Ramblings of Jeff Somers, author
Over at The Novel Road, I wrote up a list of my personal Do’s and Don’ts of Book Promotion:
7. … learn to dance. Nothing will save a bombing public appearance like sudden and inexplicably entertaining with break-dancing. Watch old episodes of “What’s Happening?!” and learn moves from ReRun. Trust me on this.
Over at the spanky new web site for The Final Evolution, I’m giving away 10 free copies of the book to the first 10 folks who can solve a puzzle. Just hours after the site went live, we have our first winner! So if you’re looking for a free copy o’ the book, get thee to the web site.
UPDATE: Now I have my 10 winners. Thanks for checking out the site!
Because he keeps showing up at my house with a boom-box and reenacting the scene from Say Anything, I finally gave in and spent some time with author Sean Ferrell, whose first novel Numb was published by Harper last year and whose second novel is about to be announced. The resulting evening was recorded for my own security, and I decided to turn those tapes into an interview for the KGB lit magazine. Boiling 18 hours of binge drinking and forbidden dancing into a 1000-word interview wasn’t easy, but I am, after all, a genius.
Go read Under the Umbrella here. GO NOW.
Once again, I’ve been asked to answer a question. I will, as you may surmise from the title of this post, try to answer any question sent to me. Go on, try it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xs_3WUeUfQ
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have my after-lunch cocktails to attend to.
I’ve been putting out my zine The Inner Swine for 15-17 years, depending on whether you count its inception from the date my original collaborators and I got together to discuss putting out a magazine or the actual release of issue one, by which time I’d taken over the magazine all by myself. I’m closing in on issue 60.
Over the years I’ve released plenty of Inner Swine material electronically, mostly for free. PDFs of just about every issue are up on the zine’s web site for free download, and plain-text files of some issues are also there. I still do a print run of each issue for a mailing list of subscribers and traders. Recently, however, I’ve been thinking that a formal digital edition of the zine might be a good idea. So I finally sobered up for a day and created a Kindle Edition of the latest issue (Volume 16, Issue 3/4, Winter 2010) and put it up for sale on Amazon for $0.99. NINETY-NINE CENTS! Yowza.
The Kindle edition doesn’t have any images in it, because a) images on the Kindle are a pain in the ass and b) some of the images that make it into the zine are not, shall we say, vetted by my copyright lawyers. It’s a zine, after all. The copyright lawyers for my zine are a tiny leprechaun who sits on my shoulder and sings sea shanties into my ear all day and my cat Spartacus, who uses a thick book of copyright law as a scratching post. The Kindle Edition also has no advertisements in it. It’s just the text, baby. Other than that, it’s exactly the same: Every word that’s in the print edition is in the Kindle edition. It’s ~45,000 words, which is novella-sized.
Right now it’s set up as a standalone publication, not a series or periodical. There’s no DRM and it’s set to allow lending. I’m learning this as I go, so if you do grab a copy, all feedback is gratefully accepted. Let me know if I can improve the formatting or do anything else to make it a better product.
Thanks! Remember, I’ll make $0.35 cents on every issue. THIRTY-FIVE CENTS! Every five issues sold buys me a bottle of Thunderbird with change back!
And we’re back … with another installment of “Ask Jeff Anything”. In this week’s turgid episode, we tackle the question of whether any living being can possibly drink as much alcohol as I claim to on a daily basis. So, grab a beverage and watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9voQ13y9aM
Now I’m hungover.
After a hiatus imposed by all the More Shit I Gotta Do, we’re back with answers to your questions! And by “we’re” I mean “I am” in the royal sense. Because I’m the king of rock, there is none higher, Sucker MC’s should call me sire. To burn my kingdom, you must use fire, I won’t stop rockin’ till I retire. And also, look for a quick cameo by Spartacus the Cat, incensed that I spent a few minutes paying to attention to something that is not him. Little bastard.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVANxAaBoc0
Holla!
Hola,
Well, someone’s still interested in Your Humble Author here. I’ve been interviewed by The Novel Road:
Me: Lunch with you and any author (except Sean) you choose, from throughout history or today, and why.Jeff: Lunch with Ferrell! The mind boggles. I’ve seen the man drink. It’s disgusting enough. Who would want to watch him eat? He reminds me of BrundleFly.
Myself, of course, forming a stable time loop that in essence grants me immortality.
Go on, check it out. You know you want to.
http://devinbriar.blogspot.com/2010/12/novel-road-interview-jeff-somers.html
You can blame Kari L. Dell for this one: Today’s Ask Jeff Anything video is just me playing guitar. You might think no one in their right mind would ask for such a thing, but like Mongo, Jeff is merely pawn in game of life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7EzdKHzjRc
Huzzah!
Whew, am back in Jersey with the cats, exhausted. Here’s a few final thoughts on BoucherCon:
Fave moment: Running into Janet My Agent in the lobby, sitting down to have a drink with her, and ending up part of a 20-author/agent/editor strong group of boozers having endless conversation.
Second-fave moment: Dan Krokos, who you will hear from soon, walking into my panel, taking a shot of whiskey, and shaking my hand, in that order.
Third-fave: Yrsa Sigurðardóttir inviting me to look her up when I’m in Iceland.
Overall, a great time.
Here’s the Questions section of my 30-on-30 panel, if you’re interested: