I haven’t been submitting short stories to anthologies much lately. Mostly I’ve been stockpiling shorts for future collections. That doesn’t mean there hasn’t been a backlog trickling out over the last year. It’s been a while since I updated the anthologies page on this site, but the information on there is now current, with final covers and links to where you can buy copies.

One of the reasons it took so long to update the page was a lack of good cover scans. I’ll grab them out in the wilds of the web if I have to, but the ones I found of the most recent books were too low rez. That meant I had to make my own scans of the covers.

Problem: I still hadn’t received my contributor copies of certain books, months after publication.

This has happened before, so I’m used to it. It’s completely unprofessional, and again, I’m used to it. But it does burn bridges. If I’m well-paid for a story, I accept it as a petty pain in the ass to have to order my own copy. But if I do something on the cheap—or even for free—and you don’t at least send me a copy, we’re done. A copy of the damn book is the least you can do.

I’ll take a moment here to specifically point out that I’m not talking about MX Publishing. I give them my Sherlock Holmes stories for free because all the profits go to charity. And they’ve been phenomenal about sending me early HARDCOVER copies, fresh off the presses, from overseas no less. No complaints there. And if I weren’t so busy on other projects, I’d already have other adventures of Sherlock and Wiggins lined up for future volumes.

No, I’m talking about some of the small-time publishers. And I get it. You’re small, you want to save money, and postage is expensive. I don’t like the sticker-shock I get when I have to mail a book either. But one contributor copy is the bare minimum authors should be able to expect when they appear in a new book or magazine. In my comic-writing days, I’d get at least ten copies to pass around, often 25 and, in the case of my solo issues, 100+. And then there’s Money Talks #5, which I co-published with SLG back in the day just to make it through the first act of the story before the series got cancelled. I’ll die with copies of that comic filling boxes around the house. I don’t know enough people to give them all away to.

One copy. It’s all I ask. Let me gaze at the spine of your book on my author shelf and remember our time together in the publishing biz. Failing that, I’m afraid our business interaction will never be more than fleeting.

As ubiquitous in publishing as the Wilhelm Scream is in film, Apocalypse Guy is on a hell of a lot of book covers. Not just books out there for sale right now, but books yet to be born, books yet to even be conceived.

There are a number of websites where authors can licence pre-made book covers that have been cobbled together by many talented (and some untalented) Photoshop wizards from stock photo sites that are brimming with hundreds of thousands of images. So far, I’ve only ever bought one cover like this, because the odds of finding a pre-made that sufficiently matches the contents of one of my books are pretty low. It’s not that I’m super-picky, but usually when I see one that could work, it’s either shitty from a design perspective, or too generic to get me excited about adding it to my author shelf. Nevertheless, I like to browse, hoping to one day stumble across something perfect.

Over the weekend, I binged and ended up looking at nearly 10,000 different covers. That’s right, 10k. I did the math. Of all those, I bookmarked 27 for future consideration. I’ll probably end up pulling the trigger on zero of them. Still, compared to how many images I’ve looked at on the various stock sights, that’s a drop in the ocean.

After a while, you come to recognize certain key images that get used or incorporated over and over again. Photo shoots with specific models leap out, and you’ll know exactly where that image came from. You’ll feel intimately acquainted with Brunette-Chick-With-Sword, even while you’re cheating on her with Blonde-Chick-With-Sword. Some photo shoots are so overused, I wouldn’t touch a single element from any of them. They’ve been around, they’ve been loose with their evocative imagery and, worst of all, they’ve become sad, used-up clichés in the book-cover biz.

The biggest tramp on the block has to be Apocalypse Guy. This one is from an instantly-recognizable photo shoot of an unrecognizable model in full-body gear and a gas mask. Sometimes he’s carrying a gun. Sometimes he’s sitting in a chair. Always he seems to be looking at you through his dark lenses, indifferent or accusatory, as though asking, “How could you let the world come to this?” Insert various backgrounds of ruins and decay and there’s your generic cover for your dystopian-future novel. Sixty bucks, please.

I can’t even calculate how many covers I’ve seen him on at this point, both published and proposed. I’ve stumbled upon the original photo shoot many times as well—plain, modified, mangled, but always that same guy.

Now that you know his face—or lack thereof—you’ll never fail to notice him if you browse enough virtual bookshops. Like the survivalist he represents, he’ll outlive us all.

♦

Speaking of apocalypses, how was your Valentine’s Day? Are you sick of that shit yet?

If so, check out the Anti-Valentine’s eBook giveaway for a bunch of novels, novellas and short stories that aren’t about all that icky romance stuff. You can grab a free copy of my book, Filmography, which does have some romance stuff in the mix, but not of the usual icky variety. This is the kind of romance that will make you feel dirty, and not in the good sexy sort of way. More in the used and abused sort of way. Like real relationships.

