Blog No. 283
The Thinking Machine is here! You can get it right now at Anchor Coffee House on Huron Church, Anchor Bakery and Espresso Bar on Lincoln, at Biblioasis, or in person, from me. I still have a bunch of events (one a week from now until the end of May) so there are a bunch of chances to get your hands on a copy. And believe me, when you see it, you are going to want to pick one up and hold it. I’m going to do a whole behind the scenes at some point in the future, but for now, the idea to have a pocket sized novella seems to have worked. Everyone’s reaction so far has been exactly what I hoped for. Plus, Anchor letting me sell the book at both their locations is beyond what I’d hoped for. Between the two, that’s a pretty big part of the city covered. Also, since I wrote it there, it seems fitting that you can buy it there. Continue reading “Cyberpunk Novella”
Last weekend I had the pleasure of being invited to the first Windsor Small Press Book Fair. It was in a church hall over a coffee shop, and while the cold and rain keep the crowds down, there were enough folks there to make the day profitable. A great help was the low cost of the table. Not only did it mean that only a couple of books needed to be sold to break even (the key breaking point for any event) but it opened the fair to a bunch of new authors and publishers. Sometimes when events are not well attended, the day seems to go on forever. Having someone to talk to on those days is key. For this Book Fair, there were so many writers and publishers I knew (and some I hadn’t seen in a long time) that I was surrounded by people to catch up with, swap books, and talk shop. The customers were icing on the cake. All in all, it was a good start to the monster list of events going on. 
Still no word on The Thinking Machine. I am in talks with the printer and hope it will be a matter of days, but we’ll see how that turns out. I’m rather disappointed because Saturday is the 
I had a strange thing happen to me last weekend. Nothing. For a long weekend, that’s rather unusual. Most weekends I have a combination of work, events, or family gatherings. With it being the Easter long weekend, you’d think there would be some family tradition, but with my parents out of town, no book events, and the day job closed, I found myself with nothing to do for the first time in a long time. I say nothing to do, but I have plenty. My review copy of The Thinking Machine is still in transit from 
The Thinking Machine is in the proof stage (as stressful as they come) and with any luck, I should have some physical copies by the end of the week. There always seems to be something in the proof that looks weird, has to be quadruple checked, or is just a screw-up. The looks weird stuff is mostly out of my hands. I can read all the printer’s documentation and review my own constructed pages, but no matter how much it seems like things should come out fine in the printed copies, there is doubt. I’ve sent an email, but got a stock response that tells me to look at the documentation. I’ve reviewed my own files and everything should be okay, but. As soon as I give my okay, I am responsible for how the book looks, errors or not (my fault or not). You can see my dilemma. I suppose working with a smaller, more local printer would solve that issue, but I’ve tried that route, and there is a whole mess of other issues that come out of that. Plus, you don’t get any distribution that way. 
I find myself in the rare position where I have more than one thing to talk about and I didn’t have to scramble to find a topic this week. As it turns out, if I tantalize people with the idea of images of me looking like a dork, they all want to see them. Last week, I didn’t have those images, but now I do. If you are just reading the teaser, you have to click on the whole article to see the pictures. I buried them further down. That’s called strategy. The image you see up here is actually from the Chapter’s signing I did with Christian over the weekend. Turns out that when the sun is shining at it’s St. Patrick’s Day, the mall isn’t very busy. 
With that out of the way, a couple of weeks ago I was approached by my friend 