THE SATURDAY BOY

Crime Factory: Hands Across the Ocean

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Banks) — Tue, 15 May 2012 14:07:00 +0000

In this month's Crime Factory blog, I take a lingering look at my favourite Brit crime flick. And no, it ain't Get Carter. Sorry about that, People of Newcastle, Gateshead, County Durham and Anywhere Else They Filmed.

True Brit Grit

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Banks) — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 11:10:00 +0000

Gots me so much writing to do, I'm half-mental with the exertion. Hope you lot appreciate it. In the meantime, you can catch a rerun of "The Great Pretender" (originally published in Needle), alongside many, many better stories in the new charidee anthology True Brit Grit (UK & US), which has been assembled by those foul miscreants Paul D. Brazill and Luca Veste. Talking of short stories, I've had a few acceptances recently, so expect to see me clogging up the likes of Noir Nation, Blood & Tacos and the follow-up anthology to Lost Children some time this year.

Oh yeah, and Wolf Tickets is free again this weekend. But since you're reading this, I guess you already have a copy, right? RIGHT?

Crime Factory: Fuck (Some of) Tha Police

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Banks) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:59:00 +0000

This month at The Crime Factory, I give you my list of police procedural authors that don't necessarily play by the rules:

When it comes to crime fiction, especially in the UK, the police procedural is king, and it’s no secret I’m not much of a fan. My issues with the sub-genre boil down to my distaste for cheap characterisation and sociological Manichaeism, and my fundamental belief that the circumstances of crime are more interesting that the investigation. But then, my opinion is clearly the minority, and it’s impossible for me to tar an entire sub-genre when there are so many outstanding exceptions. That’s right, I’m gonna turn that figurative frown upside down and hereby present, for your delectation and delight, ten authors whose police novels deserve your attention ...

Yeah, turns out that I like some police procedurals. Surprised me, too.

Saturday's Child, Crime Interviews and free stuff!

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Banks) — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 12:00:00 +0000

For those of you who asked if and when the Cal Innes series will make their appearance on an electronic reading device near you, I can answer firmly and without fear of contradiction that yes, they will, and soon (like, before the end of the year). They'll be as cheap as usual, will be available in both the UK and US (World English, baby!), and - need I say this? - are the preferred editions.

Len Wanner's second volume of The Crime Interviews is now available, and he's clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel because I'm in there, waffling on about all manner of shite. Still, he supports it with some peachy interrogations of other, proper authors an' that.

And finally, those sons-a-bitches over at Blasted Heath are giving away my hard work again, this time with yet another freebie. Yep, for a limited period, you can download a (free) copy of Dead Money and get a copy of Gun free! I know, it's mental, so where's the catch?

There isn't one. Happy Easter, you filthy animals.

The Cliché of a Shadowy Street

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Banks) — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 15:04:00 +0000

Christa Faust alerted me to this article in the Wall Street Journal, that manages to celebrate the Library of America's most recent hardboiled releases with the prerequisite smattering of condescension and misinformation. Christa Faust wasn't a fan, and rightly so. From La Faust:

I can't help but feel like the snarky little barb about "a wisecracking private eye who is an icy femme fatale" is directed at me, though clearly no one who's actually read my novels would refer to them that way. I certainly can't think of very many other modern books that fit that description. Can you?

Nope, but I don't really think Sandlin's having a pop at Faust, either. To think that would be to admit that Sandlin has an understanding of what constitutes modern hardboiled and noir fiction, and that's clearly not the case - he barely has a handle on what constitutes classic hardboiled and noir fiction. As it stands, I think his mash-up of stereotypes is less a veiled dig, more a misguided attempt to amuse. It also serves to boost Sandlin's credentials as someone who can spot cliché, before he proceeds to define noir in the usual lazy fashion as a "seedy panorama of con men, carnies, outlaws and losers" and bizarrely assert that the two Library of America crime novel collections cover crime fiction "in its glory years - roughly from its first sproutings in the pulp magazines of the late 1920s through its efflorescence in the cheap original paperbacks of the 1950s". Sounds like someone read part of an introduction somewhere and skimmed the rest, because such a statement is hardly accurate.

