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BOUCHERCON

Well, I’m heading to Bouchercon next week. I’ve never been – I’m not much of a convention rat, to be honest; I attended a World Fantasy a few years ago and dipped my little toe into NY Comic Con last year, but that is actually the sum total of my experience. This year at Bouchercon I’ll actually know some folks and my agent will be there. Having someone there who is contractually obligated to buy you drinks is … something I’m not used to. Things might get ugly.

So, if you live in San Fran or are attending the con: Look me up. I’ll be the guy wandering around with a cowbell and a sandwich board that reads BUY ME A DRINK DAMN YOUR EYES. If you have any trouble locating me on the floor, show up for my 30-On-30 session on Thursday (here‘s the Thursday program for you):

30 on the 30

Jeff Somers: Science Fiction and Crime Fiction: The Most Exciting Combination since Whiskey and Soda

Time: 3:00 PM
Room: Seacliff D

Will there be actual whiskey in the room? Probably, and probably some tiny plastic cups for everyone too. Will there be much discussion of SF and Crime fiction? Maybe. If I sense I’m losing the room I’ll probably start break-dancing. This also depends on whether there’s whiskey in the room.

Anyways, see ya there!

Reading Reminder

Reminder: IN just 9 days I will be in public making a fool of myself. Stop on by!

Sunday,  Oct. 10, 2010, 5:00 pm

The Tandem Reading Series continues at The Cell Theatre

Not your typical crime

This month’s readers step out of the ordinary and into the strange. Join us for an evening of ghosts, vampires, augmented assassins, and something nasty in the subways: mysteries that go a step beyond.

E. F. Watkins will read from her latest paranormal thriller, One Blood. Just released in September, it is a prequel to her novel Dance with the Dragon, which won a 2004 EPPIE Award as Best Horror Novel.

Jeff Somers, author of the Avery Cates series of noir-SF novels and editor of the long-running underground zine The Inner Swine, will be reading from his latest Cates novel, The Terminal State. And possibly doing some improv break-dancing.

Jeff Cohen, author of the Double Feature Mystery series and now the Haunted
Guesthouse Mystery series, will read from his novel Night of the Living Deed, involving ghosts, poison, and property values on the historic Jersey Shore.

Ameer Youssef reads from Kronman, about a series of Unnatural murders in New York City.

Come join us for an eclectic evening.
Reception to follow.

The Cell Theatre, 338 West 23 St. (between 8 and 9 Ave.; take the 1, C, E to 23rd St; www.thecelltheatre.org). 212-989-7434. Donation: $5.

Tuesday is Guitar Day

The Voices in My Head Demand that I post the most recent songs I’ve recorded with my shovel-like hands and, er, my guitar. Plus drum loops. And a distinct lack of shame. So, without further ado or any chance for y’all to protest or talk me out of it, here’s the latest batch:

Song303: http://www.jeffreysomers.com/blather/song303.mp3

Song304: http://www.jeffreysomers.com/blather/song304.mp3

Song306: http://www.jeffreysomers.com/blather/song306.mp3

Song307: http://www.jeffreysomers.com/blather/song307.mp3

Song309: http://www.jeffreysomers.com/blather/song309.mp3

Song310: http://www.jeffreysomers.com/blather/song310.mp3

Song311: http://www.jeffreysomers.com/blather/song311.mp3

Song315: http://www.jeffreysomers.com/blather/song315.mp3

Song316: http://www.jeffreysomers.com/blather/song316.mp3

Song317: http://www.jeffreysomers.com/blather/song317.mp3

Song318: http://www.jeffreysomers.com/blather/song318.mp3

The usual disclaimer: 1. I admit these are not great music; 2. I claim copyright anyway, so there; 3. No, I cannot do anything about the general quality of the mix, as I am incompetent.

