Nick Mamatas's Blog, page 49
August 12, 2013
QUOTES EVERY MAN SHOULD KNOW, a FAQ
So, by the morning Quotes Every Man Should Know should be out. Online, in stores, that sort of thing. A brief FAQ follows.
1. Why did you write this book?
Quirk Books asked me to, because I did a good job on Insults Every Man Should Know, which was also Quirk's idea.
2. Publishers just call you up and ask you to write books for them. Really?
Yeah.
3. Why?
I make deadlines, and hand in reasonably clean copy.
4. You must think you're really something, eh? You think you're so hot, but you're not!
Your mom thinks I'm hot.
5. What's with all this "man" business? What about women?
They do women-branded books too. My best guess is that the vast majority of these books are sold as gifts—the reader is not the buyer. So perhaps the idea is that one buyer will buy a man book and a woman book, for two gifts. Like your mom bought me two...
6. Should I buy this book from B&N, or amazon, or an indie store? What gets you the most money?
This is flat-rate stuff. I'm bylined, correctly, as an editor since I am mostly compiling quotes and then writing a little copy. So I've been paid what I've been paid already.
7. And how much was that?
1.3 months dayjob salary. Not bad for a 15,000-word gift book. The .3 was a raise from Insults.
8. if you're not getting royalties, what sort of promotion do you plan on doing?
This FAQ. Your mom.
9. Don't you think you should stand up for equal rights, and royalties, and REFUSE to do any more ____ Every Man Should Know books?
Not really.
10. What's your favorite quote?
Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish.—Lao Tzu.
Which I think ended up being cut from the book anyway.
1. Why did you write this book?
Quirk Books asked me to, because I did a good job on Insults Every Man Should Know, which was also Quirk's idea.
2. Publishers just call you up and ask you to write books for them. Really?
Yeah.
3. Why?
I make deadlines, and hand in reasonably clean copy.
4. You must think you're really something, eh? You think you're so hot, but you're not!
Your mom thinks I'm hot.
5. What's with all this "man" business? What about women?
They do women-branded books too. My best guess is that the vast majority of these books are sold as gifts—the reader is not the buyer. So perhaps the idea is that one buyer will buy a man book and a woman book, for two gifts. Like your mom bought me two...
6. Should I buy this book from B&N, or amazon, or an indie store? What gets you the most money?
This is flat-rate stuff. I'm bylined, correctly, as an editor since I am mostly compiling quotes and then writing a little copy. So I've been paid what I've been paid already.
7. And how much was that?
1.3 months dayjob salary. Not bad for a 15,000-word gift book. The .3 was a raise from Insults.
8. if you're not getting royalties, what sort of promotion do you plan on doing?
This FAQ. Your mom.
9. Don't you think you should stand up for equal rights, and royalties, and REFUSE to do any more ____ Every Man Should Know books?
Not really.
10. What's your favorite quote?
Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish.—Lao Tzu.
Which I think ended up being cut from the book anyway.
August 11, 2013
Final Score, or #TeamBreezy? More Like #TeamSeizie! Amirite?
Here's my fifteen seconds of Twitter fame:
Too bad none of my tweets about Bradley Manning or the BART strikers or even other celebrities have gained as much traction. On the plus side, I was called a tranny for the first time (I presume thanks to my avi), so there's that!
Too bad none of my tweets about Bradley Manning or the BART strikers or even other celebrities have gained as much traction. On the plus side, I was called a tranny for the first time (I presume thanks to my avi), so there's that!
August 10, 2013
Broken
Broken. A spiral fracture of the proximal phalange. A hard-sole shoe for now, podiatrist on Monday or Tuesday. It doesn't look or feel so bad. Almost no waiting in the ER either. First thing in the AM is always a good deal, they told me. One fifty co-pay including X-rays. I made them wheel me around some more—to the discharge room, though I could have hobbled over—so I could get my money's worth.
August 9, 2013
Tomorrow's Game
Tonight, in jiujitsu class, while rolling, this happened to me.
So...what do you think?
View Poll: Second toe, right foot
We'll find out in the morning! This might be my first ever trip to an emergency room as a patient. Not bad for forty-one.
So...what do you think?
View Poll: Second toe, right foot
We'll find out in the morning! This might be my first ever trip to an emergency room as a patient. Not bad for forty-one.
Friday Quick Notes
Interested locals might want to consider taking my five-week genre writing course, which starts On August 17th. I've repaired several Clarion grads over the years, the poor things.
