book, don't worry - no Dido, no Corrs, no Clannad. You are safe.

Ain't I kind?

Course I am. Now kiss me, you fool!

Wolf Tickets FREE!

That's right, the book that was six years in the making (don't ask) is now free for you to download from Amazon (UK and US) this weekend only! I know, what's that all about? To celebrate, I'm over at my publisher's website talking about how the kind of writer I want to be one day.

So go on, "buy" the fucking thing, even if you don't have a Kindle (I'm sure I'll be able to replace any "accidentally bought" wrongly formatted copies if you ask me nicely and can't get Hamster to work), drive that bitch up the charts and MAKE ME YOUR NEW AMAZON KING! OR SOMETHING OF EQUAL MONETARY VALUE!

Crime Factory: The Only Game In Town

Over at Crime Factory, I have a think about Adrian McKinty's recent assertion that most crime fiction is bad, realise that most crime fiction isn't actually crime fiction and that a vast majority of readers are fucking pigs, and then come to accept that it doesn't matter anyway, does it?

There. Now you don't have to read it.

Actually, yes you do. Now g'on, GIT!

"All I know is that the boy was my charge ..."

A few links scampered across the transom the other day. First, self-confessed Luddite and Oprah's best bud Jonathan Franzen felt the need to "defend" the printed word at the Hay Festival - he's a booksniffer and yes, even alluded to the whole "I can drop my book in the bath ah-ha-ha-ha" bullshit that booksniffers love to trot out. Of course the only reason I happened upon Franzen's defence was because it was online (and not, as far as I'm aware, in either print edition of the two newspapers that carried the story). Such is the impermanence of the interwebs, it allows me access to up-to-the-minute douchebaggery. For a comprehensive takedown of the aforementioned douchebaggery, I refer you to my colleague Mr Weddle. He says everything I would've said if I was clever and knew big words an' shit.

Second, and also in the Guardian, though thankfully not just swiped from the Daily Telegraph (seriously, what's up with that?), was Ewan Morrison's piece on the "e-book bubble" and how it's - SHOCKFACE - going to burst one day and effectively wreck what's left of the publishing industry. Now it's no secret that Mr Morrison's self-confessed chief occupation these days isn't book-writin' but doom-mongerin', and that while I respect the fella's right to his (often well-considered) opinion, I have trouble agreeing with him on pretty much everything. Anyway, it's a well-written article and still worth a read. I would skip the comments section, though - like most self-publishing posts, it has a tendency to attract the extremists and, this being the Guardian comments, they're often pompous cunts into the bargain.

So "he says there's a storm coming" (and cue Brad Fiedel). Self-published authors are pricing the industry into collapse, an e-book mad populace is destroying the very notion of "reading", long-established publishers will soon be on their knees before the huge, scaly Behemoth that is Amazon. Before long, Amazon and Google and Apple will jointly own every single published word on the face of this planet and then burn it all because there's nothing they want more than to keep us stupid and consuming. And then we'll all have to wear collars that explode if we're more than six feet from our Kindles, which will show nothing but adverts for Pepsi and Doritos.

And you know what? I don't give a fuck anymore. Whatever will be, will fuckin' be. I didn't break the publishing industry, it was this way when I found it. And while that might sound like learned helplessness, it's more likely that I'm just pig-sick of the constant whine of feedback that somehow passes for intelligent speculative debate. The way I see it, these things have a way of sorting themselves out without my assistance, so you'll forgive me for not calling dibs on a post-apocalyptic shopping trolley just yet. Anyone who says they have the key or the truth, well, there's a good chance they're either trying to sell you something or simply indulging in the kind of partisan buffoonery that adds nothing to conversation and everything to the noise.

One of the best things about the e-volution (yep, just spewed in my own mouth there) is that commercial considerations are no longer the be-all and end-all. The democratisation (boak!) of the publishing process should allow new writers to find their readers over a longer period of time, as well as give publishers the freedom to nurture talent. I say "should", of course, when many people are just churning out shitty thriller knock-offs hoping to cash in on whatever cack is shiny enough to catch the occasional reader's eye, but the opportunity remains and I dare say some will take advantage of that. If they do, we may have something to look forward to.

And if it all goes tits up, and the sky becomes a cold, grey blanket, and Garret Dillahunt tries to fucking eat us, then some of us will just keep plodding on. After all, the work is all, is it not? The boy is our charge. Everything else is pointless ephemera.