Sometimes, alas, it’s hard to tell which is which.
I have a few things to tell you, but one is quite clearly the lede and ought not be buried. You may recall that I’ve mentioned A Writer Prepares, a memoir of my beginnings as a writer. It’s been a quarter of a century in the making, but the manuscript spent most of those years on a closet shelf while I found Other Things To Do. A little over a year ago I dusted it off and resumed work on it, and I’ll be publishing the finished product on June 24.
Didn’t you publish something on that very date last year?
Indeed I did. Last June 24th, I turned 82 and celebrated the occasion by brnging out Dead Girl Blues.
So this year you’ll be 83.
That’s the plan. Like Matthew Scudder, I’ve made the mistake of aging in real time.
As for A Writer Prepares, there’s a Phil Ochs line I can’t get out of my head:
And I’m sure it wouldn’t interest
Anybody
Outside of a small circle of friends…
If you think you might be a part of that small circle, I’d urge you to look at the product description on the book’s Amazon page. If what I’ve written there doesn’t dissuade you from so doing, you can click the applicable button and preorder the ebook.
That’s how you get people to buy it? Man, it was really Madison Avenue’s loss when you opted for fiction.
Well, I’m afraid I see the book as having limited appeal. Fans of my work might find it interesting, and so might writers. And I can imagine a Venn diagram showing a certain overlap among those two groups. But no, I’m not inclined to give this a hard sell.
Nevertheless—
Nevertheless, I’ve made the ebook available for preorder, and the book description on the preorder pages should help you decide if it strikes you as a worthwhile investment of $6.99. (That’s the preorder price, good until June 24th; after that date, the price skyrockets to $9.99.)
You can read the book description—and, if so inclined, preorder the book—at any of these platforms: Amazon – Barnes & Noble – Rakuten Kobo – Apple – Thalia
I’ll be publishing printed books as well, a paperback for $14.99 and a library-binding hardcover for $24.99. Those can’t be preordered, because self-publishing platforms limit preorders to ebooks.
Why’s that?
I have no idea.
Oh.
But there is one hardcover edition you might want to preorder—and I think you’d better, if you want to get your hands on a copy. It’s the very special signed-numbered-limited edition coming from by SST Publications, Paul Fry’s exceptional UK-based small press. Paul’s edition boasts front and back cover and limitation page artwork, all by the renowned French animator, illustrator, and film director Jérémy Pailler. And you can count on the fine printing and binding on which the company has built a reputation. The price is £29.95, and that includes shipping within the UK; I don’t know what it’ll cost stateside purchasers, but there’s an SST order page that should tell you what you need to know.
Moving right along…
Good idea. “Something old, something new” fits two books of mine, both of them first published pseudonymously sixty years ago. While neither is specifically referenced in A Writer Prepares, they could have been. They were of that vintage.
Back in 1994, I started writing A Writer Prepares to acknowledge that early work. Years later, when self-publishing became a viable option, I embraced those titles and brought them back as ebooks and paperbacks, reviving their original cover art and packaging them as my Collection of Classic Erotica.
A little over a year ago, while the redoubtable Terry Zobeck was working on A Trawl Among the Shelves, his comprehensive bibliography of my work, I was able to identify a dozen out-of-print Andrew Shaw titles as my work. (As I explain in the memoir, not every book with my pen name on it issued forth from my typewriter.)
I packed them up and sent them to my Goddess of Design and Production. They went straight to the back burner, but over time the processes of scanning and proofreading and formatting and cover prep have inched relentlessly onward, and just this week saw the publication of Tramp and Flesh Mob, #24 and #25 respectively (if not respectably) in the seemingly endless series.
Are they any good?
Well, some generous soul gave Tramp 5 stars on Amazon, but I’m not sure that answers your question. I’m reminded of an unforgettable review of a long-forgotten novel: “For people who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like.”
If you’ve read and enjoyed Campus Tramp and 21 Gay Street and their fellows, Tramp and Flesh Mob may be the sort of thing you like. (And if you’ve been buying the paperbacks for their delightfully retro covers, you won’t want to miss these new additions.)
Um, about the titles—
I know. I would generally hang titles on the manuscripts I submitted, but the publishers changed them at will. There were certain words they liked—Slut and Lust and Flesh and Sin, for instance—probably because they could do a broken-field run past the censors while leaving little doubt what sort of book was on offer. I know I called one book Lust Slut, and was surprised when they changed a title I found so anagrammatically appealing.
For more about titles, have a look at the book description for Flesh Mob. Even if you’ve no interest in the book, it’s worth a few minutes. Perhaps you can figure out how some editor managed a bit of wordplay linked to a phrase that wouldn’t come into the language for another forty years.
And you’ll be publishing more of these titles?
That’s the plan. I believe there are ten in the pipeline, with such irresistible titles as Lust Weekend, Girls on the Prowl, Butch, Sexpot, Passion Nightmare, Trailer Trollop, and—any day now—Flesh Parade.
Trailer Trollop? There’s no such book. You made that up, didn’t you?
Indeed I did, but that was sixty years ago. I was younger then.
Crikey, Trailer Trollop. Collect them all! Win valuable prizes!
What a charming idea! And what a nice note to end on.
Cheers,
PS: As always, please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might find it of interest. And, if you yourself have received the newsletter from a friend and would like your own subscription, that’s easily arranged; an email to lawbloc@gmail.com with
