29 October 2015
Hello!
Odd weather, Jeremy Corbyn, feel the Bernie Sanders, oh my, Donald Trump, Halloween, broken down trains, London house prices, new Bowie album, decent Booker winner, tramping through dead leaves, well done Canada, schools, oh dear schools.
That’s the small talk out of the way.
Now. Let’s hit it. On the 5th of November, Alex Pheby’s Playthings will no longer just be an idea I’m telling/warning you about. It will be a real thing that you can own, read and just… just… Well, you’ll see.
Just as a taster, here's the opening paragraph of David Collard's review in the Literary Review:
"‘In my belly is an octopus and in it are God’s children. Living children. These are things I must not speak of.’ These are the startling words of a German judge named Daniel Paul Schreber (1842–1911), an educated, cultivated and highly intelligent member of the legal establishment who went mad at the age of forty-two. Schreber’s case is remembered today because of his remarkable Memoirs of My Nervous Illness, written during a later period of lucidity and published in 1903. His book snagged the attention of Freud, who remarked that the author ought to be appointed director of a mental hospital. Freud’s view – much contested – was that Schreber’s psychosis was an expression of his repressed homosexuality and that his delusional paranoia originated in unpleasant childhood experiences. The memoir remains an important text in the history of psychoanalysis because of the clarity and candour of Schreber’s account and because of the astonishing range and complexity of his disorder. The case and the memoir form the basis for Playthings, Alex Pheby’s brilliant, compelling and profoundly disturbing novel."
Brilliant. Compelling. Profoundly disturbing.
Oh yeah!
We’ve got signed copies for sale:
And here’s the man himself:
And damn right he should be looking proud. He just signed a masterpiece.
Elly and me are proud too. Real books in the real world. A small way of making things better. That’s the hope.
I’ll be bombarding you with more review coverage over the next few months. In the meantime, I’m happy to say that Anthony Trevelyan is still getting thoughtful, favourable notices for The Weightless World. Here’s a smart new essay in the very fine Strange Horizons.
Elsewhere, this is also a big month for us because 15 November sees the deadline of our short story competition.
I’m happy to report that this has been a success. We've had a huge number of entries, and the competition has been a fantastic way to reach out to new talents. And hey! If you know some talent that needs to be reached, please do show them this:
The competition is open until 15 November. We’re going to be making an ebook of the best stories - and even hoping that we may get to publish a few of the writers later on in our Singles Club.
Was that last sentence a tenuous link to this month’s Singles Club release? You bet the heck it was. Here’s what we’ve got:
Here’s the blurb.
He lifted my hand and I spun underneath it then he pulled me into his chest and unfurled me out again like a yo-yo.
French speakers may already know what ‘between dog and wolf’ means. Everyone else will have to read this story to find out. Which is no hardship at all, because this story of things in between and things on the edge is sweet, sad and beautiful.
And here’s what I think. I think that this story is superb. I really do. Rowena is brilliant. It’s sad, it’s funny, it’s affirming, it’s soft and gentle and also, tough. Go read it.
Okay, I’ve held off for a while, but sometimes I just have to let capitalism run rampant. I know it’s early, and I know you’re thinking that it’s wrong of me for taking advantage of that terrible aching FEAR you have that you might not get the person you love the best present you can possibly manage and that they’ll feel sad for the rest of the year. I know you can foresee their Christmas dinner turning to ashes in their mouths. I know that you know that they’ll smile and try to be nice, but inside, a damp finger will have just wrapped itself around the tiny flickering candle-flame of their love for you and snuffed it into darkness… But! I’ve got to play on that fear. I've got to say it. If you want to avoid that horror and if you truly want to give a good present, think about making your dear one a Galley Buddy. You can get all the details by clicking here. And they’ll get to feel hot shots of joy and gratitude every few months when we hit them with yet another glorious bit of literary goodness. We’ll send them books, postcards, party invites, ebooks and LOVE. And all for £50. Or even £30 if you don’t want quite so many books.
And that’s just about all this month, except for the surprising news that I managed to get a pretty exclusive imaginary interview with Amazon CEO and all round good guy Jeff Bezos! How cool is that? Pretty damn cool. So cool, in fact, that we don’t need any more introduction and should probably just get straight down to the transcript.
