A fortuitous happenstance.

Apparently Lulu did something wrong and have apologised. I had noticed nothing amiss, but it seems their system didn't properly catalogue the short story book, Fears of the Old and the New. It was, I thought, very good of them to deal with this and very good indeed of them to give the book a 15% discount until the 15th of August. I am impressed by their professionality in this matter.

It will help with the practice promotion exercise. The business side of writing is extraordinarily difficult to master and makes me all the more appreciative of the work Jeani Rector puts in to promote The Horror Zine and its books. It was always obviously hard work, but the true scale of it is astounding. I can also, now, better understand why the Alien Queen Mother had had enough after eight years of it.

Well, since Lulu have provided me with this opportunity, I will have to make the best of it. The discount applies only to the print version, not the Ebook which is already cheap, nor, unsurprisingly, to the free download version.

Until August 15th, then, the book is 15% discounted. There have been a few sales but no reviews as yet. You can, of course, review and rate it based on the free download if you prefer not to spend money. Reader response is far more important to me than profit at this stage - I need to know whether I'm getting this whole thing right or wrong.

The book link is here, and should you choose to buy the print version before August 15th, you can use the following discount information, provided by Lulu. After the 15th it won't work any more but the download will still be free.

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Use coupon code BEACHREAD305 at checkout and receive 15% off Fears of the old and the new.. Maximum savings with this promotion is $10. You can only use the code once per account, and you can't use this coupon in combination with other coupon codes. This great offer ends on August 15, 2010 at 11:59 PM so try not to procrastinate! While very unlikely we do reserve the right to change or revoke this offer at anytime, and of course we cannot offer this coupon where it is against the law to do so.

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It would be around this time, too, that I would be considering an Alienskin article. It's become a habit and my typing fingers are getting twitchy.

Maybe I should write one anyway and put it here, in memory of the passing of Alienskin and also to keep myself in practice.

This is not a good time to get lazy.

Water.

A very strange man appeared at my door today. He said he was from the Water Board. I have read about this waterboard. it sounds very unpleasant indeed and not a hobby I plan to take up at all.

His proposal involved piping water into the castle, and me paying him to do it.

I was, naturally, perplexed by this. Why would anyone want their home full of water? Furthermore, why would anyone want to pay for it? It would make quite a mess, I think. It's possible he had confused me with a trout, although his experience of fish must have been limited because none of my oddities include fins.

His smile was too wide and too white to be trusted. 'Everyone needs water,' he said.

'Well, yes,' I said, 'but I live in a swamp. In Scotland. Water is not hard to come by. It drops out of the sky most days.'

'Ah,' he said, 'but we sell treated water. It's very nice. You should try it.'

The village homeopath, Avogadro McNothing, sells treated water. It tastes the same as the stuff that drops out of the sky. This is not surprising because that's where he gets his water too. I pointed this out and the Waterboard man laughed. A rattle followed by a wheeze. It sounded like Caligula shaking a puppy to death.

I wondered, aloud, why anyone would pay for water.

'We control all British water.' he said.

'Really? Could you perhaps arrange to drop rather less of it around here? I have water tanks on the roof but they've been full for a long time and I have enough to be going on with, thank you.'

'Oh, we don't control the rain. It only belongs to us when it hits the ground.'

Fortunately, having tanks on the roof means the rain doesn't hit the ground. I suppose that means it's still mine. The stuff that comes through the roof, however...

'You'd better come inside.' I said. 'There's some water that belongs to you on the floors of several downstairs rooms. It would be nice if you'd take it away.'

He looked confused. That white smile blurred with the shaking of his head. I led him inside and showed him the leak in Caligula's room without, naturally, going in myself.

The leak is still here, the water is still here, and so is he.

In spirit, at least. I hope Death calls again soon. It's time for a cleanup. This one is really far too noisy.

Fears of the old and the new.

Well, I have my practice volume prepared for marketing purposes. It won't be easy. Lulu prices are on the high side because of the nature of their business, and postage can be steep in some places.