Speaking, of a few days ago, I was sent a book to blurb by the author. Instead of blurbing it, I edited the first chapter and sent back a length note. The author responded by saying he'll try to take the book back from its publisher. I'll consider that a win, though my suggestion was to keep the contract, and extend the deadline.
Here's a short interview with Peace and Freedom Party Senate candidate Cindy Sheehan on a libertarian website. As usual, libertarians have trouble understanding that some people are not libertarian. I blame the "world's shortest political" quiz and other dimensional spectra that magically turn 90 percent of people into libertarians.
Nine years later, Move Under Ground (only $2.99 on Kindle! Cheap!) is still getting reviews. The latest one reads, in part: This is a seriously literary book whose literary credibility is kind of undermined by the fact that Nick Mamatas wrote RPF crackfic. Well, yes.
Speaking, of a few days ago, I was sent a book to blurb by the author. Instead of blurbing it, I edited the first chapter and sent back a length note. The author responded by saying he'll try to take the book back from its publisher. I'll consider that a win, though my suggestion was to keep the contract, and extend the deadline.
Here's a short interview with Peace and Freedom Party Senate candidate Cindy Sheehan on a libertarian website. As usual, libertarians have trouble understanding that some people are not libertarian. I blame the "world's shortest political" quiz and other dimensional spectra that magically turn 90 percent of people into libertarians.
Nine years later, Move Under Ground (only $2.99 on Kindle! Cheap!) is still getting reviews. The latest one reads, in part: This is a seriously literary book whose literary credibility is kind of undermined by the fact that Nick Mamatas wrote RPF crackfic. Well, yes.
August 6, 2013
Book bloggers and book reviewers might like to know...
that Love is the Law is now up on Netgalley right here. Note that the book actually comes out on Sept 25, not Oct 8.
Thanks!
Thanks!
Are You A Professional Writer? Take My Quiz!
There's been a lot of discussion in some corners of the Internet this weekend over the idea of being a "professional writer." I won't bother linking to the original source's quiz because it's boring and inaccurate. However, I have decided that I'd pitch in with a more accurate quiz. It's just eleven questions; if you can answer "Yes!" to at least eight of them, congratulations—you're a professional writer. A number of the questions are US-centric, so please feel free to provide foreign analogues in the comments, if you think of any.
1. When someone who owes you money says that the check will go into the mail today, do you do some quick mental math based on all of the following:
a. your understanding of postal service delivery times
b. whether or not the check will go to an internal mail room first, or to a street mail box,
c. whether it'll be slipped into the box before or after that day's final pick-up
all to figure out whether or not you need to borrow $50 for the week?
2. Have you ever sat in a bookstore, behind a card table, by yourself, for an hour? (Wrapping gifts for either pay or charity doesn't count.)
3. Ever buy every copy of a magazine at a newsstand, and start to explain to the cashier why you're doing it, only to be stopped cold by the look in his dead cowlike eyes?
4. Do strangers seem to know quite a bit about you? Do they sometimes just think they know a lot about you?
5. Have you ever been yelled at by a librarian?
6. Ever quickly inhale when your new email beep thing beeps at you, chew your lip for a moment, and then mutter, "Well, fuck" after skimming the email?
7. When you see a half-ruined paperback book facedown in a puddle in the gutter, do you turn it over with with your big toe to see the title?
8. Without using a search engine or a phone book, can you tell me where the reduced-fee medical clinic in your town is? If not from the US, have you ever received a check from the government having to do with libraries?
9. Ever get one of those dumb little reading lights that you're supposed to screw onto your forehead as a gift from a member of your extended family?
10. You meet someone at a party. He or she is introduced to you as a writer. Suddenly everything is a blur; the room is spinning and your stomach is burning. You hear the words "Harper Collins" and a cheerful little snort. Your tongue is dry as sheetrock no matter how much of your drink you drink. You glance around and see this:
Are these people secretly laughing at you?
11. Ever do some research on your state's regulations regarding the possibility of "reading the law" and becoming a lawyer without having to go to law school?
1. When someone who owes you money says that the check will go into the mail today, do you do some quick mental math based on all of the following:
a. your understanding of postal service delivery times
b. whether or not the check will go to an internal mail room first, or to a street mail box,
c. whether it'll be slipped into the box before or after that day's final pick-up
all to figure out whether or not you need to borrow $50 for the week?
2. Have you ever sat in a bookstore, behind a card table, by yourself, for an hour? (Wrapping gifts for either pay or charity doesn't count.)
