Year / 2007
AMS Shrapnel
If you want to continue to see independent presses thriving, do help out Soft Skull and McSweeney’s. Both presses have reduced the prices of their stock to offset the shortfall in promised revenue from AMS. (McSweeney’s reports that $130,000 of earnings is now gone.) Carrie has some recommendations.
Technical Difficulties
Between my laptop being afflicted with a virus and rendered unbootable (with the potential data loss of 10,000 words of my novel, several short stories, two radio plays, two acts of a play, audio data for five podcasts, and too many notes) and my inability to respond to any edrants emails for a while because of the draconian Port 25 requirements (“You can host your domain with us!”) and the almost total misrepresentation (“Actually, we won’t have static IPs in your neighborhood for another two weeks. Or maybe longer. [insert barely concealed laughter from tech guy]”) of my broadband provider, I’m limping along here as best as I can between deadlines. (At least one computer still works!)
The moral of the story is this: Back up your data, and back it up often. And get your broadband quote on paper, no matter what these bozos promise you.
If you’ve sent me an email to the main address, I can read them, but I won’t be able to answer them for a while. I’m sorry. Try arizona_jim at yahoo.com for the next two weeks if you need to get in touch with me in a hurry. I’m hoping to get back to everyone once these technical issues are worked out.
In any event, I hope to offer an update tonight or tomorrow.
The NYTBR Goes “Sub-Literary”
Dwight Garner has joined the blogosphere, which means, of course, that Sam Tanenhaus can start ignoring its own pages and calling its own material “sub-literary.”