Things Getting Ugly for Uglytown

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Publishers Weekly reports today that Uglytown, the LA-based small press that turns out some of the best-looking books I’ve ever seen, is temporarily suspending operations until Spring 2006, when they will release HUNG OUT TO DIE by Brett Battles.  The "hiatus" is blamed, in part, on the bankruptcy of
Bookpeople/Words Distribution.

[Tom] Fassbender  said
UglyTown has been plagued by cash-flow problems after the Words bankruptcy in
2004 and the house’s switch to PGW for distribution.

"It’s been hard on smaller publishers," said Fassbender about the soft market
conditions. "We’re slowing down our plans. Bookstores are just not ordering
titles in the quantities we expected." Fassbender said he was pursuing a number
of financing possibilities for the press. Founded in 1998, UglyTown has
published about 14 books.

I’m truly sorry to hear about this. The guys at Uglytown love the mystery genre and it shows in the fine product they put out (including works by acclaimed authors like Victor Gischler, Gary Phillips, Nathan Walpow and Sean Doolittle). Here’s hoping that Uglytown comes back stronger than ever.

The Strange Sisters

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I love and collect old pulp novels by Harry Whittington and, in my search for them, I stumbled onto this marvelous site full of hilariously lurid  lesbian paperback covers from the 50s and 60s. Here’s just a sampling from the hundreds of vintage book covers  (click on the images for a larger picture):XherragingneedsWakingnightmare_1

XnakedarcherXmanamongwomen_1Xpassionfruit

Publication is Like Death

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Elizabeth Royte writes in today’s NY Times about the misery of getting, and being, published.

For any writer, the publication of a book, labored over for years, is an
exciting event. But excitement is a fleeting emotion, and the business of
publicizing the book, so that it sells and the author can earn out his advance,
quickly displaces any initial euphoria. The writer then embarks on a tortured
journey toward acceptance of the fact, several months after publication, that
his book isn’t going to vault him into the empyrean of fame, or even improve his
life. At the intersection of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s stages of grief and
Stendhal’s stages of love, the contemporary author trudges along a predictable
path that can only be described, in hindsight, as self-induced misery.

Roald Dahl Would Be So Pleased

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There’s nothing more complimentary to an author than fanfic…or so I am told by fanficcers. I can only imagine how flattered Roald Dahl would be by this Willy Wonka fanfic:

Mr
Salt and Mr Wonka had only been standing like that, caught in a
mutual stare, for a couple of seconds. It only felt like much longer
for both of them, and someone was bound to end it.

Willy did. “P…” he mouthed quite inaudibly, “p…” and then
helplessly slid to his knees before Mr Salt, embracing him like that.
Quite the picture of Hamlet in his renaissance bob and velvet coat he
tried to rest his chin against Mr Salt’s groin, which put his head
in a rather awkward angle due to the brim of his top hat being in the
way.

(Thanks to Brad for the link)

Breaking In

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Author Joe Konrath talks about the advice he gave to an aspiriing writer…and what happened next. It’s an inspiring story, not just for writers trying to break in, but for everyone who writes books. I wish more aspiring writers would find motivation from stories like this than from the get-rich-quick/get-published-quick come-on of  self-publishing.

I wonder if they go easier in Bahrain on adults who have sex with kids

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The Los Angeles Times reports that Michael Jackson is moving to the Middle East.

Attorney Thomas A. Mesereau Jr. declined to comment on local speculation that
Jackson planned to sell Neverland ranch, but said the singer is very happy in
his new home.

"He’s looking much better. He’s with his children, and
he’s moving on in life," Mesereau said. "He’s living permanently in Bahrain. He
has friends there who have been very loyal and helpful to him in a difficult
period of his life."

Bring Back Those Precocious Kids

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Remember when all the kid characters on TV were smart-ass and wise-beyond-their years? It got to be really irritating…but it was a hell of a lot easier to take than the kids on TV today. They are all  insufferable morons. Take, for example, the two imbeciles on SURFACE who are raising an alien monster in their bathtub…and let it endanger the lives of family and friends. We are supposed to find them wacky and endearing. I just want to kick in the T.V.  Or how about that  whiny teenage girl on COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF who resents her Mom for being President of the United States? She’s upset she has to attend events like, oh, her mother’s swearing in as President or a reception for the Russian President instead of hanging out with her friends ("Other kids don’t have to go to their parents’ business dinners!"). This is supposed to make us relate to the First Family as being people like us. Yeah, right. Me, and the rest of America,  fast-forward through those scenes to the next shot of Donald Sutherlands sneering and twirling his mustache (yes, I know he doesn’t have a mustache…but it’s there, it’s just invisible).

Bring back those precocious kids of yesteryear. Please. I’m begging you.