New Anthology

February 17, 2010 in Check it out!

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I’m happy to announce that I have an anthology of my stories out and available for the Amazon Kindle.

“God, Time, Perception & Sexy Androids” features 27 of my short stories, written over the last 30 years or so – all completely revised and updated for this book.

Trying to come up with a title for this thing, we batted several ideas around, considered using the name of one of the short stories, but then finally I kind of summed up a thread I found among the majority of the tales. 

There’s a lot of what-if stories dealing with religion and/or the occult, several time travel fantasies, and a good dose of sexy androids.  And the one major thing I seem to explore among just about every story is the mystery of perception – what’s the difference between what we perceive, and actual reality?  Is there a difference?  Does our perception of something actually affect reality?  Can we change reality?  Are there other realities?

Or, basically, “What is reality?” 

That’s been my favorite question to explore since I was a teenager.  That and all the facets of reality – free will, destiny, synchronicity, and ultimately existence itself.

And, also, what is perception?  Do we alone perceive things?  If we program a machine to observe and recognize, is it truly perceiving?

This pretty much marks the end of my short story writing career.  I know you should never say never, but unless this anthology actually takes off, I’m going to concentrate on both longer, and conversely much shorter, works of fiction: novels and flash.

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Fountain Pens

February 14, 2010 in Procrastination Techniques

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I’ve rediscovered my fountain pens.  Smoother than even gel pens, they feel better in the hands because they’re heavy and of substance.  Plus they’re just darn retro-cool.

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Big Win for Independent e-Book Publishers

February 2, 2010 in Publishing Misadventures

Macmillan strong-armed Amazon into raising prices on big press versions of e-books.  I disagree with Amazon’s optimism that other major publishers won’t follow Macmillan — I think they will.

Amazon’s Kindle Team says, “We don’t believe that all of the major publishers will take the same route as Macmillan. And we know for sure that many independent presses and self-published authors will see this as an opportunity to provide attractively priced e-books as an alternative.”

That is exactly what I’ve been thinking.  Let the major publishers raise e-book prices. It’s already established that lower priced e-books sell far, far better, and there’s more to be made from the volume sales.  Big publishing’s big prices will drive price-conscious e-book readers to try reading lesser known small press titles.

Being that I’m starting to venture myself into small press e-book publishing, this is all good news to me.

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Ion’s iType for the iPhone

January 8, 2010 in Check it out!

UPDATE: Funny how this kind of looks like some weird parody of the new Apple iPad.

Call me crazy, but I’ve been looking forward to this exact gizmo since I first replaced my last PDA with my first iPhone.

Ion's iType

Now all we need is a word processor on the iPhone that has true spell checking, and I’d be able to work on my novels on the go again without having to lug a laptop around.

Rumor has it that Microsoft’s Office for iPhone (if it really exists) is due to make an appearance about the same time this goes to market.

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My Pirated Writings on eBay

December 22, 2009 in Recently Observed

This was a surprise, and sort of flattering — but made me a bit angry.  Some guy in the Philippines under the username “onejshun” is selling pirated copies of my stories as a collection on eBay.

onejshun-the-pirate

I notified eBay but so far they haven’t done anything.  I’m wondering where in the heck he got hold of these manuscripts … some of them are really old versions, judging by the titles.  There are more up to date copies on my website.  For free.

So … do I really care?

No.  Not really.

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Here is the future of publishing…

December 17, 2009 in Recently Observed | No comments

This is it. The future of publishing. I want my websites to interact like this.

Mag+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.

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Yes, I Still Get Rejection Slips

September 24, 2009 in What's New? | No comments

Reject! I have yet to have anyone convince me that writing a short story hasn’t become a waste of time.

It appears to me that all the paying markets for short stories have become closed-loop systems where the only people buying and reading them are those who are trying to get published in them.

The general reading public (or at least the small part of it I’ve sampled) aren’t that interested in short stories, and if they are, they prefer to read them in anthologies.

Books, I’ve decided, rule.  Even if they’re just electronic.

Speaking of which, I just subscribed to Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show on my Kindle.  If there’s anything that can save magazine markets for short stories, it’s going to be an eReader.

Why, suddenly, did I do that?

Well, because I sent them a story, that’s why. 

Actually I’ve always liked Orson – his stories used to blow me away, especially back in the days of Omni magazine – and plus, the publication is edited by Edmund R. Schubert, who I published on Dark Energy SF.  Not that this means anything.  Chances are still overwhelmingly in favor of me getting a rejection slip.

Yes, I still get those.

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The Future of Short Fiction

September 10, 2009 in Publishing Misadventures | No comments

fb-button2“Facebook says more than 65 million people around the world now regularly use a mobile device to access the social network, more than triple the number who connected through a smart-phone or other mobile device nine months ago.”

This was a quote from this morning’s SiliconValley.com’s First Edition.

Indicators for over the last year have pointed to mobile web devices surging to become, if not the most used Internet viewing device, then at least a major rival to traditional laptops and desktop computers.  This is why about 6 months ago, convinced that if anyone is going to read short fiction, they’re going to do it online — and on a mobile device — I set up FoneFic.com.

It hasn’t taken off.  And people I quiz about it (not writers, but normal everyday people who read books) their eyes kind of glaze over, and I get the impression that they’re not really interested.  My idea for the mobile fiction site is somewhat interesting, but not the short fiction itself.  And not specifically the short fiction I have featured, but the idea of short stories in general.

So I have to ask myself … am I just ahead of the curve?  Or is short fiction actually dead?

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Worth A Thousand Words

August 22, 2009 in What's New? | No comments

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That’s a bumble bee.

I’ve always considered myself a photographer as well as a writer, but I haven’t worked professionally since I was in my early 20’s, where I walked away from a lucrative career as a wedding photographer … simply because the job sucked all the joy out of photography.  The brides never seemeed to get their perfect wedding. Emotions ran high.  And me, empathetic as I am, it turned out to be too tense.  My blood pressure went through the roof.

On and off I’ve flirted with the idea of going pro again.  I’ve done some pro level stuff here and there in my various jobs.  But … no.  It’s just a hobby.  And as long as it stays that way, I’ll enjoy it.

So what does any of this have to do with a bumble bee?  Only this: I took that picture today, just plinking around in my backyard with my new Nikon D5000.  This shot has to be one of the best I’ve taken in my entire life, and I was just messing around.

This camera is awesome.  And I do think I’ll be playing around with it quite a bit from now on.

In fact, you can now follow my newly revamped photoblog, aptly named PhoBloggery, over at http://phobloggery.jerryjdavis.com

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Novel Writing Is Addicting

August 10, 2009 in Eleven Days On Earth | No comments

I bet a lot of writers would look at this article title and scream, “What, are you insane?”

Some, however, know exactly what I mean.

I swore, swore, SWORE that I would not spend time writing another novel until this last one was sold.  But I’ve finished the 2nd draft of Eleven Days on Earth and now have a swarm of ideas buzzing my head for the next book.

The difference is — and this is the first time this has ever happened to me — I now find myself living in the perfect setting for a story.  My current environment in itself is giving me all sorts of story ideas.  I already have the foundation of a very fun tale sitting right on the top of my brain … much like a cat atop a fluffy pillow.

Meow.  Write me.  Meow.

I may have to give in.  In fact, it would be stupid not to.  You know the saying, “Strike when the iron is hot.”  That translates to writing when the inspiration strikes.

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