An A-Z of the Fantastic City is here . . .

Thu 12 Apr 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on An A-Z of the Fantastic City is here . . . | Posted by: Gavin

at laaaaaaaaast!

We received the signed and numbered (1-89!) limited hardcover edition of Hal Duncan’s An A-Z of the Fantastic City today and only burned down half the office in the process. Success! (They are only 2+ months late from the printer—still no explanation given . . .)

So, anyway, apologies everyone who is waiting for this. We are shipping it out to Hal, the fantastic illustrator Eric Schaller, and all those lovely people (and a couple of bookstores) who pre-ordered it.

Once they’re shipped we should have a few copies left over for sale then it will be gone, baby, gone. We’ll post some pictures of it when we get time, too.

It’s a book!

Monday Monday

Mon 9 Apr 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Monday Monday | Posted by: Gavin

Phew, what a day.

Best phone call of the morning: someone asked us to reinforce two car seats. I put the call on hold and we discussed it: Perhaps this is the best use of our returns? There’s also that old lunch in the fridge that’s turned to stone . . .

Worst call of the morning: that bird, the one that sounds like a cell phone, very early this morning.

Lovely news of the day: Karen Lord is a Campbell Award nominee: yay! Congrats and best of luck to all the Hugo and Campbell nominees.

Best SBP news of the day: Nancy Kress’s Fountain of Age is on its way from C-M Books in Ann Arbor, MI, to Consortium’s warehouse in Jackson, TN, from where it will spring forth into the world.

Worst SBP news of the day: no info yet from the (different) printer on Hal Duncan’s limited edition. Bah humbug.

Best Weightless news of the day: royalties go out this week. They are so much easier to do than Small Beer’s headache inducing royalties which should go out next week. Also: tomorrow we are adding 100+ PM Press ebooks. Ha.

And PW profiles Newbury Comics, an old fave of ours. They’re a regional New England chain of record stores who started with comics and moved to music. They have a few magazines, a few books, and loads and loads of t-shirts, buttons, and various impulse-y things. Long may their pile it high and keep it cheery reign continue.

Contracts, contracts

Mon 9 Apr 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., bookshops, ebooks | Comments Off on Contracts, contracts | Posted by: Gavin

Interesting Salon article on Am*zon’s sponsorship of many literary non-profits. Are they buying love? They’re definitely trying. $25,000 is a helluva donation to anyone never mind a small organization trying to get by on sales or membership fees. (The Brooklyn Book Fest recently asked if we’d like Small Beer to be profiled on their new sponsored-by-Amazon OnePage and we said no. I love the Brooklyn Book Fest, but that’s not a great fit for us.)

Keep in mind that books are a halo product for Amazon. They would much rather be thought of as a bookstore than a Walmart wannabe.

This part of the Salon article was great to hear:

For the first time, the “Big Six” publishers — HarperCollins, Random House, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, Penguin and Macmillan — have refused to sign Amazon’s latest annual contract. The main sticking point is exorbitant increases in “co-op promotional fees” for e-books that the publishers see as an illegal gouge by another name. One person familiar with the details of the proposed 2012 contracts that Amazon has submitted to major New York publishers described them as “stupifyingly draconian.” In some cases, he said, Amazon has raised promotional fees by 30 times their 2011 cost. In saying no, the big publishers are following in the footsteps of the Independent Publishing Group, a major indie distributor representing dozens of small presses that refused Amazon’s increases earlier this winter and soon saw the “Buy” buttons on more than 4,000 of their titles promptly delinked.

I am still hopeful that Amazon will overreach and disappear. Not going to happen, but it makes the horrible headlines about what they are doing to who easier to deal with.

What really makes me unhappy is that high street shops may be pushed out of business and all of our shopping choices will become the same: big box chain stores or Amazon. Which is a crap choice given that most of Amazon’s workers work in warehouses—with goals I could not meet if I were working there—and Fedex and UPS (and warehouse robot suppliers) will be the only winners.

And here’s the Boston Globe being much cheerier, so yay for them.

