Hound update

Sun 1 Nov 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | 2 Comments | Posted by: Gavin

Brian at BSC review hit the nail on the head in a review of Vincent McCaffrey’s Hound. The titular bookhound, Henry Sullivan, is a man alone has immersed in the world of books—a world the author is worried might be passing away (or at least in a state of rapid decline)—and Hound explores one reaction to the possibility of that passing. Perhaps the novel should have been subtitled “an investigation into the possible death of the book as a physical object,” but it doesn’t roll off the tongue.

If you missed Vince’s conversation-starting posts at Powell’s (get your cup of tea and biscuits/cookies ready) you can read them here. Here’s a reaction to the reading/panel on the future of the book at Mysterious Bookshop. I think Vince knows that the paper book won’t completely disappear but he is right to wonder and to agitate and to keep the conversation going on what the future will look like and who will make it.

And, yes, you can buy Hound as an ebook. Vincent might be worried about the death of the paper book, but we’re quite aware there is a growing percentage of readers who like to read our books on other substrates.

And in case you missed his readings (there’s one TK at the Odyssey in South Hadley in January, dorp by!) he was interviewed by The L Magazine and Jamaicaway Books:

Or, of course, just start reading Hound.


Second Line shipping

Thu 29 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | 1 Comment | Posted by: Gavin

We’ll be shipping out Poppy Z. Brite’s Second Line to reviewers and readers asap — contact us if you want to review it.

We may yet have a nice little surprise for collectors (give us another week after all) and a little something sort of special for regular readers…


Greenstart

Tue 27 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | 2 Comments | Posted by: Gavin

In 2008 I was happy to see our home electricity through New England GreenStart came from:

  • 75% hydroelectric power
  • 20.9% biomass
  • 3% solar
  • 1.2% wind

For summer 2009 the figures had improved to:

  • 69.3% hydroelectric
  • 19.9% biomass
  • 4.7% solar
  • 6% wind

So solar and wind now make up more than 10% of our power: a good start! I think the program has changed in some way but as far as I know on it goes, happily charging a little extra to invest in alternative options.


Poppy Brite fun

Tue 27 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Poppy Brite fun | Posted by: Gavin

If all goes well tomorrow we should have a fun surprise to offer Poppy Brite fans. If all does not go well this post does not exist.


Fantasy football for books people?

Sun 25 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , | Comments Off on Fantasy football for books people? | Posted by: Gavin

So why isn’t there something like Fantasy Football or the Hollywood Stock Exchange for books? Wouldn’t it be fun to bet who was going to be #1 next week, which house would have all the NBCC winners, etc., etc.? And if game-theory peeps are to be believed, wouldn’t the simulacrum give us some sense of the real world?

Anyway, some techy-programy-bookie-type person out there: please go and make millions on this now, please, thank you.


The Ant King

Fri 23 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on The Ant King | Posted by: Gavin

LitDrift are giving away a free copy of Ben Rosenbaum’s wide-ranging and excellent story collection The Ant King this week. Drop by and leave a comment for your chance to win. They also, bravely, encourage haiku.

Congratulations to last week’s winner, Paul Ketchum, who gets a free copy of Couch!


Planner Preview + $4.95 DRM-free PDF

Fri 23 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Comments Off on Planner Preview + $4.95 DRM-free PDF | Posted by: Gavin

We have just posted the month of March here as a preview of our Working Writer’s Daily Planner which is at the printer now. (2011’s will be earlier!)

The Planner is also now available as a DRM-free PDF (emailed within 24 hours of purchase — and usually sooner) for just $4.95.

We’re selling it as a nicely-bookmarked 2MB PDF (formatting makes it harder than other books to convert into other formats) which means you can print it at any size you want: letter-sized to put in a 3-ring binder, tiny to go on index cards, or 6″ x 9″ to replicate the printed edition.

We’d love to hear about different printing and use strategies and we’re always open to suggestions for what should go into next year’s edition. (Read the table of contents for this year’s Planner here.)


If it’s Thursday, must be Portsmouth

Thu 22 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Comments Off on If it’s Thursday, must be Portsmouth | Posted by: Gavin

RiverRun Books is one of the most popular Twittering Bookstores and they love Hound — you can’t miss it, it’s right there on their front table — which is great as Vince is reading there tonight.