Therefore I have prepared the same book as an Ebook, which is cheaper and naturally has no postage costs attached to it. The stories are all previously published apart from two. Those two are so intertwined with other stories that they won't sell on their own, not this long after the others came out. It made sense to put them next to their linked stories.

Now to see whether I can sell any.

These days, it's not enough to be a writer. You have to be a salesman too. Art for art's sake is all very fine and good but it pays no bills.

This book won't pay any bills either but if I can get the marketing side of things right, then one day, when a novel comes out, I'll know what to do.

A use for the old stuff.

The publisher I sent the book to hasn't responded yet. This could be a good thing or a bad thing. I can't interfere in the process for some time yet because you have to allow a publisher three months at least. It's not a speedy business, this writing.

While waiting, I have perused my collection of old short stories, those that have been published and are now offline. It's not really worth trying to sell them again - short stories earn little or nothing first time out, and it's much harder to sell second rights on them. Not really worth the effort.

So what to do with them? I thought I might put up a collection on Lulu. It'll cost me nothing and even if it doesn't sell, it's a handy backup for all those stories. Rather than have them only as bits on a disk, they could be tied together in one small book.

This naturally excludes any that are in real print. There's no point competing with myself by reprinting stories I've already had printed elsewhere.

I don't expect the anthology to be a blockbuster, I don't expect it to start the cash rolling. I don't even expect it to sell. It's just a useful way to store those old stories so I don't lose them.

For the real-publisher work, I'll need to learn a little about marketing. There will be mistakes at first. Well, let's be honest. There will be spectacular blunders at first. I'd rather not apply those blunders to any book that manages to get real-published.

So I'll use that anthology to practice on.

When I have at least some idea of what I'm doing, then a collection of the horror articles for AlienSkin could be the next Lulu project.

It's either that, or let them rot on a hard drive forever.

The Postman Doesn't Bleed Twice.

This morning, the postman delivered a packet. He used a long cleft stick to push it through the letterbox. This new postman is smarter than the last one, who can count the fingers he has left on the, ah, fingers of one hand.

Caligula was enraged at this development and it took all my dexterity and pain resistance to extract the packet from his grip. Fortunately the contents were undamaged - because it's a copy of the book I've been trying to get hold of.

Finally I have a copy of the Horror Zine's 'Twice the Terror' in all its 370 pages of paperback loveliness. It wasn't cheap because Amazon UK don't sell it at a discount, but it's very heavy, filled with dark and morbid things and well worth the money. I have managed to avoid bleeding on it and will leave it alone while I stitch the wounds and try to calm Caligula's blood-frenzy with some frozen entrails and a trail of eyes back to his room.

Obviously I can't review this book objectively because I'm in there, so here's someone who has.

I don't make any money if you buy the book but if enough of you do, it might reach the ears of a publisher who has a few sample chapters to look at.

I wonder if I can get into the next one?

Alienskin remnants.

When the Alien Queen Mother shut down the much praised Alienskin magazine and headed back into the sensible world (which we all know can only exist on another planet), she left remnants.

One such is the picture she took of me in my lab, discussing quantum biology with one of those visitors from the council who arrive sometimes. They have about four hundred laws that say you cannot deny them entry. They don't have a single law that says you have to let them leave afterwards. I checked.

Something of an oversight, you might think, but then they do seem to have an inexhaustible supply of these people so I suppose they never miss the ones who visit here.

I have made the picture into the header but I have not yet checked with the Alien Queen Mother whether this is okay.

If it's not, I risk obliteration.

But what's life without a little risk?


Edited to add: I am saved. The Alien Queen Mother is not enraged and it's okay to use the graphic as long as I credit the source. Which I have done at the bottom of the page.

If the source isn't happy with that, I will remove the graphic on request.

At last.

I have ordered, at long last, a copy of this book. Amazon doesn't have it in the UK but Amazon seller 'The Book Depository' does, and they only sell it through Amazon.

No, it makes no sense to me either.

It's on the way. Soon I will have it in my greasy fingers.

Is it a good book, you may ask? Of course it's a good book.

I'm in it.