Venus of Chalk ebook

Fri 4 Mar 2022 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

Venus coverI’m happy to say that next month we’re adding another Susan Stinson novel, Venus of Chalk, to our list. First published in 2004 by Firebrand Books this will be the first ebook edition. Susan lives near us in Western Mass and to keep it really local here’s a word on it from another fabulous and famous local author, Lesléa Newman, author of Heather Has Two Mommies,

“Carline is brave, strong and beautiful, just like Susan Stinson’s writing. As a reader, I was fascinated by Carline’s journey; as a writer I was dazzled by the language in which it was told.”

And here’s more about the book:

In Susan Stinson’s shimmering second novel, three friends drive from Massachusetts to Texas to unload an old bus, and in the process become the selves they were meant to be.

Carline’s life is settled and happy: she has a great home with her partner, Lillian, and a job she loves as the editor of a respected pamphlet series, The Modern Homemaker. But after an unpleasant harassment experience in her home town, when her aunt calls from Texas she surprises herself as much as anyone and says yes to the opportunity to accompany two friends across the country in an old bus. Stinson’s always sensual and humorous writing tingles on the page and nothing is quite what’s expected as Carline sews her way across the country and makes notes for her new pamphlet, “How to Ride a Bus.”

Venus of Chalk was a finalist for the Lambda Literary and Benjamin Franklin awards, and a Top 10 Publishing Triangle lesbian book of the year.

It comes out April 5th and is available to preorder now — DRM-free of course! — on Weightless now and will be available at all the usual ebookstores.


Gravity Again

Tue 18 Jan 2022 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , | Posted by: Gavin

On January 1st of this year I hung up my space boots and Weightless Books became the sole property of my friend and cofounder, Michael J. DeLuca.

Michael and I began Weightless in late 2009. Weightless was nominally owned by me as I had the Small Beer business infrastructure in place so that I could pay sales tax and send out annual 1099s but it was an equal collaboration: we were each paid equally every quarter and we made decisions together. I admire Michael both for his work ethic (how American of me!) but also his wandering off to the woods, the way he and his wife are raising their kid, his way of moving through the world, his home brewing and baking, and although Weightless is a small niche website that could always be better, I have always enjoyed it as an excuse to work with him.

Where and Why Weightless

In 2009 Michael and I had been redoing the Small Beer Press website from a clunky hand-coded html site to an up-to-date (for its time) WordPress site and among the problems  we ran into was that of selling both print and ebook formats simultaneously from the site. (Let’s not talk about the difficulty of trying to bring in years of my hand-coded zine pages over!)

We’d been selling ebooks on the old site since 2005 but the PayPal cart architecture made selling both formats complicated. As is still true, Am*zon was dominating ebook sales and part of their method was to remove or threaten to remove the buy button on a on a book’s page. I did not want to have all the Small Beer ebooks in one basket so I self-distributed them to Fictionwise, Google, and B&N as well as Am*zon — as then, they dominate the ebook market. However, if we had our own site we’d never need to worry that one company could make all of our books disappear.

When it comes to publishing, I always like seeing if I can do something myself so we decided to try building a website that could automate some of the ebook delivery work. Michael is the technological heart of the website and he coded it. At the start, we had some Small Beer interns who helped – shout out to Diana Cao and Felice Ling! — but over the years it has been Michael on the tech side and then both of us doing everything else: importing ebooks, sending them out, fixing our own and publisher errors, paying royalties, hunting down missing ebook formats, importing yet more ebooks, dealing with hosting failures or PayPal and WordPress blips where sales did not come through, &c., &c. In the weeks since the new year I’ve already found it odd not to be regularly checking the Weightless email to see if there are questions. We designed the site as one that we’d be happy to buy from — although no matter what we did, it would always have been better if we’d had more money to make it load faster — so:

  • there are no pop-ups
  • we never sold ads
  • we never sold anyone’s information
  • we only stocked DRM-free ebooks.

In early 2011, friends of ours who run Blind Eye Books published a huge ten-part serialized novel by Ginn Hale called The Rifter which was incredibly popular and it helped us realize how much people like subscriptions. We approached mostly sf&f publishers and some of them tried the site and left and some are still there. We found that genre (primarily science fiction, fantasy, & horror and to a small extent, mystery) ebooks generally outsold nongenre ebooks. We worked with big and small publishers although given the time constraints of two people working in the interstices of their lives we had to set limits to what we could bring on — some of the parts we’d hoped to automate had never quite worked — so after bringing on many small magazines (closer to my heart on paper than ebook, but still) we eventually closed to new publishers although since we are both interested in forefronting diverse voices in recent months we did manage to bring on khōréō and Constelación.

But Also

In the past 11 years Michael and I have done a lot of other things. Most of my time has been taken up with our kid or Small Beer Press and a few years ago Michael founded Reckoning, an annual journal of creative writing on environmental justice.