Death of the Cover Letter

Now and then, for my own obscure amusement, I like to calibrate my mortality in interesting ways: Twinkies eaten, years since I last used a typewriter un-ironically, hours spent watching TV since 1989 – that sort of thing. I do this on a pretty constant basis, as I have a real love for statistics and keep a raft of them reflecting my own life. One of the more prominent stats I keep on myself is my short story submissions, which I’ve mentioned before on this blog. I write a short story a month year in and year out, and if any of those stories seem good enough I try to keep them in circulation, trying to sell them to magazines or web sites or anyone, really, who might be willing to pay me five cents a word for them.

In my most industrious year, I managed 107 submissions. I have no idea how I managed that. Last year I managed 25. I’ll top that this year, but I’m not sure by how much. So I’m still pretty actively shilling fiction out there. I know there isn’t a lot of money in short stories, but the Somers Way is never about money, mainly because I am lazy and don’t understand money. Back in The Day all of these submission were through the post office. 107 submissions meant 107 photocopies of a story, 107 large envelopes, 107 letter-sized envelopes with my address and a stamp, and 107 cover letters. These days a lot of my submissions are via email or web form, which is fantastic, and I’m inching towards a Scalzi-esque refusal to submit to any magazine that requires a physical submission, because this is 2010 and goddammit it’s two thousand and ten.

But despite the increasing prevalence of electronic submissions, up until very recently I’ve still included a cover letter with each submission. I’m proud of my cover letters. I enjoy creating absurd, humorous cover letters that talk about Helper Monkeys and Wormholes delivering manuscripts to me, like this actual cover letter I have actually used:

“Having learned to subsist entirely on alcohol and the radiation beaming out of my computer monitor, I believe I am the next step in human evolution—assuming I can survive long enough to sow my soon-to-be-dominant seed. In order to buy time, I need money to pay for the best in health care. Imagine a race of supermen, drinking booze for nutrition, and downloading pornography from the Internet in lieu of sleep! We’d rule the universe in no time. But first I have to get my mutant genes into the pool, and that brings us back to the question of cash.

“You can help! If you publish approximately 500 of my short stories this year, by my calculations I’ll be moderately well off. Here’s the first one: “as soon as its day dawns” (~13,000 words). I hope you enjoy it.”

I’ve often received positive feedback on my cover letters, actually. I’ve even had editors offer me the (dubious) compliment of telling me they’d publish my cover letter, but not my actual story. I just kind of enjoy the whole cover-letter experience, to be honest.

Recently, however, I’ve started to see more and more markets instructing me to skip the cover letter. Usually it’s with a statement about only being interested in the work; some markets even ask that the story itself be anonymized so they can judge it solely on its merits, with no knowledge about you, the author. I don’t mind this in general; it’s not a bad idea to judge a story on its merits. But I will miss making up these ridiculous cover letters. For all I know my cover letters have cost me sales, as Serious Business Editors have been offended by my jolly missives, but that doesn’t bother me too much. I’m going to miss writing the little essays, is all.

The main reason this sticks out for me is that it’s one of those unpredicted consequences: The cover letter is an artifact of a paper age, if you think about it, it’s perfectly sane that it gets dropped when you’re just submitting a file via an automated form. Still, I never thought about cover letters going away. Yet another of my largely unmarketable skills, gone extinct, along with playing the spoons, knowing all the Pac Man patterns for the Atari 2600 version, and programming in BASIC.

Damn universe.

Review of The Terminal State

The fine folks over at Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist have reviewed The Terminal State, and loved it:

“Avery Cates is a despicable, manipulative, immoral, lousy, sick fuck. But I love him! For all his faults and shortcomings, it’s well nigh impossible not to root for him … I’ve said in the past that these books are addictive, and The Terminal State has done nothing to change that. Roll on The Final Evolution!”

Huzzah! Go buy twelve.

Palmer Vs. Somers, The Final Chapter

Well, mercifully, Orbit has posted the final hunk of video showing the fiasco Phil Palmer and I took part in. You can view it here:

http://www.orbitbooks.net/2010/09/10/somers-vs-palmer-when-authors-collide-final-part/

I’ve been drinking heavily since the filming process began, and crying jags are not uncommon. Okay, niether of those things were ever uncommon, but still. It was traumatic. Can’t wait to see what Phil has to say about these final chapters on his blog.