Google glasses

Mon 9 Apr 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Google glasses | Posted by: Gavin

Google have suggested that at some point they may launch a product. This product may or may not look like the one in the photo.The product may or may not do certain things and have certain features. These features include being from the future! As ever with Google there is no actual human being who can give you information about this proposed project.

Given Google’s great success with Wave, Reader, Buzz, (and I am forgetting some here) and their recent announced closing of their ebook program with indie bookshops (thanks for messing that up), I am just jittering with excitement about this vaporware exciting new project.

Wow. The future will be great. (Wonder if they are working on jetpacks?)

This post is not at all informed by the fact that I’m using Bing (or even Yahoo(!)) half the time now because I can’t stand the “social search” crapola on the Google results page. Neither am I joining Google+ (i.e. “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale”) because if I wanted some company to know absolutely everything about me . . . oh, wait, they already do. Crap. Sure, sign me up.

And I look forward to this post coming back to bite me in the bum when I am happily soldering my Google glasses permanently to my newly installed Google Headjak.

Hal Duncan, A-Z update

Wed 4 Apr 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Hal Duncan, A-Z update | Posted by: Gavin

We’ve just heard from the printer that the long-awaited limited edition hardcover edition of An A-Z of the Fantastic City has been printed and is now in the bindery area to be sewn. So we are looking to receive it in about two weeks. At last! Apologies for the huuuuge delay. I’m not quite sure why this one took the printer so long, but it did. Phew. In the meantime, the paperback is available. More TK when the book comes in.

Small Beer Podcast 8: Jenny Terpsichore Abeles’s “Three Hats”

Thu 22 Mar 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Jennifer Terpsichore Abeles, Julie Day, LCRW, Podcastery, small beer podcast, Three Hats | 3 Comments | Posted by: Julie

I should be used to the Small Beer studios by now: the pictures on the walls of kimono-clad women selling insect repellent, the Studio Ghibli bag illustrated with a seaplane pirate from Porco Rosso, the awards tacked haphazardly just above the couch.

The voices are even better.

There are the books, of course, whispering from their various stacks. Delia Sherman’s Sophie and Karen Joy Fowler’s Nora have no doubt talked at length. John Kessel’s Dot and Sid are in that tunnel somewhere just on the other side of the office wall. Still in the end, it’s the voices of the living, breathing people that surprise me every time.

Jennifer Terpsichore Abeles, or Jenny as we call her, has been a great office companion and fellow volunteer, a spitfire, some might say. But it wasn’t until I started to read her fiction that I realized the truth. She’s not a spitfire at all; she’s a conflagration. In this week’s podcast, Jenny reads her story from Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet issue number twenty-six. So dig up a beer and enjoy.

Episode 8: In which Jenny Terpsichore Abeles reads her story, “Three Hats.”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe to the Small Beer podcast using iTunes or the service of your choice:

Typoes (sic)

Mon 19 Mar 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Big Mouth House, housekeeping, Joan Aiken | Comments Off on Typoes (sic) | Posted by: Gavin

We’d always rather hear about typos in our books rather than just have readers suffer in silence. Please do email us at info @ smallbeerpress . com if you come across any. It’s always an email that makes me wince, but it’s great to be able to fix future editions.

One happy example: in the next couple of weeks we’ll be publishing the paperback edition of our first Big Mouth House title, Joan Aiken’s The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories, and thanks to Jed Hartman and some few others this edition will have a few less typos. But, again, should you find any typpos (sic . . .), please do tell, thank you!

ICFA, Brattle, Juniper

Wed 14 Mar 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., book fairs, events, Kelly Link | 1 Comment | Posted by: Gavin

What are we doing in the next few weeks?

Kelly will be Guest of Honor (with China Mieville) at ICFA, March 21 – 25, Orlando Airport Marriott, Orlando, FL, and I will be running around with Ursula.