Let's be charitable and assume he means Cornell Woolrich represents the "first sprouting" even though he didn't write crime novels until the '40s (his first six novels were squarely in the F. Scott Fitzgerald vein), because as far as I'm aware the James M. Cain, Horace McCoy, Kenneth Fearing, Edward Anderson and William Lindsay Gresham novels featured in the collection were all first published as hardcovers, as was Highsmith's The Talented Mr Ripley from the second collection. And so to suggest that the "literary quality of the selections is remarkably high" is utterly redundant, unless he means that publishers such as Alfred A. Knopf, Simon & Schuster, Harcourt Brace, Frederick A. Stokes, Rinehart & Company and Coward-McCann were known for publishing trash. It's also worth reiterating that James M. Cain and Horace McCoy were grouped with the likes of O'Hara, Saroyan and Steinbeck in Edmund Wilson's "Boys in the Back Room", who were seen as naturalist writers with roots more in Hemingway than Hammett. And so tarring them with the pulp brush is disingenuous at best.

Sandlin's other points are similarly questionable. His distaste for true pulp comes across in his assertion that Paul Cain "wasn't any good", leading to an odd comparison with Hammett on the basis that Cain was Hammett's replacement at Black Mask. That isn't something I've heard before, and I'd be intrigued to see why Sandlin thinks so, considering that Cain and Hammett published in Black Mask at the same time, and that under Joe Shaw's "captaincy", there were any number of writers working within Shaw's ideal of "economy of expression" and "authenticity in character and action". But because he leads with that link, Sandlin is apparently justified in his comparison, which is the literary argument equivalent of taking a shotgun to a barrel full of fish. Of course Cain wasn't as good a writer as Hammett - very few writers, including the lazy critic's favourite Raymond Chandler, come anywhere close. For the record, I'm hardly Paul Cain's biggest fan, but just because I didn't particularly enjoy Fast One, it doesn't mean it isn't an important work in the evolution of the hardboiled novel. And just because he isn't as good as Hammett, it doesn't mean he doesn't deserve to be collected. But then, according to Sandlin, even the best examples of the genre are "outliers and literary freaks".

One of these outliers is David Goodis, for whom Sandlin has a little more affection and understanding, even though Goodis has never really been "little-known" - he was a bestseller (Cassidy's Girl sold over a million copies), had some success with movies in Hollywood (Dark Passage) and Europe (Shoot the Piano Player) and is still regarded as a major noir stylist by anyone with even a passing knowledge of the Gold Medal writers. Hammett is mentioned again, this time "rescored by Tom Waits", which not only completely misunderstands Hammett (who shares neither style nor content with Goodis) but also Tom Waits (who hasn't played the barfly in almost thirty years). Sandlin also complains that Goodis is "too much like a French idea of what an American hard-boiled writer should be", because his typical protagonist isn't "a tough guy at all but a slumming intellectual", which makes me wonder what he thought of Goodis' companions in the second Library of America volume, notably Thompson's hooker-beatin', Freud-readin' Lou Ford, Highsmith's psychopath aesthete Ripley, and Willeford's aspiring artist and fry cook Harry Jordan. We'll never know, because he doesn't mention them, perhaps because those novels don't immediately fit his idea of hardboiled American fiction, which is "about finding the poetry where most people see a gray functional landscape", a phrase which coincidentally fails to apply to more than three of the eleven novels across both LoA American Noir collections, and which smacks of a writer desperately trying to tie his conclusion into his opening paragraph.

