Hello!

I'm sorry to say that the supremely talented, but lamentably potty-mouthed author James Miller has written a story full of depraved rudery and freaky language. I'm sorrier yet to have to tell you that we've been duty bound to publish it as a Galley Beggar Single. This story is too wonderful to miss and deserves to be out there. We couldn't say no. It's such a good satire of the Brookyn alt-lit scene, of dumb male students and of everything else that we had to take it. The world needs this filthsome, sweary thing. In fact, I think you need to read it. Unless you're easily offended, of course. Or even moderately easily offended. You can probably gauge if you're going to like it by looking at the cover.

Oh yeah! (Click on the cover and it will take you to our store.)

What else?

Oh yes.

The Booker Prize.

Last night.

As I write this I can't tell you how our author Francis Plug has reacted to the news that he didn't win the big one. I don't know where he is. I'm guessing he doesn't know where he is either.

I can tell you, however, that The Brick Lane bookshop on - you guessed it – Brick Lane in London put on a party for a few of our other authors last night as an alternative to the grand ceremony in the Guild Hall. Paul Ewen spoke on Francis' behalf, while Jonathan Gibbs read from the mighty Randall, Heidi James read from her superb Bluemoose novel Wounding and Steve Finbow read from his introduction to Denton Welch's In Youth is Pleasure. I can't resist including the cover of the latter here, as we're so proud of our Digital Classics and so keen for as many people as possible to get to know this superb writer:

Was that last sentence confusing? I was referring to Denton Welch. But I could also have easily been referring to Steve Finbow. He's also superb and he's got a book out in a few weeks with Zero Books called Grave Desire which is going to be astonishing. Look out for when that arrives. Also, look out for the Brick Lane bookshop. If you're down there being fashionable, buying bagels, eating curry or even just passing through please do go and support this lovely shop. They went out of their way to accommodate our authors last night and it's a beautiful independent packed to the gills with precious literature. We depend on these people to make the world a better place. And the best way to thank them is by showering them with money. (They also sell very nice stationary.)

While I'm still talking events, I also hope that as many people as possible from Norwich will come to this. (And people from further afield! We come into that London all the time. You might enjoy visiting Norwich. The city centre has been pedestrianised. The ring road is always free of traffic… And even aside from the Alan Partridge jokes, it's a fine city.) Jonathan Gibbs reading from Randall. October 30, The Forum, Norwich, 18:30. It's going to be raucous. And you surely already must know how good the book is…

Okay. I've held it in for a while, but I can't for much longer. Oh. My. God. Francis Plug. The Guardian reviewed it and said it was a "wonderful book" . The double page spread it got in The Sunday Times hailing a new comic masterpiece actually brought tears to my eyes. The Express have called it a work of genius. Francis! The most brilliant thing is realising that other people love him as much as we do. It makes us very happy.

Almost finally. Halloween. Christmas. Ghosts. Look at these beautiful things:

They're hitting the shops later this week. They're in our store now. They cost £3.50, they look beautiful and the stories are just superb. PG Wodehouse! AL Barker! Edith Wharton! Robert Louis Stevenson! If anyone deserves exclamation marks it's them.

Okay. Finally, finally. You might already have heard quite a bit about the ongoing Amazon vs Hachette dispute, but just in case you haven't and because things are rather complicated I thought I'd fill you in on a few salient details.

The battle actually started a few years ago, round about when the universe was first forming. In the beginning, you see, there was light. This light was bright, warming, nourishing. All was silence and joy… Everyone just sat around listening to early Neil Young on quality analogue hi-fi systems and feeling pretty great, actually. Especially when he hit that first solo on Like A Hurricane. That was the sound of The World.

But then there came darkness. A cry from the night. A flash of pure black across that golden sky, like backwards lightening only not half so cool. Loathsome creatures awoke. Slimy crawling things with horrid teeth. They said: "This is socialism! What about the discipline of the markets. Who are these people leading happy prosperous lives? Who is that guitar hippy? Hand me my rod…"

Roundabout that time, things got a whole lot worse. Imagine a youthful happy face. Imagine a blunt knife inserting itself into the mouth of that face and carving its way out again through the cheeks. Imagine bruised eye sockets. Imagine fat greasy fingers grasping the eyeballs within those sockets. Imagine those fingers crushing those eyeballs to jelly and feeding them into a bloody red mouth. Imagine pustules. Imagine buboes. Imagine a giant frying pan coming up behind that face and whacking, whacking whacking it – and a cold cackling coming after every clang. Imagine death, decay, ebola, hate, Ayn Rand. Isn't it horrible thinking about Amazon?! Imagine also novels being sold for less than the price of a cup of coffee just to force publishers into bankrupcy. Imagine forcing bookshops across the world out of business, creating a monopoly and then refusing to stock books if people don't present their heads to receive and enjoy the frying pan treatment.

And that's pretty much the story, give or take a few expensive lawyers. What a world!

Fondly,

Sam

PS

PPS

As usual, I'm also going to use the end of the newsletter for a few more adverts, where you can safely ignore them, or kindly indulge me, depending on your fancy:

Firstly, please join The Singles Club so we can pay writers to write. Here's the blurb:

We have a fantastic new subscription system set up for our Singles Club so that you now only have to make one payment to get hold of 12 stories. But how to go through the ins and outs of paypal payment systems without boring the dirtbox off you, I don't know. Probably the best thing to do is to head over to the relevant page on our site, where I've tried to give a brief, but to the point explanation, and to take it from there. The important things to know are that:

(1) Subscribing saves you the trouble of going to the site every month to get your fix of superb ebook literature – we'll just email you the files every month.
(2) Subscribing (so long as enough people do it) will enable us to start giving our authors money up front on for each story. Yes! We are going to pay people to write short stories. It's like the golden days of the 1920s. Only  they'll be in electronic book format instead of Strand magazine… Anyway! You get the idea. This is a mighty fine way to keep authors doing what they do best – entertaining you.
(3) It costs £12 a year, or £1 a month, or less than a meal in Pizza Express. Unless you have a voucher.

Secondly, our website is here. It's had that revamp I was promising. It's slick.

Thirdly, to donate to Galley Beggar Press and earn yet more of our gratitude, click here.

Fourthly, go on, buy a postcard set. They're lovely:

Fifthly, thanks for reading write down to the bottom. There's no prize, but I sure do like you.