Gregory Maguire and Kelly Link, Brattle Theater, Cambridge, Mass.
Discussing Stone Animals and Tales Told in Oz—beautiful new chapbooks published by Madras Press, and all the proceeds got to charity.
March 29, 6 PM

UMass Amherst Juniper Literary Festival, Amherst, Mass.
Julia Holmes and loads of other interesting people are going to be there, yay! We will have a table in the book fair.
April 13 & 14

Japan/America Writers Dialog
Masatsugu Ono and Tomoka Shibasaki will be joined by Stuart Dybek and Kelly Link for an intriguing and original cross-cultural encounter facilitated by translators Ted Goossen and Motoyuki Shibata.
Asia Society, 725 Park Avenue at 70th St., NYC
May 6, 2 PM

Yale Writers Conference
We will be there on the last day to talk about publishing in all its many joys.
June 22

Joy! It’s what we live for. If you don’t love it, why do it? Oh, wait, must go try and understand and fill in another spreadsheet, eek!

Small Beer Podcast 7: Zombie Plans, Beer & Maureen F. McHugh’s “The Naturalist”

Thu 8 Mar 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., After the Apocalypse, Geoff Noble, Jennifer Abeles, Julie Day, Maureen F. McHugh, Michael J DeLuca, podcast, Podcastery, Small Beer on Beer, small beer podcast, The Naturalist | 1 Comment | Posted by: Julie

Here at the Small Beer studios we find there’s nothing like a great book and some damn fine beers to really get the conversation flowing. We’d already read Maureen F. McHugh’s zombie story “The Naturalist” (read | listen) and with the help of Tru Beer in Easthampton, Massachusetts, we happened upon three beers that go perfectly with just about any zombie apocalypse.

The result? This week’s Small Beer on Beer episode, a podcasting love letter to “The Naturalist,” all things zombie and some very unusual beers.

Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t yet read Maureen’s story in her collection, After the Apocalypse, you might want to listen to episode 6, the audio version, before diving into this episode.

Episode 7: In which we talk of beer, Reynard the Fox & Maureen F. McHugh’s “The Naturalist.”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

On Tap This Week:
Cerveza Cucapa’s Low Rider.
Sierra Nevada’s Ruthless Rye.
Avery Brewing Company’s Mephistopheles’ Stout.

Subscribe to the Small Beer podcast using iTunes or the service of your choice:

Early March Writer’s Planner deadlines

Wed 22 Feb 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Working Writer's Daily Planner | 2 Comments | Posted by: Gavin

Here are a few selections from the early March deadlines in A Working Writer’s Daily Calendar 2012. We’ll post some as the year goes on. I’m not sure if we will do a 2013 edition. We’d probably need to put up a pre-order page really early and see if the interest is there.

Small Beer Podcast 6: In Which Julie reads Maureen F. McHugh’s “The Naturalist”

Mon 20 Feb 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., After the Apocalypse, Julie Day, Maureen F. McHugh, Podcastery, The Naturalist | Comments Off on Small Beer Podcast 6: In Which Julie reads Maureen F. McHugh’s “The Naturalist” | Posted by: Julie

No, Robert Redford is not in this, neither are baseball games or family farms. This piece is not called The Natural. This story, “The Naturalist,” from Maureen’s collection, After the Apocalypse, is filled with zombies, post-apocalyptic Cleveland and meditations on good, evil, and our human impulse (or lack thereof) toward empathy.

We here at Small Beer loved it so much we decided to devote an entire Small Beer on Beer episode to the sampling of beer and the discussion of this story. So listen, enjoy, and tune back in next week when we broadcast part two: our roundtable discussion of “The Naturalist,” Avery’s Mephistopheles Stout and Sierra Nevada’s Ruthless Rye.

Episode 6: Maureen F. McHugh’s “The Naturalist” as read by Julie Day.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe to the Small Beer podcast in iTunes or using the service of your choice:

Travel, updates

Tue 7 Feb 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Carol Emshwiller, Maureen F. McHugh | 1 Comment | Posted by: Gavin

Kelly and I (and our daughter, Ursula) will (fingers crossed) be in Australia and New Zealand from Feb. 8th to March 17th, followed by a trip to Orlando for ICFA (itinerary below the cut). There will be people in the office (Geoff! Dusty! Julie! Jenny! Even Michael!) one or two days a week but shipping will slow down and reading and responding to manuscripts will slow to a halt. Submit work elsewhere or be ready to wait a long time (sorry about that) if you send it our way.