That opening paragraph is symptomatic of the problems inherent in Sandlin's piece, notably his self-styled position as sophisticated American yearning for the kind of grit that Hollywood peddled in the '40s, rather than its literary equivalent. Sandlin and critics like him appear to operate in a state of blinkered condescension, with occasional sojourns into superficial criticism. To these critics, The Postman Always Rings Twice is a novel about fucking and killing rather than the key influence behind both a landmark work of existential literature (Camus' The Stranger) and one of the first Italian neorealist films (Visconti's Obsessione). That Postman was never a hardboiled novel is irrelevant to these critics - it's necessary to position the novel as hardboiled in order to say how much it succeeds in spite of its genre. After all, easy arguments are the lazy critic's stock-in-trade.

Yes, a lot of hardboiled fiction trades in the clichés of film noir, but some of it actively subverts cliché, and some of it happens to use genre to tell important truths in a direct manner. Without a solid understanding of that genre, a critic is more likely to indulge in conjecture than any considered critical analysis. In my not-so-humble opinion, if someone is paid to offer criticism on something - i.e. if they're a paid critic, as opposed to an amateur reviewer like myself - a basic qualification for the job should be that they know what they're talking about, and not let personal bias lead to ridiculous statements like, say, dismissing Philip K. Dick a "lunatic outsider sci-fi writer".

I firmly believe that critics can educate and enlighten, I believe they can make careers, and I believe that an astute critic keeps the art of novel-making alive just as much as any author. I also believe - unless I happen to encounter written evidence that suggests otherwise - that Lee Sandlin is definitely not one of those critics.

The new Grift is here! The new Grift is here!

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Banks) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 09:39:00 +0000

That's right, you heard. Grift numero uno is now available to buy from a website, wait for a wee while, and then clutch in your sweaty wee paws like it's the last jazz mag on earth*. Look at that line-up, then look at it again. My bit on the movie adaptations of Charles Willeford (not the last you'll hear from me on this particular subject) snuggles in between an appreciation of John Rector (who is great - you should all buy his books) and a piece by The Legend That Is Lawrence Block about Paul Kavanagh.

But wait! There's more!

Scott Phillips on Derek Raymond (not like that, you pervs)! Interviews with Julie Morrigan and Chris Offutt! Fiction from McDonald, Holm, Rawson, Bruen, Funk, Robinson, Pluck, Cizak, Merrigan and Bates!

So what are you waiting for? Shove it into your brains through your eye sponges!

* My first jazz mag was a disappointment. Very little jazz. Lotsa cold-lookin' ladies. Still, it kept me occupied for a while.

Double Indie Whammy!

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Banks) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 11:19:00 +0000

Nathan Cain over at Independent Crime comes roaring back to the blog with a BOGOF, specifically reviews of both Dead Money (it won the Spinetingler Ebook tournament, divven't yeh knaa):

The story is ultimately one of delusion and unraveling, and Banks keeps it coming, pacing it well, making sure that, as he peels back the layers or Slater’s twisted personality that he never reveals too much too soon. By the time you get to the end, you’ll be laughing along with Slater, but not for the reasons Slater is laughing.

and Wolf Tickets:

The story is a straightforward one of revenge, but the real fun comes from how the two characters see each other. The chapters alternate perspectives, giving the reader insight into how these two friends really see each other, adding a layer of complexity to what would otherwise be a slight story. As with Dead Money, Banks proves deft at doling out insight in just the right amounts, complicating what he presents to the reader as rather straightforward characters. By the end you’ve been spun 180 degrees with such deftness that you didn’t even notice it. A surprising, violent, and strangely uplifting ode to friendship, is not to be missed.

Thank you, sir. Very kind of you. And I must say, all this goodwill for Farrell and Cobb is very inspiring. Perhaps I'll write another one ...

CHICKEN DINNER!