♦

If you’re paying attention to the minutia of the website (and I know you aren’t—I barely do), you’ll see that there’s a newsletter you can now subscribe to on the right-hand sidebar. Two issues in, it’s still early days for regular readers here to climb aboard. Subscribers will receive additional news about discounts and giveaways, and will also have unique opportunities to get previews, exclusive content, advanced copies, and other goodies. Fill out the short form, and you’ll get irregular emails from me. I swear to never, ever send you offers for boner pills, or account notices that pretend to be from your bank. But no promises about soliciting you for fake funeral insurance.

Chapters on the corner of Ste. Catherine and Stanley in downtown Montreal isn’t just closing anymore. It’s all the way gone, shuttered and empty – soon to be replaced by the second largest Victoria’s Secret outlet in the world. Because sex sells. Oh, I’m sure Chapters moved its fair share of copies of Fifty Shades of Grey, but that’s nothing compared to the mark-up to be had on the lacy contraptions ladies wear next to their most private of parts. Thoreau can’t compete with a thong. That’s a fact.

People have been quick to point to this as a sign of the demise of the physical bookstore and the dominance of ebook sales online. The numbers don’t bear this out – not yet at least – but that’s the conclusion many will jump to. In reality, the loss of this cornerstone of Montreal book sales has more to do with mishandling, a confused business model, a hobbyist approach to management, and a foolhardy attempt at monopoly. The whole sordid tale is a matter of public record for those who wish to dig beyond the surface of a fanciful comedic blog, but if you look at the provided photo closely enough, you’ll see a key piece of evidence.

It’s there on the second level of the three storeys (plus basement) that housed Chapters. Those are café tables you can see through the windows. I knew it was the beginning of the end years ago when so much of the floor space was devoted to seating and the selling of coffee instead of books. The idea was that customers were welcome to sit down – for hours if they wished – and read books for free as they sipped coffee. Does that sound charming to you? Well, it sounds idiotic to me. It means if you shopped there, you were buying supposedly new books at new book prices that had been pawed at and sipped over by freeloading hipsters who couldn’t even be trusted with a library card. If I want dog-eared, manhandled books that have been eyeballed to death by strangers, I’ll go to a second-hand bookshop and buy a scarcer, more interesting edition for a fraction of the price.

The space wasn’t always a Chapters, but it’s been a bookstore my entire life. I’ve attended launches and readings there, bought many books, discovered many authors. I’d lament it more, but these days I can browse online, find just about anything I want in or out of print, and have it delivered to my door with free shipping within a few days, often less. I can’t say I miss swinging by in person, hunting through the various sections, trying to guess if the author I’m looking for qualifies as a wordsmith worthy of the literature section or has been dismissed as just another hack and delegated to one of the genre ghettos, and then finding they have copies of all his other books, just not the one I need.

Once the café idea was introduced, it didn’t take long for much of the rest of the store to get clogged up with all sorts of other merchandise that had little, nothing, or absolutely zero to do with books. It would never occur to me to go to a bookstore for candles, or a clock, or some goddamn gift basket. I think towards the end they were gambling on impulse purchases by making the cash counter a maze of shit you don’t need but might buy on a whim. They rolled the dice (on sale, half-off, aisle four, next to Dickens) and they lost.

At least if I’m looking for music, there’s still HMV across the street – if I can find which corner they swept the music into. The last time I was there, I almost had to stop one of the staff to ask them if they sold anything other than DVD movies, bobbleheads and novelty pint glasses.

♦

On the subject of books I’ll be appearing in, but will never be for sale at the downtown Chapters location, there’s been some news.

The release of Locked and Loaded: Both Barrels Vol. 3, with my story “Young Turks and Old Wives,” has been pushed back to a February 17th release for technical reasons, and has been renamed Shotgun Honey Presents: Locked & Loaded for branding purposes. No cover yet, but I’m going to make a bold guess that the final imagery will include a lady with an eyepatch and a shotgun – loaded of course.

The cover for The Exile Book of New Canadian Noir has been revealed. Still subject to change, it might not be the final version that will arrive on bookshelves. But if this is what they go with, it will instantly become THE single most homoerotic cover my work has ever appeared under. Or maybe I just have a dirty mind. Given the name of my story is “Choke the Chicken” (I’ll mention that this is an old and popular euphemism for male masturbation in case you’re one of the rarified innocents) perhaps I do. Still, I don’t think I’m going too far out on a limb mentioning that guns are often phallic symbols and the dude on the cover is puckering up for something.

Oh? He’s just blowing gun smoke out of the barrel?

Of course he is.

♦

My Twitter project, 140 Notorious Characters, is complete and collected on this site under the appropriate sub-page. 140 Horrible Characters has commenced in time for Halloween and will run through till nearly Christmastime. You can keep current with these postings by following me on Twitter.