I’m more sad than I can say after hearing that two very different writers I loved have died, John Cristopher and Wislawa Szymborska. I loved John Christopher’s Tripods and Prince in Waiting/Sword of the Spirits books—read in Argyll in the early 1980s, so running away into the mountains or across the moors seemed both possible and desirable. I had no idea he had so many pseudonyms! Then when I worked at Avenue Victor Hugo Bookshop in the mid-90s and met Kelly I think she introduced me to Wislawa Szymborska’s poetry—and then Szymborska received the Nobel Prize (so we sold a lot of her books, yay!). She was so down to earth, so much fun, she was an anecdote to flat writing and a real reminder to enjoy life. She obviously did and I’m glad we have so much of her poetry.

More internety things: Members of the Carol Emshwiller Appreciation Society (me!) are happy to note that Carmen Dog is on this Geekdad/Wired list of books for your ereader.

Maureen McHugh’s After the Apocalypse has a great review by Chris Moriarty in the upcoming issue of F&SF as well as in SF Revu. From now on we will get Maureen to title all our books. Or maybe we will get her to write more stories! One of her stories, “Useless Things” is reprinted in the new issue of Apex Magazine – which also features a story from David J. Schwartz, so yay for that.

It was excellent to see io9 pick up on Nisi Shawl’s Seattle Times lovely review of Three Messages and a Warning. Eduardo and Chris did such a great job with that book! They both had events in their hometowns—San Antonio and Austin, respectively—and from all accounts, a lot of fun was had—and books were sold, so yay for spreading around more weird lit from far away places.

Over on Weightless, Three Messages is doing nicely. Which is a smooooth segue into mentioning that we are excited about adding Locus subscriptions and individual issues to the site today.

What else? Two excellent interviews with Delia Sherman went up this week: the first on SF Signal, the second on the Potomac Review. Now we need to concentrate on New Orleans and get them to choose the book for their One City program or something. (Do they have one of those? And if so, have they done Poppy Brite’s Liquor yet? Hmm?)

New Stone Animals chapbook

Tue 7 Feb 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link | Comments Off on New Stone Animals chapbook | Posted by: Gavin

Coming soon: a letterpress chapbook edition of “Stone Animals” from Madras Press illustrated by Lisa Brown, Lilli Carré, Anthony Doerr, Lev Grossman, Daniel Handler, Paul Hornschemeier, Ursula K. Le Guin, Laura Miller, Audrey Niffenegger, Tao Nyeu, Arthur Phillips, and Lane Smith. Order here.

Madras Press publishes individually bound short stories and novella-length booklets and distributes the proceeds to a growing list of charitable organizations chosen by our authors—including for “Stone Animals” the Fistula Foundation.

Hal Duncan’s A-Z

Tue 7 Feb 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Hal Duncan, unexpected and unwelcome news | 1 Comment | Posted by: Gavin

Hal Duncan’s excellent new chapbook, An A-Z of Fantastic Cities is being printed at Thomson-Shore. However, due to the the production price being more than twice what was expected, we have had to increase the limited edition price from $25 to $50. There are about a dozen copies left. Existing orders are grandfathered in at the old price.

The regular edition is being printed at Paradise Copies. Pre-orders will ship once the limited edition arrives in the office.

Small Beer Podcast 5: Three Messages and a Warning

Thu 2 Feb 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Julie Day, Michael J DeLuca, podcast, Podcastery, Small Beer on Beer, small beer podcast, Three Messages and a Warning | 1 Comment | Posted by: Julie

It turns out the gestation period for this podcast is somewhere between that of a lion and a wolf. At the beginning of November, Michael J. DeLuca, Gavin and I recorded the first ever Small Beer beer tasting. Then we recorded two, yes two, stories from our latest anthology Three Messages and a Warning, a collection of the Mexican fantastic.