Vince is blogging all week at Powell’s.com and is part of a great book event in New York City on Sunday.


Wed 21 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on | Posted by: Gavin

Dave Schwartz posted a fantastic photo: “Alan Deniro’s poster at the Rain Taxi Twin Cities Book Festival, handmade publicity for his imminent novel, Total Oblivion, More or Less.” Click on it and make it bigger:

Threat Level Gnosis by Snurri.


What do you think the price should be?

Mon 19 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | 5 Comments | Posted by: Gavin

What should we price the pdf ebook of our upcoming A Working Writer’s Daily Planner 2010? The paper version is $13.95 (and is at the printer).

The ebook will be pdf only — there is too much formatting and too many pics for anything else.

Suggestions?


Free calendar

Wed 14 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Free calendar | Posted by: Gavin

Update: Done!

We just received this promo and we won’t be ordering them (just like last year!) as we have a calendar all of our very own making that at long last is at the printer. It’s a nice enough planner, a month per page, and various handy things.

So, instead of letting it molder until next year, we’ll send it out to the very next reader to order one of our books or zines.

Not our calendar by you.


Ray Vukcevich at the movies (almost)

Mon 12 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Comments Off on Ray Vukcevich at the movies (almost) | Posted by: Gavin

Meet Me in the Moon RoomA couple of readers have emailed us to ask if the skippy viral thriller-chiller film Paranormal Activity is based on Ray Vukcevich’s incredibly creepy and wonderful story “Whisper” — which was collected in Meet Me in the Moon Room (and originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in January 2001).

The answer: while we haven’t seen the film at the moment we don’t think so. Ray tells us there has been a lot of film interest in “Whisper” over the years (along with a few of his other stories) but even though both “Whisper” and Paranormal Activity feature paranoid people setting up cameras to record themselves sleeping it seems that this is one of those cases of parallel evolution where the a similar idea is interpreted artistically from a couple of different points of view.

Either way, if you like creepy stories and haven’t read “Whisper,” now’s your chance.


Redemption in Indigo

Mon 12 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | 2 Comments | Posted by: Gavin

Karen LordSmall Beer Press are very happy to announce they have acquired the rights to Karen Lord‘s debut novel, Redemption in Indigo, which received the pre-publication BDS$10,000 Frank Collymore Award in Barbados and will be published as a trade paperback original in June 2010.

Redemption in Indigo is a clever and entrancing debut which incorporates folktales to tell the story of a woman who frees herself from a troublesome and capricious husband only to become the unwitting heroine in a fantastic struggle to reconcile the supernatural forces of fate with humanity’s free will.

Jewel Forde interviewed Karen on CBC’s “Mornin’ Barbados” and Karen’s just posted the video on Facebook.

Read the introduction after the break:

Read more


Cloud (& Ashes Lit)Drifts Free

Fri 9 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Cloud (& Ashes Lit)Drifts Free | Posted by: Gavin

Following last week’s Hound (hope you enjoy it, James DeBruicker!) this week’s freebie at LitDrift is Greer Gilman’s intense and magical Cloud & Ashes. Email them or leave a comment to enter.


LCRW hits 25, isn’t out

Tue 6 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Comments Off on LCRW hits 25, isn’t out | Posted by: Gavin

The Choir Boats: Volume One of Longing for Yount Cover2 LCRW things (make that 4) about the next LCRW which is apparently number 25. Which, if we were numerically inclined would be yet another reason to celebrate. But we are too busy cutting lead type (um, no, not really) and then these:

  1. We are collecting questions for Dear Aunt Gwenda. Please send us yours!
  2. We just bought a couple of stories and if we are lucky we will have a translation (of an award winning story!) in the next issue and, separately, maybe more from a different country in the future.
  3. We are catching up a little with submissions but in the pile there are even yet and still some submissions from at least as far back as February and March of this year. Darn.
  4. I just read former LCRW contributor Daniel A. Rabuzzi’s debut novel, The Choir Boats, (Indiebound/Powell’s) a huge, inventive fantasy about 19th century London and Yount, another place,  and hope to post an interview here with him soon.