Sam Jordison, Galley Beggar Press co-director: Hi Jeff, how’s it going?
Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO: All right!
SJ: We don’t have long so please don’t drone on….
JB: I see what you did there!
[Laughter]
SJ: Well listen Jeff. It’s really good of you to be here.
JB: Oh sure, sure. It's not like I was busy or anything.
[Laughter]
SJ: I’m a publisher so I guess you know that I kinda sorta already work for you, so obviously I’m not going to ask you anything too controversial. So let’s just jump in. Shall we?
JB: Why not?!
SJ: How are your share prices nowadays?
JB: Well, you know it’s an interesting story about the price of Amazon shares. A long time ago people were saying we’re worth £30 a split and wouldn’t you know that - if you look at our device portfolio more hardly, our hardware team is doing a great job.
SJ: Ah yes, how are things with the Kindle?
JB: Well it’s now on it’s seventh iteration and if you look at it, it’s just completely killer. Like me.
SJ: And your general hardware line?
JB: Fire! TV! We can’t build enough. Amazon Echo. We managed to keep that a secret by assassinating journalists and interning the children of all the scientists who worked on it. That was real cool. I used to record their sobs and listen to them while I was driving. But the best bit was definitely the killing. We got one media guy by sticking a ninja star through his eye, just like in some kung-fu movie, only with better special effects and, you know, smells and shit. Then one of my goons cut off the top of his head, like it was a pumpkin, and I just got in there and scooped out the insides. It tasted like country paté and made me feel alive. For a second. Then the emptiness took over again.
SJ: And what about that phone? The AmazonFire? That didn't work out too good, did it? Did that feel like a mistake?
JB: My job as the leader of Amazon is to encourage people to be bold. (Not bald. And please no jokes about that. That’s a one way ticket to you having to smash your own fingers with a hammer and tell me you enjoyed it.) But bold. Sometimes it’s okay to fail. That kind of divine discontent can be very helpful. Especially if you’re a publisher. Then you can fail all you like. We’ll help. You gotta take bold bets. I’ve made billions of dollars of failures at Amazon.com. And it’s worth it because people don’t matter. Companies that don’t embrace failure - the only thing that they can do is make a kind of Hail Mary bet at the end of their corporate existence before I get to descend on their dry husk and wear their eyes on my face as my Halloween mask.
SJ: Now what can you tell me about how things are going at Amazon in general? Let’s talk about profit. Can Amazon.com actually make money?
JB: My soul is as black and fathomless as the end of space.
SJ: Lots of CEOs would like to learn from you, how to never make a profit and still have an incredibly high share price.
JB: When I open my eyes, the images are still there. Everywhere I look, I see corpses. The inside of my mind is like a Fields Of The Nephilim video, only the music’s stopped, nothing’s moving, the band are all hanging from piano wires and their hats have fallen off their heads.
SJ: I know this is a delicate subject, but a lot of our readers are wondering about that whole tax avoidance thing…
JB: I thought you were going to be nice to me. Is this your version of nice?
SJ: … that thing you’ve got going on with Luxembourg. Any plans for your company to pay its fair share of tax soon?
JB: When so much blood has flowed from the limbs of the innocent that the oceans are stained as red as the sun. Look we’re free cashflow generating and frankly you should think you’re lucky to have us.
SJ: And what about future plans?
JB: I want to eat brains.
SJ: Well, it looks like we’re out of time.
JB: Sure you are. You’re a publisher.
[Laughter]
SJ: That’s funny Jeff. I see what you did there.
JB: Shut up and like it.
Sadly, Jeff had to disappear at that point as there was a litter of newborn labrador puppies he wanted to drown, one by one. But I hope we'll get to talk to him again soon. Until then, keep on keeping on. And thanks for reading!
Fondly,
Sam
PS 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 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, please be our friend! Become a Galley Buddy. It's a good deal for us, and a great deal for you.
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. I've been listening to Gorecki's third symphony. Don't worry, I'm not sad, it's just beautiful. Following a tip from the great Toby Litt, I've also been listening to Stars Of The Lid. How did I miss them? That is quality ambient. So too is Simon Scott's new album Insomni. That's got nature noises and everything.
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