This podcast was something akin to a seventies concept album, think The Allen Parsons Project or Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. I seem to remember a intense discussion with the proprietor of the fabulous craft beer store, Tru Beer, in Easthampton, Massachusetts. A rapid convert, he donated a few beers to the cause. From Bread Euphoria, we acquired Day of the Dead bread. And then, like so many concept albums, the production requirements along with the obligatory aviator sunglasses and hair mousse almost brought the entire project to a screeching halt.

We are absolutely thrilled we’ve finally got our act together enough to finish this particular podcast.

Episode 5: Julie Day, Gavin Grant, Michael J. DeLuca and Three Messages and a Warning.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe to the Small Beer podcast in iTunes or using the service of your choice:

Errantry

Wed 1 Feb 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Elizabeth Hand | 2 Comments | Posted by: Gavin

Small Beer Press are very happy to announce that they will publish Elizabeth Hand’s new collection of stories, Errantry: Strange Stories, this coming autumn. The cover will be a detail from Paolo Uccello’s “The Hunt in the Forest” (link leads you to the excellent Ashmolean Museum site).

Table of contents and final release date TBA but the book will be out in time for Liz’s guest of honor spot at the World Fantasy Convention in Toronto.

Jan/Feb Writer’s Planner deadlines

Sun 29 Jan 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Working Writer's Daily Planner | Comments Off on Jan/Feb Writer’s Planner deadlines | Posted by: Gavin

Here are a few late January/early February deadlines from A Working Writer’s Daily Calendar 2012. We’ll post some as the year goes on. February is a huge month for deadlines:

Unboxing

Fri 27 Jan 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | 2 Comments | Posted by: Gavin

Galleys of Nancy Kress’s collection, Fountain of Age, and the just-going-out-now Three Messages and a Warning.

Phew!

What to read this year

Thu 26 Jan 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | 2 Comments | Posted by: Gavin

Being that I’ve just started a Patricia Wrightson book—and since we are going there next month!—I am tempted by Australian Women Writers 2012 Reading and Reviewing Challenge.

Anyone else?

Clarion & Clarion West

Wed 25 Jan 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Clarion & Clarion West | Posted by: Gavin

March 1st is the deadline (what are you waiting for??) to apply to Clarion (San Diego) or Clarion West (Seattle). Kelly is on the all volunteer board of Clarion (she attended in 1995 and has taught it a number of times) and she and I (I went in 2000) are teaching at Clarion West this year. Yay!

Established in 1968, the Clarion Writers’ Workshop is the oldest workshop of its kind and is widely recognized as a premier proving and training ground for aspiring writers of fantasy and science fiction.

Our 2012 writers in residence are Jeffrey Ford, Marjorie Liu, Ted Chiang, Walter Jon Williams, Holly Black and Cassandra Clare.

Clarion West

Workshops for People Who Are Serious About Writing

Clarion West offers workshops for writers preparing for professional careers in science fiction and fantasy.

The Clarion West Writers Workshop is an intensive six-week workshop for writers preparing for professional careers in science fiction and fantasy, held annually in Seattle, Washington, USA.

We are very happy to announce that our instructors for the 2012 Clarion West Writers Workshop are Mary Rosenblum, Hiromi Goto, George R.R. Martin, Connie Willis, Kelly Link and Gavin Grant, and Chuck Palahniuk, the 2012 Susan C. Petrey Fellow.

SOPA/PIPA Blackout Day

Wed 18 Jan 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on SOPA/PIPA Blackout Day | Posted by: Gavin

This post was copied from Michael’s post at Weightless.

Maybe you saw our big black splash page on your way here?

SOPA is the Stop Online Piracy Act, PIPA is the Protect IP Act. What I and a lot of other people fear the passage of either of these bills by the US Congress will actually do is allow broad and arbitrary censorship of the internet.