Another Hound freed

Fri 2 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | 1 Comment | Posted by: Gavin

Over at LitDrift.com they’ll be giving away one of our books a week all month and they’ve started things off with Hound.


Paige M. Gutenborg

Tue 29 Sep 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | 1 Comment | Posted by: Gavin

Today we took a wander over the river to Cambridge to see the new instant book machine at the Harvard Book Store (which has been named the Gutenborg!). Various publishing luminaries were there including our own Greer Gilman—who described her post-Harvard Library job search as looking for an iPod job in a PC world . . .—and we listened to them try and persuade us that this is the future. Well, part of it. Being historically minded, the first book they printed was the Bay Psalm Book, which was the first book printed in English on this continent,  in 1640 in Cambridge, no less.

It was at once fun and anti-climatic as the machine ran off the book in the promised four minutes and . . . that was it. Other bookshops with these machines report that they do a bang-up business, more with local authors than with out of print books. After all, why buy some scanned copy of Sense and Sensibility for $8 when you can get a decently edited one for, er, maybe about the same. Hmm. Well, luckily the Harvard Book Store has a good used section downstairs.

Our books are available on Google Books (with various levels of access) who have a deal with the manufacturer On Demand Books so at some point our books will hopefully be part of the instantprint experience.

As with everyone else who came by to see the machine in action, we’ll wait and see what happens.


Release the Hound!

Tue 29 Sep 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | 1 Comment | Posted by: Gavin

It’s Publication Day for Vincent McCaffrey‘s debut novel Hound today — everyone send him flowers! We have signed copies for sale — as does the Brookline Booksmith. This Friday he’ll be in Hartford at the NEIBA trade show (along with other fave authors such as Joe Hill and Shaun Tan!) at the Author Reception and then on Oct. 9th he’ll be at Jamaicaway Books in Jamaica Plain for a reading.

And here’s a quick interview from the hitherto famously loquacious McCaffrey:

SBP: When did you start writing HOUND?

Vincent McCaffrey: 2002. Frustrated with the progress of several other projects (including the science fiction novel and a play) I started fleshing out some background ideas.

How much of Henry Sullivan is made of up bookhounds you knew?

Pretty much all of Henry is made up of book people I know–including myself, of course.

What is a bookhound?

A person who searches for books–not technically a seller, but Henry does both and the part he relishes is searching for good books.

Henry loves books (and beer, mmm) and is worried about their historical moment having passed. What do you think? Is the technical wonder that is the book dead or is there life in the old dog yet?

No, it is not dead yet. It is in danger. That is more of the point. For all the reasons I have addressed in various pieces, but mostly because of a false sense of security with ephemeral technology and a political need to quiet the book.

What made you pick the mystery form to discuss the book as object?

Because I imagined the death of the book as a political act (first degree murder) as much as a technological mistake (manslaughter). Because I carried this into a future set 250 years from now and wrote a science fiction novel based around it. Then went back to see if I could explain where it started.

Henry’s coming back next year in A Slepying Hound to Wake. Can you tell us a bit about that book?

Henry has fallen in love, and this begins to give him a purpose outside of himself and his own small world.

Do you have a routine with writing? Any superstitions?

I write for three hours every morning. I cannot reveal my superstitions otherwise I might disappear.

Did being a bookseller for 30+ years affect your writing habits?

It greatly discouraged me for the longest time. All those books. All that crap! Most of thelessons were negative until I finally took my own advice and stopped giving a damn about what other people wanted from me. Then the positive aspects such as a good sense of literature in general and what I loved about it, plus a  Calvinist work ethic about showing up on time and getting the work done proved instrumental.


printer

Mon 28 Sep 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | 2 Comments | Posted by: Gavin

We have 3 books at the printer(s): Second Line, Interfictions 2, and a new ARC of The Poison Eaters to go out to bookshops next month — got to get the word out!

This post exists because I just noticed the QuickPress option in WordPress — could be trouble!


Would you like some Poison?

Fri 25 Sep 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , | 14 Comments | Posted by: Gavin

We have five advance copies of Holly Black’s new collection, The Poison Eaters and Other Stories, to go out to readers and bloggers (in the US + Canada, as we don’t have international rights to the book) who will post something about it before it comes out — all the long way away in the future of February 2010.

Interested? Tell us your favorite poison (and why) and we’ll send out five copies to the five shiveriest and scariest!