3. Ever buy every copy of a magazine at a newsstand, and start to explain to the cashier why you're doing it, only to be stopped cold by the look in his dead cowlike eyes?
4. Do strangers seem to know quite a bit about you? Do they sometimes just think they know a lot about you?
5. Have you ever been yelled at by a librarian?
6. Ever quickly inhale when your new email beep thing beeps at you, chew your lip for a moment, and then mutter, "Well, fuck" after skimming the email?
7. When you see a half-ruined paperback book facedown in a puddle in the gutter, do you turn it over with with your big toe to see the title?
8. Without using a search engine or a phone book, can you tell me where the reduced-fee medical clinic in your town is? If not from the US, have you ever received a check from the government having to do with libraries?
9. Ever get one of those dumb little reading lights that you're supposed to screw onto your forehead as a gift from a member of your extended family?
10. You meet someone at a party. He or she is introduced to you as a writer. Suddenly everything is a blur; the room is spinning and your stomach is burning. You hear the words "Harper Collins" and a cheerful little snort. Your tongue is dry as sheetrock no matter how much of your drink you drink. You glance around and see this:
Are these people secretly laughing at you?
11. Ever do some research on your state's regulations regarding the possibility of "reading the law" and becoming a lawyer without having to go to law school?
August 5, 2013
Monday Quick Notes
1. No BART strike today, despite the fact that supposedly the last offer from BART management, last night, was actually worse than the previous offer made—BART seems extremely ready to provoke a strike in order to create a crisis in the hope of getting the state to declare all such strikes illegal. As it stands, Gov. Brown ordered a seven-day board of inquiry into what's going on. Heard some union spokesperson on the news sounding hopeful—maybe the governor will be investigating why BART hasn't been negotiating in good faith. To which I can only say hahahahaha. I expect we might see a thirty-day cooling off period after this seven-day inquiry. Anything to keep the trains running while America's Cup is going on. Not that I've encountered even a single person who will admit to seeing one race, or even one boat, but then again I don't run in yachting circles.
2. Here's an extremely handy guide to the making of chocolate chip cookies.
3. Here's a new review of my current favorite dayjob book, Self-Reference ENGINE by Toh EnJoe. It reads, in part: In my opinion this book is a landmark for high-concept SF—not to mention Japanese fiction in translation. At his best, EnJoe enters into the same territory as Borges, Lem, or Calvino, but I think EnJoe is a better writer than Lem or Calvino; or at least, more interesting. Self-Reference Engine is notable not just for its highly original ideas, but as a successful integration of surrealism, absurdism, metafiction, and philosophy with science fiction.
I'll be blunt: If you don't buy this book, as far as I am concerned you are not allowed to express an interest in hard SF. Instead, you must admit that when you say you like hard SF, you really mean that you like right-wing SF in which Austrian economics is magically granted all the rigor of physics in order that white guys with dumb beards can win the future and all the sexy space-redheads as some sort of teleological inevitability. So buy it.
2. Here's an extremely handy guide to the making of chocolate chip cookies.
3. Here's a new review of my current favorite dayjob book, Self-Reference ENGINE by Toh EnJoe. It reads, in part: In my opinion this book is a landmark for high-concept SF—not to mention Japanese fiction in translation. At his best, EnJoe enters into the same territory as Borges, Lem, or Calvino, but I think EnJoe is a better writer than Lem or Calvino; or at least, more interesting. Self-Reference Engine is notable not just for its highly original ideas, but as a successful integration of surrealism, absurdism, metafiction, and philosophy with science fiction.
I'll be blunt: If you don't buy this book, as far as I am concerned you are not allowed to express an interest in hard SF. Instead, you must admit that when you say you like hard SF, you really mean that you like right-wing SF in which Austrian economics is magically granted all the rigor of physics in order that white guys with dumb beards can win the future and all the sexy space-redheads as some sort of teleological inevitability. So buy it.
August 3, 2013
Oil and Water
Oil and Water, the San Francisco Mime Troupe's is a collection of two one-act plays, "Deal with the Devil" and "Crude Intentions" that deal with the Keystone XL pipeline, and with the ongoing legal conflict between Ecuador and Chevron. (You can learn more at the troupe's learn more page.) More than either of those things, the plays deal with the continuing illusions the left in the Bay Area has in President Obama.