I like an open internet very much, and I think Small Beer readers probably do too, so for the 24 hours of January 18th, 2012, Small Beer Press is going to pitch in and show that black splash page you probably already saw in hopes that some of you will click the links (or the ones above), learn what’s at stake and do something about it. And if not, I hope you won’t be too bothered by it.

Thanks very much for your time!
—Gavin & Kelly

How to read ahead

Tue 17 Jan 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on How to read ahead | Posted by: Gavin

Want to get galleys of our upcoming books from Kij Johnson, Sofia Samatar, Nancy Kress before everyone else? How about we throw an LCRW chocolate subscription into the mix?

You can get all that—as well as a ton of other good stuff—here at the Alpha Workshop Fundraiser!

Go on, get some good stuff and help fund the future of writing.

(Jim) Kelly (Link) @ the KGB

Wed 11 Jan 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., events, Kelly Link | Comments Off on (Jim) Kelly (Link) @ the KGB | Posted by: Gavin

It’s an all Kelly night at KGB Fantastic Fiction at the excellent KGB Bar in NYC next Wednesday:

James Patrick Kelly & Kelly Link, January 18th

FANTASTIC FICTION at KGB reading series, hosts Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel present:

	James Patrick Kelly is best known for his short fiction, Including “Think Like A Dinosaur,” “Ten to the Sixteenth to One” and “Burn.” His work has been translated into nineteen languages and has won the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards. His most recent publishing venture is the ezine James Patrick Kelly’s Strangeways on Kindle and Nook.
&
	Kelly Link is the author of three collections of stories and her fiction has won three Nebula Awards, a Hugo, and a World Fantasy Award. She recently co-edited Steampunk!: An anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories with her husband Gavin J. Grant

Wednesday January 18th, 7pm at

KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street (just off 2nd Ave, upstairs.)

http://www.kgbfantasticfiction.org/

Subscribe to our mailing list:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kgbfantasticfiction/

Readings are always free.

Please forward to friends at your own discretion.

Publication Day!

Tue 10 Jan 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Ayize Jama-Everett | Comments Off on Publication Day! | Posted by: Gavin

Here’s the deal: order a copy of The Liminal People from us today, January 10, 2012, and we’ll throw in the ebook for free as well as a copy of Ayize’s original edition that you can either keep in your amazing book collection or give it to a friend.

Read the first three chapters here here, but be warned: you may get hooked!

Ayize self-published the book and Nalo Hopkinson did us a huge favor and suggested he send the book to us. It’s a fast-paced science fiction thriller that grabbed me from the get go and I read it right through.

Early readers love it but we somehow managed to score a 0/4 trade reviews—eek! It’s been a while since we did that and now we need to get the word out asap! The book is in indie stores (and yes, online monoliths) just waiting for Guillermo Del Toro to discover it.

Anyway: read it and come back and tell me what you think. Ayize is working on another novel set in the same world and I am trying to get him to send it to me now! and after you’ve read it I think you’ll be saying the same thing.

2012 Writer’s Daily Planners

Mon 9 Jan 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Our POD Future, Working Writer's Daily Planner | Comments Off on 2012 Writer’s Daily Planners | Posted by: Gavin

Just got these contributors’ copies in the mail today, and they look pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. A bit cold from being in a box on a truck these last few days, but other than that: not bad!

A bonus (for us at least) of this whole print-on-demand experiment is that if you find any typos we can just upload another file.

If you’d like one, look here.

(Photo by Geoffrey Noble.)

Hello

Wed 4 Jan 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Audio out, Kij Johnson, Lydia Millet, Nancy Kress, Sofia Samatar | Comments Off on Hello | Posted by: Gavin

2012? Wooee. Must be the future. Must remember to post about 2011 before it fades completely. In the meantime: we have a couple of podcasts to come—and did you listen to Rick Kleffel talking with Ayize Jama-Everett and Lisa Goldstein after their event at the Capitola Book Cafe? Not to be missed.

We had a big ebook sale on December 31st: it was huge. Seems like people, they like ebooks. With upcoming travel and so on we’ll have to keep pushing back any print book sale for a loooong time.

