Monday, June 14, 2010

Beat to a Pulp Does It Again!

Not only has Beat to a Pulp published a terrific amount of short fiction, editor David Cramner and his motley crew (hi, Elaine!) have raised the pot by posting a short noir film this week instead of a story.

"One Good Turn" runs about six minutes. What happens when a jogger thinks he's being pursued by a serial killer? That's the story. When you get to the sucker-punch ending, you'll be glad you spent the six minutes watching. It proves that not only is black and white better than color, but that you can tell a really good story without any dialogue and let the pictures do all the talking.

(For some reason I am unable to post a link; cut copy and paste beattoapulp.com and let your browser take you there and click "weekly punch". You'll be very glad you did.)

Monday, June 7, 2010

Should I Be Offended?

My short story collection, Reaper's Dozen, is now out as a Kindle e-book, and I think I'm offended by the lack of attention paid to me by pirates. What does a guy have to do to get pirated, so I can join the club of pirated authors who are either enraged or don't care? Is the book not worthy of being pirated?

Personally, I'm not sure I care if the book is pirated; after all, of all the books I've purchased through used bookstores, none of the authors received a cent, so I suppose that counts as piracy in a way. The day used bookstores are forced to close because the "content creators" aren't getting paid is the day I'll start caring about piracy.

Anyway I thought it would be funny to express some faux righteous indignation about not being pirated. Hell, it would be nice to know somebody is reading the goddamn thing, as I can count the number of sales, so far, on one hand!

And, believe me, I find great humor in that.