In "Deal with the Devil", a future woman President, who ran on green policies, is found dead. Drowned in oil. Washington DC is under a dome and the air outside is too thick with pollution to breathe. The African-American vice president, now president, must give make an announcement—all water rights in the US are to be transferred over to transnational petroleum companies. There's the usual SFMT goofy acting—musical accompaniments to knocks on the door, lots of mugging—and then the DEVIL appears. To bargain for the new President's soul? Of course not. She already owns it, and has for years. But there's a way for the President to get it back, as you see even the devil has a stake in the future of the human species, and if this deal goes through...
Anyway, as it turns out the future scenario was all a dream Obama had the night before giving the final go-ahead for Keystone, and now he doesn't! The terrible dystopian future doesn't have to come to pass! YAY! So keep on voting for the Democrats and wishing that what Democrats say their policies are, and what policies they carry out are just delusions and mistakes and the results of compromises and and and...one day everything will be better. Superior singing though. Due to some fundraising difficulties, there were only four actors and lots of fake mustaches and costume changes, but on a technical level it all worked well.
"Crude Intentions" is the more interesting piece. Thomasa runs a small restaurant and catering business with her girlfriend, but in her past she was a documentary filmmaker who helped expose Chevron's poisoning of the Ecuadorean rainforest. She still has a rough cut of her film, though she foolishly sold most of the footage to Chevron to bury. She and her girlfriend find themselves catering a certain hunt club event though, and overhear...
(This number was a million times hotter in person.)
This piece is more interesting because Thomasa has real mistakes to make and real chances to fix things, but the play isn't all about her. Even the side characters have little story arc—impressive for a one-act—and useful points are made about how even the liberal media fetishes NPR and PBS have been influenced by corporate money. But in the end it boils down to Obama making a series of promises–ridiculously substantive daydreamy ones in that case at least, so they're likely not supposed to be taken as seriously. SFMT always works better with a Republican President in office. They can let the hate flow without upsetting too much of their audience that way.
In "Deal with the Devil", a future woman President, who ran on green policies, is found dead. Drowned in oil. Washington DC is under a dome and the air outside is too thick with pollution to breathe. The African-American vice president, now president, must give make an announcement—all water rights in the US are to be transferred over to transnational petroleum companies. There's the usual SFMT goofy acting—musical accompaniments to knocks on the door, lots of mugging—and then the DEVIL appears. To bargain for the new President's soul? Of course not. She already owns it, and has for years. But there's a way for the President to get it back, as you see even the devil has a stake in the future of the human species, and if this deal goes through...
Anyway, as it turns out the future scenario was all a dream Obama had the night before giving the final go-ahead for Keystone, and now he doesn't! The terrible dystopian future doesn't have to come to pass! YAY! So keep on voting for the Democrats and wishing that what Democrats say their policies are, and what policies they carry out are just delusions and mistakes and the results of compromises and and and...one day everything will be better. Superior singing though. Due to some fundraising difficulties, there were only four actors and lots of fake mustaches and costume changes, but on a technical level it all worked well.
"Crude Intentions" is the more interesting piece. Thomasa runs a small restaurant and catering business with her girlfriend, but in her past she was a documentary filmmaker who helped expose Chevron's poisoning of the Ecuadorean rainforest. She still has a rough cut of her film, though she foolishly sold most of the footage to Chevron to bury. She and her girlfriend find themselves catering a certain hunt club event though, and overhear...
(This number was a million times hotter in person.)
This piece is more interesting because Thomasa has real mistakes to make and real chances to fix things, but the play isn't all about her. Even the side characters have little story arc—impressive for a one-act—and useful points are made about how even the liberal media fetishes NPR and PBS have been influenced by corporate money. But in the end it boils down to Obama making a series of promises–ridiculously substantive daydreamy ones in that case at least, so they're likely not supposed to be taken as seriously. SFMT always works better with a Republican President in office. They can let the hate flow without upsetting too much of their audience that way.
August 1, 2013
Vonnegut fanfic license
Well, it looks like I may yet be able to retire a Kindle Millionaire, as Amazon Publishing has formed a new licensing partnership with RosettaBooks for the books of Kurt Vonnegut for its fan fiction publishing platform Kindle Worlds. Finally, I can fix all the problems with Slapstick! Galapagos post-humans will go to war with equally small-brained squidpeople! The guy from Mother Night will have been a real Nazi all along!
But now I want to know what other novelists will open up their "worlds" to Kindle. Here are some I'm looking forward to. Which do you like?
View Poll: The Next Kindle Worlds Literary Star
I cannot wait!
But now I want to know what other novelists will open up their "worlds" to Kindle. Here are some I'm looking forward to. Which do you like?
View Poll: The Next Kindle Worlds Literary Star
I cannot wait!
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