tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27325099.post114653154828487042..comments2023-07-14T04:28:49.111-06:00Comments on Now What: testing . . . one, two, three . . . testingLance Olsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13659209766706247259noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27325099.post-65362964507520156152008-11-03T04:51:00.000-07:002008-11-03T04:51:00.000-07:00Dear Lance Olsen & Ted Pelton,Ours is a small ...Dear Lance Olsen & Ted Pelton,<BR/><BR/>Ours is a small publishing endeavour, based in London, UK.<BR/><BR/>We are promoting and distributing our books independently - trying not to rely on amazon!<BR/><BR/>We have one title out at the moment - "Uncorrected Proof" by Louisiana Alba ..reviews on(http://swimanog.wordpress.com/)<BR/><BR/>More titles are coming from writers in the UK and Australia.<BR/><BR/>We just launched a special promotion for the end of the year: FREE POSTAGE for all books purchased on our site, and the books are signed by the author. Visit our site http://www.elephantearspress.com and let us know what you think on our blog.<BR/><BR/>We are trying to spread the word around the world. Thanks in advance for your help and for any suggestions you may have.<BR/><BR/>Best wishes,<BR/><BR/>Valentina and Richard<BR/>elephant@elephantearspress.com<BR/><BR/>ElephantEars Press<BR/>http://www.elephantearspress.com/<BR/>http://elephantearspress.wordpress.com/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27325099.post-1149052917678756102006-05-30T23:21:00.000-06:002006-05-30T23:21:00.000-06:00All publishers are hurting. All my publishers, ev...All publishers are hurting. All my publishers, even my foreign ones, are months late paying advances and royalties...citing bad cash flow...so why do they keep buying titles? because they need to keep putting new titles on the shelves or there will be no cash flow.<BR/><BR/>New platforms for entertainment are on the rise -- cellphone, iPod, mini-Tv shows there...and games...more writers I know now work writing games...and some of these games are intricate...Michael Hemmingsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17441800190702888919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27325099.post-1146790660292564502006-05-04T18:57:00.000-06:002006-05-04T18:57:00.000-06:00Thanks, Frank. I quickly want to pick up on your ...Thanks, Frank. I quickly want to pick up on your comment that "academia, like the publishers, often neuters the creative process." <BR/><BR/>Brian Kiteley, in his wonderful experimental fiction-writing guide <I>3 a.m. Epiphany,</I> underscores that point by arguing that most workshops "promote mere competence." <BR/><BR/>Why? <BR/><BR/>My sense is that craft can be taught, but not vision. The result is often a standardizing of creative work rather than an opening up, a challenging, an invitation to risk-taking.Lance Olsenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13659209766706247259noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27325099.post-1146785453966901702006-05-04T17:30:00.000-06:002006-05-04T17:30:00.000-06:00Great!Hope there is some real discussion about the...Great!<BR/><BR/>Hope there is some real discussion about the existence of real literature in this world, whose creating it, whose printing it. We all have our personal preferences and there are a lot of great writers in print, both by the bigger publishing houses and the independent presses.<BR/><BR/>However, academia, like the publishers, often neuters the creative process. Most writing and poetry from those institutions today lack the profound complexity or the chewable meat of real literature. Sure, a lot of writing from these institutions is very clever, and I really enjoy reading it, but it lacks heart and soul, those very subjective and intangible elements of a work of genius. Academia ruins genius with heart and soul as effectively as the big publishing houses.<BR/><BR/>The question of quantity of readership remains an issue, also. I remember once, years ago, going into one of those clearance bookstores at one of those factory outlet malls, waiting for my sister to ransack the Coach store and having drunk two cups of coffee already. With nothing better to do, I found, clear in the far corner, at least forty copies of William H. Gass' "The Tunnel." There, clear out in Lincoln City, Oregon, one of the master works of the later part of the 20th Century sits ruined by a black magic marker, but quite the deal at $5 each. That's right, real literature doesn't sell. There's so many good writers out there that the great writers don't get read as often, because those who do read in this society are so busy reading clever books that we don't have time to read all the great books that take months or years to get through because they are so dense. Sometimes, the great author will be overlooked and undervalued because their work and their publisher is not a part of the established publishing world (academic or 'for profit') or worse yet, the author publishes their own work.<BR/><BR/>And, lastly, trying to make literature into a multi-media experience for our instant-message-society is great, but then it becomes multi-media art and not literature, even if words give the work it's artistic merit. It's like slam-poetry or spoken word, the performance and the spoken word together define the work’s achievement, but it seldom holds up on the page.<BR/><BR/>And that’s my pickle-nickel on company time, if the moderators allow.<BR/><BR/>~Frank SauceFrank Saucehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10926489233585746931noreply@blogger.com