| Author | Message | ||
     Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.143.98.68 |
“Expen the scusil. Thrown pen over balcony, whee goes pen…” – Alan Coren http://expenscusil.wordpress.com/ (a site for my Last Balcony book collection) | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.165.36.17 |
This is the saddest question I've ever asked... but is Facebook down today? Excuse the pencil. des | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.165.39.90 |
Still hoping that another publisher will pick up the now unattached LAST BALCONY collection. http://expenscusil.wordpress.com/ | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.165.39.90 |
Well, I'm giving up hope on this book. Just another of my misdesmeanors.  | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.199.129 |
Oh no! Don't give up hope on it, Des. I'm still hoping. I'm here, ready and waiting with my cash to buy a copy. Have you been contacting possible publishers about it? If not, perhaps now is the time to start writing letters to them? Surely somebody must have the foresight to realise it's about time there was another collection of DFL classics? (hope you don't mind me suggesting that  ) | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.165.39.90 |
Thanks, Caroline. As soon as I receive comments later this year on how well I've done with 'The Horror Anthology of Horror Anthologies' (that I intend to publish with no formal technical assistance as I always had with Nemonymous) - I shall then consider 'The Last Balcony' being published under Megazanthuis Press. Of course, I would much prefer it being independently published. So above is a definite Plan B. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.165.39.90 |
...and although it is a Plan B most definitely, I feel self-publishing it may be justifiable as it was accepted by an independent publisher (it is still on their website) and it was me who withdrew it. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 81.155.31.11 |
Nobody has yet won the free competion to win a rare WEIRDMONGER (2004 Prime Books / Cold Tonnage) hardback: http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/win_a_weirdmonger_hardback.htm | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
I keep expecting the story of Expen the Scusil to be told here... I think of him as a small furry creature with a minor administrative role in some vast, crumbling warren. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.153.144.35 |
A handful of folk have asked me to bring some shorts out - is self-publishing respectable these days? Or is it, as I fear, fast becoming an only option? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 81.155.31.11 |
For Joel “Expen the scusil. Thrown pen over balcony, whee goes pen…” – Alan Coren  | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.205.210 |
Thanks Des. I saw the quote before. But I can't see the scusil in your photo. Is it hiding under the ivy? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 81.155.31.11 |
Can't you see the shape throwing his pen out. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 81.155.19.231 |
Further to advice from an old friend above, I've finally decided that I shall not be requesting Ex Occidente to reconsider my withdrawal of my LAST BALCONY collection from them, despite them taking the carpet from underneath the finite-timing reasons for my withdrawal in the first place. Why should they? Why should I? The collection is good enough. I'm sure, for any publishing concern who wants to reach out to me and transcend any possible short-termism in current small press publishing. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.204.79 |
Des, I feel that's a pity. But your words provoke a further concern: it's not the business of publishers to contact writers with offers of publication. That happens rarely, especially in these internet-ridden times when the average small press book publisher gets about ten book pitches, a few of them valid, every day. People who want to sell their work outnumber people who want to buy and read books by maybe forty to one. As a keen reader as well as a keen writer, you should appreciate that publishers have a hard enough time whittling down submissions without starting to solicit them. If you'd like the book to be published, you really should approach a suitable publisher. If you do that, you'll find one. If you wait for them to read your internet postings and discover that you have an unpublished book, then ask you whether they can publish it, you may wait a long time. Besides, why wait to be asked when you can choose who to approach? It's a bit like dating: if you just hang back and wait it won't be the best person who approaches you, it will just be the most eager. Not necessarily the best thing. Do the choosing. Your book deserves that. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 81.155.19.231 |
I'm always grateful for your wisdom, Joel. Meanwhile, just before reading your post above, I synchronously quoted this quote elsewhere (at the end of my 'The Drawing of the Three' RTR): The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? - The Bible | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.134.240 |