It’s Not About the Burrito

Thu 24 Sep 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on It’s Not About the Burrito | Posted by: Gavin

Awesome story: social media meets the burrito and Broadway Books lives.

More good book news: from now on the San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller list is the Indie Bestseller list.

We like indie bookshops, too!Buy local


Three Free Hounds

Thu 24 Sep 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Three Free Hounds | Posted by: Gavin

We did a member giveaway on LibraryThing and these three lucky readers will be receiving a free copy of Hound for reading and reviewing:

Betty in Smithers, BC (readerbynight)
Yesenia in Elmhurst NY (jesi813)
Belinda in Grand Bay, AL (sadi2forever)

Vincent McCaffrey by you.Kelly and I went to Vincent’s first reading the other night at the Brookline Booksmith in Boston and it was great fun—Vincent turns out to be a great reader and good with a Q&A (lucky for us).

He has a few more readings lined up—and there are some nice reviews coming, so yay for the Hound!

Anyone going to Booksmith readings (for, say, Lorrie Moore!) should note that for afterwards there’s a J.P. Licks just down the street, mmm!


Burn, feed, and boil

Mon 21 Sep 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Burn, feed, and boil | Posted by: Gavin

and now this part of our site has an updated FeedBurner thing, which I don’t really understand the benefit of but it is apparently important. You can subscribe to it on the site or here:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/SmallBeerPressNotAJournal


Hound, Brookline, tonight

Mon 21 Sep 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Hound, Brookline, tonight | Posted by: Gavin

and don’t forget, the very first reading from Hound, Vincent McCaffrey’s debut novel at the Brookline Booksmith (279 Harvard St. Brookline MA 02446 (617) 566-6660) tonight!


Pretty Monsters UK

Mon 21 Sep 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Pretty Monsters UK | Posted by: Gavin

A nice guy called Robert Burdock posted a beautiful pic of the U.K. edition of Pretty Monsters that Canongate are putting out in a couple of weeks and since it’s better than any pic we’d be able to take (well, unless Michael were here), here’s his. We just received copies of the book and it is an art object. If you have the US edition (which won’t be in pb until Next June, sigh) it will be familiar but there are added touches: no dustjacket, new endpapers, sprinkled with monster blood:

Pretty Monsters. Pretty Book by Robert Burdock.


LCRW slipping into the fictionets

Thu 17 Sep 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Comments Off on LCRW slipping into the fictionets | Posted by: Gavin

LCRW 24 is available at last on Fictionwise.

Which also means it available on Barnes & Noble. Funny. Except, on bn.com it hasn’t quite appeared yet. You can get many old issues (LCRW 15, anyone?) so maybe #24 will pop up there one of these days.

Neither is it available on the Kindle.

Happily, it is still available on paper.


Is small beer obscure?

Thu 17 Sep 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | 1 Comment | Posted by: Gavin

Fun, if perhaps rather small beer, conversation (with all the usual hallmarks of a net discussion) on the relative obscurity of the phrase small beer. I am always surprised that it isn’t a better known phrase. One of these days.


Spruce Beer, or, A Beer to Ward Off Scurvy

Mon 14 Sep 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | 19 Comments | Posted by: Michael

Further exploits in my quest to brew surprising, delicious, unhopped beer like it was 1799. Or 999. See more about my anti-hop crusade at The Beer of Alchemists and Witches.

The idea for this beer came from Benjamin Franklin. More directly, it came from Yards Brewing Company’s Poor Richard’s Ale, itself an attempt at a modern recreation of a recipe Franklin penned in French while stationed overseas, which, translated, reads as follows.

“Way of Making Beer with Essence of Spruce:

For a Cask containing 80 bottles, take one pot of Essence and 13 Pounds of Molases. – or the same amount of unrefined Loaf Sugar; mix them well together in 20 pints of hot Water: Stir together until they make a Foam, then pour it into the Cask you will then fill with Water: add a Pint of good Yeast, stir it well together and let it stand 2 or 3 Days to ferment, after which close the Cask, and after a few days it will be ready to be put into Bottles, that must be tightly corked. Leave them 10 or 12 Days in a cool Cellar, after which the Beer will be good to drink.”

Read more


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