Got Poems? Try Snakeskin

Thu 19 Dec 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Just received a note from frequent LCRW poetry (and sometimes fiction, too) contributor Jessy Randall who asked me to share this with You.

Jessy Randall will guest-edit the February 2025 issue of the long-lived online poetry magazine Snakeskin. The theme is SCIENCE FICTION. Send up to five unpublished poems about robots, other planets, Star Trek, imaginary technologies, utopian and dystopian futures, Octavia Butler, clones, Barbarella, Blade Runner, Ursula K. Le Guin, Doctor Who, the singularity, Princess Leia, black holes, the uncanny valley, alien invasions, time travel, soylent green, Zaphod Beeblebrox, sentient microbes, and so on, to jessyrandall at yahoo.com. Put your poems in the body of the email, please – no attachments (unless it’s a visual poem or something that needs special formatting). Simultaneous submissions are fine. Deadline is January 1, 2025 and you can expect a response by mid-January.


NY Mag: What’s Your Go-to Book to Gift Big Kids?

Wed 18 Dec 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

The Serial Garden cover - click to view full sizeJoan Aiken’s The Serial Garden received a lovely lift this week as writer and book editor Lauren LeBlanc chose it for New York Magazine’s feature What’s Your Go-to Book to Gift Big Kids?

“Told in stories, this is an ideal book to read aloud at bedtime for kids who are perhaps reluctant to commit to bigger novels.”

I recommend clicking through as it’s a very handy list of books. There are 2 from the d’Aulaires, a James Herriott(!), and I’d definitely recommend some of the graphic novels such as Cece Bell’s El Deafo among others. I’m very happy to see The Serial Garden still finding new readers.


2024 Bestsellers So Far

Thu 12 Dec 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Here are two versions of our 2024 bestsellers so far: the first is from NPD/Bookscan which captures between 50-70% of sales for our books. The second is Combined Net Sold Print Units from our distributor, Consortium — which means books shipped out minus books returned. The two lists are quite different! (Here’s 2023’s list.)

Thanks to all our authors and to every reader, librarian, bookseller, und so weiter who took a chance on some Small Beer fiction, slightly weird this year. We only published two books, Kathleen Jennings’s Kindling and we’re still slowly organizing the limited edition of The Book of Love. We’re also trying to ship out the new issue of LCRW which is directly related to how much time I spend on the couch.

If you’d like to order some books, we’d love to ship them out to you (with a bonus book for luck). Order here.

Titles and authors of 2024 bestselling (so far) SBP books per Bookscan North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Ballingrud In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan Spirits Abroad: Stories by Zen Cho The Privilege of the Happy Ending: Small, Medium, and Large Stories by Kij Johnson Lost Places: Stories by Sarah Pinsker Okpsyche by Anya Johanna Deniro Never Have I Ever: Stories by Isabel Yap Fire Logic: an Elemental Logic Novel by Laurie J. Marks

2024 bestsellers (so far) per Bookscan

 

screenshot of Consortium 2024 bestsellers so far:Title Author 1 In Other Lands Sarah Rees Brennan 2 North American Lake Monsters Nathan Ballingrud 3 Kindling: Stories Kathleen Jennings 4 Travel Light Naomi Mitchison 5 Stranger Things Happen Kelly Link 6 A Stranger in Olondria Sofia Samatar 7 Kalpa Imperial Angélica Gorodischer 8 Spirits Abroad Zen Cho 9 Terra Nullius Claire Coleman 10 At the Mouth of the River of Bees Kij Johnson

Consortium 2024 bestsellers so far


Late Holiday Shipping Note

Thu 12 Dec 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

I forgot to post about holiday mailing dates. Our office is closed and orders are going out from either the Consortium warehouse or the fab people of Book Moon.

Media mail shipping is free. However, if you’d like pre-holiday arrival, please choose Priority Mail.

USPS Ground Advantage™ Service Dec. 18
First-Class Mail Dec. 18
Priority Mail Dec. 19
Priority Mail Express Dec. 21

And no matter where you are, Weightless Books is always open and has all our DRM-free ebooks.


North American Lake Monsters hc sale

Mon 9 Dec 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

This month we’re celebrating the news of Nathan’s novel The Strange being picked up for film adaptation by taking 25% off the first hardcover edition of North American Lake Monsters — was $100, now $75.