People who want to sell their work outnumber people who want to buy and read books by maybe forty to one. Joel, is this statistic exaggerated for effect? If not, then gosh. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.185.104 |
It may be a rather high estimate, Proto, but I think it's the right order of magnitude. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.50.18 |
Gosh. I'd always assumed that the reader/writer ratio was > 1. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 81.155.19.231 |
I think Joel's figures regarding reader / writer ratio for Small Press publications sound realistic, i.e 40 writers seeking publication to one reader who isn't seeking publication. ==================== Some people have written to me showing some confusion as to the status of my LAST BALCONY collection. Yes, it's looking for a publisher. The contents (quite large) are shown here: http://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2010/09/30/the-last-balcony-list-of-contents / including two new novellas, that were written on public blogs, but now removed. The stories listed are currently on the Weirdmonger Wheel but can be removed from it if the book goes ahead and some were previously published in print. SD Tullis and Slawek Wielhorski originally helped me choose some of the above contents list. It was originally accepted by Ex Occidente Press more than a year ago but I withdrew it from them in September 2010 because they had then put a finite time on their publishing company's life and there had already been some missed deadlines about the timing of LAST BALCONY...and I thought their ethos had changed and I wanted them to have more scope in publishing their style of books (which I thought Last Balcony now didn't fit). I see this as my definitive collection. 'Weirdmonger' (Prime Books 2003) - that doesn't duplicate anything in LB - is now irretrievably out of print. I shall treat offers of publication, if any, on their merits. Thanks for your interest. PS: I am still enjoying Ex Occidente Press books and my RTRs of them are linnked from here; http://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/ex-occidente-press-real-time-revi ews/ | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.60.173 |
That shape looks more like it's picking its teeth with a toothpick. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.60.173 |
Conversely, it may be someone throwing a dart. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.153.144.35 |
Three of my family write and submit novels, one reads occasionally. And today, on the bus, I spotted eleven people writing and only two readers.  | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 81.131.174.204 |
Forget 'The Last balcony' for a while, as I'm part way through galley proof-reading the Chomu Press publication of the 350 page 'Nemonymous Night' novel today. Wow! If I say so myself, it reads remarkably brain-bursting in a book form when compared to any other form - and I don't think there is been anything quite like it it in the history of literature. Others will judge ... one day. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 81.131.174.204 |
Sorry, 380 pages, not 350. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.209.111 |
"I think Joel's figures regarding reader / writer ratio for Small Press publications sound realistic, i.e 40 writers seeking publication to one reader who isn't seeking publication." "Three of my family write and submit novels, one reads occasionally. And today, on the bus, I spotted eleven people writing and only two readers." So writing now little more than creative blogging? So much good work going unread is poignant. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.137.168.78 |
I'm pleased that THE LAST BALCONY now has a future independent publisher. Details to follow. Also, as an aside on this thread, I am pleased to report that I shall be interviewed as Featured Author in Black Static #25 alongside reviews of Nemonymous Night, Weirdtongue and The HA of HA. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.199.129 |
Fantastic news, Des. About time too. I'm really pleased for you! And pleased for me too, as a prospective reader of "The Last Balcony". I look forward to further details as and when. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.29.143 |
Hurrah, Des! | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.10.185 |
That's good news indeed. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.209.217 |
Excellent news, Des!! | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.165.37.175 |
I am delighted to announce that The InkerMen Press have just confirmed acceptance of my definitive collection of prose fiction. A hardback of some substance due in 2012. THE LAST BALCONY of short stories by DF Lewis plus the special inclusion of two novellas: Yesterfang and The Apocryfan I am very excited about this. More information in due course. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.39.214 |
Well done, Des! Now the scusil can hibernate. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.158.58.16 |
Just received the proof of THE LAST BALCONY to check. Yay! | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.199.129 |
Looking forward to this. When's it due, Des? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.158.58.16 |
In the next few months, hopefully, Caroline. |