Psychedelia Gothique

When a new book appears in the bookstores, what happens if audiences ignore it? It vanishes quickly and ignominiously. A few weeks on the shelves (max), then down it comes. Traditionally, the covers were torn off and the book was sent back to the publisher. That's it. No second chances, no mercy, no pardons. And what are the chances that the publishers would carry on and publish your second book? Diminished is a good word. If you were lucky, your chances were diminished. If the reception was exceptionally silent, you were screwed. The chances after that of any other publisher putting out another book by the same author?  Pay attention. I said "screwed." So what I'm saying is that in the old days, writers and publishers had one shot - one chance to get it right. The world of e-books is somewhat kinder. Granted, big advances for unknown writers may be a thing of  the past. And you still may never sell any books. Nothing like getting a royalty cheque that won't ...

Short fiction has been out of fashion for quite some time. Sure, there have been a few amazing practitioners who have been quite successful writing short stories; the list that comes to mind includes Raymond Carver, Ernest Hemingway, Harlan Ellison, Donald Barthelme, Flannery O'Connor, John Updike, Jorge Luis Borges, Alice Munro and...uhm...probably half a dozen other people. Only a few of those people wrote short stories exclusively. This is something I need to keep in mind while assembling my story collection. If I can get a few readers, it would be good. A few dozen would be better. A few hundred would be phenomenal. More than that is just a silly pipedream. So I should be surprised that nobody has been reading my stories on Wattpad? Not! Most assuredly freaking not. When I browsed through the what's hot section on Wattpad I discovered that serialized novels are the thing. So I put up the beginning of my big fantasy novel, Out of the Nether. I'm planning to put up a ...

Just joined Wattpad. What a wonderful interface between writers and readers. Probably made a mistake with the selection of stories I chose to upload, though. One is the most adult (and scariest) story I've ever written. And Wattpad immediately slapped a restricted rating on it. Well deserved I might add, since this is the story that made the husband of one of my co-workers demand that she quit her job because he didn't want her working with such a pervert. What can I say? It's just a story! Is Stephen King a serial killer or Satan? I think not. And nor am I a twisted psychopath, despite the assumption that this one man leaped to...? The story is called "The Onion Test" and it was first published in Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine Volume One in a limited edition of 200 copies. Although it was deemed worthy of appearing in the same volume as stories by Harlan Ellison, Kate Wilhelm and Charles de Lint, although it got excellent reviews at the time and although...

My plans for self-publishing my short story collection, Psychedelia Gothique are moving ahead at a pretty good clip. There are still a few things to be determined. Two of the stories I plan to include have been submitted to some top markets. If they are accepted there, I won't be able to include them in this publication - but that will be fine because they will make money and provide some excellent publicity for the book right when I can use it most. If they are not accepted at those markets, which is likely since I aimed very high, then they will appear as "original stories" in the collection. The really troublesome stories are the ones I'm rewriting . One was well-published back in 1997, but I have always been dissatisfied with one aspect of it (as were the critics at the time). But in eliminating that flaw, I fear I may have introduced others. I have posted "At Fort Assumption" on Wattpad . If anyone would like to read the new version and give me yo...