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Banks) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 13:28:00 +0000

Well, the unthinkable has happened. Against all odds and, given the difference in percentages, by the skin of its metaphorical teeth, Dead Money by Your Humble Narrator has won Spinetingler's first Ebook Tournament. To say I'm surprised is something of an understatement. In terms of quality, there were far better books competing. In terms of popularity, there were far more buzzed-about books in the mix, too. So really, I wasn't expecting this at all, and again I can only assume it was some kind of massive administrative error*.

Thanks to everyone who voted for me, and for everyone else. Thanks to Spinetingler for putting us all through the mill in the name of "fun". And thanks to anyone who's inspired to pick up a copy of Dead Money on the back of this. You're all sexy, warm, fragrant individuals, and you've made a fat, bitter young man's day.

*Spinetingler peeps, your children will now be released unharmed.

Crime Factory: None for the Money

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Banks) — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 10:21:00 +0000

Over at Crime Factory, I manage to write off the eight quid I spent on a ticket to One for the Money by saying mean things about it in public:

Right from the cut-rate animated titles, set to the strains of Cee Lo Green’s “Love Gun” (a song that hasn’t been contemporary since Date Night), the warning signs are clear. This is a movie with a $40m budget and nothing to show for it. The only real name on screen is Heigl, who shares Executive Producer credit and therefore a good deal of the blame. The rest of the cast is made up of That Guy character actors (Leguizamo, Stevens, Fischler, the chatty gun dealer fromBreaking Bad and TV beefcake (O’Mara and Sunjata). Oh, and Debbie Reynolds is in it, reminding everyone with her turkey-shooting, eye-rolling, cute-biddy performance how truly awful Debbie Reynolds can be. As for the talent behind the camera, director Julie Ann Robinson is primarily known for her TV work, which happens to include a stint – along with most of the primary cast members – on Grey’s Anatomy, and she shows little flair for cinema. Indeed, you’d be forgiven for thinking One for the Money was a TV movie or failed pilot, given the apparent cheapness and generally half-arsed nature of it all.

Those fish in that barrel, them's easier to hit, yes?

There can be only one ...

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Banks) — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 22:29:00 +0000

Yes, I am quoting Highlander. No, I do not like the movie. Far as I'm concerned, the crowning achievements on Russell Mulcahy's CV are Razorback (a pig terrorises the outback!) and Derek and Clive Get the Horn (a pig terrorises Dudley Moore!), and Highlander ranks among those movies from the so-called "nineteen-eighties" that continue to disappoint in hugely diarrhetic ways.

Anyway, enough of this rubbish. I have reached the final of the Spinetingler Ebook Tournament. My one obstacle to UNFATHOMABLE GLORY is Patricia Abbott. She is very talented. She has written many fine stories. She smells nice. She has no confirmed racist or anti-semitic leanings, nor has she ever made a cat dance on its hind legs for her amusement. She once tickled a puppy's tummy so long her fingers hurt. In short, she's clean as a whistle. I have no comeback. I can only ask you to vote - for me, ideally - so that I may brandish the imaginary trophy of awesome and reward myself with two - nay, a half dozen! - doughnuts of frostings sweet!

Final Four! Final Four!

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Banks) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 11:38:00 +0000

Alright, this is getting fucking personal now. They're pitting Heathen against Heathen. And when you do that, there can be no winners. Bird is also the first challenger I've met in person, and he's a thoroughly nice chap, which makes the thought of murdering his pets all the more unpleasant.

Still, you do what you have to ...

Criminal Classics over at Loitering With Intent

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Banks) — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 00:21:00 +0000

In which Your Humble Narrator is asked to write a brief appreciation of a literary crime novel, and I pick a novel by the author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie ...

The Killer Elite

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Banks) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 13:42:00 +0000

Gaze upon the enemy's book!

So I somehow made it through to the "Elite 8" stage of the Spinetingler tournament on what I can only believe was the slimmest of slim margins or some kind of administrative error. As reward for besting Cranmer in a popularity contest, I'm now paired with one of the finest noir authors of the last fifteen years, Mr Scott Phillips who I have no doubt will open his satchel full of schoolin' and whip me raw.

Soliloquy for Eddie Little

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Banks) — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 10:47:00 +0000

Thanks to Anthony Moore for alerting me to his post on Eddie Little:

Many people knew Eddie Little. Some knew him as the heroin addict, the gambler or the reformed criminal. I knew him as a writer, an artist and my friend. I met Eddie at Warm Springs Rehab. Center in Castaic, California. He was here for forty-seven days. He left eight days before he was found in a hotel room. He had died of a heroin overdose. A counselor that had been in his creative writing class told me of his passing, a class he had volunteered to teach. It’s purpose was to give hope to people who had long since thought of the word as a curse. When he left he said goodbye with a finality that I know now was meant to be forever.

You can read the rest here. Well worth a read if you're interested in the man's final days.

Blood and Tacos #1 OUT NOW!

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Banks) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 12:38:00 +0000

Blood & Tacos, the singular publication from the singular mind of Mr. Johnny Shaw (buy Dove Season - I blurbed it and it is, as the kids say, "top banana") is now available to blow your fucking mind. Yes, you can read it online but no, you shouldn't. You should buy it from Amazon, or wherever else it pops up and then read it. You know why? Because it's cheap as Mexican cigarettes, and it'll give you that same burning, woozy sensation.

Plus, you know, you should buy magazines that pay their contributors. It's kind of a nice thing to do.

"Yes, we ARE all different!" "Erm, I'm not."

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Banks) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 12:15:00 +0000

There's been a lot of talk (most of it in a shrill register) about the recent set-to with IPG and Amazon.

For what it's worth, the even more recent decision of the SWFA to remove links to Amazon is understandable, but I can't help but feel publishers, especially smaller independent publishers, are missing an opportunity here. Used to be, publishers had an individual style, their brand was their own seal of quality. You knew if you puh-puh-puh picked up a Penguin you'd be in for some good, solid, literary times for the most part. There are still some publishers who have that individual brand: Angry Robot, Europa Editions, Hard Case Crime, Serpent's Tail, Canongate, Akashic, Bitter Lemon Press, Melville House to name a few off the top of my head, as well as my own publisher Blasted Heath (flutters eyelashes). But how easy is it to buy from these publishers direct? In a lot of cases, the answer is "not very". And there's no real excuse, especially when it comes to ebooks, why publishers can't work on building their own relationships with readers instead of letting the Big Evil Corporations (tm) pick up the slack. There's no reason why a publisher can't build up a fan base, and use that to introduce readers to newer authors, or why they can't offer subscription packages or DRM-free ebooks (just like Angry Robot) alongside print editions. Record labels like Anti, Young God and Mute have been doing it for ages, as have Criterion and Eureka! (including Masters of Cinema) on the movie front.

The fact is, it's easier to whine about something than do anything about it. Just as people bleat on about how evil Rupert Murdoch is while they maintain their Sky contracts, or complain about Paypal or Smashwords or Amazon as if it's their God-given right to use their distribution channels without compromise or payment, some publishers will continue to blame large corporations for acting like large corporations, instead of actively seeking to provide a lasting, mutually beneficial alternative. And I'm not talking about the bogus, over-familiar and ultimately patronising relationships they now have on social media ("Hey, thanks for liking our book, @iloverapingcats! LOL! If you Like it on FB, we'll enter you into a prize draw!"), I'm talking about reconnecting with readers on a fundamental level, by producing quality books and giving readers the opportunity to buy them direct with minimal hassle.

That shouldn't be too difficult, should it?

FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! (not really)

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Banks) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 12:49:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Banks) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 13:13:00 +0000

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."*

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Banks) — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 23:47:00 +0000

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 ..."

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Banks) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:18:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Banks) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 09:56:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Banks) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 09:41:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Banks) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:01:00 +0000

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!

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Banks) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 09:29:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Banks) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 13:57:00 +0000

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!