We published the POD+ebook edition of A Working Writer’s Daily Planner, which is an interesting experiment.

We have some nebulous plans of a new model of bookselling—hey, who doesn’t right now? So far no one has shot it down. We’re not going all Kickstarter all the time (would be interesting though, wouldn’t it, if we put every single book on Kickstarter and if it didn’t fly we didn’t publish it??) or all subscriber or citizens . . . but maybe something in between.

Anyway, that’s all pie in the sky. Really just wanted to move the sale post off the top of the page and note that soon we’ll have t-shirts for sale and, more importantly, we have new books coming from:

April
Nancy Kress, Fountain of Age and Other Stories

June
Sofia Samatar, A Stranger in Olondria
Geoff Ryman, The Unconquered Country

July
Lydia Millet, The Shimmers in the Night

August
Kij Johnson, At the Mouth of the River of Bees: Stories

As well as late titles(!):

LCRW 28
Laurie J. Marks, Fire Logic
Geoff Ryman, Was

And paperback editions of books we are about sold out on! The Serial Garden, What I Didn’t See, The Fires Beneath the Sea. And that’s it for now. From this tiny outpost to yours, Hello!

Small Beer &c, 2011

Wed 4 Jan 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Bestsellers, Karen Joy Fowler, Kathe Koja, Kelly Link, Maureen F. McHugh, Ted Chiang | Comments Off on Small Beer &c, 2011 | Posted by: Gavin

Bookscan says our bestsellers were:

1) Kathe Koja, Under the Poppy
2) Ted Chiang, Stories of Your Life and Others
3) Kelly Link, Stranger Things Happen
4) Maureen F. McHugh, After the Apocalypse
5) Karen Joy Fowler, What I Didn’t See and Other Stories

I know other things happened this year. We published one issue of LCRW with a lovely cover by Kathleen Jennings:

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 27

A. D. Jameson · Jessy Randall · K. M. Ferebee · Karen Heuler · M. K. Hobson · Carol Emshwiller · David Rowinski · Joan Aiken · Sarah Harris Wallman · Gwenda Bond · David Blair · Sarah Heller · Nicole Kimberling

And here are the books we published.

First Small Beer Press titles:

After the Apocalypse
Maureen F. McHugh

“Incisive, contemporary, and always surprising.”—Publishers WeeklyBest Books 2011: The Top 10

A Slepyng Hound to Wake
Vincent McCaffrey

“Henry is a character cut from Raymond Chandler: a modern knight on a mission to save those, and what, he loves.”—Barbara Peters, The Poisoned Pen

Paradise Tales
Geoff Ryman

* “Often contemplative and subtly ironic, the 16 stories in this outstanding collection work imaginative riffs on a variety of fantasy and SF themes”—Publishers Weekly (*Starred Review*)

The Child Garden
Geoff Ryman

Winner of the John W. Cambell and Arthur C. Clarke Awards.

The Monkey’s Wedding and Other Stories
Joan Aiken

* “Wildly inventive, darkly lyrical, and always surprising . . . a literary treasure.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Solitaire: a novel
Kelley Eskridge
A New York Times Notable Book, Borders Original Voices selection, and Nebula, Endeavour, and Spectrum Award finalist.

And one Big Mouth House title:

The Freedom Maze
Delia Sherman

“Adroit, sympathetic, both clever and smart, The Freedom Maze will entrap young readers and deliver them, at the story’s end, that little bit older and wiser.”
—Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked and Out of Oz

33% off everything on Weightless

Sat 31 Dec 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., ebooks, sale, Weightless Books | Comments Off on 33% off everything on Weightless | Posted by: Gavin

It is the end of 2011 and I am very happy about it. Good-bye, old year, good-bye. Do not be coming back, thank you. Although there were lovely parts, it will not be missed. 2012 looks much brighter.

Anyway: we are celebrating with a one-day sale: 33% off all ebooks on weightlessbooks.com.

Get your LCRW sub here and Small Beer books here and tons of others here.

And, in case I don’t get to it tomorrow, Happy New Year!