Then in 2018 a used and new bookshop came up for sale in the next town over, Easthampton, where our Small Beer office is. I met my wife, Kelly, while working at a bookshop in Boston and I love the diversity of viewpoints independent bookshops put out into the world. At Small Beer we can only publish 6-10 books a year. At a bookshop we could put hundreds of books in front of people.

Kelly and I had long played with the idea of running a bookshop — but it was play. I knew we couldn’t afford to buy or open one in Northampton and since I hope never to move house again it was safe to think it would never be more than play. Our bookstore could be four stories with an elevator; 10,000 sq ft on one floor; it could only sell books by 19th century left-handed Scots writers. Besides, although we’d both worked at a couple of bookshops, we didn’t know how to run one. But on inquiring, it turned out the bookshop was much quieter than we’d known, and therefore affordable, and in 2019 Kelly used part of her MacArthur grant to buy it.

Kelly’s a full-time writer as well as the art director and editor of many Small Beer books, so as we imagined how our lives would be if bought the shop (and while we bounced hundreds of possible names for it off one another), it became clear we could only do so if I spent a fair amount of time there — which I wanted to — and if we found people we could work with.

The bookshop, Book Moon, has been fun and I’m happy to say we found great people to work with — although the first few months of the pandemic were a grind and as I type two booksellers are out with Covid (fingers crossed) and we are back to being only open for Curbside Pickup again. But over the past two pandemic years I kept running into the problem of there being too little time or not enough me to do all I wanted and I realized that something had to go: Small Beer, Weightless, or Book Moon.

3, 2, 1, You’re Out!

During one of our regular discussions on the future of Weightless, Michael said he would be happy to run it himself. Even though I knew I had to leave, I didn’t jump at this quite as fast as I expected I would. Not surprisingly, I found it quite hard to give up something I’d helped start, worked on, and still enjoy. But it seemed better for the site if I stood down since Michael was re-energized and excited about future possibilities. Michael has built a strong community with Reckoning which made me think that perhaps he could grow Weightless, too. Besides, if needed, I can still pitch in.

I’ve found the hard part is not to think I have lots of free time so I should go start something else. So far that’s been somewhat easy as (sorry, writers) there’s a lot of Small Beer reading to catch up on, 1099s are due, and our next book, Richard Butner’s The Adventurists, is coming out soon.

So now I’m part of the great resignation. Michael has registered the business in Michigan, the PayPal and bank accounts are now his, the hosting and url registration has been transferred. Historically Weightless didn’t made tons of money. It wasn’t volunteering but it was more that the site was a service that we liked providing, a place for readers to find something interesting and not just be part of the datacloud Am*zon etc. are eating every day. The site pays does not pay anything resembling Michael’s actual coding rates so  so I did not “cash out” my half of the business. I transferred it to Michael and walked away.

Thanks to everyone who has ever bought a book or subscribed to a magazine on Weightless. It was, believe or not, fun. It’s much better to have tried it, it did ok, than not try it. I strongly believe in the principles we founded the site on so Small Beer ebooks will still be distributed DRM-free on the site and I look forward to working with Michael for years to come.


Annual Brutally Cold Discount Email

Wed 30 Jan 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , , , , , , , | Posted by: Gavin

Cold? Yep. Our distributor just sent along the new Am*zon discounts for the next two years which I would post here except I can’t because of the NDA Am*zon insists everyone sign. Why an NDA for a discount? Because it is brutal.

You may remember me whining about it in the past — just imagine a tiny bit added onto that previous whine. That’s another tiny bit less income for us & our authors (who are paid on net received on ebooks, unlike for print where they are paid a royalty on the retail price), a tiny bit more for Bezos et al. Ugh.

I don’t think we can stop selling books through Am*zon as many people find it is a handy database. But we don’t have Am*zon buttons on our site, we don’t buy ad space on those overcrowded pages, we don’t advertise on Goodreads, I don’t retweet links there, I don’t shop at Black Hole(sic) Foods, etc. Feh to them and their soul crushing tax-cut supported warehouse-enslaving main street closing goals, feh! (Sure, Jeff Billions, buy us out. The press is for sale for say $10 million and I’ll be nice and quiet. At least until that NDA runs out and I can start a new press.)

Every year Michael DeLuca and I have chat about the future of Weightless Books and every year I think about how the authors make more money from each sale, we get to sell DRM-free ebooks, and it gives us a venue to sell our own (and thousands of others) ebooks without $$$ going to Am*zon, etc. So, yes, we’ll keep it going.

Going to repost this even though it’s not Christmas but hey the Lunar New Year is coming up along with many more holidays so it still applies:

I know not everyone has a good local bookstore, a local branch of a chain, or a decent library, but if you have, *please* consider buying/borrowing books there. Am*zon still want to crush all competition (Bezos’s first name for the business was Relentless dot com [<— still leads you know where]) in all markets that they enter. They are fantastic at customer service, especially compared to some local businesses, but they are terrible for everyone else, suppliers, intermediaries, etc.

