busy-ness

Yesterday was one of those authorially busy days that involves everything but actually writing: I gave an interview about DESAYUNO EN LA CAMA to the GLBT magazine for the Canary Islands (UXXS Magazine), I had coffee with Javier (who'd already interviewed me for Ambiente-G while I was away so we hadn't had a chance to meet in person), and a lovely dinner with a new publisher to talk about possibilities of working together.

And in between things like dealing with galleys, responding to emails about various projects, setting up promotional events for January, and so on.

But no writing, and not sure when I'll be able to get back to it, especially since I have a large translation gig demanding my attention...

Today hopefully will be much calmer, and with any luck I'll be able to focus better with a block of uninterrupted time in which to work.

At least, that's always my hope. But that's why I'm such a sucker for things like the Container Store back in the US; I always think that if I could just organize my papers/life/files/time, everything would be so lovely...
:-)

(I'm much better at organizing or reorganizing others' books/files/life/etc. which is one of the nice things of working at the bookstore occasionally; I can get that little blip of satisfaction from having organized, without actually needling to tackle my own mess.)

Widespread Incompetence in Publishing

{rant}

Am very vexed because of stupidity and incompetence in the publishing world, something that really shouldn't surprise me after all these years and so many books.

I just got copies of my new book, and instead of this being a happy occasion, all I feel is frustration because it is full of mistakes and changes that were made after the last things I was shown.

They're all small details, but on in particular vexes me because it's an important detail, and it especially bothers me because we have been in frequent contact about this and other projects, and no one bothered to run past me the changes that were made or even inform me that these changes were being made.

I hate when people in publishing take liberties and make things WRONG, when they were not wrong to begin with.

This happens, alas, a lot to writers, and especially with regards to covers and copyright pages and so on, the areas the writer has the least amount of control over, since the publishers often don't bother to consult with the writer in these instance.

Sigh.

I really need to just let go and ignore them, although these little details and mistakes still bother me, I'm afraid.

[glyph of general vexation]

OK, let me eat something, which will hopefully make me feel better too, and then try and get some work done to get this foul taste out of my mouth.

{/ rant}

Let's try this again...

978-84-88052-88-9
Originally uploaded by desayunoencama.

My new book is out!

Woo hoo!

It has a sexy cover photo by Jack Slomovitz, and it looks lovely.

This is the first volume of the Spanish edition of THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF NEW GAY EROTICA. The book was so big that the Spanish publisher is splitting it into three separate volumes.

This first one includes: Shaun Levin, Michael Lassell, Andy Quan, myself, Greg Herren, Daniel M. Jaffe, Tom Mendicino, Paul Russell, Robin Metcalfe, Trebor Healey, Rick R. Reed, Alexander Chee, and David May.

Once I get the contributor copies, I'll try and get them sent off to the authors (although since I'll be back in the US in Feb for AWP, I might schlepp them back to the US with me and mail them from there if people don't mind the extra wait, postage from Spain being rather steep and the Euro being high against the dollar still, etc).

It's nice to have this flurry of publishing activity all of a sudden.

:-)