The discount creeps up a little more every year — something has to give. I suppose it won’t be Am*zon. Guess it will be us Small Gazelle Presses who want to publish interesting books, work with a wide range of people and artists, and see if we can send these weird things out into the world and find readers.

We are all together building the world we want. I want small and big bookstores all over the place. Loads of publishers following their own visions. This Christmas/holiday of your choice, please consider Powell’s, Indiebound, Kobo, B&N, anyone, anyone but Am*zon.

Thank you.


Free LCRW Ebook Subscriptions

Fri 12 Feb 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , | Posted by: Gavin

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 33 cover - click to view full sizeWe’re celebrating moving to our new webhost, Dreamhost, with a special that will run all month:

Buy any ebook on our lovely DRM-free indie ebookstore WeightlessBooks.com between 12 a.m. February 1 and 11:59 p.m. February 29(!) 2016 and receive a free 4-issue LCRW subscription (worth $9.95!). If you’re already a subscriber, you will receive a 4-issue subscription extension. And if you buy an LCRW subscription, this will basically double it, but this offer applies to any ebook bought from this store this month.

(If you’d rather not receive this bonus, please email us, thank you.) The bonus LCRW subscription will be added to your Library in the first week of March.

Why? We had an awful experience at the end of the year when our previous webhost dropped all our sites for a whole week. When we asked about back ups, they said the back ups were in the same place as the actual site . . . and could not be reached. Which means they were nonfunctioning backups. Not impressive.

So now we have signed with Dreamhost who promise 99.9% or higher(!) levels of uptime and it is time to celebrate and thank all the readers who choose Weightless!

Here are some Small Beer bestsellers as a place to start:

  1. Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet Subscription(!)
  2. After the Apocalypse, Maureen F. McHugh
  3. A Stranger in Olondria, Sofia Samatar
  4. Redemption in Indigo, Karen Lord
  5. Travel Light, Naomi Mitchison
  6. North American Lake Monsters: Stories, Nathan Ballingrud
  7. At the Mouth of the River of Bees, Kij Johnson
  8. Solitaire: a novel, Kelley Eskridge
  9. What I Didn’t See and Other Stories, Karen Joy Fowler
  10. Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, Kate Wilhelm

33% off everything on Weightless

Sat 31 Dec 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | 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!

After the Apocalypse Fairy Tale Review Special Apex Magazine Issue 31

Rifter 10: His Holy Bones Wicked Gentlemen Lightspeed Magazine Issue 19

The White City Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #85 Secret Lives


Old LCRWs getting lighter and cheaper

Tue 8 Jun 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , | Posted by: Gavin

We’ve just added LCRW 16, LCRW 17 and LCRW 18 to Weightless and dropped the price of LCRW ebooks to $2.99! Woot! Cough! Exclamation!

Also of LCRW interest: a review of LCRW 24 from Ray Garraty in Russia (and in Russian).

More ebookery: we just added Part 2 of Astrid Amara’s The Archer’s Heart on Weightless. What are we talking about? Here, go get Part 1: serialized fiction, it’s Weightlessed!

Travel Light is now available as an ebook for the very first time. It is an awesome book that you should have read when you’re 10. In fact, if you are 10, read it now. If you are not 10, read it anyway. And, isn’t that the best title ever of a book to read as an ebook? Oh sure, our paperback has the gorgeous Kevin Huizenga cover but you know, travel light. Of course if you’re hauling around some huge ebook reader maybe that isn’t travelling so light.

At some point we will probably offload all our ebooks to Weightless—which is growing along nicely. (And we’re very happy that those 2 million iPad readers will be able to read PDFs on it now. We make pretty pages and want you to enjoy them as well as the stories on them.) Anyway, so tell us if you think the offloading of ebooks to the other site is s a good or bad idea.


Ebook price experiment

Tue 6 Apr 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , | Posted by: Gavin

Just added a new DRM-free PDF ebook: Sean Stewart’s Mockingbird here and on Weightless for an introductory price of $5.95.

Once it goes live on other sites the price will have to rise to $9.95—otherwise they will drop the price to match ours and the author would get a pittance*. So get it cheap while you can! We also dropped the pb price on it (and a few other titles—including the Working Writer’s Daily Calendar which has dropped at least 25% in price as the year is 25% over!).

At $5.95 (call it $6) the author gets $3 a pop (yay!) from here/Weightless which is actually more than from Fictionwise or on the iPad/Kindle, etc., where the split goes:

Price: $10
Seller: 50% = $5
Publisher: 50% of 50% = $2.50
Author: 50% of 50% = $2.50

So the experiment is to see whether we can sell a decent number at $6 and maybe see if we should drop our prices on other ebooks. (Because after all, isn’t demand price elastic? So that demand should increase with lower prices? Well, so we are told and so we will experiment and see!)

* OK, that pittance would pretty much match the p-book rate! So maybe we will drop the price later. There’s always later, right?